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Objectives: This study aims to estimate the short-term preventable mortality and associated economic costs of complying with the World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines (AQGs) limit values for PM10 and PM2.5 in nine major Latin American cities. Methods: We estimated city-specific PM-mortality associations using time-series regression models and calculated the attributable mortality fraction. Next, we used the value of statistical life to calculate the economic benefits of complying with the WHO AQGs limit values. Results: In most cities, PM concentrations exceeded the WHO AQGs limit values more than 90% of the days. PM10 was found to be associated with an average excess mortality of 1.88%with concentrations above WHO AQGs limit values, while for PM2.5 it was 1.05%. The associated annual economic costs varied widely, between US$ 19.5 million to 3,386.9 million for PM10, and US$ 196.3 million to 2,209.6 million for PM2.5. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that there is an urgent need for policymakers to develop interventions to achieve sustainable air quality improvements in Latin America. Complying with the WHO AQGs limit values for PM10 and PM2.5 in Latin American cities would substantially benefits for urban populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, the School of Engineering at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile launched an alternative admission program to attract talented high-school students from low-income families who would not be accepted by the conventional admission process but have otherwise shown outstanding academic results at the high-school level. Applicants came from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, and were admitted through a formal process that looked for personal skills beyond standardized test results. Students accepted through the alternative admission program showed promising academic gains after their first year of college, a result that has repeated across cohorts. Proper academic and psychological support was needed to level out the disparities in students' prior knowledge of science and math fundamentals. Future work is required to explore the principal factors affecting academic performance of underrepresented students who are not part of the schools' dominant culture.

Bans on single-use plastic shopping bags (SUPBs) are a popular policy to tackle plastic pollution. However, their success has been evaluated solely based on reduced SUPBs consumption, ignoring the impacts of substitutes. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the Chilean plastic bag ban law. Results show a reduction of ~249 kilotons of SUPBs consumed and a change in the materiality of shopping bags (mainly toward paper), but also an increase of more than 50% of bin liners after the enactment of the ban. Despite some undesired effects, an improvement in the environmental performance of the bag market is obtained in fifteen of the eighteen categories studied. The environmental impacts are on average 38% lower than in the counterfactual scenario. This suggests that the law is being effective in protecting the environment. The strictness of the ban and its rapid enforcement were positive aspects of its design, but ignoring the end-of-life of the bags could be limiting its impact. To reduce the environmental impact of substitutes, it is recommended to create design guidelines for shopping bags and bin liners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk perception is considered the primary motivator for taking preparedness actions. But people with prior experience and a high‐risk perception are not necessarily more prepared. This relationship is even more complex when assessing preparedness levels for hazards with different characteristics. These inconsistent findings can be explained by how preparedness has been measured and the influence of other factors, such as trust and risk awareness. Thus, the main goal of this study was to analyze the role of risk awareness and trust in authorities on risk perception and intention to prepare for natural hazards in a coastal city in Chile. A representative sample of the city of Concepción, located in the center‐south zone of Chile (n = 585), completed a survey. We measured risk awareness, risk perception, trust in authorities, and intention to prepare for two hazards: earthquakes/tsunamis and floods. Through structural equation models, we tested five hypotheses. We found that the perception of risk maintained a direct and positive influence on the intention to prepare for both hazards. The results showed that awareness and risk perception influence the intention to prepare and should be considered different concepts. Finally, trust did not significantly influence risk perception when faced with known hazards for the population. Implications for understanding the relationship between risk perception and direct experience are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well-documented that energy and energy systems have a central role in social and economic development and human welfare at all scales, from household and community to regional and national (41). Among its various welfare effects, energy is closely linked with people s health. Some of the effects of energy on health and welfare are direct. With abundant energy, more food or more frequent meals can be prepared; food can be refrigerated, increasing the types of food items that are consumed and reducing food contamination; water pumps can provide more water and eliminate the need for water storage leading to contamination or increased exposure to disease vectors such as mosquitoes or snails; water can be disinfected by boiling or using other technologies such as radiation. Other effects of energy on public health are mediated through more proximal determinants of health and disease. Abundant energy can lead to increased irrigation, agricultural productivity, and access to food and nutrition; access to energy can also increase small-scale income generation such as processing of agricultural commodities (e.g., producing refined oil from oil seeds, roasting coffee, drying and preserving fruits and meats) and production of crafts; ability to control lighting and heating allows education or economic activities to be shielded from daily or seasonal environmental constraints such as light, temperature, rainfall, or wind; time and other economic resources spent on collecting and/or transporting fuels can be used for other household needs if access to energy is facilitated; energy availability for transportation increases access to health and education facilities and allow increased economic activity by facilitating the transportation of goods and services to and from markets; energy for telecommunication technology (radio, television, telephone, or internet) provides increased access to information useful for health, education, or economic purposes; provision of energy to rural and urban health facilities allows increased delivery and coverage of 3 various health services and interventions such as tests and treatments, better storage of medicine and vaccines, disinfection of medical equipment by boiling or radiation, and more frequent and efficient health system encounters through mobile clinics or longer working hours; and so on. In fact, while the dominant view of development-energy-health linkages has been that improvements in energy and health are outcomes of the socioeconomic development process (e.g., the "energy ladder" framework discussed below), it has even been argued that access to higher quality energy sources and technologies can initiate a chain of demographic, health, and development outcomes by changing the household structure and socioeconomic relationships. For example, in addition to increased opportunities for food and income production, reduced infant mortality as a result of transition to cleaner fuels or increased coverage of vaccination with availability of refrigerators in rural clinics may initiate a process of "demographic transition" to low-mortality and low-fertility populations (14). Such a transition has historically been followed with further improvements in maternal and child health and increased female participation in the labor markets and other economic activities.

Charlie Sangster writes about Lorca's 'uncertain social status, the source of his discomfort among the upper classes in the city of Granada', alleging that his father was a 'tenant farmer', [...]

LORCA AFTER LIFE NOEL VALIS 456pp. Yale University Press. 55 [pounds sterling] (US $65). AFTER LORCA JACK SPICER Preface by Peter Gizzi 96pp. NYRB. $14.95. One thing, and apparently one [...]