Effects of improved on-farm crop storage on perceived stress and perceived coping in pregnant women-Evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in Kenya

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity can be harmful to pregnant women, as pregnancy is a challenging period with increased maternal nutritional requirements to ensure optimal fetal development and health of the mother. Whether food insecurity negatively affects maternal health may depend on how stressful pregnant women perceive this food insecurity to be and how strongly they believe they can cope with it. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), pregnant women from smallholder households suffer from food insecurity due to post-harvest losses (PHL), i.e., loss of crops because of inadequate storage. An agricultural intervention that improves crop storage has been shown to reduce food insecurity. However, it remains to be determined whether this agricultural intervention (treatment) has an additional positive effect on pregnant women's perceived stress levels and coping abilities. This study examines whether pregnant women from treatment households experience lower perceived stress levels and higher perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control housholds. METHODS AND FINDINGS: In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), short message service (SMS)-based mobile phone surveys were conducted to assess the causal effect of a food security intervention (improved on-farm storage of maize) on perceived stress and coping in pregnant women from smallholder households. Pregnant women were identified through these monthly surveys by asking whether someone in their household was currently pregnant. The significant results revealed that pregnant women from treatment households experienced more perceived stress but better perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control households. Uncertainty due to lack of experience, this might have contributed to the higher perceived stress, as the women could not easily judge the benefits and risks of the new storage technology. However, the technology itself is a tangible resource which might have empowered the pregnant women to counteract the effects of PHL and thus food insecurity. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that pregnant women from treatment households had higher perceived coping abilities but experienced more perceived stress. More research is needed on how this technology impacts maternal mental health in a broader sense and whether biological mechanisms, such as epigenetics, may underlie this association

Checklists for Applicants submitting dossiers on Cosmetic Ingredients to be evaluated by the SCCS

Checklists for Applicants submitting dossiers on Cosmetic Ingredients to be evaluated by the SCCSThe SCCS adopted these Checklists on 07 March 2017Checklists for Applicants submitting dossiers on Cosmetic Ingredients to be evaluated by the SCCSThe SCCS adopted these Checklists on 07 March 201

Predictors of visual attention to climate change images: An eye-tracking study

Attentional engagement with climate change is an important precondition for intentional climate-friendly behavior. However, not much is known about the determinants of an individuals' implicit willingness to attend to this global problem. This study investigates two potentially relevant predictors of implicit attention to climate change: a) pro-environmental orientation as a trait factor and b) experimentally induced stress as a state factor. We expected positive effects of pro-environmental orientation and negative effects of stress. Seventy-one male participants with either high or low pro-environmental orientation were randomly assigned to a stress or control condition. Afterwards, they viewed a series of climate change images and negative control images, which were presented simultaneously with positive and neutral distractors. Attentional deployment to the different stimulus categories was assessed using eye-tracking technology. Participants with high pro-environmental orientation spent more time looking at climate change as well as other negative images, compared to participants with low pro-environmental orientation. This result suggests that pro-environmental individuals might be characterized by a general propensity to attend to negative information. Furthermore, stress reduced attentional deployment to both climate change and negative control images, which might indicate decreased interest in self-transcendent problems and/or increased efforts of emotion regulation under stress. In summary, these findings constitute first evidence for trait and state predictors of attentional engagement with climate change

Improved storage mitigates vulnerability to food-supply shocks in smallholder agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic

Millions of smallholder farmers in low-income countries are highly vulnerable to food-supply shocks, and reducing this vulnerability remains challenging in view of climatic changes. Restrictions to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic produced a severe supply-side shock in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, including through frictions in agricultural markets. We use a large-scale field experiment to examine the effects of improved on-farm storage on household food security during COVID-19 restrictions. Based on text message survey data we find that the prevalence of food insecurity increased in control group households during COVID-19 restrictions (coinciding with the agricultural lean season). In treatment households, equipped with an improved on-farm storage technology and training in its use, food insecurity was lower during COVID-19 restrictions. This underscores the benefits of improved on-farm storage for mitigating vulnerability to food-supply shocks. These insights are relevant for the larger, long-term question of climate change adaptation, and also regarding trade-offs between public health protection and food security

Stress influences environmental donation behavior in men

Stress has been found to have both positive and negative effects on prosocial behavior, suggesting the involvement of moderating factors such as context and underlying motives. In the present study, we investigated the conditions under which acute stress leads to an increase vs. decrease in environmental donation behavior as an indicator of prosocial behavior. In particular, we examined whether the effects of stress depended on preexisting pro-environmental orientation and stage of the donation decision (whether or not to donate vs. the amount to be donated). Male participants with either high (N = 40) or low (N = 39) pro-environmental orientation were randomly assigned to a social stress test or a control condition. Salivary cortisol was assessed repeatedly before and after stress induction. At the end of the experiment, all subjects were presented with an opportunity to donate a portion of their monetary compensation to a climate protection foundation. We found that stress significantly increased donation frequency, but only in subjects with low pro-environmental orientation. Congruously, their decision to donate was positively associated with cortisol response to the stress test and the emotion regulation strategy mood repair, as well as accompanied by an increase in subjective calmness. In contrast, among the participants who decided to donate, stress significantly reduced the donated amount of money, regardless of pro-environmental orientation. In conclusion, our findings suggest that acute stress might generally activate more self-serving motivations, such as making oneself feel better and securing one’s own material interests. Importantly, however, a strong pro-environmental orientation partially prevented these effects

Salivary testosterone and cortisol are jointly related to pro-environmental behavior in men

Recently, cortisol has been suggested to moderate the positive relationship between testosterone and antisocial behavior. More precisely, high testosterone levels have been found to be related to aggressive or dominant behavior especially when cortisol levels were low. In the present study, we aimed to extend these findings to pro-environmental behavior as an indicator of prosocial behavior. In a first step, 147 male participants provided information on their everyday pro-environmental behavior by completing an online questionnaire on various energy-saving behaviors. In a second step, subjects provided two saliva samples for the assessment of testosterone and cortisol on two subsequent mornings after awakening. We found that testosterone was negatively related to pro-environmental behavior, but only in men with low cortisol. In conclusion, our findings provide first evidence for the joint association of testosterone and cortisol with everyday pro-environmental behavior. These results further reinforce the importance of considering interdependent hormone systems simultaneously rather than focusing on a single hormone

Effects of improved on-farm crop storage on perceived stress and perceived coping in pregnant women—Evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in Kenya

Background: Food insecurity can be harmful to pregnant women, as pregnancy is a challenging period with increased maternal nutritional requirements to ensure optimal fetal development and health of the mother. Whether food insecurity negatively affects maternal health may depend on how stressful pregnant women perceive this food insecurity to be and how strongly they believe they can cope with it. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), pregnant women from smallholder households suffer from food insecurity due to post-harvest losses (PHL), i.e., loss of crops because of inadequate storage. An agricultural intervention that improves crop storage has been shown to reduce food insecurity. However, it remains to be determined whether this agricultural intervention (treatment) has an additional positive effect on pregnant women’s perceived stress levels and coping abilities. This study examines whether pregnant women from treatment households experience lower perceived stress levels and higher perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control housholds. Methods and findings: In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), short message service (SMS)-based mobile phone surveys were conducted to assess the causal effect of a food security intervention (improved on-farm storage of maize) on perceived stress and coping in pregnant women from smallholder households. Pregnant women were identified through these monthly surveys by asking whether someone in their household was currently pregnant. The significant results revealed that pregnant women from treatment households experienced more perceived stress but better perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control households. Uncertainty due to lack of experience, this might have contributed to the higher perceived stress, as the women could not easily judge the benefits and risks of the new storage technology. However, the technology itself is a tangible resource which might have empowered the pregnant women to counteract the effects of PHL and thus food insecurity. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that pregnant women from treatment households had higher perceived coping abilities but experienced more perceived stress. More research is needed on how this technology impacts maternal mental health in a broader sense and whether biological mechanisms, such as epigenetics, may underlie this association.ISSN:1932-620

Improved storage mitigates vulnerability to food-supply shocks in smallholder agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic

Millions of smallholder farmers in low-income countries are highly vulnerable to food-supply shocks, and reducing this vulnerability remains challenging in view of climatic changes. Restrictions to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic produced a severe supply-side shock in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, including through frictions in agricultural markets. We use a large-scale field experiment to examine the effects of improved on-farm storage on household food security during COVID-19 restrictions. Based on text message survey data we find that the prevalence of food insecurity increased in control group households during COVID-19 restrictions (coinciding with the agricultural lean season). In treatment households, equipped with an improved on-farm storage technology and training in its use, food insecurity was lower during COVID-19 restrictions. This underscores the benefits of improved on-farm storage for mitigating vulnerability to food-supply shocks. These insights are relevant for the larger, long-term question of climate change adaptation, and also regarding trade-offs between public health protection and food security.ISSN:2211-912