Research News

People of color in California face elevated health and economic risks in the COVID-19 pandemic, with less freedom to work from home and more anxiety over paying for necessities and medical care, reports a new poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS).

To inform the public during these uncertain times, newsrooms across the country have made pandemic coverage a priority. But the ever-changing and sometimes unverified nature of COVID-19 data being released has left journalists and researchers with challenges in providing accurate information to the public.

Our energy and water systems are inextricably linked. Climate change necessitates that we transition to carbon-free energy and also that we conserve water resources as they become simultaneously more in demand and less available. Policymakers, business leaders, and scientists seeking to address the urgency of climate change are increasingly looking to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to help meet global climate goals.

UC Berkeley psychologist Stephen Hinshaw has won two distinguished awards for his vast body of research, including his work on developmental psychopathology, the stigmatization of mental illness and longitudinal studies of girls and women with ADHD.

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages across the country, it has brought unprecedented strain on hospitals and clinics, from a shortage of testing and medical supplies to issues in access among rural and underserved populations. The disease has put a spotlight on some of these inequities, while also revealing holes in the healthcare delivery system that can have lasting side effects on patients and providers.

In the last twenty years, California’s 10-campus University of California system and 23-campus state university system have seen significant declines in financial support from the state’s politicians, a trend that will only become more worrisome as California responds to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn.

In the United States and around the globe, products produced by “dirty” or high-carbon-emitting industries are facing significantly lower import taxes than their cleaner counterparts, finds a new paperfrom the University of California, Berkeley.

Pressure is mounting to reopen the economy, and some locales are rushing to do so. Deciding how and when it’s safe for people to return to work, school, and public life is a complex topic that involves implementing widespread testing; accurate assessment of exposure risks; ensuring health care system capacity; putting in place procedures and routines to protect workers; setting guidelines for mass behavior changes; and restoring public trust. How can we go about making these decisions and getting plans in place?

California voters are deeply divided about the COVID-19 pandemic, with supporters of President Donald Trump more worried about the economy and less concerned they will infect others, according to a new poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS).

The streets are largely empty. People are secluded in their homes, forced to seek haven from a deadly virus. With shops, factories and offices closed, the economy is tottering. Voters arrive in protective masks to cast primary election ballots, while other primaries have been postponed or canceled. Protesters, meanwhile, gather at state capitols, demanding a return to normalcy — and some of them are armed.

COVID-19 has brought daily life to a halt, revealed fault lines of socioeconomic inequality and created a deep sense of uncertainty about the future. It is not unexpected, then, that some individuals are at risk of developing long-term reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chemist Dean Toste, biochemist James Hurley and astrophysicist Eliot Quataert are the latest University of California, Berkeley, faculty members elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a group that has provided policy guidance to the U.S. government since 1863.

Childhood vaccination may be a powerful tool in the fight against antimicrobial resistance in low- and middle-income countries, finds a new analysis led by researchers University of California, Berkeley.

Most graduating seniors expect to write a final thesis, or perhaps co-author a paper or present a poster or talk at an academic conference. By the time Paul Kӧttering graduates from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2021, he and his team hope to have launched a satellite.

As the United States and much of the world move toward relaxing shelter-in-place restrictions to let people move about more freely, public health experts hope to rely on antibody tests to determine who has been infected with the COVID-19 virus and may be immune — at least temporarily — and who is still susceptible.

In the third in a series of short videos, UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner talks about the benefits of practicing gratitude. Expressing appreciation is a key component of Keltner’s Science of Happiness course, which he has taught to inmates at San Quentin State Prison, among thousands of other students.