Addressing Structural Racism, Bias, And Health Communication Regarding Obesity
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Roundtable on Obesity Solutions convened a three-part workshop series that explored how structural racism; weight bias and stigma; and health communication intersect with obesity, gaps in the evidence base, and challenges and opportunities for long-term, systems-wide strategies needed to reduce the incidence and prevalence of obesity. Through diverse examples across different levels and sectors of society, the workshops explored how to leverage the connections between these three drivers and innovative data-driven and policy approaches to inform actionable priorities for individuals, organizations, and policymakers to make lasting systems change. The workshop report can be obtained at
The Demographic Outlook: 2022 To 2052
The size of the U.S. population and its age and sex composition affect federal spending, revenues, deficits, debt, and the economy. In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) describes its population projections that underlie the baseline budget projections and economic forecast that CBO published in May 2022 and the long-term budget projections that the agency published in July 2022. In CBO’s projections, the population increases from 335 million individuals in 2022 to 369 million in 2052, expanding by 0.3% per year, on average. (In this report, population refers to the Social Security area population—the relevant population for the calculation of Social Security payroll taxes and benefits. The population also is projected to become older, on average, as growth in the number of individuals age 65 or older outpaces that of younger age groups. The civilian noninstitutionalized population grows in numbers in CBO’s projections, from 264 in 2022 to 298 million in 2052. (This measure of the population includes only individuals age 16 or older. The agency uses it to project the size of the labor force.) The prime working age population (ages 25 to 54) grows at an average annual rate of 0.2% over that period, slower than its average over the 1980–2021 period (1.0%). In CBO’s current projections, the population is smaller and grows more slowly, on average, than CBO projected last year. Fertility rates are expected to be lower than the agency projected last year, reducing the size and growth of the population that is under 24 years old over the 30-year projection period. The report can be obtained at
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-07/57975-demographic-outlook.pdf.
Innovating Undergraduate Education: Lessons From The Pandemic
Innovating undergraduate education must take into consideration the current expectation among college-bound high school students of a return to the traditional. Simply stated, after the challenges of build-the-airplane-while-you-fly-it remote learning and all its attendant problems, students are expecting a return to the face-to-face education of yesteryear. According to the firm Eduventures, however, the United States is at an inflection point with traditional-aged undergraduate education: Either it is possible to breathe a post-pandemic sigh of relief and go back to an undergraduate education steeped in tradition and circumscribed by the campus and its in-person interactions or a leap can be made to reinvigorate undergraduate education by innovating the experience based on pandemic learnings. The company believes that the latter will help higher education institutions provide relevant education for tomorrow’s so-called “traditional undergraduates.” Ye,t truly innovating undergraduate education requires a considered examination of what pandemic-related technology and pedagogy worked and didn’t work. It also requires a demonstration of value to students who currently yearn for tradition. More information can be obtained at Innovating Undergraduate Education: Lessons from the Pandemic (encoura.org)