Employment and Adverse Selection in Health Insurance

We construct and test a new model of employer-provided health insurance provision in the presence of adverse selection in the health insurance market. In our model, employers cannot observe the health of their employees, but can decide whether to offer insurance. Employees sort themselves among employers who do and do not offer insurance on the basis of their current health status and the probability distribution over future health status changes. We show that there exists a pooling equilibrium in which both sick and healthy employees are covered as long as the costs of job switching are higher than the persistence of health status. We test and verify some of the key implications of our model using data from the Current Population Survey, linked to information provided by the U.S. Department of Labor about the job-specific human capital requirements of jobs.

Food Insecurity or Poverty? Measuring Need-Related Dietary Adequacy

We examine the extent to which food insecurity questions and the standard poverty measure are correlated with various dietary and physiologic outcomes. Our findings suggest that the correlations vary tremendously by age. We find that the food insecurity questions are correlated with the dietary outcomes of older household members, but that they are not consistently related to the diets of children. In contrast, poverty predicts dietary outcomes among preschoolers. Among adults, both poverty and food insecurity questions are good predictors of many dietary outcomes.

Breakfast of Champions? The School Breakfast Program and the Nutrition of Children and Families

We use the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) III to examine the effect of the availability of the school breakfast program (SBP). Our work builds on previous research in four ways: First, we develop a transparent difference-in-differences strategy to account for unobserved differences between students with access to SBP and those without. Second, we examine serum measures of nutrient in addition to intakes based on dietary recall data. Third, we ask whether the SBP improves the diet by increasing/or decreasing the intake of nutrients relative to meaningful threshold levels. Fourth, we examine the effect of the SBP on other members of the family besides the school-aged child. We have three main findings. First, the SBP helps students build good eating habits: SBP increases scores on the healthy eating index, reduces the percentage of calories from fat, and reduces the probability of low fiber intake. Second, the SBP reduces the probability of serum micronutrient deficiencies in vitamin C, vitamin E, and folate, and it increases the probability that children meet USDA recommendations for potassium and iron intakes. Since we find no effect on total calories these results indicate that the program improves the quality of food consumed. Finally, in households with school-aged children, both preschool children and adults have healthier diets and consume less fat when the SBP is available. These results suggest that school nutrition programs may be an effective way to combat both nutritional deficiencies and excess consumption among children and their families.

Nanotechnology in Industrial Wastewater Treatment

Nanotechnology in Industrial Wastewater Treatment is a state of the art reference book. The book is particularly useful for wastewater technology development laboratories and organizations. All professional and academic areas connected with environmental engineering, nanotechnology based wastewater treatment and related product design are incorporated and provide an essential resource. The book describes the application and synthesis of Ca-based and magnetic nano-materials and their potential application for removal/treatment of heavy metals from wastewater

Association of Enhanced HIV-1 Neutralization by a Single Y681H Substitution in gp41 with Increased gp120-CD4 Interaction and Macrophage Infectivity

HIV-1 variants that show unusual sensitivity to autologous antibodies due to presence of critical neutralization signatures would likely contribute towards rational envelope based HIV-1 vaccine design. In the present study, we found that presence of a naturally occurring H681 in gp41 membrane proximal external region (MPER) of a clade C envelope (Env) obtained from a recently infected Indian patient conferred increased sensitivity to autologous and heterologous plasma antibodies. Furthermore, Env-pseudotyped viruses expressing H681 showed increased sensitivity to soluble CD4, b12 and 4E10 monoclonal antibodies both in related and unrelated Envs and was corroborated with increased Env susceptibility and binding to cellular CD4 as well as with prolonged exposure of MPER epitopes. The increased gp120-CD4 interaction was further associated with relative exposure of CD4-induced epitopes and macrophage infectivity. In summary, our data indicate that Y681H substitution exposes neutralizing epitopes in CD4bs and MPER towards comprehensive interference in HIV-1 entry

Heat or Eat? Cold Weather Shocks and Nutrition in Poor American Families

We examine the effects of cold weather periods on family budgets and on nutritional outcomes in poor American families. Expenditures on food and home fuels are tracked by linking the Consumer Expenditure Survey to temperature data. Using the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we track calorie consumption, dietary quality, vitamin deficiencies, and anemia in summer and winter months. We find that both rich and poor families increase fuel expenditures in response to unusually cold weather (a 10 degree F drop below normal). At same time, poor families reduce food expenditures by roughly the same amount as the increase in fuel expenditures, while rich families increase food expenditures. Poor adults and children reduce caloric intake by roughly 200 calories during winter months, unlike richer adults and children. In sensitivity analyses, we find that decreases in food expenditure are most pronounced outside the South. We conclude that poor parents and their children outside the South spend and eat less food during cold weather temperature shocks. We surmise that existing social programs fail to buffer against these shocks.

Businesses in high-income zip codes often saw sharper visit reductions during the COVID-19 pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, the mobility patterns of people worldwide changed drastically. While travel time, costs, and trip convenience have always influenced mobility, the risk of infection and policy actions such as lockdowns and stay-at-home orders emerged as new factors to consider in the location-visitation calculus. We use SafeGraph mobility data from Minnesota, USA, to demonstrate that businesses (especially those requiring extended indoor visits) located in affluent zip codes witnessed sharper reductions in visits (relative to pre-pandemic times) outside of the lockdown periods than their poorer counterparts. To the extent visits translate into sales, we contend that post-pandemic recovery efforts should prioritize relief funding, keeping the losses relating to diminished visits in mind.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

Evolutionary Constraints Acting on DDX3X Protein Potentially Interferes with Rev-Mediated Nuclear Export of HIV-1 RNA

Differential host-pathogen interactions direct viral replication in infected cells. In HIV-1 infected cells, nuclear export of viral RNA transcripts into cellular cytoplasm is governed by interaction of HIV-1 Rev, Exportin-1 (CRM-1) and DDX3X. Knock down of DDX3X has been shown to drastically impair HIV replication. Here we show that evolutionary forces are responsible for demarking previously unidentified critical functionally important residues on the surface of DDX3X. Using computational approaches, we show that these functional residues, depending on their location, are capable of regulating ATPase and RNA helicase functions of DDX3X. The potential of these residues in designing better blockers against HIV-1 replication was also assessed. Also, using stepwise docking simulations, we could identify DDX3X-CRM-1 interface and its critical functional residues. Our data would help explain the role of DDX3X in HIV-1 Rev function with potential to design new intervention strategies against HIV-1 replication