It was great chatting with ‪@talknormal.co.uk‬ for the
‪VoxDevTalks podcast about our recent RCT testing an intervention to reduce bias in family planning care @voxdev.bsky.social‬

With Corrina Moucheraud, Manisha Shah, Allie Wollum, ‪@willafriedman.bsky.social‬, and Will Dow

🚨New Paper Alert🚨 In this multi-country RCT just out in
the Economic Journal we show that bias towards youth in family planning care reduces with a multifaceted intervention, and that this improves quality of fp care.

Started this one when Obama was president!

academic.oup.com/ej/advance-a...

🚨New Article: The impact of tropical cyclone exposure on infant mortality in low- and middle-income countries🚨

Exposure to cyclones during pregnancy or the first year of life increases infant mortality by 11% (!!!) on average in low-and middle-income countries.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#AGW
#ExtremeEvents
#climatejustice

Same authors:

"On average, exposure to tropical cyclones in utero or in the first year of life led to 4.4 additional infant deaths per 1000 live births. [...] This effect was mainly driven by excess mortality in Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, and Haiti".

Our new @pnas.org paper finds exposure to a tropical cyclone around the time of primary school enrollment reduces the likelihood of ever attending school. Led by excellent Stanford postdoc Renzhi Jing. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨Development Economists!🚨Do you use Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS Program) data, which had been supported by USAID? IPUMS ( @ipums.bsky.social ) and the UN Statistics Division have a survey for you. I just filled it out. You can too. #econsky

"We are Jewish faculty, scholars, and students at U.S. universities — representative of the community that this administration purports to be protecting from antisemitism on
campuses. Let us be clear: These actions do not protect us."

forms.gle/prnRbq69a6YN...

The ABA rejects efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession. Read full message: www.americanbar.org/news/abanews...

For 40 years the Demographic and Health Surveys have been essential for tracking population health in dozens of countries with limited resources and weak health information systems.

The torrent of thoughtless, harmful decision making is dizzying.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/h...

So - I've actually led Ebola outbreak response at USAID.

This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they're bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC.

What's left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically.

From independent @USAID sources, >800 contracts and awards are being terminated en masse – with the procurement team subject to hourly checks on speed of executing terminations. The pace has exceeded the ability to confirm whether lifesaving assistance or any Congressional mandate is affected.

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

The NIH move to cut funding for “indirects” landed a few hours ago and my phone hasn’t stopped buzzing with messages from researchers, scientific leaders and others warning of dire consequences for academia and the biomedical enterprise.

Here’s a txt from someone who personally funds some research:

US taxpayers supported that work for generations. They have a right to at least access information about it.

There is no policy stance, no party preference, that could justify this numb act of extreme institutional vandalism.

Give the American people our damn information back. It is ours.

What can you do about the assault on USAID?

Share this far and wide. Do your part! Please do retweet 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Curious how many mothers and children worldwide will die from slashing USAID programs?

We'll never know, because we're gonna stop counting.

The DHS has been the cornerstone for my research on global child mortality for over a decade. Its value is immeasurable. Stopping it would seriously limit our understanding of health around the world.

Here is the White House’s own justification for its sudden evisceration of the entire foreign aid agency worldwide, in secret on a Saturday night.

It’s a quickie list of a few ragebait links to sites like Breitbart. They concern minuscule sums of money that could be addressed with trivial reforms.

If it's true that future collection of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data "will cease," this would be a staggering loss to the global community. 1/6

www.science.org/content/arti...

You know I am in the exact same boat! But we made it across the finish line, through the week, and submitted that R&R!

@belindaarch.bsky.social and I have written a letter from economists regarding PEPFAR. Please sign and share with your network. Only economist signatures right now (for more focused impact). Once signed, we will share with the administration, congress, + the media. #econsky
forms.gle/C5roVX5sFF14...