News and Announcements

Dr. Diane Hirshberg, professor of education policy, was one of the experts tapped to provide some perspective on how cities can attract and retain a highly educated workforce as well as thoughts on the impact of COVID-19 on the education system.

CBHRS associate professor Dr. Diane King (co-investigator) and research professional Alex Edwards (project manager) are collaborating with psychology professor Dr. Patrick Dulin (principal investigator) on a clinical trial to reduce drinking. Funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,  study participants will test either a smart-phone app or a chatbot version of an evidence-based program called Step Away. 

ISER Professor Mouhcine Guettabi forecasts modest economic growth for the Alaska economy for 2021 and 2022.  However, he expects that this modest growth will not be enough for Alaska to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic shock.  Professor Guettabi projects that the economy in 2022 will still be 5% below the pre-pandemic level.  The forecast appears in a report entitled Alaska’s Economy and the pandemic, which was prepared for the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development (DCCED.)  The projection that Alaska’s economy will not fully recover by 2022 is consistent with similar Federal Reserve forecasts for the US economy.

Diane Hirshberg, Professor of Education Policy, wrote a thought piece on challenges in distance learning in Arctic postsecondary education along with Paul Wasko of UAA’s Academic Innovations & eLearning. Titled “Learning from the Crisis: Issues in Strengthening Online Learning for the Future,” the article highlights both the possibilities for transforming online learning, and the challenges facing faculty, students, institutions, and communities.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Dunleavy mandated that Alaska’s K12 schools closed to in-person instruction; later, these school closures were extended until the end of the 2019-2020 academic year. Across the state, educators worked not only to ensure they met their responsibilities for instruction, but also other key school functions including parent resources, meal services, and social-emotional learning. Concurrently, senior college students in teacher licensure programs at the University of Alaska (UA) were in classrooms fulfilling their clinical experience (student teaching) requirements. During the school closures, students were still “placed” in schools, but the nature of their internship experience changed fundamentally as classes were moved to distance delivery.

Gina Bodnar is joining ISER this summer as a First Alaskans Institute intern, and we are excited to welcome her! At ISER she’ll be working with Dr. Cueva to develop cancer education for youth in Northwest Arctic, and will be learning about the research process from IRB submission to data analysis. She is also curious to learn about ISER, and will be having informational interviews with staff and faculty during her internship.

ISER faculty are working to inform the Municipality of Anchorage's COVID-19 efforts through a partnership between ISER, the UAA Division of Population Health Sciences, and the UAA College of Arts and Sciences. The group is involved in three distinct projects. First, Dr. Cueva, Dr. DeFeo, and Dr. Berry contributed to a series of publications focusing on specific areas in which the pandemic has impacted Anchorage and its residents, with recommendations for monitoring further impacts and potential responses/interventions. Of the published papers, Dr. Cueva and Dr. DeFeo took the lead on Education; considering the pandemic’s effect on early childhood, K12, and postsecondary systems, they noted the impacts of school and facility closures on students and communities, and provided recommendations to limit negative outcomes and plan for the future. Dr. Berry authored a paper on the economic impact of the hunker down order.

Economists, both nationally and in Alaska, are frequently asked to assess the economic costs of the steps taken to limit the spread of COVID-19.  The economic impacts are huge; the US is experiencing rates of unemployment not seen since the 1930s in the Great Depression.  But the benefits of saving lives by reducing deaths due to COVID-10 area also very large.  In a recent a working paper, “The Impacts of the ‘Hunker Down’ order in Anchorage,” Assistant Professor Kevin Berry used the concept of the economic value of a statistical life to undertake an approximate comparison of the economic costs (in lost income) and economic benefits (in saved lives) of the Municipal response to the coronavirus outbreak.  His work combines epidemiological modeling of how COVID-19 could have spread without the Hunker Down order with the value of a “statistical life”.  The results suggest that the economic benefits of saving human lives to date has far exceeded the economic costs in lost income.

Ever wondered if you are the only one who goes to the Alaska State Fair for some amazing Fair food? According to findings from the 2018 Alaska State Fair Exit survey, 67% of fairgoers surveyed said their main reason for attending the Fair was for the food! Volunteers and staff of the Alaska State Fair surveyed 398 fairgoers during the 2018 Alaska State Fair; the survey instrument was based on one administered at the 2013 Fair by McDowell Group. Alaska State Fair, Inc. management asked ISER to assist in using the data they collected to prepare a 2018 Exit Survey report and to compare findings to past years (2005, 2010, and 2013).

Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi joined Mayor Ethan Berkowitz at the Anchorage daily COVID-19 community update on Wednesday, May 6. He discussed the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Anchorage economy and the prospects for economic recovery. A video of the briefing is available from the Anchorage Daily News website. Dr. Guettabi’s presentation begins at about 16:42 and lasts about 12 minutes. His presentation can be found in ISER's publications database.