Social sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Novel indicators of infectious disease prevalence could improve real-time surveillance and support healthcare planning. Here, the authors show that sales data for non-prescription medications from a UK high street retailer can improve the accuracy of models forecasting mortality from respiratory infections.

    • Elizabeth Dolan
    • , James Goulding
    •  & Laila J. Tata

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study finds that flood insurance policy design affects economic development in floodplains and, consequently, flood risk in Europe. Therefore, the authors advocate for flood insurance design to be integrated in climate change adaptation policy.

    • Max Tesselaar
    • , W. J. Wouter Botzen
    •  & Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Green technologies foster the use of green energy; however, large investment costs hinder adoption. In a large-scale field experiment, the authors show that message framing can promote a serious commitment to solar panels among the broader public.

    • Dominik Bär
    • , Stefan Feuerriegel
    •  & Markus Weinmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbial communication has significant implications for industrial applications, but constructing communication systems which support coordinated behaviors is challenging. Here, the authors report an electron transfer triggered redox communication network and demonstrate its ability to coordinate microbial metabolism.

    • Na Chen
    • , Na Du
    •  & Quan Yuan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine food resources are commonly thought to have become marginal food or abandoned altogether with the spread of agriculture in Europe. Here, the authors use biomarkers in dental calculus to track widespread consumption of seaweed and aquatic plants through the Neolithic and into the Early Middle Ages.

    • Stephen Buckley
    • , Karen Hardy
    •  & Maria Eulalia Subirà

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cooperation is more likely when individuals can choose their interaction partner. However, here, the authors show that partner choice can increase resource inequality in a public goods game when people differ in resources and productivity needed for cooperation.

    • Mirre Stallen
    • , Luuk L. Snijder
    •  & Carsten K. W. De Dreu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study the authors introduce a measure of pandemic fatigue and report the existence of, and changes in, pandemic fatigue during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also identify correlates of pandemic fatigue and show that those who experienced more pandemic fatigue were less likely to adhere to various health-protective behaviors.

    • Lau Lilleholt
    • , Ingo Zettler
    •  & Robert Böhm

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    In this Review article, the authors discuss emerging efforts to build ethical governance frameworks for data science health research in Africa and the opportunities to advance these through investments by African governments and institutions, international funding organizations and collaborations for research and capacity development.

    • Clement A. Adebamowo
    • , Shawneequa Callier
    •  & Sally N. Adebamowo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors find economic damage from El Niño far greater than benefits from La Niña on the global economy, leading to an increased economic loss as ENSO variability intensifies under greenhouse warming.

    • Yi Liu
    • , Wenju Cai
    •  & Ying Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    U.S. federal climate policies can reduce air pollutant emissions and associated health impacts from fine particulate matter. However, near-term CO2 reductions alone are insufficient to address racial/ethnic disparities in pollution exposure.

    • Paul Picciano
    • , Minghao Qiu
    •  & Noelle E. Selin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The 21st Century has witnessed a series of global food crises, though little is known about how rising food prices affect child nutrition. The authors show that increases in the real price of food elevate the risk of a child being wasted, which in turn poses a serious risk for their survival.

    • Derek Headey
    •  & Marie Ruel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural basis of individual differences in episodic memory performance is not well understood. Here, the authors show in a large fMRI dataset that activity of the hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex accounts for individual variability in memory performance.

    • Léonie Geissmann
    • , David Coynel
    •  & Dominique J. F. de Quervain

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the causal impact that risk factors have on healthcare cost is critical to evaluate healthcare interventions. Here, authors show that waist circumference, body mass index, and blood pressure have robust causal impact on healthcare cost.

    • Jiwoo Lee
    • , Sakari Jukarainen
    •  & Andrea Ganna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    People differ in the extent to which they experience a lack of economic resources compared to others. Here, the authors show that such experiences at the individual level as well as income inequality at the national level are associated with self-reported morality-related outcomes.

    • Christian T. Elbæk
    • , Panagiotis Mitkidis
    •  & Tobias Otterbring

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Open science practices are becoming more common in the social sciences, but there is limited data on their popularity and prevalence. Here, using survey data, the authors provide evidence that levels of adoption are relatively high and underestimated by many in the field.

    • Joel Ferguson
    • , Rebecca Littman
    •  & John-Henry Pezzuto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Personal communication networks through mobile phones and online platforms can be characterized by patterns of tie strengths. The authors propose a model to explain driving mechanisms of emerging tie strength heterogeneity in social networks, observing similarity of patterns across various datasets.

    • Gerardo Iñiguez
    • , Sara Heydari
    •  & Jari Saramäki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of COVID-19 have been more severe in certain population groups, including migrants. In this total-population study from Sweden, the authors investigate the association between country of birth and COVID-19 related hospitalisation and death and describe how it changed over the first two years of the pandemic.

    • Mikael Rostila
    • , Agneta Cederström
    •  & Sol P. Juárez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Measurement error in polygenic indices attenuates their power to predict complex traits. Here, the authors compare two approaches addressing this attenuation bias and provide guidance on which approach to apply in various scenarios.

    • Hans van Kippersluis
    • , Pietro Biroli
    •  & Cornelius A. Rietveld

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study shows that 716 million of the world’s lowest income people live in areas with unsafe levels of air pollution, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. With limited access to healthcare, they are especially vulnerable.

    • Jun Rentschler
    •  & Nadezda Leonova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors conduct a multidisciplinary study of human-great ape viral sharing in Cameroon and a European zoo, finding that environmental co-use enables more enteric virome sharing, virome convergence, and adenovirus and enterovirus sharing between Cameroonian humans and apes.

    • Victor Narat
    • , Maud Salmona
    •  & Tamara Giles-Vernick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This paper presents a method for quantifying the benefits of beaches in reducing storm and long-term coastal flood risk. This method can contribute to cost-effective decision-making on climate change adaptation in many of the world’s coasts.

    • Alexandra Toimil
    • , Iñigo J. Losada
    •  & Gonéri Le Cozannet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global COVID-19 vaccine distribution has been inequitable. In this mathematical modelling study, the authors estimate the proportion of deaths that could have been averted in twenty low- and lower-middle-income countries if vaccines had been more widely available early in the pandemic.

    • Nicolò Gozzi
    • , Matteo Chinazzi
    •  & Alessandro Vespignani

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Progress to reduce plastic pollution has been painfully slow and the consequent damage to the natural environment and to human health is likely to increase further. This has been because the views and ways of working of four distinct stakeholder communities are not sufficiently well integrated. (1) Scientists, (2) industry, (3) society at large and (4) those making policy and legislation must in future find ways to work together.

    • Richard S. Lampitt
    • , Stephen Fletcher
    •  & Adrian Whyle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mobile phone data reveals a significant decrease in the income diversity of urban encounters during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA, even though overall mobility returned to pre-pandemic levels by late 2021. This was mainly due to persistent behavioral changes including less willingness to explore new places.

    • Takahiro Yabe
    • , Bernardo García Bulle Bueno
    •  & Esteban Moro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors perform analysis of technology pathways for existing buildings using urban building energy models developed with cities, showing that shallow and deep retrofits along with onsite photovoltaic and grid decarbonization can help achieve carbon reduction targets.

    • Yu Qian Ang
    • , Zachary Michael Berzolla
    •  & Christoph F. Reinhart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors show that real-world extraordinary altruists, including heroic rescuers and altruistic kidney donors, are distinguished by unusually unselfish traits and decision-making patterns. This pattern was not predicted by a general sample of adults who were asked what traits would characterize altruists.

    • Shawn A. Rhoads
    • , Kruti M. Vekaria
    •  & Abigail A. Marsh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Old Masters used paints containing mixtures of oils and proteins, but we lack an understanding on how and why proteins were used. Here, the authors use egg yolk in combination with two pigments to evaluate how different repartition of proteinaceous binder can be used to control the flow behaviour as well as drying kinetics and chemistry of oil paints.

    • Ophélie Ranquet
    • , Celia Duce
    •  & Norbert Willenbacher

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