Human Ecology

An ordinary bus stop in Vallejo has a fresh new look. The local site got a makeover designed by UC Davis students Ashley Gear and Katie Wong, both seniors majoring in landscape architecture.

Solano County Transit (SolTrans), which runs the bus service in Vallejo, recently unveiled its newly transformed bus stop located at Gary Circle and Magazine Street. SolTrans chose the students’ design, which Gear and Wong created last spring for the “Plants in the City” course led by Assistant Professor Haven Kiers.

Bus stops, bike paths, sidewalks and other spots often overlooked in the community will become areas of beauty — for the sake of science. That’s the idea behind the Seed Pile Project, which asks community members from as far east as Sacramento and as far west as the East Bay to drop a pile of native wildflower seeds near their home or office and monitor the growth.

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Do you really want to order a soda with your burger? Just one soda can have more added sugar than the entire daily limit recommended for most adults.

Seeing a warning icon on a restaurant menu may help consumers identify the high amounts of added sugar hidden in menu items — and it may even convince them to reach for healthier items like water. 

When the COVID-19 vaccine rollout began, pregnant women hesitated to roll up a sleeve for a shot, according to a survey conducted by the University of California, Davis.

New forms of environmental justice organizing — from grassroots movements to government-led policy initiatives — are building healthier and more equitable communities within the Sacramento region, suggests a new study by the University of California, Davis. 

Professor Leigh Ann Simmons, chair of the Department of Human Ecology, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Health Behavior (AAHB). Fellow status is a special membership category in recognition of significant contributions to the field of health behavior research and demonstrated involvement in the organization. 

Rare research on the effects of a pandemic undertaken during an ongoing disaster shows that COVID-19 has severely affected people’s daily emotional lives and mental health, increasing their stresses the longer lockdowns, fear of getting sick and financial strains continue.

The UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement Program has awarded funding to 14 new research projects, including five to faculty in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, that will address diverse issues such as climate change, the welfare of families, and cultivating a new grain crop. 

The sticky business of sugar-sweetened beverages will be the topic of an online panel discussion with California Assemblymember Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, and an expert from the University of California, Davis, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 27.

Bloom, who authored a bill to tax soda in California, and UC Davis Assistant Professor Jennifer Falbe will discuss health risks and the addictive nature of sugary drinks, how soda taxes fund critical public health programs, and the story of California’s fight against Big Soda.

The COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders and other limitations could offer researchers the chance to use technology to decrease the digital divide and disparities in academic research, suggests a University of California, Davis, professor in a new commentary.