A gender synchronized family planning intervention for married couples in rural India: study protocol for the CHARM2 cluster randomized controlled trial evaluation.

BackgroundPrior research from India demonstrates a need for family planning counseling that engages both women and men, offers complete family planning method mix, and focuses on gender equity and reduces marital sexual violence (MSV) to promote modern contraceptive use. Effectiveness of the three-session (two male-only sessions and one couple session) Counseling Husbands to Achieve Reproductive Health and Marital Equity (CHARM) intervention, which used male health providers to engage and counsel husbands on gender equity and family planning (GE + FP), was demonstrated by increased pill and condom use and a reduction in MSV. However, the intervention had limited reach to women and was therefore unable to expand access to highly effective long acting reversible contraceptives such as the intrauterine device (IUD). We developed a second iteration of the intervention, CHARM2, which retains the three sessions from the original CHARM but adds female provider- delivered counseling to women and offers a broader array of contraceptives including IUDs. This protocol describes the evaluation of CHARM2 in rural Maharashtra.MethodsA two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial will evaluate CHARM2, a gender synchronized GE + FP intervention. Eligible married couples (n = 1200) will be enrolled across 20 clusters in rural Maharashtra, India. Health providers will be gender-matched to deliver two GE + FP sessions to the married couples in parallel, and then a final session will be delivered to the couple together. We will conduct surveys on demographics as well as GE and FP indicators at baseline, 9-month, and 18-month follow-ups with both men and women, and pregnancy tests at each time point from women. In-depth interviews will be conducted with a subsample of couples (n = 50) and providers (n = 20). We will conduct several implementation and monitoring activities for purposes of assuring fidelity to intervention design and quality of implementation, including recruitment and tracking logs, provider evaluation forms, session observation forms, and participant satisfaction surveys.DiscussionWe will complete the recruitment of participants and collection of baseline data by July 2019. Findings from this work will offer important insight for the expansion of the national family planning program and improving quality of care for India and family planning interventions globally.Trial registrationClinicalTrial.gov, NCT03514914

The future of corporate reporting: a review article

Significant changes in the corporate external reporting environment have led to proposals for fundamental changes in corporate reporting practices. Recent influential reports by major organisations have suggested that a variety of new information types be reported, in particular forward-looking, non-financial and soft information. This paper presents a review and synthesis of these reports and provides a framework for classifying and describing suggested information types. The existence of academic antecedents for certain current proposals are identified and the ambiguous relationship between research and practice is explored. The implications for future academic research are discussed and a research agenda is introduced

Benchmarking Branch Outcomes: Using Available Data to Analyze and Improve the Delivery of Retail Bank Services to Low-Wealth Communities

This report demonstrates that measuring how well a bank provides basic banking services to low-wealth consumers could be done using existing data. Using proprietary data collected from two bank branches located in low-wealth communities, it shows that the type of transaction level data, previously thought to be unavailable to regulators and costly to collect for financialinstitutions, is routinely collected by at least one large bank for marketing purposes

What does it take to make integrated care work? A ‘cookbook’ for large-scale deployment of coordinated care and telehealth

The Advancing Care Coordination & Telehealth Deployment (ACT) Programme is the first to explore the organisational and structural processes needed to successfully implement care coordination and telehealth (CC&TH) services on a large scale. A number of insights and conclusions were identified by the ACT programme. These will prove useful and valuable in supporting the large-scale deployment of CC&TH. Targeted at populations of chronic patients and elderly people, these insights and conclusions are a useful benchmark for implementing and exchanging best practices across the EU. Examples are: Perceptions between managers, frontline staff and patients do not always match; Organisational structure does influence the views and experiences of patients: a dedicated contact person is considered both important and helpful; Successful patient adherence happens when staff are engaged; There is a willingness by patients to participate in healthcare programmes; Patients overestimate their level of knowledge and adherence behaviour; The responsibility for adherence must be shared between patients and health care providers; Awareness of the adherence concept is an important factor for adherence promotion; The ability to track the use of resources is a useful feature of a stratification strategy, however, current regional case finding tools are difficult to benchmark and evaluate; Data availability and homogeneity are the biggest challenges when evaluating the performance of the programmes

Studies in Trade and Investment: The Development Impact of Information Technology in Trade Facilitation

The main purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview and the context of the country studies on IT in TF in SMEs. Following this introductory clarification of the differing views about the importance of IT in TF, where the interests of SMEs lay and how these interests are promoted, section A summarizes the different country studies covering several aspects of IT in TF. Section B derives some implications from the country studies. Section C introduces the contents of the succeeding chapters.Trade facilitation, ICT, IT, SMEs

Canadian national sport organisations’ use of the web for relationship marketing in promoting sport participation

Sport participation development requires a systematic process which involves knowledge creation, dissemination and interactions between National Sport Organisations, participants, clubs and associations as well as other agencies. Using a relationship marketing approach (Grönroos, 1997, Gummesson, 2002, Olkkonen, 1999), this paper addressed the question ‘How do Canadian NSOs use the Web, in terms of functionality and services offered, to create and maintain relationships with sport participants and their sport delivery partners?’ Ten Canadian NSOs’ websites were examined: functionality was analysed using Burgess and Cooper’s (2000) eMICA model, while NSOs’ utilisation of the Internet to establish and maintain relationships with sport participants was analysed using Wang, Head and Archer’s (2000) relationship-building process model for the Web. It was found that Canadian NSOs were receptive to the use of the Web, but their information-gathering and dissemination activities, which make-up the relationship-building process, appear sparse, and in some cases are lagging behind the voluntary sector in the country

Towards a network government? A critical analysis of current assessment methods for e-government

Contemporary public administrations have become increasingly more complex, having to cordinate actions with emerging actors in the public and the private spheres. In this scenario the modern ICTs have begun to be seen as an ideal vehicle to resolve some of the problems of public administration. We argue that there is a clear need to explore the extent to which public administrations are undergoing a process of transformation towards a netowork government linked to the systematic incorporation of ICTs in their basic activities. Through critically analysing a selection of e-government evaluation reports, we conclude that research should be carried out if we are to build a solid government assessment framework based on network-like organisation characteristics

Social Inclusiveness of Electronic Public Service Delivery in Germany - A Quantitative Analysis

Digital divide is, despite all efforts in research and practice, a matter of fact in most societies. In search for specific strategies to promote digital inclusion, one has to ask for what are the specific reasons and factors behind the problem. Here, the field of E-Government features several particular characteristics, including high privacy and security demands or high complexity of administrative processes, which might hinder the societal inclusiveness of such electronic public service delivery. Addressing the question of what could be possible explanations for a lack of inclusiveness in E-Government, we develop an E-Government-inclusion-gap-model and conduct a quantitative analysis of statistical data on E-Government usage in Germany, taking into account specific social digital divide groups, such as senior citizens, people with low education or people without employment. Here, we contrast E-Government usage with E-Commerce and internet usage. Specific inclusion gaps in E-Government and their underlying issues are analysed and specific recommendations given