Tuberculosis Awareness and Public Opinion on Expanding Health Insurance Coverage

This quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study examined the effect of TB awareness and demographic variables on the level of support for expanding health insurance coverage for all residents, including undocumented immigrants. A modified 13-item tool developed by Morisky et al. (1990) was used to measure TB awareness; a single item created by the researcher assessed personal opinion regarding expansion of health insurance coverage; and a demographic questionnaire was used to collect data from 281 registered voters in San Diego County. The majority of San Diego County voters participating in the study supported at least some expansion of health insurance coverage. ANOVA tests indicated that personal opinion was not associated with awareness of tuberculosis, but was significantly associated with political party affiliation and education level in the initial analysis (p = .000, and .035, respectively). TB awareness was significantly associated with ethnicity (p = .003) and the education level of the participants (p = .004). When the opinion variable was dichotomized and trichotomized, other demographic variables were significantly related. Study findings suggest that efforts to promote public opinion in favor of expanded health insurance coverage need to be differentially targeted to different audiences. Further studies, addressing the underrepresentation of certain groups that occurred in this study, might result in different findings in different parts of the country, especially nonborder areas

Access to Algorithms

Federal, state, and local governments increasingly depend on automated systems — often procured from the private sector — to make key decisions about civil rights and civil liberties. When individuals affected by these decisions seek access to information about the algorithmic methodologies that produced them, governments frequently assert that this information is proprietary and cannot be disclosed.Recognizing that opaque algorithmic governance poses a threat to civil rights and liberties, scholars have called for a renewed focus on transparency and accountability for automated decision making. But scholars have neglected a critical avenue for promoting public accountability and transparency for automated decision making: the law of access to government records and proceedings. This Article fills this gap in the literature, recognizing that the Freedom of Information Act, its state equivalents, and the First Amendment provide unappreciated legal support for algorithmic transparency.The law of access performs three critical functions in promoting algorithmic accountability and transparency. First, by enabling any individual to challenge algorithmic opacity in government records and proceedings, the law of access can relieve some of the burden otherwise borne by parties who are often poor and under-resourced. Second, access law calls into question government’s procurement of algorithmic decision making technologies from private vendors, subject to contracts that include sweeping protections for trade secrets and intellectual property rights. Finally, the law of access can promote an urgently needed public debate on algorithmic governance in the public sector

Transition to low-carbon economy: Assessing cumulative impacts of individual behavioral changes

© 2018 The Authors Changing residential energy demand can play an essential role in transitioning to a green economy. Environmental psychology suggests that behavioral changes regarding energy use are affected by knowledge, awareness, motivation and social learning. Data on various behavioral drivers of change can explain energy use at the individual level, but it provides little information about implications for macro energy demand on regional or national levels. We address this challenge by presenting a theoretically-based and empirically-driven agent-based model to track aggregated impacts of behavioral changes among heterogeneous households. We focus on the representation of the multi-step changes in individual energy use behavior and on a quantitative assessment of their aggregated impacts on the regional level. We understand the behavioral complexity of household energy use as a dynamic process unfolding in stages, and explore the barriers for utilizing the full potential of a region for emissions reduction. We suggest a policy mix that facilitates mutual learning among consumers

Agenda setting and active audiences in online coverage of human trafficking

Online news platforms and social media increasingly influence the public agenda on social issues such as human trafficking. Yet despite the popularity of online news and the availability of sophisticated tools for analyzing digital texts, little is known about the relations between news coverage of human trafficking and audiences’ reactions to and interpretations of such coverage. In this paper, we examine journalists’ and commenters’ topic choices in coverage and discussion of human trafficking in the British newspaper The Guardian from 2009 to 2014. We use latent semantic analysis to identify 11 topics discussed by both journalists and readers, and analyze each topic in terms of the degree to which journalists and readers agree or disagree in their topic preferences. We find that four topics were preferred equally by journalists and commenters, four were preferred by journalists, and three were preferred by commenters. Our findings suggest that theories of ‘agenda setting’ and of the ‘active audience’ are not mutually exclusive, and the scope of explanation of each depends partly on the specific topic or subtopic that is analyzed

Can regional community web portals become sustainable? : the Albany GateWAy : a case study

Asking the question can regional and community web portals become sustainable? demands a foray into many different disciplines. Sociology, education, business, strategic and knowledge management, organisational theory, relationship management and current technological trends and capabilities are some of the areas on which community projects, such us the development of communities on-line, are founded

Assessing the growing impact and potential of social networking mediums in crisis communication in South Africa : A Case Study of the South African Protection of State Information Bill

Includes bibliography.With new political developments breeding opportunities for crises, proliferation of new media types increasing exposure to crises, there is a growing awareness of the potential, influence, impact and capabilities of social media. Focusing on South Africa's Secrecy Bill, a crisis with implications on access to information and media freedom, this study provides a discussion of the dynamics of crisis communication online. By undertaking an analysis of the uses of social media during deliberations of the Secrecy Bill and its implications, the study sought to explore how young South Africans have embraced social media as a communication tool. An examination of the literature reveals that younger generations are frequent bloggers and users of Twitter, a popular social media site. Focusing on these two platforms, through a qualitative content analysis, findings show that their contribution to deliberations was mainly to make sense of the crisis and distribute relevant materials relating to the debate

Where can teens find health information? A survey of web portals designed for teen health information seekers

The Web is an important source for health information for most teens with access to the Web (Gray et al, 2005a; Kaiser, 2001). While teens are likely to turn to the Web for health information, research has indicated that their skills in locating, evaluating and using health information are weak (Hansen et al, 2003; Skinner et al, 2003, Gray et al, 2005b). This behaviour suggests that the targeted approach to finding health information that is offered by web portals would be useful to teens. A web portal is the entry point for information on the Web. It is the front end, and often the filter, that users must pass through in order to link to actual content. Unlike general search engines such as Google, content that is linked to a portal has usually been pre-selected and even created by the organization that hosts the portal, assuring some level of quality control. The underlying architecture of the portal is structured and thus offers an organized approach to exploring a specific health topic. This paper reports on an environmental scan of the Web, the purpose of which was to identify and describe portals to general health information, in English and French, designed specifically for teens. It answers two key questions. First of all, what portals exist? And secondly, what are their characteristics? The portals were analyzed through the lens of four attributes: Usability, interactivity, reliability and findability. Usability is a term that incorporates concepts of navigation, layout and design, clarity of concept and purpose, underlying architecture, in-site assistance and, for web content with text, readability. Interactivity relates to the type of interactions and level of engagement required by the user to access health information on a portal. Interaction can come in the form of a game, a quiz, a creative experience, or a communication tool such as an instant messaging board, a forum or blog. Reliability reflects the traditional values of accuracy, currency, credibility and bias, and in the web-based world, durabililty. Findability is simply the ease with which a portal can be discovered by a searcher using the search engine that is most commonly associated with the Web by young people - Google - and using terms related to teen health. Findability is an important consideration since the majority of teens begin their search for health information using search engines (CIBER, 2008; Hansen et al, 2003). The content linked to by the portals was not evaluated, nor was the portals’ efficacy as a health intervention. Teens looking for health information on the Web in English have a wide range of choices available but French-language portals are much rarer and harder to find. A majority of the portals found and reviewed originated from hospitals, associations specializing in a particular disease, and governmental agencies, suggesting that portals for teens on health related topics are generally reliable. However, only a handful of the portals reviewed were easy to find, suggesting that valuable resources for teens remain buried in the Web

Usability of disaster apps : understanding the perspectives of the public as end-users : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Emergency Management at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Listed in 2020 Dean's List of Exceptional ThesesMultiple smartphone applications (apps) exist that can enhance the public’s resilience to disasters. Despite the capabilities of these apps, they can only be effective if users find them usable. Availability does not automatically translate to usability nor does it guarantee continued usage by the target users. A disaster app will be of little or no value if a user abandons it after the initial download. It is, therefore, essential to understand the users’ perspectives on the usability of disaster apps. In the context of disaster apps, usability entails providing the elements that effectively facilitate users in retrieving critical information, and thus enabling them to make decisions during crises. Establishing good usability for effective systems relies upon focussing on the user whereby technological solutions match the user’s needs and expectations. However, most studies on the usability of disaster context technologies have been conducted with emergency responders, and only a few have investigated the publics’ perspectives as end-users. This doctoral project, written within a ‘PhD-thesis-with-publication’ format, addresses this gap by investigating the usability of disaster apps through the perspectives of the public end-users. The investigation takes an explicitly perceived usability standpoint where the experiences of the end-users are prioritised. Data analysis involved user-centric information to understand the public’s context and the mechanisms of disaster app usability. A mixed methods approach incorporates the qualitative analysis of app store data of 1,405 user reviews from 58 existing disaster apps, the quantitative analysis of 271 survey responses from actual disaster app users, and the qualitative analysis of usability inquiries with 18 members of the public. Insights gathered from this doctoral project highlight that end-users do not anticipate using disaster apps frequently, which poses particular challenges. Furthermore, despite the anticipated low frequency of use, because of the life-safety association of disasters apps, end-users have an expectation that the apps can operate with adequate usability when needed. This doctoral project provides focussed outcomes that consider such user perspectives. First, an app store analysis investigating user reviews identified new usability concerns particular to disaster apps. It highlighted users’ opinion on phone resource usage and relevance of content, among others. More importantly, it defined a new usability factor, app dependability, relating to the life-safety context of disaster apps. App dependability is the degree to which users’ perceive that an app can operate dependably during critical scenarios. Second, the quantitative results from this research have contributed towards producing a usability-continuance model, highlighting the usability factors that affect end-users’ intention to keep or uninstall a disaster app. The key influences for users’ intention to keep disaster apps are: (1) users’ perceptions as to whether the app delivers its function (app utility), (2) whether it does so dependably (app dependability), and (3) whether it presents information that can be easily understood (user-interface output). Subsequently, too much focus on (4) user-interface graphics and (5) user-interface input can encourage users to uninstall apps. Third, the results from the qualitative analysis of the inquiry data provide a basis for developing guidelines for disaster app usability. In the expectation of low level of engagement with disaster app users, the guidelines list recommendations addressing information salience, cognitive load, and trust. This doctoral project provides several contributions to the body of knowledge for usability and disaster apps. It reiterates the importance of investigating the usability of technological products for disasters and showcases the value of user-centric data in understanding usability. It has investigated usability with particular attention to the end-users’ perspectives on the context of disaster apps and, thus, produces a theoretical usability-continuance model to advance disaster app usability research and usability guidelines to encourage responsible design in practice