Three researchers are the first people to study how living in fear changes our health. How do you measure such a thing? What contributes to a person’s fears? What’s the political climate’s affect on fear, especially with constant threats of mass deportation and repeatedly stoked fears of crime?

Another dispatch from the American Public Health Association’s annual conference, we join Marie-Claude Couture, Dellanira Garcia, and Erin Grinshteyn of the University of San Francisco to examine how fear is damaging our chances at healthy lives.

With American life expectancy declining for the third straight year and substance use causing much of the decline, join our critical conversation to find out how fear is ratcheting up substance use rates and hurting our health in many other ways.

Learn more and read their critical research:

Determinants of fear of crime

Electronic bullying and missing school as a result of fear

Fear of crime and anxiety/depression

Fear of physical, emotional, and financial abuse