Household Responses Research Articles

Household contact antigen-specific TNF and IL-2 T-cell responses and impact of index case Mycobacterium tuberculosis aerosolization and HIV Co-infection.

Exposure to pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) culminates in heterogeneous outcomes, including variation in Mtb antigen-specific interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) T-cell responses. IFN-γ-independent cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin (IL-2), offer potential diagnostic improvements and insights into pathogenesis. We hypothesized that ESAT6/CFP10 TNF and IL-2 responses improve Mtb infection detection among exposed household contacts (HHCs) and are associated with index case Mtb aerosolization (i.e., cough aerosol culture positive for Mtb growth, CAC+]) and HIV co-infection. We enrolled individuals with PTB and their HHCs in a longitudinal study in Nairobi, Kenya. We measured TNF and IL-2 in HHCs from QuantiFERON-TB Plus TB1 tube supernatants. An additional 9.2% (25) HHCs beyond the 58.6% (129) with an IFN-γ response demonstrated an antigen-specific increase in IL-2 and TNF. HHCs of CAC + participants were more likely to have positive IL-2 (84.6% vs. 53.8%, p = 0.02) and IFN-γ (88.0% vs. 54.9%, p = 0.01), but not TNF responses, compared to CAC-negative individuals. While HIV co-infection in the index was negatively associated with IFN-γ responses in HHCs (35.7% vs. 62.3%, p = 0.03), IL-2 and TNF responses did not differ. Antigen-specific ESAT6/CFP10 IL-2 and TNF may increase rates of Mtb infection detection and provide insights into Mtb transmission and pathogenesis.

Local perceptions of marine conservation aquaculture for the restoration of native Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in Downeast, Maine

The entities responsible for the management of the endangered Gulf of Maine Distinct Population Segment of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) have partnered with a commercial aquaculture company to apply a novel conservation aquaculture program. This effort marks a major shift in management and has garnered mixed public reactions. Recent expansion of aquaculture in Maine has been a point of controversy as people and systems grapple with the social, environmental, and legal aspects of this burgeoning industry. Still, the use of aquaculture for conservation has shown some promise. In 2021, a questionnaire was administered to 850 households (response rate 27 %) in Maine via the Drop-off and Pick-up method. We examined differences and similarities in attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge about Atlantic salmon, hatcheries, and aquaculture between property owners in the town where the proposed net pens would be located (Cutler; n=73), and those in neighboring towns (n=152). The Potential for Conflict Index (PCI2) was used to examine differences between the groups. Both groups held similar positive attitudes toward Atlantic salmon, endangered species conservation, freshwater hatcheries, and both commercial and conservation aquaculture. Both groups believe that “Atlantic salmon should be protected,” and that freshwater hatcheries and marine conservation aquaculture “should be used for conservation.” However, Cutler residents had less consensus and supported the use of freshwater hatcheries and marine conservation aquaculture less than other respondents. Community concerns have stalled efforts to move the project forward. Our research indicates there are several social concepts which may help to explain localized opposition to the project.

Wealth Taxation and Household Saving: Evidence from Assessment Discontinuities in Norway

Abstract Neither theory nor existing empirical evidence support the notion that wealth taxation reduces saving. Theoretically, the effect is ambiguous due to opposing income and substitution effects, and empirically, the effect may be masked by misreporting responses. Using geographic discontinuities in the Norwegian annual net-wealth tax and third-party-reported data on savings, I find that wealth taxation causes households to save more. Each additional NOK of wealth tax increases annual net financial saving by 3.76, implying that households increase saving enough to offset both current and future wealth taxes. This positive effect on saving is primarily financed by increases in labor earnings. These responses are the combination of small negative effects of increasing the marginal tax rates and larger positive effects of increasing average rates. My findings imply that income effects may dominate substitution effects in household responses to rate-of-return shocks, which has implications for both optimal taxation and macroeconomic modeling.

EXPRESS: Groceries or School Cafeterias: How Households Respond to School Nutrition Mandates

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) placed strict nutritional mandates on meals served at U.S. public schools. This policy offers a unique opportunity to study household response to a large, exogenous change in healthiness of food available to their children. Did more healthy school meals lead households to substitute towards them, and away from grocery food purchases? Which households were more responsive to the nutritional mandates? And was there any spillover effect on the nutritional quality of their grocery food purchases? We document a meaningful decrease in the quantity of grocery food in response to the HHFKA, and a small decrease in quality. Consistent with substitution towards school meals, more of the quantity decrease is attributable to items likely to be purchased for children and categories traditionally associated with breakfast and lunch (the meals served at school). The HHFKA attracted even greater participation from financially and time constrained households for whom school meals were already important and were now coupled with the additional benefit of healthier food. These findings have important implications for policy makers and researchers, but also for food manufacturers and retailers.

Household demand for community- and rooftop-solar electricity: conceptual and numerical assessments

ABSTRACT This paper characterizes the trade-offs faced by households in deciding how much solar power to produce privately on their rooftops or to subscribe to in a community solar project (or, ‘green electricity plan’), and how these trade-offs are influenced by a regulator's pricing scheme. We characterize a model where representative households choose their rooftop and community-solar consumption levels and respond to the regulator's scheme. Within the model's conceptual and numerical frameworks, we derive a suite of household comparative static effects and explore four key implications pertinent to the growth of rooftop and community solar within a given community: (1) the extent to which the regulator must adjust its pricing scheme to achieve a community-wide solar electricity standard, (2) the potential of a ‘death spiral’ experienced by the regulator, (3) the effect of a ‘solar tax’ levied by the regulator on the production of solar electricity by rooftop-solar households, and (4) adoption of ‘behind-the-meter’ battery storage by rooftop-solar households. We obtain both analytical and numerical results for each of these implications, enabling us to better understand the underlying conditions governing a representative household's responses to incentives provided by a regulator, and the social implications of these responses.

It’s not just the farm: enterprise and household responses to the pandemic by North Carolina niche meat producers

It’s not just the farm: enterprise and household responses to the pandemic by North Carolina niche meat producers

News Selection and Household Inflation Expectations

We examine the impact of systematic media reporting on household inflation expectations, focusing on how selective news coverage influences household responses to inflation news. In a model where monitoring all economic developments is costly, households will account for news selection when forming inflation expectations. The model implies an asymmetry: news about high inflation influences inflation expectations more than news about low inflation. Using micro panel data, we find support for this hypothesis. Exposure to news about higher prices increases household inflation expectations by approximately 0.4 percentage point, whereas exposure to news about lower prices has no discernible effect.

What drives household protective actions in an industrial crisis? Insights from the East Palestine train derailment

Complex industrial disasters illustrate the challenges of underdeveloped public warning systems. Unlike most natural disasters, quickly identifying hazardous materials and assessing their threats is crucial for developing protective action recommendations (PARs) that guide household response in industrial crises. The 2023 East Palestine, Ohio (USA) train derailment, chemical spill, and fires revealed that gaps in rapidly identifying hazardous materials, and the threats they present, can severely impact the public warning system. As the crisis unfolded, responding agencies left crucial questions unanswered, leaving community members uncertain about their safety, the extent of environmental contamination, and what protective actions to take. It is imperative to study the drivers of household protective actions in the absence of a developed warning system and well-established PARS. To achieve this, we conducted a community survey in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia (n = 259) in response to the East Palestine crisis. We used multivariate logistic regressions to identify statistically significant explanatory factors that predict protective action response. Our findings reveal gaps in response, where challenges identifying and communicating hazards created environmental justice concerns. We provide policy recommendations to strengthen hazard identification and outline further work to include equity as a pillar of environmental disaster response.

Consumption responses to sweetened beverage taxes by household income in four U.S. cities.

Taxes on sweetened beverages have become an important policy response to growing obesity rates and the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the U.S. and other nations. Since 2015, eight U.S. cities have implemented these taxes, but so far direct evidence of their impacts on household purchasing behavior is scarce. Of particular interest to many researchers and policy makers is the response of lower-income consumers to these taxes, both because they have higher sweetened beverage consumption on average and because of concerns that sweetened beverage taxes are regressive. This project investigates the income-stratified household response to SSB taxes using a data set containing the purchasing behavior of approximately 400 households in the cities of Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, and Philadelphia, all of which have recently introduced beverage taxes. Using doubly-robust estimation of dynamic and heterogeneous treatment effects relative to a propensity-matched set of households in three comparison cities, we find that households in taxed cities experience increased prices and reduce their purchases of those beverages, with no evidence of cross-border shopping. We further find differential tax impacts by income level, with lower-income households (households with income <200% of the federal poverty line for their size) reducing their purchases of taxed beverages by nearly 50% - more than double the 18% reduction found in higher-income households (households with income >400% of the federal poverty line for their size). Our finding that lower-income households decrease their consumption more than twice as much as higher-income households suggests that these taxes may reduce health disparities and promote population health.

The effect of parental health shocks on living arrangements and employment.

This study investigates the impacts of health shocks among older individuals on the dynamics of their living arrangements in Europe and the United States. Exploiting unpredicted health shocks, we use an event-study difference-in-differences approach to demonstrate that health shocks increase difficulties with activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living, thereby increasing the need for care. Our findings indicate that health shocks raise the probability of nursing home residency and co-residence with adult children by 0.7 and 1.4 percentage points in Europe, and by 2.1 and 1.8 percentage points in the U.S., respectively. Further analyses reveal that more generous long-term care public policies correlate with a higher probability of nursing home residency and a lower probability of co-residing with adult children, highlighting the significant role of public policies in household responses to health shocks. Additionally, we find that health shocks negatively impact adult children's labor supply, particularly in the U.S.

Expanding a cohort of children who had a response to the Household Food Security Survey Module: A novel approach using linked ICES administrative data

ObjectiveThe Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) is a national cross-sectional survey, rich with household, health-related measures. Through linkage with administrative health services data, we aimed to investigate the relationship between household food-insecurity in childhood, and incident health conditions (asthma and diabetes). Linking mothers with children and children with siblings, provided a unique opportunity to expand our child cohort. ApproachWe linked five cycles of the CCHS with ICES administrative databases, to conduct longitudinal cohort studies of children &lt;18 years who had a household response to the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM). Three approaches were used to increase our sample of children: we included children who personally completed the HFSSM; the children of mothers who completed the HFSSM (via a unique database linking mothers with biological children); and the siblings of children who completed the HFSSM. We examined the characteristics of children from food secure and insecure households, accounting for the clustering of children living within the same home. In addition, we investigated the incidence of health outcomes using marginal time-to-event regression analysis to adjust for clinical and socio-economic confounders. Results and ConclusionsUsing novel linkages and multiple data sources we were able to study a large cohort of children (20,023 children whose mothers completed the HFSSM, 5,199 siblings of child respondents, 8,820 children who personally responded to the survey). This creative approach built capacity to investigate household-level determinants of health in a large cohort of Canadian children.

Behavioral Efficiency and Residential Electricity Consumption: A Microdata Study

Sustainability requires that policy makers be able to use market signals to implement energy and environmental policy and that energy consumers respond rationally to these signals. Therefore, it is essential to understand how consumers’ responses to market signals are formed. We propose a new model to measure behavioral efficiency in residential electricity consumption derived from the individual householder indirect utility function. This leads to a pair of simultaneous stochastic demand frontiers for electricity consumption (kWh) and power demand (kVA). Each is a function of power demand (standing) charges and energy demand (running) charges together with the net income after demand charges, the stock of appliances and household characteristics. We estimate the model using two samples of household responses, each of which represents around one percent of the total national population available, and we also pool these samples using pseudo-panel data procedures. We demonstrate how the resulting elasticity and efficiency estimates are related to the theory of behavioral agents from recent developments in behavioral economics. These developments also use the individual indirect utility function to derive propositions based on internality and hyperbolic discounting. The econometric estimates permit the calibration of the individual welfare effects of policy initiatives using carbon tax and price incentives with behavioral agents.

The Real Effects of Credit Supply Shocks: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

AbstractWhat role do credit supply shocks (CSS) play in macroeconomic dynamics in emerging economies? We exploit Russia's setting, including the 2014 Western sanctions, and show that a negative CSS normalized to 0.5 p.p. increase in the lending rate leads to a decrease of 2 p.p. in the output growth rate, 1.5 p.p. in the consumption growth rate and 5 p.p. in the investment growth rate within a quarter. The heterogeneity of the household and firm responses to CSS is driven by debt‐to‐income and leverage ratios, with indebted poorer households and larger firms being more sensitive to fluctuations in credit conditions.

Time-varying rates prompt different responses as a function of home energy efficiency

Spiking global energy prices make it all the more important to understand the distributional effects of commonly used energy transition policies such as financially-based demand management. We examine how building energy efficiency impacts the effect of time-of-use rates; peak prices could differently affect curtailment behaviour and bills in homes that require more continual energy use for comfort. Using a sample of 3,145 households in the Australian Capital Territory with panel data for up to five years, we use two-way fixed effects to estimate the effect of switching to a time-of-use (TOU) rate on household electricity use and bills, allowing for heterogeneous effects as a function of building Energy Efficiency Rating (EER). Analyses indicate that low-EER households dependent on electricity for heating curtail use when on TOU rates, while high-EER households do not. This does not appear to financially disadvantage low-EER households, but may impact comfort. Our findings suggest that the household responses to TOU rates can differ as a function of building energy efficiency for those households that are reliant on electricity for heating. This has implications for TOU rate design and demand management policies, particularly in the context of policies for electrification.

A High‐Performance Coupled Human And Natural Systems (CHANS) Model for Flood Risk Assessment and Reduction

AbstractIn recent years, flood risk in urban areas has been rapidly increasing due to unsustainable urban development, changes of hydrological processes and frequent occurrence of extreme weather events. Flood risk assessment should realistically take into account the complex interactions between human and natural systems to better inform risk management and improve resilience. In this study, we propose a novel Coupled Human And Natural Systems (CHANS) modeling framework to capture the intricate interactive human behaviors and flooding process at a high spatial resolution. The new CHANS modeling framework integrates a high‐performance hydrodynamic model with an agent‐based model to simulate the complex responses of individual households to the evolving flood conditions, leveraging the computing power of graphics processing units (GPUs) to achieve real‐time simulation. The framework is applied to reproduce the 2015 Desmond flood in the 2,500 km2 Eden Catchment in England, demonstrating its ability to predict interactive flood‐human dynamics and assess flood impact at the household‐level. The study also further explores the effectiveness of different flood risk management strategies, including the provision of early warning and distribution of sandbags, in mitigating flood impact. The new CHANS model potentially provides a useful tool for understanding short‐term human behaviors and their impact on flood risk during a flood event, which is important for the development of effective disaster risk management plans.

Analysis of the transmission of carbon taxes using a multi-sector DSGE

Carbon tax has attracted increasing attention as a means of curbing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While the implementation of carbon taxes necessarily involves consideration of the impact across different sectors and different periods, most existing studies use models which do not provide a detailed account of either sectoral interaction or the dynamic nature of the responses of households and firms. To fill this gap, we construct a New Keynesian multi-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with an input–output structure of intermediate inputs and an investment network calibrated to Japan’s economy. We study the impact over time of carbon tax on different sectors, on aggregate GDP, and on GHG emissions. We then consider the long-term implications through a steady-state analysis, and the short- to medium-term implications by a simulation from 2020 to 2050, under various scenarios with different tax base compositions and announcement timings. We show that the impact on the trade-off between output and GHG emissions is importantly affected by inter-sectoral interactions among firms, and by the intertemporal decisions of households and firms. For example, an orderly implementation of carbon tax may mitigate a decline in value added of the most affected industry and the aggregate economy in 2050 by about 7% and 2% points, respectively, and contain an increase in the stock of GHG in 2050 by 3% points compared with the case of disorderly implementation. Also, keeping GHG emissions constant, GDP in 2050 can vary by 0.5% points depending on tax sources.

Effects of Removing Energy Subsidies and Implementing Carbon Taxes on Urban, Rural and Gender Welfare: Evidence from Mexico

The demand for different energy goods and services is a fundamental component in a country’s economic structure for development. Understanding it is vital in designing economic policies, such as taxes, that can improve the welfare of the population. A comprehension of the distributional effects of elasticities and the application of them to simulate household responses to price changes, as well as a calculation of the welfare impacts on poor and rich households in Mexico, should inform policy design. This paper uses the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH) from 1996 to 2018 to estimate the demand of Mexican households for fuels, specifically electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, and gasoline. A Quasi Ideal Quadratic Demand System (QUAIDS) is employed to analyse the effects of removing energy subsidies and introducing a carbon tax. The results indicate that welfare losses would be regressive concerning electricity price increases, while changes in gasoline prices would be progressive. Redistributing the tax revenues accrued by removing energy subsidies and imposing the carbon tax would have more progressive effects on the economy of Mexican households, with welfare gains of up to 350% for the poorest households in the case of electricity consumption taxes.

Adaptive Capacity of Fishermen in Facing Tidal Floods with Vulnerability to Viability (V2V) Approach

Tambakrejo’s small-scale fishing households have low socio-economic capabilities and must face the problem of tidal flooding. Therefore, this research has the following objectives: 1) To identify the vulnerability of fishing households in Tambakrejo Fishermen Village to social-ecological changes due to tidal flooding. 2) To investigate the adaptive responses of fishermen households in facing socio-ecological changes due to tidal flooding. This research uses primary data by using semi-structured interviews. The number of respondents in the study was 60, determined by the snowball sampling technique. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. The results of the research show that the community is vulnerable to both natural and institutional aspects. Adaptive responses shape community resilience through increased collaboration capacity and community learning capacity. This research contributes to the government's ability to distribute assistance to the community, especially fishing households affected by tidal flooding.

Family characteristics and childcare patterns associated with early social functioning in cancer-bereaved parents.

Bereaved parents experience life-long grief after the death of their child from cancer. Parents who can integrate their grief and maintain their social functioning early in bereavement, even in the setting of concurrent psychosocial distress, have improved outcomes. Identifying the factors associated with bereaved parents' early social functioning can guide future supportive interventions. The authors surveyed parents of children who died from cancer at two large centers 6-24 months after death, assessing bereavement experiences using validated and pilot tested tools. Univariable and multivariable logistical regression models were used to examine which family and child demographic, treatment, and end-of-life (EOL) factors were associated with maintained parental social functioning (T scores ≥40 on the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Ability to Participate in Social Roles and Activities-Short Form questionnaire). One hundred twenty-eight parents of 88 children participated (38% household response rate); most parents identified as female (63%) and White (88%). Parents' median age was 47 years (interquartile range, 10 years); and the median time from the child's death to survey completion was 13 months (interquartile range, 10 months). In multivariate modeling, parents without household material hardship and those who felt prepared for EOL circumstances had increased odds of maintained social functioning (odds ratio, 4.7 [95% confidence interval, 1.6-13.7; p<.004] and 5.5 [95% confidence interval, 1.9-15.9; p<.002], respectively). Parents who felt prepared for their child's EOL and those without household material hardship were more likely to have maintained social functioning in the first 2 years after their child's death. Interventions targeting EOL preparedness and alleviating household material hardship may improve bereavement outcomes.

An investigation into risk governance processes to encourage behaviour change to reduce disaster risk: A case study of Barbados

Organizations involved in the reduction of risk, emanating from hazardous events, play an important role in influencing the responses of households to reduce disaster risk either by the enforcement of regulations or by encouraging the adoption of best practices. One way this can be done is by examining ways to enhance knowledge exchange, better understanding of household safety behaviours and improved perceptions of risk. Further, micro-level research approaches are needed to examine how organizations involved in risk reduction and households interact in order to understand the contributing factors that hamper effective decision making and actions to reduce disaster risk in small island developing states (SIDS) of the Caribbean.This study investigates how organization's disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches have incorporated risk perception, safety behaviours, and knowledge into their internal DRR plans. This case study took place in Barbados, a SIDS in the Caribbean. Qualitative data were collected from semi-structured informant interviews (n = 33). Findings of the key stakeholder interviews revealed that most organizations lacked systematic approaches to engage households and lacked clear impact pathways in the theory of change and did not strategically target identified vulnerable population subgroups for the desired behavioural change. There was a noted gap in understanding how risk perception influences and shapes risk and safety behaviours at the household level. Based on the results of this research strategies employed to reduce risk and build resilience can include key ways to integrate how the use of safety culture, and risk perception can enhance knowledge exchange for the development and improvement of place-specific DRR strategies.