Annenberg Public Policy Center

Drivers licensed at 18 crash more than younger drivers with driver training

New drivers licensed before age 18 who are subject to mandatory driver education that includes behind-the-wheel training, in addition to Graduated Driver Licensing restrictions, are less likely to crash than drivers licensed at age 18 who are exempt from these requirements.

From the Annenberg Public Policy Center

New COVID-19 roadmap: Four takeaways

A report spearheaded by PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel, with input from other Penn experts, lays out a dozen priorities for the federal government to tackle in the next 12 months. The aim: to help guide the U.S. to the pandemic’s “next normal.”

Michele W. Berger

Climate scientist Michael Mann to join Penn faculty

Mann is the first new faculty member to be recruited as part of the recently announced Energy and Sustainability Initiative as a Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science.

Katherine Unger Baillie

A novel theory on how conspiracy theories take shape

In a new book, Dolores Albarracín, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and colleagues show that two factors—the conservative media and societal fear and anxiety—have driven recent widespread conspiracies, from Pizzagate to those around COVID-19 vaccines.

Michele W. Berger



In the News


CNN

After four years with COVID-19, the U.S. is settling into a new approach to respiratory virus season

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that the sense of urgency around vaccination has faded as attention on respiratory viruses wanes.

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Forbes

Americans’ confidence in science remains high, finds new review

A survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center suggests that most Americans continue to have confidence in science and scientists.

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Christian Science Monitor

Meet Sora: AI-created videos test public trust

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that AI video-creation can manipulate images in ways that make them seem more real than the original artifacts.

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MarketWatch

Meta, Google and other social-media companies brace for heightened deepfake perils ahead of 2024 elections

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that the capacity exists in 2024 for individuals and nation-states to generate more misleading content that is microtargeted and harder to detect.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Paul Offit looks back on COVID-19, misinformation, and how public health lost the public’s trust in new book

“Tell Me When It’s Over,” a new book by Paul Offit of the Perelman School of Medicine, chronicles the initial years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the mishaps of public health agencies. Recent surveys by the Annenberg Public Policy Center find that mistrust of vaccines has continued to grow through last fall.

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Yahoo! Life

Many believe suicide rates increase in December. Research shows it’s the opposite. Here’s why

A study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that the winter holiday months typically have lower daily suicide rates than the rest of the year, with December showing the lowest incidences of suicides of the year.

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