In addition to the most pressing issues of the day, scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies focus their research on many regions of the world, from Beijing to Brazil.
Research Spotlight
The Ripple Effects of China’s College Expansion on American Universities
Researchers at SCCEI trace how China’s unprecedented expansion of higher education has impacted U.S. graduate education and local economies surrounding college towns.
While Nayib Bukele's style of authoritarianism may have some successes on paper, Beatriz Magaloni and Alberto Diaz-Cayeros argue that the regime is headed for a reckoning.
Time for Iran to Make a No-enrichment Nuclear Deal
The time has come for Iran’s leaders to reconsider their past intransigent, deceptive posture and instead pursue a nuclear power program that will benefit the Iranian people, write Abbas Milani and Siegfried Hecker.
"Financial toxicity" describes the financial burden experienced by cancer patients and their families, impacting around half of cancer survivors. High treatment costs and associated expenses contribute to cancer being the leading cause of medical-induced bankruptcy among patients and caregivers. This policy brief concentrates on the implementation and impact of Medical Financial Assistance (MFA) programs as a key intervention to reduce financial toxicity for patients and their caregivers.
Objective Psychological factors shaping maternal diet remain underexplored, particularly in rural contexts. This study examined the associations of psychological symptoms with maternal dietary diversity in rural Western China.
Methods This cross-sectional study included 2430 women (847 pregnant, 1583 postpartum) selected through multi-stage random cluster sampling. Dietary diversity was assessed using the Woman's Dietary Diversity Score, which was categorized into tertiles. Depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms were measured and integrated into a standardized composite psychological index. Multinomial logistic regression examined associations between psychological symptoms and dietary diversity adjusting for relevant covariates.
Results In the full sample, using the lowest dietary diversity score tertile as the reference group, depression symptom was associated with lower odds of being in the high dietary diversity group (relative risk ratio [RRR] = 0.71, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.53–0.95). Anxiety and stress symptoms were associated with lower odds of being in both medium (anxiety: RRR = 0.74, 95% CI 0.58–0.95; stress: RRR = 0.64, 95% CI 0.46–0.89) and high (anxiety: RRR = 0.78, 95% CI 0.61–0.99; stress: RRR = 0.56, 95% CI 0.39–0.79) dietary diversity group. Higher composite index scores were consistently associated with lower odds of being in the medium (RRR = 0.86, 95% CI 0.78–0.95) and high (RRR = 0.83, 95% CI 0.75–0.93) dietary diversity group. Interaction analyses showed significant effects for depression, stress, and the composite psychological index (P for interaction <0.01), but not for anxiety (P for interaction = 0.954).
Conclusion Psychological symptoms were inversely associated with maternal dietary diversity. Moreover, these associations varied by pregnancy status for depression, stress, and overall psychological distress. Findings support integrating psychological care into maternal nutrition programs in rural settings.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
March 13, 2026
Mental health symptoms are common among caregivers of young children in low-resource settings, yet access to psychological care remains limited due to shortages of specialists, low awareness, and stigma. This qualitative study explored the acceptability and appropriateness of delivering a postnatal mental health intervention for mothers through community and township health centers (CTHCs) in Shanghai, China. We conducted in-depth interviews with 50 mothers of children under 3 years of age, recruited from nine CTHCs and one parenting center, including both those with and without depressive symptoms. Data were analyzed using a rapid analysis approach to identify themes related to perceived values, burdens, motivations, and barriers to participation. Mothers valued interventions that aligned with their personal needs, addressed both parenting knowledge and mental health, offered emotional and social support, and involved family members. Key barriers included time constraints, childcare responsibilities, stigma toward mental health, and accessibility of the location of the intervention. Flexible delivery formats and modes, integration with routine child health services, and nonstigmatizing framing were identified as potential strategies to enhance engagement.
Marcella Alsan, an SHP courtesy faculty members, writes in this STAT opinion piece that mental illness and addiction can be curbed with proper funding.
Private equity (PE) firms have increasingly influenced U.S. health care, posing risks to health equity—the idea that everyone should have a fair opportunity for optimal health. While PE investors claim to improve efficiency, raise capital, and leverage economies of scale, evidence indicates that their involvement often leads to reduced access to affordable high-quality care, particularly for rural populations, older adults, low-income communities, and marginalized racial and ethnic groups. Without strong regulation and enforcement, PE practices are likely to continue transforming health care in ways that could harm patients and burden clinicians.
Language development and the home language environment during early childhood are critical for long-term child outcomes. Caregiver mental health may influence early language outcomes directly, but it can also introduce perception bias, which refers to the discrepancies between caregiver self-assessments and the actual status of child language outcomes. This study examines the associations between caregiver mental health symptoms and (1) child language development and home language environment, and (2) caregiver perception bias in self-report assessments of child language development and home language environment. The study recruited 137 rural Chinese households with children aged 16–24 months. Objective measures of child language development and the home language environment were collected using Language Environment Analysis (LENA) technology. Caregiver perception biases were measured by the discrepancies between the objective and caregiver self-report measurements. Results show that caregiver anxiety and stress symptoms were linked to poor child language development, while symptoms of depression and anxiety were associated with less stimulating home language environment. Caregivers with depressive and anxiety symptoms tended to overestimate their children’s language development, and those with depressive symptoms also overestimated their own verbal inputs. These findings call for caution when implementing self-report assessments of early childhood development.
