Cigarette smoking is a leading risk factor for morbidity and premature mortality in the United States, yet information about smoking prevalence and trends is not routinely available below the state level, impeding local-level action. Tanja Srebotnjak of Ecologic Institute and co-authors now publish county-level estimates of cigarette smoking prevalence: These provide a unique opportunity to assess where prevalence remains high and where progress has been slow. The estimates provide the data needed to better develop and implement strategies at a local and at a state level to further reduce the burden imposed by cigarette smoking.

Wang, Tiffany; Tanja Srebotnjak; Julia Brownell and Renee Y. Hsia 2014: "Emergency Department Charges for Asthma-Related Outpatient Visits by Insurance Status". Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Vol. 25, No. 1, 396-407.

Bieling, Claudia et al. 2014: "Kulturlandschaften entwickeln – Ökosystemleistungen stärken". Natur und Landschaft, Vol. 2014, No. 2, 82-84.

Economic instruments and marine litter control, published in Ocean and Coastal Management, provides a comprehensive up-to-date review of the literature on the economic instruments that can reduce marine litter. The paper, written by Frans Oosterhuis, Elissaios Papyrakis, and Ecologic Institute's Benjamin Boteler, assesses their cost of implementation, level of effectiveness as well as indirect environmental and socioeconomic effects (externalities) that may arise as a result of their implementation. The article is available for download.

Hsia, Renee Yuen-Jan; Charles Lui; Tanja Srebotnjak and Judith Maselli 2013: "Do Emergency Department Closures have Ripple Effects on Surrounding Communities?: An Analysis of Closures on Inpatient Mortality for All-Comers in California, 1999-2010". Annals of Emergency Medicine, Vol. 62, No. 4, 157.

European Union (EU) legislation, such as the Water Framework Directive (WFD), as well as international, national, and regional environmental policies and strategies explicitly acknowledge the importance of environmental costs and benefits and the need to integrate them into the policy-making process. However, the application of valuation studies to policy often involves a trade-off between the accuracy of the required analysis and the necessity to include all costs and benefits associated with the different policy options. Thus, there is no accepted EU-wide approach on how to deal with environmental benefits in the policy process.

In an issue focusing on "Transformative Science" of the German-language journal "Ökologisches Wirtschaften", Thomas Jahn of the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOeE) and R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute present the Ecological Research Network (Ecornet) and explain the historic, current, and expected future roles of the participating, independent policy-relevant research institutes.

In the medium-term, biomass is expected to be an important part of the German energy mix. In this journal article, Ecologic Institute's Wolfgang Urban and Michael Jandewerth (Fraunhofer UMSICHT) present the results of the project "Biogas Feed-In" which was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The focus lies on the question of how processed biogas can be fed into the natural gas network under concrete local conditions. The article, which has been published in "Informationen zur Raumentwicklung", is available for download.

In this journal article, the authors – among them Darla Nickel and Melissa Keeley, both Ecologic Institute alumnae – analyze the stormwater infrastructure of the two cities. The focus lies on the question of how green and grey infrastructure can most successfully be combined and integrated for rain-water management. While grey infrastructure refers to conventional piped drainage and water treatment systems, the term "green infrastructure" encompasses land and plant based ecological treatment systems and processes. The report can be purchased on the homepage of the publisher "Springer-Verlag".

The precautionary principle is used in arguments both for and against climate engineering: On the one hand, the principle can suggest caution against climate engineering so as to minimize the (unknown) risks of proposed techniques to the environment and health. On the other hand, arguments can be made that climate engineering is a precautionary measure against the (known) risks of climate change. This article, written by Elizabeth Tedsen and Gesa Homann, provides an overview of this debate and what the precautionary principle means in a climate engineering context.

This survey of Dominik Müller, Senior Analyst at Ecologic Institute, describes the regulatory and policy framework for the promotion of renewable energies in Germany as amended by the "Energiewende" announced by the German Federal Government in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. The article focuses on changes in the electricity sector chiefly through fundamental amendments of the Renewable Energies Sources Act ("Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz – EEG") since 2011. Moreover, the article also discusses the political and regulatory situation for the use of renewable energies in the heat and transport sectors in Germany.

The study examined the charges levied on patients for the diagnosis and treatment of the ten most common outpatient conditions handled in the emergency department (ED). The results of research undertaken by scientists and faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, and Ecologic Institute have been published in the scientific journal PLoS One. Based on a cross-sectional study of the 2006–2008 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, the analysis was limited to outpatient visits with non-elderly, adult (years 18–64) patients with a single discharge diagnosis. A sample of 8,303 ED encounters was analyzed, which is representative of a total of 76.6 million ED visits during the studied 3-year period. It was found that charges varied significantly by diagnosis and across EDs for the same diagnosis. The study is available for download.

Which lessons for future projects can be learned from earlier stormwater management schemes in Germany? The authors of the report "German Experience in Managing Stormwater with Green Infrastructure" – among them Ecologic Institute's alumnae Darla Nickel, Wenke Schoenfelder and Melissa Keeley – specifically address this question. Based on two case studies, the authors examine policies, strategies and instruments integrating grey and green infrastructure. The article can be downloaded on the publisher's website.

Although Mongolia's GDP has grown consistently in recent years due to the booming mining sector, poverty is still widespread. This article aims to determine the extent to which agriculture contributes to food security in Mongolia and highlights the problems and challenges this sector is facing. In this article, published in the Geographische Rundschau, the authors Zoritza Kiresiewa (Ecologic Institute), Ankhtuya Altangadas, and Jörg Janzen answer these questions.

Mainstream economic indicators still dominate practical policy making. In this journal article, Lucas Porsch explains how the connection of sustainability measures and these mainstream indicators can be a tool for policy makers to understand and manage trade-offs between different sustainability categories.