Announcer:
The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
Frederica Freyberg:
An avalanche of almost 6,000 monthly calls to the 988 lifeline highlights the need for mental health support. PFAS are everywhere, but prevention can start at home and candidates announcing their next run provides a glimpse into the next election cycle. I’m Frederica Freyberg, tonight on “Here & Now,” we speak with DHS Secretary Kirsten Johnson about the need for mental health help. A water quality manager lays out PFAS mitigation in drinking water. Political scientist Anthony Chergosky explains a sudden push for third party candidates and a chief information officer considers a future with artificial intelligence. It’s “Here & Now” for July 21.
Announcer:
Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
Frederica Freyberg:
Nearly 92,000 contacts related to mental health and substance use support came across the 988 Wisconsin Lifeline in its first full year of operation. The Department of Health Services says the lifeline system has reduced pressures on other emergency systems and reports that 98% of interactions were deemed resolved. For more on the state’s mental health resources, we turn to DHS Secretary-designee Kirsten Johnson. Thank you for being here.
Kirsten Johnson:
Thank you for having me.
Frederica Freyberg:
Were you surprised by the 92,000 number of contacts in the first year of this 988 service?
Kirsten Johnson:
I don’t think I necessarily was surprised. I think it really demonstrates the need we have in Wisconsin and across the country, frankly, to meet people where they are immediately in real time when they need support around mental health.
Frederica Freyberg:
So if someone calls the 988 line and they are in crisis, mental health crisis, what will they get on the other end?
Kirsten Johnson:
Sure. They’ll get someone who is trained to deescalate a scenario or situation if someone is in danger. They will also get someone who’s trained to talk them through how to find support within their community, potentially connect them with other resources, a provider if they needed a behavioral health provider, and if it truly is a scenario where there’s a crisis and an action happening, they can be connected to emergency services.
Frederica Freyberg:
What does it mean to say that 98% of the contacts are resolved?
Kirsten Johnson:
Sure. So that’s a really good question. That means 98% of the calls that are answered are resolved in terms of the person is comfortable hanging up the phone. The individual who is working at the 988 call center feels comfortable that they are safe, and depending on the scenario, there may be a follow-up call scheduled if the individual is comfortable sharing their personal information, contact information, there may be a case manager that’s assigned to a follow-up, but that means when they hang up the phone, the person in the call center feels comfortable that that person is safe.
Frederica Freyberg:
And these calls could presumably take some time. Right? I mean, how long do people spend on the phone with people who really need that help?
Kirsten Johnson:
So the average call is about 20 minutes, but that’s average. So it’s interesting. I just asked this question earlier of the 988 staff, how long — so a text message could potentially take up to two hours, people disclose more information through the text services but on average, calls are about 20 minutes.
Frederica Freyberg:
How do the resolutions, the cases, the calls that are resolved, free up other services that might otherwise be called upon?
Kirsten Johnson:
That’s also an excellent question. About two-thirds of callers are actually repeat callers, so they’re people who now recognize that this is a resource that they can access. It has alleviated some of the demands on our crisis call centers in our counties. It also alleviates some of the demands on our 911 call centers so people who are really calling because they need that immediate touch point. They just want somebody to talk to, actually have an outlet and someplace to call where they have a warm body who is talking them through whatever the scenario they’re currently in.
Frederica Freyberg:
Because outside of this lifeline, what does access to non-emergency mental health service look like across the state right now?
Kirsten Johnson:
Certainly, we have challenges in terms of access to care. I mean throughout the pandemic, I think we had challenges around mental health and access to mental health services before the pandemic. They were certainly exacerbated over the course of the last 3-1/2 years. So there are long wait times to get into mental health and behavioral health providers. This is a touch point for people. I’ve also learned from the staff that the people who continually call back may have an appointment six months out, nine months out, but because they have a contact that they know they can call either weekly, every few weeks, or somebody that they trust, that they may not need that sort of crisis level in six or nine months, that they are able to talk through what their anxieties are. What some of those issues are that they’re experiencing in real time and have them resolved to some degree.
Frederica Freyberg:
Because I was thinking that if someone — one of the call takers on the line offers resources to people who call, they might be kind of thin. Right? Or they call and it’s like, yeah, like you say, six months out, that kind of thing, so I can see that repeat kind of call-back. Are the pressures of daily life and the overall need for help greater right now?
Kirsten Johnson:
You know, I think that there was certainly an increased need for behavioral health services before the pandemic, like I mentioned. I do think they’ve increased post-pandemic. We really went through three years of upheaval in terms of, you know, income and, you know, access to childcare and having to work from home and children at home and kids at home and remote work and remote school. I think there’s been a lot of change in our society over the course of the last 3-1/2 years, and I think people are really struggling.
Frederica Freyberg:
Do you feel as though this 988 service and kind of the discussion around it and the promotion of it helps combat the stigma of mental health issues?
Kirsten Johnson:
I think it has. I do think it has. And I do think that has actually over the course of the last five years, even pre-pandemic. People are talking more about their personal challenges and struggles. I think another outlet for people has been social media, which is both a blessing and a curse in terms of people are more forthcoming about what they’re experiencing in their lives. The flip side of that is there’s a tendency to portray perfectionism, which I think is challenging for kids to try to feel that they’re not good enough, they’re not — they’re not good enough when they compare themselves to others on social media. But again, I do think there has been an increased need over the course of time and I think that people are more willing to reach out and ask for help.
Frederica Freyberg:
In sum, what message to people who might need help do you have?
Kirsten Johnson:
That there is help. That there is hope. That there are outlets. That you can call 988. The other really valuable tool that we have at 988 in Wisconsin is it’s connected to 211, which is a robust system of resources. So those 988 — the people answering the phone are able to give local resources to people who call, and I think it’s a tremendous value to Wisconsinites.
Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Kirsten Johnson, thanks very much.
Kirsten Johnson:
Thank you for having me.
Frederica Freyberg:
Turning to the environment, at least 45% of tap water contains the cancer-causing forever chemicals known as PFAS. That’s according to a recent nationwide study from the U.S. Geological Survey, varying greatly depending on where you live. As research into PFAS expands, so does the reach of where it is found in everyday lives. For more on how to mitigate exposure to these chemicals in your own home, we turn to Joe Grande, water quality manager for the Madison Water Utility. Thanks for being here.
Joe Grande:
Glad to be here.
Frederica Freyberg:
So Wisconsin clearly has PFAS in all corners and in some place, there are definite PFAS hot spots, but how does someone know if they have exposure to PFAS in their drinking water and whether it’s enough to worry about?
Joe Grande:
Sure. So really depends on what the source is of their drinking water. Whether they are served by a public utility or whether they have a private well and it’s their own individual responsibility. So if they’re on a public water system or a public utility, they should reach out to their utility. Maybe they receive information from their consumer confidence report or their annual water quality report and it reports on that. So the largest utilities in the state would have done their initial testing late in 2022, so that should be reported on their current consumer confidence report. Some of the smaller utilities across the state are currently doing that testing. So they might not have those results already reported, but that’s one way that they can find out. Checking the websites for their individual utility or just calling the utility and asking, “Have you tested for PFAS? If you have, have you found anything and what have you found?”
Frederica Freyberg:
And so if people do see in those reports or through private well testing that they have high levels of PFAS, what should they do about it? How do you mitigate that in your drinking water?
Joe Grande:
There are treatment alternatives. I’m not here to advocate one way or the other, but there are treatment alternatives that can reduce PFAS concentrations in drinking water. Those include activated carbon, sometimes called like a charcoal filter. It might be in a pitcher filter. It might be something that’s attached to your kitchen sink. There’s also anion exchange, which is less commonly used. That’s more for large users like utilities that are treating it before it’s sent out to consumers. And then there’s reverse osmosis, and that’s another way that you can remove. So those are the three general technologies that are available.
Frederica Freyberg:
And so apart from kind of the pitchers that you use by filling it with tap water in your kitchen, can people install those other kinds of filters that filter the water at its source?
Joe Grande:
Yeah, I mean they could be attached under the kitchen sink, for example. You might have a separate faucet that’s delivering that filtered water, and that might be, like I said, it might be a carbon-based system or it might be a reverse osmosis system, and so those systems are available.
Frederica Freyberg:
Can people do that themselves or do have to have a plumber?
Joe Grande:
Typically, depends on how handy you are. Some people might be able to do that on your own, but in most cases, it’s probably a plumber that’s going to need to come in and do that.
Frederica Freyberg:
We got an email from a viewer who talked about the disposal of used filters for PFAS and that they are then contaminated. Right? And how should those be disposed of, those filters?
Joe Grande:
There really isn’t an infrastructure set up for handling those. Quite frankly, the concentrations or the amount of PFAS that might be on those filters is really small quantities, and so there really isn’t any regulation in terms of or special disposal recommendations for that. Typically, you would just put it in the trash and then it would end up in the landfill. The problem with PFAS is that they are these — excuse me, forever chemicals, and so they don’t break down. We’re not destroying them with our treatment processes. All we’re doing is concentrating them and moving them somewhere else. And we have to find some way, technology has to advance to break these down and to break that cycle.
Frederica Freyberg:
So PFAS in groundwater and drinking water seems to get kind of the bulk of the attention, but we’re exposed to these chemicals in a lot of other ways in our daily lives. How much should we focus on water versus the other areas of exposure?
Joe Grande:
Yeah. I think we should focus on all of them. Food in particular, in some local bodies of water, there are fish advisories, so that’s one piece. There’s the drinking water, but there’s also consumer goods. We’re surrounded by PFAS. It’s in upholstery. It’s in our clothing. It’s in our carpeting. It’s in a lot of paper packaging. So in order to mitigate or reduce our exposures, we need to be looking for PFAS-free alternatives. And some of those do exist and there’s a growing list of companies that are now making PFAS-free alternatives, but if you see the words “stain resistant, stain repellant, grease resistant, water repellant,” all of these typically mean that there’s PFAS in that consumer product. Anti-stick, like your anti-stick cookware, those kind of things in the past certainly have had PFAS and there are now alternatives that are trying to remove those from the consumer supply chain.
Frederica Freyberg:
That’s good, because it’s everywhere. Joe Grande, thanks very much.
Joe Grande:
Thank you.
Frederica Freyberg:
In political news, the idea of launching third-party candidates in the 2024 presidential race is gaining steam. In addition to Cornell West planning on a Green Party ticket, the centrist group, No Labels, which is looking for a so-called unity candidate, is eyeing potentials like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Where does this put the major party candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden and how would Wisconsin swing with a third party entrant? For this and more we turn to UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky. Thank you for being here.
Anthony Chergosky:
Thank you, Frederica.
Frederica Freyberg:
Given the major party candidates, is this upcoming election ripe for third party candidates?
Anthony Chergosky:
You know, I thought that was true of the 2016 presidential election. I looked back at the popular vote from that year and found that nearly 95% of the popular vote went to either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. So count me as a third party skeptic. There tends to be a lot of talk about third party entrants potentially coming into the presidential race, and it ends up being a lot of hype and not a lot of votes for that third party candidate. I’m interested to see how the campaign unfolds, obviously, before making a final judgment, but the American political system makes it extraordinarily difficult for a third party ticket to succeed. I expect that will be true this time around. Of course we’ll have to wait and see exactly how the campaign unfolds.
Frederica Freyberg:
Let’s say we do have a third party entrant. Whose votes would it cut into more? Biden’s or Trump’s?
Anthony Chergosky:
That is the million dollar question Frederica. And right now, I’m seeing inconsistent data on whether the third party candidate would be a so-called spoiler for either side, and that is what the parties are focused on. They want to know if the third party is going to take away votes from their side or the other side. We typically don’t think about third party candidates as having a serious chance of winning. We think about them potentially playing that spoiler role where they could throw the election one way or the other. To the point about Wisconsin, the third party candidate could be highly relevant in Wisconsin, even if the third party candidate would not win the state because our elections here are so close. In Wisconsin, a third party candidate could make a big difference, even if they only take a small percentage of the vote.
Frederica Freyberg:
Looking back in presidential electoral history, what’s an example of a third party candidate that did, in effect, spoil candidates’ chances of taking the seat? I mean, Ralph Nader comes to mind, Ross Perot.
Anthony Chergosky:
Ralph Nader for sure comes to mind because Ralph Nader ran as a left-wing candidate. Thus, he would take away votes from Al Gore, the Democrat. There, it was quite clear who the third party candidate was taking away votes from. And in the case of Ralph Nader, Frederica, the big deal there was Florida, where Florida was decided by such a tight margin that even though Nader didn’t get a huge percentage of the vote he got enough of the percentage to potentially swing the election in favor of George W. Bush, and that’s what we would be really looking for if a third party candidate makes the ballot in Wisconsin in 2024.
Frederica Freyberg:
Right, so the trepidation on the part of the major party candidates in Wisconsin is real around a third party potential?
Anthony Chergosky:
It is because only a small number of states actually matter in the electoral college, and so the big question is, if a third party candidate would be on the ballot in that small number of pivotal states and which side that third party candidate may take votes from.
Frederica Freyberg:
So in the third congressional district where you are, Democrats are kind of lining up to run against incumbent Derrick Van Orden there. Rebecca Cooke who lost in the primary to Brad Pfaff is officially in. So they must think that the first-term Republican is beatable?
Anthony Chergosky:
I think so, Frederica. A lot is going to depend on the national political context in 2024. We don’t know if 2024 is going to be a Republican-friendly year or a Democratic Party-friendly year. That remains to be seen and that’s going to have a huge effect on the outcome in this district, but in anticipation of potentially a favorable political climate, a lot of Democrats are looking at running against first-term Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden, viewing him as potentially vulnerable because he won his previous election by less than four percentage points.
Frederica Freyberg:
He has moderated, it seems to me, in political messaging since that time.
Anthony Chergosky:
I would agree with that, Frederica. He has focused a lot on, like, railroad safety. He’s focused on mental health, trying to find that common ground with Democrats, trying to have some bipartisan positions. Congressman Van Orden also takes some positions that are very much in line with his political party when you look at his position on immigration or his position on guns. So I would describe Congressman Van Orden as trying to generate some publicity and generate some momentum behind bipartisan efforts while also sticking with his party on other issues.
Frederica Freyberg:
So Brad Pfaff says he’s considering running again but awaits new district maps. How would that help him or other Democrats?
Anthony Chergosky:
There is a very real possibility that the Wisconsin State Supreme Court could enter the picture and redraw the congressional maps. Most likely, that would result in the third congressional district here in western Wisconsin becoming more favorable to the Democratic Party. There are several ways that the district maps could be redrawn, but a lot of Democrats are very much aware of the possibility that this district could be redrawn to make it more favorable terrain for their party.
Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Professor Anthony Chergosky out of UW-La Crosse, thanks very much for your expertise.
Anthony Chergosky:
Thank you.
Frederica Freyberg:
The explosion of mainstream use of artificial intelligence tools has led to the very developers of this technology warning of its dangers, including extinction, but their extensive everyday use is here to stay. We turn to Lois Brooks, chief information officer and vice provost for information technology at UW-Madison and thanks for being here.
Lois Brooks:
Thank you for inviting me.
Frederica Freyberg:
So it’s not only AI, but generative AI, which can generate context — content like text or images that has really exploded into the mainstream. What is it about the mass use of this generative AI that’s been a game-changer?
Lois Brooks:
So AI has been present for quite a long time, and you’ve probably interacted with it through things like chatbots or finding the best travel fares. What happened with generative AI is tools like ChatGPT made it accessible to anyone to begin to generate content. So you can go generate a report or the draft of an email or an image or video yourself, and so we’ve seen this explosion in creativity with people creating songs and poetry and movies and all sorts of things with AI. But at the same time, the quality of some of it is so good that it’s hard to tell whether it was generated by a machine or not. So we have simultaneously an explosion of new content and a concern that you may not know if what you’re looking at was created by an AI engine or the human who it’s attributed to.
Frederica Freyberg:
Why is that dangerous, if at all?
Lois Brooks:
If you’re looking, for example, at a video of someone saying something on social media, you don’t know if that person actually said that or if someone used AI to generate it. Similarly, if you’re reading a report, an analysis of something, you don’t know whether that was written by an expert who could be credible or an engine that may be putting out false information. And again, because the quality is good enough, sometimes it’s quite hard to tell.
Frederica Freyberg:
Is the accuracy getting better and better?
Lois Brooks:
It’s hard to say. There is more and more data being amassed within the engines that can be used to create more output, but the accuracy would come from two things. One, from the data itself being accurate that went into it and then from the algorithms used to create giving you accurate information. So I couldn’t say that it’s becoming more accurate, but I will say the questions about its accuracy are becoming more present and sharper.
Frederica Freyberg:
Which is important as well. So speaking of data, the university recently put out a statement restricting the use of institutional data that is not considered public from being entered into any generative AI tool. Why that restriction?
Lois Brooks:
Well, we already have restrictions in place. We have a lot of data that’s legally protected, like student data or personnel data or medical information. We do use software applications to manage that data, but we very carefully check it for cybersecurity and enter into contracts that help with protection. These AI tools haven’t been scrutinized. The way they work may or may not be appropriate for certain kinds of data and we’re not in a contractually protected environment. So there was nothing — AI itself isn’t bad and there’s nothing new about this. It was really a reminder to our community of the standards we already have in place for working with sensitive data.
Frederica Freyberg:
So machine learning has been around for a while and in academic use. What’s an example of it, its use at the university?
Lois Brooks:
Well, we’ve been doing AI research for more than a decade at the university and our researchers are contributing to the development, to the power and the possibility of AI to research into ethics and bias. We’re also using it in research. So just a few examples. If you’re working with a chemical therapy, perhaps medicine, and you need to understand the chemical and physical interactions, you can train AI algorithms to do that work for you, but it can do it on a mass scale that you couldn’t achieve before. Another example, one of our researchers is working with agricultural animals and tracking data on the animals around their well-being, their nutrition and so on. But again, the difference is he can do this work on a massive scale that he wasn’t able to accomplish in the past, and so we’re seeing it come up in transportation, in space science, in medicine, in many areas.
Frederica Freyberg:
As to students’ use of AI, generative AI, to complete assignments, even major ones like term papers, what is the university’s position on this?
Lois Brooks:
Well, there are two ways to take that question. Are they using AI in a way that’s been assigned or that’s not been assigned? So we teach AI. We teach it in computer science. We teach science that uses AI, so helping our students learn how to use this appropriately. There is also an active conversation around the use of AI to, for example, generate a paper that the student was expected to write. There’s an active conversation in a couple of ways. First, the standards haven’t changed. Cheating has always been disallowed. This is just a new way to potentially do it. But we’re also having active conversation with our professors around are there ways to assess student performance that step around this question: oral exams, active learning, project-based learning, that would not introduce the possibility of a machine-generated response.
Frederica Freyberg:
Super interesting. Are we moving too fast for these tools without adequate safeguards in place?
Lois Brooks:
There’s an interesting question now around regulatory compliance and AI and in fact, a potential statement from the White House today around the use of water marking in images. The — I think it’s moving very, very quickly, and the concern I have is whether the conversation around regulatory compliance is strictly between the government, the Congress and Legislature, and big tech companies. And I think to do this correctly, there needs to be a way for experts, for ethicists, for citizens to weigh into the conversation as well. So we are moving quickly. Will we move so quickly that we as citizens can’t weigh in on the conversation is a concern for me.
Frederica Freyberg:
Interesting. Lois Brooks, thanks very much.
Lois Brooks:
Thank you.
Frederica Freyberg:
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.
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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
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