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Authors: Ashley Avila, Nicole Iroz-Elardo, Kristina M. Currans, Ladd Keith

Understanding the causes of heat in various microclimates in cities is vital to improving human thermal comfort and health in outdoor spaces. This pilot study uses an experimental design to evaluate microclimate heat risk – including ambient air temperature (TA) and wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) – and approximate personal heat exposure of people 1.5-3.0 meters (5–10 feet) away from idling vehicles. These measurements were taken at a University of Arizona covered parking garage in June 2022 to investigate personal heat exposure attributable to vehicular waste heat while also minimizing the effect of solar radiant heat and wind. We used Kestrel 5400 devices to document the waste heat effects of a fleet of six identical gasoline-powered vehicles on the surrounding microclimate by collecting TA, wind velocity, and WBGT. When compared to the control, as well as comparing a period when engines were not idling, we found a strong correlation between vehicle presence, TA, and WBGT. Specifically, ordinary least-mean square (OLS) modeling shows an additional TA per minute increase of 0.006°C (a 25% increase) per minute when the vehicles are on and idling versus 0.024°C per minute increase that occurs from expected background morning temperatures when the vehicle effect is removed. Until we transition to an electric fleet and increase use of alternative modes of transportation, these findings can help inform how transportation professionals design the built environment and manage traffic and transit during summer months to prevent excessive heat exposure for pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and other individuals near idling vehicles.

Source: PLOS Climate. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000824. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Simon Busch-Moreno, Xiao Fu, Etienne B. Roesch

The relationship between income and mental health is well-established yet complex, as both can be confounded by age, gender, and other demographic factors. To clarify these dynamics, this study examines the effects of age and income on symptoms of depression and generalised anxiety across female and male genders during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Data from Wave-1 and Wave-6 of the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) study were analysed using Bayesian hierarchical ordered-logistic mediation models. Results showed that older age was linked to less depression and anxiety in both genders. Higher income was linked to better mental health in males in both waves. For females, however, higher income was only weakly linked to more symptoms early in the pandemic, but by Wave‑6, it had become a substantially protective factor for their mental health. Additionally, males reported better mental health than females across most income groups, except at the lowest income group, where both genders experienced comparable distress. Using robust inferential statistical models, our findings explain the nuanced relationships between socioeconomic factors and mental health across genders during a public health crisis. This evidence can inform targeted mental health policies and economic support programs for future emergencies.

Source: PLOS Mental Health. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmen.0000691. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Carlos Muleya, Rosemary N. Likwa, Peter J. Chipimo, Jacqueline J. Folotiya, Ngosa Mwiya, Lweendo Mapiki, Asarf Sibuchi, Godfrey Chulu, Caitlin Baumhart, Cassidy W. Claassen, Naeem Dalal, Loyd B. Mulenga

Adolescents and young people living with HIV (AYPLHIV) experience substantial mental health and psychosocial challenges, yet information on youth-responsive service availability is often limited for routine planning. We mapped mental health and psychosocial support services in Lusaka and Shibuyunji districts of Zambia and assessed alignment with AYPLHIV antiretroviral therapy (ART) program burden using treatment current (TX-CURR) ages 15–24 data. We conducted a cross-sectional mapping survey (10–21 February 2025) of facilities providing any mental health/psychosocial service to characterize service modalities, operating days, eligibility/consent requirements, privacy infrastructure, and ownership. We linked mapped facilities to ART sites and September 2024 TX-CURR using standardized facility names and districts, and calculated burden-weighted coverage among linked sites. As of September 2024, 16,550 AYPLHIV (15–24) were on ART across 87 sites, with 97.7% of burden in Lusaka. We mapped 88 facilities (73 Lusaka; 15 Shibuyunji); 58.0% were government-owned and 40.9% privately owned. Counseling was widely available (97.7%), whereas group therapy (31.8%), medication (37.5%), and medical supervision [observed medication] (38.6%) were less common; medication was frequently referral-based. Weekend availability was reported by 60.2% and parental/guardian consent requirements by 28.4%. Routine data readiness was higher in Lusaka than Shibuyunji (93.2% vs 66.7%; OR 6.8, 95% CI 1.7–27.7; p = 0.011). Forty-seven facilities were linked to ART sites representing 11,194 AYPLHIV: burden-weighted coverage was 40.7% for weekend services, 47.2% for referral medication, and 23.0% for a composite package (weekend availability + on-site counseling + referral medication). AYPLHIV burden is concentrated in Lusaka, but key access features (weekend options, privacy) and biomedical support beyond counseling often depend on referral pathways and are not consistently aligned with high-burden sites. Strengthening youth-friendly service organization, referral functionality, and routine monitoring at high-burden sites may improve equitable access to mental health and psychosocial support.

Source: PLOS Mental Health. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmen.0000610. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Alexander Cimprich, Sahand Kasaeipour, Steven B. Young

Climate change and environmental sustainability are major priorities across scientific and policy domains. Scientists themselves are starting to recognize that their own activities have direct and indirect environmental impacts. These impacts result from things like material and energy use and waste generation in conducting scientific research, particularly in laboratories. In this article, we build upon growing efforts to measure and manage these environmental impacts by conducting cradle-to-grave life cycle assessments (LCAs) of widely used scientific and laboratory equipment. We considered over 3000 pieces of equipment used by Government of Canada laboratories. Our study contributes in four ways. First, although previous work has examined laboratory consumables and other impact drivers like building energy consumption and transportation, our study draws attention to the environmental impacts of laboratory and scientific equipment. Second, our study demonstrates a novel approach for screening large and varied sets of equipment to prioritize equipment with the highest potential environmental impacts. Third, our study broadens the scope of assessment with respect to system boundaries (i.e., cradle-to-grave) and environmental impacts (i.e., beyond GHG emissions). Finally, our study connects equipment-level LCA results to sustainability transformations by highlighting leverage points informed by the life cycle profile of equipment. Our results suggest a tendency for laboratory and scientific equipment to be use-intensive (as seen, e.g., in the case of refrigerators and freezers where the use stage accounts for approximately 97% of life cycle GHG emissions). However, this life cycle profile varies across environmental indicators (e.g., climate change, acidification, smog formation, and ecological toxicity) and with changes in equipment usage frequency (i.e., hours per year in operation). Some equipment, like scanning electron microscopes, can be production-intensive. These findings suggest that sustainability transformations for laboratory equipment need to consider the life cycle profile of the equipment and involve leverage points beyond procurement decisions.

Source: PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000271. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Liam Ó Riada, Unai Pascual, Esther Turnhout, Julia Neidig

Education is considered a key leverage point for sustainability transformation. Yet, dominant human-capital-based discourses, promoted by actors such as the OECD, have long framed education in an economistic way, marginalizing the creative, critical, and transdisciplinary pedagogies required for sustainability. Using the case of Spain, we apply discourse analysis to analyse historically (1975 to the present) how human-capital-based discourses have shaped education policy and where opportunities and constraints for transformative sustainability education (TSE) emerge. The findings reveal three major periods: (1) emancipatory aspirations during Spain’s democratic transition (1975–1990), (2) consolidation of a neoliberal consensus shaped by OECD discourse (1990–2018), and (3) the emergence of discursive openings for TSE (2019–present). While in the last period sustainability has become a central signifier with an education law that legitimises transdisciplinary, experiential and embodied pedagogies, its implementation remains partly constrained by entrenched neoliberal governance. The analysis of these discursive shifts reveals key opportunities and barriers for transformative shifts in education systems, showing that while dislocatory events and the linking of different struggles for educational reform can enable the introduction of elements of TSE into policy, the strong persistence of market-oriented logics risks leading to a co-optation of sustainability.

Source: PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000267. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Katherine Davies, Katayi Mwila-Kazimbaya, Ian Ross, Elisabeth Tadiri, Jenala Chipungu, Robert Dreibelbis

Access to a dedicated handwashing facility (HWF) increases handwashing with soap (HWWS), an effective behaviour for preventing respiratory and diarrheal disease. Achieving universal hand hygiene will require household investment of a HWF, yet the ability and willingness of end-users to meet these costs has received little attention in stated or revealed preference studies. This two-phase voucher-based randomised pricing experiment explored whether households in peri-urban Lusaka, Zambia were willing to invest in a HWF. In Phase 1, three HWFs were tested with 60 households using two of the three HWFs for two weeks (20 households per combination). There was strong preference for a locally manufactured bucket with a tap and metal stand (“Kalingalinga bucket”) (250 ZMW, ~ $10), over high-cost (1000 ZMW, ~ $38) and low-cost (100 ZMW, ~ $4) pre-manufactured HWFs. In Phase 2, n = 160 used the Kalingalinga bucket for two weeks. At the end of the trial period, participants received a 50 ZMW gift (~$2) and a randomly assigned discount voucher (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%; 40 households per group), before deciding whether to purchase the HWF. Ninety-eight percent (39/40) of households offered an 80% discount purchased the HWF (effective price: 0 ZMW), compared with 30% (12/40) offered a 20% discount (effective price: 150 ZMW). Predictive modelling estimated that 50% of households would purchase at an effective price of 103 ZMW (~40% of the retail price). Despite declining the purchase offer, all non-purchasing households reported positive stated willingness-to-pay, suggesting latent demand. Findings highlight the need for financial interventions that make desirable HWFs affordable.

Source: PLOS Water. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000583. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Liz Willetts

Freshwater biodiversity is vital to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 and to human health and wellbeing. Unrealized opportunities exist to strengthen awareness of freshwater biodiversity and health interlinkages and enhance their uptake into national implementation under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands as well as under public health and water, sanitation, and hygiene systems. This article aims to identify and mobilize integrated thinking and action on freshwater biodiversity and health during the Ramsar triennium 2025–2028. The article analyzes the 15th meeting of the contracted parties to the wetlands Convention in July 2025 (COP15) and its outcomes in the context of the many global water governance meetings taking place in 2026 and 2027. It considers the role of the Ramsar Convention in achieving planetary health through a) COP15 decisions, b) stronger socioecological framing to wetland character, and c) improved coordination with the health sector in national reporting and proceedings of wetland governance. An analysis of national reports tracking the 2008 Changwon Declaration on Human Health and Wellbeing as well as reports on implementation in the 2021–2024 triennium reveal several areas for de-siloing and sharpening health sector engagement in the Ramsar Convention. The article, arguing that these actions also support achievement of SDG 6, proposes a new planetary health vision of SDG 6 for the post-2030 development agenda. In conclusion, a range of basic coordination actions that could be taken to support and translate COP15 resolutions across the public health and WASH sectors during the 2025–2028 triennium are outlined.

Source: PLOS Water. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000594. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: James Harper, Rana Abdel Sattar, Tyler Kozole, Yoem Vichet, Yan Prummanh, Jonathan Stokes, Drew Capone

Safe management of fecal sludge in on-site sanitation systems remains challenging, particularly in low-resource contexts. Fecal sludge treatment plants are often non-existent, non-functional, or non-viable in these contexts due to costly and complex operational requirements. Decentralized fecal sludge treatment methods (e.g., burial on-site) are more commonly used by the 3.4 billion people who use on-site systems but can pose health and environmental hazards if not properly managed. We assessed fecal indicator bacteria in surface soils immediately before, immediately after, and 30 days after a novel service called limed on-site burial (LOB), which was recently pilot tested in rural Cambodia and improves upon existing on-site burial methods. Before-and-after analysis of surface soils at the toilet entrance and at the center and two edges of the burial locations found that Escherichia coli (E. coli) concentrations did not increase due to LOB and likely decreased immediately after (-0.23 log10, [-0.46, -0.01]) and 30 days after service (-0.76 log10, [-0.98, -0.55]). Results confirm existing recommendations of burying fecal sludge 1.0 m underground and covering with at least 0.3 m of soil to mitigate microbial hazard to humans from LOB. Standardizing and confirming the outcomes of LOB provide a pathway towards safely managed sanitation in low-resource contexts that can help challenging regions achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6.2.

Source: PLOS Water. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000598. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Xiaofen Wu, Michelle Mut, Lauren M. Walsh, Mary G. Boyle, Rinat M. Tal, Steve M. Liao, Cherie McElroy, Cynthia Rodriguez, Stephanie A. Fritz, Lori R. Holtz

Water is an important source of microbial infections for humans and contributes to the composition of the human gut bacterial microbiome. However, viral metagenomic data from household water is lacking. We collected 110 water samples from 12 homes at 5 time points, allowing us to investigate the unique characteristics and longitudinal stability of each household’s water virome, and compare across households. Households were supplied by three different utilities and samples included point of use filtered tap and direct from the tap water. We observed that household water contains a community of viruses which is dominated by bacteriophage. Water company source is the main driver of variation of household water viromes. Viral abundance of specific taxa varied by filtration status; household water viromes are remarkably stable over time. Our results indicate that household water could be an overlooked source of bacteriophage which could affect human health by impacting gut bacterial microbiome composition, modulating immunity, or being a source of antibiotic resistance and virulence loci. These findings support the importance of future studies on the impact of the household water virome on the human gut virome.

Source: PLOS Water. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000585. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.

Authors: Matt Stellbauer, Wendy Jepson, Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey, Nicole Lefore, John Casellas Connors, Edward Kato

Over the last decade, the international development community has recognized that rural and peri-urban households in lower- and middle-income countries use the same sources of water for both domestic and productive uses. To increase access to these water resources, governments and NGOs introduced the concept of multiple-use water services (MUS). As a proposed development strategy, MUS takes people’s multiple water needs as the starting point for planning and investing in new water services or upgrading existing domestic or productive systems traditionally designed for single uses. While studies have suggested benefits of MUS, such as improved water productivity and economic gains for subsistence farming communities, evidence remains context dependent. The research community has yet to examine the specific influence of MUS on household water insecurity, defined as the inadequate, unreliable, or unaffordable access to water necessary for a healthy life. That is, does MUS reduce experiences with water insecurity at the household scale? To address this critical question, the study examined the correlation between household water insecurity, measured by the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) scale, and household use of single water sources for both domestic and productive purposes using data from a survey of 1,082 households in Mali, West Africa. The study finds that households practicing year-round MUS report significantly lower water insecurity than seasonal MUS households. These findings indicate an association, rather than a causal relationship, between sustained MUS practice and lower household water insecurity and suggest that reliable, year-round water availability may underpin both. However, MUS is not a panacea for household water insecurity, and improving household water security will require attention to the reliability, availability, and seasonal stability of water services in addition to support for multiple water uses.

Source: PLOS Water. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000600. Abstract from the publisher’s feed; HTML formatting and repeated author line removed.