Linking Research and Policy: Assessing a Framework for Organic Agricultural Support in Ireland

This paper links social science research and agricultural policy through an analysis of support for organic agriculture and food. Globally, sales of organic food have experienced 20% annual increases for the past two decades, and represent the fastest growing segment of the grocery market. Although consumer interest has increased, farmers are not keeping up with demand. This is partly due to a lack of political support provided to farmers in their transition from conventional to organic production. Support policies vary by country and in some nations, such as the US, vary by state/province. There have been few attempts to document the types of support currently in place. This research draws on an existing Framework tool to investigate regionally specific and relevant policy support available to organic farmers in Ireland. This exploratory study develops a case study of Ireland within the framework of ten key categories of organic agricultural support: leadership, policy, research, technical support, financial support, marketing and promotion, education and information, consumer issues, inter-agency activities, and future developments. Data from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), and other governmental and semi-governmental agencies provide the basis for an assessment of support in each category. Assessments are based on the number of activities, availability of information to farmers, and attention from governmental personnel for each of the ten categories. This policy framework is a valuable tool for farmers, researchers, state agencies, and citizen groups seeking to document existing types of organic agricultural support and discover policy areas which deserve more attention

Patient involvement in selection of immunosuppressive regimen following transplantation.

Transplantation has made a considerable difference to the lives of many patients. However, feedback from patients indicates that although having a transplant is a hugely positive experience, having to take medications indefinitely is one of the biggest challenges. An ideal scenario would be no medications following a transplant. A compromise would be a minimal number of medications, with minimal restrictions and as simple a regimen as possible. Although there is considerable research going into fine-tuning the management of the immune response to a transplant, to date there is no universal regimen that enables patients to remain free of immunosuppressant medications, making adherence paramount to maintain long-term allograft survival. This paper reviews the available immunosuppressant regimens and factors influencing choice from both the clinician's and the patient's perspective. Factors influencing the decision-making process, such as quality of life for patients, their satisfaction, acceptability, and adherence uptake are reviewed. We conclude with a further assessment of patient choice as a factor in regimen selection, its impact on adherence, and its implications

Women as moral pioneers? Experiences of first trimester antenatal screening

Copyright @ 2005 Elsevier Ltd.The implementation of innovative medical technologies can raise unprecedented ethical, legal and social dilemmas. This is particularly so in the area of antenatal screening, which is dominated by the language of risk and probabilities. Second trimester serum screening for Down's syndrome and neural tube defects has a well-established place in antenatal care. Increasingly, first trimester screening with biochemical and ultrasound markers is being proposed as advance on this, yielding higher detection rates of Down's syndrome at an earlier gestational age. This article explores the experiences of 14 women offered innovative first trimester screening, which takes place within the context of a detailed ultrasound scan. The study is set within the UK, where recent policy changes mean that the offer of screening for fetal anomalies, particularly Down's syndrome, will become a routine part of antenatal care and offered to all pregnant women. This paper focuses on the significance of the scan in first trimester screening, and some of the potential dilemmas for women that can result from this. It then discusses the ways in which women made their decisions about screening, in particular, their work as ‘moral pioneers’. We found that the part played by the ultrasound scan in first trimester screening, particularly in relation to the higher-quality images now being obtained, has the potential to introduce new and novel ethical dilemmas for pregnant women. Although concerns have been raised about pregnant women viewing ultrasound scans as benign, many of the women reported having thought carefully through their own moral beliefs and values prior to screening. It seems that whatever other implications they may have, first trimester screening technologies will continue the tradition of pregnant women acting as ‘moral pioneers’ in increasingly complex settings.ESRC/MRC Innovative Health Technologies Programme for funding the project (grant no: L218252042). CW acknowledges the support of The Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Programme in funding her postdoctoral fellowship, which enabled her to work on this project

Re-conceptualising the link between research and practice in social work: a literature review on knowledge utilisation

Despite the recent movement towards greater research use in many areas of social work, criticisms persist that decision making in practice is seldom informed by sound research evidence. Discourse about the research-to-practice gap in social work has tended to focus on the feasibility of evidence-based practice for the profession, but has rarely drawn from the broader knowledge utilisation literature. There are important understandings to be gained from the knowledge utilisation field, which spans more than six decades of interdisciplinary research.This article introduces the wider knowledge utilisation literature to a social work audience. It considers the potential of this body of literature to facilitate research use in social work, as well as conceptual issues that may be hindering it from informing improvements to research utilisation in practice

A pilot Internet "Value of Health" Panel: recruitment, participation and compliance

Objectives To pilot using a panel of members of the public to provide preference data via the Internet Methods A stratified random sample of members of the general public was recruited and familiarised with the standard gamble procedure using an Internet based tool. Health states were perdiodically presented in "sets" corresponding to different conditions, during the study. The following were described: Recruitment (proportion of people approached who were trained); Participation (a) the proportion of people trained who provided any preferences and (b) the proportion of panel members who contributed to each "set" of values; and Compliance (the proportion, per participant, of preference tasks which were completed). The influence of covariates on these outcomes was investigated using univariate and multivariate analyses. Results A panel of 112 people was recruited. 23% of those approached (n = 5,320) responded to the invitation, and 24% of respondents (n = 1,215) were willing to participate (net = 5.5%). However, eventual recruitment rates, following training, were low (2.1% of those approached). Recruitment from areas of high socioeconomic deprivation and among ethnic minority communities was low. Eighteen sets of health state descriptions were considered over 14 months. 74% of panel members carried out at least one valuation task. People from areas of higher socioeconomic deprivation and unmarried people were less likely to participate. An average of 41% of panel members expressed preferences on each set of descriptions. Compliance ranged from 3% to 100%. Conclusion It is feasible to establish a panel of members of the general public to express preferences on a wide range of health state descriptions using the Internet, although differential recruitment and attrition are important challenges. Particular attention to recruitment and retention in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation and among ethnic minority communities is necessary. Nevertheless, the panel approach to preference measurement using the Internet offers the potential to provide specific utility data in a responsive manner for use in economic evaluations and to address some of the outstanding methodological uncertainties in this field

Behavioral Economics: Past, Present, Future

Behavioral economics increases the explanatory power of economics by providing it with more realistic psychological foundations. This book consists of representative recent articles in behavioral economics. This chapter is intended to provide an introduction to the approach and methods of behavioral economics, and to some of its major findings, applications, and promising new directions. It also seeks to fill some unavoidable gaps in the chapters’ coverage of topics

On adaptation, life-extension possibilities and the demand for health

A good health is important for having a good life. This is supported by surveys on happiness. However, at least after a certain age, the health state deteriorates naturally over time due to ageing. Nevertheless, research reports show that old people in average are satisfied with their health conditions. This and other empirical evidence indicate that individuals adapt to poorer health conditions. But how will this adaptation influence the demand for health services? Gjerde, Grepperud and Kverndokk will in this paper analyse the impacts of adaptation to a falling health state on the demand for health and medical care. This is done by integrating adaptation processes in the pure consumption model of Grossman. The authors will modify the consumption-model in another direction by introducing an uncertain lifetime. Model simulations show that adaptation affects the health variables by lowering the incentives to invest in health, as well as smoothening the optimal health stock path over the life cycle. Whether or not the risk of mortality is an object of choice has important effects on the joint development of the health variables.Grossman; Demand for health; Adaptation; Life extension; Ageing.