The COVID-19 crisis does not diminish environmental motivation: Evidence from two panel studies of decision making and self-reported pro-environmental behavior.

The literature shows that threats unrelated to environmental problems can shift attention away from these problems and affect pro-environmental behavior. It is not clear whether the COVID-19 crisis that started in 2019 had any uniform effect on pro-environmental behavior and decision making. In two preregistered panel studies conducted before and during the first COVID wave (n1 = 206, n2 = 164) and before and during the second COVID wave (n3 = n4 = 260), we found that the crisis had had no uniform effect on pro-environmental behaviors, environmental attitude, nor on the behavioral costs of general pro-environmental behavior. Analysis of one specific pro-environmental behavior, the choice of environmentally friendly delivery of products, revealed that the general preference for green delivery services and heightened preference for green delivery services among people with higher attitude levels remained unchanged by the COVID-19 crisis. Thus, if the COVID-19 crisis has had any effects on pro-environmental behaviors, these effects are probably fragmented, specific to certain population segments, and not visible in the short-term perspective.

Perinatal health in the Danube region - new birth cohort justified.

In 2013-2015, a consortium of European scientists - NEWDANUBE - was established to prepare a birth cohort in the Danube region, including most of the countries with the highest air pollution in Europe, the area being one-fifth of the European Union's (EU's) territory, including 14 countries (nine EU member states), over 100 million inhabitants, with numerous challenges: big socioeconomic disparities, and a region-specific environmental pollution. The consortium reflects the EU Strategy for the Danube Region Strategy (2010), which identified 11 thematic Priority Areas - one of which is the environmental risks. Birth cohorts have been established in all other areas of Europe and collaborative efforts in promoting maternal and fetal health by minimizing the environmental exposures have been initiated with national, European, and international financial support. A birth cohort in the Danube area could apply the established methodologies for prenatal exposure and birth outcome measurements and establish a platform for targeted health promotion in couples planning pregnancies. The consortium included a strong socioeconomic part focusing on the participant's active registration of exposures to environmental toxicants and health indicators of disease and wellbeing, combined with investigation of their risk-reducing behavior and interventions to change their lifestyle to avoid the adverse health risks. Willingness to pay for reducing the health risks in children is also proposed to be estimated. Further collaboration and networking is encouraged as the Danube region has several decades of experience and expertise in biomonitoring adult populations exposed environmentally or occupationally. Additionally, some countries in the Danube region launched small-scale birth cohorts encouraged by participation in several ongoing research projects.