Who Bears the Burden of a Pandemic? COVID-19 and the Transfer of Risk to Digital Platform Workers

In this paper, we analyze the recessionary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital platform workers. The crisis has been described as a great work-from-home experiment, with platform ecosystems positing as its most advanced form. Our analysis differentiates the direct (health) and indirect (economic) risks incurred by workers, to critically assess the portrayal of platforms as buffers against crisis-induced layoffs. We submit that platform-mediated labor may eventually increase precarity, without necessarily reducing health risks for workers. Our argument is based on a comparison of the three main categories of platform work—“on-demand labor” (gigs such as delivery and transportation), “online labor” (tasks performed remotely, such as data annotation), and “social networking labor” (content generation and moderation). We discuss the strategies that platforms deploy to transfer risk from clients onto workers, thus deepening existing power imbalances between them. These results question the problematic equivalence between work-from-home and platform labor. Instead of attaining the advantages of the former in terms of direct and indirect risk mitigation, an increasing number of platformized jobs drift toward high economic and insuppressible health risks.

Switching vaccination among target groups to achieve improved long-lasting benefits

The development of vaccines has opened a way to lower the public health and societal burden of COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve sustainable gains in the long term, switching the vaccination from one target group to a more diverse portfolio should be planned appropriately. We lay out a general mathematical framework for comparing alternative vaccination roll-out strategies for the year to come: single focus groups: (i-a) the high-risk older age groups and (i-b) the core-sociable groups; and two focus groups: (ii-a) mixed vaccination of both the high-risk and core-sociable groups simultaneously and (ii-b) cyclic vaccination switching between groups. Featuring analyses of all relevant data including age pyramids for 15 representative countries with diverse social mixing patterns shows that mixed strategies that result in both direct and indirect protection of high-risk groups may be better for the overall societal health impact of COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. Of note, over time switching the priority from high-risk older age groups to core-sociable groups responsible for heightened circulation and thus indirect risk may be increasingly advantageous.

Identificação dos Agrotóxicos Associados ao Desenvolvimento de Linfoma Não-Hodgkin

A agricultura é uma das principais fontes antrópicas relacionadas com a contaminação ambiental. A quantidade de agrotóxicos utilizados nesta produção vem sendo aumentada ao longo dos anos em paralelo com o crescimento populacional. Os resíduos destes produtos contaminam o solo, o ar e a água e, com isso, apresentam risco direto ou indireto para a saúde humana e ambiental. A exposição humana aguda e crônica a estes compostos está relacionada com diversos efeitos negativos à saúde humana. O Linfoma não-Hodgkin (LNH) é um dos tipos de câncer mais associado com a exposição ocupacional aos agrotóxicos. De acordo com o levantamento de estudos realizados, neste trabalho, nos quais associaram a exposição aos agrotóxicos com LNH, 21 agrotóxicos foram identificados como associados com este tipo de câncer. Os agrotóxicos Ácido 2,4-diclorofenoxiacético, Diazinon, Diclorodifeniltricloroetano, Glifosato e Lindano foram os que apareceram em maior frequência nos artigos analisados e a associação destes compostos específicos com o risco aumentado de subtipos de LNH já foi relatada em estudos anteriores. Diante do que abordado, neste trabalho, a realização de estudos, que avaliem os riscos para o desenvolvimento de LNH causados pela exposição aos agrotóxicos se tornam necessários, a fim de contribuir com a prevenção de câncer para as populações expostas. Palavras-chave: Agricultura. Exposição Ocupacional. Inseticidas. Herbicidas. Câncer. Toxicidade. Abstract Agriculture is one of the main human sources related to environmental contamination. The amount of pesticides used in this production has been increasing over the years in parallel with the increase of population. The residues of these products contaminate the soil, air and water and, therefore, present a direct or indirect risk to human and environmental health. Acute and chronic human exposure to these compounds is related to several negative effects on human health, such as the development of cancer. Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) is one of the types of cancer most associated with occupational exposure to pesticides. According to studies collected in this work, in which they associated exposure to pesticides with NHL, 21 pesticides were identified as associated with this type of cancer. The pesticides 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, Diazinon, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, Glyphosate and Lindane were the ones that appeared with higher frequency in the analyzed articles and the association of these specific compounds with the increased risk of NHL subtypes has been reported in previous studies. Given what was addressed in this work, studies that assess the risks to NHL development caused by exposure to pesticides are necessary in order to contribute to cancer prevention in exposed populations. Keywords: Agriculture. Occupational Exposure. Insecticides. Herbicides. Cancer. Toxicity

Perceived risk of electronic cigarettes compared with combustible cigarettes: direct versus indirect questioning

IntroductionTobacco companies claim that a large proportion of the population perceives potential modified risk tobacco products as equally or more harmful than cigarettes, and argue misperceptions need to be corrected using modified risk claims. However, the studies they cite predominantly use one specific measurement of comparative risk. We analysed a representative sample of US adult smokers and non-smokers to examine whether the proportion who report e-cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes differs depending on how the comparative risk questions were presented.MethodsWe analysed data from the 2017 Tobacco Products and Risk Perceptions Survey. Comparative risk of cigarettes and e-cigarettes was measured in two ways: direct (single question) and indirect (by measuring perceived risk of both in separate questions and then subtracting the scores from each other).ResultsWhen asked to compare harms of e-cigarettes and cigarettes directly (single question), 33.9% of participants identified e-cigarettes as less harmful than cigarettes, 36.4% reported equal harm, 4.3% said e-cigarettes were more harmful and 25.3% said ‘I don’t know’. When asked indirectly (separate questions), 42.1% identified e-cigarettes as less harmful than cigarettes, 23.8% said they were of equal harm, 7.1% perceived e-cigarettes to be more harmful and 27.1% did not know.ConclusionOur study offers evidence to suggest the need to use both direct and indirect risk questions when assessing the public’s perceptions of harms associated with novel tobacco products.

SMEs Exports are Influenced by Different Risk Factors: Empirical Study of Emerging Economy

Study intent to identify the direct (indirect) risk factors that can influence the export of medical instruments from SMEs sector of Pakistan by using the time series monthly data sample for a period of fifteen years that is from FY 2003 to FY 2017. Empirically a strong long term relation between the export of medical instruments with operational risk, market risk, export refinance schemes and steel prices are proven by Johansen co-integration. Study also establishes a direct positive relation of operational risk and market risk with the export of medical instruments as a result of Vector Error Correction Model.