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February 2, 2026

How mental health has changed in baby boomers and gen-X across their entire adulthoods

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Darío Moreno-Agostino, Principal Research Fellow in Population Mental Health, UCL

The lifelong mental health impact of socioeconomic inequalities were even larger in women from the Baby Boomer generation. PerfectWave/ Shutterstock

It’s been almost five years since the end of the COVID lockdowns. Yet the world is still continuing to learn about how mental health changed during – and after – this unprecedented time.

My colleagues and I wanted to understand how mental health had changed across the life course of baby boomers and generation X – including during and beyond the pandemic.

We also wanted to understand if (and how) gender and socioeconomic inequalities had changed throughout these periods. Previous research we’d conducted had shown that large, pre-existing gender inequalities in mental ill-health had widened during the pandemic period.

Moreover, the post-lockdown period came with a marked increase in the cost of living – making ends meet harder in a context where there had already been high levels of poverty for decades before.

We found that, on average, mental health bounced back to levels similar to those recorded before the pandemic. However, women and people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds continued to experience worse mental health across their adult lives, including after the pandemic. And those inequalities could be traced back to their early lives.

To conduct our study, we analysed data from two nationally representative British birth cohorts: the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study.

These ongoing studies follow the lives of all people born in Britain during one particular week in 1958 and 1970. Information is collected on each participant’s physical and mental health, as well as their social, economic and family circumstances.

These studies gave us the unique opportunity to investigate how different outcomes – including mental health – changed across the life course in baby boomers and generation X.

For our study, we looked at the same 14,182 people over up to four decades: 6,553 of whom were born in 1958 and 7,629 who were born in 1970.

We used the same measure of psychological distress (which encompasses a range of unpleasant mental states, such as feeling depressed, worried or scared) in both cohorts. This allowed us to understand how mental health had changed in the same participants throughout their adult lives – between the ages of 23-64 for baby boomers and 26-52 for generation X.

To ensure our results weren’t due to differences in measurement, we tested this tool to ensure it provided comparable measures across cohorts, genders, socioeconomic backgrounds and ages.

To examine inequalities by gender and socioeconomic background, we used information on sex assigned at birth, parental social class and housing tenure (whether their parents owned or rented their home) when participants were children (aged five-11).

We also examined the intersection of gender and socioeconomic background to understand any dual impact these inequalities may have on mental health throughout adulthood.

What we found

In both cohorts, mental health was generally at its best during a person’s 30s. But, from middle age, average levels of psychological distress began to increase.

During the pandemic, both cohorts experienced a marked increase in psychological distress. Levels reached, and in some cases surpassed, the highest distress levels they’d experienced in any other period of their lives.

In the post-lockdown period, average distress levels declined – largely returning to pre-pandemic levels. While generation X had higher average distress levels across adulthood, post-pandemic improvements were smaller for baby boomers.

Women and people who grew up in socioeconomically disadvantaged households consistently reported higher psychological distress throughout their lives compared to men and people from more advantaged backgrounds. These inequalities, which were already visible in the participants’ 20s, were still present when they were in their 50s or 60s.

Among baby boomers, socioeconomic inequalities were even larger in women – showing a dual effect.

The changing picture of mental health

We were able to track how mental health changed in the same people through different periods in their lives. This also allowed us to identify potential risk factors for poor mental health.

Our study showed further evidence of the life-long impact of gender and socioeconomic disadvantage. These factors are already known to be among the key social determinants of mental health.

Although our study didn’t investigate the specific ways in which these life-long inequalities in mental ill-health came to happen, we believe these inequalities reflect the unfair distribution of opportunities, power and privilege in society. In other words, our findings may reflect the long-term impact of sexism, classism and material deprivation – and the ways these inequalities overlap.

A group of three older women and one younger woman sit in a circle and talk outside. — Sexism, classism and material deprivation in childhood had long-term impacts on mental health.
CandyRetriever/ Shutterstock

Women and young girls have long been at greater risk of experiencing a number of mental health difficulties. Factors such as sexual violence, safety concerns, labour market discrimination and the unequal distribution of unpaid care work all potentially contribute to this.

Similarly, early-life socioeconomic disadvantage can limit or preclude access to certain resources, such as wealth and knowledge, which can be protective of mental health.

The finding that socioeconomic inequalities were even larger in women from the baby boomer generation may be partly explained by societal changes in the second-half of the 20th century. Changes such as the expansion of women’s education and labour-market participation and small improvements in the gender pay gap may have had a protective effect on mental health for women born in generation X.

In our view, this supports the idea that these inequalities can, indeed, be prevented.

Future of mental health

One one hand, our findings show the remarkable resilience of two British generations when faced with the challenges the pandemic brought.

But on the other hand, our findings also highlight the unfair, life-long factors that can contribute to poor mental health – factors that are largely down to chance.

Around one in three children in the UK currently living in poverty. Global gender equality is stalling – and, in some cases, even going backwards. Finding ways of addressing these inequalities will be key in improving mental health for younger generations.

Darío Moreno-Agostino receives funding from the Wellcome Trust under grant number 304283/Z/23/Z, and has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for Society and Mental Health at King’s College London under grant number ES/S012567/1. The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Wellcome Trust, ESRC, or King’s College London.

– ref. How mental health has changed in baby boomers and gen-X across their entire adulthoods – https://theconversation.com/how-mental-health-has-changed-in-baby-boomers-and-gen-x-across-their-entire-adulthoods-273645

February 2, 2026

To cry or not to cry: how moving the audience to tears can backfire

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steve Waters, Professor of scriptwriting and playwright, University of East Anglia

“One must have a heart of stone not to read about the death of little Nell without laughing” was Oscar Wilde’s notorious response to the emotional onslaught of Charles Dickens’s 1841 novel, The Old Curiosity Shop. Having watched two films in two weeks about the death of a child, it offers a clue as to why I cried in only one.

In her journals, the novelist Helen Garner writes: “Sentimentality keeps looking over its shoulder to see how you’re taking it. Emotion doesn’t give a shit whether anyone’s looking or not.” Is the presence of sentiment the reason I was dry-eyed at the end of one film and in pieces at the end of the other?

Chloe Zhao’s acclaimed adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel Hamnet promises tears aplenty, given its focus on how the death of Shakespeare’s son influenced the writing of Hamlet. Child mortality is inescapably tragic, and yet too often I found myself wincing at Max Richter’s insistent score or scoffing at scenes of groundlings at the Globe blubbing. I left without shedding a tear, only to find the cinema full of weeping couples comforting each other.

I knew Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab – a forensic account of the last hours of a six-year-old girl under fire in Gaza in January 2024 – was going to be a tough watch. This time, by the credits, I was on the floor, choked with tears of rage.

There’s an obvious explanation for these opposing reactions. Hind Rajab was a real child caught up in the IDF’s assault on Gaza whereas Hamnet’s death is distant in time. However I suspect my emotional dissonance stems from Zhao working flat out to make me cry, as opposed to Ben Hania, The Voice of Hind Rajab’s director, forcing me to get over myself and bear witness.

A brief history of art and weeping

How do we evaluate such manipulations? In the history of drama the place of weeping is ambivalent. Tragedy’s tendency to elicit and “purge” emotion is first described in Aristotle’s Poetics, his anatomy of the power of drama in 5th century BC Athens. Aristotle suggests that plays such as Oedipus Tyrannos provoke katharsis in the audience – a collective raising and purging of feeling.

The trailer for Hamnet.

From then on, the literature of crying is sparse, although cultural historian Tom Lutz’s book Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears usefully defines it as “a surplus of feeling over thinking”, eliciting a “gestural language of tears”.

In the late 18th century, a cult of “sensibility” pushed back against conventional notions of emotional restraint and “reason”. Instead, writers and taste-makers favoured heightened sensitivity and emotional fluency. This is epitomised in the heroes of novels such as The Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie (1771), which made hitherto indecorous public displays of abjection fashionable.

Yet around the same time, the French philosopher Denis Diderot outlined the paradox of the actor (smiling as they weep or weeping as they smile), challenging the idea that to induce emotion art must express emotion. This notion is definitively expressed in Roman poet Horace’s long reflective poem Ars Poetica which suggests: “If you would have me weep, you must first feel the passion of grief yourself.”

There’s a gendered dimension to this debate. In parading my resistance to tearing up, am I simply contributing to a tradition of patronising melodrama? Terms such as “weepies” or “tearjerker” or “the woman’s picture” reveal a disdain for emotion which risks writing off cinematic masterpieces by filmmakers like Douglas Sirk or George Cukor, such as Imitation of Life (1959) or A Star is Born (1937).

But there may be a simpler answer to this question: is the direct representation of emotion to provoke emotion in fact a turn-off? Watching Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal give way to their grief in Hamnet made my own feelings surplus to requirements. It left me yearning for German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s push-back on what he called “the narcotics industry” of Hollywood. Puzzling over my resistance to Hamnet, called to mind an observation made by director Peter Hall in his 2000 lectures Exposed by the Mask. In them, he argues that if you wish to reduce an audience to tears, you don’t show a child crying – you show a child attempting not to cry.

The trailer for Hamnet.

That insight explains the force of The Voice of Hind Rajab, with its eponymous heroine braving out her terrifying circumstances. The film has the tact to evade direct representation of her predicament. As Hind speaks, we’re exposed to a naked screen where the raw audio recording is experienced as mere sound waves. The tact of that refusal to represent places the burden on the viewer to question their own emotional response.

After the shock of this trauma, we turn our attention to the paralysed “rescuers” who painstakingly seek to coordinate an eight-minute ambulance journey into the zone of combat. Their reactions – rage and grief – and their attempt to maintain their cool both governs and splits our feelings. For them, crying is an indulgence, they are too busy trying to save a life. We do the crying for them.

The poet John Keats suggested that we “hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us”. Well, these two films evidently have designs on us; and yes, we all feel better after a good cry. But The Voice of Hind Rajab invites us to sit up and pay attention – and sometimes, tears are not enough.

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Steve Waters has received funding from the AHRC.

– ref. To cry or not to cry: how moving the audience to tears can backfire – https://theconversation.com/to-cry-or-not-to-cry-how-moving-the-audience-to-tears-can-backfire-274347

February 2, 2026

Preventable deaths in a warming world: how politics shapes who lives and who dies

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aaron Thierry, PhD Candidate, Social Science, Cardiff University

Floods in Kolkata, West Bengal, India in 2019. ABHISHEK BASAK 90/Shutterstock

In Brownsville, Texas, three members of the Galvan family died after a malfunctioning air conditioner left them exposed to extreme heat. Aged between 60 and 82, all three had chronic health conditions, including diabetes and heart disease. This makes it harder for the body to regulate temperature and increases vulnerability to heat stress.

Nobody arrived to check on them until days after they had died in their apartment in 2024. This isolation also increases risk of heat-related deaths.

Although the immediate trigger appears to have been equipment failure, a pathologist attributed the deaths to extreme heat linked to chronic illness. Deaths like these are classified as “heat-related” when ambient temperatures exceed what bodies can safely tolerate.

Climate change is a contributing factor. As heatwaves become more frequent, intense and prolonged, routine failures in cooling, power or housing infrastructure are more likely to turn existing vulnerability into fatal harm.

Around the world, climate-related deaths follow consistent social patterns. People who are older, already ill, economically disadvantaged, or working outdoors are most affected.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the UN’s climate science advisory group) concludes that roughly 3.3 billion to 3.6 billion people – nearly half of the world’s population – are highly vulnerable to climate risks, with limited capacity to cope. Here, vulnerability is not simply exposure to environmental hazards. Who is protected and who is left at risk depends on social and infrastructural conditions.

Research in climate science, public health and social sciences shows these patterns are clear. My own research spans ecosystem ecology and social science. I examine how climate knowledge is produced, interpreted and acted upon in times of ecological emergency.

The evidence points to an uncomfortable conclusion: much of this suffering is preventable.

The necropolitics of climate change

Cameroonian historian Achille Mbembe introduced the idea of “necropolitics” to explain how some lives come to be treated as more expendable than others. This does not imply intent to kill, but rather the routine political acceptance that some people will be exposed to harm.

From this perspective, the Galvans’ deaths were shaped not only by heat, but by structural inequalities and gaps in policy and infrastructure.

This logic is visible globally. In south Asia and the Middle East, heatwaves claim the lives of elderly people and outdoor workers. In sub-Saharan Africa, floods and droughts disproportionately affect subsistence farmers.

In the UK, air pollution is linked to roughly 30,000 deaths annually. People from ethnic minority and low-income communities are more likely to live in the most polluted areas. These deaths are not random. They follow recognisable social patterns.

old woman stands at door of shack, flooded waters — Floods hit villages in the Jhenaigati upazila of Sherpur district, Bangladesh on October 6 2024.
amdadphoto/Shutterstock

Mbembe’s concept helps describe situations where political, economic or social arrangements leave some populations consistently exposed to harm. That includes climate-vulnerable communities, places where resources are being extracted through mining or areas where people are displaced from their homes. In the US, “Drill, baby, drill!” has re-emerged as shorthand for prioritising fossil fuel extraction over emissions reduction.

These political and economic choices create consistent patterns of vulnerability for environmental risks, from extreme heat to floods and air pollution. Structural neglect, not personal behaviour, underlies the distribution of harm.

Yet, vulnerability is not fate. Heat provides a clear example. With early warning systems, targeted outreach, and timely intervention, many such fatalities can be prevented. As epidemiologist Kristie Ebi notes: “Those deaths are preventable … people don’t need to die in the heat”.

The same is true across climate risks. Even with systemic neglect, deliberate and coordinated action can reduce risk. Connecting social, infrastructural, and institutional responses to climate hazards is a crucial step.

Slow violence as a climate process

Environmental humanist Rob Nixon uses the term “slow violence” to describe harms that accumulate gradually and often invisibly over time. Unlike sudden disasters, the effects of rising temperatures, drought and ecological degradation unfold quietly.

You cannot make a disaster movie out of slow violence. Its harm builds incrementally, striking those already most vulnerable. The deaths of the Galvans exemplify this slow burn, as do the lives lost to prolonged heat exposure, crop failure and environmental degradation worldwide.

People least responsible for emissions, primarily in developing countries, are most exposed to escalating climate harms. Viewed through a necropolitical lens, slow violence shows how neglect becomes lethal through the repeated failure to prevent known and predictable harms.

Feminist theorist Donna Haraway coined the term “Chthulucene”, from the Greek chthonic (“of the earth”), to describe an era defined by entangled relationships between humans, other species and the ecosystems they depend on.

Rather than treating environmental harm as separate from social life, this perspective emphasises how vulnerability emerges through the everyday connections between people, institutions and environments. As Haraway argues harm accumulates through these relationships, revealing how exposure to climate risks, political neglect and ecological stress reinforce one another over time.

This dynamic is visible in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, one of the world’s most productive rice-growing regions. Here, saltwater intrusion is creeping inland, damaging vast areas of farmland and threatening millions of livelihoods.

Rising sea levels and shifting climate patterns could affect up to 45% of the delta’s farmland by 2030, destabilising both local communities and global food systems. Social and ecological harm cannot be separated.

Politics of life, not death

Political choices amplify any existing environmental threat. Neglect is not a neutral absence: it is a political condition that shapes who lives and who suffers.

Addressing this injustice requires a living politics of care. This means a political system that recognises vulnerability as socially produced and demands solidarity, equity and accountability. Through alliances between affected communities, researchers and advocates who expose neglect, plus decision-makers under pressure to act, care can become politically unavoidable.

Neglect is no longer allowed to remain invisible in some parts of the world. Cities like Ahmedabad, India, are expanding heat mitigation and early-warning systems. Communities in the Mekong Delta are working with Vietnamese and international researchers to experiment with salt-tolerant crops.

Globally, ecocide laws that make large-scale destruction of ecosystems illegal are being introduced. This helps embed responsibility for environmental protection into legal and political systems. Even in the face of political neglect, targeted action and emerging legal frameworks can reduce harm and foster a more caring form of politics.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Aaron Thierry receives funding from ESRC. He is affiliated with Scientists for Extinction Rebellion.

– ref. Preventable deaths in a warming world: how politics shapes who lives and who dies – https://theconversation.com/preventable-deaths-in-a-warming-world-how-politics-shapes-who-lives-and-who-dies-273132

February 2, 2026

Some companies claim they can ‘resurrect’ species. Does that make people more comfortable with extinction?

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Christopher Lean, Research Fellow in Philosophy, Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Macquarie University

Less than a year ago, United States company Colossal Biosciences announced it had “resurrected” the dire wolf, a megafauna-hunting wolf species that had been extinct for 10,000 years.

Within two days of Colossal’s announcement, the Interior Secretary of the US, Doug Burgum, used the idea of resurrection to justify weakening environmental protection laws: “pick your favourite species and call up Colossal”.

His reasoning appeared to confirm critics’ fears about de-extinction technology. If we can bring any species back, why protect them to begin with?

In a new study published in Biological Conservation, we put this idea to the test. We found no evidence people will accept extinction more readily if they’re promised de-extinction. But it’s important to communicate about de-extinction efforts with care.

The ‘moral hazard’ of de-extinction

Since the emergence of de-extinction technology, critics have argued it potentially undermines support for conserving existing species.

In other words, de-extinction technology poses a “moral hazard”. This is a situation in which someone is willing to behave in riskier ways than they would otherwise, because someone or something else will bear the cost or deal with the consequences. Behaving recklessly because you have health insurance is a classic example.

The moral hazard of de-extinction technology is that if we believe extinct species can be brought back, we may be more willing to let species go extinct in the first place.

Photo of a white wolf with the word extinct crossed out above it. — TIME magazine cover featuring the dire wolf ‘de-extinction’ story.
TIME

This concern mirrors debates in other areas of environmental policy. For example, critics of carbon capture and solar radiation modification worry that believing we can later fix climate change may weaken the incentive to reduce emissions now. However, most studies investigating this claim found these technologies don’t reduce people’s support for also cutting back carbon emissions.

Our study is the first to investigate whether de-extinction technology reduces people’s concern about the extinction of existing species.

What we found

We presented 363 people from a wide range of backgrounds with several scenarios. These described a company doing something that yields an economic or public benefit, but results in the extinction of an existing endangered species.

For example, in one scenario a company intended to build a highway for a new port through the last habitat of the dusky gopher frog, a critically endangered species. The construction would lead to the frog’s extinction.

A medium sized spotted frog with golden eyes held up to a camera. — Endemic to the southern United States, the dusky gopher frog is critically endangered because its native habitat, longleaf-pine forests, are almost entirely destroyed.
ememu/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC

There were two versions of each scenario, differing in how the company would compensate for the species’ extinction.

In the “environmental compensation” version, a large investment would be made to preserve other species. In the “de-extinction” version, de-extinction technology would be used to reintroduce the DNA of the extinct species into a related species at a later date.

For each scenario, people were asked: did they think the project was good for the public? Was the species extinction justified? Did compensation make the company less blameworthy for causing the species extinction? Should we allow projects like this one in the future?

Finally, in cases where de-extinction was proposed, we asked if the respondent believed the companies’ claims that genetic engineering could be used to successfully recreate the extinct species.

A warning against spin

We found no evidence that proposing de-extinction makes people more accepting of extinction than compensation for environmental destruction would.

Therefore, moral hazard alone is not a reason to outright reject the ethical deployment of de-extinction technology. Further, overemphasising potential but unsubstantiated hazards of de-extinction research may undermine the development of effective tools for preserving current species.

We did, however, find one reason for caution.

There was a correlation between a person’s belief that de-extinction could resurrect the species and the belief that causing its extinction would be acceptable.

This is a correlation, so we can’t tell which belief comes first. It could be that these people already think extinction is justified to gain access to economic benefits, and then adopt the view that de-extinction is possible to excuse that belief.

A more worrying possibility is the reverse: believing that de-extinction is possible could have led to these individuals viewing extinction as acceptable. A strong belief in de-extinction’s success could either act as an excuse for extinction, or a reason for extinction.

This creates a major risk if those who develop de-extinction technology overstate or mislead the public about what this tech can achieve.

Avoid misleading claims

It’s crucial the companies and scientists working on de-extinction efforts communicate accurately and without hype. Claims that de-extinction can reverse extinction are misleading. Genetic engineering can introduce lost traits from an extinct species into a closely related living species and restore lost ecological functions, but it can’t re-create the extinct species.

Problems arise when companies present these limits cautiously within the scientific community but make stronger claims in public-facing communication.

Doing so encourages the false belief that extinction is fully reversible. This risks undermining the ethical justification for any de-extinction efforts.

This risk can be avoided. For example, the de-extinction project attempting to restore aurochs (ancient cattle) to Europe clearly states it’s creating aurochs 2.0. It’s an ecological proxy for the extinct species, not the species itself.

Colossal Biosciences attracts widespread controversy for publicising its projects, which include “resurrection” of the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine.

Our results show claims that de-extinction will necessarily create a moral hazard are unjustified.

However, de-extinction advocates bear a burden to be cautious and clear in their communication about what their technology offers – and what it can’t do.

Christopher Lean receives funding from the Australian Government through the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (project number CE200100029).

Andrew James Latham has been supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Annie Sandrussi receives funding from the Australian Government through the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (project number CE200100029).

Wendy Rogers receives funding from The Australian Research Council. She is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (project number CE200100029), funded by the Australian Government.

– ref. Some companies claim they can ‘resurrect’ species. Does that make people more comfortable with extinction? – https://theconversation.com/some-companies-claim-they-can-resurrect-species-does-that-make-people-more-comfortable-with-extinction-273583

February 2, 2026

Over 100 deaths linked to January storms – here’s how to stay safe when cold, snowy weather moves in

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brett Robertson, Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute, University of South Carolina

Powerful winter storms that left hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. without power for days in freezing temperatures in late January 2026 have been linked to more than 100 deaths, and the cold weather is forecast to continue into February.

The causes of the deaths and injuries have varied. Some people died from exposure to cold inside their homes. Others fell outside or suffered heart attacks while shoveling snow. Three young brothers died after falling through ice on a Texas pond. Dozens of children were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from improperly used generators or heaters.

These tragedies and others share a common theme: Winter storms pose multiple dangers at once, and people often underestimate how quickly conditions can become life-threatening.

A man stands by the open door of a car stuck on a road with deep snow. — If you plan to drive in a winter storm, be prepared to be stranded, as this driver was in Little Rock, Ark., on Jan. 24, 2026. Cars can slide off roads, slide into each other or get stuck in snow drifts. Having warm winter gear, boots and a charged cell phone can help you deal with the cold.
Will Newton/Getty Images

I’m the associate director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina, where we work on ways to improve emergency preparedness and response. Here is what people need to know to reduce their risk of injury during severe winter weather.

Prepare before the storm arrives

Preparation makes the biggest difference when temperatures drop, and services fail. Many winter storm injuries happen after power outages knock out heat, lighting or medical equipment.

Start by assembling a basic emergency kit. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends having water, food that does not require cooking, a flashlight, a battery-powered radio, extra batteries and a first-aid kit, at minimum.

Some basics to go into an emergency kit — In addition to these basics, a winter emergency kit should have plenty of warm clothes and snacks to provide energy to produce body heat.
National Institute of Aging

In wintertime, you’ll also need warm clothing, blankets, hats and gloves. When you go out, even in a vehicle, make sure you dress for the weather. Keep a blanket in the car in case you get stranded, as hundreds of people did for hours overnight on a Mississippi highway on Jan. 27 in freezing, snowy weather.

Portable phone chargers matter more than many people realize. During emergencies, phones become lifelines for updates, help and contact with family. Keep devices charged ahead of the storm and conserve battery power once the storm begins.

If anyone in your home depends on electrically powered medical equipment, make a plan now. Know where you can go if the power goes out for an extended period. Contact your utility provider in advance to ask about outage planning, including whether they offer priority restoration or guidance for customers who rely on powered medical equipment.

What to do if the power goes out

Loss of heat is one of the most serious dangers of winter storms. Hypothermia can occur indoors when temperatures drop, especially overnight.

If the power goes out, choose one room to stay in and close its doors to keep the warmth inside. Cover windows with curtains or blankets. Wear loose layers and a knit hat to keep your own body heat in, even indoors. Remember to also eat regular snacks and drink warm fluids when possible, since the body uses energy to stay warm.

Five people sit around a table, each wrapped up in warm clothes and hats. Two children are studying. — Wearing knit caps, lots of layers and staying together in one room can help with warmth. If you light candles, use them carefully to avoid fires.
SimpleImages/Moment via Getty Images

It might seem tempting, but don’t use camp stoves, outdoor grills or generators inside a home. These can quickly produce carbon monoxide, an odorless and deadly gas. During the January storm, one Nashville hospital saw more than 40 children with carbon monoxide poisoning linked to unsafe heating practices.

If you must use a generator, keep it outdoors and far from windows and doors. Make sure your home’s carbon monoxide detectors are working before storms arrive.

If your home becomes too cold, go to a warmer place, such as a friend’s home, a warming center or a public shelter. You can call 2-1-1, a nationwide hotline, to find local options. The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army also list open shelters on their websites. Several states maintain online maps for finding warming centers and emergency services during winter storms, including Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Tennessee, and Texas.

Be careful outside – ice changes things

Winter storms make everyday activities dangerous. Ice turns sidewalks into slippery hazards. Snow shoveling strains the heart.
Frozen ponds and lakes might look solid but often are not as the ice can change quickly with weather conditions.

Walking on icy surfaces, even your own sidewalk, requires slow steps, proper footwear and full attention to what you’re doing. Falls can cause head injuries or broken bones, and it can happen with your first step out the door.

A group of kids scream as they sled down a hillside, legs flying in the air. — Playing in the snow, like this group was at Cherokee Park in Louisville, Ky., can be the best part of winter, but be sure to do it safely. At least three people died in accidents while being towed on sleds behind vehicles on icy streets during the January 2026 storm.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images

Shoveling snow is a common risk that people often overlook, but it deserves special caution. The actions of shoveling in cold weather can place intense strain on the heart. For people with heart conditions, it that extra strain can trigger heart attacks.

Why shoveling snow is more stressful on your heart than mowing your lawn. Mayo Clinic.

If you’re shoveling, take frequent breaks. Push snow instead of lifting when possible. And stop immediately if you feel chest pain, dizziness, or shortness of breath.

Communication saves time and lives

Winter storms disrupt information flows. Cell service fails. Internet access drops. Power outages silence televisions.

In my research on heat and storm emergencies, people frequently rely on personal networks to share updates, resources, and safety information. With that in mind, check on family, friends and neighbors, especially older adults and people who live alone.

Research I have conducted shows that nearby social ties matter during disasters because they help people share information and act more quickly when services are disrupted. Make sure that the information you’re sharing is coming from reliable sources – not everything on social media is. Also, let others know where you plan to go if conditions worsen.

A woman in a puffy jacket, hat and scarf walks up snow-covered subway stairs. — Walk carefully on snow and ice, particularly stairs like these in a New York subway station on Jan. 25, 2026. At home, be sure to clear snow off your steps soon after a storm so ice doesn’t build up.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Use multiple sources for information. Battery-powered radios remain critical during winter storms. Sign up for local emergency alerts by email or text. Studies have found that in regions accustomed to frequent hazardous weather, people often take actions in response to risks more slowly when they don’t have reliable local updates or clear alerts.

Practice matters

Many injuries happen because people delay actions they know they need to take. They wait to leave a house that’s getting too cold or at risk of damage by weather, such as flooding. They wait to ask for help. They wait to adjust plans.

In research I contributed to on evacuation drills involving wildfires, people who practiced their evacuation plan in advance were more likely to react quickly when conditions changed. Talking through evacuation plans for any type of emergency, whether a hurricane or a winter storm, builds people’s confidence and reduces their hesitation.

Take time each winter to review your emergency supplies, communication plans, and heating options.

Winter storms will test your preparation, judgment, and patience. You cannot control when the next one arrives, but you can decide how ready you will be when it does.

This article, originally published Jan. 29, 2026, has been updated with additional details on the new storm.

Brett Robertson receives funding from the National Science Foundation (Award #2316128). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

– ref. Over 100 deaths linked to January storms – here’s how to stay safe when cold, snowy weather moves in – https://theconversation.com/over-100-deaths-linked-to-january-storms-heres-how-to-stay-safe-when-cold-snowy-weather-moves-in-274605

February 2, 2026

The only remaining US-Russia nuclear treaty expires this week. Could a new arms race soon accelerate?

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Tilman Ruff, Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne

The New START treaty, the last remaining agreement constraining Russian and US nuclear weapons, is due to lapse on February 4.

There are no negotiations to extend the terms of the treaty, either. As US President Donald Trump said dismissively in a recent interview, “if it expires, it expires”.

The importance of the New START treaty is hard to overstate. As other nuclear treaties have been abrogated in recent years, this was the only deal left with notification, inspection, verification and treaty compliance mechanisms between Russia and the US. Between them, they possess 87% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

The demise of the treaty will bring a definitive and alarming end to nuclear restraint between the two powers. It may very well accelerate the global nuclear arms race, too.

What is New START?

The New START or Prague Treaty was signed by then-US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dimitri Medvedev, in Prague on April 8, 2010. It entered into force the following year.

It superseded a 2002 treaty that obligated Russia and the United States to reduce their operationally deployed, strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the end of 2012.

The New START Treaty called for further reductions on long-range nuclear weapons and provided greater specificity about different types of launchers. The new limits were:

700 deployed intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (together with heavy bombers)
1,550 nuclear warheads deployed on those platforms, and
800 launchers (both deployed and non-deployed).

These reductions were achieved by February 5, 2018.

The treaty included mechanisms for compliance and verification, which have worked effectively. It provided for twice-yearly exchanges of data and ongoing mutual notification about the movement of strategic nuclear forces, which in practice occurred on a nearly daily basis.

Importantly, the treaty also mandated short-notice, on-site inspections of missiles, warheads and launchers covered by the treaty, providing valuable and stabilising insights into the other’s nuclear deployments.

Lastly, the treaty established a bilateral consultative commission and clear procedures to resolve questions or disputes.

Limitations of the deal

The treaty was criticised at the time for its modest reductions and the limited types of nuclear weapons it covered.

But the most enduring downside was the political price Obama paid to achieve ratification by the US Senate.

To secure sufficient Republican support, he agreed to a long-term program of renewal and modernisation of the entire US nuclear arsenal – in addition to the facilities and programs that produce and maintain nuclear weapons. The overall pricetag was estimated to reach well over US$2 trillion.

This has arguably done more harm by entrenching the United States’ possession of nuclear weapons and thwarting prospects for disarmament.

As the New START treaty was about to expire in 2021, Russia offered to extend it for another five years, as allowed under the terms. US President Donald Trump, however, refused to reciprocate.

After winning the 2020 US presidential election, Joe Biden did agree to extend the treaty on February 3, 2021, just two days before it would have expired. The treaty does not provide for any further extensions.

In February 2023, Russia suspended its implementation of key aspects of the treaty, including stockpile data exchange and on-site inspections. It did not formally withdraw, however, and committed to continue to abide by the treaty’s numerical limits on warheads, missiles and launchers.

What could happen next

With the imminent expiry of the treaty this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in September 2025 that he was prepared to continue observing the numerical limits for one more year if the US acted similarly.

Besides an off-the-cuff comment by Trump – “it sounds like a good idea to me” – the US did not formally respond to the Russian offer.

Trump has further complicated matters by insisting that negotiations on any future nuclear arms control agreements include China. However, China has consistently refused this. There is also no precedent for such trilateral nuclear control or disarmament negotiations, which would no doubt be long and complex. Though growing, China’s arsenal is still less than 12% the size of the US arsenal and less than 11% the size of Russia’s.

The New START treaty now looks set to expire without any agreement to continue to observe its limits until a successor treaty is negotiated.

This means Russia and the US could increase their deployed warheads by 60% and 110%, respectively, within a matter of months. This is because both have the capacity to load a larger number of warheads on their missiles and bombers than they currently do. Both countries also have large numbers of warheads in reserve or slated for dismantlement, but still intact.

If they took these steps, both countries could effectively double their deployed strategic nuclear arsenals.

The end of the treaty’s verification, data exchanges, and compliance and notification processes would also lead to increased uncertainty and distrust. This, in turn, could lead to a further build-up of both countries’ already gargantuan military capabilities.

An ominous warning

The most unsettling part of this development: it means nuclear disarmament, and even more modest arms control, is now moribund.

No new negotiations for disarmament or even reducing nuclear risks are currently under way. None are scheduled to begin.

At a minimum, after New START expires this week, both Russia and the US should agree to stick to its limits until they negotiate further reductions.

And, 56 years after making a binding commitment in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to achieve nuclear disarmament, both nations should work to implement a verifiable agreement among all nuclear-armed states to eliminate their arsenals.

But Russia, the US and and other nuclear-armed states are moving in the opposite direction.

Trump’s actions since taking office a second time – from bombing Iran to toppling Venezuela’s leader – show his general disdain for international law and treaties. They also affirm his desire to use any instrument of power to assert US (and his personal) interests and supremacy.

Putin, meanwhile, has used of a nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile to strike Ukraine, made repeated threats to use nuclear weapons against Kyiv and the West, and continued his unprecedented and profoundly dangerous weaponisation of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.

These moves signal a more aggressive Russian stance that rides roughshod over the UN Charter, as well.

All of this bodes ill for preventing nuclear war and making progress on nuclear disarmament.

Tilman Ruff is affiliated with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Medical Association for Prevention of War, Doctors for the Environment Australia and the Public Health Association of Australia.

– ref. The only remaining US-Russia nuclear treaty expires this week. Could a new arms race soon accelerate? – https://theconversation.com/the-only-remaining-us-russia-nuclear-treaty-expires-this-week-could-a-new-arms-race-soon-accelerate-269508

February 1, 2026

Pierre Poilievre aces leadership review: Why the Conservatives opted to stand by their man

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sam Routley, PhD Candidate, Political Science, Western University

With the support of almost 90 per cent of party delegates, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party leadership review results are clear and decisive.

These results not only demonstrate that the party continues to believe that he is their best option to win the next federal election, but that a large majority of Conservatives remain broadly united behind his leadership and message.

Post-election reflection

Poilievre entered the review following a period of assessment and recovery. As is typical after an election loss, this phase involved internal debate, intense media scrutiny and renewed attention to the leader’s perceived weaknesses.

Critics pointed to a familiar set of concerns: Poilievre’s attack-dog political style, his strained relationship with much of the national media and his perceived alignment with American populism, particularly Donald Trump.

His approach, they argued, had been designed for Justin Trudeau and was less effective against the former prime minister’s replacement, Mark Carney. Polling reinforced the sense of unease. While the Conservative Party continues to be seen as a better economic manager, Poilievre also lags behind Carney in personal popularity.

Organizational concerns also compounded these doubts. Controversies over nomination processes and strained relationships with other Conservative politicians, particularly Ontario Premier Doug Ford, raised questions about party management and coalition-building.

Within conservative intellectual circles, there has also been extensive ideological debate about tone, strategy and the party’s electoral ceiling.

Poilievre, after all, had to win an Alberta by-election after he lost his Ottawa seat in the federal election and has faced high-profile floor crossings over the past several months.

Yet this moment of reflection proved more cathartic than transformative. Much of the criticism levelled against Poilievre by Conservatives proved fleeting, an emotional response to loss rather than a durable movement to replace him. Instead, it reflected a familiar post-election pattern: disappointment amplified by punditry and frustration rather than a genuine collapse of confidence within the party.

Election results

How did Poilievre survive? Likely because the election results themselves were ambiguous. Although the Conservatives failed to form government, they were otherwise successful by many other measures.

They increased their vote share, expanded their support to new voter constituencies — especially young adults and recent immigrants — and demonstrated strength on core issues such as affordability, housing and cost of living. From the conservative perspective, this suggests incompletion — an inability to seal the final deal — rather than total rejection.

With the largest share of the popular vote for any Conservative party in Canada since 1988, the only thing that stood between the party and governing was a few percentage points.

This creates a powerful argument for continuity. Replacing Poilievre would have required the party to gamble that a new leader could quickly unify the coalition, define themselves nationally and outperform an already familiar figure in Carney — all without the benefit of incumbency or clear front-runner status.

Compounding this, of course, was the absence of a clear successor. No alternative candidate commanded widespread loyalty or offered an obviously superior electoral profile. In such circumstances, continuity becomes the least risky option.

The broader political and electoral context also matters. While Carney may be more personally popular than Poilievre, he governs on top of a coalition that is internally complex, undefined and potentially short-lived.

Carney’s electoral success depended heavily on the collapse of the NDP vote and the broader political disruption caused by Trump’s threats to annex Canada. With a new NDP leader, the New Democrats could recover and cut into Liberal margins.

Meanwhile, the government’s more mixed response to issues such as pipeline development, housing and the cost-of-living crisis could push enough voters toward the Conservatives by the next federal election campaign.

Young voters like Poilievre

All this said, however, Poilievre’s support cannot be explained solely by institutional inertia or a lack of alternative leadership candidates. His leadership has and continues to generate genuine enthusiasm among some voters — especially those who are young, recently immigrated or working in trades. This support is fuelled by economic frustration, declining living standards and the sense of a lost promise.

At a moment when centre-right parties elsewhere are struggling with internal upheaval and fragmentation, Poilievre’s Conservative Party has remained cohesive and even expanded by organizing around what former communications director Ben Woodfinden calls the “locked-out:” voters who feel shut out of prosperity amid weak growth and chronic productivity problems.

In this context, Poilievre’s orthodox centre-right agenda — cutting regulatory burdens, boosting competition and removing interprovincial trade barriers — continues to attract broad, cross-class support that transcends cultural and regional divides.

The success of this can be seen from the fact that, throughout his keynote address at the Conservative Party convention, Poilievre’s core message and policy proposals haven’t changed substantively.

But there has been a shift in style. Poilievre has begun to pair his combative style with a more personal, reflective and occasionally vulnerable public persona, an adjustment aimed at consolidating support while expanding appeal among undecided voters.

Finally, although Poilievre’s coalition wasn’t large enough to win the 2025 election, Canadian electoral history suggests that his prospects aren’t bleak. There’s a long history of decisive results or shifts playing out across two electoral successes, as coalitions are consolidated and expanded. Both John Diefenbaker and Stephen Harper, for example, endured defeats before securing durable governing mandates.

By endorsing Poilievre so decisively, Conservatives signalled their belief that he remains on an upward trajectory. The leadership review was less about absolution than affirmation: a collective judgment that the party is closer to power with Poilievre than without him.

Sam Routley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Pierre Poilievre aces leadership review: Why the Conservatives opted to stand by their man – https://theconversation.com/pierre-poilievre-aces-leadership-review-why-the-conservatives-opted-to-stand-by-their-man-274159

February 1, 2026

16 Oscar nods for ‘Sinners’ signals a broader appetite for imaginative Black cinema

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Cornel Grey, Assistant Professor in Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Western University

When Sinners recently received a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations, the response was overwhelmingly celebratory, but not uncomplicated.

The nominations capped a year in which the film had already defied expectations at the box office. An original horror film with no built-in franchise, Sinners broke multiple domestic and international records and earned more than US$300 million during its theatrical run.

Critics also responded strongly, praising Ryan Coogler’s direction and the film’s blend of spectacle and social commentary. Those reviews helped cement Sinners as both a commercial hit and a critical success.

Sinners doesn’t resolve longstanding debates about Black recognition or racial equity in Hollywood. However, its nominations arrive at a moment that suggests wider audience interest — and possible film industry openness — to Black films that are culturally specific, formally ambitious and uninterested in proving their importance through suffering alone.

Questions of popular success and excellence

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the group of just over 10,000 film industry professionals who vote on Oscar nominations and winners — has long grappled with how to balance popular success and its self-image as an arbiter of artistic excellence.

In the wake of declining viewership, the academy proposed a new category in 2018 for “Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film.”

The plan was met with significant backlash from commentators who were offended by the implication that commercially successful films couldn’t also be great art. The idea was shelved amid concerns that it would undermine the Oscars’ standards instead of bridging the gap between popular taste and critical recognition.

Sinners is not a traditional prestige drama designed for the awards circuit. It is a piece of work that refuses easy classification, blending elements of horror, musical, Southern Gothic and Black folklore into a form that balances excess and control.

As director Ryan Coogler has said, the film resists categorical conventions, dubbing it “genre-fluid.”

‘Sinners’ official trailer.

Directorial innovation

Coogler’s directorial innovation is central to the cultural significance of the film’s nominations.

Historically, the Oscars have rewarded Black films that conform to a narrow range of familiar narratives. Stories centred on racial trauma, historical injustice, moral redemption or social pathology have been far more likely to receive acknowledgement than films that foreground pleasure and fantasy.

Best Picture winners like 12 Years a Slave and Green Book, along with heavily awarded films such as Precious and The Help, illustrate this pattern, as does Halle Berry’s Best Actress win for Monster’s Ball, a performance structured around sexualized suffering and endurance.

Acclaimed Black films that don’t focus on trauma or suffering have been long overlooked by the academy.

Movies like Do the Right Thing, Eve’s Bayou, Girls Trip and Sorry to Bother You received strong critical and cultural support, but were largely ignored during Oscar voting.

Rather than critiquing those films or performances, this pattern points to how Hollywood taste — reflecting racialized assumptions and values — shapes what kinds of Black stories are recognized as important and deserving of reward.

Black creative achievement and possibility

Sinners does something different. It bends and unsettles the frames that tell audiences how to read a film. Vampires, music, violence, sex and history are woven together in a way that invites audiences in, without stopping to explain or defend each choice.

The film draws on familiar genre esthetics that white audiences recognize (like horror, spectacle, supernatural myth) but it refuses to translate its cultural references or soften its Black specificity.

Viewers unfamiliar with Black Southern folklore, diasporic spiritual traditions or the film’s musical and historical cues may miss things. The film does not slow down to catch them up.

Award bodies’ reception

The film’s success also raises questions about how awards bodies respond when Black creative experimentation gains critical acclaim.

A recent example comes from the Recording Academy. After Beyoncé won Best Country Album in 2025, the Grammys split the category into “traditional” and “contemporary” — a change that expanded recognition while also reintroducing distinctions.

The move echoed earlier controversies around genre-labelling, including debates over the now-retired “urban” category. It also underscored how recognition can be followed by new forms of sorting rather than lasting structural change.

Wider shift in Black creative possibility

The risk is that Sinners is celebrated as a one-off, rather than understood as part of a wider shift in Black creative possibility.

Some conservative responses have framed Sinners less as an artistic achievement and more as an example of cultural overreach, reading its genre play and historical remixing as ideological provocation rather than creative labour.

Alongside this, the film’s record-breaking nominations are likely to be interpreted by some viewers or critics as further evidence of a so-called “woke era” in awards culture, a framing that tends to downplay the craft, ambition and substance of works featuring Black talent.

These reactions reveal ongoing anxieties over who gets to reshape tradition, and how recognition by industry powerbrokers is interpreted when it is attached to Black cultural production.

Reputational weight, star power

Sinners could take these creative risks in part because of the reputational weight behind it.

Coogler’s track record of commercially successful films, combined with the star power of Michael B. Jordan and their history of delivering profitable collaborations, created a level of confidence among funding studios that is rarely extended to Black filmmakers more broadly.

The uneven distribution of that creative latitude and resourcing remains visible across the industry, where many Black directors continue to face funding barriers for innovative or less conventional projects.

Challenging esthetic norms

The academy recently introduced representation and inclusion standards for Best Picture eligibility that require films to meet benchmarks for on-screen representation, creative leadership, industry access or audience outreach to be considered for nomination.

These measures are aimed at expanding opportunities for underrepresented groups, yet they focus on who appears in and works on films rather than on how films innovate or challenge esthetic norms.

As a result, longstanding assumptions about genre bias and what counts as quality cinema are largely unexamined, even as the rules change around how films qualify for consideration.

Works that trust audiences

The recognition of Sinners by the academy points to a widening space for Black films rooted in lived experience, place and history. Similar dynamics are visible elsewhere.

Recent global successes like K-Pop Demon Hunters show that viewers are drawn to genre-blended, culturally grounded stories that stimulate the imagination rather than explain themselves away. These works trust audiences to enter unfamiliar worlds without constant translation.

Sinners belongs to this moment. Its record-breaking nominations expand the range of Black cinema visible at the highest levels of recognition and quietly signal greater room for formal experimentation. The film treats Black creativity as something that can include visual excess, genre experimentation and narrative openness, and still be recognized as artistically rigorous work.

Cornel Grey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 16 Oscar nods for ‘Sinners’ signals a broader appetite for imaginative Black cinema – https://theconversation.com/16-oscar-nods-for-sinners-signals-a-broader-appetite-for-imaginative-black-cinema-274191

February 1, 2026

Black women’s health-care experiences remain marked by structural racism — here’s how institutions should move forward

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Elizabeth Kusi Appiah, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta

Racism has long disrupted relationships, deepened social divisions and hindered collective action on global challenges. While modern societies strive to be just and advocate against social injustices, many still turn away from engaging in conversations surrounding racism, health inequities and racial tensions.

Yet these issues significantly impact health — including the care Black people receive and their health outcomes. Research shows that racism has many long-term effects on health, and is linked to both poorer mental and physical health overall.

Black History Month is an opportunity to reflect critically on the impact of racism in health care and how to address it. As researchers focused on Black women’s acute and critical care experiences, our recent review draws lessons from studies on Black women’s health-care experiences in high-income countries to propose an approach for addressing racism.

The review included 10 studies conducted in the United States between 1987 and 2024. We found that Black women’s experiences in health care continue to be marked by reports of structural racism, microaggressions and persistent mistrust of the care system and care providers. Such experiences reduced the chances for shared decision-making, early detection of health issues, adherence to treatments, pain management and person-centred care.

We revealed that the enduring legacy of racism in medicine contributes to suboptimal communication and poor-quality care for Black women. Some of the women did not receive appropriate followup for diagnostic tests or see a specialist because their physician dismissed their concerns. Most of the women felt invisible because their providers disregarded their concerns. As a result, they felt discouraged from seeking care.

For instance, in one of the studies included in our review, a woman described her experiences of arriving at the emergency department for care. She said:

“As a Black woman I was told that it was a female problem, instead of my heart….The head doctor took a look at me and said, she doesn’t have a heart problem, this is absolutely no heart problem, it’s some kind of female problem. It was in my head.”

Another described feeling dismissed by doctors due to the way she described her pain, stating:

“I called it a wrecking ball pain. That’s what I was experiencing … Then my doctor, who likes to joke about everything, would say ‘Oh! Here’s the lady with the wrecking ball disease.’”

This left the patient feeling like a medical novelty — rather than being seen as a person worthy of respect and care.

Our discussions also identified how some Black adult patients responded to racial tensions and unjust conditions in their care.

When feeling disregarded by clinicians, some people purposefully limited what they shared. Others changed how they spoke to clinicians to fit white-dominated medical culture. Some even disengaged from the care decision-making process entirely — while others chose to advocate for themselves.

Further, if the physician appeared dismissive or disrespectful, some people ignored their medical advice as they felt the doctor didn’t have their best interests at heart. Others became hyper-vigilant against injustices and were likely to interpret subsequent care encounters based on past experiences.

Impact of racism on health care work

Health-care staff are compassionate people who want to provide the best care for patients. But they may not always be sure how to avoid getting it wrong.

Research indicates that nurses worry about getting it wrong and coming across as disrespectful when caring for people from different cultural backgrounds. Likewise, many nurses fear being labelled as racist, as they say it implies they’re a terrible person. Yet many are unwilling to accept personal responsibility for their actions — or inactions — if such a label is given to them.

There’s also a lack of clarity among nurses regarding what constitutes racist practices. This causes them anxiety. Some find it upsetting to think that their actions have been perceived as racist when that wasn’t their intention. Others are hesitant to express their genuine opinions on issues of this nature due to the fear of being called racist.

A separate study on nurse-patient relationships found that racism hinders nurses’ ability to meet a patient’s care needs and threatens patients’ and nurses’ dignity in the care system. Racism from patients also increases nurses’ stress and causes emotional trauma.

Racism in health-care settings continues to have a detrimental effect on the care patients are receiving. It’s clear institutions need to do more to ensure patients aren’t being harmed when receiving care.

Inclusive and nurturing communities

We believe that building inclusive and nurturing communities that counter racism and celebrate our interdependence is how we can move forward and address racism in health care.

Inclusive and nurturing communities equip people to have difficult conversations about race — whether that’s in health care, the classroom, universities, workplaces and neighbourhoods.

This type of community teaches people the importance of listening and engaging authentically and open-mindedly, and of learning about racism through the experiences of others. It doesn’t see people who engage in racist practices as inherently racist — but as people who need more support in recognizing and addressing racism.

In such spaces, every person bears a social responsibility to combat racism in their own ways — whether by fostering conversations about racism in their homes, workplaces or shared community spaces.

We’re hoping to conduct research investigating how such spaces can be built — and how this framework can be used in health-care settings to address the racism patients experience there.

We’re all part of the bigger picture. When we create safe and brave spaces for thinking, analyzing and talking about racial tensions, we’re inviting everyone to authentically participate in problem-solving.

Research shows trust is essential in building strong and productive human relations. So in order to build inclusive and nurturing communities, we need to invest time and effort into restoring the broken trust of racialized communities through accountability, transparency, consistency and genuine efforts to address systemic racism.

Elizabeth Kusi Appiah is affiliated with the GROWW national mentorship program.

Elisavet Papathanasoglou receives funding from Women & Children health Research Institute (WHCRI).

– ref. Black women’s health-care experiences remain marked by structural racism — here’s how institutions should move forward – https://theconversation.com/black-womens-health-care-experiences-remain-marked-by-structural-racism-heres-how-institutions-should-move-forward-250337

February 1, 2026

‘Sinners’’ 16 Oscar nods signals a broader appetite for imaginative Black cinema

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Cornel Grey, Assistant Professor in Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Western University

When Sinners recently received a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations, the response was overwhelmingly celebratory, but not uncomplicated.

Questions of popular success and excellence

In the wake of declining viewership, the academy proposed a new category in 2018 for “Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film.”

As director Ryan Coogler has said, the film resists categorical conventions, dubbing it “genre-fluid.”

‘Sinners’ official trailer.

Directorial innovation

Coogler’s directorial innovation is central to the cultural significance of the film’s nominations.

Acclaimed Black films that don’t focus on trauma or suffering have been long overlooked by the academy.

Movies like Do the Right Thing, Eve’s Bayou, Girls Trip and Sorry to Bother You received strong critical and cultural support, but were largely ignored during Oscar voting.

Black creative achievement and possibility

Viewers unfamiliar with Black Southern folklore, diasporic spiritual traditions or the film’s musical and historical cues may miss things. The film does not slow down to catch them up.

Award bodies’ reception

The film’s success also raises questions about how awards bodies respond when Black creative experimentation gains critical acclaim.

Wider shift in Black creative possibility

The risk is that Sinners is celebrated as a one-off, rather than understood as part of a wider shift in Black creative possibility.

These reactions reveal ongoing anxieties over who gets to reshape tradition, and how recognition by industry powerbrokers is interpreted when it is attached to Black cultural production.

Reputational weight, star power

Sinners could take these creative risks in part because of the reputational weight behind it.

Challenging esthetic norms

These measures are aimed at expanding opportunities for underrepresented groups, yet they focus on who appears in and works on films rather than on how films innovate or challenge esthetic norms.

As a result, longstanding assumptions about genre bias and what counts as quality cinema are largely unexamined, even as the rules change around how films qualify for consideration.

Works that trust audiences

The recognition of Sinners by the academy points to a widening space for Black films rooted in lived experience, place and history. Similar dynamics are visible elsewhere.

– ref. ‘Sinners’’ 16 Oscar nods signals a broader appetite for imaginative Black cinema – https://theconversation.com/sinners-16-oscar-nods-signals-a-broader-appetite-for-imaginative-black-cinema-274191