The Measure of Everyday Life

Local public health workers help communities all over the country. Who helps them do their work? On this episode, we talk with two people who have spent time supporting public health in Western North Carolina with compelling new innovations to improve communication about local health: Adrienne Ammerman, founder of Arclet, and  Brandon Romstadt of the WNC Health Network. 

How should we support people facing mental health challenges? T he Ad Council -- the same organization which introduced us to Smokey Bear over 80 years ago -- has some answers with their latest evidence-based campaign: Love, Your Mind. On this episode, we talk with Catherine Chao, Vice President of Strategy and Evaluation at the Ad Council. 

Artificial intelligence tools have been in the headlines and yet we are still learning who opts to use such tools and why. On this episode, we talk with David Playfoot of Swansea University in the United Kingdom about his work on student use of AI tools.

As online content evolves, you might assume teenagers are flourishing on the Internet while older Americans shake their head in confusion, but the reality might surprise you. On this episode, we  talk with Amanda Lenhart of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop about adolescents and how they think about our lives online.

The growth of online courses has been an important part of the story of education in the United States in the past decade, but we need more evidence of the ways our shift online may affect our sense of connection with others. On this episode, we talk with Daniela Castellanos-Reyes of North Carolina State University about her work to understand student connections online. 

On this episode, Marieta Pehlivanova of the University of Virginia returns to the show to discuss her neurological perception research, including the adult experiences of people who as children reported memories of what some people refer to as a past life.

Helping children make friends with a wide range of people can benefit us all. On this episode, we talk with Melanie Killen of the University of Maryland, a psychology professor who has studied ways to reduce social exclusion and improve connections between people. 

What do Americans eat? What do we know about their overall health? Answering questions like those requires measurement on a national scale. For decades, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has continuously fielded its National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. On this episode, we talk with  Tony Nguyen, Chief Medical Officer for the project.

Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution sets an age limit for people running for various offices but we do not have an upper age limit. What do Americans think about aging and civic life? On this episode, we talk with Yewande Addie of RTI International about her work on storytelling and public understanding. 

Crime rates in the United States are generally lower now than they were a few decades ago and yet researchers and criminal justice professionals continue to search for innovations to reduce rates of criminal offense. One approach which some advocates have proposed addresses mental health concerns. On this episode, we talk with Robert VerBruggen, Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, about the use of...

On this episode, we lift up the work of three researchers who are making a difference through their efforts to promote suicide prevention among Native American people: Ivette Rodriguez Borja, Rebecca Perry, and Monica Desjardins of RTI International. 

When we read about the devastating effects of weather-related disasters, we often focus on housing and infrastructure. Such situations also might affect our eating patterns. On this episode, we talk with Lindsey Taillie of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health about her work on food marketing, the ways in which climate change might exace...

When we hear stories about injuries from violence at the hands of other people or in the face of disasters, we often hear about acute physical injuries but there is more to the story in terms of mental health. How can we best support patients who have suffered trauma? On this episode, we talk with Douglas Zatzick of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washingt...

Although it is easy to scroll through social media applications to see posts from all over the world, it can be challenging to know what is real and what is artificial and to know about the mindset and wellbeing of people posting content. N ew tools can help us assess what gets posted online and to turn that into useful signals for interventions to help society. On this episode, we talk with Ana-M...

How exactly does language evolve and how do people shape it? On this episode, we talk with Molly Flaherty of Davidson College. She has studied the birth and evolution of a new language: Nicaraguan Sign Language. 

Why do our news headlines often focus on war and crime and  mortgage rates ? Do we spend too much time focused on transactional markets and not enough on our unconditional existence as part of humanity? On this episode, we talk with  Rob Faure Walker of University College London, author of Love and the Market : How to Recover from the Enlightenment and Survive the Current Crisis.

We have seen recent innovations in our efforts to detect medical conditions in infants through genetic screening, including a program called Early Check based in North Carolina. The service now provides parents in North Carolina a free scan and review of a baby's entire genetic blueprint to look for hundreds of conditions. On this episode, we talk about the initiative with researcher Heidi Cope of...

Each of us has a sense of our own identity. Sometimes, though, people make judgements about what another person's racial or ethnic identity is. How do people make those appraisals? On this episode, we talk with Raj Ghoshal of Elon University about his nationwide survey research.  

What happens to children who have been adopted from foster care as they become adults? On this episode, we talk with Rose Domanico and Heather Ringeisen of RTI International and Nancy Rolock of Case Western Reserve University about the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being Adoption Follow-Up Study and additional analysis funded by RTI International.

Although the threat of gun violence is common for some Americans, how exactly court officials, law enforcement professionals, and survivors each tend to talk about weapons is not something we often read about in news headlines. On this episode, we talk with two researchers who study how domestic violence survivors and law professionals talk about weapons and conflict: Allyson Corbo of RTI Internat...

What happens to a person's online data after they die is something we may not spend much time thinking about, and yet there is much potential for that data to echo into the future. On this episode, we talk with Dr. Carl Ohman of Uppsala University in Sweden, author of  The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care . 

Generating electrical power is vital for our current way of life and yet the process can have direct effects on human health. On this episode, we talk with Sarah Komisarow of Duke University and Emily Pakhtigian of Penn State University about their innovative research to assess the effects of power plants on human health. 

How can we improve our mental wellbeing by supporting our caregivers and healers? Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has many ideas which have come to her in part from her own remarkable life. Time magazine has called her a "Hero of Medicine." She's also an award-winning author. On this episode, we talk with her about her New Yorker Book of the Year, Fires in t...

Most people generally understand what friendship is and yet the roles it plays in our wellbeing have yet to be fully explored. On this episode, we talk with psychology researcher William Chopik of Michigan State University about new work on the value of friendship for health and what we can to do encourage better friendship in our lives.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges for many different people, but one of those groups whose story hasn't been sufficiently told yet is teachers. On this episode, we talk with Erin Thomsen and Erin Dunlop Velez of RTI International about their work to tell that story.