UBC Research News Releases

Nearly 78 per cent of children with autism have at least one mental health condition and nearly half have two mental health conditions or more, according to a new U.S. study from UBC’s department of psychology and the AJ Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University (Pennsylvania).

The study also found mental health conditions present in 44.8 per cent of pre-school age children with autism. The scope of the issue among that age group had not previously been established using a large, population-based sample.

With the arrival of the first COVID-19 vaccines in Canada, most are eager to roll up their sleeves. But not every Canadian is feeling confident about getting the jab.

According to a recent survey conducted by Angus Reid, less than two thirds of Canadians surveyed said they would get the vaccine right away. Twenty-three per cent indicated they would prefer to wait, while 12 per cent reported they would not get vaccinated and five per cent remained unsure.

Different marginalized groups are exposed to higher cumulative air pollution in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, according to new research from the University of British Columbia.

The study, published last week in Environmental Research Letters, shows that in Vancouver, Indigenous residents are most at risk, while the burden falls on immigrant and low-income residents in Montreal and Toronto, respectively.

The study is an illustrative analysis for 2012 and by considering how exposure to air pollution overlaps with various socio-demographics, the study reveals unique patterns of risk.

The notion that a bit of stress makes people perform better has been baked into our everyday lives. But research from UBC neuroscientist Dr. Adele Diamond suggests it might not be so good for us after all.

The study, published recently in Cerebral Cortex, found that even mild stress may harm most people’s executive functions—mental skills such as self-control, focused attention, working memory and problem solving.

Mud Bay in Surrey, B.C. is a recreational paradise. Bike riders zip down along the dike in all seasons, while walkers enjoy exploring the trails close to shore. The salt marsh—where the tide moves in and out twice a day—teems with plant and wildlife, including small fish, tiny crabs and other species that call the bay home. Up to 15 migratory bird species visit in spring and autumn, including snow geese, mallard and black-bellied plover.

Although the scenery is idyllic, it’s also in peril. Mud Bay is increasingly under threat as sea level rise pushes the salt marsh up against the dikes lining the shore—a phenomenon known as coastal squeeze. If the marsh disappears, so too will the marine life that it supports.

While much remains unknown about the impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy, emerging data from a national surveillance project reveals pregnant women with COVID-19 seem to be at greater risk of being hospitalized, being admitted to intensive care units (ICUs), and going into early labour.

People with gambling problems are less likely to consider important information that could prevent them from losing, according to new research published today from the UBC’s Centre for Gambling Research.

Instead, people with gambling disorder pay more attention to irrelevant information from the previous gamble to inform their next choice.

Pathology reports on more than 50 killer whales stranded over nearly a decade in the northeast Pacific and Hawaii show that orcas face a variety of mortal threats—many stemming from human interactions.

A study analyzing the reports was published today in the journal PLOS ONE. The study findings indicate that understanding and being aware of each threat is critical for managing and conserving killer whale populations. It also presents a baseline understanding of orca health.

Scientists examining the effects of a megathrust earthquake in the Pacific Northwest say tall buildings across Metro Vancouver will experience greater shaking than currently accounted for by Canada’s national seismic hazard model.

The region lies above the Georgia sedimentary basin, which is made up of layers of glacial and river sediments sitting on top of sedimentary rock. In the event of an earthquake, it would jiggle and amplify the seismic waves, causing more intense and longer-lasting tremors. However, the amplification caused by the sedimentary basin is not explicitly accounted for in the 2015 seismic hazard model, which informs Canada’s national building code.

The Fraser River estuary in British Columbia is home to 102 species at risk of extinction. A new study says it’s not too late to save these species if action is taken now.

“There is currently no overarching plan to save them. If we don’t act quickly, many species, including species of salmon and southern resident killer whales, are likely to be functionally extinct in the next 25 years,” says senior author Tara Martin, a professor of conservation science at UBC, in a paper published today in Conservation Science and Practice.

Quarantine and isolation measures are a critical tool in curbing the spread of COVID-19. But new analysis of data from a survey of the mental health impacts of the pandemic suggests we need to pay more attention to the unintended mental health consequences of these measures.

Researchers at UBC, in collaboration with the Canadian Mental Health Association, surveyed 3,000 adults across Canada and found that mental health generally worsened with the pandemic. However, people who spent time in voluntary self-isolation or mandated quarantine were among those who felt the impacts more keenly.

Canada’s transgender youth are more supported in their identities nowadays, with more trans teens—50 per cent compared to 45 per cent five years ago—living in their felt gender full-time, finds a new survey led by UBC researchers.

The survey also revealed more transgender youth are asking their friends and families to call them by their correct names and pronouns since the previous survey. Specifically, 92 per cent have asked their fellow transgender friends to do so, and 86 per cent have asked their parents.

UBC researchers have successfully used machine learning to identify online gamblers whose betting behaviour could indicate a gambling problem.

By analyzing data from actual bets placed on the British Columbia Lottery Corporation’s (BCLC) PlayNow.com platform, an algorithm developed by the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC predicted with approximately 75-per-cent performance which players had, at some point, tried to curb their gambling by enrolling in BCLC’s Voluntary Self-Exclusion program (VSE).

As COVID-19 infections spike around the globe, with no end in sight for months, questions are beginning to arise around the long-term effects of the pandemic on our mental health and brain health.

In a new paper published this week in Trends in Neuroscience, Judy Illes, neuroethicist and professor of neurology, and her team at UBC, examine the unique neurological impacts and neuroethical challenges posed by COVID-19, especially compared to other 21st century epidemics such as SARS, H1N1 and Zika virus.

What are the main observations of the COVID-19 pandemic outlined in your paper?

For decades, scientists have predicted that a deadly pandemic would sweep the globe — but what they didn’t expect was that basic public health measures such as mask wearing and social distancing would become political flashpoints, especially in the United States.

But according to new research from the UBC Sauder School of Business, a different approach to public health messaging could help ease those tensions – and potentially save lives.

The LIGO-Virgo Collaboration, including researchers at the University of British Columbia, has confirmed 39 new gravitational wave event detections, more than quadrupling the total known gravitational wave events from 11 to 50.

The results, published in four papers on arXiv, and soon to appear in Physical Review X and other journals, were collected from the first half of the most recent LIGO-Virgo observing run, O3. The two LIGO detectors in the U.S. and the Virgo detector in Italy gathered the data from April to October 2019.

In just six months, the world’s largest randomized control trial on COVID-19 therapeutics has generated conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of repurposed drugs for the treatment of COVID-19.

Interim results from the Solidarity Therapeutics Trial, coordinated by the World Health Organization, indicate that remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon regimens appeared to have little or no effect on 28-day mortality or the in-hospital course of COVID-19 among hospitalized patients. In total, 11,266 patients across 405 hospitals were studied. The results of the trial are under review for publication in a medical journal and have been uploaded as a preprint.

If someone experiences cardiac arrest—a condition in which the heart suddenly stops beating—what’s the best way to keep that person alive?

A new study led by UBC researchers, and recently published in JAMA, compared the survival rates of two different strategies used by paramedics when treating cardiac arrests: 1) performing resuscitation at the scene, or 2) transporting the patient to hospital with resuscitation en route.

Dr. Brian Grunau, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor in UBC’s department of emergency medicine, explains why the chances of survival among patients transported to hospital are so slim.

A new study from researchers at the University of British Columbia reveals many parents are willing to accept less rigorous testing and expedited approval of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The international study, recently published in Clinical Therapeutics, surveyed more than 2,500 families from Canada, Israel, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United States who visited 17 different emergency departments between the end of March to the end of June.

When asked if they were willing to accept less rigorous testing and faster approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, nearly half (43 per cent) of parents surveyed globally said they were willing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the daily lives of families everywhere.

From changes in outdoor play and physical activity to screen time and use of technology, the way children and teens spend their time looks much different than it did a year ago.

These new experiences and environments—combined with the stress of an uncertain future—affect brain health and learning, and will continue to impact the generations of young people growing up during the pandemic.

Join UBC experts from the faculty of medicine to learn more about these unique changes, how they’re impacting the brain, and how to help children and teens thrive during the pandemic.

After a short presentation by each speaker, viewers will have the opportunity to ask questions using Slido.

Earlier testing and contact tracing might have prevented SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from becoming established in the United States and Europe, suggests a new study recently published in Science.

For the study, an international research team—including UBC scientist Jeffrey Joy—reconstructed the spread of SARS-CoV-2 across the world using genomic data from coronavirus samples, travel records, and computer-simulated models of how the virus spread and mutated over time.

Researchers at UBC’s faculty of medicine are working with microscopes—some up to 13 feet tall—to help prevent and treat COVID-19.

The research team, led by Sriram Subramaniam, a professor in UBC’s department of biochemistry and molecular biology, is using a powerful imaging technique known as cryo-electron microscopy to take pictures at near-atomic resolution to see how various antibody treatments bind to the virus.

Today marks a significant milestone in UBC’s commitment to truth and reconciliation: the university will celebrate the launch of its new Indigenous Strategic Plan (ISP). This makes UBC the first university in North America to commit to taking a human rights-based approach to its Indigenous strategic framework. The plan represents a university-wide response to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ Calls for Justice. It also represents the UBC Vancouver campus’ response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.

Scientists at UBC are unravelling the mysteries behind a persistent problem in commercial beekeeping that is one of the leading causes of colony mortality—queen bee failure.

This occurs when the queen fails to produce enough fertilized eggs to maintain the hive, and is regularly cited by the Canadian Association of Professional Apiarists as one of the top causes of colony mortality.

Fish populations in Canada need to be urgently rebuilt, but short-term socio-economic concerns – such as the impacts of fisheries closures on local fishers – often slow down or even prevent the process of rebuilding stocks.

Many people beat the summer heat by cranking the air conditioning. However, air conditioners guzzle power and spew out millions of tons of carbon dioxide daily. They’re also not always good for your health—constant exposure to central A/C can increase risks of recirculating germs and causing breathing problems.

There’s a better alternative, say a team of researchers from the University of British Columbia, Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley and the Singapore-ETH Centre.

They call it the Cold Tube, and they have shown it works.

Nearly 100 wildfires are burning across B.C. following the recent wave of hot and dry weather.  With the COVID-19 pandemic still upon us and primarily affecting people’s respiratory tracts, minimizing accidental wildfires is critical. We asked UBC faculty of forestry wildfire expert Lori Daniels what can be done.

Why is it even more important this year to be fire-smart?

Emerging surveillance technologies designed to help employers monitor the productivity of staff are largely viewed by the public as unreasonable and intrusive, according to new UBC research.

Resistance was especially high for those technologies that are difficult to connect directly to performance measurement. Devices and software that conduct physical surveillance by recording images, tracking movements and analyzing voices scored the worst, while those focused on digital surveillance such as computer and internet activity scored slightly better, even if they were seen negatively.

The study focused explicitly on public sector use of these tools.

Women who lack social ties have a greater likelihood of being obese, according to new UBC research published today in PLOS One. Men, on the other hand, were less likely to be obese if they lived alone and had a smaller social network.

Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, researchers analyzed the social ties of 28,238 adults aged 45 to 85 and how these link to waist circumference, body mass index and general obesity.

Elevated levels of lead have been found in samples of honey from hives downwind of the Notre-Dame Cathedral fire, collected three months after the April 2019 blaze.

In research outlined in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, scientists from UBC’s Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research (PCIGR) analyzed concentrations of metals, including lead, in 36 honey samples collected from Parisian hives in July 2019.

Canadians’ physical activity declined as expected following declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, but moderate-to-vigorous physical activity rebounded over the first six weeks of the pandemic. However, lighter and more incidental physical activity did not.

Researchers from a number of disciplines can now use a billion-scale dataset of tweets from around the world to answer their research questions about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assistant professor Muhammad Abdul-Mageed and his team in the UBC iSchool (school of information) and department of linguistics developed Mega-COV, a longitudinal, publicly available dataset of 1.5 billion tweets in 104 languages.

Abdul-Mageed, a UBC language sciences research lead, discusses initial analysis of the data, including how Twitter users are interacting directly with one another more than ever, why news stories from Canadian outlets were shared less in 2020 than in previous years, and why this massive dataset is important for future work.

For years, genome sequencing has helped scientists better understand the factors that predispose humans to disease. Now, the tool is being used in the fight against COVID-19.

Through the Canadian COVID Genomics Network (CanCOGeN)—a new initiative launched by Genome Canada and backed by $40 million in federal funding—scientists across Canada are collaborating on genomics-based research to find solutions to COVID-19.

Asian gypsy moths feed on a wide range of important plants and trees. White pine blister rust can kill young trees in only a couple of years. But it’s not always easy to detect the presence of these destructive species just by looking at spots and bumps on a tree, or on the exterior of a cargo ship.

Now a new rapid DNA detection method developed at the University of British Columbia can identify these pests and pathogens in less than two hours, without using complicated processes or chemicals – a substantial time savings compared to the several days it currently takes to send samples to a lab for testing.