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Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice Professors Peter Reuter and Greg Midgette, along with Jonathan Caulkins of Carnegie-Mellon University, advise that both researchers and the general public take the forthcoming findings of the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)—a nationwide, general population survey (GPS) of 70,000 Americans released each fall—with a grain of salt.

A disaster strikes, and evacuation orders are issued. But what happens if those orders don’t reach people at risk? In recent years, as fires raged in parts of California, domestic workers and groundskeepers continued to show up in affected neighborhoods, even though the residents had already cleared out. The reason? Nobody had thought to contact the many lower-income workers who came into those communities each day to earn a living.

Guests at the Planet Word Museum in Washington, D.C., have fun learning about language. A $440,000 NSF grant is funding a partnership between UMD, Howard University, Gallaudet University and the museum to expand public understanding about the science of language. Photo by DuHon Photography, courtesy of Planet Word