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100% clean and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United States

100% clean and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United States (PDF)
Source: Energy & Environmental Science

This study presents roadmaps for each of the 50 United States to convert their all-purpose energy systems (for electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry) to ones powered entirely by wind, water, and sunlight (WWS). The plans contemplate 80–85% of existing energy replaced by 2030 and 100% replaced by 2050. Conversion would reduce each state’s end-use power demand by a mean of B39.3% with B82.4% of this due to the efficiency of electrification and the rest due to end-use energy efficiency improvements. Year 2050 end-use U.S. all-purpose load would be met with B30.9% onshore wind, B19.1% offshore wind, B30.7% utility-scale photovoltaics (PV), B7.2% rooftop PV, B7.3% concentrated solar power (CSP) with storage, B1.25% geothermal power, B0.37% wave power, B0.14% tidal power, and B3.01% hydroelectric power. Based on a parallel grid integration study, an additional 4.4% and 7.2% of power beyond that needed for annual loads would be supplied by CSP with storage and solar thermal for heat, respectively, for peaking and grid stability. Over all 50 states, converting would provide B3.9 million 40-year construction jobs and B2.0 million 40-year operation jobs for the energy facilities alone, the sum of which would outweigh the B3.9 million jobs lost in the conventional energy sector. Converting would also eliminate B62 000 (19 000–115000) U.S. air pollution premature mortalities per year today and B46 000 (12000–104 000) in 2050, avoiding B$600 ($85–$2400) bil. per year (2013 dollars) in 2050, equivalent to B3.6 (0.5–14.3) percent of the 2014 U.S. gross domestic product. Converting would further eliminate B$3.3 (1.9–7.1) tril. per year in 2050 global warming costs to the world due to U.S. emissions. These plans will result in each person in the U.S. in 2050 saving B$260 (190–320) per year in energy costs ($2013 dollars) and U.S. health and global climate costs per person decreasing by B$1500 (210–6000) per year and B$8300 (4700–17 600) per year, respectively. The new footprint over land required will be B0.42% of U.S. land. The spacing area between wind turbines, which can be used for multiple purposes, will be B1.6% of U.S. land. Thus, 100% conversions are technically and economically feasible with little downside. These roadmaps may therefore reduce social and political barriers to implementing clean-energy policies.

Improved Interactions Drive Gen Y Increase in Auto Insurance Satisfaction

Improved Interactions Drive Gen Y Increase in Auto Insurance Satisfaction
Source: J.D. Power

Gen Y[1] customers are the driving force behind an increase in overall auto insurance satisfaction due to improvement across all customer service interaction channels, the largest contributor to the customer experience, according to the J.D. Power 2015 U.S. Auto Insurance StudySM released today.

The study examines customer satisfaction in five factors: interaction; price; policy offerings; billing and payment; and claims. Satisfaction is measured on a 1,000-point scale.
…
Customer interaction preferences are changing. Gen Y’s preference to interact exclusively through digital self-service (Web or mobile) has increased to 27 percent in 2015 from 21 percent in 2011. A similar pattern of preference is found in other generational groups (Gen X: 23% vs. 19% in 2011; Boomers: 12% vs. 10%; and Pre-Boomers: 6% vs. 4%). Among the interaction channels, satisfaction with the website experience receives the lowest average score, most notably among Gen Y customers (816, compared with 826 for Gen X, 841 for Boomers and 861 for Pre-Boomers).

Building Millennials’ Financial Health Via Financial Capability

Building Millennials’ Financial Health Via Financial Capability (PDF)
Source: University of Kansas School of Social Welfare

Today’s young adults, referred to as Millennials born between the early 1980’s and 2000’s, are coming of age in an economy unlike any other. 1 The macroeconomic conditions of the Great Recession from approximately 2007 to 2011 systematically undermined Millennials’ financial health by limiting employment opportunities, stagnating income growth, reducing net worth, and increasing reliance on debt. Millennials entered a labor market with limited opportunities and saw higher unemployment rates than the rest of the population.2 Fewer Millennials entered the labor market than young adults from any preceding generation and their unemployment rate was roughly 15 to 17 percent at the height of the recession—5 to 7 percentage points higher than the average unemployment rate for the rest of the population. They also experienced diminishing returns for participating in the labor market, earning 6 percent less per paycheck than in previous years.

Fewer employment opportunities and reduced paychecks translated into less money to save and invest. The average Millennial has about $1,000 in savings,4 suggesting that many may struggle to afford necessary expenses in the face of unemployment and to become financially independent.5 Millennials also delayed investing in homes and those who did invest experienced substantial wealth losses that were driven by declining home equity. 6 These losses are reflected in the value of Millennials’ accumulated net worth compared to that of previous generations.7 Millennials’ net worth is valued at $10,000, which is 41 percent less than the values of net worth held by Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers two decades ago.8

Health care fraud and abuse enforcement: Relationship scrutiny

Health care fraud and abuse enforcement: Relationship scrutiny
Source: Deloitte

Where is fraud and abuse enforcement headed in health care? One emerging area of interest is relationship scrutiny. Relationships can be complex in the business of health care: tracking and analyzing them is an important part of minimizing the fraud and abuse that may result from questionable relationships and improper influence.

Many organizations depend on analytics to understand their own performance. Insights and patterns within the data are often used to inform strategy and decision making. Researchers can apply analytics to identify external trends and factors that may impact businesses. To that end, Deloitte researchers used analytics techniques to examine the text of tens of thousands of federal regulations and identify emerging trends in health care fraud and abuse enforcement. The results are telling: Federal health care regulators are emphasizing relationship scrutiny in their fraud and abuse enforcement efforts. Also, discussion of health care fraud and abuse topics – including relationship scrutiny – is recurring, as evidenced by the cyclical rise and fall in frequency and relevance of keyword groups related to “enforcement,” “value-based care,” and “fraud and abuse.” The bottom line: discussion of these topics is present; relationship scrutiny is likely here to stay.

2014 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report — Chartbook on Care Coordination

2014 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report — Chartbook on Care Coordination (PDF)
Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

This Care Coordination Chartbook is part of a family of documents and tools that support the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports (QDR). The QDR includes annual reports to Congress mandated in the Healthcare Research and Quality Act of 1999 (P.L. 106-129). These reports provide a comprehensive overview of the quality of health care received by the general U.S. population and disparities in care experienced by different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. The purpose of the reports is to assess the performance of our health system and to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses in the health care system along three main axes: access to health care, quality of health care, and priorities of the National Quality Strategy.

The reports are based on more than 250 measures of quality and disparities covering a broad array of health care services and settings. Data are generally available through 2012, although rates of uninsurance have been tracked through the first half of 2014. The reports are produced with the help of an Interagency Work Group led by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and submitted on behalf of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Improving Emergency Response at Airports

Improving Emergency Response at Airports
Source: Transportation Research Board

The April 2015 issue of TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Impacts on Practice highlights how airports like Grand Forks International Airport (GFK) in North Dakota have applied the findings from ACRP Report 95: Integrating Community Emergency Response Teams (A-CERTs) at Airports. Officials at GFK credit the direction provided in ACRP Report 95 with enabling the airport to build, implement, and maintain a successful response team.

Using Your House for Income in Retirement

Using Your House for Income in Retirement
Source: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

Using Your House reviews the two most common ways to use your house to boost your income in retirement – downsizing and a reverse mortgage – with clear examples, a discussion of the pros and cons of each approach, and links to tools on the web where you can get estimates of what downsizing or a reverse mortgage can do for you.

Factors Affecting Former Residents’ Returning to Rural Communities

Factors Affecting Former Residents’ Returning to Rural Communities
Source: USDA Economic Research Service

This study reports on reasons for returning and not returning to small-town America and the impacts that return migrants make on their home communities. Interviews at high school reunions show that return migrants are primarily motivated by family considerations. They use skills and experiences acquired elsewhere to start businesses and fill leadership positions.

Safe & Sustainable Recycling: Protecting Workers who Protect the Planet

Safe & Sustainable Recycling: Protecting Workers who Protect the Planet
Source: GAIA, Partnership for Working Families, and National Council for Occupational Safety and Health

Recycling is the right thing to do, but we need to make it safe for recycling workers. Recycling is a key approach for waste reduction and climate action that is used by cities across the U.S. with enormous environmental and economic benefits. But a new report finds that the actual work of sorting recycling can be unnecessarily hazardous to workers’ health and safety. Seventeen recycling workers died on the job between 2011-2013, and recycling workers are more than twice as likely to be injured on the job than the average U.S. worker. These high injury and fatality rates are a result of unsafe working conditions including exposure to hazardous items on the sort line, like hypodermic needles, toxic chemicals, and animal carcasses, and working around heavy machinery. By ensuring health and safety compliance across the industry, cities can protect workers who protect our planet.

HHS OIG — Ensuring the Integrity of Medicare Part D

Ensuring the Integrity of Medicare Part D
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General

In the 9 years since Part D began, OIG has produced a wide range of investigations, audits, evaluations, and legal guidance related to Part D program integrity. This work has resulted in the prosecution of individuals accused of defrauding Part D, as well as the identification of systemic program vulnerabilities that raise concerns related to both inappropriate payments and quality of care. OIG has made recommendations to strengthen Part D program integrity, and progress has been made. However, Part D remains vulnerable to fraud, as evidenced by ongoing investigations. OIG has prepared this portfolio to document key progress in addressing Part D program vulnerabilities and to highlight issues that need improvement.

See also: Questionable Billing and Geographic Hotspots Point to Potential Fraud and Abuse in Medicare Part D

Sources of Increasing Differential Mortality Among the Aged by Socioeconomic Status

Sources of Increasing Differential Mortality Among the Aged by Socioeconomic Status
Source: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to explore the extent and causes of widening differences in life expectancy by socioeconomic status (SES) for older persons. We construct alternative measures of SES using educational attainment and average (career) earnings in the prime working ages of 41-50. We also use information on causes of death, health status and various behavioral indicators (smoking, drinking, and obesity) that are believed to be predictors of premature death in an effort to explain the causes of the growing disparities in life expectancy between people of high and low SES.

The paper finds that:

• There is strong statistical evidence in the HRS of a growing inequality of mortality risk by SES among more recent birth cohorts compared with cohorts born before 1930.
• Both educational attainment and career earnings as constructed from Social Security records are equally useful indicators of SES, although the distinction in mortality risk by education is greatest for those with and without a college degree.
• There has been a significant decline in the risk of dying from cancer or heart conditions for older Americans in the top half of the income distribution, but we find no such reduction of mortality risk in the bottom half of the distribution.
• The inclusion of the behavioral variables and health status result in substantial improvement in the predictions of mortality, but they do not identify the sources of the increase in differential mortality.

U.S.-Cuba Agricultural Trade: Past, Present and Possible Future

U.S.-Cuba Agricultural Trade: Past, Present and Possible Future
Source: USDA Economic Research Service

In December 2014, the United States announced that it would implement executive actions designed to ease the restrictions on trade, remittances, and travel with Cuba. This report explores the potential implications for U.S. agricultural exports.

The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children with Serious Emotional Disturbances

The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children with Serious Emotional Disturbances
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Presents 2012-2013 findings from a federally funded program that supports community-based mental health services for children with serious emotional disturbances. Reports on the system of care approach, service characteristics and use, and child outcomes.

Air Base Attacks and Defensive Counters: Historical Lessons and Future Challenges

Air Base Attacks and Defensive Counters: Historical Lessons and Future Challenges
Source: RAND Corporation

Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. dominance in conventional power projection has allowed American airpower to operate from sanctuary, largely free from enemy attack. This led to a reduced emphasis on air-base defense measures and the misperception that sanctuary was the normal state of affairs rather than an aberration. The emergence of the long-range, highly accurate, conventional missile (both ballistic and cruise) as a threat to air bases is now widely recognized in the U.S. defense community, and, with that recognition, there is a growing appreciation that this era of sanctuary is coming to an end. Consequently, there is renewed interest in neglected topics, such as base hardening, aircraft dispersal, camouflage, deception, and air-base recovery and repair.

This report is intended to provide a reference on air-base attack and defense to inform public debate, as well as government deliberations, on what has become known as the anti-access problem, specifically as it applies to air-base operations. The report explores the history of air-base attacks in the past century and describes the American way of war that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union. It then argues that emerging threat systems are disruptive to this way of war and will require new concepts of power projection. Finally, the report identifies five classes of defensive options that have proven valuable in past conflicts and offers recommendations on how best to win the battle of the airfields.

Still a Better Bang for the Buck: Update on the Economic Efficiencies of Pensions

Still a Better Bang for the Buck: Update on the Economic Efficiencies of Pensions
Source: National Institute on Retirement Security

New research finds that pension plans are a far more cost-efficient means of providing retirement income as compared to individual defined contribution accounts.

The study calculates that the economic efficiencies embedded in defined benefit (DB) pensions enable these retirement plans to deliver the same retirement income at a 48% lower cost than 401(k)-type defined contribution (DC) accounts.

Limited Health Knowledge as a Reason for Non-Use of Four Common Complementary Health Practices

Limited Health Knowledge as a Reason for Non-Use of Four Common Complementary Health Practices
Source: PLoS ONE

Background
Complementary health practices are an important element of health/healthcare seeking behavior among adults in the United States. Reasons for use include medical need, prevention and wellness promotion, and cultural relevance. Survey studies published over the past several decades have provided important information on the use of complementary health practices, such as acupuncture and yoga. A review of the literature, however, reveals an absence of studies looking specifically at who does not use these approaches, and why not.

Methods
To explore this issue two samples were created using data from the 2007 National Health Interview Survey Complementary and Alternative Medicine supplement. Of particular interest was the relationship between lack of health knowledge, as a reason for non-use, and key independent variables. The first sample was comprised of individuals who had never used any of four common complementary health practices — acupuncture, chiropractic, natural products, and yoga. The second was a subset of those same non-users who had also reported low back pain, the most frequently cited health concern related to use of complementary therapies.

Results
A hypothesized association between lack of health knowledge, lower educational attainment, and other key socioeconomic indicators was supported in the findings. Although it was hypothesized that low back pain would be associated with greater information seeking, regardless of level of education, that hypothesis was not supported.

Conclusion
Lack of knowledge was found to affect utilization of common complementary health practices, regardless of the potentially motivating presence of back pain. Disparities in the utilization of complementary medicine, related to educational attainment and other socioeconomic factors, may negatively affect quality of care for many Americans. Creative approaches are needed to help reduce inequities in understanding and improve access to care for underserved populations.

Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K-12 Music Education in the United States: 2015

Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K-12 Music Education in the United States: 2015
Source: National Association of Music Merchants Foundation

Music has been found in every society since the dawn of recorded human history. What is it about this art form that has so permeated hearts and minds through the ages? Modern research has been instrumental in shedding light on this important question and is leading us to a deeper understanding of the power of music to improve the human condition and positively impact our lives and communities.

Striking a Chord: The Public’s Hopes and Beliefs for K-12 Music Education in the United States: 2015, conducted by Grunwald Associates LLC. In this study, we invited communites nationwide to provide us with information about their music education programs. Owing to many political and economic factors, it is a common narrative that acccess to music education in not universal and is often under threat for reduction or elimination. Against this backdrop, this study measures the beliefs and attitudes about music education through the eyes of the two most important and knowledgeable stakeholder groups: teachers and parents.

Legal Responses to Health Emergencies

Legal Responses to Health Emergencies
Source: Law Library of Congress

This report contains discussions of the regulations addressing health emergencies in 25 jurisdictions, including countries from six continents, the European Union, and the World Health Organization. All surveys included in this report review government structures tasked with delivering public health protection, relevant legislative frameworks for addressing health emergencies, and the powers of government institutions in times of health crises and their ability to mitigate the consequences of such crises. Analyses of the regulation of such issues as disease surveillance and notification systems are also provided.