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OBJECTIVES: Food security plays a critical role in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG-2) and public health outcomes; however, its effectiveness under the impact of international sanctions remains unclear. This study examined the impact of international sanctions on achieving SDG-2 and food security. STUDY DESIGN: This cross-country empirical analysis was based on a combined database that included data from the Global Sanctions Data Base (GSDB), Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics (FAOSTAT) and United Nations (UN) Comtrade. METHODS: First, an instrumental variable (IV) strategy was used to deal with the endogeneity of other events in target countries' sanctions. Second, a two-stage least square (2SLS) regression was conducted using high-dimensional fixed effects. Third, based on the Structural Gravity Model, a Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood (PPML) regression on bilateral agricultural trade was performed. RESULTS: Findings from this study showed that international sanctions had a negative impact on the achievement of SDG-2 and food security, which was associated with poor public health outcomes. This was mainly evidenced by an increase in the prevalence of undernourishment and a high population of children with moderate or severe stunting. Sanctions were also shown to distort the agricultural value-added share and decrease domestic agricultural production. In addition, sanctions impeded bilateral import supply, which resulted in a lower import value and quantity, and a higher import price. CONCLUSIONS: Food security and agricultural sustainability associated with hunger, nutrition and health from 1950 to 2019 were significantly associated with international sanctions. Under the uncertain shock of international sanctions, progress towards SDG-2 deteriorated, mainly for Targets 2.1, 2.2 and 2.a, and the impact was non uniform across all targets. From a sociopolitical perspective, the empirical findings of this study provide vital lessons for policymakers and public health communities to increase humanitarian outreach.
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Objective: To determine the causal relationship between educational attainment and the risk of allergic rhinitis and (or) eczema using Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses. Methods: This study was a secondary data analysis based on the summary data of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which involved 293 723 participants (educational attainment) from the Social Science Genetics Association Consortium and 462 013 participants [allergic rhinitis and (or) eczema] from the UK Biobank. Genetic variants that were closely related to educational attainment were identified as instrumental variables. Two-sample MR analyses, including inverse-variance weighted (IVW), MR-Egger regression, weighted median method and weighted model-based estimation, were performed to investigate the causal relationship between educational attainment and the risk of allergic rhinitis and (or) eczema, in which the odds ratio (OR) values were used as indicators. Results: A total of 70 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were chosen as instrumental variables. The MR-Egger regression results suggested that the genetic pleiotropy was unlikely to bias our results (P=0.107). In the univariable MR analyses, IVW regression showed that the risk of allergic rhinitis and (or) eczema was OR=1.044 (95%CI: 1.020-1.069, P<0.001) and OR=1.170 (95%CI: 1.074-1.256, P<0.001), respectively, for the increase in the duration of education by one year or one standard deviation (SD) (3.71 years). In the reverse MR analysis, IVW regression showed little evidence that allergic rhinitis and (or) eczema affected educational attainment (OR=1.020, 95%CI: 0.927-1.023, P=0.683). The results of the weighted median method and weighted mode-based estimation were consistent with the results of IVW. Conclusion: This study suggests that there is a positive causal relationship between educational attainment and the risk of allergic rhinitis and (or) eczema, which means that educational attainment can increase the occurrence of allergic rhinitis and (or) eczema.