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Make a poster by April 1 - compete for prizes!!!

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Make a poster by April 1 - compete for prizes!!!

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Sample Poster Template and Examples on PPT

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Sample Poster Template and Examples on PPT

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Statistical Investigation Process and Sample

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Statistical Investigation Process and Sample

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Project 1 ASA Poster Resources MAT 100 Class Sessions_SP2025

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Data Visualization Poster Competition (April 1, $300-$100 prizes for winners)

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Data Visualization Poster Competition (April 1, $300-$100 prizes for winners)

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The deadline for submitting posters is April 1.

The poster submission is now electronic with a new judging rubric. In addition to submitting your online entry form, you must upload a high-quality image or digitally created PDF file of your poster. Please ensure the image is high enough quality for all text and graphics to be read. Do not mail a physical poster. If submitting a digitally created poster (rather than a photo of a physical poster), please see the electronic poster tutorial.

To submit your poster, please use this entry form.

The ASA/NCTM Joint Committee on Curriculum in Statistics and Probability and the ASA's education department encourage students and their advisers to participate in its annual Data Visualization Poster Competition.

What is a data visualization poster? A data visualization poster is a display containing two or more related graphics that summarize a set of data, look at the data from different points of view, and answer specific questions about the data.

Rules

Students may work individually or in teams. For those in the K-3 category, there is no restriction on the size of the team. For other categories, the maximum number of students per team is four.

For teams with members from different grade levels, the highest grade determines the entry category.

Posters measure between 18 and 24 inches high and 24 and 30 inches wide.

You will upload a photo/image file of a physical poster or a PDF file of a digitally created poster.

If creating a digital poster, please follow the guidelines in the electronic poster tutorial.

Include the grade category and title of your poster in your file name.

Ensure the image/file is high enough quality that it can be zoomed in on and all text and graphics can be easily read.

Make sure the poster gives no information that identifies the team or school.

Each poster requires a separate online entry.

Posters must be the original design and creation of the entrant(s).

Computer graphics may be used.

Subject matter is the choice of the participant(s) or their classmates.

Brief supplementary information such as examples of original data, references for published data, brief descriptions of data collection procedures, and/or the purpose of the experiment may be provided in a text box in the online entry form. Do not copy and paste your actual data into the form. Please note this information might not be used in the judging, so make sure the main poster briefly provides sufficient information without being too text heavy (the updated judging criteria/rubric penalizes posters with too much text). Follow the evaluation criteria and judging rubric explained below.

Posters must be uploaded by April 1.

In submitting a poster, students agree the poster may be displayed at the ASA's Joint Statistical Meetings, featured in its publications, and included on its website.

Only first-, second-, and third-place winners and honorable mentions will be notified personally. The ASA will announce winners in August on its website.

Evaluation

Teachers and statisticians, whose decisions are final, will judge the posters on the following:

Overall Impact of the Display (Poster Design) - Poster design aspects, colors/patterns, grammar, spelling, dimensionality, readability, neatness

Formulate Statistical Investigative Questions - Statistical question that anticipates variability leads to productive investigations (GAISE* - Step 1)

Collect/Consider Data - How useful are the data for answering the statistical investigative question? (GAISE* - Step 2)

Appropriateness of the Data Visualizations - Visualizations address the statistical question

Creativity (Topic Is of Interest) - Who cares factor

* GAISE Four-step Investigative Process: 1. Formulate Questions; 2. Collect Data; 3. Analyze Data; 4. Interpret Results (see GAISE II Pre-K-12 Report)

The updated judging criteria/rubric rewards the student(s) who uses data visualizations to support their conclusions and penalizes the use of excessive text to describe what we are supposed to see in the graphics. The revised rubric is intended to guide the students in creating a poster that formulates a statistical investigative question, collects the data appropriate to answer their question, and supports their conclusion using data visualizations, rather than text. This poster should be driven by the data visualization's ability to support the student's conclusion/answer to their statistical question.

Prizes

First Prize
$300 and an electronic certificate

Second Prize
$200 and an electronic certificate

Third Prize
$100 and an electronic certificate

Honorable Mention
An electronic certificate

If the submission is a collaborative effort, the prize money will be divided equally.

Also, first-place winners in grades 4-12 will receive Texas Instruments graphing calculators.

Download a certificate of participation (PDF download).

Entry

Complete the online data visualization poster competition entry form.

You will upload a photo/image file of a physical poster or a PDF file of a digital poster below. Include the grade category and title of your poster in your file name. Please ensure the image is high enough quality that it can be zoomed in on and all text and graphics can be read. You will upload your poster file (image or PDF file) after you preview your entry information. Do not forget to upload your file before submitting your entry. Once you have previewed and submitted your entry information, the final screen will display your poster entry number and registration information.

Be sure the poster gives no information that identifies the team or school. A separate entry form must accompany each poster.

There is no entry fee.

Your poster must be uploaded by April 1.

Regional Data Visualization Poster Competitions

Students in an area in which a regional data visualization poster competition is available may submit their posters to their regional competition. Students outside the regional competition areas should submit their posters electronically to the ASA office following the entry instructions above. Information about regional poster competitions is available through the following websites:

Note: Due to COVID, not all regional competitions may be held this year. Please check the individual websites for more information.

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ASA Data Visualization Poster Competition for Grades K-12

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ASA Data Visualization Poster Competition for Grades K-12

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Join us and local vendors on the Creekwalk for a day of exploration, wellness and fun for the whole family.

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Lian- Civic Data Challenge Presentation 

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Lian- Civic Data Challenge Presentation 

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Chris, Awil, DeAndre- Civic Data Challenge Presentation 

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Chris, Awil, DeAndre- Civic Data Challenge Presentation 

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Neema, Fadila, Mariam- Syracuse Data Challenge Presentation

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Neema, Fadila, Mariam- Syracuse Data Challenge Presentation

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Jenifer, Neema, Alice - Civic Data Challenge Presentation

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Jenifer, Neema, Alice - Civic Data Challenge Presentation

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Leo and Nola - Civic Data Challenge Presentation 

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Leo and Nola - Civic Data Challenge Presentation 

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March, April, May Data Warriors Schedule of Events

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March, April, May Data Warriors Schedule of Events

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How to create pivot tables and infographics on excel

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How to create pivot tables and infographics on excel

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1. Select the cells you want to create a PivotTable from.

Note: Your data should be organized in columns with a single header row. See the Data format tips and tricks section for more details.

2. Select Insert > PivotTable.

3. This creates a PivotTable based on an existing table or range.

Note: Selecting Add this data to the Data Model adds the table or range being used for this PivotTable into the workbook's Data Model. Learn more.

4. Select OK.

By clicking the down arrow on the button, you can select from other possible sources for your PivotTable. In addition to using an existing table or range, there are three other sources you can select from to populate your PivotTable.

Get from External Data Source

Get from Data Model

Use this option if your workbook contains a Data Model, and you want to create a PivotTable from multiple tables, enhance the PivotTable with custom measures, or are working with very large datasets.

Get from Power BI

Use this option if your organization uses Power BI and you want to discover and connect to endorsed cloud datasets you have access to.

1. To add a field to your PivotTable, select the field name checkbox in the PivotTables Fields pane.

Note: Selected fields are added to their default areas: non-numeric fields are added to Rows, date and time hierarchies are added to Columns, and numeric fields are added to Values.

2. To move a field from one area to another, drag the field to the target area.

If you add new data to your PivotTable data source, any PivotTables that were built on that data source need to be refreshed. To refresh just one PivotTable, you can right-click anywhere in the PivotTable range, and then select Refresh. If you have multiple PivotTables, first select any cell in any PivotTable, then on the ribbon go to PivotTable Analyze > select the arrow under the Refresh button, and then select Refresh All.

Summarize Values By

By default, PivotTable fields placed in the Values area are displayed as a SUM. If Excel interprets your data as text, the data is displayed as a COUNT. This is why it's so important to make sure you don't mix data types for value fields. You can change the default calculation by first selecting the arrow to the right of the field name, and then select the Value Field Settings option.

Next, change the calculation in the Summarize Values By section. Note that when you change the calculation method, Excel automatically appends it in the Custom Name section, like "Sum of FieldName", but you can change it. If you select Number Format, you can change the number format for the entire field.

Show Values As

Instead of using a calculation to summarize the data, you can also display it as a percentage of a field. In the following example, we changed our household expense amounts to display as a % of Grand Total instead of the sum of the values.

Once you've opened the Value Field Setting dialog box, you can make your selections from the Show Values As tab.

Display a value as both a calculation and percentage.

Simply drag the item into the Values section twice, and then set the Summarize Values By and Show Values As options for each one.

You can change the data sourcefor the PivotTable data as you are creating it.

1. In the Insert PivotTable pane, select the text box under Source. While changing the Source, cards in the pane won't be available.

2. Make a selection of data on the grid or enter a range in the text box.

3. Press Enter on your keyboard or the button to confirm your selection. The pane updates with new recommended PivotTables based on the new source of data.

Get from Power BI

Use this option if your organization uses Power BI and you want to discover and connect to endorsed cloud datasets you have access to.

In the PivotTable Fields pane, select the check box for any field you want to add to your PivotTable.

By default, non-numeric fields are added to the Rows area, date and time fields are added to the Columns area, and numeric fields are added to the Values area.

You can also manually drag-and-drop any available item into any of the PivotTable fields, or if you no longer want an item in your PivotTable, drag it out from the list or uncheck it.

Summarize Values By

By default, PivotTable fields in the Values area are displayed as a SUM. If Excel interprets your data as text, it is displayed as a COUNT. This is why it's so important to make sure you don't mix data types for value fields.

Change the default calculation by right-clicking any value in the row and selecting the Summarize Values By option.

Show Values As

Instead of using a calculation to summarize the data, you can also display it as a percentage of a field. In the following example, we changed our household expense amounts to display as a % of Grand Total instead of the sum of the values.

Right-click any value in the column you'd like to show the value for. Select Show Values As in the menu. A list of available values displays.

Make your selection from the list.

To show as a % of Parent Total, hover over that item in the list and select the parent field you want to use as the basis of the calculation.

If you add new data to your PivotTable data source, any PivotTables built on that data source must be refreshed. Right-click anywhere in the PivotTable range, and then select Refresh.

If you created a PivotTable and decide you no longer want it, select the entire PivotTable range and press Delete. This won't have any effect on other data or PivotTables or charts around it. If your PivotTable is on a separate sheet that has no other data you want to keep, deleting the sheet is a fast way to remove the PivotTable.

Your data should be organized in a tabular format, and not have any blank rows or columns. Ideally, you can use an Excel table.

Tables are a great PivotTable data source, because rows added to a table are included automatically in the PivotTable when you refresh the data, and any new columns are included in the PivotTable Fields list. Otherwise, you need to either Change the source data for a PivotTable, or use a dynamic named range formula.

Data types in columns should be the same. For example, you shouldn't mix dates and text in the same column.

PivotTables work on a snapshot of your data, called the cache, so your actual data doesn't get altered in any way.

If you have limited experience with PivotTables, or are not sure how to get started, a Recommended PivotTable is a good choice. When you use this feature, Excel determines a meaningful layout by matching the data with the most suitable areas in the PivotTable. This helps give you a starting point for additional experimentation. After a recommended PivotTable is created, you can explore different orientations and rearrange fields to achieve your desired results. You can also download our interactive Make your first PivotTable tutorial.

1. Select a cell in the source data or table range.

2. Go to Insert > Recommended PivotTable.

3. Excel analyzes your data and presents you with several options, as in this example using the household expense data.

1. Select a cell in the source data or table range.

2. Go to Insert > PivotTable.

3. Excel displays the Create PivotTable dialog box with your range or table name selected. In this case, we're using a table called "tbl_HouseholdExpenses".

4. In the Choose where you want the PivotTable report to be placed section, select New Worksheet, or Existing Worksheet. For Existing Worksheet, select the cell where you want the PivotTable placed.

PivotTable Fields list

In the Field Name area at the top, select the check box for any field you want to add to your PivotTable. By default, non-numeric fields are added to the Row area, date and time fields are added to the Column area, and numeric fields are added to the Values area. You can also manually drag-and-drop any available item into any of the PivotTable fields, or if you no longer want an item in your PivotTable, simply drag it out of the Fields list or uncheck it. Being able to rearrange Field items is one of the PivotTable features that makes changing its appearance so easy.

PivotTable Fields list

Summarize by

By default, PivotTable fields placed in the Values area are displayed as a SUM. If Excel interprets your data as text, the data is displayed as a COUNT. This is why it's so important to make sure you don't mix data types for value fields. You can change the default calculation by first selecting the arrow to the right of the field name, and then by selecting the Field Settings option.

Next, change the calculation in the Summarize by section. Note that when you change the calculation method, Excel automatically appends it in the Custom Name section, like "Sum of FieldName", but you can change it. If you select Number... , you can change the number format for the entire field.

Tip: Since changing the calculation in the Summarize by section changes the PivotTable field name, it's best not to rename your PivotTable fields until you're finished setting up your PivotTable. One trick is to select Replace ( on the Edit menu) > Find what > " Sum of", and then Replace with > leave blank to replace everything at once instead of manually retyping.

Show data as

Instead of using a calculation to summarize the data, you can also display it as a percentage of a field. In the following example, we changed our household expense amounts to display as a % of Grand Total instead of the sum of the values.

Once you've opened the Field Settings dialog box, you can make your selections from the Show data as tab.

Display a value as both a calculation and percentage.

Simply drag the item into the Values section twice, right-click the value and select Field Settings, and then set the Summarize by and Show data as options for each one.

If you add new data to your PivotTable data source, any PivotTables that were built on that data source must be refreshed. To refresh just one PivotTable you can right-click anywhere in the PivotTable range, and then select Refresh. If you have multiple PivotTables, first select any cell in any PivotTable, and then on the ribbon go to PivotTable Analyze > select the arrow under the Refresh button, and then select Refresh All.

1. Select a cell in the source data or table range.

2. Go to Insert > PivotTable.

3. Choose where you want the PivotTable to be placed. Select Insert on new sheet  to place the PivotTable in a new worksheet or  select the cell where you want the new PivotTable placed in the Destination field.

4. Select Insert.

Typically, non-numeric fields are added to the Rows area, date and time fields are added to the Columns area, and numeric fields are added to the Values area. You can also manually drag-and-drop any available item into any of the PivotTable fields, or if you no longer want an item in your PivotTable, simply drag it out of the Fields list or uncheck it. Being able to rearrange Field items is one of the PivotTable features that makes changing its appearance so easy.

If you add new data to your PivotTable data source, any PivotTables that were built on that data source must be refreshed. To refresh just one PivotTable you can select and hold on a cell anywhere in the PivotTable range, and then select Refresh. If you have multiple go to PivotTable tab on the ribbon and select Refresh.

If you created a PivotTable and decide you no longer want it, you can select the rows and columns spanning the entire PivotTable range, and then press Delete.

Use clean, tabular data for best results.

Organize your data in columns, not rows.

Make sure all columns have headers, with a single row of unique, non-blank labels for each column. Avoid double rows of headers or merged cells.

Format your data as an Excel table (select anywhere in your data, and then select Insert > Table from the ribbon).

If you have complicated or nested data, use Power Query to transform it (for example, to unpivot your data) so it's organized in columns with a single header row.

Create a PivotChart

Calculate values in a PivotTable

Delete a PivotTable

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Create a PivotTable to analyze worksheet data

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How to use a PivotTable in Excel to calculate, summarize, and analyze your worksheet data to see hidden patterns and trends.

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Jane, Mariam, Neema, Nicole excel file for code violations per neighborhood

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Jane, Mariam, Neema, Nicole excel file for code violations per neighborhood

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Sample Powerpoint on Housing (related to Leo and Nola's project)

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Sample Powerpoint on Housing (related to Leo and Nola's project)

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Jane, Mariam, Neema code violations per neighborhood

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Jane, Mariam, Neema code violations per neighborhood

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This is a CODAP file showing the maps. Nicole recommends moving to Excel to create data visualization.

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Youth Participatory Action Research Workshop with Lauren Ashby March 4

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Youth Participatory Action Research Workshop with Lauren Ashby March 4

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lack and Hispanic people are disproportionately exposed to air pollution caused mainly by the consumer behaviours of white people in the US, according to a new study. Researchers call this "pollution inequity" (inequity is about unfair, avoidable differences and so it's different to inequality which can simply describe uneven results).

Air pollution exposure matters; it is the largest environmental health risk factor in the US, adding up to about 100,00 deaths each year. In March, Christopher W Tessum and his colleagues of engineers and economists tried to quantify these differences in a study that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Many analyses of environmental impact will concentrate on who inhales pollution (poorer communities, often located near coal-fired power plants) or else emitters (the power plants or factories themselves) rather than looking at the individual consumers who demand the products that result in the emissions. This study took a different approach by studying personal consumption - everything from agriculture consumption to the use of diesel vehicles.

The team found that white people and those of other races experience about 17% less air pollution exposure than is caused by their consumption. But black and Hispanic people inhale 56% and 63% excess exposure, respectively, relative to their consumption.

The researchers measured fine particulate matter (described as PM2.5), which are tiny particles narrower than a human hair that can be easily inhaled and get lodged deep into the lungs. The particles can cause cardiovascular problems, aggravate pre-existing conditions like asthma and increase mortality from things such as cancer, strokes and heart disease.

In recent years, these emissions in the US have fallen thanks in part to clean air rules, but the inequities remain.

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Minorities in the US breathe in more air pollution caused by white people

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lack and Hispanic people are disproportionately exposed to air pollution caused mainly by the consumer behaviours of white people in the US, according to a new study. Researchers call this "pollution inequity" (inequity is about unfair, avoidable differences and so it's different to inequality which can simply describe uneven results).

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Miscounting People of Color the U.S.  census

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Miscounting People of Color the U.S.  census

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Imagine you're trying to count every single person living in the United States. There are two main ways that you can mess up; you can count some people twice and you can miss some people out.

In 2010, the Census Bureau made both mistakes, as it always does, because counting people is hard. It double-counted about 3% of people and omitted another 3% and, because those mistakes work in opposite directions, the overall population count was almost perfectly accurate.

What's revealing though is who gets counted twice and who gets left out altogether. That's where race has historically played a big role in government numbers.

The mammoth task of conducting the 2020 US census is already under way, but last time 9% of black people in the US were simply missed, a rate that was higher than any other racial or ethnic group.

The Census Bureau also double-counted 4% of black residents and were able to make educated guesses about another 3%, so they were left with a net undercount of 2%.

There are many reasons why people are missed by the Census Bureau. Residents can be hard to contact (for example, if they live in inaccessible places), hard to interview (if they have limited English proficiency), hard to locate (if they are homeless or have been displaced by a natural disaster) and finally, hard to persuade (people who are angry or distrustful of government can fall into this group). Many of these obstacles are likely to be higher for non-white residents of the US and so people of color are systematically undercounted.

Gender and age are factors too. Black children are twice as likely to be undercounted as children who aren't black. And, since the US criminal justice system incarcerates black people at five times the rate of white people, prison gerrymandering can occur; young black men will be counted by the census as residing within a prison which inflates the population count (and political representation) of census tracts with prisons and further deprives the black communities where many of those men will ultimately return.

Those missing data points mean missing dollars. In 2017 alone, $1.5tn of federal spending was allocated on the basis of Census Bureau data. That estimate comes from Professor Andrew Reamer at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. Reamer explains that calculating exactly how many of those federal dollars were lost to black communities specifically would be near impossible because the allocation of funds is based on often complex formulas - but even the crudest of calculations (dividing all that federal money per member of the population) puts the value of filling out a census form at over $4,000.

"Black people have been undercounted since we were counted as three-fifths of a person, 400 years ago," says Jeri Green, who spent 20 years working as a senior adviser on civic engagement at the Census Bureau. "We have always been undercounted, in stark contrast to the white population that has always been overcounted."

In 1940, the Census Bureau missed one in every 12 black residents. Since then, the black undercount rate has slowly improved. However, the Census Bureau continues to make larger errors with the black population than with the non-black population. In other words, the racial inequality in national statistics has been stubbornly stable.

Since 1940, black undercounts have slowly improved but remain worse than other racial and ethnic groups. Photograph: W. P. O'Hare/W. P. O'Hare, Differential Undercounts in the U.S. Census, Chapter 8

Dr William O'Hare, a demographer working with the Census Bureau since 1970, explains that in the 1970s, big city mayors "knew that they were missing out on money because members of their population weren't being counted properly".

One such mayor was Maynard Jackson, who became the first black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia in 1973. At the time, the 1970 census had estimated that the city was 51% black but a study in 1975 showed how the black undercount was artificially cutting funding in many cities.

Then, as now, it is hard for officials to respond to the Census Bureau with more accurate figures. But Jackson tried. In the 10 days that Atlanta was given to check their population countin 1980, the mayor's team was able to find an additional 36,900 residents.

Green now works at the National Urban League where a new campaign, Make Black Count, uses the same icon as a 1970 campaign of the same name. Green understands that police brutality, voter suppression, gentrification and access to healthcare seem like much more pressing concerns but explains that Census Bureau numbers underpin those many forms of injustice. "We believe that right now there is no more important issue facing the black community than being counted and voting."

A Make Black Count poster which was campaigning for the 1970 census. Photograph: National Urban League

Another group seeking to engage the public is the Census Project. Comprising over 800 local, national and state organizations, the Census Project is concerned that, under Donald Trump, the possibility for error has grown - they estimate that there is a $2bn shortfall of budget needed to complete an accurate decennial census.

Moreover, the failed attempt last year to add a citizenship question to the census questionnaire may have deepened distrust, including among communities of color.

"The data on your census form is far less than what you're giving to Facebook," Steve Jost, a former Census Bureau employee and consultant to the Census Project explains, "but people do have a concern that government is somehow going to give this information to corporations."

Black residents will yet again be missed from the national count in 2020 - somewhere between 1.1 million and 1.7 million of them according to the Urban Institute. Unless there is a significant change in either the public funding for the census, or the public's willingness to fill out these forms, it is likely that millions of dollars in federal funding will be misallocated as a result.

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How the US census misses people of color - and why it's so harmful

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In the last census, 9% of black people in the US were missed, and those missing data points mean missing dollars

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Mona Chalabi, data editor at the Guardian 

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Mona Chalabi, data editor at the Guardian 

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Mona Chalabi | Page 3 of 29 | The Guardian

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Mona Chalabi is data editor at Guardian US. Twitter @MonaChalabi. Click here for Mona's public key

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Re-interpretation / updated visualizations of W. E. B. Du Bois' work

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Re-interpretation / updated visualizations of W. E. B. Du Bois' work

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ny African American to be admitted to Harvard University in 1888 had to be exceptionally gifted. But that description doesn't come close to capturing the talent of WEB Du Bois, a man who managed to write 21 books, as well as over 100 essays while being a professor and a relentless civil rights activist.

Du Bois saw no trade-off between those pursuits - his scholarship was protest and his protest was scholarship. He deeply understood something that every activist scrawling a banner in Washington knows today - messaging matters.

Nine years before he became one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Du Bois went to Europe to refute a widely held belief: that blacks were inferior to whites (a belief that a quarter of Americans still hold according to a poll last year).

At the 1900 World Exposition in Paris, Du Bois went armed with beautiful photographs that showed African Americans posing with dignity. But he also knew that the photographs, however elegant, would fail to persuade many. So, he also took data "to show: (a) The history of the American Negro. (b) His present condition. (c) His education. (d) His literature."

With the help of students at the Atlanta University where he was a professor of economics and history, Du Bois created dozens of illustrations that put many of today's data visualization experts to shame. The work was the inspiration for Theaster Gates' latest exhibition in Los Angeles which started this month, and for Black History Month, I wanted to update four of Du Bois' visualizations with the most recent data available.

Population

As much as possible, I wanted to stay true to Du Bois' initial design. But while looking through Census records to collect this data, I found a breakdown that I wanted to show, free African Americans (shown in black below) and enslaved African Americans (shown in grey).

When Du Bois created his chart, the US Census Bureau grouped Americans into four racial and ethnic categories - Indian, Chinese or Japanese, black and white. Today, surveys use seven categories and sometimes even more. The updated chart shows (from left to right), blacks, Asian and Pacific Islanders, any other races, Native Americans, Hispanics and whites.

Illiteracy

This illustration is beautifully simple, but don't be misled about the updated version. Yes, the fact that black illiteracy has fallen to 1.6% does seem like progress. But even as late as 1979, illiteracy among black Americans was still four times higher than it was for white Americans. (Newer numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics don't track "illiteracy" but measures literacy levels.)

Wealth

If I had stayed close to the original chart, the updated version would have shown that in 2015, African American households in Georgia had a median income of about $36,655, which would fail to capture the story of inflation (net asset numbers aren't published as cumulative for one race). Instead, I wanted to see how wealth varies by race in America today.

The story is bleak. I hesitated to use the word "worth", but it's the language used by the Census Bureau when they're collecting this data and, since money determines so much of an individual's life, the word seems relevant. For every dollar a black household in America has in net assets, a white household has 16.5 more.

Occupations

At first glance, this looks like another story of progress. It's not. The workforce has changed dramatically since 1900 - just 29,000 Americans today work in fishing and the number of job titles tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has grown to almost 600 - everything from "animal trainers" to "wind turbine service technicians" (and there are even more sub categories).

So, when occupations are grouped into five categories (somewhat arbitrarily), it looks like black and white Americans now work in similar jobs. But even when you control for education level, whites still out-earn black and Hispanic Americans who regularly report being treated unfairly in the workplace.

I thought about DuBois while drawing these. Not just his outstanding craft (how did he manage to get those lines so straight? Those labels so neat?) but how he would feel to look at data 117 years later about the "present condition" of black Americans.

You can view 553 images WEB Du Bois took to the Paris Exposition on the Library of Congress' website here.

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WEB Du Bois: retracing his attempt to challenge racism with data

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ny African American to be admitted to Harvard University in 1888 had to be exceptionally gifted. But that description doesn't come close to capturing the talent of WEB Du Bois, a man who managed to write 21 books, as well as over 100 essays while being a professor and a relentless civil rights activist.

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Later that year, in November of 1900, Du Bois wrote " The American Negro at Paris" for The American Monthly Review of Reviews which acts as a report of the exhibition as well as a summary of the events in Paris. "The history of the Negro is illustrated by charts and photographs; there is, for instance, a series of striking models of the progress of the colored people, beginning with the homeless freedman and ending with the modern brick schoolhouse and its teachers. There are charts of the increase of Negro population, the routes of the African slave-trade, the progress of emancipation, and the decreasing illiteracy."

Let's take a look at the charts. Here Du Bois explores education data:

The above vertical bar chart shows us a staggering 2479.5% increase in the enrollment of Negro children in school, beginning before the Civil War and ending a few years before the exhibition.

An 1868 engraving of "James's Plantation School" in North Carolina. This freedmen's school is possibly one of those established by Horace James on the Yankee or Avon Hall plantations in Pitt County in 1866. North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.

The chart begins at near-zero in 1860 as laws across the South forbade slaves to learn to read or write and made it a crime for others to teach them. During the Civil War, as the armies of the north swept through the south, the northern forces had to respond to the massive numbers of former slaves who escaped or were suddenly freed. It was decided that s chools should be opened to prepare the growing ranks of free people. On July 23, 1863, the first school for freed people was established in North Carolina.

While it's obvious to see the massive progress overall, the biggest eye-opener on the chart above is the 602% jump from 1870 to 1878. The cause was undoubtedly the creation of The Freedmen's Bureau at the end of the Civil War. The Freedmen's Bureau was a vast, rapidly-moving agency of early Reconstruction, assisting Freedmen in the South in many ways but most particularly by providing education. In just 5 years the group established more than 1000 schools. The bureau also was instrumental in founding such historically black colleges as Howard University in Washington, D.C., Fisk University in Nashville, TN, and Hampton University in Hampton, VA.

Likewise, as the above chart shows us, the jump from near total illiteracy in 1860 (three years before the Emancipation Proclamation) to only 50% illiteracy in 1900 feels like amazing progress. Unfortunately, this doesn't tell the whole story, as the White illiteracy rate during the same period was 6.2% and total US illiteracy was 10.7%. Certainly access to education was the key factor to the massive reduction, but the realities of the time are stark. The finality of the 1-word title speaks volumes.

In 2017 the amazing data journalist Mona Chalabi remarks, "... even as late as , illiteracy among black Americans was still four times higher than it was for white Americans." She then goes on to brilliantly update Du Bois' charts with current data while trying to remain as faithful as possible to the originals. Her strong analysis of Du Bois' work is well worth your time and her ability to re-contextualize his work with current data shows how profound American inequality remains today.

Aesthetically speaking, the chart above, "Illiteracy", is extremely novel. It represents comparative and sequential values both on the X and Y axis. While slightly more difficult to initially read, its black and white lines create a visual tension that draws the viewer in. By plotting each axis to meet in the middle, he presents a slope of corresponding points, effectively mixing the data and chart marks into a single visualization.

In the next chapter of this series, I'll return to this work to discuss an amazing development I found while researching it. I don't want to spoil the surprise just yet as that is another amazing story to be told.

Like other charts in the exhibition, this chart makes a direct comparison of the condition of American Negroes to several sovereign European countries. As you can plainly see from his blood-red highlight, the illiteracy rate sits in the middle of the group. One infers the surprise Du Bois himself felt when he discovered the similarities when he writes "[Negro] illiteracy is less than that of Russia, and only equal to that of Hungary"

By making the comparison of these illiteracy rates, Du Bois directly confronts the stereotype of the typical American Negro as an ignorant slave. The data shows they are comparable to the same class as a European. This was a bold gesture by 19th century standards for an African-American to present on the world stage when voices of color were noticeably absent. By presenting the statistical comparison Du Bois creates a shockingly effective argument that also sidesteps prejudice.

Many times in data visualization the numbers might be left off the chart entirely as they are in the chart above.

In his great 2013 book " Data Visualization, A Handbook for Data Driven Design" Andy Kirk breaks the reading of any chart into three stages: Perceiving, Interpreting, and finally Comprehending. The first step, perceiving, is where I think most of Du Bois' charts really succeed, as they are so strong visually and leave an immediate impression. Du Bois clearly understands the language of visualization. He expertly delineates only what is exactly needed in order to move his narrative along. Which is to say "Are we really so different than you?"

Graphically bold but not as immediately impactful, the above chart speaks to the need to show an overall positive message. Du Bois accentuates the positive trend by displaying the 39% rate of increase in all Negro children in schools as three stacked bars and only labeling the rate of increase. The remaining 42.71% of Negro children not in schools in 1896 are not omitted, but displayed as a black box; hidden in plain sight.

Yet this chart is actually inaccurate. Du Bois distorts the visualization by truncating the 1876 and 1886 bars to appear shorter than 1896 to exaggerate the trend. As each stacked bar represents a total of 100% they should all be the same height. This was something Du Bois was clearly aware of but opted to distort the progress in an effort to add to the overall positive message of the exhibit.

While doing my research I regularly skipped over the above chart as it's less dynamic than many of the others. I had even started to see it as maybe a work in progress, or even incomplete - but I think I was wrong. I believe the space at the top of the chart was left intentionally blank. I think it is ghost data.

Unlike the previous "Proportion of Total Negro Children" chart where children not in school are represented by a black box, Negro teachers were so scarce, so under-educated, and so overwhelmed, that Du Bois lacked sufficient data and represented them as simply "missing".

In 1911 Du Bois published The Negro Common School in association with his students at Atlanta University. Compiled over a 6-year period, this report explores Negro education issues on a national level as well as 17 individual states. While there are many records of Negro and Freedmen schools across the US, the data collected specifically on teachers is vague at best. In the open pages of the report he elaborates " by the census of 1890 over 25,000 colored teachers were reported, and in their hands practically the whole work of the public school system for Negroes rests. There has not hitherto been sufficient recognition of the immense labor and sacrifice involved in giving the colored race teachers of their own blood in a single generation. "

On the next page in the report, Du Bois lists the actual numbers. According to the 1890 census, the total number of Negro teachers in 1887 was 15,815 of a total African-American population of 7,470,040 or 0.0002% of the population. By any estimate that's a fraction of what was needed.

Loretta Funke "The Negro In Education", 1920, in the "The Journal of Negro History"

A decade later in 1920, Loretta Funke, in the " The Journal of Negro History" writes of the shocking ratios of children to teachers in the page clipping to the left. She later goes on to recount the crude conditions present in 1909: " There were no desks and only a small fragment of a blackboard in one corner. The teacher showed signs of having very little education himself and used no methods whatsoever in teaching. There was only one whole book for the entire reading class. "

To underscore the steady progress in spite of horrible conditions, Du Bois shows four growing vertically aligned bubbles to represent the 31% increase in Negro teachers in Georgia in 11 years. Since the bottom bubble is the darkest, it attracts our eye first and weighs the chart down. The focus is therefore not the maturing color sequence, but the darkest bubble at the bottom of the page; implying other heavier circles to come. By ending the chart in 1897, one can imagine a Parisian attendee asking the question, " What is the current number of teachers now, Professor Du Bois? "

In 1911, Du Bois ends The Negro Common School with a terse but amazing statement: " The white schools are bad. The Negro schools are worse. The South is still poor, and worse than that, it is, to a vast degree ignorant. Race antagonism can only be stopped with intelligence."

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Data Journalism in the study of W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Negro Problem" (Part 2)

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One of the most powerful examples of data visualization was made 118 years ago by an all-black team led by W.E.B. Du Bois only 37 years after the end of slavery in the United States.

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How are safe communities in Syracuse connected to the history of redlining and repeated injustices?

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How are safe communities in Syracuse connected to the history of redlining and repeated injustices?

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Maps of Inequality: Redlining in the City of Syracuse

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A geographic perspective on how redlining in the 1930s in the City of Syracuse contributes to socioeconomic inequality today.

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PPT version of Data Visualization Slide Deck 

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PPT version of Data Visualization Slide Deck 

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Find information about Syracuse's onging civic data challenge.

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Data About Us / Learning To Visualize with Excel / Data Warriors Data

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Data About Us / Learning To Visualize with Excel / Data Warriors Data

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Maker Faire May 4 (Application due April 5)

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Maker Faire May 4 (Application due April 5)

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What is Maker Faire? Maker Faire is a gathering of fascinating, curious people who enjoy learning and who love sharing what they can do. From engineers to artists to scientists to crafters, Maker Faire is a venue for these "makers" to show hobbies, experiments, projects.

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Mona Chalabi W E B Du Bois updated data visualizations 

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Mona Chalabi W E B Du Bois updated data visualizations 

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mona chalabi w e b du bois - Google Search

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SU Summer College: Social Justice math and mapping - apply for a scholarship!

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SU Summer College: Social Justice math and mapping - apply for a scholarship!

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Do you notice things in your neighborhood that are unfair? Do you want to make a difference in your community? Do you notice patterns and like to think visually?

In this course, students will investigate social justice issues that are specific to their neighborhood or community. During the first two classes we will learn and apply research skills to find compelling articles, data sets, and resources. During the last two classes we will utilize mathematics technology to generate compelling graphics, look for patterns, and make recommendations for action. Students will work in small groups and independently to share their projects with broad audiences.

Whether you're an active change maker in your community, or like to explore ways to take action to address social issues, this course is for you. The instruction will be designed to meet you where you are to explore math skills and concepts with technology. You'll gain new skills to use digital tools to curate and present information to tell rich stories to wide audiences.
All students who successfully complete the course will receive a Certificate of Completion and have the opportunity to request a Syracuse University noncredit transcript.

Use research skills to find data sets, curate articles, and gather information on social justice issues they care about.

Use mathematics technology (Desmos, wolfram Alpha, Google Sheets) to explore data sets and visualize information graphically.

Use virtual platforms (WordPress, Social Media, Canva) to design and share information about social justice issues and actions to take.

Use research-based practices to guide the communication and dissemination of ideas.

Use maps to make sense of injustices and explore social justice issues in visual and quantitative ways.

Course Prefix and Number: SCN 173

Format: On Campus (at Syracuse University)

Eligibility: Students must be of rising high school sophomore, junior, or senior status - or a 2024 high school graduate.
This class will be a good fit for students who are dedicated to learning, are open minded, and driven to learn and share research through math and mapping.
Credit: Noncredit

Grading: Pass/Fail
Cost: Program rates are subject to change and will be approved by the board of trustees. Discounts and scholarships are also available.
Summer College - On Campus: Experience what college is really like: take a college-level course, live in a residence hall, have meals with friends in a dining hall, and participate in activities and events on campus.

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Do you notice things in your neighborhood that are unfair? Do you want to make a difference in your community? Do you notice patterns and like to think visually? In this course, students will investigate social justice issues that are specific to their neighborhood or community.

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How can charts help us compare trends? Stacked bar charts and (dis)proportionality.

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How can charts help us compare trends? Stacked bar charts and (dis)proportionality.

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Additional details can be found here https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2023/07/01/race-of-academy-award-winners-in-big-5-categories/

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Data Visualization is a Process of Asking, Collecting, Analyzing, and Sharing.

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Data Visualization is a Process of Asking, Collecting, Analyzing, and Sharing.

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All other data from the American Community Survey 2022 5-year estimates

Includes unconfirmed fingersticks.

Location data represent address provided at time of testing.

Data represent children under 18 years of age.

Census Tracts with fewer than 10 children tested were suppressed.

Census Tracts according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census.

2022  data are provisional.

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What do you want to figure out? What do you want others to know? What change do you want to make?

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What do you want to figure out? What do you want others to know? What change do you want to make?

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Comment ⤵️

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“A comprehensive approach to address crime and violence should direct resources back into communities of color that have been disproportionately affected and where historic divestment has resulted in a lack of proven public health and community safety infrastructure.”

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Centering Youth in Community Violence Interventions as Part of a Comprehensive Approach to Countering Gun Violence

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Community violence intervention programs are a critical part of a comprehensive approach to reduce the impact of rising gun violence on youth and in U.S. communities.

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What do you think is true for Syracuse? Does having more trees correlate with reduced crime?

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What do you think is true for Syracuse? Does having more trees correlate with reduced crime?

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One of my first articles as a blogger was to celebrate the replacement of fallen trees in our neighborhood. We humans instinctively resonate to nature, and street trees and other kinds of city forests add all sorts of emotional and cooling benefits to our neighborhoods.

But that's not all: new research from Baltimore finds that city trees also reduce crime. Writing in Grist, Rachel Nuwer summarizes the findings:

"In addition to housing squirrels, [trees] also reduce lawless activity. This is the conclusion drawn by a team of researchers who teased apart the relationship between tree canopy and crime in and around Baltimore. They used aggregated crime data from Spotcrime and overlaid it with high-res satellite imagery to conduct probably the largest analysis of its kind to date. "According to the study, a 10 percent increase in trees roughly equaled a 12 percent decrease in crime. 'It's really pretty striking how strong this relationship is,' says Austin Troy, director of the University of Vermont's Transportation Research Center and lead author of the study, published in the June issue of the journal Landscape and Urban Planning."

Given the amount of publicity given recently to another study showing that wealthier neighborhoods have more trees than poorer ones, one might surmise that the apparent crime-reducing ability of trees is really masking something more important: that wealthier neighborhoods have less crime. According to Nuwer, though, the researchers controlled for this:

" In their models, they controlled for all kinds of socioeconomic factors, including income, housing age, and owner race, plus adjusted for other variables associated with tree cover, like ruralness and population density. After holding all of these points steady, trees still wound up on top."

The new research adds to a plethora of findings and wisdom about trees. In a fascinating, extended essay in The Wilson Quarterly, Jill Jonnes examines the history of city trees and research on their benefits, noting that a breakthrough study was conducted in Chicago in 1994. The researchers found that the city's trees could improve air quality by as much as 15 percent, removing measurable amounts of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter. Moreover, Chicago's trees sequestered about 155,000 tons of carbon per year and could absorb far more over time with more planting. Including the benefits of shade in reducing energy needs for air conditioning, each Chicago tree was found to be worth $402 over its life span, over twice the average cost.

Jonnes details a large volume of more recent research in cities such as Sacramento, New York and Los Angeles. For example, researchers in New York City have found that each year the city's street trees deliver $122 million in benefits, or about $209 a tree. The city spends about $14 million each year on its tree program, suggesting a hefty return on their investment.

Jonnes also points to a "Tree Benefit Calculator" developed by Casey Trees. Borrowing an idea from Jonnes's essay, I input a bit of information about a Norway maple in my back yard and learned that, roughly, it generates $235 in benefits each year, a strong majority in the categories of stormwater management, contribution to property value, and electricity savings. Walkability guru Dan Burden has written a well-documented publication on 22 benefits of street trees that go beyond those cited in Jonnes' essay. Burden cites traffic and pedestrian safety, improved business productivity, lower temperatures, positive effects on human health, and more.

Which brings us back to the Baltimore findings on crime. If poor neighborhoods are the ones with the most crime, as well as the ones with the most need for reduced utility bills and better health, we should begin to focus more attention to tree-planting in them. Looks to me like it could bring multiple benefits at bargain prices.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page. Please also visit NRDC's sustainable communities video channel.

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New evidence that city trees reduce crime

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How might data warriors connect with local artists and art centers to uplift, celebrate, and covision just futures?

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How might data warriors connect with local artists and art centers to uplift, celebrate, and covision just futures?

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Community Folk Art Center, Inc. (CFAC) is a vibrant cultural and artistic hub committed to the promotion and development of artists of the African Diaspora. Our mission is to exalt cultural and artistic pluralism by collecting, exhibiting, teaching and interpreting the visual and expressive arts. Public programming includes exhibitions, film screenings, gallery talks, workshops and courses in the studio arts, including dance and ceramics. A proud unit of the Department of African American Studies, College of Arts & Sciences at Syracuse University, CFAC is a beacon of artistry, creativity, and cultural expression within the Syracuse community, the region and the world.

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Community Folk Art Center, Inc. (CFAC) is a vibrant cultural and artistic hub committed to the promotion and development of artists of the African Diaspora. Our mission is to exalt cultural and artistic pluralism by collecting, exhibiting, teaching and interpreting the visual and expressive arts.

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Data/map trends on Syracuse poverty levels compared to other cities

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Data/map trends on Syracuse poverty levels compared to other cities

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse has the highest rate of extreme poverty concentrated among blacks and Hispanics out of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, according to a new study of poverty in America.

The study is the latest to examine a decades-long trend in Syracuse, where the city has consistently ranked as having one of the highest poverty rates in the nation.

The analysis of census data by a Rutgers University professor shows that extreme poverty continues to spread unabated out of Syracuse's core to the city's Near South, Near Southwest and North Side.

In 2000, Syracuse had nine "extreme poverty" neighborhoods, defined as census tracts where more than 40 percent of residents live in poverty.

By 2010, Syracuse had 19 such neighborhoods, according to a 2011 study by the Brookings Institution.

Now the number of high-poverty tracts in Syracuse totals 30, according to Paul Jargowsky the Rutgers University-Camden professor who published the study with The Century Foundation.

"The general trend is that there is a spreading out of poverty," Jargowsky said in an interview. "That is happening all over the place. But I didn't know Syracuse was going to stand out the way it did."

POVERTY LEVEL BY CENSUS TRACT

0-20%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

80-100%

2000

2009-13

Note: Syracuse University south campus student housing

POVERTY LEVEL BY CENSUS TRACT

0-20%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

80-100%

2000

2009-13

Note: Syracuse University south campus student housing

POVERTY LEVEL BY CENSUS TRACT

0-20%

20-40%

40-60%

60-80%

80-100%

2000

2009-13

Note: Syracuse University south campus student housing

Sources: U.S. Census, American Community Survey

Peter Allen | pallen@syracuse.com

Mobile users: View our Poverty In Syracuse map here.

The study found Syracuse is at the leading edge of a disturbing national trend in which the number of people living in extreme-poverty neighborhoods nearly doubled from 7.2 million in 2000 to 13.8 million in 2013, the highest on record.

The trend reflects a sharp reversal from the progress reported in the 1990s, when the number of Americans living in such concentrated poverty fell by 25 percent by 2000.

Jargowsky blames the reversal, in part, on flight to the suburbs and what he calls the "architecture of segregation," policies that encourage the development of public housing in poor city neighborhoods rather than the suburbs.

He said the trend started before the Great Recession, which took a high toll on poor blacks and Hispanics. Jargowsky also cautions that his study examined only the most recent available data, taking an average for a five-year period from 2009 through 2013 - potentially missing data from the economic recovery.

The most recent annual data shows Syracuse's overall poverty rate has declined since a reaching a high of 38.2 percent in 2012, when the city had the fourth-highest poverty rate in the nation.

As of 2013, Syracuse's poverty rate had declined to 33.2 percent, the 23rd-highest in the nation. The rate meant that 48,000 people who live in Syracuse have incomes of less than $23,500 for a family of four.

Jargowsky's study found almost two-thirds of Syracuse's black and Hispanic residents live in extreme poverty, concentrated within the 30 census tracts.

About 65 percent of Syracuse's black population lived in high-poverty areas in by the end of 2013, up from 43 percent in 2000 - the highest percentage in the nation, according to the study.

Highest black concentration of poverty
Source: 2000 Census, 2005-2009 and 2009-2013 ACS. Limited to the 100 largest metropolitan areas.
Detroit was second to Syracuse, with 58 percent of its black population living in areas of concentrated poverty, up from 17 percent in 2000.

The same trend was true for Hispanics in Syracuse. About 62 percent of Syracuse's Hispanic population lived in high-poverty neighborhoods - the highest percentage in the nation -- up from 49 percent in 2000.

Highest Hispanic concentration of poverty
Source: 2000 Census, 2005-2009 and 2009-2013 ACS. Limited to the 100 largest metropolitan areas.
Among Hispanics, Philadelphia (54 percent) had the second-largest concentration of residents in extreme poverty neighborhoods, up slightly from 53.7 percent in 2000.

Syracuse also had the nation's fifth-highest concentration (21.5 percent) of non-Hispanic whites living in concentrations of extreme poverty.

Paul Driscoll, Syracuse's commissioner of neighborhood and business development, said city officials are disturbed by the study's findings. But he said officials cannot explain why the city seems to be lagging the rest of the nation in reducing its poverty.

"We are all struggling to understand why Syracuse is getting hit worse than other cities," Driscoll said in an interview. "We're just looking to address what cities can do to address poverty. We're finding we're pretty limited in what we can do. We deal with the consequences at the local level, but a lot of these problems have to be dealt with at the state and federal level."

Driscoll said city officials suspect extreme poverty spread to 10 census tracts on Syracuse's North Side because of the influx of refugees from places such as Somalia in Africa, Bosnia and Bhutan. "Roughly 10,000 refugees have moved into the North Side since the year 2000, most of whom are probably with very little means," he said.

Driscoll said it's also clear Syracuse is not alone in experiencing deeper pockets of extreme poverty: The trend extends across Upstate New York to Rochester and Buffalo. Both of those cities ranked among the 10 worst areas for concentrated poverty among blacks and Hispanics.

Jargowsky, the study author, said one factor affecting Syracuse and the other Upstate cities has been suburban development that came at the expense of the central city and older suburbs.

He said taxpayers paid for roads, schools and other new infrastructure in the suburbs, while the urban core was underutilized or abandoned.

"Through exclusionary zoning and outright housing market discrimination, the upper-middle class and affluent could move to the suburbs, and the poor were left behind," Jargowsky wrote in the study.

He said public policy debates about the root causes of civil unrest in the past year in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore have so far paid little attention to the return of concentrated poverty in racially-segregated ghettos and barrios.

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751

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Syracuse poverty worst in nation for blacks, Hispanics

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Study finds the number of Syracuse census tracts with extreme poverty tripled since 2000.

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Syracuse Black Artist Collective say their names memorial banners 

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Syracuse Black Artist Collective say their names memorial banners 

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How can art be created and shared as a response to injustice and racism? How is art action in making change?

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The Daily Orange is a nonprofit newsroom that receives no funding from Syracuse University. Consider donating today to support our mission.
The Black Artist Collective will display Say Their Names banners at several locations in Syracuse to commemorate the people of color who have died due to police brutality and racial violence.

Jaleel Campbell created the artwork displayed on the banners, which show the faces of Black people killed by police, including Philando Castile, Sandra Bland and Mike Brown.

The banners will be put on display at Bethany Baptist Church in the coming weeks. After the church, they will be shown at the Syracuse University Community Folk Art Center and at various locations across Syracuse, including ArtRage Gallery in the Northside neighborhood and Cafe Sankofa in the Southside neighborhood.

Martikah Williams, co-founder of the Black Artist Collective, said the banners are a "reminder that you're not in it alone. Nobody in this community is fighting this fight alone."

On George Floyd's birthday, Oct. 14, Black Artist Collective presented three banners at its Say Their Names Memorial at Bethany Baptist Church. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd in May and has been charged with murder.

At the event, the Black Artist Collective encouraged people to add names to the banner of those they love who were affected by police violence. Qiana Williams, a Syracuse resident and co-founder of the Black Artist Collective, said there were at least 100 names added to the banners, including people killed in Syracuse and in many cities across the country.

The banner serves as an opportunity for artist collaboration and a chance for the community to grieve collectively, Martikah said.

"There's this whole piece of art that we're all making together to solidify the fact that we are a community. We do care about each other," she said. "That's us advocating for each other."

The banners will also be a constant reminder of lives lost and a way to keep citizens involved and active in the Black Lives Matter movement.

"For posterity's sake ... this isn't just a moment." Qiana said, "This actually has legacy, and we don't want to let people get back to business as usual."

The banners both give a platform to Black voices and make that platform available to everyone in all areas of Syracuse, Martikah said.

Martikah said it's important for the banners to move to different locations, because with the coronavirus pandemic, not everyone has the same access to transportation as they normally would.

The Say Their Names Memorial aims to use art as an intervention and interruption to the onslaught of police brutality cases, Martikah said. Ranette Releford, administrator at the Citizen Review Board for the Syracuse Police Department, said she has dealt with almost 500 cases of police misconduct allegations in the past three years she has worked there.

Releford spoke at the Say Their Names event about the importance of accountability in the Syracuse Police Department. She is working toward a goal of open communication and transparency between city residents and the police.

After Floyd's death, the collective formed to put the community at the center of the conversation and to give artists of color a space in Syracuse to create, Qiana said.

Following the positive feedback from the Say Their Names event, the Black Artist Collective is planning more events for the future, including a film festival in February to showcase movies by artists of color on all levels of production, Martikah said.

"When I was talking to people afterwards, and something that the rest of the BAC team was sharing with each other, was that so many people felt like this was so needed," Martikah said. "It's funny because you don't even realize that you need it and you're just grateful because somebody took the initiative to make the space for it."

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Memorial commemorates victims of police violence

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The banners will be on display at several locations, including Bethany Baptist Church, the Community Folk Art Center and ArtRage.

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More info on the owner of Parkside commons

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Real-estate mogul Stephen Ross is hoping to have a say in NYC's next mayoral race.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that Ross had donated $1 million in December to a committee called Common Sense NYC; other real estate executives also chipped in. A source told the Times that the committee - which cannot coordinate with a campaign or a candidate - is focused on several upcoming New York City elections, including the mayoral race.

In August, Ross, along with tech executive Daniel Doctoroff, was discussing raising $100 million for "the right candidate" in NYC's 2021 mayoral race, two sources involved in those discussions told The New York Times' Dana Rubenstein.

Per the Times, Common Sense NYC has only just begun fundraising.

The 80-year-old Ross is chairman and majority owner of the Related Cos., which owns luxury fitness brands Equinox and SoulCycle. He has an estimated net worth of $7.2 billion, per Forbes. Ross, who sparked backlash and boycott threats last year over his Trump ties, is known as the man behind New York City's Time Warner Center and the most expensive real estate development in US history - Hudson Yards - as well as the owner of NFL team Miami Dolphins.

Here's a look at Ross' life and fortune.

Ross is big on philanthropy, particularly for sustainability and higher education. He's donated over $450 million to his alma mater, the University of Michigan, over the years.

Ross has also donated $20 million to the NYU School of Law, another alma mater, according to Inside Philanthropy.

He gifted $30.5 million to the World Resources Institute to establish the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. Its goal is to "integrate urban planning, sustainable transport, energy and climate change, water resources and governance." He recently pledged an additional $63.5 million to the center.

Ross also supports the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

The fundraising Ross is reportedly considering for NYC's 2021 mayoral race wouldn't be his only political donation. He's given money to both Democratic and Republican parties throughout the years.

In 2016, he donated $200,000 to Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC supporting the Republican party, according to Sports Illustrated. He also donated $100,000 to a super PAC affiliated with Mitt Romney in 2011, plus $10,000 to the NY Republican Federal Campaign Commit te in 2010, 2012, and 2013.

In 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008, he donated $25,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

A spokesperson for Ross told The New York Times' Dana Rubenstein, regarding the possible 2021 NYC mayoral race donation, that Ross "has no preference as to a mayoral candidate's party affiliation." Per the latest Times report, the committee that Ross has put $1 million into is focused on issues that include public education, infrastructure, and quality of life.

And in August 2019, Ross stirred controversy following a report that he would be hosting a Trump fundraiser in his Hamptons home for $100,000 per ticket, according to The Washington Post.

Ross' fundraiser for Trump's reelection fueled boycott threats from Equinox members and SoulCycle fans, reported Business Insider's Kate Taylor.

Equinox later released a statement on Twitter saying it isn't associated with and doesn't support the event. "We believe in tolerance and equality, and will always stay true to those values," it reads. "Mr. Ross is a passive investor and is not involved in the management of either business."

Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills criticized Ross for supporting Trump. He said that Ross, who runs the nonprofit RISE, which aims to eliminate racial discrimination, can't support both that mission statement and Trump.

Ross responded to the wave of backlash in his own statement, saying that he likes to engage in the democratic process and that he and Trump, who he's known for 40 years, agree on some issues and disagree on many others.

"I always have been an active participant in the democratic process," Ross said. "While some prefer to sit outside of the process and criticize, I prefer to engage directly and support the things I deeply care about."

Aside from his main residence, Ross has spent more than half a billion dollars building up his own personal real-estate portfolio in New York and Florida.

In New York City, he purchased a $6.9 million condo in Tribeca and an apartment in the West Village, according to Sylvia Varnham O'Regan of The Real Deal. While it's unknown how much he paid for the latter, prices of other units at the time of the purchases were as high as $35 million.

He also owns a 9,148-square-foot-property on a nearly three-acre lot in Southampton, which Trulia valued at $11.4 million, reported O'Regan.

That's not to mention his Palm Beach, Florida, oceanfront mansion, known as "The Reef," for which he reportedly paid $31.8 million. He previously owned a four-bedroom condo in the city, which he purchased for $6.3 million and later sold for $12.1 million, O'Regan said.

When he's not working, snapping up real estate, or getting philanthropically or politically involved, Ross spends time golfing, boating, and exercising.

He told Wiener-Bronner he walks the 700 feet up to the top of the Time Warner Center two or three times a week.

"I never thought I'd be where I am today," Ross told her. "I kind of pinch myself, but I don't sit back because I'm always looking forward."

Arts & Culture Wealth

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Stephen Ross - Trump donor and Equinox chairman - has reportedly already donated $1 million toward NYC's next elections. Take a look at how one of the city's richest residents built his fortune.

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Stephen Ross, who has a $7.2 billion net worth, stirred controversy last year for hosting a Trump. He's mobilizing $100 million on NYC elections.

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This handbook is very action oriented and provides step-by-step processes

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This handbook is very action oriented and provides step-by-step processes

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Syracuse, N.Y. - Darwin Quinones, 21, was shot to death three months ago in a stairwell at Parkside Commons. He was the third person murdered in less than a year at the sprawling low-income apartment complex on Syracuse's East Side.

Two other homicides occurred last year within a block of Parkside Commons. That's not counting non-fatal shootings or other mayhem.

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Murder, mayhem and mice: Parkside Commons' doors are open to trouble. 'We need help'

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Families confront a stream of intruders. And lots of mice.

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A short spatial history of discrimination, inequality, and the breach of human rights in Syracuse, New York.

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Syracuse is a city located in Onondaga County New York. Syracuse has a 2023 population of 144,261. It is also the county seat of Onondaga County.Syracuse is currently declining at a rate of -0.63% annually and its population has decreased by -1.89% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 147,033 in 2020.

The average household income in Syracuse is $57,880 with a poverty rate of 30.07%. The median rental costs in recent years comes to - per month, and the median house value is -. The median age in Syracuse is 31.7 years, 31.4 years for males, and 32.1 years for females.

Syracuse is the county seat of Onondaga County, New York and the 5th most populous city in New York state. Syracuse is the educational and economic hub of Central New York and takes its name from the original Syracuse in Italy.

Syracuse Diversity and Religion

There are 26 neighborhoods in Syracuse, many of which reflect the city's historically ethnic population. Polish, Irish, and Ukrainian Americans are primarily found on the west side of the city in Little Italy while Jewish Americans settled on the east side. The African-American population is concentrated on the south side while Italian and German Americans have a large presence on the north side.

Many religions are represented in Syracuse, including Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, and Judaism.

Forbes recently ranked Syracuse as the 4th best place in the United States to raise a family with a low crime rate, excellent education, and low cost of living.

Syracuse Population Growth

Syracuse has experienced negative growth for every census since the city reached a peak population of 209,000 in 1930. Between 1970 and 2000, the population declined from 197,000 to 146,000. After more than 70 years of population decline, it appears that Syracuse is finally halting the loss and experiencing some growth. City leaders were surprised to find that the population of Central New York grew by 1.4% in the last decade, hitting an all-time high of 742,000 in the 4-county Syracuse area.

Today, the downtown area is experiencing a booming residential population growth, with the downtown area experiencing a notable 47% population increase over the last ten years and a 21% increase over the previous 3 years.

Syracuse Demographics

According to the most recent ACS, the racial composition of Syracuse was:

White: 52.97%

Black or African American: 29.2%

Two or more races: 7.19%

Asian: 7.04%

Other race: 2.65%

Native American: 0.92%

Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.02%

The current population of Syracuse, New York is 144,261 based on our projections of the latest US Census estimates.The last official US Census in 2020 recorded the population at 147,033.

Syracuse, New York Population 2023

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Syracuse is a city located in Onondaga County New York. Syracuse has a 2023 population of 144,261. It is also the county seat of Onondaga County.Syracuse is currently declining at a rate of -0.63% annually and its population has decreased by -1.89% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 147,033 in 2020.

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Population distribution by age and sex for Angola in 2005

A population pyramid (age structure diagram) or " age-sex pyramid" is a graphical illustration of the distribution of a population (typically that of a country or region of the world) by age groups and sex; it typically takes the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing. Males are usually shown on the left and females on the right, and they may be measured in absolute numbers or as a percentage of the total population. The pyramid can be used to visualize the age of a particular population. It is also used in ecology to determine the overall age distribution of a population; an indication of the reproductive capabilities and likelihood of the continuation of a species. Number of people per unit area of land is called population density.

A population pyramid often contains continuous stacked-histogram bars, making it a horizontal bar diagram. The population size is shown on the x-axis (horizontal) while the age-groups are represented on the y-axis (vertical). The size of each bar can be displayed either as a percentage of the total population or as a raw number. Males are conventionally shown on the left and females on the right. Population pyramids are often viewed as the most effective way to graphically depict the age and distribution of a population, partly because of the very clear image these pyramids provide. A great deal of information about the population broken down by age and sex can be read from a population pyramid, and this can shed light on the extent of development and other aspects of the population.

The measures of central tendency ( mean, median, and mode) should be considered when assessing a population pyramid. For example, the average age could be used to determine the type of population in a particular region. A population with an average age of 15 would be very young compared to one with an average age of 55. Population statistics are often mid-year numbers.

A series of population pyramids could give a clear picture of how a country transitions from high to low fertility rates. If the pyramid has a broad base, this indicates that a relatively high proportion of the population lies in the youngest age band, such as ages 0-14, which suggests that the fertility rate of the country is high and above replacement fertility level. If a population is below replacement fertility level, the older population is declining with age, due to a combination of mortality and an increase in the number of births over time. There are usually more females than males in the older age ranges since women have a greater life expectancy, for a variety of reasons including women partaking less in risky behaviors.

The shape of the pyramid can also reveal the age-dependency ratio of a population. Populations with a high proportion of children and/or of elderly people have a higher dependency ratio. This ratio refers to how many old and young people are dependent on the working-age groups (often defined as ages 15-64). According to Weeks' Population: an Introduction to Concepts and Issues, population pyramids can be used to predict the future, known as a population forecast. Population momentum, when a population's birth rates continue to increase even after fertility rate has declined to replacement level, can even be predicted if a population has a low mortality rate since the population will continue to grow. This then brings up the term doubling time, which is used to predict when the population will double in size. Lastly, a population pyramid can even give insight into the economic status of a country from the age stratification since the distribution of supplies is not evenly distributed through a population.

In the demographic transition model, the size and shape of population pyramids vary. In stage one of the demographic transition model, the pyramids have the most defined shape. They have the ideal big base and a skinny top. In stage two, the pyramid looks similar but starts to widen in the middle age groups. In stage three, the pyramids start to round out and look similar in shape to a tombstone. In stage four, there is a decrease in the younger age groups. This causes the base of the widened pyramid to narrow. Lastly, in stage five, the pyramid starts to take on the shape of a kite as the base continues to decrease. The shape of the population is dependent upon what the economy is like in the country. More developed countries can be found in stages three, four, and five, while the least developed countries have a population represented by the pyramids in stages one and two.

Population age pyramid of Nigeria in 2020, similar to all of sub-Saharan Africa

Each country will have a different population pyramid. However, population pyramids can be categorised into three types: stationary, expansive, or constrictive. These types have been identified by the fertility and mortality rates of a country.

"Stationary" pyramid or constant population pyramid

A pyramid can be described as stationary if the percentages of population (age and sex) remain approximately constant over time.[7] In a stationary population, the numbers of births and death roughly balance one another.

"Expansive" pyramid or Expanding population pyramid

A population pyramid that is very wide at the younger ages, characteristic of countries with a high birth rate and perhaps low life expectancy therefore leading to high death rate.[6] The population is said to be fast-growing, and the size of each birth cohort increases each year. [8]

"Constrictive" pyramid or Declining population

A population pyramid that is narrowed at the bottom. The population is generally older on average, as the country has long life expectancy, a low death rate, but also a low birth rate.[6] This may suggest that in future there may be a high dependency ratio due to reducing numbers at working ages. This is a typical pattern for a very developed country, with a high level of education, easy access to and incentive to use birth control, good health care, and few negative environmental factors.[9]

Median age by country. A youth bulge is evident for Africa, and to a lesser extent for West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central America.

Map of countries by fertility rate (2020), according to the Population Reference Bureau

Gary Fuller (1995) described a youth bulge as a type of expansive pyramid. Gunnar Heinsohn (2003) argues that an excess in especially young adult male population predictably leads to social unrest, war, and terrorism, as the "third and fourth sons" that find no prestigious positions in their existing societies rationalize their impetus to compete by religion or political ideology.

Heinsohn claims that most historical periods of social unrest lacking external triggers (such as rapid climatic changes or other catastrophic changes of the environment) and most genocides can be readily explained as a result of a built-up youth bulge. This factor has been also used to account for the Arab Spring events and the rise of extremist populism in the 2010s. Economic recessions, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the late 2000s Great Recession, are also claimed to be explained in part due to a large youth population who cannot find jobs. Youth bulge can be seen as one factor among many in explaining social unrest and uprisings in society. A 2016 study finds that youth bulges increase the chances of non-ethnic civil wars, but not ethnic civil wars.

A large population of adolescents entering the labor force and electorate strains at the seams of the economy and polity, which were designed for smaller populations. This creates unemployment and alienation unless new opportunities are created quickly enough - in which case a 'demographic dividend' accrues because productive workers outweigh young and elderly dependents. Yet the 16-29 age range is associated with risk-taking, especially among males. In general, youth bulges in developing countries are associated with higher unemployment and, as a result, a heightened risk of violence and political instability. For Cincotta and Doces (2011), the transition to more mature age structures is almost a sine qua non for democratization.

To reverse the effects of youth bulges, specific policies such as creating more jobs, improving family planning programs, and reducing over all infant mortality rates should be a priority.

Population pyramid of Egypt in 2005. Many of those 30 and younger are educated citizens who are experiencing difficulty finding work.

Nearly half of Libya's 2011 population consists of people younger than age 20.

Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East and North Africa are currently experiencing a prominent youth bulge. "Across the Middle East, countries have experienced a pronounced increase in the size of their youth populations over recent decades, both in total numbers and as a percentage of the total population. Today, the nearly 111 million individuals aging between 15 to 29 living across the region make up nearly 27 percent of the region's population." Structural changes in service provision, especially health care, beginning in the 1960s created the conditions for a demographic explosion, which has resulted in a population consisting primarily of younger people. It is estimated that around 65% of the regional population is under the age of 25.

The youth bulge in the Middle East and North Africa has been favorably compared to that of East Asia, which harnessed this human capital and saw huge economic growth in recent decades. The youth bulge has been referred to by the Middle East Youth Initiative as a demographic gift, which, if engaged, could fuel regional economic growth and development. "While the growth of the youth population imposes supply pressures on education systems and labor markets, it also means that a growing share of the overall population is made up of those considered to be of working age; and thus not dependent on the economic activity of others. In turn, this declining dependency ratio can have a positive impact on overall economic growth, creating a demographic dividend. The ability of a particular economy to harness this dividend, however, is dependent on its ability to ensure the deployment of this growing working-age population towards productive economic activity, and to create the jobs necessary for the growing labor force."

Additional references

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A population pyramid (age structure diagram) or " age-sex pyramid" is a graphical illustration of the distribution of a population (typically that of a country or region of the world) by age groups and sex; it typically takes the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing.

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Respect your elders!

Age discrimination is a serious issue that must be confronted in the Big Apple - especially as the number of residents ages 65 and up is expected to continue climbing, according to a new report.

"Older adults and people of color have experienced disproportionate illness and death during the COVID-19 pandemic," the city Health Department said in an analysis on ageism.

"The pandemic has also exposed and perpetuated ageism. For example, some public discourse portrayed older adults as less valuable than younger people when it came to allocation of resources for care," according to the brief, entitled "How Ageist Are We, New York City?"

Of New York City's 8.65 million citizens, 1.73 million or 20% are seniors 60 years of age and over, according to the Department for the Aging.

That figure is expected to surge to 1.86 million, or 40%, by 2040 as members of the baby boomer generation become senior citizens.

Age discrimination could worsen the physical and mental health conditions of older New Yorkers and increase medical costs, while positive feelings about age can have beneficial health effects such as "possibly protecting against dementia," the report said.

In its analysis, the Health Department cited statistics from an unpublicized internal 2019 survey of 1,200 adults - conducted before the COVID-19 outbreak - that revealed discrimination against older adults.

The poll found that 60% of younger adults agreed that NYC is a place where older adults are valued members of the community, while only 35% of New Yorkers believed that was the case.

Meanwhile, nearly 40% of people younger than 65 said speaking slowly would help older adults understand things, while only 13% of seniors believed that was necessary.

Nearly a third of younger adults agree that older adults are too easily offended or interpret innocent remarks as being ageist, compared to just 7% and 9% of senior citizens respectively who believed that was the case.

Nearly 20% of younger adults believe older adults are a drain on the health care system and the economy, nearly double the 11% of older adults who said so.

City officials said these examples constituted "hostile ageism."

Elsewhere, 37% of younger adults said seniors need to be protected from the harsh realities of society, double the 18% of adults who said that was necessary.

One-third of younger respondents said seniors are too old to do certain things and whose feelings get hurt when they fail, compared to 14% of older adults who agreed with the statements.

Another 29% of younger respondents said seniors shouldn't be allowed to work and had already paid their debt to society, compared to 7% of older adults who said the same.

These findings expose "benevolent ageism," health officials said.

"Mitigating ageism is key to healthy aging in our city, and can lead to longer, more productive lives for everybody. Despite the ubiquity of ageism on individual and systemic levels, awareness and recognition are important first steps in combating negative stereotypes and assumptions about older adults," the report said.

The analysis highlighted city programs in place to help Gotham's older New Yorkers and counter ageism.

For example, the department drafted specific COVID guidance for those 65 and older and visited home-bound residents during the city's vaccination campaign, so they could get their shots.

Age was considered a risk factor for COVID-19.

Health officials said they also work closely with the Department for the Aging to curb ageism and create opportunities for older adults to thrive and age in their neighborhoods and recently published an anti-ageism guide with the Department of Education to teach students about age-based discrimination.

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Ageism in NYC is a serious issue with 29% of young New Yorkers feeling seniors shouldn't work: poll

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Respect your elders! Age discrimination is a serious issue that must be confronted in the Big Apple, according to a new Health Department report.

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If you think you've been fired for being too old, depending on where you work, you may not be able to take your employer to court.

Many companies require employees to submit disputes to binding arbitration as a condition of their employment. That means you may have already waived your right to sue.

There are pros and cons to binding arbitration, but a big con is that you can't appeal a decision, and you give up the right to have your case heard by a jury.

Along with Senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham, New York's U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand successfully passed a law limiting forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment.

Now, she's working with the same group of people to ban it in cases of age discrimination.

"When workers hit 50 or 55, there seems to be a rush by employers to fire a lot of people because they want to get rid of high-cost employees in exchange for newer, younger, less experienced, lower-cost employees," said Gillibrand.

Binding arbitration agreements are common. One example: if you use a credit card and you want to sue the credit card company, you may not be able to because using some cards automatically waives your right to sue. ,

When asked why these agreements have become so common, Gillibrand said that they usually work in the favor of the corporation.

"They advantage large employers, and they advantage large companies. Typically, the company is the one that chooses the arbiter. They're the ones who hire the arbitration organization. And typically, the judgements favor the person who hired them," Gillibrand said.

Gillibrand argues the system creates an uneven playing field.

"The employee has far less in terms of rights and resources and lawyers and tactics. So, if you want to get justice in cases where there is uneven power, you really need to use our judicial system. You need a court of law where you can try a case before a jury of your peers," Gillibrand said.

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Gillibrand tackles age discrimination in the workplace

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is working with other senators to ban cases of age discrimination.

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New research supports the idea that economic distress led to an increase in opioid abuse. But some say the origins of the epidemic are far more complicated.

In 2015, Jennifer Silva, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Bucknell University, began interviewing people in the coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania. She was working on a project, which would become the book We're Still Here, about how poor and working-class Americans were affected by the collapse of the coal industry-the major job provider in the region.

She was curious how the regional decline might have shaped her subjects' politics. But she quickly noticed a startling trend alongside the growing unemployment: Her subjects and their families were struggling with opioid abuse. At community meetings, doctors and coroners would debate solutions to the problem. Should they be arresting people? Should they be creating support groups? She describes one desperate parent who asked whether Donald Trump's proposed border wall would keep black tar heroin from getting to Pennsylvania.

Silva's interviewees might have been representative of an awful connection between job loss and opioid abuse, a connection that continues to be bolstered by research. A study published on Monday in the journal found that counties with automotive assembly plants that closed had, five years after the closure, 85 percent higher rates of opioid-overdose mortality, relative to counties where automotive assembly plants remained open.

While the study authors can't say that it was the laid-off autoworkers, specifically, who died of overdoses, the findings gave the researchers the sense that declining economic opportunities are a big part of what drove the opioid epidemic. After all, there are a number of potential connections between joblessness and addiction, says Atheendar S. Venkataramani, an assistant professor of health policy at the University of Pennsylvania and the lead author of the study. Losing a job might mean losing access to health insurance. It could lead to isolation and loneliness, or a sense that there's little left to live for. "If you feel like the American dream is no longer accessible," Venkataramani says, "then one may also feel that, Well, it's not really worth investing in myself ... because investing in yourself is one way to access the fruits of the American dream. "

Venkataramani's study can be read as yet another sign that Americans are dying " deaths of despair"-that the reason the life expectancies of poor Americans are stagnating or declining is that their dwindling economic opportunities spur them toward drugs, alcohol, and suicide. Many other studies have also found connections between different types of job loss and different types of drug abuse. One 2017 paper, which I wrote about at the time, found that with each percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate, the death rate from opioids rises by 3.6 percent. Another found that economic downturns that lower housing prices, such as the Great Recession, are associated with more opioid-related deaths. A meta-analysis published in the International Journal of Drug Policy examined 28 studies published from 1990 to 2015 in 12 different countries and found that both economic recessions and individual unemployment increases illegal drug use of various kinds. And late last year, another paper found that a rise in manufacturing-related job loss corresponded with an increase in opioid-related deaths.

The authors of these studies tend to speculate that as people lose their jobs, they grow depressed, and they turn to opioids to cope. Opioids can, for some people, provide a soothing, antidepressive effect in addition to pain relief.

A social problem that has, since 1999, killed more than 700,000 Americans-about the population of Boston-has more than one cause. Rich people die from opioids, and so do college kids. In fact, these unemployment studies are tempting precisely because they provide an easy explanation for why so many people became opioid addicts all at once. Job loss is terrible -of course it could make you do something terrible. It's harder to explain addiction that strikes you down in your prime.
Read: Physicians get addicted too
In fact, someresearchers say widespread job loss is far from the only-or even the main-force that inflamed the opioid epidemic. That argument, they say, might let Big Pharma off the hook too easily.

Keith Humphreys, a professor of mental health policy at Stanford, told me the car-plant-closure study had "a plausible hypothesis," but was "flawed." Humphreys told me the paper should have measured the supply of opioids in the counties where the automotive plants were. It should have had a "negative control," he said-a measure of the change in something generally thought unrelated to job loss, such as the rate of Alzheimer's diagnoses, to be sure it was picking up distress-related opioid use. Humphreys also said Venkataramani and his co-authors should have examined alcohol and suicides-two other factors that often go with opioids when it comes to the health consequences of economic despair. " I don't think this [study] would convince anybody who wasn't convinced before they got to the first word of the article," Humphreys said.

When I ran these criticisms by Venkataramani, he defended his findings. He said it wasn't possible to measure the supply of opioids in the counties he studied with the available data, and that it would be difficult to find a suitable negative control for a study such as this. And there weren't enough alcohol-related deaths and suicides to include them in the study.

Humphreys pointed out that even if the decline of manufacturing jobs did cause the opioid epidemic, it would be cold comfort to policy makers. They can't snap their fingers and reopen scores of factories across the country. "Who doesn't want to revive those areas?" he said. "If we knew how to bring manufacturing back, we would do it." To stop the opioid epidemic, he argued, we should focus on changes we can actually make.
Read: The next recession will destroy Millennials
More compelling, to Humphreys, is a recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper that did examine a potential policy solution. For the paper, researchers studied the handful of states that used so-called triplicate programs for their prescriptions of opioids. Triplicates were a rudimentary type of prescription-drug-monitoring program, in which doctors were required to use a special type of pad to prescribe controlled substances, and provide a copy of the prescription to a state monitoring agency. Physicians found these forms a hassle to use, and they were therefore reluctant to prescribe the drugs that required the use of triplicates.

Purdue, the maker of OxyContin, in turn marketed its opioid painkiller less aggressively in states that used triplicates, the paper found. And as a result, fewer people died of opioid overdoses in those states. The paper found that non-triplicate states would have had an average of 44 percent fewer opioid-overdose deaths from 1996 to 2017 if they had been triplicate states. Perhaps most damning, the relationship between being a triplicate state and experiencing fewer opioid-overdose deaths held even when the authors controlled for the state's economic conditions. In other words, despairing or not, patients who were prescribed opioids took them.

The triplicate paper, in essence, makes it look like the opioid epidemic was mostly the fault of Big Pharma's marketing, not the result of an economic shock. But David Powell, a senior economist at Rand and an author of the triplicate paper, thinks both could be true. To get the worst drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history, he says, "you need a huge rise in opioid access, in a way that misuse is easy, but you also need demand to misuse the product."

The next step will be for researchers to see how the marketing of opioids interacted with economic conditions to increase the likelihood that a given place would succumb to addiction. In the meantime, researchers working on the ground say opioid addiction looks like the result of a perfect storm of poverty, trauma, availability, and pain.

When Silva, the Bucknell sociologist, asked her subjects about their painkiller addictions, they would often link their problems back to the decline of coal. When the coal jobs went away, they said, families fell apart. Some people started drinking heavily and abusing their children-who then went on to be traumatized themselves and sought the relief of OxyContin. Some grew bored and aimless without a job, and they started abusing drugs to fill the time or to ease their sense of purposelessness. Some had to switch to other manual jobs, and days of heavy lifting eventually took their painful toll. OxyContin was just a short doctor's visit away-in one case, a doctor would simply refill opioid prescriptions by phone. "The men and women in this book suffer from physical pain-muscles torn and backs worn out by heavy lifting and repetitive tasks," Silva writes. But they also "turn to food and Percocet, heroin and cigarettes, to manage the feelings of anxiety, disappointment, and trauma from their pasts."
Read: Chronic pain is an impossible problem
Her interviewees had easy access to opioids, yes, but they also felt betrayed by the world. When Silva presented her work recently, an economist told her, "This is, like, an everything problem."

"I thought that was a really smart way of putting it," she told me. Indeed, in one of their studies, the Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, who coined the "deaths of despair" hypothesis, noted that opioid overdoses, suicides, and alcohol abuse are the results of "cumulative distress," or the overall "failure of life to turn out as expected."

The solutions to this "everything problem" are not clear. Silva told me that the opioid epidemic had made some of her interviewees even more resentful, because they saw their neighbors as too weak to pull themselves out of addiction. At times, they seemed to almost celebrate the pain of withdrawal from opioids, as a necessary way of toughening up. "They actually end up supporting programs that would give people less help or less aid, because they feel like it's enabling to keep giving help to people who refuse to get better," she told me.

One of Silva's interviewees tried to convince her that stress is how people grow. But stress can also make people hurt.

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higher rates of opioid-overdose mortality

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opioid-related deaths.the authors of these studies

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New research supports the idea that economic distress led to an increase in opioid abuse. But some say the origins of the epidemic are far more complicated.

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Opioid overdoses in Onondaga County continue to happen at alarming numbers, with 14 or more overdoses within a 24-hour period in recent days.

The Onondaga County Health Department reported 2022 is following the trend of increased overdoses of opioids seen over the past two years. But now there's a new problem growing: People are unassumingly purchasing fake pills laced with the potent drug fentanyl.

Mental Health and Substance Use Initiative Program Coordinator Mariah Senecal-Reilly said cases show the pills contain fentanyl and even methamphetamine.

"Fentanyl is a very very strong synthetic opioid so when somebody gets something that they're unaware that that's in, like those manufactured counterfeit pills, they're not prepared for the potential of it being very potent and potentially experiencing an overdose," Reilly said.

She adds that cases have shown buyers think they're buying oxycodone, hydrocodone, or amphetamines.

The county health department said some users might be mixing synthetic opioids with other illegal drugs like cocaine, which affect the brain and lead to changes in heart rate and can even cause strokes and heart failure.

Senecal-Reilly said the fake drugs are purchased online or locally.

She encourages people to get free testing kits before they use pills to see if they contain fentanyl.

"What we hope that people will do with this information is if there is fentanyl present in a substance, they may choose to use a different batch, they may go slower or use less, make sure that they are around someone that they're not using alone," Reilly said.

She said hopefully users will take advantage of the free testing kits or the people looking after them will have Naloxone on hand.

To request either by drop-off or by mail, text the health department at (315) 418-5365.

They are also available through ACR Health or any pharmacy.

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Opioid-related deaths in Syracuse spike due to growing sales of fentanyl-laced drugs

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The Onondaga County Department of Health has reported an overdose spike alert for opioids after fake pills laced with fentanyl were sold to unsuspecting customers.

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Syracuse, N.Y. - The opioid drug overdose death toll in Onondaga County decreased 15% in 2022, but still remained near record high levels.

The county Health Department reported 158 residents died of opioid overdoses in 2022, down from 186 in 2021.

Overdose deaths declined modestly locally and nationally last year after hitting a record high in 2021.

"We're really encouraged that the number of opioid related deaths is going down," said Rebecca Shultz of the Health Department.

But the department doesn't know yet if the decline means fewer people are overdosing on opioids, she said.

It may mean more fatal overdoses are being prevented by Narcan, an overdose reversal medication widely available in the community, Shultz said.

Dr. Ross Sullivan, an addiction treatment specialist in Syracuse, doesn't believe the decline in deaths means fewer people are using opioids or overdosing on them.

"Narcan is keeping a lot of people from dying," said Sullivan, medical director of Helio Health in Syracuse.

Nearly all the deaths in 2022 involved fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic drug that's fueling most overdose deaths nationwide.

Fentanyl, supplied by criminal networks in Mexico, is often mixed with heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit street drugs.

"People are dying from fentanyl and they don't even know they are using it," Sullivan said.

Syracuse has seen some overdoses lately involving xylazine, an animal tranquilizer often mixed with fentanyl. The addition of xylazine makes fentanyl even deadlier, experts say. That's because xylazine is not an opioid and does not respond to Narcan.

The Biden administration on Wednesday declared xylazine an "emerging threat" facing the United States.

The opioid death toll in 2022 was the second highest since Onondaga County began reporting opioid fatalities in 2012.

A total of 1,192 people in Onondaga County have died of opioid overdoses since 2012. That's nearly as high as the county's Covid death toll which stood at 1,223 as of Wednesday.
James T. Mulder covers health. Have a news tip? Contact him at (315) 470-2245 or Where to get free Narcan: How Central New Yorkers can help halt surge of deadly overdoses jmulder@syracuse.com

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Onondaga County opioid overdose death toll decreases in 2022, but still near record levels

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158 residents died of opioid overdoses last year.

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Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, N.Y., has often been called the most polluted lake in America. It was hammered by a one-two punch: raw and partially treated sewage from the city and its suburbs, and a century's worth of industrial dumping. But now the final stage in a $1 billion cleanup is about to begin.

Standing in his office amid stacks of reports, scientist Steve Effler glances at an old front-page headline of the Syracuse Herald-Journal: "Divers find goo in Onondaga Lake."

Goo was just part of the lake's problem. Effler, who created the Upstate Freshwater Institute, knows more about the 4.5-square-mile lake than anyone. But back in the 1950s, before he began studying the lake, he was a kid riding by in the backseat of his parents' car.

"The lake [smelled] so bad [from the pollution] that you had to roll the windows up," he recalls.

By then, swimming had already been banned for more than a decade. Because of mercury contamination, fishing was banned in 1972, although there were not many fish in the lake. Effler says there was so little oxygen that fish often swam right out of the lake.

The lake [smelled] so bad [from the pollution] that you had to roll the windows up.
The Lake Makes A Comeback
On a recent warm summer day, about 150 people cast fishing lines from Onondaga's shore. They're part of a fishing derby, and many are first-timers here like Tammy Pengaro and her three children.

"My kids have caught a lot of bass, perch, sunfish, [and] bluegill," Pengaro says. "I was surprised to see that there's even those different fish here in Onondaga Lake."

More than 60 species now swim in Onondaga, compared to about a dozen at the lake's low point. Pollution in the lake was so bad for so long that few people alive even remember when Onodaga had beaches, boathouses and even an amusement park on its shore.

The lake's remarkable turnaround is still not fully appreciated by many local residents. It has come after a decades-long fight using federal environmental laws and the courts to force remedial action. Sam Sage of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation says there was no political will to take on a costly cleanup of both raw sewage and toxic waste dumped mostly by the company Allied Chemical.

"The municipal [officials] could always say, 'Well, we're not the problem. Allied's the problem.' And Allied could say, 'We're not the problem. The municipality is the problem.' And as far as I'm concerned, they were in cahoots with each other," says Sage, who filed a lawsuit, after which Onondaga County eventually agreed to upgrade its sewage-treatment plant.
Just A Band-Aid?
For the Superfund half of the cleanup job, workers will soon begin suctioning up to 10 feet of toxic mud from parts of the lake, where as much as 20 pounds of mercury were once dumped every day.

Honeywell, a successor to Allied Chemical, has already cleaned factory sites and built an underground barrier wall to keep contaminated groundwater from seeping into the lake. Still, the project will leave 85 percent of the lake bottom untouched.

Sid Hill, a leader of the Onondaga Nation, calls the cleanup project an expensive Band-Aid. He says the cleanup is not enough for a site that has important historic and cultural significance to his people.

"In seven generations, that's still going to be a Superfund site," Hill says. "For that amount of damage that they've done to the lake, it doesn't seem fair to the lake or to the people who use the lake."
Reconnecting To A 'Beautiful Jewel'
Ken Lynch, a regional director for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, believes more people will start using the lake once it's clean enough for swimming.

"That means people can jump in the lake and enjoy the lake. You [can have] contact with the lake without concern of any contaminants impacting human health," Lynch says.

Longtime resident Al Dahler says people need to know the lake is changing.

"The jokes [in the past] were that if you caught a fish here you'd glow," Dahler says. "Onondaga Lake is an environmental comeback in progress, and gradually we're learning to reconnect to this beautiful jewel."

It may have been lost to the community for 100 years, but not too many summers from now people could again be swimming in Onondaga Lake.
This story was produced in cooperation with the New York Reporting Project at Utica College.

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America's 'Most Polluted' Lake Finally Comes Clean

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A one-two punch of municipal waste and industrial dumping gave Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, N.Y., the reputation as one of the most polluted lakes in America. But after years of cleanup efforts, the lake has undergone a transformation, and now the final phase of its cleanup is set to begin.

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The Foundation of Peace

Though generations of the region's Indigenous people once relied on Onondaga Lake for its abundant fish, this body of water has been far more than a source of sustenance. It was the setting for the establishment of the principles of the people of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (which French colonists called the Iroquois). The Haudenosaunee say that about a thousand years ago, their prophet known as the Peacemaker brought the first five nations of the confederacy-the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca (the Tuscarora joined the confederacy in 1722)-together in peace. On the shores of the lake, the Peacemaker set forth what would become the principles that their people would live by, including nonviolence, fundamental elements of democracy, stewardship of the natural resources that support all life and preservation of nature for future generations.

The confederacy is represented by a longhouse, and as the Onondaga Nation is traditionally the central meeting place for the nations, the Onondaga people are known as the Keepers of the Council Fire. The Onondaga today take the stewardship and preservation of nature no less seriously than they did when these charges were first brought to them. "We were taught how to give thanks to all the things that the Creator had put down for us," says Sid Hill, who wears the ages-old mantle of Tadadaho, or leader of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

"It's a reciprocal relationship that we have with all the living things around the lake and the water," adds Lyons. "It's not a commodity."

Yet European colonists thought differently. French missionaries began commoditizing Onondaga Lake almost immediately after they arrived in the 17th century and noticed it had rich deposits of salt. Word spread and during the next two centuries, the business boomed and the commodity was shipped across the country. Hundreds of acres around the lake would be converted to salt evaporation beds and boilers.

In 1882, William B. Cogsworth staked out much of the eastern shore for his Solvay Process Company, named for a method of making soda ash, which is used in making common products from glass to baking soda. "There are three main ingredients you need for the Solvay process: limestone, salt and water," says Robert Searing, staff historian at Onondaga County's Historical Association. For that, he says, "You can't find a much better place anywhere in America."

Searing calls the soda ash industry an "engine that connected Syracuse to American expansionism in the Industrial Age like no other." Its process was also stunningly inefficient, producing about 50 percent more waste material than product. The most convenient place to dump the waste was right in front of the plant, along the lakeshore. Thus began a pollution legacy that would continue for more than a century.

A Compounded Problem

By the close of the 19th century, defilement of the lake had already captured public attention, though many locals regarded it as more modern marvel than public nuisance. An 1897 newspaper account describes mounting layers of lime waste along the lake's southwestern shore as "cliffs of pure white," and declares that the already prodigious challenge of waste disposal from the Solvay Process Company had been "solved" by dumping it along the lake.

"Terrace above terrace the lime is being built up, hundreds of tons a day being carried into the lowlands along the lakeshore," reported the Standard, a Syracuse newspaper. "Plenty of Room for It," a subheadline blithely declares. The article goes on to explain that leachate from the waste piles "whitens the bottom of the lake somewhat" but "does no damage."

Around this time, newspapers reported that the ironically named president of Solvay Process, Frederick Rowland Hazard, estimated that his operation was sucking 15 million gallons of water per day from the 4.6-square-mile lake while spreading 500 to 600 tons of waste material per day along its shores. Within a few years, the volume was reported as 2,000 tons per day.

On the opposite corner of the lake, a different kind of metamorphosis had unfolded. Victorian-era pleasure seekers flocked to ornate leisure palaces such as The Iron Pier and The White City, "fleeing to the loveliest haunts of nature for a little respite from the busy cares of life," as an 1870 promotional booklet described it. "Hundreds of row boats, scores of sail boats, and half a dozen or more tidy little steamers give life to the lake and its surroundings during the summer months." Yet always visible across "this bright little body of water which lies at our very doors" were the ever-present columns of black smoke, billowing from industrial stacks on the southwestern shore.

"You had so many industrial concerns in Syracuse that were pumping into the watershed," recalls Searing. "Solvay Process was just one of many; it just happened to be the biggest."

Syracuse got a sense of just how big on Thanksgiving Day of 1943, when residents near the plant woke up to a wall of caustic "white lava" that burst through waste bed Dike #7 and quickly inundated local roads, part of the state fairgrounds, and a cluster of homes in the nearby Lakeland district. The mess took two years to clean up. Some residential areas were rezoned to preclude new waste beds but little else came of it. Local officials deferred "beautification" of the lakeshore as part of their post-war agenda.

Alongside the soda ash plant, steel mills and other heavy industry completed this "wonderful metamorphosis on the face of nature," as a 1903 newspaper account described it. Over the years, as heavy industry multiplied around the lake, a toxic "smorgasbord" of chemicals was added to the mix: heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium; volatile compounds, including benzene, toluene and acetone; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxin. Storm outflows from the city's wastewater treatment plant, positioned at the lake's inlet, added ammonia, phosphorus and bacteria that starved the lake of oxygen and caused carpets of toxic blue-green algae to bloom every summer.

Onondaga Creek, which connects the Onondaga Nation with the lake, still carries storm runoff and heavy metals from defunct salt wells into the lake. However, after hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on upgrades to the municipal sewage infrastructure and plant, this is at much lower levels than in years past.

"It's a severely hurt system," says biologist Neil Patterson (Tuscarora), assistant director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York. "It has been through a lot of physical and spiritual trauma." Patterson cites a long history of draining wetlands around the lake, clearing timber to fire salt boilers, followed by 140 years of heavy industry on the lakeshore.

"There's not one square inch of the shoreline that has not been disturbed," laments Jeanne Shenandoah, clerk of the Onondaga Nation. "But we still hold it sacred." Indeed, Betty Lyons says the Onondaga people still hold regular water ceremonies at the lake, in which Indigenous peoples from far and wide bring clean water from their own lands and make offerings of it "to help purify and clean" the lake.

Slow Progress

In 1994, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the lake a national priority Superfund site, a designation reserved for the most egregious cases. In fact, so ubiquitous was the pollution that the EPA divided the area into 12 Superfund "sub-sites," including several upland sources of pollution in the watershed, each with its own challenges.

But progress on the cleanup was torpid and in 2005, the leaders of the Onondaga Nation concluded that the only way to save the lake would be to regain control of it. They filed a land rights lawsuit against the State of New York as well as the City of Syracuse, Onondaga County and industries along the lakefront, principally Honeywell International (formerly Allied Chemical and Allied-Signal, the descendant companies of Solvay Process). The suit sought the return of lands that have been home to the Onondaga people "since the dawn of time" and stated that those lands, including the lake, were unlawfully wrested from them by the State of New York in a series of fraudulent treaties between 1788 and 1822. The Onondaga Nation asserts that the pacts were never legally ratified by either side, nor were the rightful leaders of the Onondaga Nation even represented at the signing. State of New York officials also disregarded significant treaties between the United States and the Six Nations that had guaranteed the confederation sovereignty and recognized its lands. Today, the Onondaga Nation sits on only 7,300 acres, a small fraction of its former territory that once covered more than 2 million acres.

The Onondaga people say their aim was never to oust anyone already living on their original lands from their property but rather to give the nation some leverage in negotiations to restore the lake. "The idea was to protect the land for our future generations," says Freida Jacques, clan mother for the Onondaga's Turtle Clan, "for all the people who live in this area." It's an attitude that dates far back in her culture, all the way to the Great Law of the Peace and its imperatives for sustainability. "I'm grateful that we still have our ways," says Jacques, "enough to understand what our responsibilities are."

The land rights suit died quickly in federal district court. However, in 2007 a deal was struck with regulators and Honeywell providing that the company would undertake a $450 million cleanup program, which included dredging more than 2 million cubic yards of lake bottom and "capping" 475 acres to stabilize contaminants in the lake bed. Reports soon emerged that the sand cap had "slipped" on several occasions. Tadadaho Hill called it "a Band-Aid."

"They spent a half-billion dollars or so and they crow about how much that is," says Joseph Heath, general counsel for the Onondaga Nation. "The problem is that in order to clean up that mess fully, it would've taken $2.8 billion." That would require dredging most of the lake bottom and other costly measures that do not appear to be on the horizon. Officials at New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which oversees the cleanup, say the slippage was limited to relatively few acres, that those portions were redesigned and repaired, and that currently the cap is "performing as it was designed and constructed." Currently, Honeywell is using a nitrate application to isolate mercury on the lake bed from most living organisms and operates a groundwater treatment plant to reduce toxic chemicals from reaching the lake through the water table.

At this point, regulators consider the cleanup to be mostly complete. "We may not be necessarily at the end of our journey but we're definitely pretty far down the road," says DEC project manager Tim Larson, "And I would say it's very encouraging, the state of the lake at this point in time." Larson says industrial chemicals are now "at manageable levels" and contaminants from urban runoff are "within limits." The remaining task is mostly monitoring to ensure that remedial strategies keep working, a process that he says will "be ongoing for a very, very long period of time."

"We have containment here," he adds. "We don't have an issue where we have kind of a continual bleeding of contaminants out into the environment."

More than 60 species of fish appear to be thriving in the lake, compared to fewer than nine in the 1970s. In response, bald eagles roost in the cottonwoods at the south end of the lake, a magnet for local birders and photographers.

"We didn't send out a memo and ask the eagles to come," says Matthew Marko, the DEC's Region 7 director. "They came because the environment is welcoming to them."

Yet the leaders of the Onondaga Nation are not convinced. "Yes, it's nice to see eagles at the lake," says Tadadaho Sid Hill. "But what kind of fish are they eating? You can't eat those fish."

After a 45-year blanket ban on fishing, limited sport fishing is now allowed at the lake, though a sign at the public boat launch warns that, "Fish from these waters contain chemicals and should not be eaten by women or children." The sign cautions that "others should limit what they eat," though it doesn't say by how much. Getting any sort of warning signs at the lake is something the Onondaga Nation counts as one of its rare victories in the decades-long lake struggle.

Recently local officials have proposed a public beach at the lake, though a 2019 survey by Onondaga County indicated that only two in 10 residents would feel safe swimming there. As of March 2021, the EPA had not removed Onondaga Lake from its list of priority Superfund sites.

The Haudenosaunee continue to remind the state of New York and the U.S. government of their agreement to honor the sovereignty of the confederacy and recognize its lands, including access to Onondaga Lake. Each November, leaders of the confederation carry the wampum belts that represent these treaties to Canandaigua, about 70 miles west of Syracuse, and parade through the city where the 1794 treaty was signed. In 2016, Haudenosaunee leaders brought a replica of the George Washington Belt representing the 1794 Canandaigua Treaty to a meeting with White House officials as a reminder of the two governments' promises. "We have to educate our neighbors," says Betty Lyons.

Meanwhile the Haudenosaunee's duty to preserve Onondaga Lake for future generations weighs heavily on Lyons and the other Keepers of the Council Fire. "We wake up every day fighting," she says. Today this fight is mostly on the public education front, including loudly advocating for restoration of their lake and aspirations to update the K-12 curricula in local schools to include Haudenosaunee history.

"I feel a great sadness because the water is such a precious thing to us," says Shenandoah. "That lake has such great spiritual significance to us. We listen to it in our teachings that helped to keep us as a people strong and spiritual and believing in our ways." She says the Onondaga Lake struggle is "keeping our ways alive."

"I don't think it's gonna end next year," says Lyons. "I think this is a fight my kids will have to pick up."

"When I look back at our ancestors, to what they have gone through," Hill says he realizes "you know, we're still here. We have what we call 'oñgwagoñhsohda'.' That means we're survivors."

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Saving a Sacred Lake: A Century of Pollution Haunts the Haudenosaunee | NMAI Magazine

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Though generations of the region's Indigenous people once relied on Onondaga Lake for its abundant fish, this body of water has been far more than a source of sustenance. It was the setting for the establishment of the principles of the people of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (which French colonists called the Iroquois).

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Ted Endreny and Lemir Teron, two professors at SUNY ESF, found in their research that low-income community members in Downtown Syracuse are disproportionately affected and suffer more on hot summer days. The added stress is a result of the "heat island" effect, the two said.

"We're aware that urban heat island is a big stress that is taking lives," Endreny said. "We know that the human impact is disproportionately to communities that we call environmental justice communities. So, the goal of the research is to make communities more resilient to threats such as urban heat island."

Heat islands are urban spaces that experience higher temperatures than surrounding areas because of surfaces that absorb and re-emit the sun's heat more than areas like grass and lakes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Endreny and Teron found a relationship between the hottest and lowest income areas of the city in their research.

The pair found that Syracuse's downtown had some of the highest average temperatures while also having a lower income compared to other neighborhoods in the city. Census Tract 32, which encompasses much of the city's downtown, has a median household income of $31,382. In the same area, 36.5% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the 2020 census.

The effect of increased temperatures, both researchers found, can have negative health effects for those living in the center of the islands. It can cause people to have general discomfort, heat exhaustion, respiratory difficulties and non-fatal heat stroke, according to the EPA.

"Those health issues relate to pulmonary and cardiovascular function," Endreny said. "Health consequences would be some of the most problematic because it can take a life and you can't get a life back."

Through his research, Endreny has narrowed down the main cause of the temperature differentiation in Syracuse to be variances in land cover.

According to Endreny, surfaces such as roofs, parking lots or roads are impervious, absorbing solar radiation that transforms into heat. But when healthy trees with water in its soil cover the same land, they absorb radiation, creating latent energy. Instead of increasing the area's temperature, water vapor captures latent energy which then evaporates.

Endreny produced a heat map of temperature disparities throughout the greater Syracuse area. The map shows the difference between temperatures with the current land cover conditions and estimated temperatures when the researchers increased the amount of tree coverage.

Courtesy of Ted Endreny

Endreny uses the software i-Tree Tools, which the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Services developed to look at live temperature differences in an area and figure out the causes.

The main goal of his research is to give affected urban communities a way to fight back against the unequal human impacts of rising temperatures.

Teron is working directly with the Syracuse community to empower them to fight back against this inequality.

He leads the community engagement portion of the research, where he works with community groups and organizations to train individuals on i-Trees software so they can see the potential impacts of planting trees in their neighborhoods. This helps the community groups advocate for themselves by prioritizing where people, organizations or governments plant trees, said Teron.

According to Endreny, changing land coverage - for example, by planting trees - is the main way to decrease temperature disparities. The second portion of the heat map Endreny created shows an estimation of how the temperatures across Syracuse would change if the city added 20% more tree coverage and reduced 20% of impervious materials.

In the new model, Teron and Endreny found that temperatures greatly decreased across the city.

In their research, when downtown Syracuse has temperatures approaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the adjusted map with 20% more tree coverage, the same area would be over 100 degrees in its current state.

People in Syracuse told The Daily Orange that to escape the heat they will go inside either their own homes or another building. Chris David, a resident of Syracuse, said using air conditioning doesn't help avoid heat entirely.

When walking across the city, David said he will cut through a park if it has open air as well as trees and buildings that provide shade. But some members of affected communities might not be able to afford to run air conditioning, Teron said.

"If you're making $300,000 a year, it may be nothing for you to turn your air conditioning on," Teron said. "But what you find in a lot of low-income households, a decision has to be made between, 'do I run my utilities or is some other necessity going to get neglected if I do that?'"

Education is important for low-income urban communities that are affected most by heat islands to take action such as planting trees, according to Teron.

"Where those trees get planted is a very important question. So when you work with
residents and train them to kind of create a hierarchy or prioritization strategy, then they can work with the city as equal partners," Teron said.

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Downtown Syracuse residents disproportionately affected by 'heat island' phenomena

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SUNY ESF researchers found that low-income communities in downtown Syracuse are more affected on hot days because of the "heat island" effect.

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We all know it has been a warm summer so far here in Upstate New York, but did you know city centers are usually hotter than the smaller towns around them?

We refer to this concept as an urban heat island.

Due to the infrastructure within a city, such as roads and buildings, and the lack of plant life, such as trees relative to areas outside the city, a place like downtown Syracuse would typically be warmer than suburbs like Baldwinsville or LaFayette.

Roads and buildings not only absorb heat during the day but also reradiate, push that warmth back out into the air, raising the temperature.

According to Climate Matters, who recently crunched the numbers on how much warmer numerous city centers are than their outlying surroundings, "neighborhoods in a highly-developed city can experience mid-afternoon temperatures that are 15-20 degrees hotter than outlying areas with more vegetation and less development."

Based on this analysis, Syracuse can potentially get up to 6.1 degrees warmer on average than its less-developed surroundings because of its urban heat island status.

This index was calculated based on four main factors: albedo (reflectivity of surfaces), how much green space is present, the population and height of buildings in the city.

In other words, the more non-reflective surfaces such as parking lots and roadways and the less greenery there is to act as shade, the warmer the temperature will be.

Let's compare the intensity score for Syracuse to that of New York City, a more densely populated and developed place.

The Big Apple, by comparison, clearly has a greater potential for increased warmth as an urban heat island given the aforementioned factors, but the average magnitude of the warmth is only 1.5 degrees higher than that of Syracuse.

Given the science behind urban heat islands, when the weather gets hot and you are looking for a place to stay cool, a city center is not the place to do so.

The next time you see us show a high temperature map on Weather on the 1s and notice the bigger cities being a bit warmer, you will now know why.

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Urban heat island: Why Syracuse is warmer than the suburbs

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On average, temperatures can be 6.1 degrees warmer versus outlying areas.

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Flavia Colonesse,
Policy & Advocacy Manager,
European Youth Forum

Julia Konowrocka,
Policy Officer
Equinet

The recently published UN Global Report on Ageism, the first of its kind, not only promotes a life cycle approach to the issue, by exploring how ageism affects both older and younger generations, but also supports what the European Youth Forum and Equinet have been saying for years: that being young often means having to overcome obstacles, stereotypes and prejudices, which can hinder a young person's path towards autonomy.

More than this, what the Global Report does, is shed light on two crucial points. Firstly, we need much more research and data to understand the extent of the problem and its implications for youth. Secondly, when data is available, it seems to point to a shocking truth: that in Europe, younger people report the highest rate of experiences of ageism.

Age-based discrimination and youth rights: status quo & impact

With the exception of employment (and even here, gaps remain), EU equality legislation doesn't adequately protect us from being discriminated against on the basis of our age. But why is that? Simply put, we know less about ageism, particularly when it affects youth, than we do about other forms of discrimination. And knowing less often leads to lack of protection.

Yet the fact that we know less about ageism doesn't make it any less damaging. Experiencing discrimination at a young age can have long lasting consequences on our well-being, self-esteem and sense of belonging. It exposes us to more disadvantages throughout our lives, making us more likely to encounter inequalities at a later stage. This is why solidarity between generations is crucial: without a life course approach to ageing that takes into account all age groups, policies won't be able to tackle inequalities, and we'll carry them with us throughout our life.

How and where do young people face discrimination?

Even in areas where EU legislation exists, age-based discrimination remains a reality for youth in Europe. The common assumption that young people should be ready to do whatever it takes to get a foot in the labour market, has led to several discriminatory practices emerging over time. Youth minimum wages, which discriminate against younger workers, still exist in several EU Member States. Unpaid, low quality internships remain an almost obligatory rite of passage for those looking to gain work experience.

As if this wasn't enough, a precarious position in the labour market is often exacerbated by discriminatory legislation preventing young people from accessing social safety nets. In some EU Member States, age or employment status are key criteria to be able to access income support or unemployment benefits, de facto penalising young people.

When you can't access a stable job or income support, renting or let alone buying a property becomes much harder too. You might not be seen as a reliable tenant, or struggle to access credit, and your path towards independence becomes increasingly longer and tougher. All of this for having dared to be young!

Some might say "if you don't agree with the system, change it!" - easier said than done. Traditional politics often deny young people a voice. They're told that they are too young, immature or apathetic to be able to participate in decisions that affect their lives. A seat at the table will at times be offered, but youth participation can easily turn into a box ticking exercise - a form of ageism in itself.

Ageism in one area of life only serves to reinforce and amplify challenges in others.

What role do equality bodies play?

National equality bodies, as public institutions mandated to tackle age-based discrimination, are well-positioned to support young people. Their work on equality data collection and research can fill in current gaps in our understanding of ageism. Furthermore, equality bodies can also collaborate with young people directly or through civil society and youth organisations to organise trainings and awareness raising activities.

At the same time, equality bodies still report some key legal obstacles, which stand in the way of tackling ageism. First, age discrimination tends to be viewed as something neutral, rather than a "suspect ground" of discrimination. Too often courts themselves are likely to enforce certain ageist stereotypes instead of adopting an individualised approach for each person. Because age is seen as an inherent personal characteristic, which carries an inevitability for all of us, courts pay less attention to age discrimination. Second, several lawful exemptions and justifications can still be applied which in reality allow a wide range of discriminatory practises to restrict rights solely based on age.

COVID-19: evidence of what needs to change, and an opportunity to make it happen

Of course, this past year has complicated matters even further. We spent the first few months of the pandemic (rightfully) focusing on its immediate repercussions on our health, only to soon realise that we were going to face yet another profound socio-economic crisis, and one that will have a disproportionate impact on youth and their future prospects.

And yet, the past year also showed us how pervasive ageism can be. Media and institutions alike have taken turns in portraying older people as helpless, fragile, in dire need of protection, while young people are supposedly careless, irresponsible, and dismissive of the danger of the pandemic. Equality bodies across Europe have reported cases of limited access to healthcare and certain services, restrictions on freedom of movement and job dismissals, based simply on the fact that someone was either over or under a certain age limit. These attitudes are both unfair and damaging. They pit one generation against the other, ignore shared struggles, perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and, more than this, they don't let us focus on how to best support all age groups, now and in the long run.

If a silver lining has to be found, then we need to make sure that, at the very least, this crisis serves as a wake up call.

Institutions must do more, and better

While the issues are many, the good news is that ageism can be tackled. How? First, we need to fundamentally change how we view young people. Supporting youth shouldn't be seen as a charitable gesture: young people are rights holders, and therefore, institutions have a duty to protect their rights.

Second, we need a new and healthier narrative around ageing. We must build bridges between generations, focus on education as a crucial tool to counter stereotypes, and invest in research on how ageism manifests itself and on what the costs are for society.

Third, this new wealth of information must be used for evidence-based policy-making to increase the focus on age equality. Current gaps in protection must be addressed, not only by finally moving forward with the long-halted EU Equal Treatment Directive, but also by modernising EU equality law to explicitly include age-based discrimination in all areas of life in the mandate of equality bodies. This could be paired with establishing an "equality impact assessment", to ensure that EU level legislative and non-legislative proposals wouldn't put any age group at a particular disadvantage.

Through collective action early on, we can prevent discrimination from happening in the first place and thus proactively work towards eliminating several of the inequalities that older people acquire throughout life.

How can equality bodies and youth organisations contribute?

Of course, the onus is not only on policymakers. In March 2021, Equinet and European Youth Forum members came together to discuss how to strengthen cooperation between equality bodies and youth organisations. What we found out is that by cooperating, equality bodies and youth organisations can effectively approach young people together and co-create safe, inclusive, and informal discussion spaces to tackle age-based discrimination.

It is more important than ever to support young people and increase their awareness about their rights and redress mechanisms in cases of rights violations. Equality bodies are well equipped to provide such support, and, with the help of youth organisations, their work may also become more visible and accessible.

Young people are ready to be involved, and we must consider them as equal partners. They possess a wide range of knowledge, suggestions, and feedback, but it is essential that the right communication channels are used to reach out to as wide and diverse an audience as possible. Once again, youth organisations, through their day-to-day outreach activities, can support these efforts.

Working together is the simplest, yet best way forward. Ageism can only be eliminated, if all of us, from institutions to equality bodies and civil society, come together to address the different forms of age discrimination that we experience throughout our life.
The views on this blog are always the authors' and they do not necessarily reflect Equinet's position.

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Equality has no age limit: young people deserve better!

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Equinet, European Network of Equality Bodies

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Written by Morgan Van Vleck, MSW candidate ('22) and Masters Research Fellow in Aging at the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging

Photo: Eliott Reyna on Unsplash

As we become an increasingly aged society, it is important to understand how stereotypes and bias against both younger and older age groups functions and leads to fractures in intergenerational relationships. Ageism against older adults is often the focus of research on consequences of age-bias on the individual and structural level. As pointed out by researchers Francioli and North, a lesser studied component of ageism is age-bias against younger adults.

Younger adults today are the first generation that will be more poor than older generations and younger adults are expected to be outnumbered by their older counterparts. As demographic trends lead to older adults becoming the economically advantaged majority, the structural inequality between older and younger groups draws attention to the gap in research concerning bias against younger adults. Recent research from Francioli and North examines how age-bias against younger adults functions differently than age-bias against older adults, offering insight into what harm could result from a bias against young adults.

A recent study focused on ageism against younger adults, sometimes termed "youngism," found that youngism functions mainly as a cohort-bias rather than a life-stage bias. This means that despite the young life-stage being viewed more favorably than the later-life stage, younger adults are often assigned unfavorable stereotypes due to their generational differences from older adults. Research reveals that negative stereotypes associated with younger adults include the notion that they are coddled, radically progressive, disrespectful, and inexperienced. These unfavorable stereotypes against younger adults are more likely to be held by those who are age 60 and older. These biases could lead to issues with economic instability in younger generations, which will impact future generations as our young adults grow older.

The negative view toward younger adults due to their generational affiliation, such as Millennial (1981 - 1996) or Generation Z (1997 onward), has serious implications for the economic stability of younger generations. Younger workers are historically more likely to be negatively impacted by economic recession, and according to a recent study, this trend is reflected in the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers Gould and Kassa found that younger workers (16-24) are more likely than middle-aged and older workers to experience job loss. Additionally, researchers Francioli and North found that negative views toward younger adults were associated with unwillingness to support student debt relief. A recent study from Texas A&M found that those who identify as Black or Asian are more likely to experience ageism in employment in both younger adulthood and older adulthood. This has serious implications for the ability of racial and ethnic minorities to attain financial stability throughout the life course. According to Francioli and North, Leaving the economic effects of youth-directed ageism unaddressed could perpetuate economic instability for future generations and lead to increased economic inequality in the future. Going forward, it is important to distinguish the different dimensions of age when speaking about ageism. Researchers make note that "age" could include several constructs such as cohort or generational membership, chronological age, social age, subjective age, and life stage. It is also crucial to keep in mind that someone might have encountered cumulative disadvantage because of their race, ethnicity, or gender-experiencing bias in younger adulthood as well as in later life. Paying closer attention to the ways that different constructs of age and intersections of identity relate to bias can help us overcome our unnoticed age-bias and ensure the wellness of future and current generations of all adults. When age-bias of any kind comes to our attention, it is important for us to counter these harmful stereotypes and work towards a more inclusive and age-integrated society.

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"Kids these days": Why youth-directed ageism is an issue for everyone

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Written by Morgan Van Vleck, MSW candidate ('22) and Masters Research Fellow in Aging at the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging Photo: Elio...

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What Is The School-to-Prison Pipeline? | American Civil Liberties Union

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The "school-to-prison pipeline" refers to the policies and practices that push our nation's schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. For a growing number of students, the path to incarceration includes the "stops" below.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Pressure is mounting on city lawmakers to change how the Syracuse Police Department operates: The state passed two sets of state-mandated police reforms this week that Syracuse will implement. A still-unresolved contract between the city and the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association will likely head to arbitration. Protest organizers have vowed to march across the city for 40 days, part of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

On Friday afternoon, day 14 of the protests, another group mounted its pressure. Organizing under the name Cuse Youth Black Lives Matter ( CuseYouthBLM ), a set of 10 organizers from a local high school had pushed three specific demands from city hall. One would give the Citizens Review Board power by reforming its structure; another would increase transparency in SPD's new officer hiring process. This would include implementing a system similar to the .

As what appeared to be over 2,000 people filled Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse in support of the movement, some of the early chants referenced the CuseYouthBLM's first demand: removing Syracuse police officers from city schools.

"That's our first demand. Pushing for that, that's what we're doing," said Shukri Mohamed, one of the organizers of CuseYouthBLM. "And hopefully that reaches across the nation that we don't need police officers in our schools to be intimidating us, when that's supposed to be a safe place for us to be learning, and feeling safe."

CuseYouthBLM is a chapter of a larger Black Lives Matter network in Syracuse that includes Last Chance for Change, the group that is marching for 40 days, and Syracuse Police Accountability and Reform Coalition (SPAARC). SPAARC sent a letter to City Hall on behalf of 14 organizations with eight demands for heightened police reform across the city. CuseYouthBLM's demands make up three of them.

"All of our groups have the same types of demands," said Shakira Neal, 17, another founder of CuseYouthBLM. "So we all kind of feed off of each other."

How student group formed

Days after the video went viral showing Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck, which led to Floyd's death, Ruell Branch, also 17, texted Neal. "I think we should start a group," he said. They texted two other friends. A group chat swelled to 20, 50 and soon, hundreds of students. They started collaborating with Black Lives Matters organizers from Syracuse over Zoom calls.

By 4:30 p.m. Friday, hundreds of Last Chance for Change organizers arrived at Clinton Square as the two rallies meshed into one. Neal and Branch would soon lead the 2,000 people through the city. But before they did, a Last Chance for Change organizer spoke.

"When it comes to the BLM group, our demands are pretty simple - defund the police, and reinvest into the communities," he said. "Part of defunding the police is getting them out of schools to which our students and our kids attend."

At a press conference Friday, hours before the protest began, Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh indicated that he had received the list of demands from the protest organizations and was ready to sit down with organizers.

"I have not had the opportunity to sit down with the official organizations and protesters to talk about specific demands. I'm ready and willing to do that," he said. "I tried to put that out to make sure that those organizations are aware of that. But I want to be respectful of that and their process, and so I'm ready to engage when they are. But this is their process, and they own it, and I'm very respectful of that."

At the same time, Walsh and Police Chief Kenton Buckner have given several press conferences related to an uptick in violence over the past month. One of them was on Thursday, when an officer shot Jakelle Smith, 23, in the jaw. There were no body cameras on the scene. Walsh has long pushed for more body cameras at SPD, steadily increasing the number since he was elected and trying to secure the funds to provide a body camera for every officer.

Buckner said the officer shot Davis after he saw him reaching for a gun. That information came solely from the officer.

As the rally wrapped around the Strathmore area of Syracuse and back toward downtown, Jakelle's brother, Andre, 25, held a "Justice for Jakelle" sign.

"You're gonna tell me all this shit that my brother did, but you're not going to show me proof?" he said of the investigation. He added that his brother, who suffered nonlethal injuries, is "95% of the reason I came out today."

When the protesters returned to Clinton Square the wind was too strong for the planned candlelight vigil. So they turned on music and started dancing.

And soon they dispersed. Weeks of planning had gone into the rally, where hundreds RSVPed to the Facebook event and 4,000 people followed the @cuseyouthblm on Instagram.

In a post Friday evening, Branch and Neal posted a set of images with scenes from the march: them yelling into megaphones and the thousands in the crowd who followed them.

"This day will go down in history," they said.

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Youth-led Protest Urges Syracuse Police to Remove Officers From Schools

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Pressure is mounting on city lawmakers to change how the Syracuse Police Department operates: The state passed two sets of state-mandated police reforms this week that Syracuse will implement. A still-unresolved contract between the city and the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association will likely head to arbitration.

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Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled.

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Lack of transparency and biased training data mean these tools are not fit for purpose. If we can’t fix them, we should ditch them.

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If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out at hello@trubel.co 

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A collection of Storymaps and dashboards from students involved in the 2023 Mapping Climate Justice course.

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The Senior Resource Guide has been updated for 2023. This extensive guide provides community resource information for:

Food & Nutrition

Housing & Senior Centers

Caregiver & Homecare Assistance

Health & Benefits

Legal and Veteran Services

New York's First Ever Statewide Needs Assessment Survey

The Onondaga County Office for Aging is the federally designated Area Agency on Aging (AAA) for Syracuse and Onondaga County. As such, we assist seniors and caregivers by providing the services and benefits that older adults need to live independently.
The Office for Aging

Offers services both in the community and in the homes of seniors who live in Onondaga County

Is a focal point for information related to healthy living and/or care in the home

Helps seniors and their caregivers to get the services they need

Provides services directly as well as through partnerships with local community-based organizations

Our Mission
The Mission of the Onondaga County Office for Aging is to improve and enrich the quality of life for all older persons in Onondaga County.

The Office for Aging exists to:

Ensure that a comprehensive and coordinated system of services is available for senior citizens, their families and caregivers

Help families and individuals remain safe and productive members of our community

Promote the dignity and independence of seniors

Foster public awareness of the value and contribution of senior citizens

Our Services

The Onondaga County Office for Aging is one of 59 Area Agencies on Aging in New York State and is part of the national aging network. Our aim is to be a focal point for information, advocacy, and coordination of eldercare services. Descriptions of (and links to) some of our services are located below, and in the menu across the top of this page. To learn more about a particular service, simply click on any one of the links.

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The Senior Resource Guide has been updated for 2023. This extensive guide provides community resource information for: Food & Nutrition Housing & Senior Centers Caregiver & Homecare Assistance Health & Benefits Legal and Veteran Services New York's First Ever Statewide Needs Assessment Survey The Onondaga County Office for Aging is the federally designated Area Agency on Aging (AAA) for Syracuse and Onondaga County.

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Dear Amy: Wow! You seriously advised "Dutiful Daughter" to ignore her mom's boundaries and suggested the daughter "supervise" mom's hospital treatment.

As a mother with adult daughters, I have a right to limit hospital visits and to have my medical privacy respected: My body, my choices - no matter how well-meaning my daughters may be.

Plus, what absolute ageism to automatically assume that this mother is incapable of handling her own care.

If she felt she needed an "advocate" she would have asked for one - perhaps in fact she does have an advocate, just not this particular daughter.

Totally out of line advice.

- My Body, My Choice

Dear My Body, My Choice: You make great points, but in my response I did suggest that this daughter respect her mother's wish for privacy. I did not suggest "supervision," but communication about her care. In my experience, anyone - regardless of age - should have an advocate during a hospital stay.

(You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.)

©2023 Amy Dickinson. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Ask Amy: Advocacy in examining ageism and autonomy in healthcare decisions

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How does systemic ageism affect our society? A coroner's inquest into COVID-19 deaths in long-term care homes in Québec recently heard that ageism was a contributing factor.

This is one of many recent examples of the ways ageism is entrenched into our institutional and social structures, and negatively impacts people and systems. The pandemic brought the critical consequences of ageism to the forefront, as older people's basic human rights were dramatically affected.

Sarah Fraser, a professor in the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences at University of Ottawa, and global colleagues, documented how some public reporting throughout the pandemic has misrepresented and undervalued older people. For example, they highlight that "younger adults who have died from complications of COVID-19 throughout the world have often generated long and in-depth media reports, while the deaths of thousands of older adults have been simply counted and summarized" and "the failure of the public authorities in France to report mortality figures for older adults in nursing homes."

Significant health ramifications, social isolation and the loss of millions of older lives around the world followed.

In 30 years, one in six people will be over 65. How do we better safeguard systems against discriminatory practices towards older adults and ageism?

Alongside my colleagues Éric R. Thériault and Amber Colibaba, I recently examined how our society can tackle ageism, starting in university classrooms.

Changing negative archetypes

Common societal archetypes of aging in the West are predominantly negative, embodying the repulsive, the deteriorating and the irrelevant.

Though the implications of ageism are dire, concerns about ageism outside of those working with or caring for older people are often quieter. Youth are the next generation of adults who will be interacting with, working with and caring for older people.

The language of ageism as a " global crisis " underlines the urgent need to understand and disrupt ageism, and to advocate for critical, supportive resources for changing cultural attitudes toward older lives.

Teaching young adults about aging

Research suggests that increased exposure to and interactions with older adults can reduce ageist views among college students. While a gold standard of inter-generational learning can be achieved through service learning - when students and older people actively work together on an activity or project - this is often infeasible.

Many universities laud " experiential learning," yet the onus may fall upon individual faculty members to implement applied inter-generational activities. In an era of limited-term faculty appointments, stretched faculty members and budget trimming, the capacity to fund service learning and develop the required community relationships is limited.

Our study sought to understand how undergraduate students' attitudes towards older adults and the aging process could shift after completing a lecture-based undergraduate course, that involved no service learning, about the psychology of aging. We analyzed student respones to two similar classes at two Canadian universities between 2019 and 2020.

Reducing fear

In 2017, my class welcomed Ruth Greenley to speak with us, however more recent classes, including those involved in the study, did not include older visitors. Without interacting with older people, students learned about the theory and research of aging from an intersectional lens that considered determinants of health such as socio-economic status. Voices of older 2SLGBTQ+ and racialized community members were woven throughout each section of the course.

After taking the course offered at Trent University and Cape Breton University, two undergraduate student cohorts at each of these schools participated in semi-structured focus groups/interviews.

Our data showed that simple, lecture-based courses focused on the psychology of aging can facilitate the development of an age-conscious student - those who are not ageist, do not fear aging and are attuned to the aging process.

Course learning

Most students taking the course, early on, viewed older people in one of two problemantic ways: critically (as irrelevant) or patronizingly (as dependent). One student summarized this as putting older people " in the 'boomer remover' camp or the 'I really like my grandpa' camp." "Boomer remover" was a phrase that emerged early in the pandemic as a kind of cruel shorthand for COVID-19.

After finishing the course, many students reflected that both of these previously held polarized views were equally harmful and ageist. Students were more age-conscious and demonstrated greater awareness of varied experiences of aging.

One student said:

"Learning about the difficulties that different marginalized groups face when they are older ... it was something that I never thought about because it's not a visible issue."

Students also connected personally with aging and, importantly, become less ageist. It was surprising - or, in their words, "eye opening", "shocking" and "outlook-changing" - that despite health challenges, older people can lead fulfilling and impactful lives. Such insights prompted empathy toward older adults.

One student commented:

"I keep going back to this whole like, deaf and losing your eyesight as you age ... that just surprised me so much and it was so impactful. You always think, 'Oh, the grumpy old man.'... But no. He can't hear so he can't talk to you, he can't listen to his favourite music. I'd be grumpy too."

Universities' role in reducing ageism

Our research shows that attitudes can be changed and that universities can play a leading role in developing age-conscious youth. Post-secondary courses focusing on aging in any relevant department offer one way to achieve this. Critically, this study shows that age-consciousness can develop within standard, lecture-based courses focused on aging.

Ageism was present long before the devastating impacts of the pandemic. However, simple interventions to improve inter-generational interactions are needed now more than ever to develop more socially conscious citizens. People may be more willing to speak out against the stigma of aging, and to work towards developing the necessary resources to support growing older with dignity.

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Teaching university students to be 'age-conscious' could help address our elder care crisis

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Universities can have a role forming age-conscious students: those who aren't ageist, don't fear aging and are attuned to the aging process.

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Psychologists are examining the age discrimination that pervades American culture and helping people to reimagine healthier relationships with their older selves

Cite this

Weir, K. (2023, March 1). Ageism is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices. Psychologists are working to change that. Monitor on Psychology, 54(2). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/03/cover-new-concept-of-aging

From "antiaging" face creams to wisecracking birthday cards about getting older to "OK, boomer" memes, the message is clear: Being old is something to avoid. Never mind that, if we have the good fortune to live a long life, inaccurate stereotypes about aging will harm all of us.

Ageism is defined as discrimination against older people because of negative and inaccurate stereotypes-and it's so ingrained in our culture that we often don't even notice. Most organizations now have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) departments to tackle issues such as racism and gender bias. Even in those departments, age bias is seldom on the radar. "Ageism is this odd '-ism' in that it's still socially acceptable in many ways," said Joann Montepare, PhD, director of the RoseMary B. Fuss Center for Research on Aging and Intergenerational Studies at Lasell University in Newton, Massachusetts, and past president of APA's Division 20 (Adult Development and Aging).

It is clear, however, that ageism has a host of negative effects, for people's physical and mental well-being and society as a whole. What's more, the negative stereotypes that fuel ageism often get aging all wrong. "When we say aging isn't all negative, it's not that we are putting on rose-colored lenses. This is based on rigorous science," said Manfred Diehl, PhD, a professor of human development and family studies at Colorado State University who studies healthy aging.

Researchers and activists, including many psychologists, are drawing on that science to reframe attitudes toward aging. In 2020, APA adopted a new Resolution on Ageism (PDF, 127KB) that recognizes age as a risk factor for discrimination, encourages more emphasis on aging in psychology training, and advances a more productive public narrative about the benefits of longer life spans. "The question is, what can we do as individuals and also as a society to promote more positive aging?" Diehl said.

Aging stereotypes, busted

Ageism is a stubborn prejudice. People of all ages show bias against older adults, though the way they express it changes over the life span. Among younger people, the preference for other young adults is more explicit. In older adults, that preference becomes more implicit ( Chopik, W. J., & Giasson, H. L., Gerontologist, Vol. 57, Suppl. 2, 2017).

Either way, the attitudes that underlie age bias are often rooted in falsehoods. While it is true that the risk of some chronic diseases and dementia increases with age, most older adults maintain quite good health and cognitive functioning. "Aging is a very diverse process, and there are great differences between individuals," Diehl added. "Things usually aren't as bleak as most people expect."

Becca Levy, PhD, a professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health and of psychology at Yale University, works to chip away at age stereotypes with a fact-checking approach for public awareness. In her recent book, Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live, she took aim at more than a dozen beliefs about getting older. "In every case, I found information that not only contradicted the negative stereotype but also highlighted a strength that comes with aging," she said. Take the stereotype that people become less creative as they get older. Researching her book, Levy found a host of examples of artists and musicians who became more creative and more generative later in life.

Levy also upends the stereotype that all types of cognitive abilities inevitably worsen with age. It's true that some cognitive skills, such as reaction times, tend to slow a bit over time. But other functions remain robust and even improve. One study of older adults, for instance, showed they were better than middle-age adults at orienting their attention and ignoring distractions ( Veríssimo, J., et al., Nature Human Behaviour, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2022).

Getting older affords other benefits. As people age, they tend to become more agreeable and more conscientious. Older adults also tend to be better at regulating their emotions. "These are positive changes that can lead to overall greater social maturity," Diehl said. "These changes often mean we get along better with others, and we may pay better attention to health or put ourselves in fewer risky situations."

Such changes may be partly responsible for another observed phenomenon, known as the paradox of aging, said Karl Pillemer, PhD, a sociologist and professor of psychology and gerontology at Cornell University. "Older people tend to report greater happiness and life satisfaction compared to younger people," he said.

Some researchers have debated the evidence for this so-called happiness curve, a U-shaped trend in which happiness levels are lowest at midlife. But in a recent analysis, economist David Blanchflower took a comprehensive look at data from 145 countries and concluded that, in fact, happiness sinks to a low-water mark in middle age before increasing again through later adulthood (Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2021). Other research suggests that, contrary to popular belief, mental health also improves across the life span ( Thomas, M. L., et al., Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Vol. 77, No. 8, 2016). "This view that old age is all negative decline just doesn't seem to be the case," Pillemer said.

How ageism harms

The negative view of late life isn't just false. It's also dangerous. "The narrative that age is decline, age is burden, hurts everyone: individuals, families, communities, and society," said Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, a professor of social policy and expert in gerontology at Washington University in St. Louis. "Some older adults do need support, but mostly they're giving it," she added. "They make important contributions to the workforce, including paid work as well as volunteering and caregiving. Those contributions to society are a resource, not a luxury."

Ageism in the workplace affects hiring and promotion decisions. In medical settings, stereotypes associated with aging may influence treatment decisions. People may incorrectly assume older adults are too frail for more aggressive cancer therapies, for instance. In the mental health field, most psychotherapists don't receive adequate education in geropsychology, and age bias and stereotypes can influence their attitudes and practices. In a chapter on ageism and mental health, evidence revealed that many psychotherapists exhibit a preference against working with older patients, assume less favorable prognoses for older patients, and believe that depression is a natural consequence of older age ( Bodner, E., et al., in Contemporary Perspectives on Ageism, Springer, 2018).

Internalized messages about aging also influence a person's health and well-being-a connection Levy has documented in numerous studies. As a graduate student, she took a research trip to Japan to explore why the Japanese had the longest life spans in the world. "One of the first things I noticed was how differently older people there were treated," said Levy. "They were celebrated in families, on TV shows, in comic books."

Today, Levy's research explores how societal messages about aging impact a person's health and well-being. Experimental research, longitudinal studies, and cross-cultural comparisons of age-related beliefs all point to one conclusion: "People who take in more negative age beliefs tend to show worse physical, cognitive, and mental health. But the good news is that those who are exposed to or develop more positive age beliefs tend to show benefits in physical, cognitive, and mental health," she said.

Age-related beliefs affect health in multiple ways, Levy has found. Those who have more negative feelings about getting older are more likely to experience higher levels of stress, which has been linked to many diseases of aging. Also, people who feel fatalistic about getting older may be less likely to engage in healthy behaviors such as staying active or taking prescribed medications.

Together, those mechanisms can have significant impacts on health. In one study, for instance, Levy and her colleagues showed that positive beliefs about aging protect against dementia, even among those with a high-risk gene (PLOS One, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2018). But the effects extend beyond dementia. She has also found that negative self-perceptions of aging are associated with a higher prevalence for all of the eight most expensive health conditions among Americans, which include heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders, and injuries. She calculated that the cost of ageism in the United States was $63 billion per year-one of every seven dollars spent for those eight conditions (The Gerontologist, Vol. 60, No. 1, 2020).

Challenging ageist stereotypes

Given the stakes, there are good reasons to challenge age-related stereotypes and age bias. Such efforts are beginning to bear fruit. In a systematic review, Pillemer and colleagues found that interventions to reduce ageist stereotypes and prejudice are often effective ( Burnes, D., et al., American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 109, No. 8, 2019).

The most effective interventions combine education about aging with efforts to increase intergenerational contact, Pillemer found. "One of the biggest threats to reframing attitudes toward aging lies in the increasing age segregation of American society. We're in the midst of a dangerous experiment where young people have almost no contact with older people outside of intermittent contacts in their own families," he said.

Yet contact alone is not always enough to challenge false ideas about late life. "You often see events that bring young people into nursing homes to give concerts or do activities with older adults, for example. But if young people aren't prepared for interpreting that experience, they can actually leave with more negative views of aging," Pillemer added. "It's important for younger people to interact with older adults who are active and engaged, and also to educate younger people about the aging process."

To that end, he designed an intergenerational intervention that pairs high school students and older adults for intergenerational wisdom sharing. In a randomized trial, he found that youth who participated showed improvements in their attitudes toward older people and in their sense of life purpose (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 19, No. 7, 2022).
[Related: The Reframing Aging Initiative aims to change the narrative around getting older]
Diehl, too, is developing an intervention to change attitudes toward aging. His approach targets middle-age adults in hopes of improving their outlook toward their own aging process. "We want to show people that we have opportunities to shape that process, by choosing what we eat and drink, how physically active we are, and how we manage stress," he said. His four-week health education program addresses beliefs about self-efficacy in aging and encourages participants to be more physically active-a factor strongly associated with health across the life span. Diehl is still analyzing the results, so he can't yet say whether the intervention led to measurable changes in physical activity. But in a preliminary analysis, he said, "our data clearly show that the intervention is effective in changing people's negative attitudes toward their own aging."

Interventions don't just improve attitudes for youth and younger adults. In a randomized controlled trial with older adults, Levy found that strengthening positive age beliefs led to more positive self-perceptions of aging, which in turn led to significantly improved physical function (Psychological Science, Vol. 25, No. 12, 2014).

Reframing ageist systems

Looking beyond individual-level interventions, researchers and advocates are also turning their attention to the cultures and systems that perpetuate ageism. Morrow-Howell, for instance, is in talks with her institution's DEI office to include age as a diversity issue. "Once people start talking about it, they start seeing it. Awareness within organizations is so important," she said.

She and Montepare are also active with the Age-Friendly University (AFU) program, an initiative to change the culture of higher education to expand opportunities for older adults. (Read more about the AFU program in " Embracing Learners of All Ages," in the June 2022 Monitor.)

Moving forward, there's a need to continue studying the factors that support productive aging. "In an increasingly aging society, people have to be willing to do this work," Pillemer said. "We really need a translational science in aging: We need psychologists to engage in this flow between research and implementation of these ideas in real-world settings," he added.

Clinical psychologists, too, can do more to address ageism in their own practices. For one thing, they can help patients address their own internalized beliefs about getting older, said Gregory Hinrichsen, PhD, a clinical psychologist and professor in the department of geriatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. "People highly overestimate the problems of later life and underestimate the resilience of later life. We can integrate notions about ageism into clinical practice with older adults," he said.

Hinrichsen uses cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy to help clients challenge the underlying assumptions they have about aging, and to begin to think of aging as a role transition. People often discover they're treated differently in older age, he said. They might be dismissed or assumed to be incompetent. Often, older adults are addressed in "elderspeak," a demeaning manner of speech that typically includes a high-pitched voice, speaking more slowly, or using overly familiar terms of endearment like "sweetheart" or "dear." Clinicians can help people navigate the feelings that come along with being treated differently because they are perceived as "old," Hinrichsen says. "It's helpful for people to understand how to handle those challenges."

In collaboration with Erin Emery-Tiburcio, PhD, ABPP, at Rush University in Chicago and colleagues, Hinrichsen helped develop a continuing-education certification program to teach foundational competencies in adult mental health, offered through the E4 Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Disparities in Aging. The program helps clinicians better understand the unique presentations of mental health problems in older adults-and, importantly, helps them identify and challenge their own personal and systemic stereotypes of aging.

Though misconceptions and negative beliefs about aging are often deeply entrenched, they are not immutable. Levy, for one, is optimistic that antiageism efforts are gaining ground. "We're on the verge," she said, "of a social movement to bring about a more age-just society."

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Ageism is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices. Psychologists are working to change that

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Psychologists are examining the age discrimination that pervades American culture and helping people to reimagine healthier relationships with their older selves.

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Ageism refers to the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age.

Ageism affects everyone. Children as young as 4 years old become aware of their culture's age stereotypes. From that age onwards they internalize and use these stereotypes to guide their feelings and behavior towards people of different ages. They also draw on culture's age stereotypes to perceive and understand themselves, which can result in self-directed ageism at any age. Ageism intersects and exacerbates other forms of disadvantage including those related to sex, race and disability.

Ageism is everywhere: from our institutions and relationships to ourselves. For example, ageism is in policies that support healthcare rationing by age, practices that limit younger people's opportunities to contribute to decision-making in the workplace, patronizing behavior used in interactions with older and younger people, and in self-limiting behavior, which can stem from internalized stereotypes about what a person of a given age can be or do.

Half the world's population is ageist against older people and, in Europe, the only region for which data is available on all age groups, younger people report more age discrimination than other age groups.

Ageism can change how we view ourselves, can erode solidarity between generations, can devalue or limit our ability to benefit from what younger and older populations can contribute, and can impact our health, longevity and well-being while also having far-reaching economic consequences. For example, ageism is associated with earlier death (by 7.5 years), poorer physical and mental health, and slower recovery from disability in older age. Ageism also increases risky health behaviors, such as eating an unhealthy diet, drinking excessively or smoking, and reduces our quality of life. In the United States, one in every seven dollars spent on health care every year for the eight most expensive conditions was due to ageism (US$ 63 billion in total).

Three strategies work in reducing or eliminating ageism: policy and law, educational activities and intergenerational interventions.

Policy and law can address discrimination and inequality on the basis of age and protect the human rights of everyone, everywhere. Educational activities can enhance empathy, dispel misconceptions about different age groups and reduce prejudice by providing accurate information and counter-stereotypical examples. Intergenerational interventions, which bring together people of different generations, can help reduce intergroup prejudice and stereotypes.

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Ageism refers to the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age. Ageism affects everyone. Children as young as 4 years old become aware of their culture's age stereotypes.

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Syracuse, NY -- Onondaga County saw 33 drug overdose deaths in the first quarter of the year, with all but two deaths traced to fentanyl use, according to the county medical examiner's office.

If that number of deaths continues, the county will record 132 deaths this year.

The county is two years removed from setting a record for drug overdose deaths in 2021 with 186, and the latest data shows the fight is continuing against potent cocktails of opioids.

The county has had at least 100 overdose deaths a year since 2018. By comparison, there were fewer than 50 overdose deaths per year a decade ago.

Over the years, heroin and other opioids have given way to an epidemic almost exclusively driven by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid often mixed with other drugs to increase potency.

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Center for Disease Control.

The county continues to see anywhere from 30 to 65 fatal and non-fatal overdoses a week in 2023, data shows.

Since 2012, a total of 1,225 people have died in the county from opioid overdoses.

Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or (315) 470-6070.

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33 died in Onondaga County from drug overdoses in first quarter of 2023

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The fentanyl epidemic is responsible for nearly all overdose deaths in 2023.

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Data are a critical tool for understanding how opioid use is impacting our local community. The Onondaga County Health Department actively utilizes public health surveillance techniques to monitor indicators related to opioid use within Onondaga County.

This report pulls together data from multiple sources to provide a broad picture of the impact of opioid use on our community. The indicators presented below were selected because they show the scale and scope of the crisis Onondaga County is currently facing. Whenever relevant, comparisons are made to New York State (NYS) excluding New York City (NYC), Central New York counties, and other counties in NYS.

This section includes data for suspected overdoses reported in Onondaga County through the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP). ODMAP provides real time data on suspected overdoses reported to Emergency Medical Services through calls to 911. Onondaga County actively monitors ODMAP for sudden increases in overdose events. The visuals shown below include suspected overdoses of any substance type, not exclusively opioids. Data are reported based upon incident address. Please note, these data do not reflect the actual outcome of the 911 calls. Any deaths resulting from opioid overdoses are represented in Overdose Tracking
the chart shown below, and are reported with a one-quarter delay due to the number of pending cases that remain at the end of a quarter.

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Opioid Use: Onondaga County Data Report - Healthy Stories

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Data are a critical tool for understanding how opioid use is impacting our local community. The Onondaga County Health Department actively utilizes public health surveillance techniques to monitor indicators related to opioid use within Onondaga County. This report pulls together data from multiple sources to provide a broad picture of the impact of opioid use ...

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The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects information on deaths involving drugs commonly associated with fatal overdose. NIDA analyzes NCHS data to create the figures and descriptions on this page. Final and provisional data are available to the public and can be accessed from an ad-hoc query system called CDC Wonder-Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research. The NCHS also provides 12-month-ending Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts by state and drug category.

Timely data related to unintentional and undetermined intent drug overdose deaths by participating jurisdiction is also available from the State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS). Similar data related to nonfatal drug overdoses are reported through CDC's Drug Overdose Surveillance and Epidemiology (DOSE) system.

See the latest from NIDA on drug overdose research.

See Frequently Asked Questions about drug overdose statistics.

Figure 1. National Drug-Involved Overdose Deaths-Number Among All Ages, by Gender, 1999-2021. More than 106,000 persons in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdose in 2021, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. drug overdose deaths involving select illicit or prescription drugs from 1999 to 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths by gender from 1999 to 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 2. National Drug-Involved Overdose Deaths by Specific Category-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. Overall, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2021 with more than 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in 2021. Deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021. Those involving stimulants, including cocaine or psychostimulants with abuse potential (primarily methamphetamine), also continued to increase with 32,537 overdose deaths in 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 3. National Overdose Deaths Involving Any Opioid-Number Among All Ages, by Gender, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving any opioid from 1999 to 2021. Any opioid includes prescription opioids (natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone), heroin, and synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl). Opioid-involved overdose deaths rose from 21,089 in 2010 to 47,600 in 2017 and remained steady through 2019. This was followed by a significant increase in 2020 with 68,630 reported deaths and again in 2021 with 80,411 reported overdose deaths. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths by gender from 1999 to 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 4. National Overdose Deaths Involving Prescription Opioids-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving commonly prescribed opioids (including natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone) from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving prescription opioids rose from 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017. From 2017 to 2019, the number of deaths declined to 14,139. This was followed by a slight increase in 2020, with 16,416 reported deaths. In 2021, the number of reported deaths involving prescription opioids totaled 16,706. The bars are overlaid by a line showing the number of deaths involving prescription opioids in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl). A second line shows prescription opioids without any other opioid from 1999 to 2021 and demonstrates that commonly prescribed opioids are no longer driving the overdose crisis (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 5. National Overdose Deaths Involving Heroin, by Other Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving heroin from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving heroin rose from 1,960 in 1999 to 15,482 in 2017 before trending down to 13,165 deaths in 2020 and 9,173 deaths in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving heroin in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any other opioid from 1999 to 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 6. National Overdose Deaths Involving Stimulants (cocaine and psychostimulants), by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving stimulants from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths rose from 12,122 in 2015 to 53,495 in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving stimulants in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid. The number of deaths involving stimulants has increased steadily since 2014 regardless of opioid involvement (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 7. National Overdose Deaths Involving Psychostimulants With Abuse Potential (Primarily Methamphetamine), by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential rose from 547 in 1999 to 23,837 in 2020 and continued to increase to 32,537 deaths in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving psychostimulants in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid. The number of deaths involving psychostimulants has increased steadily since 2014 regardless of opioid involvement (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 8. National Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Cocaine, by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving cocaine from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving cocaine rose steadily from 6,784 in 2015 to 15,883 in 2019. From 2019 to 2021, cocaine-involved deaths rose nearly 54% to 24,486 deaths. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving cocaine in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid. The number of deaths in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone has increased significantly since 2015 and is the main driver of cocaine-involved overdose deaths (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 9. National Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Benzodiazepines, by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines steadily increased from 1,135 in 1999 to 11,537 in 2017 and declined to 9,711 in 2019. Between 2019 and 2021, deaths rose again to 12,499. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving benzodiazepines in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 10. National Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Antidepressants, by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving antidepressants from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving antidepressants rose steadily from 1,749 in 1999 to 5,269 in 2017. Since then, deaths have slightly risen with 5,859 in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving antidepressants in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid involvement (Source: CDC WONDER).

Download Links

Description of Figures

The figures above are bar charts showing the number of U.S. overdose deaths involving select illicit or prescription drugs from 1999 through 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines representing gender or concurrent opioid involvement. Please note the y-axis scale varies by bar chart and caution should be applied when comparing graphs side-by-side.

There were 106,699 drug-involved overdose deaths reported in the U.S. in 2021 (Figure 1); 69% of cases occurred among males (yellow line). Synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) were the main driver of drug overdose deaths with a nearly 7.5-fold increase from 2015 to 2021 (Figure 2).

Drug overdose deaths involving any opioid―prescription opioids (including natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone), other synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl), and heroin―continued to rise through 2021 with 80,411 deaths. More than 70% of deaths occurred among males (Figure 3). From 2020 to 2021, the number of deaths involving prescription opioids remained steady (Figure 4).

Overdose deaths involving heroin have trended down since 2016 with 9,173 deaths reported in 2021 (Figure 5). Nearly 75% of overdose deaths in 2021 involving heroin also involved synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl).

Drug overdose deaths involving stimulants, cocaine, or psychostimulants with abuse potential (primarily methamphetamine) have significantly increased since 2015 from 12,122 to 53,495 in 2021 (Figure 6).

Since 2015, the number of deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential (primarily methamphetamine) has risen significantly each year-with 32,537 deaths in 2021 (Figure 7). The number of deaths involving cocaine has also increased steadily since 2015 with 24,486 deaths reported in 2021 (Figure 8).

The final two charts show the number of overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines (Figure 8) or antidepressants (Figure 9). Benzodiazepines were involved in 12,499 deaths in 2021-steadily increasing since 2015. The proportion of deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) has increased significantly since 2015. Of the 8,791 deaths involving benzodiazepines in 2015, 20% also involved fentanyl. In 2021, this proportion increased to 70% of all deaths involving benzodiazepines. Antidepressant-involved deaths have also risen steadily, driven by fentanyl, with 5,859 deaths reported in 2021.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does NIDA collect and release the data displayed on this webpage?

No. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects and reports these data, which are available to the public and can be accessed from an ad-hoc query system called CDC Wonder-Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research. NIDA does not fund or assist in the collection of these data but does analyze NCHS data to create the figures and descriptions on this page.

Why are the statistics displayed not more recent? Where can I find timelier estimates of overdose death rates?

This webpage is regularly updated to display the most recent final drug overdose death data published annually by NCHS. NCHS systems receive and analyze data from death certificates, including cause-of-death information reported by state and local medical examiners and coroners. Because drug overdose deaths often require lengthy investigations, data are updated as new information is received.

For more recent provisional data, please see Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts from NCHS. Timely data related to unintentional and undetermined intent drug overdose deaths by participating jurisdiction is also available from the Similar data related to nonfatal drug overdoses are reported through CDC's Drug Overdose Surveillance and Epidemiology (DOSE) system.

Where can I find more information about the data displayed on this webpage?
For more information or to contact CDC, please visit the CDC's Drug Overdose Deaths webpage.

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Drug Overdose Death Rates | National Institute on Drug Abuse

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects information on deaths involving many commonly used drugs The CDC's reporting on deaths by overdose.

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WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) | Injury Center | CDC

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WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) is an interactive database system that provides customized reports of injury-related data.

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In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to opioid pain relievers and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates.

Increased prescription of opioid medications led to widespread misuse of both prescription and non-prescription opioids before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive.

In 2017 HHS declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

HHS is deeply committed to improving the physical and mental health and well-being of every American as we work to address the evolving crisis. HHS continues to support science- and community-based efforts to combat the opioid crisis.

Opioids by the Numbers

Facts about Drug Overdose

More than 760,000 people have died since 1999 from a drug overdose. Nearly 75% of drug overdose deaths in 2020 involved an opioid.

Explore drug overdose epidemic data from the CDC.

Explore CDC Datasets

CDC's Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS™) is an interactive, online database that provides fatal and nonfatal injury, violent death, and cost of injury data from a variety of data sources.

CDC's Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) Provides access to a wide array of public health information, including births, deaths, diagnoses, vaccinations, environmental exposures, and population estimates. These data collections are available as online databases, which provide public access to ad hoc queries, summary statistics, maps, charts, and data extracts.

National Recovery Month (September)
Raise awareness and understanding of mental and substance use disorders and celebrate the people who are recovering.

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HHS is deeply committed to improving the physical and mental health and well-being of every American as we work to address the evolving crisis.

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Drug overdose deaths surged in the United States during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing by 30.6% in just 12 months. The growth was widespread throughout the country, with forty states experiencing statistically significant increases in their drug overdose death rates from 2019 to 2020. Those ranged from the smallest increase of 12.9 percent in Connecticut (from 34.7 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019 to 39.1 in 2020) to the largest increase of 54.8 percent in Mississippi (from 13.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019 to 21.2 in 2020).

Statistically significant state-level increases in drug overdose death rates, 2019-2020

Much of the growth in drug overdose deaths was driven by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which increased more than 50 percent from 2019 to 2020 (see below). Fentanyl has become a key product for international drug traffickers, often finding its way as an adulterant in other drugs like heroin and cocaine, and even as an ingredient in counterfeits of common opioid prescription pills such as Oxycontin. The emergence of fentanyl in the U.S. illicit drug trade is a newer phenomenon beginning in the past decade, and it has recently spread from eastern states to increasingly affect states in the western half of the country as well.
Changes in drug overdose deaths in the U.S., 2019 to 2020

A family of drugs called "psychostimulants"-mostly methamphetamine-also drove a large increase in deaths in 2020, up nearly 50 percent since 2019. Deaths involving methamphetamine and other psychostimulants have grown dramatically in the past few years. The increased death toll involving psychostimulants is likely caused by two factors: First, the methamphetamine trafficked in the U.S. today is generally much more potent than methamphetamine sold in the past, raising the potential risk of overdoses caused by methamphetamine. Second, methamphetamine today is often contaminated with, or used alongside, synthetic opioids, raising the risk of an overdose involving the use of multiple drugs simultaneously.

Of the main drugs involved in overdoses, only heroin was associated with a decline in deaths during 2020-falling by less than 10 percent since 2019. Meanwhile, overdose deaths involving prescription opioids increased more than 20 percent, reversing a trend of relatively stable or even declining death rates over several years. Cocaine overdose deaths similarly increased by more than 20 percent in 2020.

Resources from SHADAC

Briefs
SHADAC produced briefs that provide high-level information about opioids and opioid addiction, present the historical context for the epidemic of opioid-related addiction and mortality in the United States, and examine trends in opioid-related mortality across the country and among population subgroups as well as among the states.
Overdose Crisis in Transition: Changing National and State Trends in a Widening Drug Death Epidemic (2018 Briefs)
The Opioid Epidemic: National and State Trends in Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths from 2000 to 2017 (Briefs)
The Opioid Epidemic: National and State Trends in Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths, 2000-2016 (Briefs)
The Opioid Epidemic: National and State Trends in Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths, 2000-2015 (Briefs and Maps)

Strategies to Increase Access to Medications for Opioid Use Disorder during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond SHADAC researchers Carrie Au-Yeung and Lynn Blewett, along with Hennepin Healthcare researcher Tyler Winkelman, authored a new Milbank Foundation policy brief that examines the federal and state policies changes put in place to improve access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which time MOUD became especially challenging to access because MOUD patients are typically required to have as many as six in-person clinic visits a week.

Issue Brief Examines Ohio Strategy to Improve Opioid Prescribing Through Payment Reform A collaborative issue brief between SHADAC and the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) with support from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). SHADAC senior research fellow Colin Planalp profiles the innovative work in Ohio to link the state's payment and delivery system reforms with another important policy priority: interventions to curtail the opioid crisis.

Infographics
SHADAC annually produces a series of two-page infographics produced for each of the 50 states as well as the U.S. that highlight key findings for trends in drug overdose deaths. Using the latest available data from SHADAC's State Health Compare, the two-page profiles examine state-level variations in opioid overdose deaths by opioid drug type, as well as by two types of non-opioid illicit drugs that are commonly involved in opioid overdoses: cocaine and psychostimulants. The infographics also show how each state's overdose rates compare to the national average and provide a high-level comparison of all 50 states' overdose rates broken down by each drug type.

50-State Analysis of Drug Overdose Trends: The Evolving Opioid Crisis Across the States (2018 Infographics)

50-State Analysis of Drug Overdose Trends: The Evolving Opioid Crisis Across the States (2017 Infographics)

Overdose Crisis in Transition: Changing Trends in a Widening Drug Death Epidemic (Webinar) A webinar hosted by SHADAC on November 24, 2020, focused on analyzing and discussing changes in overdose deaths in more recent years, especially in 2018. Using the latest available data, Senior Research Fellow Colin Planalp detailed changing trends-both in terms of substances and subpopulations of concern-across the nation and among the states.

The Evolving Opioid Epidemic: Observing Changes in the Opioid Crisis through State-level Data (Webinar) A webinar hosted by SHADAC on September 4, 2019, examined the U.S. opioid epidemic through national and state-level data on drug overdose deaths, including opioids such as prescription painkillers, heroin, and synthetic opioids, and non-opioids (but related drugs) such ase cocaine and psychostimulants (e.g., methamphetamine).Senior Research Fellow Colin Planalp detailed changing trends in the opioid crisis and how the specifics vary across states-both in the scale of the epidemic and differences in the top substances of concern. Research Fellow Robert Hest also demonstrated how users could access and utilize the data on overdose deaths available on State Health Compare, which are drawn from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Exploring the New State-Level Opioid Data on SHADAC's State Health Compare (Webinar) A webinar hosted by SHADAC on September 5, 2018, explored opioid data at the state level between 2000 and 2016. Senior Research Fellow Colin Planalp discussed trends in overdose deaths by drug type (heroin, prescription painkillers, etc.) and, using data from State Health Compare, also looked at which states have the highest rates of opioid-related deaths and which states have experienced the largest increases in overdose death rates. Research Fellow Robert Hest also demonstrated how users could access and utilize the data on overdose deaths available on State Health Compare, which are drawn from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Interactive Maps
For the 50-state analysis on drug overdoses we produced this year, SHADAC also created a map that houses each state's individual information. Click on a state below to see each state's infographics.
Opioid and Non-Opioid Illicit Drug Overdose Rates for all 50 States, 2000-2018
For the two national and state-level opioid trend briefs we produced in 2016, SHADAC also created two slider maps covering the 2000 to 2015 time period for heroin-related and non-heroin opioid-related overdose deaths.

Opioid Data - State Health Compare

Data Measures
Sales of Opioid Painkillers
This measure includes data on sales of the prescription opioid painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone. Prescription sales data are available for each state and the nation from 2000 through 2019 and are measured in annual kilograms of oxycodone and hydrocodone sold per 100,000 people. Data comes from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) Automated Reports and Consolidated Ordering System (ARCOS) Retail Drug Summary Reports.

Opioid-Related and Other Drug Poisoning Deaths
This measure includes data on opioid-related and other drug poisoning (overdose) deaths broken down by five drug types: Natural and semi-synthetic opioids, synthetic opioids, heroin, cocaine, and psychostimulants. Data comes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics via the CDC WONDER Database, and estimates are available for each state and the nation from 2000 through 2018.

SHADAC Opioid Research in the Media

Newest phase in opioid epidemic: Mix of opioids and stimulants like coke and meth Minnesota Reformer (January 21, 2020)

Expanding Medicaid programs helped - but didn't solve - the opioid crisis Healthline (January 14, 2020)

St. Paul experiences overdose spike over past few weeks The Center Square (January 7, 2020)

Cocaine overdoses rise as fentanyl is mixed in Omaha World-Herald (December 30, 2019)

Not yesterday's cocaine: Death toll rising from tainted drug The Louisiana Weekly (December 2, 2019)

The Drug in the Shadows Minnesota Alumni Magazine (December 1, 2019)

Not yesterday's cocaine: Death toll rising from tainted drug Taunton Daily Gazette (November 29, 2019)

Not yesterday's cocaine: Death toll rising from tainted drug Kaiser Health News (November 27, 2019)

Ohio leads U.S. in cocaine deaths The Crime Report (November 26, 2019)

Cincinnati and Ohio at epicenter of spiking fatal ODs from fenanyl-laced cocaine Cincinnati Enquirer (November 26, 2019)

Tainted drugs: Alarming surge in cocaine deaths is US - as drug is cut with deadly opioid The Sun (November 20, 2019)

Death toll from tainted cocaine rising across the country NBC News (November 17, 2019)

The Real Cost of the Opioid Epidemic SNO (November 4, 2019)

Grand Marais clinic offers opioid treatment Duluth News Tribune (July 31, 2019)

Numbers suggest progress on opioid fight MPR News (July 9, 2019)

Talking opioid crisis trends with UMN St. Peter Herald (April 15, 2019)

Opioid epidemic a painful reality in U.S. Morrison County Record (April 7, 2019)

In crisis: What are opioids, really? Kanabec County Times (April 4, 2019)

Talking opioid crisis trends with UMN UMN News (March 21, 2019)

Overshadowed By Opioid Epidemic, Lack of Resources Hurts Pittsburghers Addicted to Meth WESA Blog (February 13, 2019)

Study: Rising concerns that synthetic opioids contaminate other drugs, too MPR News (February 13, 2019)

Prescription Opioid Sales in New York from 2000 to 2017 Patch (November 28, 2018)

Infographic: Which States Have the Highest Rates of Opioid-Related Insurance Claims Filter (October 15, 2018)

[1] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. (2017). Drug Poisoning Mortality: United States, 1999-2015. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/drug-poisoning-mortality

[2] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, January 4). Drug and Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths - United States, 2013-2017. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 67(5152), 1419-1427. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm675152e1.htm?s_cid=mm675152e1_w

[3] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016, December 30). Increases in Drug and Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths - United States, 2010-2015. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 65(50-51), 1445-1452. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm655051e1.htm

[4] U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2017). Timeline of Selected FDA Activities and Significant Events Addressing Opioid Misuse and Abuse. Available at: https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/InformationbyDrugClass/ucm338566.htm

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The Opioid Epidemic in the United States

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The Opioid Epidemic in the United States Drug overdose deaths surged in the United States during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing by 30.6% in just 12 months. The growth was widespread throughout the country, with forty states experiencing statistically significant increases in their drug overdose death rates from 2019 to 2020.

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The number of people who died from a drug overdose in 2021 was over six times the number in 1999. The number of drug overdose deaths increased more than 16% from 2020 to 2021. Over 75% of the nearly 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021 involved an opioid. From 2020 to 2021:

Three Waves of Opioid Overdose Deaths

From 1999-2021, nearly 645,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids ¹.

This rise in opioid overdose deaths can be outlined in three distinct waves.

1. The first wave began with increased prescribing of opioids in the 1990s, with overdose deaths involving prescription opioids (natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone) increasing since at least 1999³.

2. The second wave began in 2010, with rapid increases in overdose deaths involving heroin ⁴.

3. The third wave began in 2013, with significant increases in overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, particularly those involving illicitly manufactured fentanyl 5,6,7. The market for illicitly manufactured fentanyl continues to change, and it can be found in combination with heroin, counterfeit pills, and cocaine.⁸

Many opioid-involved overdose deaths also include other drugs 9.10.

Combatting the Opioid Overdose Epidemic

CDC is committed to fighting the opioid overdose epidemic and supporting states and communities as they continue work to identify outbreaks, collect data, respond to overdoses, and provide care to those in their communities. Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) is a 4-year cooperative agreement through which CDC funds health departments in 47 states, Washington DC, two territories, and 16 cities and counties for surveillance and prevention efforts. These efforts include timelier tracking of nonfatal and fatal drug overdoses, improving toxicology to better track polysubstance-involved deaths, enhancing linkage to care for people with opioid use disorder and risk for opioid overdose, improving prescription drug monitoring programs, implementing health systems interventions, partnering with public safety, and implementing other innovative surveillance and prevention activities.

CDC's work focuses on:

Monitoring trends to better understand and respond to the epidemic.

Advancing research by collecting and analyzing data on opioid-related overdoses and improving data quality to better identify areas that need assistance and to evaluate prevention efforts.

Building state, local and tribal capacity by equipping states with resources, improving data collection, and supporting use of evidence-based strategies. Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) is a cooperative agreement that aims to increase the timeliness and comprehensives of data and to use those data to inform public health response and prevention activities.

Supporting providers, healthcare systems, and payers with data, tools, and guidance for evidence-based decision-making to improve opioid prescribing and patient safety.

Partnering with public safety officials and community organizations, including law enforcement, to address the growing illicit opioid problem.

Increasing public awareness about prescription opioid misuse and overdose and to make safe choices about opioids.

Collaboration is essential for success in preventing opioid overdose deaths. Medical personnel, emergency departments, first responders, public safety officials, mental health and substance use treatment providers, community-based organizations, public health, and members of the community all bring awareness, resources, and expertise to address this complex and fast-moving epidemic. Together, we can better coordinate efforts to prevent opioid overdoses and deaths.

Read more about CDC's role in the opioid overdose epidemic.

1. Wide-ranging online data for epidemiologic research (WONDER). Atlanta, GA: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics; 2021. Available at http://wonder.cdc.gov.

2. Mattson CL, Tanz LJ, Quinn K, Kariisa M, Patel P, Davis NL. Trends and Geographic Patterns in Drug and Synthetic Opioid Overdose Deaths - United States, 2013-2019. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70:202-207. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7006a4external icon.

3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Vital signs: overdoses of prescription opioid pain relievers-United States, 1999-2008.MMWR MorbMortal Wkly Rep. 2011 Nov 4; 60(43):1487-1492.

4. Rudd RA, Paulozzi LJ, Bauer MJ, Burleson RW, Carlson RE, Dao D, Davis JW, Dudek J, Eichler BA, Fernandes JC, Fondario A. Increases in heroin overdose deaths-28 states, 2010 to 2012.MMWR MorbMortal Wkly Rep. 2014 Oct 3; 63(39):849.

5. Gladden RM, Martinez P, Seth P. Fentanyl law enforcement submissions and increases in synthetic opioid-involved overdose deaths-27 states, 2013-2014.MMWR MorbMortal Wkly Rep. 2016; 65:837-43.

6. O'Donnell JK, Gladden RM, Seth P. Trends in deaths involving heroin and synthetic opioids excluding methadone, and law enforcement drug product reports, by census region-United States, 2006-2015.MMWR MorbMortal Wkly Rep. 2017; 66:897-903.

7. O'Donnell JK, Halpin J, Mattson CL, Goldberger BA, Gladden RM. Deaths involving fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and U-47700-10 states, July-December 2016.MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2017; 66:1197-202.

8. Drug Enforcement Administration. 2019 National Drug Threat Assessment. Drug Enforcement Administration Strategic Intelligence Section, U.S. Department of Justice. Published December 2019. Accessed March 17, 2020 from https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-01/2019-NDTA-final-01-14-2020_Low_Web-DIR-007-20_2019.pdf [PDF]

9. Gladden M, O'Donnell J, Mattson C, Seth P. Changes in Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths by Opioid Type and Presence of Benzodiazepines, Cocaine, and Methamphetamine - 25 States, July-December 2017 to January-June 2018. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019:68(34);737-744.

10. Kariisa M, Scholl L, Wilson N, Seth P, Hoots B. Drug Overdose Deaths involving Cocaine and Psychostimulants with Abuse Potential - United States, 2003-2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019:68(17);41-43.

11. Hedegaard H, Miniño AM, Spencer MR, Warner M. Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 1999-2020 [PDF] . National Center for Health Statistics, December 2021.

12. Spencer MR, Miniño AM, Warner M. Drug overdose deaths in the United States, 2001-2021. NCHS Data Brief, no 457. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2022. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc:122556

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Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic

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The rise in opioid overdose deaths can be described in three distinct waves. There was an increase prescribing opioids in the 1990s; rapid increases in overdose deaths involving heroin beginning in 2010; and in 2013, with significant increases in overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, particularly those involving illicitly manufactured fentanyl.

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Syracuse, N.Y. -- How to get help if you're addicted

If you or someone you know is struggling with alcohol or drug addiction, there are places to turn for help.

The New York State HOPEline: 1-877-8-HOPENY: This is a referral hotline for people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction and problem gambling. It is run by the state and answered 24 hours a day, every day. Trained counselors offer referrals for drug and alcohol help in several languages, and will call back in 48 hours to check on you if you want.

The Contact Hotline: 315-251-0600. The Syracuse-based organization provides counseling on the phone and through its online chat function. The group also offers referrals to other agencies for help with mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction.

Regional Open Access Center for Addictions: This is a 24-hour walk-in center for people struggling with addiction. It is run by Helio Health, 329 N. Salina St. A person can walk in at any time of the day or night, get an assessment and a referral for substance abuse treatment. The phone number is 315-471-1564, Ext. 171.

Center of Treatment Innovation: This is mobile team run by Helio, staffed by professionals and peers who have struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, who will talk with a person on the phone and meet with them, in person, in the community. The phone number is 315-401-4288.

National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255. Someone who is skilled in dealing with crisis will answer the phone and talk to you. This isn't specifically for drug and alcohol abuse, but if you are struggling, having a mental health crisis and need to talk, they will talk and can offer referrals to other local groups that can help.
What to look for in an AA group
Alcoholics Anonymous offers more than 50 meetings every week in Central New York. The list is available here: www.aasyracuse.org

If you have questions about a group, you can call the local AA Service Center at (315) 463-5011.

Being on the AA list doesn't mean a group is endorsed or screened by AA. Each group has its own personality, so find one that fits your nature. But a group should follow the 12 steps and the AA traditions. Local clinicians said that while every group may be a little different, there are some red flags that tell you an AA group is not healthy:

They organizers tell members not to attend any meeting but theirs.

They tell you not to take medication or they offer other medical advice.

They offer services like detoxing from alcohol use.

"Drunk With Power" series · Today: A radical version of Alcoholics Anonymous is giving risky advice to addicts in Syracuse.
· Monday: The Syracuse Group puts addicts in danger by coercing them to drop all prescribed medicine.

· Tuesday: The roots of an organization that its critics say relies on oppressive control.

· Wednesday: A group of amateurs tries to detox alcoholics; that's a job for professionals.

Do you have some knowledge of the Syracuse Group or related groups? Contact our reporters:

Patrick Lohmann at email | twitter | 315-766-6670

Marnie Eisenstadt at email | twitter| Facebook | 315-470-2246

Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work

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How to get help if you are addicted (Drunk with Power)

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If you're struggling with alcohol or drug addiction, here are helpful numbers you can call in a crisis and for treatment referrals.

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This drug crisis presents an even more deadly threat because of the changes in drug supply as a result of the pandemic, said Alessandra Miller, director of Drug User Health at ACR Health. Many people no longer have reliable dealers, and are instead turning to people who are selling unknown products that are often laced with fentanyl which has led to more overdoses, Miller said.

Many programs have gone underfunded and understaffed when the community seems to need them most due to financial strains caused by the pandemic.

ACR Health had to furlough 70 of their staff members due to a lack of funding through the state, said Miller. When programs like ACR, which engage in life-saving services such as syringe exchange, Narcan, and medication-assisted treatment, are limited in their service they are unable to provide resources and services to people in need, said Miller.

The lack of these resources increases the likelihood of contracting communicable diseases and physical health issues as a result of substance use because of the inability to get a clean needle or receive treatment.

Following this spike in the first 3 months, U.S. Rep. John Katko introduced the Coronavirus Mental Health and Addiction Assistance Act: bipartisan legislation to create emergency grants for counties and Central New York community-based organizations that help those dealing with substance use.

However, places like ACR are not eligible for these funds because they are not a licensed NYS Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) facility, said Miller.

ACR solely relies on Department of Health funding, however, because New York state was hit hard financially as a result of COVID-19 they continue to be underfunded, said Miller.

Some programs, like hotlines, are trying to make up for the increased need through volunteers. Kapuscinski said she received emails from local and state hotlines looking to recruit psychologists and other mental health providers such as herself.

Many resources are trying to adapt their services to be remote.

Senecal-Reilly, program coordinator at Onondaga County Health Department, said one of the most important things the Onondaga County Health Department is working to do is make naloxone and Narcan, medications that treat overdoses, as widely available as possible. The department is working on implementing online naloxone training, which would provide people with a low-barrier way to access free naloxone, as opposed to having to go to in-person training or to the pharmacy, she said.

Similarly at ACR, patients can now speak with a nurse practitioner by phone or video chat to receive the prescriptions for their medication. As a result, they have seen an increase in attendance of scheduled appointments, said Miller.

The most important change that can be made to help combat the prevalence of substance use is dismantling the stigmas that exist around substance use, said Senecal-Reilly.

"People feel a lot of shame when they are struggling with substance use disorder," said Senecal-Reilly. "If we can lessen the stigma, that would help the most in getting people into the services and treatment that can help them stay safe."

Knutson said it is as simple as spreading the word about the resources that exist and extending kindness to those who might be struggling with their mental health.

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Onondaga County sees rise in substance abuse, mental health crises

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Community health experts note an increase in opioid-related deaths as well as those seeking mental help amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

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There is trash in my neighborhood. What are the impacts on the environment? What can I do about it? 

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There is trash in my neighborhood. What are the impacts on the environment? What can I do about it? 

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Trash can travel throughout the world's rivers and oceans, accumulating on beaches and within gyres. This debris harms physical habitats, transports chemical pollutants, threatens aquatic life, and interferes with human uses of river, marine and coastal environments.

Of all trash, plastic trash has the greatest potential to harm the environment, wildlife and humans. It can be found floating at the surface, suspended in the water column, or on the bottom of almost all water bodies. It is transported by rivers to the ocean, where it moves with the currents, and is often eaten by birds and fish, concentrating toxic chemicals in their tissues, and filling their stomachs, causing them to starve. Plastic aquatic debris is much more than a mere aesthetic problem.
On this page:
Habitat Impacts

The term benthic refers to anything associated with or occurring on the bottom of a body of water such as a river, lake or ocean. The animals and plants that live on or in the bottom are known as the benthos.

Habitat alteration is caused by trash and debris in rivers and oceanic convergence (accumulation) zones, on beaches, and submerged benthic (at and near the bottom of rivers and oceans) habitats. As debris accumulates, habitat structure may be modified, light levels may be reduced in underlying waters, and oxygen levels may be depleted. These changes can undermine the ability of open water and benthic habitats to support aquatic life.

As benthic habitat-forming species decline and as the physical structure of the habitats are modified, there may be indirect impacts of marine debris such as declines in species that are dependent on these habitats for foraging and shelter. For example, degradation of coral reefs globally has the potential to undermine the survival of a diverse array of invertebrates, fish, and vertebrates that depend on this limited resource, including many threatened and endangered species.

Chemical Impacts

Peristent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances are chemical compounds that are resistant to degradation (breaking down), are highly mobile in the environment and exhibit a high degree of toxicity. PBTs bioaccumulate (meaning the substance is retained and builds up within a single organism) and biomagnify up the food chain (meaning that organisms at higher levels on the food chain show increasing levels of the substance because they are constantly eating the substance embedded in the tissue of their prey).

Chemical impacts associated with plastic aquatic trash include the accumulation and transport of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBTs) contaminants, such as PCBs and pesticides. Aquatic plastic debris has been found to accumulate contaminants at concentrations that are orders of magnitude (thousands to millions of times) greater than the surrounding environment. Based on a number of studies, including those conducted by EPA, plastics have the potential to adsorb chemicals of concern from the environment, and serve as a potential global transport mechanism for contaminants of concern into the food chain and potentially to humans who eat seafoods.

Contaminants accumulated on the surface of plastic particles as well as those within the plastic can be released to the environment when the plastics break down into smaller particles as a result of ultraviolet (UV) radiation, mechanical forces, and weathering. Evidence is adding up that plastic debris, including resin pellets and fragments, transfer PBTs to organisms when consumed. For example, the accumulation of PBTs from plastics has been documented in seabirds and benthic organisms. In a study by Ryan et al (1988), great shearwaters (Puffinus gravis), a seabird known to ingest plastic, had PCB concentrations in fat tissues corresponding to the amounts of plastic found in their stomachs.

Biological Impacts

There is a substantial body of evidence documenting the harmful effects of aquatic plastic debris on river and marine organisms. It has been estimated that plastic marine debris adversely affects at least 267 species globally, including 86% of sea turtles, 44% of seabirds, and 43% of marine mammals. The most common threats to wildlife include both physical hazards from ingestion and entanglement, and toxicological threats from ingestion of contaminants attached to and trapped within plastic particles. EPA's Clean Water Act and Superfund (CERCLA) programs have tools we can use to reduce the threats from these contaminants.

Problems Associated with Ingestion of Plastic Particles

Problems associated with the ingestion of plastics include development of internal and external wounds, impairment of feeding capacity due to the buildup or blockage of the digestive system, decreased mobility and predatory avoidance, and toxicity. Ingestion of plastics by seabirds has been shown to reduce body weight, inhibit fat deposition, and reduce reproductive capacity. Due to the fact that seabirds feed over wide ranges and are an upper-trophic level predator (that is, they eat prey high on the food chain), they act as early indicators of pollutants such as plastics in the marine environment.

Ingestion of plastic debris by seabirds, fish, and sea turtles has been widely documented, and ingestion has been reported from marine mammals as well. The potential for plastic ingestion is largely associated with situations where plastic particles can be mistaken for food. For example, sea turtles readily consume plastic bags and other floating debris that appear similar to their gelatinous prey, jellyfish. Predatory organisms, such as fur seals, may indirectly consume plastics through consumption of ocean fish and other prey that have consumed plastic particles mistaken for food.

Human Impacts

In addition to degrading the habitats and ecosystem services that humans use, plastic aquatic debris can directly interfere with navigation, impede commercial and recreational fishing, threaten health and safety, and reduce tourism. Large debris, such as derelict fishing nets and lines that float at or just below the surface, pose the greatest threat to vessel navigation. Lines and nets can become wrapped around propellers and entrained in intakes of motors, and vessels may strike large items, damaging hulls and propellers.

Additionally, "ghost fishing" by lost, drifting nets and pots can kill fish and invertebrates valuable to local commercial and recreational fisheries. It was estimated that derelict crab pots capture approximately 200,000 pounds of Dungeness crab in Puget Sound annually. Ghost fishing can compete with active fishing for limited resources, undermining economic opportunities while also decreasing the reproductive capacities of fish and invertebrate stocks.

Immobilization of commercial and recreational vessels can result in increased costs of navigation due to lost time, costly repairs, as well as the loss of human life. In a tragic example, derelict fishing gear contributed to the sinking of a Korean passenger ferry in 1993 that resulted in the deaths of 292 passengers.

The results of the 2012 EPA study show that these West Coast communities, regardless of their size, spend an annual average $13 per resident to control litter and reduce marine debris.

Humans can also be directly harmed by aquatic trash, becoming entangled in nets and lines while swimming or diving, or being injured by sharp debris that accumulates on beaches. It is not uncommon for SCUBA divers to become entangled in nets or lines. In most instances they are able to free themselves. In rare instances entanglement has resulted in injury and even death. Additionally, sharp debris that accumulates on beaches regularly results in puncture wounds and lacerations. Medical waste, such as hypodermic needles, is of particular concern because punctures can result in the transfer of infections and disease. Due to the human health risk of medical debris, beaches in New York and New Jersey were closed to protect the public from medical waste that washed ashore in 1988. It was estimated that the loss of revenue from beach closures in 1988 to New Jersey alone was in the range of $706 million to nearly $3 billion.

Aquatic trash also reduces the aesthetic and recreational values of rivers, beaches and marine resources. The buildup of plastic debris on beaches is of particular concern for coastal cities since unsightly debris and entangled marine life can reduce the area's attractiveness to local residents and tourists. Immense economic costs are incurred to clean marine debris from beaches. In 2012 EPA conducted a study to quantify the cost spent by 90 cities, large and small, in California, Oregon and Washington, located along the coast or in watersheds draining to the ocean, to clean up litter and prevent trash from entering the ocean or waterways leading to it. Nearly 50 million people live in these three states and over 85 percent of them live on the ocean or along rivers draining into it. West Coast communities are spending more than $520 million dollars a year to combat litter and prevent trash from becoming marine debris. This public cost burden makes yet another reason for finding effective strategies to reduce the trash entering our waterways and contributing to marine debris.

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Trash can travel throughout the world's rivers and oceans, accumulating on beaches and within gyres. This debris harms physical habitats, transports chemical pollutants, threatens aquatic life, and interferes with human uses of river, marine and coastal environments. Of all trash, plastic trash has the greatest potential to harm the environment, wildlife and humans.

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Onondaga Lake’s remarkable transformation: Once a cesspool, now at its cleanest in 100 years - syrac

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Syracuse, N.Y. - Opioid overdose fatalities in Onondaga County increased 15% in the first nine months of 2021, fueled almost entirely by the potent synthetic drug fentanyl.

The Onondaga County Health Department reported 139 people died of opioid overdoses through Sept. 30, up from 121 opioid deaths during the same nine-month period of 2020.

If the tally of overdoses continues at the same pace in the fourth quarter, the county's 2021 opioid deaths will surpass the record 156 fatal overdoses recorded in 2020.

Overdose deaths are surging nationwide. The federal government estimates a record level of more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year. That's about the same number of Americans who die each year of diabetes, the country's eighth leading cause of death.

"It's scary and I don't know where it stops," said Dr. Tolani Ajagbe, medical director of addiction treatment services at Crouse Hospital.

Fentanyl was involved in 129 of the 139 of the county overdose deaths in the first nine months of 2021, according to the Health Department.

Cheap, illicitly manufactured fentanyl is showing up in nearly all street drugs nationwide, including cocaine and methamphetamine.

It is 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Much of the fentanyl is coming from criminal networks in Mexico, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The networks use chemicals obtained from China to mass produce fentanyl and often use it in fake prescription pills that look like legitimate prescription drugs such as Xanax, Adderall, Oxycontin and other medicines.

The DEA says it seized enough fentanyl in 2021 to provide a lethal dose to every American.

"Nearly every substance you can think of is spiked with fentanyl, including marijuana," Ajagbe said.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made the opioid epidemic worse by making it harder for some people to get treatment, experts say. The pandemic also has increased stress, isolation, loneliness and other factors that can lead to substance abuse, experts say.

"It's been a burning fire and Covid had added fuel to it," said Dr. Alann Weissman-Ward, medical director of addiction treatment at Liberty Resources in Syracuse.

As illicit drug use flourishes, some addiction treatment programs are short-handed.

They are struggling with the same workforce shortages bedeviling hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers, said Jeremy Klemanski, CEO of Helio Health, a Syracuse treatment program.

Many patients coming to Crouse for treatment don't realize the drugs they use are spiked with fentanyl until testing shows that opioid is in their system, according to Ajagbe.

In recent months Crouse has seen an increase in patients who identify carfentanil as their drug of choice, he said.

Carfentanil is another cheap, synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than fentanyl. It is used by veterinarians to tranquilize elephants and other large animals.

"What bothers me is our patients have developed a tolerance to this drug and use multiple bags every day," Ajagbe said.

People who overdose on these powerful opioids often need multiple doses of Narcan, an overdose reversal drug, to revive them. Sometimes the multiple doses don't work, Ajagbe said.

That's why the FDA recently approved two new high dose forms of the rescue drug.

Here are some tips from public health officials on how to prevent overdoses:

Get treatment. Here is a list of treatment programs in the Syracuse area. Helio Health operates a Regional Open Access Center for Addiction open every day around the clock at 329 N. Salina St., Syracuse.

Don't use drugs alone. You are more likely to die from an overdose if no one is there to help.

Use fentanyl test strips. These strips will show if the drugs you plan to use contain fentanyl. The test strips are available from the Onondaga County Health Department and ACR Health.

Get Narcan. The overdose reversal drug is available without prescription at pharmacies in New York state. You can learn how to use Narcan at the Onondaga County Health Department and ACR Health.

James T. Mulder covers health and higher education. Have a news tip? Contact him at (315) 470-2245 or jmulder@syracuse.com

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Opioid deaths in Onondaga County on track for grim new record

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world's oceans. It is located halfway between Hawaii and California.
PLASTIC ACCUMULATION

It is estimated that 1.15 to 2.41 million tonnes of plastic are entering the ocean each year from rivers. More than half of this plastic is less dense than the water, meaning that it will not sink once it encounters the sea.

1.15 to 2.41 million metric tonnes of plastic are entering the ocean each year.

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The stronger, more buoyant plastics show resiliency in the marine environment, allowing them to be transported over extended distances. They persist at the sea surface as they make their way offshore, transported by converging currents and finally accumulating in the patch.

Once these plastics enter the gyre, they are unlikely to leave the area until they degrade into smaller microplastics under the effects of sun, waves and marine life. As more and more plastics are discarded into the environment, microplastic concentration in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will only continue to increase.

ESTIMATION OF SIZE

The GPGP covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an estimated surface of 1.6 million square kilometers

To formulate this number, the team of scientists behind this research conducted the most elaborate sampling method ever coordinated.

This consisted of a fleet of 30 boats, 652 surface nets and two flights over the patch to gather aerial imagery of the debris.

Sampling at different locations within the same time period allowed a more accurate estimate of the size of the patch and the plastic drifting in it.

LOCATION

Due to seasonal and interannual variabilities of winds and currents, the GPGP's location and shape are constantly changing. Only floating objects that are predominantly influenced by currents and less by winds were likely to remain within the patch.

By simulating concentration levels in the North Pacific, the researchers were able to follow the location of the patch, demonstrating significant seasonal and interannual variations. On average the patch orbits around 32°N and 145°W. However, the team observed seasonal shift from west to east and substantial variations in latitude (North to South) depending on the year.

The Ocean Cleanup is currently cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with System 03.

Learn more

Help fund our scale-up and let's make the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a thing of the past

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At the time of sampling, there were more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch that weigh an estimated 80,000 tonnes. These figures are much higher than previous calculations.
TOTAL MASS AND COUNT

80'000 tonnes of plastic float in the GPGP, equivalent to 500 Jumbo Jets

The mass of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) was estimated to be approximately 80,000 tonnes, which is 4-16 times more than previous calculations. This weight is also equivalent to that of 500 Jumbo Jets.

4 to 16 times more plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch than Previously Estimated

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The center of the GPGP has the highest density and the further boundaries are the least dense. When quantifying the mass of the GPGP, the team chose to account only for the denser center area. If the less-dense outer region was also considered in the total estimate, the total mass would then be closer to 100,000 tonnes.

A total of 1.8 trillion plastic pieces were estimated to be floating in the patch - a plastic count that is equivalent to 250 pieces of debris for every human in the world.

Using a similar approach as they did when figuring the mass, the team chose to employ conservative estimations of the plastic count. While 1.8 trillion is a mid-range value for the total count, their calculations estimated that it may be range from 1.1 to up to 3.6 trillion pieces.

Concentration

Using data from multiple reconnaissance missions, a mass concentration model was produced to visualize the plastic distribution in the patch.

The mass concentration model, pictured below, shows how the concentration levels gradually decrease by orders of magnitude towards the outside boundaries of the GPGP. The center concentration levels contain the highest density, reaching 100s of kg/km² while decreasing down to 10 kg/km² in the outermost region.

These results prove that plastic pollution at sea, while densely distributed within the patch, is scattered and does not form a solid mass, thus demystifying the trash island concept.

Vertical distribution

The Ocean Cleanup measured the vertical distribution of plastic during six expeditions between 2013 to 2015. Results from these expeditions proved that the buoyant plastic mass is distributed within the top few meters of the ocean.,

Factors such as wind speed, sea state, and plastic buoyancy will influence vertical mixing. However, buoyant plastic will eventually float back to the surface in calmer seas. Larger pieces were observed to resurface much more rapidly than smaller pieces.

Persistency

Characteristics of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, such as plastic type and age, prove that plastic has the capacity to persist in this region.

Plastic in the patch has also been measured since the 1970's and the calculations from subsequent years show that microplastic mass concentration is increasing exponentially - proving that the input of plastic in the patch is greater than the output. Unless sources are mitigated, this number will continue to rise.

The vast majority of plastics retrieved were made of rigid or hard polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP), or derelict fishing gear (nets and ropes particularly). Ranging in size from small fragments to larger objects and meter-sized fishing nets.

Size classes

Plastic within the patch was categorized into four size classes:
- Microplastics (0.05 - 0.5 cm)
- Mesoplastics (0.5 - 5 cm)
- Macroplastics (5 - 50 cm)
- Megaplastics (anything above 50 cm)

92% of the total mass is made of debris larger than 5mm

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When accounting for the total mass, 92% of the debris found in the patch consists of objects larger than 0.5 cm, and three-quarters of the total mass is made of macro- and mega plastic. However, in terms of object count, 94% of the total is represented by microplastics.

Categorization types

75% to 86% of GPGP Plastics Comes from Fishing Activities

Once the plastics were collected, a team of volunteers classified the plastic into:
- Type H: Hard plastic, plastic sheet or film;
- Type N: Plastic lines, ropes, and fishing nets;
- Type P: Pre-production plastics (cylinders, spheres or disks);
- Type F: Fragments made of foamed materials

These plastic types were then screened for clues on age and origin. This was performed by examining each object for dates, languages, trademarks, symbols or 'made in' statements.

Why large debris matter

Because the plastics have been shown to persist in this region, they will likely break down into smaller plastics while floating in the GPGP.

This deterioration into microplastics is usually the result of sun exposure, waves, marine life, and temperature changes. Microplastics have been discovered floating within the water surface layers, but also in the water column or as far down as the ocean floor.

Once they become this small, microplastics are very difficult to remove and are often mistaken for food by marine animals.

Not only does plastic pollution in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch pose risks for the safety and health of marine animals, but there are health and economic implications for humans as well.

Impact on wildlife

Plastic has increasingly become a ubiquitous substance in the ocean. Due to its size and color, animals confuse the plastic for food, causing malnutrition; it poses entanglement risks and threatens their overall behavior, health, and existence.

84% of samples contained toxic chemicals

Studies have shown that about 700 species have encountered marine debris, and 92% of these interactions are with plastic. 17% of the species affected by plastic are on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species.

Toxic for Sea Surface Feeders

180X more plastic than food at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

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Floating at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is 180x more plastic than marine life. Animals migrating through or inhabiting this area are then likely consuming plastic in the patch. For example, sea turtles by-caught in fisheries operating within and around the patch can have up to 74% (by dry weight) of their diets composed of ocean plastics. Laysan albatross chicks from Kure Atoll and Oahu Island have around 45% of their wet mass composed of plastics from surface waters of the GPGP.

Since 84% of this plastic was found to have at least one Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic (PBT) chemical, animals consuming this debris are therefore ingesting the chemicals attached to the plastic.
Entanglement of Marine Life
Fishing nets account for 46% of the mass in the GPGP and they can be dangerous for animals who swim or collide into them and cannot extract themselves from the net. Interaction with these discarded nets, also known as ghost nets , often results in the death of the marine life involved.

Impact on Humans and Society

Once plastic enters the marine food web, there is a possibility that it will contaminate the human food chain as well. Efforts to clean and eradicate ocean plastic have also caused significant financial burdens.

Plastic pollution costs 13B dollars per year.

Affects the Human Foodchain

Through a process called bioaccumulation, chemicals in plastics will enter the body of the animal feeding on the plastic, and as the feeder becomes prey, the chemicals will pass to the predator - making their way up the food web that includes humans. These chemicals that affected the plastic feeders could then be present within the human as well.

Affects the Economy

According to a study conducted in collaboration with Deloitte, yearly economic costs due to marine plastic are estimated to be between $6-19bn USD. The costs stem from its impact on tourism, fisheries and aquaculture, and (governmental) cleanups. These costs do not include the impact on human health and the marine ecosystem (due to insufficient research available). This means that intercepting plastic in rivers is much more cost-effective than dealing with the consequences downstream. Learn more in our interactive map.

Resulting from several research missions, traveling across and above the GPGP, The Ocean Cleanup team compiled an unprecedented amount of data to better understand the plastic that persists in this region.

Boyan Slat - The New Picture of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (2018)

Research Expeditions

"To accurately quantify a problem of the size, we had to do research at a scale that had never been done before" - Boyan Slat

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Scientists have been studying this area since the 1970's - usually by means of dragging a small sampling net through the debris. This method showed a bias towards smaller objects and did not provide much insight into the larger pieces, and, thus, the entire scope of the GPGP.

Over the course of three years, researchers at The Ocean Cleanup went on several data collection missions. This included the Multi-Level-Trawl expedition, where they analyzed the depth at which buoyant plastic debris may be vertically distributed; the Mega Expedition using vessels to cross the patch with many trawls at once; and the Aerial Expedition which involved the use of a plane flying at low altitude to observe the debris from above.

2015 - Multi-Level-Trawl Expedition

Realizing that previous methods of analyzing the plastic in the patch needed improvement, The Ocean Cleanup designed a new research tool, called the multi-level-trawl, which allowed measurements of 11 water layers simultaneously going as far down as 5 meters below surface level. This trawl was then used in the Vertical Distribution Research.

The multi-level-trawl allowed the team to study further down into the water and understand to which depths buoyant plastic may be distributed. Through these studies, it was observed that buoyant plastic floats primarily in the first few meters of the water.

2015 - Mega Expedition

In 2015, 30 vessels and 652 surface nets, in parallel, crossed the GPGP as part of the Mega Expedition.
Numerous vessel owners offered the use of their ships for the mission. Of those ships, many carried behind them a Manta-trawl; including one mothership, the 171ft long Ocean Starr, which was able to carry two 6-meter-wide trawls and a survey balloon.

The fleet returned with over 1.2 million plastic samples that rendered an unprecedented amount of plastic measurements from the three months of study. Scientists present on the expedition noted that there was an alarming amount of plastic floating in the patch, and their preliminary findings indicated that there were more large objects than originally expected.

2016 - Aerial Expedition

After the Mega Expedition, the team wanted to learn more about these large plastic pieces that were difficult to come by. Megaplastics are more scattered than the smaller plastics, and, to study this important aspect of the patch, the team needed to cover an even larger area.

Using a C-130 Hercules aircraft, The Ocean Cleanup surveyed 311 km² with advanced sensors and an RGB camera (CS-4800i) that captured one photo every second of flight time. They took two flights and came back with over 7,000 single frame mosaics from the mission.

Ocean Research Laboratory

Once the ocean plastic was brought back to the Netherlands, it then needed to be counted, classified and analyzed.

Counting and Classifying

The first step in analyzing the plastic was to quantify it - to turn this physical matter into data.

Every piece of plastic that was recovered was cleaned, counted and classified by size and type. In total, 1.2 million plastic samples were counted, one by one, and were used to further study the physical properties and toxicity of the plastic that floats in the GPGP.

The Research team takes on the monumental task of counting and classifying the Mega Expedition samples.

Understanding Physical Properties

Not only is the size and count of the plastic in the GPGP important to calculate, but the way in which the plastic interacts in the water helps the team learn more about the buoyancy and depths of the plastic.

To test this, various experiments were performed on the plastic in environments that were intended to replicate oceanic conditions and particularly salinity. Laboratory tests were conducted to measure the vertical speed of the plastic as it resurfaces.

More than 4000 rising speed tests to understand how plastic particles behave in the water.

Understanding Toxicity

It is commonly known that harmful PBT (Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic) chemicals are found in ocean plastics, so researchers at The Ocean Cleanup tested plastic samples from the expeditions for their chemical levels. Their results helped them to realize what chemicals are present in the patch and what that means for animals feeding there.

Plastics ranging from various type and size were analyzed by placing them in mixtures that would allow the various chemicals to be identified. A process known as Chromatography. They found through various tests that 84% of the plastics in the GPGP contain at least one type of PBT chemical.

Ocean Plastic Data Science

Numerous computational and mathematical processes and methods were used throughout the study of the GPGP, allowing the team to visualize and characterize many features of the patch and the plastic within it.

Turning Ocean Plastic into Data

When the manta trawls samples were captured and then brought on the vessel, several criteria were noted in the datasheets, including the date, duration, and final coordinates of each tow.

With this information, the team was able to identify the exact location where the plastic was retrieved. The location and duration of all tows were confirmed during a post-processing phase by inspecting all the recorded datasheets against GPS trackers that were installed on all participating vessels. The total distance of tows, for example, combined with the net's characteristics allowed the researchers to estimate the total surveyed surface.

Process Aerial Expedition Data

Aboard the C-130 Hercules aircraft used for the Aerial Expedition were three types of sensors: Lidar (an advanced active sensor that is similar to that used on Google's autonomous cars), SWIR imager (an infrared camera to detect ocean plastic) and an RGB camera.

There were 3 sensor technicians, 7 navigation personnel and 10 researchers who helped track the plastic from above and monitor the equipment on board.

The data from this expedition were then analyzed and processed resulting in multispectral and geo-referenced imagery that was used to screen the surface area for plastic by trained observers and a machine-learning algorithm, providing spatial distribution of larger debris (>0.5m).

A Key to Convert Pixels into Kilograms

The mass of the plastic debris in the GPGP was calculated using imagery from the Aerial Expedition. By comparing the top view surface against dry mass of multiple objects collected during the first expedition at sea, including ghost nets, the team was able to make these estimations.

Merge all the Data into Comprehensive Computer Models

The data and imagery gathered from these objectives were eventually used by our team of computational modelers to build various models and computer-generated graphics. These served as a visual representation of the studies and tests that had been performed during the expeditions.

Research of this nature is crucial when understanding the many facets of the GPGP. These models have helped the engineers at The Ocean Cleanup to further improve the design of the cleanup system, which was deployed mid-2018.

We also use modeling to identify the pathways that bring plastic to the gyres. In 2022 our researchers published a new study based on over 6000 plastic objects (over 5 cm in size) captured in the GPGP by our System 001/B cleaning system in 2019. We then compared our field observations with our 'virtual particle' modeling results, allowing us to see the most statistically probable sources of GPGP plastic.

This indicated that over 75% of plastics in the GPGP - not only the 46% made up of fishing nets, as we discovered in 2018 - are attributable to offshore fishing activities. More research will be required in order to discover if this also applies to the other garbage patches around the world.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch * The Ocean Cleanup

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world and is located between Hawaii and California. Scientists of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation have conducted the most extensive analysis ever of this area.

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Interstate 81, traffic and air pollution: Experts analyze highway teardown’s effect on residents

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We asked experts to analyze claims about the I-81 project’s effect on traffic and pollution that have arisen after a lawsuit was filed to stop construction from moving ahead.

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The state Department of Transportation on Friday filed paperwork in state Supreme Court to appeal Judge Gerard Neri's ruling on the lawsuit over Interstate 81.

Attorney General Letitia James filed a notice of appeal, but has not yet filed her arguments in the case.

The group Renew 81 for All sued the state to stop it from tearing down the elevated I-81 viaduct in Syracuse. The group argued the state did not follow the proper environmental reviews before settling on the project.

In February, Neri decided the state could proceed with the first phase of the project, which involves construction in the suburbs. He said the state must complete three supplemental reviews - regarding air quality, water runoff and traffic - before tearing down the overpass in the city. The judge called for an updated traffic study to consider the affect of the new Micron chip fab plant.

The state's attorneys argued that Micron was announced after the state DOT finished its highway plans.

The city of Syracuse has also filed a notice of appeal, supporting the state DOT.
Read more: After a mixed decision in court, NY sticks to plan to remove I-81 through Syracuse Video: See how new I-690 exits will change commute to Syracuse University, hospitals, dome What can Syracuse learn from Rochester about rebuilding a neighborhood split by a highway? 7 tips How much are taxpayers spending to keep I-81 in Syracuse safe before NY tears it down? I-81: Upstate NY's biggest highway project is about to start, but maybe not where you think Why an I-81 'skyway' would be costly and unworkable: 'Who wants to live under a 70-foot bridge?' Black leaders in Syracuse angered and mystified by lawsuit that halts years of work on I-81

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State transportation department will appeal recent court ruling on I-81

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Attorney General Letitia James notified the court of her intent to appeal the case

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Onondaga Lake - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation

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This page has information about Onondaga Lake’s history, pollution sources and cleanup efforts. A list of other DEC webpages with more detailed information about the lake is also included.

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Syracuse has experienced a high level of water pollution for over a century, and it disproportionately affects certain communities.

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Syracuse, N.Y. -- For two days this week, Syracuse skies glowed an apocalyptic orange, with Canadian wildfire smoke turning the sun into a burning ember at midday.

The air pollution on Wednesday was the worst ever recorded in Central New York. Air quality hit the highest level, "hazardous," and exceeded 400 on a scale that goes from zero to 500. In an eerie echo of the first days of the Covid-19 pandemic, smoky skies canceled a sold-out concert, postponed lacrosse playoffs, closed the zoo and chased Central New Yorkers indoors on what would have been a gorgeous week to be outside.

What happened?

Two things: Quebec suffered a historically early fire season that continues to rage out of control, and a low pressure system coincidentally parked itself at the tip of Maine, forcing winds to come from the north and blow wildfire smoke directly into Central New York's collective nose.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday measured the region's worst air quality since the monitor was installed in East Syracuse in 1999. The average air quality index level on Wednesday was 233, beating the old record, set in 1999, of 182.

That index on Wednesday ranged from 75 in the pre-dawn hours to 403 by late morning.

The monitor combines several types of pollutants to arrive at that air quality number. This week, the dominant contributor was the tiny smoke particles called PM 2.5. That stands for particulate matter of 2.5 microns or smaller -- about 30 times smaller than a human hair. At that size, particles can penetrate the lungs and the bloodstream.

That smoke wafted in from Quebec, where at one point early this week more than 200 fires blazed, most of them wildly out of control. Fire season generally starts in the summer in Quebec. But dry and hot conditions in May, which some scientists say was fueled by climate change, sparked a rash of early-season brush and forest fires that overwhelmed the province's fire teams.

At Hancock International Airport, Syracuse's official National Weather Service station, observers recorded "haze" or "smoke" for 52 hours straight.

Most days, when prevailing winds blow from the west, that smoke would have blanketed Canada's maritime provinces and then dispersed into the Atlantic Ocean. This time, though, a low pressure system just happened to be camped near Maine. Because of the rotation of the Earth, winds spin counterclockwise around those low pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere.

As winds wrapped around that system they dived south, collecting streams of thick smoke from the Quebec fires and conveying them into the Northeast. Plumes of brown, thick haze pushed into the Eastern seaboard, spiking air pollution levels not just in Syracuse, but in bigger population centers like New York City and Philadelphia.

Syracuse's skies turned a surreal orange because smoke's tiny soot particles block the relatively short wavelengths of blue and green light, allowing only the longer wavelengths of yellow and orange to reach our retinas.

Upstate New York has seen wildfire smoke before, but it generally tends to drift in on the prevailing westerly winds from fires on the West Coast or in western Canada. When smoke is carried aloft for thousands of miles, it is diluted in the atmosphere and generally stays well above the ground.

This time, though, the wildfires were hundreds rather than thousands of miles away, in a neighboring province instead of one on the other side of the Canadian Rockies.

For two days, north winds zeroed in on Central New York, giving the region some of the worst air in the country. Eyes watered, chests burned, throats itched. Residents plucked N95 masks from their Covid-19 stockpiles and wore them walking down the street. Health departments urged people to shut their windows and stay indoors.

The north winds also brought cooler air from Canada, keeping high temperatures lower than normal. And by blocking much of the sun's energy, the smoke carried by those winds nudged temperatures down a couple of degrees more.

On Thursday, the orange glow has abated, and skies above Syracuse returned to a skim-milk white. For the first time in days, there is no air quality alert in effect. By 6 a.m. today, the index had dropped to 55, just a few ticks above "good."

Winds shifted the worst of the smoke plumes to the west on Thursday, from Western New York to Michigan. Syracuse's air quality has improved from "hazardous" to "unhealthy." That means people with lung and heart conditions should continue to stay indoors.

That low pressure system is expected to slide into the Atlantic Ocean in the next few days, opening up a path for the winds to once again blow from the west. That could, however, blow back into our faces some of the smoke that skirted Central New York today.

It could take days for the smoke to truly clear out and for clear skies to return. Starting Sunday and lasting into at least the middle of next week, temperatures start climbing back into the 80s. The chances of rain increase, too, which will transport smoke particles to the ground.

That rain will be gladly received. As we were focused on smoky skies this week, nearly all of Upstate New York slipped into the "abnormally dry" category, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. That's the step before declaring a drought.

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Here's why Syracuse skies turned orange and saw its worst air pollution ever recorded

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Smoke from Canada wildfires poured south, breaking records for dirty air in Central New York.