Teaching Culturally Sensitive Care to Dental Students: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Dental schools must prepare future dentists to deliver culturally sensitive care to diverse patient populations, but there is little agreement on how best to teach these skills to students. This article examines this question by exploring the historical and theoretical foundations of this area of education in dentistry, analyzes what is needed for students to learn to provide culturally sensitive care in a dental setting, and identifies the discipline-specific skills students must master to develop this competence. The problems associated with single-discipline, lecture-based approaches to teaching culturally sensitive care are outlined, and the advantages of an interdisciplinary, patient-centered, skills-based approach to teaching culturally sensitive care are described. The authors advocate for an approach to teaching culturally sensitive care that builds upon learning in the behavioral sciences, ethics, and public health. Component skills and perspectives offered by each of these curriculum areas are identified, and their contributions to the teaching of culturally sensitive care are described. Finally, the need to consider the timing of this instruction in the dental curriculum is examined, along with instructional advantages associated with an approach that is shared by faculty across the curriculum

Information sharing in e-government initiatives: Freedom of Information and Data Protection issues concerning local government

In e-government initiatives, the sharing of information is crucial for empowering citizens and boosting joined-up services. The lack of clear guidance on how to share government data can potentially harm Freedom of Information and or Data Protection rights. This article addresses this issue by drawing from the main concerns governments have when dealing with Freedom of Information and Data Protection issues. As illustration, we comment on the findings of a case study we have conducted in a Local Authority in the United Kingdom (UK). Our findings show that local government managers might be struggling to adequately implement Freedom of Information and Data Protection aspects. Cultural aspects are subtly present in this context, as managers’ values and beliefs regarding public access to information might be biased toward either information disclosure or information withholding

User interface design for mobile-based sexual health interventions for young people: Design recommendations from a qualitative study on an online Chlamydia clinical care pathway

Background: The increasing pervasiveness of mobile technologies has given potential to transform healthcare by facilitating clinical management using software applications. These technologies may provide valuable tools in sexual health care and potentially overcome existing practical and cultural barriers to routine testing for sexually transmitted infections. In order to inform the design of a mobile health application for STIs that supports self-testing and self-management by linking diagnosis with online care pathways, we aimed to identify the dimensions and range of preferences for user interface design features among young people. Methods: Nine focus group discussions were conducted (n=49) with two age-stratified samples (16 to 18 and 19 to 24 year olds) of young people from Further Education colleges and Higher Education establishments. Discussions explored young people's views with regard to: the software interface; the presentation of information; and the ordering of interaction steps. Discussions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Four over-arching themes emerged: privacy and security; credibility; user journey support; and the task-technology-context fit. From these themes, 20 user interface design recommendations for mobile health applications are proposed. For participants, although privacy was a major concern, security was not perceived as a major potential barrier as participants were generally unaware of potential security threats and inherently trusted new technology. Customisation also emerged as a key design preference to increase attractiveness and acceptability. Conclusions: Considerable effort should be focused on designing healthcare applications from the patient's perspective to maximise acceptability. The design recommendations proposed in this paper provide a valuable point of reference for the health design community to inform development of mobile-based health interventions for the diagnosis and treatment of a number of other conditions for this target group, while stimulating conversation across multidisciplinary communities

From the beginning: negotiation in community evaluation

This article focuses on negotiation and discusses its relevance for evaluators. Given the impetus for participatory evaluation, evaluators would benefit from improving skills that enable them to make collaborative decisions and work alongside stakeholders, in particular in community evaluations. Negotiation skills are explored through post hoc reflection of a Sure Start programme evaluation in a UK setting. Literature on stakeholder involvement and negotiation is discussed together with the UK evaluation. Recommendations are made on how to utilize elements of negotiation in community programme evaluation. Key skills are highlighted, including attention to: working with emotional situations, face-giving, rapport and creativity, timing, perceptions and improvisation

FIELD - GUIDE : 3 STEPS FOR WORKING IN FRAGILE AND CONFLICT-AFFECTED SITUATIONS (WFCS)

This Manual was developed by HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation together with the Centre for Peacebuilding (KOFF) at swisspeace. It aims at providing hands on guidance to field-based staff of development organisations that are working in fragile and conlict affected situations

Location-based language learning for migrants in a smart city

The SALSA (Sensors and Apps for Languages in Smart Areas) project, a winner of the Open University’s MK:Smart Open Challenge awards, is investigating how a smart city infrastructure can enable the provision of highly accurate, location-based learning activities for language learners, particularly recent migrants who have a real need to learn the language of their new home. Second language acquisition is perceived by adult migrants themselves, as well as host governments, “as a crucial factor for socio-economic and cultural integration” 1. The city is a rich environment for language learning, providing opportunities for learning through observation, conversation, and social interaction during daily activities 2. Providing learning activities accessed on smartphones, mobile ICT devices that are owned by and familiar to many migrants, enables the city to become an educational environment for an audience who may struggle to attend classroom based language courses at fixed times and places due to family and work related constraints1. Learning activities provided on smartphones enable personalised and flexible educational approach for a heterogenous group of learners, with differing needs and abilities 3. Language learning educators identify that location-based and context-sensitive resources and activities are a powerful resource for learners 4; and the mobility of smartphones makes them a particularly suitable platform for this mode of learning. SALSA (http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/salsa/ ) is exploring the use of Bluetooth beacons placed around the city to trigger location-based learning resources in an app on learners’ smartphones. Once a learner has downloaded the app to their smartphone, they will be notified when they are near to a beacon and offered the opportunity to engage with a context-relevant learning activity stored in the app. Beacons are a low cost technology suitable for large scale deployment, transmitting a simple identifier that is interpreted by a smartphone app to trigger a predefined action, such as presenting the user with sample phrases suitable for the context, a listening exercise, or prompts for reflection. No network connection is required to engage with the learning activities, which enables the system to work indoors as well as outside, and at no network cost (a key consideration for low-income and internationally transient users). Beacons enable highly accurate identification of relative smartphone location, allowing for a density of different resources to be triggered in the same area, hence have been employed in scenarios such as providing information about exhibits in galleries, and guiding visually impaired customers through the London Underground (http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31754365 ). As a wireless technology they enable a discrete engagement with learning activities for situations where they may choose not to explicitly engage with a trigger such as a QR code printed on a poster: the user is prompted by a notification to their smartphone similar to an SMS, with an onscreen message and optional phone vibration. Because a beacon only broadcasts an identifier which is then interpreted by the app on the user’s phone, no data about who is receiving the signal and acting upon it is collected by default. This offers users an anonymous interaction, which may be valued by groups of users such as recent migrants who can be sensitive to perceived privacy issues. As part of the SALSA project we are exploring users’ perceptions of the privacy aspects of location-triggered technologies; investigating how we might both ensure user privacy, yet also consider potential methods of collecting usage data to improve user experience (e.g. by personalizing learning resources based on their previous activities) and optimisation of service provision (placing of beacons, revision of learning activities to reflect users’ needs). SALSA is a small scale pilot project currently in progress in Milton Keynes, and will report on theoretical work ,and initial findings from the field trials that are about to commence in Spring 2015. The trials will gather attitudinal, usability and learning-effectiveness data from a range of current adult English language learners who live or work in the town, and aim to inform educators, city planners, and policy makers about the benefits and challenges of implementing location-based language learning service utilizing smart city infrastructures. 1. Kluzer, S., Ferrari, A., and Centeno, C. Language learning by adult migrants: policy challenges and ICT responses. Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Seville, Spain, 2011. 2. Kukulska-Hulme, A., & Bull, S. (2009). Theory-based support for mobile language learning: noticing and recording. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 3(2), p. 12–18. 3. Gaved, M., Jones, A., Kukulska-Hulme, A. and Scanlon, E. A citizen-centred approach to education in the smart city: incidental language learning for supporting the inclusion of recent migrants. International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence 3, 4 (2012), p. 50–64. 4. Edge, D., Searle, E., Chiu, K., Zhao, J., & Landay, J. (2011). MicroMandarin: mobile language learning in context. Proc. CHI2011, ACM Press (2011), p. 3169-3178

Effect of interview modes on measurement of identity

In this paper, we investigate the effect of interview mode on responses to attitudinal and autobiographical questions: a 13-item multidimensional identity module. We find small but significant mode effects of three to seven percentage points on the response pattern for the domains of national identity, religion, racial or ethnic background, political beliefs and sexual orientation. We also find very small but significant mode effects of one to two percentage points on item non-response for occupational identity and identification with father’s ethnic background. We conclude that mode effects on these questions can convincingly be interpreted as stemming from social desirability bias