Data visualization combines principles from psychology, usability, graphic design, and statistics to highlight important data in accessible and appealing formats. Doing so helps bridge knowledge producers with knowledge users, who are often inundated with information and increasingly pressed for time.

Early care and education (ECE) workers experience many job-related stressors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ECE programs either closed or remained open while workers faced additional demands. We deployed a survey of the center-based ECE workforce in Washington State (United States) one year into the COVID-19 pandemic to assess impacts and workers’ perceived stress levels. We describe the prevalence of reported impacts, including workplace closures; job changes; COVID-19 transmission; risk factors for severe COVID-19; the use of social distancing practices; satisfaction with workplace responses; perceptions of worker roles, respect, and influence; and food and financial insecurity. Themes from open-ended responses illustrate how workers’ jobs changed and the stressors that workers experienced as a result. Fifty-seven percent of ECE workers reported moderate or high levels of stress. In a regression model assessing unique contributions to stress, work changes that negatively impacted home life contributed most to stress. Feeling respected for one’s work and feeling positive about one’s role as an “essential worker” contributed to lower levels of stress. Experiencing financial insecurity, caring for school-aged children or children of multiple ages, being younger, and being born in the United States also contributed to higher stress. Findings can inform policies designed to support the workforce.

Little attention has been given to how researchers can best provide evidence to policy makers so that it informs policy making. The objectives of this study were to increase understanding about the current state of public health nutrition and obesity researcher practices, beliefs, barriers, and facilitators to communicating and engaging with policy makers, and to identify best practices and suggest improvements. Eighteen semistructured interviews were conducted from 2011 to 2013 with public health nutrition and obesity researchers who were highly involved in communicating research to policy makers. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded, and analyzed to identify common themes. Study participants described wide variation in practices for communicating and engaging with policy makers and had mixed beliefs about whether and when researchers should engage. Besides a lack of formal policy communication training, barriers noted were promotion and tenure processes and a professional culture that does not value communicating and engaging with policy makers. Study participants cited facilitators to engaging with policy makers as ranging from the individual level (eg, desire to make a difference, relationships with collaborators) to the institutional level (eg, training/mentorship support, institutional recognition). Other facilitators identified were research- and funding-driven. Promising strategies suggested to improve policy engagement were more formal training, better use of intermediaries, and learning how to cultivate relationships with policy makers. Study findings provide insights into the challenges that will need to be overcome and the strategies that might be tried to improve communication and engagement between public health researchers and policy makers.

States adopt minimum wages to improve workers’ economic circumstances and well-being. Many studies, but not all, find evidence of health benefits from higher minimum wages. This study used a rigorous “triple difference” strategy to identify the associations between state minimum wages and adult obesity, body mass index (weight (kg)/height (m)²), hypertension, diabetes, fair or poor health, and serious psychological distress. National Health Interview Survey data (United States, 2008–2015) on adults aged 25–64 years (n = 131,430) were linked to state policies to estimate the prevalence odds ratio or mean difference in these outcomes associated with a $1 increase in current and 2-year lagged minimum wage among less-educated adults overall and by sex, race/ethnicity, and age. In contrast to prior studies, there was no association between current minimum wage and health; however, 2-year lagged minimum wage was positively associated with the likelihood of obesity (prevalence odds ratio = 1.08, 95% confidence interval: 1.00, 1.16) and with elevated body mass index (mean difference = 0.27, 95% confidence interval: 0.04, 0.49). In subgroup models, current and 2-year lagged minimum wage were associated with a higher likelihood of obesity among male and non-White or Hispanic adults. The associations with hypertension also varied by sex and the timing of the exposure.