Towards a People's Social Epidemiology: Envisioning a More Inclusive and Equitable Future for Social Epi Research and Practice in the 21st Century.

Social epidemiology has made critical contributions to understanding population health. However, translation of social epidemiology science into action remains a challenge, raising concerns about the impacts of the field beyond academia. With so much focus on issues related to social position, discrimination, racism, power, and privilege, there has been surprisingly little deliberation about the extent and value of social inclusion and equity within the field itself. Indeed, the challenge of translation/action might be more readily met through re-envisioning the role of the people within the research/practice enterprise-reimagining what "social" could, or even should, mean for the future of the field. A potential path forward rests at the nexus of social epidemiology, community-based participatory research (CBPR), and information and communication technology (ICT). Here, we draw from social epidemiology, CBPR, and ICT literatures to introduce A People's Social Epi-a multi-tiered framework for guiding social epidemiology in becoming more inclusive, equitable, and actionable for 21st century practice. In presenting this framework, we suggest the value of taking participatory, collaborative approaches anchored in CBPR and ICT principles and technological affordances-especially within the context of place-based and environmental research. We believe that such approaches present opportunities to create a social epidemiology that is of, with, and by the people-not simply about them. In this spirit, we suggest 10 ICT tools to "socialize" social epidemiology and outline 10 ways to move towards A People's Social Epi in practice

Striking a Balance Between Physical and Digital Resources

In various configurations—be they academic, archival, county, juvenile, monastic, national, personal, public, reference, or research, the library has been a fixture in human affairs for a long time. Digital — meaning, content or communication that is delivered through the internet, is 20 years old (but younger in parts). Basically, both approaches to organizing serve to structure information for access. However, digital is multiplying very fast and libraries all-round contemplate an existential crisis; the more hopeful librarians fret about physical and digital space. Yet, the crux of the matter is not about physical vs. digital: without doubt, the digital space of content or communication transmogrifies all walks of life and cannot be wished away; but, the physical space of libraries is time-tested, extremely valuable, and can surely offer more than currently meets the eye. Except for entirely virtual libraries, the symbiotic relationship between the physical and the digital is innately powerful: for superior outcomes, it must be recognized, nurtured, and leveraged; striking a balance between physical and digital resources can be accomplished. This paper examines the subject of delivering digital from macro, meso, and micro perspectives: it looks into complexity theory, digital strategy, and digitization

Re-Conceptualizing the Economic Incorporation of Immigrants: A Comparison of the Mexican and Vietnamese

Using data from the 2000 5 per cent Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, this article advocates three shifts in our theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding immigrant economic incorporation. First, through a comparison of Mexican and Vietnamese immigrants, these findings highlight the importance of an immigrant population’s relationship to the state for economic outcomes, and cautions against analyses that aggregate the foreign-born population. Second, through a joint analysis of unemployment and poverty outcomes, these findings call for researchers to be specific about the varied aspects of ‘‘economic incorporation’’ and distinguish between factors that drive labor market access, and those that foster material well-being. Lastly, by examining three state economic, demographic and policy variables, this article promotes an approach that takes human capital into account, while also heeding the immigrant context of reception

The Necessity and Importance of Incorporating Media and Information Literacy into Holistic Metaliteracy

Digitalization and the emergence of the Internet have resulted in escalating access to information and communication. Given the circumstances that soaring access to information amounts to the intensification of misinformation and disinformation, a set of critical skills to navigate and critically assess the information is necessary. This paper outlines the significance of these skills, and provides a perspective on metaliteracy as a supplement to media and information literacy, and argues that the ability to conceptualize, access, comprehend, analyze, and use information is crucial in achieving inclusive, pluralistic, and participatory knowledge societies

Beyond Audience Analysis: Conceptualizing Empathy for Technical Communication

The concept of empathy involves understanding others’ perspectives. Technical communication requires knowing the context of users; however, empathy is neither a prominent term nor a common subject in the accompanying literature. This article will establish a foundation for empathy to be conceptualized for technical communication. Several definitions of empathy will be reviewed, followed by applicable resemblances from examples pertaining to audience analysis. A wide‑ranging analysis will connect features of empathy to topics from the areas of user experience, human‑information interaction, user value, business, and design thinking. This article concludes that there is significant value in giving empathetic attention to the emotions and human psychology of users, which are aspects of their context and overall experience that may otherwise be overlooked. The inclusion of empathetic practices for understanding users provides a more in-depth profile, enabling technical communicators to better create information that will meet audience needs

Conceptualizing pathways linking women's empowerment and prematurity in developing countries.

BackgroundGlobally, prematurity is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. Many efforts have focused on clinical approaches to improve the survival of premature babies. There is a need, however, to explore psychosocial, sociocultural, economic, and other factors as potential mechanisms to reduce the burden of prematurity. Women's empowerment may be a catalyst for moving the needle in this direction. The goal of this paper is to examine links between women's empowerment and prematurity in developing settings. We propose a conceptual model that shows pathways by which women's empowerment can affect prematurity and review and summarize the literature supporting the relationships we posit. We also suggest future directions for research on women's empowerment and prematurity.MethodsThe key words we used for empowerment in the search were "empowerment," "women's status," "autonomy," and "decision-making," and for prematurity we used "preterm," "premature," and "prematurity." We did not use date, language, and regional restrictions. The search was done in PubMed, Population Information Online (POPLINE), and Web of Science. We selected intervening factors-factors that could potentially mediate the relationship between empowerment and prematurity-based on reviews of the risk factors and interventions to address prematurity and the determinants of those factors.ResultsThere is limited evidence supporting a direct link between women's empowerment and prematurity. However, there is evidence linking several dimensions of empowerment to factors known to be associated with prematurity and outcomes for premature babies. Our review of the literature shows that women's empowerment may reduce prematurity by (1) preventing early marriage and promoting family planning, which will delay age at first pregnancy and increase interpregnancy intervals; (2) improving women's nutritional status; (3) reducing domestic violence and other stressors to improve psychological health; and (4) improving access to and receipt of recommended health services during pregnancy and delivery to help prevent prematurity and improve survival of premature babies.ConclusionsWomen's empowerment is an important distal factor that affects prematurity through several intervening factors. Improving women's empowerment will help prevent prematurity and improve survival of preterm babies. Research to empirically show the links between women's empowerment and prematurity is however needed

Information Competencies: Bridging the North-South Knowledge Gap (Mortenson Distinguished Lecture)

Knowledge is readily available in middle-income developing countries through international information repositories on the Internet. However, most citizens from the Southern Hemisphere do not possess the information skills or information competencies to access, use and understand such knowledge wealth. Most economically evolving developing countries have made progress in education in recent decades, but they still lag behind in information use/generation, such as book and serials production. Their educational systems seem to inhibit the development of information skills, i.e., competencies that are crucial to citizens to benefit from increasing knowledge growth or to cope with ever-present technological innovations and the changing complexities of the world economy. The development of information competencies in Southern countries is critical to reduce North-South gaps, where knowledge inequality is probably the most important among them. In this paper, information development indicators are utilized to illustrate the current knowledge status of countries and the significant role that constructivist educational systems play in the development of information competencies

Biomimetic bone-like apatite coating on anodised titanium in simulated body fluid under UV irradiation

Low temperature deposition techniques of bioceramics coatings are now being researched and developed to avoid deficiencies inherent in high temperature techniques. Biomimetic coatings are a solution-based method conducted at ambient temperature to deposit bioactive coatings on the surface. The current study aims to investigate the effect of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation on the coating of bone-like apatite on the anodised surface. High purity titanium foils were anodised with an applied voltage of 350 V, current density of 70 mA.cm-2 in mixture of 0.04 M β-glycerophosphate disodium salt pentahydrate (β-GP) and 0.4 M calcium acetate (CA) for 10 min. After anodic oxidation, UV light treatment was conducted in pH-adjusted distilled water for 12 h with ultraviolet light A (UVA) irradiation. Subsequently, the UV-treated anodised titanium foils were soaked in SBF for 7 days with/without UVA irradiation. After SBF immersion for 7 days, anodised titanium with combination of UV light treatment and UV irradiation during in vitro testing was fully covered by highly crystalline bone-like apatite at maximal thickness of 2.8 μm. This occurred mainly due to the formation of large amounts of Ti-OH groups which act as nucleation sites for bone-like apatite. This study also revealed that UV irradiation during in vitro testing is superior in promoting growth of bone-like apatite compared to UV light treatment. The suggested mechanism for bone-like apatite formation on anodised titanium under different UV irradiation conditions is illustrated in this article. The findings of this study indicated that biomimetic bone-like apatite coating with assistance of UV irradiation is an effective method in accelerating the formation of bone-like apatite