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Annenberg Public Policy Center
Annenberg film and annual civics survey highlights freedom of speech
For Constitution Day on Sept. 17, Annenberg Classroom has released a new film on the First Amendment and the Annenberg Public Policy Center published their annual survey on Americans’ civics knowledge.
Targeting impulsivity early in adolescence could prevent later behavioral disorders
Tendencies toward impulsivity in early adolescence are linked with a variety of poor outcomes in later adolescence. By mid-adolescence, it may be too late to target impulsivity to prevent those developments.
Despite awareness of COVID-19 risks, many Americans say they’re back to ‘normal’
According to a national survey data from the Annenberg Public Policy Center, many in the U.S. are living “pre-pandemic” lifestyles, despite the continuing risks.
1 in 5 Americans fears getting monkeypox, but many know little about it
As COVID cases surge across the United States dominated by a highly transmissible subvariant, the public has voiced concern about the new health threat of monkeypox, according to a new Annenberg Public Policy Center survey.
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.
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.”
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.
Belief in vaccination misinformation predicts attitudes toward vaccinating children
The survey data come from the fifth wave of the Annenberg Science Knowledge survey, a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults empaneled by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in April 2021 to track attitudes and behavior in the pandemic.
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.
Millions embrace COVID-19 misinformation, which is linked to vaccine hesitancy
Millions continue to believe misinformation about vaccination and COVID-19, and these beliefs are associated with hesitancy to get themselves and their children vaccinated—or, if they are vaccinated, to get a booster for added protection.
In the News
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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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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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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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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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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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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