“Holocaust clock” and mortality and mental health patterns in the United States

From 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (bass) used the metaphor of the Holocaust Clock as a way of conveying how close the human species is imposed anhilation, represented as north. While the early iterations of the clock focused more exclusively on the dangers of nuclear weapons, the bass also began to consider other evolving existential threats in recent decades, including climate change, destructive technologies and cyber risk and political variability. The extermination clock is both known and controversial. However, so far no known studies have examined the potential relationship between the Holocaust Clock and health and mortality.

The new study conducted by researchers from the mass general Brigham studied correlations of mortality and mental health of the iconic Weldan Bulletin of nuclear scientists using data published by the project of disease control and prevention centers (CDC) and the Global Burden of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) project. The authors describe the work as an initial approach to understanding the relationship between the Holocaust Clock and human health and mental health, opening the door to more conversations about how social health determinants (SDOH) can affect people’s well -being, which in turn can affect wider events. The results are published in Atomic scientists newsletter.

“This study is the first step, with its inseparable restrictions, but suggests a bridge between the fate of the world, our psychology and our health,” said the first author Samuel Justin Sinclair, director of psychological evaluation and research (Pars) and a member of the department at the Psychiatry Department in Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BHWH). “It may sound intuitively, but it is something that no one has previously looked at. We hope to open the door to further discussion. “

The results of the study indicate that the clock settings closer to the north (indicating a greater risk) are associated with higher Mortality due to Alzheimer’s disease, suicide, unintentional injuries and alcohol and substance disorders. And vice versa, researchers also observed lower Malicing, HIV and diabetes mortality rates when the clock approached the midnight.

According to the authors, the findings indicate that during periods of greater risk to society there may be appropriate differences in mortality and health and that socio-political indicators, such as the Holocaust Clock, can be useful in capturing the social aspects of the social aspects of health determinants at the macro level.

“The well -being and functioning of individuals, societies, nations, international matters, our species and our planet are related,” says the elderly author David Silbersweig, MD, retired president of the BWH Department of Psychiatry. “Further research can solve complex, multi -directional interactions to solve large -scale challenges and inform politics.”