News by Subject Social & Behavior

What The Study Did: Health care workers in Canada expressed their sources of distress and concern during the COVID-19 pandemic on an online forum.

What The Study Did: This review and meta-analysis investigated whether patients with mental health disorders are at increased risk of COVID-19-related death.

Formal volunteering in later life is beneficial for both physical and psychological well-being. However, research has shown that older adults with key advantages, such as wealth, are more likely to volunteer and reap its benefits. In a new study appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, investigators found that lower-wealth volunteers may experience even greater health gains than higher-wealth volunteers.

People who trust science are more likely to believe and disseminate false claims containing scientific references than people who do not trust science, a study finds. Reminding people of the value of critical evaluation reduces belief in false claims, but reminding them of the value of trusting science does not.

Lonely, older adults are nearly twice as likely to use opioids to ease pain and two-and-a-half times more likely to use sedatives and anti-anxiety medications, putting themselves at risk for drug dependency, impaired attention, falls and other accidents, and further cognitive impairment, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco.

A new study from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania investigated the ways that institutions control who has access to Wi-Fi. The findings indicate that powerful institutions and privileged people use quality-of-life policing -- the report and/or arrest of individuals engaged in nonviolent offenses such as loitering, noise violations, and public intoxication -- to keep those with less privilege, including people of color, from accessing resources like the internet.