Opportunity Brief: Environmental Data as a Public Good

Environmental data, which takes many forms, is essential for effective climate action, environmental management and public health protection, but has not been prioritized as a useful tool. Current incentives, standards, rules, and regulations related to environmental data are not always workable for communities collecting and using data, nor for government actors who could use this data to better inform policy and decision making. An opportunity to make environmental data work better for us lies in recognizing it as a public good.This brief presents the opportunity to firmly establish environmental data as a public good in both the traditional sense of being non-rival and non-excludable, as well as in expanding the conceptualization of public goods to include utility and equity. To fully reach its potential as a public good, government, community, and academic stakeholders must address four major barriers: (i) lack of awareness of, (ii) overabundance of, (iii) the potential to misuse, and (iv) lack of infrastructure for environmental data resources. The data and its infrastructure must also be workable and useful for users with diverse experiences, capacities, and access to resources.The current political moment presents several opportunities for the use of environmental data as a public good in service of environmental justice and climate solutions. Any efforts to leverage these opportunities should also support understanding, accountability, and the need for useful tools and infrastructure beyond this political cycle

Understanding the Intelligence Practices of State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies

In addition, the study examined the activities of three fusion centers in order to identify strategies that are successful in increasing the information flow across agencies, the major obstacles to effective intelligence-gathering and information-sharing, and identify key practices for integrating domestic intelligence into the information-sharing environment and overcoming these obstacles. The study found that although significant progress has been made since 9/11 in installing fundamental policy and procedures related to building the intelligence capacity of law enforcement, there is significant room for improvement and a need to move agencies forward to be consistent with key requirements. Also, fusion centers are further along in instituting intelligence policies and practices than are individual law enforcement agencies. This is most likely because there has been a focus on developing fusion center operations and expertise by both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. In addition, both samples of respondents emphasized that they have worked at building relationships with a diverse range of agencies, but they also indicated that they are not completely satisfied with these relationships. Further, there is a significant amount of information coming into and going out of these agencies. It is likely that without sufficient analysts within the organizations or poorly trained analysts, there are missed opportunities for strategic and tactical understanding of homeland security and criminal threats. Assessing the performance of analysts is difficult, but respondents emphasized the need to focus on the quality of strategic and tactical products produced

If You Build It, Will They Use It? Challenges in Adoption and Use of Patient-centered E-health

Preventive healthcare services require consumers to coordinate and manage several healthcare activities with multiple service providers. In this paper, we explore the adoption and use of a patient-centered e-health system for managing personal healthcare requirements. Specifically, using the patient-centered e-health (PCEH) framework, we analyzed the data we collected from a qualitative study of consumers who participated in a preventive care program called the Health Enhancement Program (HEP) in Connecticut in the United States and the accompanying e-health service the program offered. Data from the interviews of 15 participants revealed that users found several challenges in adopting and using the e-health system when examined in the context of their lifestyle even though the system had a patient-centric design. These findings provide implications for designing and assessing patient-centered e-health to ensure that users effectively adopt and continue to use them and insights for expanding PCEH theory and practice

Day 1: Wednesday, 17 August 2005: Science and the ESA

43 pages (includes illustrations and map). Contains references

E-Government Travel: Participation by Small Businesses and Estimated Program Savings

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In November 2003, the General Services Administration (GSA) awarded three 10-year e-Government Travel Service (eTS) master contracts as part of the e-Gov Travel initiative, managed by the General Services Administration (GSA), which aims to save costs and improve service by providing a common, integrated approach to managing government travel functions. GSA has projected that e-Gov Travel will realize about $473 million in savings across the government between fiscal years 2002 and 2013. As directed by Senate Report 109-109, GAO is reporting on its study of (1) whether GSA has appropriate mechanisms in place to help ensure the use of small business travel agencies in the e-Gov Travel program and (2) the soundness of GSA's estimate of potential savings. GAO evaluated GSA's small business goals and results and assessed GSA's cost-benefit analysis based on criteria developed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Information Technology: Terrorist Watch Lists Should Be Consolidated to Promote Better Integration and Sharing

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Terrorist and criminal watch list systems--sometimes referred to as watchout, lookout, target, or tip-off systems--are important tools in controlling and protecting our nation's borders. The events of September 11, 2001, and other incidents since then, have highlighted the need to share these watch lists. In light of the importance of border security, GAO was asked to identify federal databases and systems that contain watch lists, the agencies that maintain and use them in protecting our nation's borders, the kind of data they contain, whether federal agencies are sharing information from these lists with each other and with state and local governments and private organizations, the structural characteristics of those lists that are automated, and whether opportunities exist to consolidate these watch lists.

Performance Budgeting: Initial Experiences Under the Results Act in Linking Plans With Budgets

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed selected fiscal year (FY) 1999 federal agency performance plans, focusing on: (1) agencies' approaches to linking performance goals and budgetary resources; (2) characteristics that might be associated with different approaches to linking performance goals and budgetary resources; and (3) implications for future efforts to clarify the relationship between budgetary resources and results.

Advancing Coastal Resilience: An Institutional Analysis of Living Shorelines in New Hampshire

Flooding, coastal erosion, and storm surge pose immediate and increasing risks to our nation’s coasts. In response, both federal and state environmental and natural resource agencies are calling for strategies to promote coastal resilience, such as living shorelines. Living shorelines are shoreline stabilization and restoration techniques that aim to reduce damage from erosion and storms and promote ecosystem functions. Despite policies promoting living shorelines, there are significant challenges to implementing living shorelines in the state of New Hampshire. Using statewide stakeholder interviews, case-specific focus groups, and document analysis, this research analyzes the institutional barriers and opportunities to implementing living shorelines in New Hampshire. Institutional barriers in New Hampshire include the lack of an actor responsible for shoreline management planning, and wetlands rules that classify dual purpose projects into single purpose categories and encourage in-kind replacement of failing grey infrastructure. Institutional opportunities include a wetlands permitting system that creates norms for practice, and opportunities for pre-application and ongoing project meetings with regulators and other stakeholders. This research then applies the lens of social-ecological resilience theory to develop recommendations about which barriers and opportunities should be priorities for institutional change to promote coastal resilience in New Hampshire. Recommendations include designating an actor to coordinate comprehensive shoreline management planning, encouraging pre-application meetings between project applicants and regulators, and utilizing a facilitator to coordinate inclusive project workgroups with participation by diverse stakeholders

State and Local Human Rights Agencies: Recommendations for Advancing Opportunity and Equality Through an International Human Rights Framework

State and local human rights agencies can play a critical role in promoting and protecting human rights close to home. State and local human rights and human relations commissions already operate every day to prevent and eliminate discrimination. These institutions have multiple functions that include enforcing anti-discrimination laws, engaging in community education and training and advocacy. Central to their mission is encouraging and facilitating institutional change to eradicate discrimination and promote equal opportunity. Thus, advancing human rights protections intersects with and, in fact, supports the work of state and local human rights and human relations commissions to encourage and ensure fairness and opportunity locally. This report highlights ways in which an international human rights framework can advance the critical work of state and local human rights and human relations commissions and other state and local agencies, and recommends reforms at the national level that would result in more effective articulation between local, state and federal efforts

Immigrant Workers in the Massachusetts Health Care Industry: A Report on Status and Future Prospects

Given the vital picture of foreign-born health care workers, this study has the following objectives: To document the labor market position of foreign-born workers in the sector at various levels (national, statewide, sub-regional) including patterns of occupational concentration during the last decade or so, prospects for occupational mobility, wages, geographic concentration, employment by type of establishment (hospitals, community health centers, etc.) and workforce development opportunities; To document, whenever possible, the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of foreign-born workers in the sector, including country of origin and gender among others; To document the qualitative contribution of foreign-born workers in the health care delivery environment, especially through cultural and linguistic competence as well as cross cultural communications; To document promising institutional practices in Massachusetts (mainly collaborations and workforce development activities) aimed at improving or modifying the conditions for foreign-born workers and enhancing the labor pool for employers; To document the important role that institutions (universities, research organizations, hospitals, unions and professional associations, government and the non-profit sector) play in shaping the labor market prospects of foreign-born workers in the health care sector; To document critical shortages in some health care professions and occupations; To outline public policy recommendations for broad dissemination