Research Briefing in 2022

Life expectancies diverged in 2021, approaching pre-pandemic levels in Western Europe and further worsening in Eastern Europe, USA and Chile. Life expectancy deficits in 2021 are almost solely explained by premature deaths due to COVID-19. Correspondingly, countries with a higher share of vaccinated individuals suffered the least life expectancy deficit.

University faculty members train future researchers and produce new knowledge. We show that US faculty members have a parent with a PhD roughly 25 times more often than the general population, with nearly double that rate at prestigious universities. The overrepresentation of socioeconomic privilege is likely to shape scholarship and diversity efforts.

Elucidating potentially causal factors for depression and the direction of their impact could beneficially inform prevention strategies. Mendelian randomization revealed the protective role of increased relative carbohydrate intake in lowering depression risk. In addition, body mass index mediated this effect but to a lesser extent than the total effect size.

A study across 61 countries showed that, on a global scale, individuals are often inconsistent when choosing between immediate and future financial options. Although economic inequality is associated with this decision-making process, nearly everyone demonstrates these anomalies, and instability can lead to worse choices, even in wealthy individuals.

Proposals to fight online misinformation range from gently encouraging users to consider the accuracy of information (‘nudges’) to bans and removing content. Using modelling techniques, we find that these interventions are unlikely to be effective in isolation, but that a combined approach can achieve a significant reduction in the spread of misinformation.

A randomized controlled trial of approximately 4,500 households in Botswana during the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of using low-tech learning interventions during school closures. A simple combination of phone tutoring and SMS messages substantially improved learning in primary school children in a cost-effective manner.

Human neonates discriminate vowel sounds played forward, as in normal speech, from their waveform reversal after five hours of exposure on the first day of their life. The neural dynamics supporting this rapid perceptual learning indicate a primitive brain mechanism similar to the language-processing network of adults.

We developed a new approach that uses high-frequency mobile phone data to measure internal displacement after violent events. We used this approach to study the impact of violence in Afghanistan, highlighting how patterns of internal displacement depend on the nature of the violence experienced.

This study tested the hypothesis that negativity bias — giving disproportionately more attention and decision weight to negative than to positive stimuli — is associated with right-wing political ideology. Across five distinct studies and multiple measures of ideology, the results provide no consistent evidence that people with right-wing ideology have a stronger negativity bias.

The probability of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-resistant variants depends on the number of daily infections permitted by society, and the rate and penetrance of vaccination. Rapidly vaccinating all eligible people while maintaining strict physical distancing measures can prevent the evolution of vaccine resistance.