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By Matija Franklin, Elif Naz Çoker, Johnny Hugill, Rebecca Lees

Gender is one of the first categories to which children are introduced, and one of the first traits with which adults define children. As such, people hold gender-specific stereotypes and have gendered expectations. Research on the formation of gender identities and roles in early childhood has established that boys and girls are treated in a gendered way by the adults in their lives, be it parents, teachers, or even strangers.

Most adults make gendered associations and categorisations and treat children in relation to these gendered categorisations. The gendered treatment children receive introduces them to gender social norms, which shape their beliefs about what is expected of them in relation to their gender. This, will, in turn, influence how children view themselves and their capabilities. Read full article ↵

By Matthew O. Geldard.

One of the most pressing policy issues of the modern era is how to improve public health in the world’s poorest regions. Of particular concern are those diseases spread by mosquitos: the World Health Organisation estimates a total of 96 million cases of dengue and, in 2017 alone, 219 million cases of malaria. Policies targeting such vector-borne diseases (VBDs) represent nothing new. However, there seems to be a continuing inability to move the agenda from one of disease reduction to eradication: clearly, current policy initiatives are not proving effective enough.

This report aims to tackle this issue by outlining the problems associated with current policies and how they can be addressed through epidemiological innovation, with need to not only improve the efficacy of such policies, but also their cost-effectiveness and sustainability. Two innovative policies will be presented: that of manipulating the urban environment to reduce mosquito habitat and of harnessing predation pressure to better regulate mosquito populations.

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