iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

🎉 Thrilled to see new HWISE Scale research from Mexico! 🇲🇽 16.1% of households face water insecurity—driven by infrastructure gaps, not drought. Households without piped water are 2.6x more at risk. Congrats to Alicia Muñoz Espinosa & team at INSP!

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

🎉 We can now empirically verify the WISE Scales hold up in high-income settings! Our paper uses data from 🇦🇺🇧🇩🇧🇬🇳🇱🇺🇬🇬🇧🇺🇸 showing the IWISE Scale is valid, reliable & comparable. Huge thanks to co-authors & funders! 💙💚 Link in thread: International Journal for Equity in Health

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

🎉 Congrats to the co-authors on implementing WISE Scales in Panama for the first time! Kudos to Jael Alfonso (UDELAS), Hugo Melgar Quinonez (McGill), Olga García (UAQ), Alex Brito (U. San Sebastián) & Israel Rios-Castillo (FAO). Exciting work! 📊🇵🇦

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Congrats to WISE-LAC member Rafael Perez-Escamilla and team on their paper about water insecurity among Pilagá people in northern Argentina. Builds on earlier work by Ianina Tuñón! American Society for Nutrition | Current Developments in Nutrition

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Kudos to Joseph Toland, Anchal Bansal, Andrew Whelton, Clayton Wukich, Sybil Derrible & Lauryn Spearing for using #WISE_Scales to study East Palestine, OH disaster. 31% water insecure vs <4% US avg—key insights for post-disaster response in high-income settings. 🔬💧

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

A landmark moment for @plos.org, our first in-person Board Meeting! So much to love about The Water Institute at UNC, including the presence of both Academic and Section Editors. Guillaume Wright and I were pleased to welcome present Editors, future Editors, and friends-of-PLOS-Water.

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The Onion @theonion.com · 13/10/2025

Nation’s Indigenous People Confirm They Don’t Need Special Holiday, Just Large Swaths Of Land Returned Immediately theonion.com/nation-s-indigenous-pe…

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

🌋 New research on Tonga's 2022 eruption: Concurrent water & food insecurity = highest mental distress (vs. one or neither). Impact similar for men & women, 4-5 months post-ash contamination. #PublicHealth #MentalHealth #Tonga

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ANH Academy Science-Policy Platform @anhacademy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

🌋 New research: Are water & food insecurity linked with mental distress among men & women after a natural disaster? A paper by IMMANA Fellow @indirabose.bsky.social explores this using the 2022 volcanic eruption data in Tonga 🇹🇴. 📄Read here bit.ly/3ITOwha

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Adam Kinzinger @adamkinzinger.substack.com · 04/10/2025

Where are the people who were so outraged that Biden asked google to pull misinfo at Covid, now that Trump has made Apple pull the ice tracker app

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

🌊 🪩 It brings me great pleasure to announce that yesterday I started as co-Editor-in-Chief at @plos.org Water! 🌊 🪩 A bit about my vision for the journal here: latitude.plos.org/2025/10/sera... Please reach out with ideas, suggestions, & even (esp?) constructive criticism. 🧡 💛 💚 🩵 💙 💜 ❤️‍🩹 More soon!

latitude.plos.org

Sera Young joins PLOS Water as co-Editor-in-Chief - Latitude

We are delighted to welcome Professor Sera Young to PLOS Water as co-Editor-in-Chief! Sera is a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University…

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Havey Institute for Global Health @fsmglobalhealth.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

🎙️Patrick Mbullo Owuor, PhD, a pioneering anthropologist and public health leader, discusses his community-driven solutions to global health challenges in Kenya and beyond in the new episode of our #ExploreGlobalHealthPodcast. www.globalhealth.northwestern.edu/events/podca...

globalhealth.northwestern.edu

Community-Driven Solutions in Global Health with Patrick Mbullo Owuor, PhD

Patrick Mbullo Owuor, PhD, a pioneering anthropologist and public health leader, discusses his community-driven solutions to global health challenges in Kenya and beyond. He shares how local action an...

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Thrilled to share that IMPACT Initiatives is implementing the 💧 Water Insecurity Experiences (WISE) Scales in 12 countries facing humanitarian crises! HWISE-4 data will help calculate People in Need, enabling more efficient aid response in places like CAR 🇨🇫, DRC 🇨🇩, Lebanon 🇱🇧, Haiti 🇭🇹 and Ukraine 🇺🇦

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Heartbreaking but not surprising headline from @nytimes.com today. Back in 2020, Afghanistan was amongst the most water insecure countries in the @gallup.com World Poll. My thanks to @indirabose.bsky.social for flagging this story.

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

📢 Join us this Sunday (Aug 23) at @SIWI_water World Water Week! Our session on "Advancing Water Security in Africa Using Experiential (WISE) Data" features success stories from Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Mali & Sierra Leone! 🌍 Available both online & in-person

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Congratulations to Indira Bose for leading analyses on the link between food and water insecurity in Mexico and mental health. This research was made possible by Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública's data collection over 4 years.

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

What I love about this new WISE Scales paper in PLOS Water is how PRACTICAL it is! Organizations like Helvetas and Oxfam successfully used these scales in Nepal and Sierra Leone to measure the human impact of water interventions. We need more tools that capture effects on people's daily lives!

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

We are thrilled to share the latest newsletter from the WISE-LAC Network, marking two incredible years of collaborative research and action to improve water security across Latin America and the Caribbean! 🥂 🎂 lnkd.in/eynZvU4V Español: lnkd.in/eMJeskfF

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Even low sodium levels in drinking water can be harmful. However, our review of 197 countries' guidelines, led by Juliette Crowther & Jacqui Webster, found most are based on taste, not health. This change needs to be pushed! (Yes, that's a Salt-N-Pepa reference!) #waterinsecurity

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Dawn Stover @dawnstover.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Hey, fiction writers: We're having a short story contest, and the wonderful Kim Stanley Robinson is the judge. The stories need to have some conceivable connection to (avoiding) the Apocalypse. thebulletin.org/write-before...

thebulletin.org

Write Before Midnight - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Write Before Midnight A Bulletin short fiction contest Announcing the Bulletin‘s new short fiction contest… Over the decades, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published the smartest minds in ...

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

We received the "Champions of Health" Award from @inspmx.bsky.social. It honors hundreds of researchers and partners who've made #WISEScales successful across 80+ countries. Thank you to all contributors and funders for highlighting water insecurity challenges.

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

It's painful to move platforms. Sky follower bridge helped me to find some of my twitter friends! ✨ Check it out: share.sky-follower-bridge.dev?q=338 #skyfollowerbridge

share.sky-follower-bridge.dev

Sky Follower Bridge

Bridge your Twitter/X followers to Bluesky. Detected Users: 338

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Thrilled to share that our WISE-Dx project was featured on cbschicago.bsky.social today! We're developing a rapid at-home test for lead in water that gives results in just 30 mins. Helping Chicago tackle its 400k+ lead service lines, one test at a time. link in comments

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ANH Academy Science-Policy Platform @anhacademy.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

💧New research: Can yes/no responses speed up water insecurity measurement without losing too much detail? IMMANA Fellow @indirabose.bsky.social explores this trade-off using data from 39 countries. 📄Learn more about methods to measure issues with water bit.ly/3HhpaZl #WISEScales #SDG6 #Water

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NU Water @nuwater.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Last week, Prof. Will Dichtel dropped some serious knowledge about tackling #PFAS contamination in our water systems. His team at NU Chem is doing groundbreaking work on selective PFAS removal materials. Awesome to see folks from Loyola's Getzinger group getting in on the conversation too!

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NU Water @nuwater.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Earlier this week marked a historic moment as we hosted our first-ever Student Water Jamboree at Northwestern University! 🌊 The event united students from both Evanston and Chicago campuses, with 6 different schools represented.

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Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute (RGHI) @rghi-hygiene.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

💧In our #WorldWaterDay 2025 edition of #RGHISpotlights, the Spotlight is on RGHI-funded researcher @profserayoung.bsky.social and her team, who are building on the groundbreaking Household/Individual Water Insecurity Experiences Scales to develop a #Hygiene Experiences Scale rghi.org/spotlights-s...

rghi.org

Spotlights Series – Sera Young – Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute

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Maggie Butler, PhD, CLC @bioanthmags.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

The first paper from my dissertation is now available online! www.frontiersin.org/journals/glo...

frontiersin.org

Frontiers | Applying authoritative knowledge to better understand preparation for breastfeeding

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Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University @ipratnu.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Congratulations to @profserayoung.bsky.social, who accepted the “Champions of Health” Award on behalf of the Water Insecurity Experience (WISE) Scales! Presented by Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health, it honors the Scales’ impact on public health. www.ipr.northwestern.edu/news/2025/ef...

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Congratulations to @bioanthmags.bsky.social on her new paper about authoritative knowledge (AK) & infant feeding! AK has been so helpful for understanding birth practices, it's exciting and innovative of Maggie to apply it to IYCF! w/ @laurenkeenan.bsky.social www.frontiersin.org/journals/glo...

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Here's to Julius Lucks killing it on the @wbez.org's Reset today, laying out the damage that the random ransacking of Dept of Defense grants means for edu, innovation & #water safety. "If you wind the whole thing down, where are the new ideas going to come from?" @buffett.northwestern.edu

wbez.org

What’s next for Northwestern researchers amid funding cuts and work stoppages?

Northwestern researchers received notices from the Department of Defense to stop their work immediately.

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

One man just wiped out $10 trillion in wealth, is destroying centuries-old legal protections, and seems determined to unravel humanity’s greatest public health achievement. In 3 months. I don’t know how we get out of this. But if we do, one person can never have that kind of power again.

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John Oldfield @johnforwater.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

For those tracking such: "The Supreme Court has previously ruled that the president does not have the power to withhold Clean #Water Act funds appropriated by Congress." Thank you, Environmental Protection Network and Michelle Roos. www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/20252801_gov...

environmentalprotectionnetwork.org

Trump’s Illegal Government Investment Shutdown Will Cost Jobs and Harm Public Health

On January 28, 2025, EPN released a statement about Trump's pause on all agency grants, loans and other financial assistance programs. [Read more]

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 05/02/2025

i don’t even know if crime is the right word for the illegal destruction of USAID. it is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the american people

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John Oldfield @johnforwater.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Honored to be quoted in this article by @waltonbrett.bsky.social: “If we pull out of WASH investments + water security investments. . . . [w]e’ll be limited to just putting out fires . . . . rather than strengthening their capacity to solve their own problems.” www.circleofblue.org/2025/world/u...

circleofblue.org

USAID Shutdown Causes Global Alarm in International Water and Climate Programs

Trump administration’s declared aim is to eliminate U.S. foreign aid agency.

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

FEWSnet has gone dark to absolutely no good end.

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Not For The Weak @notfortheweak.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Statement from the Ho Chunk Nation

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The Onion @theonion.com · 23/01/2025

Conservatives Claim Hitler’s Nazi Allegiance Greatly Exaggerated theonion.com/conserv...

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Tia Palermo @tiapalermo.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Gostin and Mason Meier argue that “…the absence of the US [in WHO] will undermine scientific research, health security, and foreign policy.” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

A world less safe and secure

On 20 January, President Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). President Trump shares many of the same concerns about WHO as previous administra...

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Nina Lansbury @ninalansbury.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Can or will we achieve water access & justice within the SDG timeline of 2030? I joined water research colleagues to try to answer this! podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

Can we achieve SDG6? With Gabriela Sacco, Nina Lansbury, Saskia Nowicki and Sera Young

Podcast Episode · The Water Justice Podcast · 22/12/2024 · 26m

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

And in the midst of All This, a politician we can be proud of! I have goosebumps listening to Senator Durbin discuss the accomplishments of the Water for the World Act. 🪣🚿🚰 May we continue *this* kind of leadership. #watersecurity #water #WISEscales

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

@asherrosinger.bsky.social is one of my favorite collaborators, and it's been really wonderful to be able to draw on his intimate knowledge of #NHANES data for our #NIH grant. Plus just fun to hang with him! This is a moment w/his group during a visit to @pennstateuniv.bsky.social this fall.

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Sera L. Young @profserayoung.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Twitter? X? Whatever you call it, I’m not spending time w/ that f#$%ery these days. Let’s get connected on social media elsewhere. I’m @ProfSeraYoung here and on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and my pager! (JK)

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