Podcasts about Sanford School

We all know the Americans won the American Revolution.  But have you stopped to wonder how exactly our smaller army beat the larger professional army of the British and how the series of battles unfolded that led to the eventual British surrender?  On our chat today, we are discussing one of those monumental events-North Carolina's Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge-and its impact on the outcome of the war. To provide his knowledge of this battle and the Revolutionary War, we are pleased to welcome John Hood, president of the John William Pope Foundation, a teacher at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and the author of 10 books.

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can't, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton UP, 2026) looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it. Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants' unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity. Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change. Host Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book,America's Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Jamila Michener is Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and inaugural director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. She is the author of the award-winning book,  Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Mallory SoRelle is the Tony and Teddie Brown Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation.

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can't, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton UP, 2026) looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it. Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants' unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity. Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change. Host Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book,America's Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Jamila Michener is Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and inaugural director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. She is the author of the award-winning book,  Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Mallory SoRelle is the Tony and Teddie Brown Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can't, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton UP, 2026) looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it. Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants' unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity. Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change. Host Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book,America's Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Jamila Michener is Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and inaugural director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. She is the author of the award-winning book,  Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Mallory SoRelle is the Tony and Teddie Brown Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can't, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton UP, 2026) looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it. Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants' unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity. Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change. Host Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book,America's Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Jamila Michener is Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and inaugural director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. She is the author of the award-winning book,  Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Mallory SoRelle is the Tony and Teddie Brown Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As global demand for meat grows, this episode of Duke University's Leading Voices in Food podcast examines cell-cultivated protein—real meat grown from animal cells—and the evolving U.S. policy landscape shaping its future. Host Norbert Wilson (Duke World Food Policy Center) speaks with postdoctoral researchers Kate Consavage Stanley (Duke/Bezos Center for Sustainable Proteins) and Katariina Koivusaari (NC State/Bezos Center) about their article in Trends in Food Science and Technology on U.S. regulatory and legislative activity. The conversation explains the joint FDA–USDA regulatory approach for cell-cultivated meat (FDA oversight through cell cultivation; USDA oversight from harvest through processing, packaging, and labeling) and FDA oversight for cell-cultivated seafood (except catfish). They discuss timelines companies report for approval (often two to three years), the lack of federal public guidance on naming and labeling so far, and how USDA label approvals are currently handled case by case (e.g., "cell-cultivated chicken" and "cell-cultivated pork"). The episode also covers state-level labeling laws and the likelihood of federal preemption if state requirements conflict with federal statutes, as well as a growing wave of state restrictions and bans—Florida and Alabama in 2024, followed by Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas in 2025—plus funding restrictions in South Dakota and Iowa. The guests explore implications for consumers, interstate commerce, innovation, investment, and U.S. leadership, noting ongoing lawsuits in Florida and Texas and continued legislative activity such as a proposed ban in Georgia.   Interview Transcript Kate, let's begin with you. In the paper, you write about the regulatory frameworks that have been developed for cell-cultivated meat and seafood products in the US. To start, let's talk about what's unique about cell-cultivated products from a regulatory standpoint and how the US Department of Agriculture and US Food and Drug Administration have decided to handle cell-cultivated protein products. Kate - Yes, so as you mentioned in the introduction, Norbert, cell-cultivation is a new technology for use of the food supply. So, the US government had to adapt its existing legal frameworks for food safety regulation. As your listeners may already know seafood is regulated by the FDA, so it was within their scope to also regulate cell-cultivated seafood. The FDA therefore regulates all cell-cultivated seafood products with the exception of catfish. When it came to determining the regulatory approach for cell-cultivated products from livestock, poultry, and catfish, it was a bit more nuanced as the processes and components evolved fell under both USDA and FDA purview. In 2019, the FDA and USDA therefore agreed on a joint regulatory approach where the FDA regulates the early stages of the cell cultivation process, including when those cells are taken from the animal, grown in the bioreactor, and matured into specific cell types such as muscle or fat cells. At the point where those cells are ready to be harvested from the bioreactor to use in a food product, oversight transfers to USDA who oversees that harvesting process as well as food processing, packaging, and labeling. I know this joint regulatory approach may sound complicated, but it's important to note that USDA and FDA already coordinate oversight over other foods in the food supply. I'll give you an example that we all love pizza. A frozen cheese pizza is regulated by the FDA, whereas a frozen pizza with meat toppings like pepperoni is regulated by the USDA. It is therefore not unprecedented that FDA and USDA would agree to jointly regulate cell-cultivated products. And while the process is new, the products go through the same safety checks as other foods in the food supply. In the past few years, we've seen four cell-cultivated meat products go through the joint USDA-FDA regulatory process, meaning they can be sold in the US food supply. And one cell-cultivated seafood product has gone through the FDA regulatory process. Kate, thank you for sharing this. And I've used a pizza example in my class, and it is super complex this regulatory maze that we're talking about. It seems like there has been a lot of collaboration between these two agencies, and so that's important to hear. But it is also the case that it seems challenging for cell-cultivated protein companies to get through this process. Is this a fair assessment and would you elaborate? Kate - Yes, absolutely. We've heard from cell-cultivated companies that it can take two to three years to get through this process. And there certainly is a lot of back and forth between the companies and FDA and USDA. Great, thank you. Katariina, now let's turn to you. How do these regulations extend to labeling and what do we know about the federal government's approach to labeling the sale of cultivated products thus far? Katariina – So, labeling regulations are the most consumer facing part of regulations, really. And they are used to ensure that the product label has information that's truthful, that's not misleading. And that the package has sufficient information and consistent information also across products so that the consumer can make an educated decision on what product they want to purchase. And you'd think that how you label the product or just how you call the product on the label would be simple. But there are certain regulations in place that define how food items can or cannot be called. Now, when it comes to cell-cultivated products, as you and Kate mentioned, they are novel in the food supply. So, there is not a long-established term or nomenclature on how we should call these products. The federal regulators, FDA and USDA, to date have not released any public guidance either on how these products should be called on the label. The USDA did release an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking back in 2021, requesting comments from stakeholders on how these products should be labeled. And the FDA has also requested comments when it comes to labeling cell-cultivated fish and seafood. But to date, no guidance has been published yet. Kate gave an overview of the regulatory process between FDA and UFDA when it comes to labeling this product products. The USDA oversees labeling cell-cultivated meat, and the FDA oversees labeling cell-cultivated fish and seafood. The USDA has a pre-market approval process for labels, similarly to conventional meat industry. So, whenever a company wants to bring to market a new product, they first submit their label to the USDA. And the USDA reviews it and make sure that they agree with the language used in the label. The FDA does not have a similar pre-market approval process for labeling fish or seafood or cell-cultivated fish or seafood. So, currently cell-cultivated meat labels are approved on a case-by-case basis. And we can see from the products that have gone through the regulatory review so far that the USDA seem to approve the use of 'cell-cultivated' as a qualifying term, together with a meaty term such as chicken or pork. So, the products that we've seen approved to date or brought to market to date are called cell-cultivated chicken or cell-cultivated pork. This is really helpful to know what's happened at the federal level. We also know that there are several actions happening at the state level, so several states have proposed their own laws outlining how and what to label these products. Katariina, can you talk us through what this study regarding state labeling? Katariina - To date, about half of the US states have enacted or proposed their own labeling legislation on cell-cultivated products. Missouri became the first state in 2018, so well before any of these products was available on the market. And they specifically prohibited the use of word meat unless the food was from harvested production livestock or poultry. Restricting, therefore, the use of meat not only on cell-cultivated, but also on other alternative protein products such as plant-based meat analogs or fermentation derived proteins. And this is true for many state level labeling laws. That they are applicable not only to cell-cultivated meat, but also other alternative proteins aiming to mimic meat. In addition to Missouri, there are six other states that prohibit the use of meat or meat related terms, such as chicken or pork. Now, the other group of states that have restrictions on cell-cultivated meat labeling do not concentrate on prohibiting the use of word meat, but they require the use of qualifying terms or other additional language that clearly states that the product does not come from livestock or poultry. And this group of states, there are 18 states, have quite a bit of variation in what kind of qualifying terms they require to be used. And I thought I'd give a couple of examples here. For example, Indiana requires the package to include the phrase this is an imitation meat product. Iowa requires the product to be labeled with qualifying terms such as cell-cultivated, cell-cultured, fake, grown in a lab, imitation, lab grown, lab created, meat free, or meatless. What's interesting though is that the federal statutes that regulate the US food supply have actual language that prevents states from establishing laws or regulations that conflict with or are additional to the federal labeling regulations. So, this means that the state level labeling laws are actually likely to be preempted if they conflict with the federal regulations. So, we've only talked about labeling so far. Kate, I want to go back to you. More recently, we've seen a number of states propose greater restrictions on these products. Can you describe these attempts to restrict cell-cultivated meat and their immediate implications? And how have cell-cultivated companies and other stakeholders responded? Kate - In the past few years we've seen quite a few attempts by states to ban or restrict cell-cultivated meats. And these attempts fall into two buckets: bans that aim to restrict the manufacturer sale or distribution of cell-cultivated products and bans that aim to limit the use of state funding to support these products. In 2024, Florida was the first state to pass a ban on the manufacture, sale, and distribution of cell-cultivated meats. Alabama followed shortly thereafter. In 2025, five more states passed similar bans on cell-cultivated products, including Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas. And many other states proposed bans that ultimately didn't pass. The language on what is banned differs some between states. For instance, Texas only bans the sale of cell-cultivated products. Whereas Florida and others also ban cell-cultivated manufacturing and distribution. But the core message in all these bans is similar. Cell-cultivated meats are not welcome in those states. The time span for the bans differs too. So, Indiana and Texas have two-year bans while Florida and other states passed indefinite bans. And we've seen two states, South Dakota and Iowa pass legislation to restrict the use of state funding to support cell-cultivated products. What's frustrating about these bands and confusing for those in the alternative protein sector is that cell-cultivated technology is largely still in the early stages. Yes, as I mentioned earlier, five products have passed through the regulatory process. But these products have mainly been made available in small tasting events. And only one has actually made it to retail. Most Americans have never had a chance to actually try these products. So, it begs the question, why is there such resistance? State bans on these products mean that Americans will not have the chance to decide for themselves if they like these products, or if and how they want to incorporate them into what they eat. Another big concern is that these bans create a fragmented policy landscape that's challenging for cell-cultivated startups, especially, to navigate. And it raises a lot of concerns about cross state sales. Concerns like these are the basis for two lawsuits against cell-cultivated bans in Florida and Texas. Those lawsuits are still playing out in court, so we don't yet know how those may Kate, this is really fascinating. And as both you and Katariina described, there's a patchwork of policies and a complex landscape for these companies to navigate. It has the potential of keeping consumers from even trying the products, as you've already suggested, when they're made available. And what I'm hearing from both of you is that this is an ongoing project. So even though there's a paper that's published now, it seems like there will be opportunities to keep going back as new laws and new regulations and new lawsuits are decided. So, this is a policy space that we need to keep an eye on. That's something I want to pick up on this last question. In closing, what does this legislation mean for consumers and the future of cell-cultivated products in the US and even globally? Katariina, let's begin with you. Katariina - Yes. In addition to impeding interstate and international commerce of cell-cultivated products, these bans could negatively impact the US investment climate on these products and technologies. For example, China has included developing cell-cultivated meat in their five-year plan. Within Europe, there's some variation. Some countries are being rather supportive of these technologies and products, whereas others have tried to ban them similarly to some US states. But I think it's important to note that even with some states in the US banning these products, the US will still likely remain a significant market area for cell-cultivated products. And it still takes significant investment and infrastructure to produce the products on a large scale enough to even reach the whole country. Another really important thing to mention here is that the global demand for meat is growing. If we look at global population forecasts, global meat or protein consumption forecasts, we need these alternative proteins. Not only cell-cultivated meat, but also for example, plant-based meat alternatives to help meet the increasing demand for protein and complement conventional meat supply. Kate, what about you?   Kate – I agree with everything that Katariina said. To add on to her points, I note that the US has been a leader in the cell-cultivated research development and innovation spaces to date. We are one of only a few countries that have both developed a framework for regulating these products and had products successfully pass through that process. The bans tell a different story, and they may restrict US innovation in the cell-cultivated space because companies will be limited to only the states where they can produce and sell these products. What this means for US leadership in the space remains to be seen. However, one could ask will cell-cultivated companies choose to set up shop in the US versus another country that isn't facing such legal challenges? We don't yet know the answer to that. You also mentioned consumers. We don't yet know about how these bans and the media surrounding them may influence consumer perceptions of cell-cultivated foods. Products, as you said, they've never even really had the chance to try. But these bans will certainly restrict consumer access to these products in certain states, and the varying state approaches to labeling that Katariina described are likely to confuse consumers. Going back to something you mentioned earlier, Norbert, we're excited to have this paper out in the world. But this work is certainly continuing to evolve. Just recently, a senator in Georgia proposed a new ban on cell-cultivated meat in the state, and other countries have faced similar legislative challenges against these products. So, we'll be watching and learning as these challenges continue to play out. Bios Katariina Koivusaari, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral researcher at the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University. Her work focuses on stakeholder engagement and the regulatory and policy landscape of alternative proteins, including cell-cultivated products, fermentation-derived proteins, and plant-based proteins. She received her Ph.D. in Public Health Nutrition and M.Sc. in Food Sciences from the University of Helsinki. Prior to her current role, she worked in the biotechnology industry as a Senior Regulatory Scientist, where she focused on scientific strategy and regulatory affairs related to cell-cultured human milk ingredients. Katherine (Kate) Consavage Stanley, Ph.D., serves as a postdoctoral associate within the World Food Policy Center at the Sanford School. In this role, Kate supports Duke's research for the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein housed at NC State. Her research seeks to detail the complexities of the consumer, market, and policy landscapes for alternative protein products. Kate holds a Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University where her research focused on how diverse U.S. food and health systems actors can support sustainable diet transitions through promoting plant-rich dietary patterns and reducing red and processed meat intake. She has also published scholarly work on digital food and nutrition literacy, sugary beverage media campaigns, and incorporating sustainability considerations into dietary guidelines, among others. Prior to starting her doctoral studies, Kate worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) where she developed technical, communications, and advocacy-focused materials on key nutrition and maternal and child health issues. Kate holds a Master of Science in global health from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in biology from Emmanuel College.      

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can't, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton UP, 2026) looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it. Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants' unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity. Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change. Host Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book,America's Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Jamila Michener is Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and inaugural director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. She is the author of the award-winning book,  Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Mallory SoRelle is the Tony and Teddie Brown Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can't, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton UP, 2026) looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it. Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants' unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity. Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change. Host Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book,America's Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Jamila Michener is Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and inaugural director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. She is the author of the award-winning book,  Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Mallory SoRelle is the Tony and Teddie Brown Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

  On this week's episode of Tying it Together, Dr. Bruce Jentleson joins host Tim Boyum to explain the story behind all the foreign policy battles garnering the attention of President Trump — from Iran, Venezuela, Ukraine, to Greenland.  Jentleson is a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.  He's a former senior adviser at the State Department under the Obama and Clinton administrations. He also served as a senior foreign policy advisor to the Al Gore presidential campaign and lectures around the world on foreign policy.

What if a single clause in your job contract could quietly shape how much you are able to get paid -- after you leave that job? And what if that same contract clause ends up limiting the places you can move for a job? Today, the hidden power of the non-compete clause. New research from Matt Johnson, professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and co-authors gives insight into what the practice actually costs workers.

In this episode of the Leading Voices in Food podcast, Norbert Wilson of Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy speaks with researchers Jean Adams from the University of Cambridge and Mike Essman from Duke's World Food Policy Center. They discuss the mandatory calorie labeling policy introduced in England in April 2022 for large food-away-from-home outlets. The conversation covers the study recently published in the British Medical Journal, exploring its results, strengths, limitations, and implications within the broader context of food labeling and public health policies. Key findings include a slight overall reduction in calorie content offered by food outlets, driven by the removal of higher-calorie items rather than reformulation. The discussion also touches on the potential impacts on different consumer groups, the challenges of policy enforcement, and how such policies could be improved to more effectively support public health goals. Interview Summary Now everyone knows eating out is just part of life. For many, it's a place to make connections, can be a guilty pleasure, and sometimes it's just an outright necessity for busy folks. But it is also linked to poor dietary quality, weight gain, and even obesity. For policymakers, the challenge is identifying what policy changes can help improve population health. Jean, let's begin with you. Can you tell our listeners about the UK's menu labeling intervention and what change did you hope to see? Jean - Yes, so this was a policy that was actually a really long time in coming and came in and out of favor with a number of different governments. So maybe over the last 10 years we've had various different suggestions to have voluntary and/or mandatory calorie labeling in the out-of-home sector. Eventually in April, 2022, we did have new mandatory regulations that came into a force that required large businesses just in England - so not across the whole of the UK, just in England - if they sold food and non-alcoholic drinks and they had to display the calories per portion of every item that they were selling. And then have alongside that somewhere on their menu, a statement that said that adults need around 2000 calories per day. The policy applied just to large businesses, and the definition of that was that those businesses have 250 or more employees, but the employees didn't all have to be involved in serving food and drinks. This might apply also to a large hotel chain who just have some bars or something in their hotels. And the food and drinks covered were things that were available for immediate consumption. Not prepackaged. And then there was also this proviso to allow high-end restaurants to be changing their menus regularly. So, it was only for things that were on the menu for at least 30 days. You mentioned that this policy or a menu labeling might have at least two potential modes of impacts. There's first this idea that providing calories or any sort of labeling on food can somehow provide information for consumers to make what we might hope would be better choices. Might help them choose lower calorie options or healthier options. And then the second potential impact is that businesses might also use the information to change what sort of foods they're serving. It might be that they didn't realize how many calories were in the foods and they're suddenly embarrassed about it. Or as soon as their customers realize, they start to put a little bit of pressure on, you know, we want something a little bit lower calorie. So, there's this potential mechanism that operates at the demand side of how consumers might make choices. And another one at the supply side of what might be available to consumers. And we knew from previous evaluations of these sorts of interventions that there was some evidence that both could occur. Generally, it seems to be that findings from other places and countries are maybe null to small. So, we were thinking that maybe we might see something similar in England. Thank you for sharing that background. I do have a question about the length of time it took to get this menu labeling law in place. Before we get into the results, do you have a sense of why did it take so long? Was it industry pushback? Was it just change of governments? Do you have a sense of that? Jean - Yes, so I think it's probably a bit of both. To begin with, it was first proposed as a voluntary measure actually by industry. So, we had this kind of big public-private partnership. What can industry do to support health? And that was one of the things they proposed. And then they didn't really do it very well. So, there was this idea that everybody would do it. And in fact, we found maybe only about 20% of outlets did it. And then definitely we have had government churn in the UK over the last five years or so. So, every new prime minister really came in and wanted to have their own obesity policy threw out the last one started over. And every policy needs consulted on with the public and then with industry. And that whole process just kind of got derailed over and over again. Thank you. That is really helpful to understand that development of the policy and why it took time. Industry regulated policy can be a tricky one to actually see the results that we would hope. You've already given us a sort of insight into what you thought the results may be from previous studies - null to relatively small. So, Mike, I want to turn to you. Can you tell us what came out of the data? Mike - Thank you, yes. So, we found a small overall drop in average calories offered per item. That amounts to a total of nine calories per item reduction in our post policy period relative to pre policy. And this is about a 2% reduction. It was statistically significant and we do in public health talk about how small effects can still have big impacts. So, I do want to sort of put that out there, but also recognize that it was a small overall drop in calories. And then what we did is we looked at how different food groups changed, and also how calories changed at different types of restaurants, whether it was fast food, restaurants, sit downs that we call pubs, bars, and inns. And then also other different types of takeaways like cafes and things like that where you might get a coffee or a cappuccino or something like that. What we found was driving the overall reduction in calories was a reduction in higher calorie items. So, as Jean mentioned at the outset, one of the things we were trying to identify in this analysis was whether we saw any evidence of reformulation. And we defined reformulation as whether specific products were reduced in their calories so that the same products were lower calories in the post period. We define that as reformulation. And that would be different from, say, a change in menu offering where you might identify a high calorie item and take it off the menu so that then the overall calories offered goes down on average. We found more evidence for the latter. Higher calorie items were removed. We separated into categories of removed items, items that were present in both periods, and new items added in the post period. There were higher calorie items in the removed group. The items that were present in both periods did not change. The new items were lower calorie items. What this says overall is this average reduction is driven by taking off high calorie items, adding some slightly lower calorie items. But we did not find evidence for reformulation, which is a crucial finding as well. We saw that the largest reductions occurred in burgers, beverages and a rather large mixed group called Mains. So, burgers reduced by 103 calories per item. That's pretty substantial. One of the reasons that's so large is that burgers, particularly if they're offered at a pub and might even come with fries or chips, as they say in the UK. And because they have such a high baseline calorie level, there's more opportunity to reduce. So, whether it's making it slightly smaller patty or reducing the cheese or something like that, that's where we saw larger reductions among the burgers. With beverages, typically, this involved the addition of lower calorie options, which is important if it gives an opportunity for lower calorie selections. And that was the main driver of reduction there. And then also we saw in Mains a reduction of 30 calories per item. A couple of the other things we wanted to identify is whether there was a change in the number of items that were considered over England's recommended calories per meal. The recommended calories per meal is 600 calories or less for lunch and dinner. And we saw no statistical change in that group. So overall, we do see a slight reduction in average calories. But this study did not examine changes in consumer behavior. I do want to just briefly touch on that because this was part of a larger evaluation. Another study that was published using customer surveys that was published in Nature Human Behavior found no change in the average calories purchased or consumed after the policy. This evaluation was looking at both the supply and the demand side changes as a result of this policy. Thanks, Mike and I've got lots of questions to follow up, but I'll try to control myself. The first one I'm interested to understand is you talk about the importance of the really calorie-heavy items being removed and the introduction of newer, lower calorie items. And you said that this is not a study of the demand, but I'm interested to know, do you have a sense that the higher calorie items may not have been high or top sellers. It could be easy for a restaurant to get rid of those. Do you have any sense of, you know, the types of items that were removed and of the consumer demand for those items? Mike - Yes. So, as I mentioned, given that the largest changes were occurring among burgers, we're sort of doing this triangulation attempt to examine all of the different potential impacts we can with the study tools we have. We did not see those changes reflected in consumer purchases. So, I think sticking with the evidence, the best thing we could say is that the most frequently purchased items were not the ones that were being pulled off of menus. I think that would be the closest to the evidence. Now, no study is perfect and we did in that customer survey examine the purchases and consumption of about 3000 individuals before and after the policy. It's relatively large, but certainly not fully comprehensive. But based on what we were able to find, it would seem that those reductions in large calorie items, it's probably fair to say, were sort of marginal choices. So, we see some reduction in calories at the margins. That's why the overall is down, but we don't see at the most commonly sold. I should also mention in response to that, a lot of times when we think about eating out of home, we often think about fast food. We did not see reductions in fast food chains at all, essentially. And so really the largest reductions we found were in what would be considered more sit-down dining establishment. For example, sit-down restaurants or even pubs, bars and ends was one of our other categories. We did see average reductions in those chains. The areas you kind of think about for people grabbing food quickly on the go, we did not see reductions there. And we think some of this is a function of the data itself, which is pubs, bars and inns, because they offer larger plates, there's a little bit more space for them to reduce. And so those are where we saw the reductions. But in what we might typically think is sort of the grab and go type of food, we did not see reductions in those items. And so when we did our customer surveys, we saw that those did not lead to reductions in calories consumed. Ahh, I see this and thank you for this. It sounds like the portfolio adjusted: getting rid of those heavy calorie items, adding more of the lower calorie items that may not have actually changed what consumers actually eat. Because the ones that they typically eat didn't change at all. And I would imagine from what you've said that large global brands may not have made many changes, but more local brands have more flexibility is my assumption of that. So that, that's really helpful to see. As you all looked at the literature, you had the knowledge that previous studies have found relatively small changes. Could you tell us about what this work looks like globally? There are other countries that have tried policy similar to this. What did you learn from those other countries about menu labeling? Jean - Well, I mean, I'm tempted to say that we maybe should have learned that this wasn't the sort of policy that we could expect to make a big change. To me one of the really attractive features of a labeling policy is it kind of reflects back those two mechanisms we've talked about - information and reformulation or changing menus. Because we can talk about it in those two different ways of changing the environment and also helping consumers make better choices, then it can be very attractive across the political landscape. And I suspect that that is one of the things that the UK or England learned. And that's reflected in the fact that it took a little while to get it over the line, but that lots of different governments came back to it. That it's attractive to people thinking about food and thinking about how we can support people to eat better in kind of a range of different ways. I think what we learned, like putting the literature all together, is this sort of policy might have some small effects. It's not going to be the thing that kind of changes the dial on diet related diseases. But that it might well be part of an integrated strategy of many different tools together. I think we can also learn from the literature on labeling in the grocery sector where there's been much more exploration of different types of labeling. Whether colors work, whether black stop signs are more effective. And that leads us to conclusions that these more interpretive labels can lead to bigger impacts and consumer choices than just a number, right? A number is quite difficult to make some sense of. And I think that there are some ways that we could think about optimizing the policy in England before kind of writing it off as not effective. Thank you. I think what you're saying is it worked, but it works maybe in the context of other policies, is that a fair assessment? Jean - Well, I mean, the summary of our findings, Mike's touched on quite a lot of it. We found that there was an increase in outlets adhering to the policy. That went from about 20% offered any labeling to about 80%. So, there were still some places that were not doing what they were expected to do. But there was big changes in actual labeling practice. People also told us that they noticed the labels more and they said that they used them much more than they were previously. Like there was some labeling before. We had some big increases in noticing and using. But it's... we found this no change in calories purchased or calories consumed. Which leads to kind of interesting questions. Okay, so what were they doing with it when they were using it? And maybe some people were using it to help them make lower calorie choices, but other people were trying to optimize calories for money spent? We saw these very small changes in the mean calorie of items available that Mike's described in lots of detail. And then we also did some work kind of exploring with restaurants, people who worked in the restaurant chains and also people responsible for enforcement, kind of exploring their experiences with the policy. And one of the big conclusions from that was that local government were tasked with enforcement, but they weren't provided with any additional resources to make that happen. And for various reasons, it essentially didn't happen. And we've seen that with a number of different policies in the food space in the UK. That there's this kind of presumption of compliance. Most people are doing it all right. We're not doing it a hundred percent and that's probably because it's not being checked and there's no sanction for not following the letter of the law. One of the reasons that local authorities are not doing enforcement, apart from that they don't have resources or additional resources for it, is that they have lots of other things to do in the food space, and they see those things as like higher risk. And so more important to do. One of those things is inspecting for hygiene, making sure that the going out is not poisonous or adulterated or anything like that. And you can absolutely understand that. These things that might cause acute sickness, or even death in the case of allergies, are much more important for them to be keeping an eye on than labeling. One of the other things that emerged through the process of implementation, and during our evaluation, was a big concern from communities with experience of eating disorders around kind of a greater focus on calorie counting. And lots of people recounting their experience that they just find that very difficult to be facing in a space where they're maybe not trying to think about their eating disorder or health. And then they're suddenly confronted with it. And when we've gone back and looked at the literature, there's just not very much literature on the impact of calorie labeling on people with eating disorders. And so we're a little bit uncertain still about whether that is a problem, but it's certainly perceived to be a problem. And lots of people find the policy difficult for that reason because they know someone in their family or one of their friends with an eating disorder. And they're very alert to that potential harm. I think this is a really important point to raise that the law, the menu labeling, could have differential effects on different consumers. I'm not versed in this literature on the triggering effects of seeing menu labeling for people with disordered eating. But then I'm also thinking about a different group of consumers. Consumers who are already struggling with obesity, and whether or not this policy is more effective for those individuals versus folks who are not. In the work that you all did, did you have any sense of are there heterogeneous effects of the labeling? Did different consumers respond differentially to seeing the menu label? Not just, for example, individuals maybe with disordered eating? Mike - In this work, we mostly focused on compliance, customer responses in terms of consumption and purchases, changes in menus, and customers reporting whether or not they increase noticing and using. When we looked at the heterogeneous effects, some of these questions are what led us to propose a new project where we interviewed people and tried to understand their responses to calorie labeling. And there we get a lot of heterogenous groups. In those studies, and this work has not actually been published, but should be in the new year, we found that there's a wide range of different types of responses to the policy. For example, there may be some people who recently started going to the gym and maybe they're trying to actually bulk up. And so, they'll actually choose higher calorie items. Conversely, there may be people who have a fitness routine or a dieting lifestyle that involves calorie tracking. And they might be using an app in order to enter the calories into that. And those people who are interested in calorie counting, they really loved the policy. They really wanted the policy. And it gave them a sense of control over their diet. And they felt comfortable and were really worried that if there was evidence that it wouldn't work, that would be taken away. Then you have a whole different group of people who are living with eating disorders who don't want to interact with those numbers when they are eating out of home. They would rather eat socially and not have to think about those challenges. There's really vast diversity in terms of the responses to the policy. And that does present a challenge. And I think what it also does is cause us just to question what is the intended mechanism of action of this policy? Because when the policy was implemented, there's an idea of a relatively narrow set of effects. If customers don't understand the number of calories that are in their items, you just provide them with the calories that are in those items, they will then make better choices as rational actors. But we know that eating out of home is far more complex. It's social. There are issues related to value for money. So maybe people want to make sure they're purchasing food that hasn't been so reduced in portions that now they don't get the value for money when they eat out. There are all sorts of body image related challenges when people may eat out. We didn't find a lot of evidence of this in our particular sample, but also in some of our consultation with the public in developing the interview, there's concern about judgment from peers when eating out. So, it's a very sensitive topic. Some of the implications of that are we do probably need more communication strategies that can come alongside these policies and sort of explain the intended mechanism impact to the public. We can't expect to simply add numbers to items and then expect that people are going to make the exact choices that are sort of in the best interest of public health. And that sort of brings us on to some potential alternative mechanisms of impact and other modes of labeling, and those sorts of things. Mike, this has been really helpful because you've also hinted at some of the ways that this policy as implemented, could have been improved. And I wonder, do you have any other thoughts to add to how to make a policy like this have a bigger impact. Mike - Absolutely. One of the things that was really helpful when Jean laid out her framing of the policy was there's multiple potential mechanisms of action. One of those is the potential reformulation in menu change. We talked about those results. Another intended mechanism of action is through consumer choice. So, if items have fewer calories on average, then that could reduce ultimately calories consumed. Or if people make choices of lower calorie items, that could also be a way to reduce the overall calories consumed. And I would say this calorie labeling policy, it is a step because the calories were not previously available. People did not know what they were eating. And if you provide that, that fulfills the duty of transparency by businesses. When we spoke to people who worked in enforcement, they did support the policy simply on the basis of transparency because it's important for people to understand what they're consuming. And so that's sort of a generally acceptable principle. However, if we want to actually have stronger population health impact, then we do need to have stronger mechanisms of action. One of the ways that can reduce calories consumed by the consumers, so the sort of demand side, would be some of the interpretive labels. Jean mentioned them earlier. There's now a growing body of evidence of across, particularly in Latin America. I would say some of the strongest evidence began in Chile, but also in Mexico and in other Latin American countries where they've put warning labels on items in order to reduce their consumption. These are typically related to packaged foods is where most of the work has been done. But in order to reduce consumer demand, what it does is rather than expecting people to be sort of doing math problems on the fly, as they go around and make their choices, you're actually just letting them know, well, by the way, this is an item that's very high in calories or saturated fat, or sodium or sugars. Or some combination of those. What that does is you've already helped make that decision for the consumers. You've at least let them know this item has a high level of nutrients of concern. And you can take that away. Conversely, if you have an item that's 487 calories, do you really know what you're going to do with that information? So that's one way to have stronger impact. The other way that that type of policy can have stronger impact is it sets clear thresholds for those warnings. And so, when you have clear thresholds for warnings, you can have a stronger mechanism for reformulation. And what companies may want to do is they may not want to display those warning labels, maybe because it's embarrassing. It makes their candy or whatever the unhealthy food look bad. Sort of an eyesore, which is the point. And what they'll do is they can reformulate those nutrients to lower levels so that they no longer qualify for that regulation. And so there are ways to essentially strengthen both of those mechanisms of action. Whereas when it's simply on the basis of transparency, then what that does is leave all of the decision making and work on the consumer. Mike, this is great because I've worked with colleagues like Gabby Fretes and Sean Cash and others on some menu labeling out of Chile. And we're currently doing some work within the center on food nutrition labels to see how different consumers are responding. There's a lot more work to be done in this space. And, of course, our colleagues at UNC (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) have also been doing this work. So, this work is really important because it tells us how it can help consumers make different choices, and how it can affect how companies behave. My final question to the two of you is simply, what would you like policymakers to learn from this study? Or maybe not just this study alone, but this body of work. What should they take away? Jean - Well, I think there's lots of information out there on how to do food labeling well, and we can certainly learn from that. And Mike talks about the work from South America particularly where they're helping people identify the least healthy products. And they're also providing messaging around what you should do with that - like choose a product with fewer of these black symbols. But I think even if labeling is optimized, it's not really going to solve our problem of dietary related diseases. And I think I always want policymakers to know, and I think many of them do understand this, that there is no one magic solution and we need to be thinking about labeling as part of a strategy that addresses marketing in its entirety, right? Companies are using all sorts of strategies to encourage us to buy products. We need to be thinking of all sorts of strategies to support people to buy different products and to eat better. And I think that focuses on things like rebalancing price, supporting people to afford healthier food, focusing advertising and price promotions on healthier products. And I also think we need to be looking even further upstream though, right? That we need to be thinking about the incentives that are driving companies to make and sell less healthy products. Because I don't think that they particularly want to be selling less healthy products or causing lots of illness. It's those products are helping them achieve their aims of creating profit and growth for their shareholders. And I think we need to find creative ways to support companies to experiment with healthier products that either help them simultaneously achieve those demands of profit or growth. Or somehow allow them to step away from those demands either for a short period or for a longer period. I think that that requires us to kind of relook at how we do business in economics in our countries. Mike? Yes, I think that was a really thorough answer by Jean. So, I'll just add a couple points. I think most fundamentally what we need to think about when we're doing policy making to improve diet is we need to always think about are we helping to make the healthier choice the easier choice? And what that means is we're not implementing policies that merely provide information that then require individuals to do the rest of the work. We need to have a food environment that includes healthier options that are easily accessible, but also affordable. That's one thing that's come through in quite a lot of the work we've done. There are a lot of concerns about the high cost of food. If people feel like the healthier choices are also affordable choices, that's one of many ways to support the easier choice. And I really just want to reiterate what Jean said in terms of the economics of unhealthy food. In many ways, these large multinational corporations are from their perspective, doing right by their shareholders by producing a profitable product. Now there are debates on whether or not that's a good thing, of course. There's quite a lot of evidence for the negative health impacts of ultra-processed (UPF) products, and those are getting a lot more attention these days and that's a good thing. What we do need to think about is why is it that UPFs are so widely consumed. In many ways they are optimized to be over consumed. They're optimized to be highly profitable. Because the ingredients that are involved in their production means that they can add a lot of salt, sugar, and fat. And what that does is lead to overconsumption. We need to think about that there's something fundamentally broken about this incentive structure. That is incentivizing businesses to sell unhealthy food products with these food additives that lead to over consumption, obesity, and the associated comorbidities. And if we can start to make a little progress and think creatively about how could we incentivize a different incentive structure. One where actually it would be in a food business's best interest to be much more innovative and bolder and produce healthier products for everyone. That's something that I think we will have to contend with because if we are thinking that we are only going to be able to restrict our way out of this, then that's very difficult. Because people still need to have healthy alternatives, and so we can't merely think about restricting. We also have to think about how do we promote access to healthier foods. This is great insight. I appreciate the phrasing of making the healthy choice the easy choice, and I also heard a version of this making the healthy choice the affordable choice. But it also seems like we need to find ways to make the healthy choice the profitable choice as well. Bios: Jean Adams is a Professor of Dietary Public Health and leads the Population Health Interventions Programme at the University of Cambridge MRC Epidemiology Unit. Adams trained in medicine before completing a PhD on socio-economic inequalities in health. This was followed by an MRC Health of the Population fellowship and an NIHR Career Development Fellowship both exploring influences on health behaviours and socio-economic inequalities in these. During these fellowships Jean was appointed Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in Public Health at Newcastle University. Jean moved to Cambridge University to join the MRC Epidemiology Unit and CEDAR in 2014 where she helped establish the Dietary Public Health group. She became Programme Leader in the newly formed Population Health Interventions programme in 2020, and was appointed Professor of Dietary Public Health in 2022. Mike Essman is a Research Scientist at Duke University's World Food Policy Center. His background is in evaluating nutrition and food policies aimed at improving diets and preventing cardiometabolic diseases. His work employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore drivers of dietary behavior, particularly ultra-processed food consumption, across diverse environments and countries. Mike earned his PhD in Nutrition Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his research focused on evaluating the impacts of a sugary beverage tax in South Africa. He completed MSc degrees in Medical Anthropology and Global Health Science at the University of Oxford through a fellowship. Prior to joining Duke, he conducted research at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, where he evaluated the impacts of calorie labeling policies in England and led a study examining public perceptions of ultra-processed foods.  

Michael Regan recently served as the 16th Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Previously he was Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality where he secured the largest coal ash cleanup settlement in U.S. history. And he led negotiations on the cleanup of the Cape Fear River from PFAS contamination. Now he has taken a role at POLIS: Center for Politics at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy.

Every technology in music history leaves artists behind. What if one left them all behind? AI-generated music is severely undermining artists' ability to make a viable living. Is it a canary in the coal mine for music and for how AI will affect the future of work more broadly? Grammy-nominated musician Tift Merritt and Professor David Hoffman of the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy discuss the research they are conducting with students to address these issues.  Host: Anna Gassman-Pines. This episode is part of a month-long series of stories related to tech policy from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

In its 118 years of delivering medical education, the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine has designed and implemented programs specifically to train physicians who are prepared and eager to practice in rural and underserved areas. In this episode, USD SSOM Dean Dr. Tim Ridgway chats with DRG's Jody Heemstra about the school and their Frontier and Rural Medicine-- or FARM—program, where students are immersed in rural clinical settings, fosters a deep understanding of the challenges and rewards of rural practice. Current FARM training sites are in Chamberlain, Milbank, Mobridge, Parkston, Pierre, Spearfish and Vermillion. In addition, with clinical school campuses in Yankton and Rapid City, along with clinical partners across the state, students are guaranteed a wide range of training experiences.

Data centers hold computers and equipment that are the backbone of the digital age. They make possible the computational power and data storage needed to train AI models, store content, and operate the cloud-based services that many of us rely on. Some say that data centers and the innovations that come from them are key to solving huge issues facing the world right now, while others note major environmental concerns related to how they operate. However, a new report says data centers run by huge companies like Google called hyperscalers could actually be good for the environment in a key way - they could become mobilizers of clean energy and updated grids.  Read the report. Guests: Merritt Cahoon and Ian Hitchcock from the Deep Tech at Duke Initiative. This episode is part of a month-long series of stories related to tech policy from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

From January 19, 2024: Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement with location data broker X-Mode Social. X-Mode collects over 10 billion location data points from all over the world every day, and sells it to clients in a range of industries, like advertisers, consulting firms, and private government contractors. The FTC argued that the data broker was conducting unfair business practices, including selling people's sensitive location data.To discuss the FTC settlement and its implications, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Justin Sherman, Founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies and a Senior Fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. They talked about the FTC's groundbreaking decision to list sensitive locations about which X-Mode cannot sell data, the likelihood that we will see further FTC action against data brokers, and the persistent need for comprehensive privacy legislation to better address harms.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode: from living under a bridge to building bridges between policy and practice, CJ Appleton's story is one of resilience, purpose, and possibility. Appleton is a new faculty member at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. After a rocky start to his academic career, including dropping out of college and becoming homeless, today he's eager to bridge the gap between criminology scholarship and US policy. His focus is on desistance, the process of ending a criminal career. Duke Sanford interim Dean Manoj Mohanan hosts. Read show notes/transcript at our website.

In this episode we'll explore AI – from deepfakes to the growing importance of social media verification. Our guest Robyn Caplan is an Assistant Professor at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy and is currently teaching a class on the transformation of media. Her latest research considers the blue-check verification process that is used on many social platforms.  Our host for this episode is Anna Gassman-Pines, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the Sanford School of Public Policy. Read show notes/transcript at our website.

With as many as 120 million legal problems going unresolved in America each year, traditional lawyer-centered approaches to access to justice have consistently failed to meet the scale of need. But what if the solution is not just about providing more legal services — what if it lies in fundamentally rethinking who can provide legal help? In today's episode, host Bob Ambrogi is joined by two of the nation's leading researchers on access to justice: Rebecca Sandefur, professor and director of the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University and a faculty fellow at the American Bar Foundation, and Matthew Burnett, director of research and programs for the Access to Justice Research Initiative at the American Bar Foundation and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center.  They argue that the access to justice crisis is actually a crisis of democracy. As cofounders of Frontline Justice, they have been pioneering research on "justice workers" — community members trained to help their neighbors navigate legal issues. Their recent article in the South Carolina Law Review, “Justice Work as Democracy Work: Reimagining Access to Justice as Democratization,” makes a provocative case: When people cannot access their own law, democracy itself fails. They present compelling evidence from Alaska, where nearly 200 community justice workers now serve over 40 rural communities, achieving a 1-to-25 return on investment while dramatically expanding legal aid's reach. In today's conversation, Sandefur and Burnett discuss the mounting evidence for justice worker effectiveness, including research from the U.K. demonstrating that trained non-lawyers often outperform attorneys on specialized tasks. They also discuss recent breakthroughs — including unprecedented support from both the Conference of Chief Justices and the American Bar Association — and examine what obstacles remain.  Sandefur and Burnett challenge the legal profession's monopoly on law, arguing that regulatory capture has estranged Americans from their own justice system. They envision justice workers as agents of democratization, expanding not just who can access legal help, but who can participate meaningfully in working democracy.  Related episodes: On the latest LawNext: Sociologist Rebecca Sandefur on Enhancing Access to Justice. On LawNext: How A New Kind of Justice Worker Could Narrow the Justice Gap, with Nikole Nelson, CEO of Frontline Justice.  On LawNext: CEO Nikole Nelson Returns with An Update on Frontline Justice's Mission to Empower Justice Workers and Bridge the Justice Gap.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). Paxton, Rapidly conduct research, accelerate drafting, and analyze documents with Paxton. What do you need to get done today?    If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Today's guest, John Hillen, says that only a third of native-born Americans can pass the citizenship test that American immigrants are required to pass. He is part of a new bipartisan commission trying to change that. The goal is to revitalize the teaching of American civics and history. Hillen served as US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs in the Bush administration among many other roles. He is now teaching at Duke University in the Master of National Security Policy program. He is also affiliated with POLIS: Duke's Center for Politics and The Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. He joins Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke, to discuss the commission's work and American grand strategy more broadly. Read show notes/transcript at our website.

A FACT CHECK at the White House website proclaims “President Trump will always a protect Social Security and Medicare.” It goes on to quote Elon Musk saying “The waste and fraud in entitlement spending — which is most of the federal spending is entitlements — so, that's, like, the big one to eliminate. That's the, sort of half-trillion, maybe $6-700 billion a year.” After a list of “facts” about fraud, improper payments to deceased individuals and improper payments to both SSA and Medicare and Medicaid services, the page goes on to ask “What kind of a person doesn't support eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending that ultimately costs taxpayers more?”Link to the Whitehouse web site:https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/03/fact-check-president-trump-will-always-protect-social-security-medicare/Am I missing something? First, Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements, they are services for which older Americans have paid for by deductions from THEIR salaries. And , second, where is, in this so-called Fact Sheet, plans for how President Trump is going to preserve Social Security and Medicare except for a statement that reads “The Trump Administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. President Trump himself has said it (over and over and over again).”Conversely, President's Trump's budget seeks to reduce or eliminate the Older Americans Act, to dissolve the Administration for Community Living, and cut funding to critical services that help older adults to live independently.In order to be able to understand more completely what's going on, we called on Nathan Boucher, to explain the effect of Trump's real budget proposals on senior care. Nathan is Associate Research Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy and Duke University faculty at Sanford School of Public Policy, the Medical School, and the Nursing School. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Duke Center for the Study of Aging & Human Development as well as Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy Core Faculty. Nathan and I talked about the Older Americans Act and the Administration for Community Living which provide services like Meals on Wheels, Adult Day Care, Falls and Elder Abuse Prevention and Respite care as well as services for younger people with disabilities. We discussed that despite reassurances that Medicare and Medicaid will not be touched, plans are in the works for reducing Medicaid and adding a work requirement and more difficult paperwork which would affect at least 7.6 million people.

Coach Stan Waterman shares his journey from growing up in Wilmington, Delaware to becoming the Head Coach at Delaware State.After playing Division I basketball at the University of Delaware he began his coaching journey at as an Assistant Coach at Wilmington and then moved onto the Sanford School. In his 29 seasons at the Sanford School he led the program to 571 wins, 10 state championship game appearances, winning eight state titles, including his last two seasons in 2019 and 2021.He went onto coach with USA Basketball where he was on staff for the the gold-medal-winning 2018 USA Men's U17 World Cup Team and the 2017 USA Men's U16 national team. Stan Waterman was named the Head Coach at Delaware State in 2021 and has increased their win in each season at the helm.**Sponsored by FastModel**Be sure to check out FastModelSports.com and use the promo code "BOXSCORE" for 15% off your purchase.

In this episode John A. Hovanesian, MD, FACS, and Jim Mazzo are live from SightLine at the ASCRS meeting with guests Nicole R. Fram, MD, Kerry D. Solomon, MD, Vance Thompson, MD, and Steve Speares. Welcome to the Eyeluminaries podcast 00:02 Review of episode 32 00:55 Intro of Nicole Fram, MD 01:16 Tell us why the MAHRVELS team is likely to be the leading fundraisers and why you picked your character for the team to portray (The Scarlet Witch)? 02:24 Meeting about complications from cataract surgery, what do you think is the next big phase on how we're going to handle complications with technology? 04:05 Psychology of managing patients/conveying care 05:42 What advice do you give to people who are starting their career? 06:50 Intro of Kerry Solomon, MD 09:30 What do we often get wrong with cataract surgery and what do we often get right? 10:25 How do you stay an entrepreneur and a leading physician? 11:55 What is Operation Sight? How did you create it? 14:19 Where will keratorefractive surgery and lens-based surgery be in 5 or 10 years? 18:30 Intro of Vance Thompson, MD 21:24 What's it like to be ASCRS president? 21:59 What is BRiCS and why is it important? 23:54 You've created a culture; can you talk about that culture you've created at your institute? 29:30 Tell us about your winery! 33:28 Intro of Steve Speares 36:45 ASCRS just wrapped up. Your idea of creating a SightLine with a business approach, what did you do and what was the idea? 38:00 As you look back and you look ahead, what changes do you hope to make? What do you hope your legacy will be at ACSRS? 40:57 Can you expand more on how Washington, DC and Trump administration will impact your society/group? 44:19 Richard Lindstrom in ASCRS hall of fame, tell us your own perspective and a good story 46:29 Preview of episode 34 52:09 Give us your feedback 52:40 Thanks for listening 52:56 Nicole Fram, MD, is an adjunct assistant professor at the John A. Moran Eye Institute at the University of Utah. She is also the secretary for ASCRS, is a member of the Cataract Clinical Committee, and leads the Ophthalmology Quicksand Chronicles podcast with co-host Elizabeth Yeu, MD. John A. Hovanesian, MD, FACS, is a faculty member at the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute and in private practice at Harvard Eye Associates in Laguna Hills, California. Jim Mazzo is an ophthalmic industry veteran with over 40 years as CEO/chairman of both public and private companies, including Allergan, Avellino Labs, Carl Zeiss, Neurotech Pharmaceuticals and AMO. Additionally, he is an advisor for Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners and sits on numerous industry boards such as MDMA. Kerry Solomon, MD, is internationally renowned for LASIK and refractive cataract surgery. He is the co-founder of Operation Sight. He is the former chairman of the ASCRS FDA Committee. Steve Speares, MD, is the executive director at ASCRS. Vance Thompson, MD, is the founder of Vance Thompson Vision and director of refractive surgery in Sioux Falls, SD. He serves as a professor of ophthalmology at the Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. Thompson is the immediate past president of ASCRS. We'd love to hear from you! Send your comments/questions to eyeluminaries@healio.com. Follow John Hovanesian on X (formerly Twitter) @DrHovanesian. Disclosures: Hovanesian consults widely in the ophthalmic field. Mazzo reports being an advisor for Anivive Lifesciences, Avellino Labs, Bain Capital, CVC Capital and Zeiss; executive chairman of Neurotech, Preceyes BV and TearLab; and sits on the board of Crystilex, Centricity Vision, IanTech, Lensgen and Visus. Healio could not confirm relevant financial disclosures for Fram, Speares, Solomon, and Thompson at the time of publication.

Recently, the U.S. has experienced several financial crises - all of them hard on American families.  In 2008, over eight million Americans lost their jobs in the Great Recession. In 2020, unemployment was at 13 percent thanks to the COVID pandemic. By early 2025, the economy had recovered and unemployment had dropped back to the 4 percent range. Then sweeping new tariffs sent the stock market reeling.  Vicki Bogan, who studies household finance, inequality and investment decision making, talks with Manoj Mohanan, Interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, about what this latest financial shock might mean for families. Read show notes/transcript at our website.

ACTA President Michael Poliakoff welcomes The Honorable John Hillen, distinguished resident fellow at the Center for Politics in Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and an executive-in-residence of the Political Science Department. Dr. Hillen is a combat veteran and Bronze Star recipient, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state, a successful business leader, and the author of The Strategy Dialogues: A Primer on Business Strategy and Strategic Management. He also serves on ACTA's National Commission on American History and Civic Education. Drs. Poliakoff and Hillen discuss how to engage students in the study of American civics and higher education's role in preparing students to be next generation leaders in the areas of American foreign policy and national security.

Many countries use direct cash aid programs as an integral part of their social safety net. In the United States, there have been few national efforts, but more and more guaranteed income programs are being implemented at state, county, and local levels. In this episode, Dr. Lisa Gennetian draws on her co-authored paper, “Unconditional Cash Transfers for Families with Children in the U.S.: A Scoping Review,” to provide an overview of cash assistance programs both in the US and in other countries, with a particular focus on programs aimed at families with children. Lisa Gennetian is the Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is also an IRP Affiliate.

Early in his career our guest, Bill Adair, worked as a journalist, author, and later founded the fact-checking organization Politifact. And in 2013 he accepted a position at Duke University as the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy, where he now teaches journalism in the Sanford School of Public Policy and directs the Duke Reporters' Lab. We discuss the negative effects of lying in politics, different types of lies, why people fall for lies, how fact-checking works, the response of journalists to political lying, and his recent book: Beyond the Big Lie-The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy.  

The U.S. is a nation of immigrants, but we have a complex history on the topic. At times, the government has tried deporting large numbers of immigrants, with the goal of protecting the jobs and wages of native-born Americans. The current administration has announced plans to deport all undocumented immigrants, even some legal immigrants, as well as new travel bans. Hannah Postel researches the relationship of migration and economic development and provides a historical perspective on immigration deportations and restrictions. She talks with Anna Gassman-Pines, who leads faculty affairs at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Read show notes/transcript at our website.

The price of housing has skyrocketed in recent years. Scholars estimate we are short between two and five million homes nationwide. Warren Lowell spent the last several years immersed in American housing policy as part of his PhD studies at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. For one study, he interviewed real estate developers and investors. He joins Sanford interim Dean Manoj Mohanan podcast to talk about what he learned. Read show notes/transcript at our website.

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, Congress established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB. It protects Americans from predatory practices by consumer finance companies. The CFPB enforces federal laws and investigates fraud and abuse. It has sent over 6.8 million complaints to companies for resolution so far. The bureau has been targeted for massive cuts by the new administration which, thus far, have been blocked by a federal judge. Mallory SoRelle, a consumer finance expert and author of Democracy Declined: the Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection, talks with Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy, about the CFPB and what dismantling it could mean for Americans. Read show notes/transcript

What does it mean for the country that President Trump has signed an executive order to begin dismantling the Department of Education? Leslie Babinski, a researcher who focuses on education and former director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy talks about this extraordinary change with guest host Anna Gassman-Pines, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Read show notes/transcript.

Deondra Rose is an associate professor of political science and history who serves as the Kevin D. Gorter Associate Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She joins “Closer Look” to discuss her latest book, "The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy." The book explores the history of HBCUs and the distinctive role they have played in shaping American democracy since 1837. Plus, Amanda Lee Williams used her love for improv to help address her father’s needs during his battle with memory loss. Now, she’s the program director for Improving Care Through Improv. She has teamed up with experts from Emory and Georgia State University to help train other caregivers and prepare them for unexpected moments. Rose talks to Williams, Dr. Candace Kemp, a gerontology professor at Georgia State University and Dr. Ted Johnson from Emory University's Department of Medicine. They discussed more details about the program. Williams also provided an improv demonstration about how they prepare caregivers to talk with someone who is experiencing memory loss.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Trump returns to the White House with his “America First” approach - a strategy critics say often comes at the expense of international alliances and multilateral commitments. Duke professor Susan Colbourn, a historian specializing in NATO, joins Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke to discuss the topic. She's the author of Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO, and is associate director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. Read show notes/transcript.

It's no secret that Americans' ability to engage in meaningful conversations across political, cultural, and ideological divides feels more strained than ever. In this episode, we discuss how to bring people together. Two words: civil discourse. Duke professor Abdullah Antepli is a nationally recognized expert in civil discourse. Recently he's been teaching a course on the topic and is creating public forums for dialogue between people with opposing views. Antepli leads Polis, Duke's Center for Politics. He talks with Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. This episode is part of a series of election-related conversations.

This Black Friday, The Delve takes a hard look at the cost of our 'growth at all costs' mentality. From the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—twice the size of Texas—to the staggering reality that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, host Chalin Askew explores how our economic system prioritizes production and consumption over sustainability and happiness. Joining the discussion is Professor Dirk Philipsen from Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy, who makes the case for Degrowth: a radical yet necessary shift toward a future built on sustainability, wellbeing, and true prosperity. Can we rethink success before it's too late?

During his recent campaign, President-elect Donald Trump made various promises consistent with the ongoing effort by Elon Musk and MAGA Republicans to target researchers and civil society groups that study issues such as propaganda and mis- and disinformation. Today's guest has looked deeply at this effort, conducting an analysis of over 1800 pages of primary documents to identify the strategic approaches employed by these parties, including the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, and the outcomes and broader democratic implications of the campaign. Philip M. Napoli is the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy, the Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy, and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research for the Sanford School at Duke University. His findings are published in a new paper The Information Society titled "In pursuit of ignorance: The institutional assault on disinformation and hate speech research."

On this Veterans Day 2024, Rich welcomes Dr. Paul A. Dillon, adjunct instructor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, and a Vietnam veteran. Next, we remember the legacy of President Ronald Reagan with his son, Michael Reagan, president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Plus, Prof. Nick Giordano of Suffolk County Community College, gives his reaction to President-Elect Trump's plan to overhaul education, as well as some of the early picks to fill the incoming administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Politifact founder, Duke University professor and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Bill Adair certainly isn't the first person to raise the alarm about the problem of lying in American politics. But what's really interesting about his new book, Beyond the Big Lie, is that Adair also has innovative solutions to fixing what he calls an “epidemic of political lying.” One idea, he explained to me, is punishing politicians for their lies through fines. Another, is by pioneering a national pledge, in the manner of Grover Norquist's successful taxpayer protection pledge, to commit politicians to telling the truth. Good honest stuff from America's foremost authority on political lying. As a reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, Bill Adair covered everything from small-town crime to big-time politics. He was a metro reporter who wrote about natural disasters, a business reporter who covered the airlines and a data journalist who explored the patterns of race and wealth. As the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, he took readers behind the scenes to watch a White House advance team, to see the backroom deals of a congressional chairman, and to watch lawyers prepare for the Supreme Court. He interviewed a president, countless senators and once got to chat with Bono. In 2007, he launched PolitiFact, a fact-checking site with a Truth-O-Meter that rates politicians' factual claims. The site spawned a dozen state sites that rated the claims of governors and other state officials. It also inspired fact-checkers around the world to start their own sites. He then co-founded the International Fact-Checking Network. He came to Duke University in 2013 as the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy. He teaches journalism in the Sanford School of Public Policy and directs the Duke Reporters' Lab, where students and professionals conduct research about fact-checking and the future of journalism. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (with the PolitiFact staff), the Manship Prize for New Media in Democratic Discourse and the Everett Dirksen Award for Distinguished Coverage of Congress.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

With food insecurity rising the world over, we cannot escape the reality that climate change is changing our food supply. This means people's livelihoods and lifestyles are changing too, particularly in developing countries. Join us on the Leading Voices in Food podcast as we discuss the rising impact of climate change on food security and livelihoods in Central America, specifically Honduras. Host Norbert Wilson, Director of the World Food Policy Center, along with co-host Sarah Bermeo, delve into the challenges and solutions with experts Marie-Soleil Turmel from Catholic Relief Services and Ana Andino from Duke University. Learn about the Dry Corridor, the effects of climate shocks, land restoration practices, and the role of international support in building community resilience. Interview Summary Sarah - Marie, some of your work with Catholic Relief Services engages with smallholder farmers in an area known as the Dry Corridor of Central America. Can you explain what the Dry Corridor is and provide some context about the food security situation in that area, and how much do residents depend on their own crops to provide food for their families? Marie - So, the Dry Corridor of Central America refers to a region that stretches across the Pacific side of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The region has a long dry season and a rainy season when the crops are produced. In the last 10 years, this region has been characterized as one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Mainly due to prolonged dry spells in the growing season and more unpredictable rainfall patterns. This region is made up of many small holder farmers in the rural population. These are small hillside farms growing staple crops, maize or corn, and beans with relatively low yields. And most of the household consumption is coming from these farms, and they're selling any surplus that is produced in a good year. These are rain-fed production systems. So, the amount of food that the farms produced is directly tied to the amount of rainfall, making them extremely vulnerable to droughts and climate shocks. And also the region has a very high degree of soil degradation. It's estimated 70 percent of agricultural soil is in a state of severe degradation. This makes farms even more susceptible to climate shocks. So, this is a region that's already struggling with poverty. Close to 8 million people are living in a situation of food insecurity. And now with increasing climate shocks that are affecting crop yields, it's sending more people into a situation of food emergency and requiring food aid. Norbert - Thank you, Marie, for providing that context. Ana, let's now turn to you. I understand that you've worked with the Honduran Ministry of Finance and the Inter American Development Bank on issues relating to economic development in Honduras. What do you view as some of the key development challenges facing the country? Ana - So Honduras faces several challenges which have been dragged out for many years. And now some of them have even worsened, particularly since 2020 when we were hit by the pandemic and the storms Eta and Iota. It's tough to pinpoint just one or a few of them since it's a convergence of complex scenarios, but if I had to mention one - and going along with the conversation we're having today - I would mention intersection between climate change and economic vulnerability. As we heard Marie talking about the Dry Corridor, there are many rural communities that rely heavily on agriculture. But climate variability has made it even more difficult to maintain stable food production, affecting income and food insecurity. So, by mid-2023, about 25 percent of the population was suffering from food insecurity. Nationally, agriculture provides employment for approximately 30 percent of the country's workforce. And there's verification agriculture is also limited, which, this dependency constrains sustainable growth and resilience. Also, I cannot leave behind the access to basic services such as water and electricity. Of course, I'll include in this education, right? It is important, and it's not only a matter of access to them, but also the quality of their services. Many households lack access to clean water. This impacts their daily life, but also their agricultural productivity. And even in the main cities, there is an inconsistent access to water and electricity, which affects livelihoods, but also small businesses to larger industries. Education is a no-brainer, since both access and quality remain a serious challenge. In this list, I would also like to add crime and violence, which remain high. And even though there has been an improvement in the last years, particularly reducing homicide rates, it still remains as one of the highest in Latin America. The situation is even worse when we look at femicide. Because Honduras is still one of the highest or has one of the highest rates of femicide in the region. That often goes along with high levels of impunity. And finally, we're almost getting there to my list of challenges, I would say that there is a lack of infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. There is no reliable access to roads or markets, which affects a lot of smallholder farmers. This also affects connectivity for roads. It limits access to health care and education. And these all are challenges that compound together. And yeah, to finally wrap it up, it's that without institutions that can effectively implement policies and manage resources, it'll be hard to, to have development efforts and to see growth in the country. Norbert - This sounds like a daunting set of challenges. And I realized that obviously in this conversation and the work that's going to happen later this week, we're not able to address all of those. But I would like to pull back and ask you both about issues around climate. And so, for the both of you, I'd be intrigued to understand this. Central America is believed to be highly susceptible to climate change, and Marie, you've already mentioned this. What are some of the key effects that climate change is having on the region? And I've heard you already talk about issues around availability of water. But how do these affect the livelihoods and particularly, how does this affect food security? So, Ana, let's begin with you. Ana – So, as Marie mentioned, there are a lot of extreme weather events going around, such as prolonged droughts, intense rainfall, tropical storms. And these weather patterns have a direct and severe impact on agricultural productivity. Especially in regions where families rely a lot on subsistence farming. It becomes a challenge to plant, to harvest crops. This leads to a reduction in yields. Also, people have less income, referring to income losses, which in the end has a cascading effect on food insecurity and poverty. So basically, what happens is that families have less to sell, but also have less to eat. If we transition to urban areas, climate change could cause floodings and damage to infrastructure, affecting severely industrial activity as well. This will disrupt the livelihoods of the people. In urban and rural areas, it exacerbates difficulties in accessing food, in accessing clean water, in accessing electricity. And just to give you an example, this happened back in 2020, right after Eta and Iota. We had long lasting effects, causing damage to agriculture, to livestock, to infrastructure. The effect on GDP was approximately eight to nine percent of GDP. And unsurprisingly, poverty rose 14 percentage points, which is a big increase. If you see national surveys going around, they have shown that people are having issues with getting access to food. And many people have also had to change their diet, leaving behind some proteins and introducing more carbohydrates or, or foods that are less expensive than proteins, right? And I would leave it there. Yeah. Norbert - This is really important. Thank you for sharing that. Marie, what about you? Marie - Ana really summed it up well, but I would add that it's really important to understand that that these farmers don't have crop insurance to fall back on like farmers in the U.S. So, we're seeing more frequent climate shocks, sometimes years in a row. Droughts and hurricanes. And farmers might be able to borrow seed or money, or to buy inputs to replant the next year, but after consecutive bad harvests, they run out of options and resources and really can't recover. And also keeping in mind that about 60 percent of the food in the region is coming from smallholder farms. And these climate shocks resulting in yield damage have implications for food prices and food security at the regional level, not just at the farm level, right? Sarah - So, Ana and Marie, you do a very nice job laying out the multiple challenges that are facing in urban areas. Turning from that to thinking about adaptations or policy changes that could be successful, can you think of some that might help in decreasing the negative impacts of climate change on farmers, particularly in the Dry Corridor? And, have you seen evidence? Can you bring evidence from your previous work for this to think about pathways forward and whether or not those would be scalable to additional farmers. Marie - So, a focus on land restoration and soil restoration is really key to building climate resilience. As I mentioned, these are areas with really highly degraded soils that are even more susceptible to these climate shocks. So, we're talking about managing the soil to manage water. And I just want to take a moment to explain why soil is so important for climate resilience. A healthy soil will capture and infiltrate more rainwater. These are rain fed systems, depending on every drop that falls. They store more water for plant production and also percolate more water down to recharge groundwater, which has an implication for water availability in the whole area. In a degraded soil, like much of the agricultural land in the Dry Corridor and other parts of the world, soils have lost this function, and the rainwater runs off, it's not captured, it's not stored, and the resulting, the crops grown in that soil are much more susceptible to periods without rain, and there's overall less water availability. When soil and water resources are degraded, agricultural productivity is low, the families are susceptible to climate shocks, and this keeps them in a cycle of emergency and recovery and poverty. The good news is that the ability of soils to capture and store rainwater can be restored with good agricultural practices that build soil organic matter, protect, and protect the soils from erosion. In Catholic Relief Services and in our programs, we call this Water Smart Agriculture Practices. In one of our programs from 2016 to 2020, we monitored a network of farms where we tested these practices with farmers on their farms and side by side plots comparing the water smart agriculture practices with conventional practices. Within that period, a very severe drought in 2018 hit. It affected the whole region and we found that these soils during a very severe drought could store up to 26 percent more moisture during this drought period. And on average yields were 39 percent higher. In a drought year, this can make the difference between a family producing enough food to still meet their household needs or being in an emergency situation and having to rely on food aid. And also, we found it in good years, yields were also much higher because of these good management practices. Meaning that farmers could produce and sell more surplus and improve their income savings. And this also contributes to greater overall resilience. And just to note also that these practices also sequester more carbon in agricultural systems, which also has climate mitigation impacts. Now this alone, soil management alone, is not going to bring farmers out of poverty. We need to build on this foundation of good natural resource management with market access, diversification with more lucrative crops access to financing and, of course, increasing opportunities for women and youth. But all this needs to be built on this foundation of restoring soil and water resources so that we can be successful with these other types of development interventions. We're working to scale these practices in the Dry Corridor by working with a network of partners, including other local NGOs, government agencies. And one of the main limitations is that farmers have is gaining access to any type of agricultural extension services. So, we're really working to strengthen local extension. We're using a hybrid model that combines field training with digital extension tools and radio for mass communication to reach more people. And we know from some of our work and some of the work I'm doing with Sarah and Ana to look at the adoption of these practices, that when farmers do have access to extension services and training, they are in fact applying and adopting the practices. Sarah - Thank you, Marie, for providing the detail about some of the programs that you're seeing and that the evidence, these are evidence-based practices that are actually making a difference for the farmers that you are working with. I want to turn to Ana now and shift the conversation just a little bit. You know, Marie was laying out potential ways to turn things around and ways that life could become better for farmers. But what do you see as some of the consequences of inaction if we don't keep on with these programs and if programs are not scaled up to help smallholder farmers and others in the region. What do you think will be the consequences of that for poverty and food security in Central America? Ana - Sarah, that's a great question. Again, it's hard to give an exact answer on what would be the exact results of this. But there was this one thing that popped into my mind immediately, which is an accelerated flow of people migrating both within the region and towards the U.S. as well. Because people are seeking to escape these harsh living conditions, right? So, food insecurity will get worse, particularly in susceptible areas like the Dry Corridor where farmers are already struggling with this climate unpredictability. Rural families will also face greater challenges in meeting their basic nutritional needs. potentially leading to malnutrition and health crises. And even in urban areas, high prices and food shortage will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable communities, exacerbating inequality. Now, in addition to that, failing to act now will result in a greater cost in the future. And I believe another concerning consequence of inaction is the displacement of young people. And here I must add that right now Honduras has a demographic difference and we're not taking advantage of it. Many young individuals migrate in search of better opportunities, leading to the so-called brain drain. Or they even leave the country without any further motivation to help the country while they're abroad. So, with insufficient opportunities for education, for employment, we are risking youth becoming trapped in cycles of poverty. We're losing people that are capable of helping the country, and this will undermine long term community development and stability. Norbert - Ana, thanks so much for providing that context for the need for action and what consequences of inaction might be. You know, this has been a challenging conversation. We've talked about a number of things that are going wrong or where some of the challenges are. I actually want to turn the conversation to see some ways forward. And so, what are some of the positive changes that can take place? And, you know, Catholic Relief Services is doing some really important work. And I want to hear more about that. But I also want to hear about it in the context of what could happen if policy makers, government officials or decision makers in the international development institutions, if they changed policy or created new opportunities. What would you say are still some really pressing needs and where would you focus money and efforts to get the biggest impact or hope for the most people? Marie? Let's start with you. Marie - I want to emphasize again just the importance of investing in land and soil restoration as a foundation, as a strategy to build climate resilience. Now, we really need programs that are also creating economic opportunities and developing markets for farmers, but this needs to be linked with land restoration initiatives in order to ensure resilience and the sustainability of these activities. You know, when land and soil is restored, these practices aren't just implemented, and they're not just implemented at the farm level, but like over whole landscapes. This improves productivity, but also water availability for households, urban areas, and other activities. So even programs that promote irrigation technologies as a solution for the Dry Corridor, which is really like a way forward also. These need to be linked with the land restoration activities because this water needs to come from somewhere. So, we need to ensure that we're protecting our water resources and ensuring the availability for these other activities, or else we won't be successful. And they also won't be sustainable. We also really need to invest more in capacity-building aspects of our development programming. Not just focusing on asset replacement, which is necessary, but we need a good balance of investing in capacity building. This means farmers, agronomists, agricultural institutes to strengthen the extension systems and improving access to information around soil and climate, for improved decision making and management of these resources in order to also take action to reduce overall risk and climate risk in the area. So really building the capacity in the management practices that can in the long term reduce dependencies on external aid. Norbert - Ana, what about you? Ana- I think Marie summed up everything very well. But if I had to rephrase what she said in my own words, I would focus a lot on infrastructure development. Both physical and digital. This is essential. Investing in better roads, market access, but also digital connectivity would enable the population of farmers and entrepreneurs to reach bigger markets, fostering economic growth and development. And I'll also include improvements to infrastructure to be climate resilient and friendly to the environment. And going along to what she said about capacity development, I would also give focus on improving productive skills. Many companies in the region and especially in Honduras highlight the limited ability of the workforce to generate high value opportunities as a major constraint. So, concrete advances in competitiveness and innovation are needed in this sense. And I would wrap this wish list saying that for any policy to be considered if you want to talk to them to any government official or international organization, there has to be more focus and importance on inclusive policies. They have to engage local communities, they have to engage women, they have to engage youth in decision making processes. Basically, we want to ensure that these groups have voice in policy development. Sarah - Great. Thanks Ana. I want to, you know, turn this attention now to thinking about research. So, Duke is an institution where research is one of our primary functions. And thinking broadly about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security, where do you see the biggest need for additional research? And maybe to think about in another way which research questions if they were answered could be transformative? And how might academic research and researchers partner with organizations like Catholic Relief Services and others doing work in the field in order to answer some of these questions about practical applications that could help on the ground? And Ana, let's begin with you. Ana - Thank you for your question, Sarah. I would say our work with Catholic Relief Services has given us a lot of ideas on how we can improve in this sense. For instance, we need to understand how different technologies and practices performed in diverse kinds of conditions are crucial. What factors influence farmers' adoption of one technology more than another, considering the heterogeneity of each farmer and each living condition. But I would also be interested in exploring how climate change impacts household dynamics and whether there is a shift in roles. Men and women, right? If there is an increase in women empowerment within the agricultural context once they're exposed to these new technologies. How they make the decision on what to eat, how much to eat, what to produce, what not to produce. And I would say also, and this is my Santa wish list of the things I want to research about as well is understanding their desire to migrate even under these improved conditions. Like even though we're giving them this technology, it's like what is actually keeping these farmers that we are helping stay and keep doing or producing what they're doing in involving improving with time. Sarah - Marie, what about you? Marie - Yes, so from the development organization perspective, collaborations with academic institutes can really provide an opportunity for us to go beyond the scope of the kind of monitoring and learning that we build into our development projects. And bring in different levels of expertise, and research methods. So definitely something that can be beneficial for our programming. I see two main areas that require more research and where, you know, collaborating with academic organizations or institutes could be, could be a benefit. The first is really around the whole biophysical type research on agricultural systems. Practices to accelerate land restoration, drought tolerant crops and varieties to improve resilience to climate and market shocks. And calibrating and applying different tools for decision making around soils and water resources. And then the other area is really research in development. So, what's the effectiveness of our different delivery methods of our programs, our extension models, and strategies for reaching and including women and youth. Understanding the scaling strategy and how we can reach more farmers. And also, translating these results and program impacts into policy recommendations. So really, research that informs our development strategy to ensure that programs are really leading to transformative, sustainable change and improvements in livelihoods and food security and resilience. Norbert - I really do appreciate hearing this. As a researcher, it's, it's so easy to get, sort of, how do I get the next paper in a journal. But what you're talking about are research questions that really move the development efforts forward. That are, sort of, informed by what's happening on the ground to make sure that the work that you all are doing is the work that leads to the best outcomes for the largest number of people. BIOS Marie-Soleil Turmel is the Scientific Advisor for the Catholic Relief Services Water Smart Agriculture Platform in the Latin America and Caribbean Region. She is an Agronomist/Soil Scientist with 15 years of experience conducting research and extension to promote soil health, productivity, and climate resilience of smallholder farming systems in Latin America. Before joining CRS, she worked as a Research Scientist for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Bioversity International. Marie holds a Ph.D. in Soil Science from McGill University and an M.Sc. in Agronomy from the University of Manitoba.   Ana Andino is a PhD student in Public Policy with a concentration in Economics at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. Prior to joining Duke, Ana worked on development issues in Honduras with the Inter-American Development Bank and Honduran Ministry of Finance. She is now an integral part of the Duke team collaborating with Catholic Relief Services. Her research interests are in political economy, climate migration, food insecurity, and international development. She holds a Master of Science in local economic development from the London School of Economics. 

Duke professor William A. (Sandy) Darity joins host Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, to discuss his research on the racial wealth gap and its historical roots. They examine the implications of various policy proposals, including reparations and baby bonds, and how these policies might address the persistent disparities between Black and white households. This episode is part of our ongoing series of policy-focused conversations related to the 2024 election

In this episode we will explore a policy idea that Republicans and Democrats seem to agree upon: expanding the Child Tax Credit. Duke professors Anna Gassman-Pines and Lisa Gennetian join host Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke, to discuss their recent op-ed, "Cash Alone Won't Relieve ‘Surviving' American Families." They delve into the history of the Child Tax Credit and its beneficial yet incomplete impact on working-class American families. The episode is the first in a series of policy-focused conversations related to the 2024 election. Also: welcome to our new host, Manoj Mohanan, interim Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

On this week's episode of Tying It Together with Tim Boyum, Tim goes back to school, visiting with Duke University professor Phillip Napoli about the challenges regulating artificial intelligence and the election. Even if regulations are put in place to stop the spread of misinformation, would they be effective? Napoli is the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy, Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy, and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research for the Sanford School. 

On March 20, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans' Data From Foreign Adversaries Act. The House bill was passed by the Senate on April 23 as part of the larger foreign aid package, which President Biden signed into law on April 24. Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Justin Sherman, Senior Fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, to talk about the benefits and limits of the new legislation, now law. They talked about the path that led to the bill's passage in both the House and Senate, similarities and differences between this new legislation and a recent Executive Order focusing on the preventing the sale of American's bulk sensitive personal data, and some ways the new law could be improved. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Dawn Boender, an OB/GYN turned reproductive behavioral health fellow, joins Sarah and Whitney to unravel the mystery of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and how it can turn the tides of emotion for women worldwide. From lifestyle tweaks to the potential of nutritional supplements and the transformative power of therapy, Dr. Dawn paints a vivid picture of the challenges women face when their mental well-being is intertwined with the menstrual cycle. Her compassionate advice offers solace to listeners and empowers them with knowledge and tactics to face PMDD head-on.About Dr. Dawn Boender:Dr. Dawn Boender is a fellow in the Women's Reproductive Behavioral Health Division at The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Dr. Boender is a board certified OB/GYN. She attended medical school at Sanford School of Medicine in South Dakota, and completed OB/GYN residency through the University of Kansas (KU) Wichita. Her professional interests include treatment of mood and anxiety disorders that are affected by hormonal changes, including the perinatal, menstrual, and perimenopausal time periods. Outside of work she can be found spending time with her husband and four children.Follow Previa Alliance!Previa Alliance (@previa.alliance) • Instagram photos and videosPrevia Alliance Podcast (@previapodcast) • Instagram photos and videosKeep the questions coming by sending them to info@previaalliance.com or DM us on Instagram!

On Feb. 13, Senator Ron Wyden released a letter documenting an investigation his office has been conducting into the activities of Near Intelligence Inc., a data broker that allegedly enabled an anti-abortion organization to target anti-abortion messaging and ads to people visiting 600 Planned Parenthood clinics across the United States. Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Justin Sherman, CEO of Global Cyber Strategies and a Senior Fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, to discuss this investigation. They talked about the various players in the data broker ecosystem that enable these invasive practices, the lack of federal legislation governing and preventing these activities, and what actions the FTC might be able to take against Near Intelligence Inc. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement with location data broker X-Mode Social. X-Mode collects over 10 billion location data points from all over the world every day, and sells it to clients in a range of industries, like advertisers, consulting firms, and private government contractors. The FTC argued that the data broker was conducting unfair business practices, including selling people's sensitive location data.To discuss the FTC settlement and its implications, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Justin Sherman, Founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies and a Senior Fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. They talked about the FTC's groundbreaking decision to list sensitive locations about which X-Mode cannot sell data, the likelihood that we will see further FTC action against data brokers, and the persistent need for comprehensive privacy legislation to better address harms.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On November 6, researchers at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy issued a report on “Data Brokers and the Sale of Data on U.S. Military Personnel” that illuminates the national security risks arising from the sale of these data. Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down with the three of the report's authors: Justin Sherman, a Senior Fellow at the Sanford School of Public Policy who leads its data brokerage research project; Hayley Barton, a Master of Public Policy and Master of Business Administration student at Duke University and a former research assistant on Duke's data brokerage research project; and Brady Allen Kruse, a Master of Public Policy student at Duke University and a research assistant on Duke's data brokerage research project.They talked about the kinds of data that data brokers collect and sell about U.S. military personnel, the national security risks created by these practices, and the gaps in the law that enable this activity. They also discussed policy recommendations for the U.S. federal government to address the risks associated with data brokerage and the sale of data on former and active-duty U.S. military personnel.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the debate about data privacy and harms, one issue has not received adequate attention by the press or in policy conversations relative to the severity and volume of harm: the link between publicly available information and stalking and gendered violence. To discuss how “people search” data brokers use public information and contribute to stalking and abuse, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, Eugenia Lostri, sat down with Justin Sherman who recently wrote a Lawfare article on the topic. Justin is the Founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies and a Senior Fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. They talked about the publicly available information carve-outs, the systemic nature of the problem, and how policymakers should step in.Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of gendered violence and stalking. Listener discretion is advised.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remember when President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok? He called attention to the risk that American users’ data could fall into the hands of Chinese authorities who have ties to the app’s owners. A judge blocked the ban, but even if he hadn’t, experts say so much of our personal information is available to buy from run-of-the-mill data brokers. That includes information on Americans serving in the military, which can have big consequences for national security. Marketplace's Lily Jamali spoke to Justin Sherman, senior fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, about a new study he led in which his team tried buying just that kind of data.

The data broker industry and its role in the digital economy is under scrutiny from Congress. Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Justin Sherman, the Founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies and a Senior Fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, to discuss the data broker ecosystem and the recent article he published in Lawfare about two bills from a previous congress that seek to give consumers more control over the information that data brokers collect and sell about them. They talked about some of the scams and other harms caused by data brokers, the regulatory approaches taken by each bill, and whether federal legislation regulating data brokers will get passed.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.