Two Florida State University sociology professors, Michael McFarland and Mathew Hauer, are part of a research group that led a groundbreaking and widely-covered study on the negative effects of lead in gasoline that resulted in millions of psychiatric disorders over the past 75 years.

Published on Wednesday, Dec. 4, in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the two FSU professors joined members from Duke University and the Medical University of South Carolina in the expansive study. The results were eye-opening – as many as 151 million cases of mental health disorder have occurred over the past 75 years.

Since being published, the study has been covered by nearly 230 media outlets and affiliates and has gained an audience reach of 1.62 billion people worldwide. Some of the largest outlets disseminating the story include NBC News, Newsweek, USA Today, Fortune and many more.

A key data point is that leaded gas was banned in the United States in 1996. The study adds emphasis to those born before 1996, including the 1960s and 1970s when leaded gas was at peak use, being at risk for toxic brain effects from car exhaust.

The study notes that Americans born before leaded gas was banned have experienced higher rates of mental health issues. The researchers analyzed historical data on blood-lead levels in U.S. children, patterns of leaded gasoline use in America and population statistics of mental health problems.

Among the most significant points made is more than half of the current U.S. population was exposed to adverse levels of lead, a neurotoxicant, in childhood.

McFarland is an associate professor of sociology with areas of interest in health disparities, biodemography and mental health. His research agenda focuses on understanding racial and socioeconomic disparities in mental and physical health with a special focus on poverty exposure and educational attainment.

Hauer is the Charles B. Nam Professorship in the Sociology of Population and an associate professor of sociology. His areas of interest include demography, climate change, population projections, environmental sociology and spatial analysis. Hauer studies the impacts of climate change on society.

The FSU Department of Sociology was established in 1918. The program’s instructional excellence and departmental collegiality are among its trademarks. Guided by award-winning faculty and among the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy’s top programs, the department of sociology emphasizes collaborative research that continues a long tradition of academic excellence from its graduate and undergraduate students.

To learn more, visit cosspp.fsu.edu/sociology.

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As climate change fuels sea level rise, younger people will migrate inland, leaving aging coastal populations — and a host of consequences — in their wake, a study by Florida State University researchers finds.

While destination cities will work to sustainably accommodate swelling populations, aging coastal communities will confront stark new challenges, including an outflow of vital human infrastructure such as health care workers, said Associate Professor of Sociology Matt Hauer, lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“In the destination communities where populations are increasing you’ll need more dentists, doctors, service workers, construction workers, etc.,” Hauer said. “So by people moving, you affect other people’s likelihood of moving. You get a demographic amplification.”

Previous studies estimated where people are likely to move as a changing climate affects livability. Hauer’s study also incorporates demographic data and secondary effects that revealed a host of challenges awaiting both the coastal “sender” communities and their destination counterparts.

“Imagine young families moving out of areas like Miami and moving to other locations and starting a family there,” he said. “And just by the fact that there’s more people who have moved there, these indirect population processes draw even more people.”

The study concluded that these indirect processes could create 5.3 to 18 times the number of climate migrants as those directly displaced by rising seas. It also found that by 2100, median age in coastal communities could spike as much as 10 years.

“Think about who are more unlikely to move and who will be left behind in these communities; it tends to be the oldest,” Hauer said. “Because migration is most likely to occur in more youthful populations, areas experiencing accelerated out-migration could face accelerated population aging.”

Doctoral student Sunshine Jacobs and computational scientist Scott Kulp co-authored the study with Hauer.

The researchers developed a migration model that uses sea level rise data from Climate Central and information about migration patterns from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. That tool allowed them to predict migration on a county-by-county basis across the country. Jacobs said the model can be adapted to research different hazards that go beyond encroaching seas.

“We only looked at sea level rise,” she said. “Imagine other hazards that we know cause people to move, like heat events, wildfires and economic hazards. The future uses and implications of the model are amazing.”

This work was supported by the State of Louisiana, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, the New York State Energy Research Development Authority, and the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences Assessment.

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