Policy 360

Can it be physically damaging to be African American? Assistant Professor Jay Pearson says there's chromosomal evidence that our bodies react to a combination of ethnicity stress and socioeconomic status. There are important resources associated with those identities that can enhance health, but there are also important risks associated with those identities that can compromise health. Pearson talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell. Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: incompetech.com/

What happens when there are very high hopes for a particular policy idea, and then researchers conclude the results are not as promising as they once seemed? Are there lessons to be learned from this? A widely hailed initiative that combines franchising business models and telemedicine to deliver better quality health care in rural India has failed to improve care for childhood diarrhea and pneumonia, found a large-scale study by Assistant Professor Manoj Mohanan and researchers at Stanford and University College London. Manoj Mohanan is an assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. He’s also appointed in Economics at Duke and as an assistant research professor in the Duke Global Health Institute. Mohanan talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell. Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

Is the United States a country in inevitable decline, or are we a country in renewal? Should our foreign policy commitments include indefinite deployments of United States troops, or should we rely on our allies throughout the world to help maintain our interests? These are the kinds of questions the next administration will have to face, Peter Feaver says. Peter Feaver is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke. He also serves as Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. He served in the White House during two administrations. Feaver talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell.

Susan Coppedge is the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Her office estimates there are 21 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. From sex trafficking to labor trafficking, many in the world are vulnerable. In this conversation Coppedge talks about innovative ways in which her office is trying to combat the problem.

In the second of a two-part conversation with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, we explore the innovative ways he is addressing the issue of race in his city. He led a campaign to remove Confederate monuments from city property. He publicly apologized for the city’s role in the slave trade. But it was the murder of a 9-year-old boy, James Darby, that made the issue personal to him. The little boy had written a letter to President Clinton to say he was frightened that he would die. Eight days later, James Darby was dead, shot by another African American young person in Landrieu’s neighborhood. Since then, Mayor Landrieu has vowed to explore the related issues of race and gun violence. Six months ago, Landrieu had a chance to meet James Darby’s killer in Angola Penitentiary. Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu speaks about his role in reinvigorating the Louisiana port city. Landrieu was voted "America's top turnaround mayor" in a survey of mayors compiled by POLITICO Magazine. He first took office in 2010, and is serving his second term as the elected leader of the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and impacted by the BP oil rig explosion in 2010. Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

Emily Oster evaluated data behind many of the accepted rules of pregnancy. (Should you drink caffeine? Is sushi OK?) She says most advice given to moms-to-be is wrong. More recently, she's been studying how grocery store purchases change once a person has been diagnosed with a health challenge like diabetes. Household scanner data "helps us look at people outside of a monitored health setting, and really see in the real world what are the changes people make, what changes are impossible to make, and who is able to change a lot," she says.

Tyrone Hayes is known for his research findings regarding the effects of the herbicide atrazine on frogs. Atrazine is often used by corn farmers, but Hayes' research illuminated serious questions about its safety. Syngenta, the manufacturer of atrazine, launched a campaign to discredit both Hayes and his research, which resulted in the settlement of a multi-million dollar class-action lawsuit against Syngenta.

When she was in her 20s, Maya Ajmera founded The Global Fund for Children. The non-profit invests in innovative organizations working with some of the world’s most vulnerable children. She says scaling an organization doesn't always mean scaling out. Sometimes it can be down (serving more in the community) or up (advocating for your idea on a wider stage.) Her latest book is called Invisible Children: Reimagining International Development at the Grassroots.

As we edge ever closer to election day in the U.S., Sanford professor Peter Feaver argues it’s time to critically examine the country’s grand strategy. He says the need to do so is becoming ever more pressing. He hopes the next president will assess the underlying assumptions of the country's grand strategy and have a sense of urgency to deal with what he calls a foreign policy crisis. Peter Feaver is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke. He also serves as Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. He served in the White House during two administrations. Feaver talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell. Image by Thomas Hawk, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/ Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

Guest host Ryan Smith, Senior Director of Innovation at the Sanford School, discusses local government innovation with Mariel Beasley of the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke. Mariel and Ryan are collaborating on a new course on the topic. The founders of a Durham, N.C.-based Idea Lab join the discussion. Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

One of the most highly anticipated Frontline documentaries of the year premieres this week on PBS. "The Choice" takes a close look at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in an unusual way. Rather than interview Trump or Clinton directly, filmmakers interview the people in their lives: childhood friends and former colleagues, for example. The idea is, if we can better understand where they came from and what’s shaped them, we will gain insight into what kind of President each would be. Kelly Brownell talks to one of the film's producers, Phil Bennett. 

A 2012 study found that 89% of high school and college students had already decided unequivocally that they would never consider running for elected office. Guest host Deondra Rose talks with Jennifer Lawless, the author of the book "Running from Office: Why Young Americans are Turned Off to Politics."

General Martin Dempsey is former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as such was the nation’s highest-ranking military officer. He talks about his unlikely rise in the military, changes in the military since 9-11, the one thing he wishes he could have accomplished during his time as chairman, and the words he found to comfort those left behind when a fellow serviceman or woman has been killed.

Parents have all sorts of concerns about their children when it comes to technology. Duke Professor Candice Odgers tells us which concerns her research shows are valid. 

Since the late 1990s, the academic performance of many students in London has risen dramatically – so much so, it now exceeds national averages. The improvement is due largely to big gains in the 13 districts of Inner London – places with the greatest concentrations of low-income and minority students. Sanford professor Helen “Sunny” Ladd spent a month in two of those boroughs, Tower Hamlets and Hackney, in order to identify what policies are driving the change.

How should we determine whether children are actually learning in school? The U.S. has standardized testing, but some other countries have followed a different approach known as "inspection and review". Sanford professor Helen "Sunny" Ladd thinks such an approach shows great promise. 

Kelly Brownell and Billy Pizer discuss the pros and cons of different policy approaches to climate change, from carbon taxes to cleaner automobiles and renewable energy. They also discuss the potential for these options to succeed given the polarized political landscape. From 2008 to 2011, Pizer was deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he created and led a new office responsible for the department’s role in the domestic and international environment and energy agenda of the U.S. Pizer joined the faculty of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University in the fall of 2011. The two discuss the pros and cons of different policy approaches to climate change.

North Carolina’s contentious political climate is making national headlines. But there's a new effort to get people with differing political viewpoints talking civilly to each other. 

Will Chile be the first country to end obesity? Health expert Barry Popkin of the Nutrition Transition Research Program at UNC Chapel Hill says yes. Another in series about the future of food policy.