Empirical modeling of agricultural climate risk.

Effective policies for adaptation to climate change require understanding how impacts are related to exposures and vulnerability, the dimensions of the climate system that will change most and where human impacts will be most draconian, and the institutions best suited to respond. Here, we propose a simple method for more credibly pairing empirical statistical damage estimates derived from recent weather and outcome observations with projected future climate changes and proposed responses. We first analyze agricultural production and loan repayment data from Brazil to understand vulnerability to historical variation in the more predictable components of temperature and rainfall (trend and seasonality) as well as to shocks (both local and over larger spatial scales).

Climate and fertility amid a public health crisis.

One line of enquiry in demographic research assesses whether climate affects fertility. We extend this literature by examining the ramifications of climate conditions on fertility over a period of public health crisis in a highly unequal, urban middle-income country. We use monthly data for Brazil's 5,564 municipalities and apply spatial fixed-effects models to account for unobserved municipal heterogeneity and spatial dependence.

Can the Content of Social Networks Explain Epidemic Outbreaks?

People share and seek information online that reflects a variety of social phenomena, including concerns about health conditions. We analyze how the contents of social networks provide real-time information to monitor and anticipate policies aimed at controlling or mitigating public health outbreaks. In November 2020, we collected tweets on the COVID-19 pandemic with content ranging from safety measures, vaccination, health, to politics.

Improving production and quality of life for smallholder farmers through a climate resilience program: An experience in the Brazilian Sertão.

We use a combination of economic and wellbeing metrics to evaluate the impacts of a climate resilience program designed for family farmers in the semiarid region of Brazil. Most family farmers in the region are on the verge of income and food insufficiency, both of which are exacerbated in prolonged periods of droughts. The program assisted farmers in their milk and sheepmeat production, implementing a set of climate-smart production practices and locally-adapted technologies.

Migration and Democratization in Brazil: The Case of Electoral Participation and Competition.

Deepening democratization in Brazil has coincided with sustained flows of domestic migration, which raises an important question of whether migration deepens or depresses democratic development in migrant-sending regions. Whereas earlier perspectives have viewed migration as a political "brain drain," we contend that out-migration can generate resources that promote democratic processes back home. We investigate the role of migration in two aspects of democratization: electoral participation and competition.

The short-term impacts of coronavirus quarantine in São Paulo: The health-economy trade-offs.

We analyze the trade-offs between health and the economy during the period of social distancing in São Paulo, the state hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We use longitudinal data with municipal-level information and check the robustness of our estimates to several sources of bias, including spatial dependence, reverse causality, and time-variant omitted variables. We use exogenous climate shocks as instruments for social distancing since people are more likely to stay home in wetter and colder periods.

[Inequality in access to health services between urban and rural areas in Brazil: a disaggregation of factors from 1998 to 2008].

Access to healthcare is an important dimension of inequalities between urban and rural areas. Access is lower in rural areas due to the population's greater social vulnerability and greater difficulties in access among its social groups. Based on data from the health supplement of the Brazilian National Household Sample Survey, we analyzed the determinants of access and differences between urban and rural areas from 1998 to 2008.

The impacts of rapid demographic transition on family structure and income inequality in Brazil, 1981-2011.

This study analysed the impact of changing family structure on income distribution. Specifically, it analysed how changes in the proportions of different categories of family in the population contributed to increases in the income of the richest and poorest social strata in Brazil, and the consequent impacts on income inequality. Rural and urban families were compared in order to understand how these dynamics had different impacts on more developed (urban) and less developed (rural) areas.

A Study of Stakeholder Views to Shape a Communication Strategy for GMO in Brazil.

This paper analyzes the view of stakeholders on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the implications of these views on communication strategies for agricultural biotechnology in Brazil. It identifies and describes common groups of attitudes toward GMOs using multivariate statistical analyses. The study then looks for patterns of association between the common attitude groups and the following variables: socioeconomic characteristics trust in institutions as information sources and familiarity with the Brazilian biosafety authority.

[How does social position influence self-reported health status? A comparative analysis between 1998 and 2003].

The aim of this paper is to analyze how the social position of families affects self-reported health status, based on data from the 1998 and 2003 National Sample Household Survey of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (PNAD-IBGE). The method was based on descriptive statistics and logistic regression to capture the conditional relationship between health status, social position, and other control variables, such as age, sex, race/color, income, education, and place of residence. The results show that the same hierarchy of the occupational classes is reproduced in self-reported health status.