Archives: Reg Murphy Pubs

1 in 5 high school students are now vaping nicotine using e-cigarettes. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), in just one year (2017 to 2018) the number of high schoolers who reported their use of e-cigarettes jumped by nearly 10 percentage points from 11% to 20.9%; this number equates to about 3 million young people according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As with the tobacco debate in the United States, such high numbers spark questions about the role of the government in public health.

Policymakers have taken note of the dramatic jump in vaping and have created stricter regulations around electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) in the last several years. Most of this regulation is just beginning to roll out now. The FDA, for instance, now requires sale only to individuals over the age of 18 and includes ENDS in their definition of tobacco products under the 2009 Tobacco Control Act; this means ingredients will now be required on packaging, for instance.

In the new wave of e-cigarettes and regulation, it is worth exploring the history of the U.S.  tobacco debate and how it informs our present course.

Many readers will recall a time in the mid-20^th century when cigarettes were not only popular, but advertised as healthy. Such claims were made in the name of marketing rather than data, of course, but they allowed cigarette use to take a serious hold in American culture. As normative scientific studies started to reveal the deleterious effects of tobacco use, the tobacco industry responded by claiming there was scientific uncertainty and lack of proof. After nearly a half a century of unprecedented corporate success, the industry fought hard to push back against the science that threatened to undo their achievements. CEO’s within the tobacco industry came together to fund more, not less, scientific inquiry into the safety of cigarettes. The trouble was that they only funded skeptics of the causal relationship between smoking and disease, which amplified a minority opinion that was not based in large-scale data.

At the same time, the industry poured huge amounts of money into Congress and created a strong lobby with significant influence in U.S. government. They continued to advertise using paid doctors, dentists, and celebrities as a central strategy for disrupting the science that threatened their industry. It should not be understated how brilliantly effective the tobacco industry was, and is, at creating a narrative that supports their products. They are, quite simply, masters of public relations.

By the mid-1960s, advocacy groups, the U.S. Surgeon General, and the court system jointly attacked the industry in such a way that regulation and litigation ultimately led to the erosion of Big Tobacco’s power. We now see the rise of a new nicotine delivery system, but not necessarily new strategies for product success.

Fast forward 50 years, and we find similar strategies creeping up once more. When teens are asked what they think is in e-cigarettes, 66% report that they believe it is just flavoring and 13.7% don’t know (NIDA). The reason? Manufacturers have not been required to disclose ingredient information or risks on packaging until recently, and e-cigarettes have been marketed to youth through appealing flavors and packaging meant to mimic kid-friendly food items such as Reddi-wip, Nilla Wafers and Warheads candy.

Other tactics that the e-cigarette industry have been using include offering scholarships, using social media marketing, sponsoring music events, and once again pouring money into political campaigns and lobbying efforts. Just this year, as Congress considers raising the tobacco and vaping product purchase age from 18 to 21, e-cigarette leader, Juul Labs, gave nearly $100,000 to members of Congress through the company’s political action committee.

As in so many public policy issues, it’s important to follow the money – the advertising money, the political action committee money, and the public relations dollars – to ensure that history does not repeat itself. While representatives of the e-cigarette industry claim to have the interests of youth at heart, their actions seem to suggest otherwise. It will ultimately fall to government to study, track, and protect the public’s health on this one.

Dr. Heather Farley is a professor of Public Management in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. 

Link to the National Institute on Drug Abuse: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/teens-e-cigarettes

On June 18^th, a joint meeting of the Brunswick City and Glynn County Commissioners was held to hear from a representative of the U.S. Census Bureau about the upcoming 2020 census. The aim was to ensure that Glynn County has an accurate count next year so they can secure as much federal funding as possible for local uses.

Census Day is April 1, 2020 and households will be asked to respond either by mail, phone, or online. Just 5% of households will receive their invitation in person when a census taker drops it off, and less than 1% will be counted in person (in very remote areas of the U.S.).

The U.S. Constitution mandates a decennial census count in Article I, Section 2. For those who have never paid much attention to the U.S. Census, it may seem like a benign or perhaps even irritating civic duty, but the implications of census data are far reaching and long-lasting. A lot can happen in a community during the decade in which census data are in place each cycle. For instance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau between 2000 and 2010, self-identified Hispanics and Asians grew by 43% each; this represents 1% and 5% of the total U.S. population respectively. These numbers have implications for election politics, social assistance programs, and language accessibility among other issues. Taxation, representation in government, federal grant funding for local programs and services, redistricting, community and business planning, and public policy research are all heavily dependent on census data. In fact, the Georgia Municipal Association estimates that each Georgian that participated in the 2010 census effectively brought $1,639.10 into the state through funding mechanisms.

The 2020 census is facing some interesting challenges, however. First, in a pre-census study conducted by the Census Bureau, fewer than seven in ten households said they intend to participate in the 2020 census. Of those who said they were not likely to participate, the majority were younger, less educated respondents. With a college education rate of just 29% in Glynn County, this could be an issue. Glynn County did, however, beat the national average with an 82% response rate in 2010. Next, about 5% of our population reside in “hard-to-count” areas. This is common in more rural areas of the country, but also seems to impact minority populations like African Americans and Hispanics more so than Non-Hispanic white populations. Likewise, 20.5% of Glynn County’s households have no or low internet access. Given that the 2020 census is making a long overdue push for electronic submission of data, our County may need to strategically deploy census workers to help cover these gaps.

Finally, the pre-census survey indicated that there is 1) high mistrust in government, 2) low (33%) familiarity with the census purpose, and 3) significant concern (about 25%) about repercussions related to census responses. If U.S. households do not trust the process, we will not see a positive response rate. The Supreme Court just struck down the inclusion of a citizenship question proposed by the Trump administration on the 2020 census. It appears that the fight over such a question is not, however, quite done. Whether you agree with such a question or not, it seems probable that such a requirement would impact response rates, particularly in areas of the state with Hispanic populations and will, undoubtedly, have far-reaching impacts for our state.

The information that can guide our decision-making around the census process is out there. We know where our vulnerabilities exist and where we need to deploy special attention. It will be important to use these data strategically to ensure an accurate count in our county and ensure that we have full access to the more than $675 billion in federal aid that is distributed to state and local governments using census numbers every year.

Link to the 2020 Census Barriers, Attitudes, and Motivators Study Survey Report: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/program-management/final-analysis-reports/2020-report-cbams-study-survey.pdf

Dr. Heather Farley is a professor of Public Management in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. 

I recently had the good fortune to visit San Juan, Puerto Rico while on vacation with my family. I’m not sure what I expected when we arrived, but I was surprised nonetheless. I knew that the recovery from Hurricane Maria in 2017 was still underway, but was interested to find that rebuilding was at very different stages in different parts of the city. Some areas looked virtually untouched by the hurricane while other areas were almost completely abandoned, boarded up, or still patched with tarps. It was clear that some Puerto Ricans had bounced back faster than others.

One of our Uber drivers was a lovely woman who had been living in neighboring Carolina for many years and who, until recently, worked for the Ritz Carlton San Juan for 19 years. She explained to us that she has been out of work since the hurricane, but that she felt financially secure because the Ritz Carlton released her 401K earnings without penalty to her. So, between her 401K and Uber rides, she was doing fine. This made me think, however, about those who did not have retirement funds, emergency funds, or other such resources to help them recover following a crisis. Simple observation revealed that the ability to adapt was not universal here.

Adaptation is a major theme in the sustainability and climate change literature right now. Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the most recent Fourth National Climate Assessment both clearly state that we are presently dealing with real impacts from climate change around the country and that adaptation strategies are of imminent importance. Unfortunately, low-income communities are least able to adapt and, therefore, most likely to feel the disproportionate brunt of climate impacts.

The National Climate Assessment explains that low-income communities already have higher rates of adverse health conditions, are statistically more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards, and do not have the resources to bounce back from natural disasters. They have less access to the information and institutions that can help them prepare for and avoid the health risks associated with climate change, according to the report. All of these vulnerabilities put them at higher climate adaptation risk.

The City of Brunswick is one such community as evidenced by its designation as a Federal Opportunity Zone – areas with poverty rates greater than 20% that would benefit from investment incentives. An important consideration when we are making decisions related to climate or natural disaster adaptation, therefore, is participation. Decision-makers are responsible for prioritizing the locations of physical protections, infrastructure, emergency shelters and public transportation routes. All of these priorities heavily impact low-income communities and should be determined with input and participation from those communities. Fortunately, there are several non-profit entities in Glynn County that are well-positioned to facilitate such participation and ensure that not only participation, but information is equalized across the County. Their swift and unwavering attention to such an aim will certainly be an important factor in the ability of the 20% of Glynn County residents who live in poverty to adapt to climate change and natural disasters.

Dr. Heather Farley is a professor of Public Management in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies.  

Most students who attend College of Coastal Georgia have an opportunity to participate in one or more service-learning classes. Since 2011, CCGA has used service-learning as the anchor of its quality enhancement plan and has not just developed a rich program, but a culture of service at the college. These faculty-developed courses allow students to participate in organized service experiences that respond to a wide spectrum of community needs.

One such need was identified for me by county commissioner Allen Booker and the Glynn County Planning and Zoning department. The county released their 2018 comprehensive plan last fall which, among other things, identified areas in our community in need of redevelopment.

One area that stood out was the Arco community, which roughly spans from Altama Avenue to Newcastle street (East to West) and Q Street to Community Road (South to North). Last year, Commissioner Booker worked to have a soccer field put in at Paulk Park within the Arco Neighborhood as an anchor project for greater revitalization in the area; that park is now under renovation and the field has been completed. The larger vision for revitalization will be laid out in the community redevelopment plan that the County Planning and Zoning department initiated, but quickly realized needed to be spearheaded by the community itself; this is where service-learning comes in.

This semester, 10 students in my upper division Managing State and Local Government class worked to create tools to help assist the Arco/Washington Heights/Lawrenceville Neighborhood Association in their efforts to inform the planning department through the redevelopment process. The students created a community profile document that laid out everything from street light locations to demographics to land use data, and a short survey that the neighborhood association can use to gather feedback from interested parties in the area.

Beyond gaining some satisfaction that they were able to participate in the revitalization of one of the county’s oldest neighborhoods, the students learned some valuable lessons about successful planning processes.

Namely, by turning the process over to the neighborhood association, the county recognized that they cannot foresee or understand every variable or need that may impact the project. Planners have tremendous technical expertise, but those living within the community hold valuable information and perspectives that can only make the planning process more effective.

Involving residents and community leaders in the planning process also ensures long term viability and stability. City councils, planners, commissioners and managers come and go, but as we learned through this class, many of Arco’s residents have been and intend to be around for many years. Building their feedback into the process improves the likelihood that this redevelopment plan will last through the years.

While our CCGA students played a limited role in this redevelopment process, the Arco/Washington Heights/Lawrenceville Neighborhood Association co-chairs, Odis Muhammad and Moses Clark, have a long road ahead in gathering perspectives, ideas, and feedback from their community.

Involving the public is never an easy task. I am optimistic, however, that the benefits to this approach will be plentiful and lead to long-term sustainability in the community.

Last year, I participated with a group of academic researchers and environmental professionals from around the state of Georgia (e.g. Emory University, College of Coastal Georgia, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, Nature Conservancy, and the list goes on) to publish the results of the Climate Research Roadmap. Through a year-long information-gathering process and workshop, 40 experts from the natural, applied, and social sciences convened to construct a manuscript of the key climate research questions that could lay the groundwork for Georgia decision-makers to take effective, science-based action in our state.

Among these 40 questions, a few stand out as particularly relevant in the Golden Isles where our geography presents at least two unique risks — a coastal ecosystem and rural communities. I call these features of our geography “risks” because from a climate change perspective, we are facing specific threats according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment released by the Trump administration in late 2018 — rising sea levels, increases in heat waves, more widespread droughts, increasingly intense storm events, and extreme precipitation events. These factors are unpleasant to deal with at best, but are costly as well.

In Coastal Georgia, we have $1 trillion of our national wealth held in coastal real estate and as a state, agriculture contributes $73 billion annually to our economy. As sea levels continue to rise and storms continue to increase in intensity and frequency, our coastal real estate and infrastructure have become vulnerable assets that are already costing residents and businesses dearly. Though rebuilding after tropical storm and hurricane events in the Golden Isles has thus far been relatively successful, costs will escalate alongside escalating climate impacts. Agriculture is already seeing the impacts of increasing temperatures on soil quality and food yields, which is likely to have an impact on food prices not just in our state but nationally. And while all of us feel these economic stressors, economically underserved and disadvantaged communities bear the largest cost as they are least equipped to adapt. Low or no access to savings or emergency funds make low income communities particularly vulnerable to long term effects like uninhabitable structures and health risk exposure (e.g. mold). This is not welcome news for the 18 percent of Glynn county residents living below the poverty line.

Climate change impacts are being felt now, but the costs of those impacts are going to be felt well into the future. It’s a long game policy issue. Unfortunately, bureaucratic systems (particularly in a democracy) are not well-suited to addressing the long game. Bureaucracies can be bulky and take entirely too long to get things done. Elected officials in democracies are increasingly forced to answer to the immediate concerns of constituents and have difficulty tackling long term issues that may fall outside of the scope of their elected term of office. Clearly this is not always the case, but it seems to be closer to the rule than the exception.

How grim, so where do we go from here? What rural and coastal Georgians could benefit from is resiliency planning. Resiliency planning is both reactive and pre-emptive. It addresses current and anticipated needs. Several coastal communities are already engaging in this process including Tybee Island’s Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan and St. Mary’s Flood Resiliency Project. Glynn County and the City of Brunswick have begun talking about this need through events like the recent “Rising Sea Level Predictions: What They Might Mean for Glynn County” symposium, but concrete, collaborative resiliency planning is not yet a reality.

I mentioned before that the Georgia Climate project landed on several questions that can help provide coastal Georgia decision-makers with credible, relevant data that can inform planning and policy-making. These questions address issues such as planning for and adapting to extreme weather events, understanding coastal risk factors, agricultural impacts, and impacts to rural infrastructure and communities. This research has the potential to contribute both scientific and historical/cultural knowledge to the process of resiliency planning.

A good next step would be to connect researchers working on these questions with decision-makers who can use the information to create a more resilient Golden Isles. Using relevant data to inform our planning, we can position ourselves to efficiently deal with the impacts of climate change and perhaps avoid unnecessary costs in the future.