Trends in Health Care Expenditures, Maine 1974-1978

Trends in Health Care Expenditures, Maine 1974-1978 by Bruce Armstrong, Research Consultant Maine Department of Human Services, Bureau of Health Planning and Development, Division of Data and Research, Augusta, Maine (August 1981). Contents: Preface / Highlights / List of Tables and Figures / Yearly Tables / Trend Illustrations and Tabular Descriptionshttps://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/me_collection/1113/thumbnail.jp

Wha's like us ? Racism and racialisation in the imagination of nineteenth century Scotland

In Part Two I present a series of analyses of nineteenth century discourses. In Chapters Five and Six my focus is on texts which describe the history, geography and ethnology of Africa. I establish evidence of the prevalence of racist accounts of the continent during the period and argue that the texts exemplify contradictions between different racist ideologies. I also argue that these contradictions are related to a historical shift between two distinctive ways of constructing social collectives. In Chapter Seven I pursue this argument further through discussion of the nineteenth century discipline of phrenology. I show that Scottish theorists and practitioners of phrenology made a significant contribution to the development of scientific racism, and that the biological determinism which is fundamental to the phrenological project corresponds to a distinctive way of constructing social collectives. I explore the history of the discipline and its relationships to orthodox science and to Christianity in this context. In Chapter Eight I offer an analysis of some aspects of the significance of racism of the construction of collective categories identifying populations within Scotland. I pursue this analysis in two directions. First, I cite and analyse nineteenth century histories of Scotland which refer to the "racial" composition and "racial" qualities of the population of Scotland. Second, I discuss scholarly and governmental literature which describes the contemporary Irish and Highland populations of nineteenth century Scotland. In the final chapter I summarise the results of the analyses presented in Chapters Five to Eight, and conclude by drawing out the implications of these results for the problems raised in Part One. I pursue the issue of the construction of Scottish "national identity" through discussion of recent debates concerning nineteenth century Scottish politics and culture, and I suggest that this area could be more fully researched by taking account of the significance of imperialism and racism

Health Care Expenditures in Maine 1978 : A Funds Flow Analysis

Health Care Expenditures in Maine 1978 : A Funds Flow Analysis by Bruce Armstrong, Research Consultant Maine Department of Human Services, Bureau of Health Planning and Development, Division of Data and Research, Augusta, Maine (August 1981). Contents: Preface / Highlights / List of Tables and Figures / Introduction / Definitions / Health Expenditures / Sources of Funds / Type of Expenditure / Comparison of Maine and U.S. Per Capita Expenditureshttps://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/me_collection/1112/thumbnail.jp

Financing Higher Education and Economic Development in East Asia

This volume addresses important issues to do with access to higher education and different models of its financing in the East Asia region. It is enriched by diverse perspectives from vastly different starting points and by the historical and institutional settings in the region. The issues are set out in the context of the value of higher education in economic development and how it contributes to the capacities to adopt and adapt to new technologies and undertake institutional innovation. The established and well-functioning higher education loan and financing systems, such as those in Australia, and the experience of different systems tried—both in East Asia and in the United States—are brought to bear in this volume

User Satisfaction: An Evaluation of a Carbon Credit Information System

This paper presents the analysis of user satisfaction with a web-based system that enables users to calculate the value of carbon credits for landholdings based on user-defined parameters including size of landholding, monoculture species, site quality, management & perpetration etc. For the purposes of this project, User Satisfaction was evaluated using questions based on the User Information Satisfaction (UIS) surveys demonstrated to validate the DeLone and McLean (1992, 2003) model of information systems success. The items in the survey used to test the UIS for this study were modified to suit the nature of the system under investigation, that is, a public, web-based information system. This differs from most previous UIS surveys which have been primarily used to examine proprietary, in-house applications. The paper reports the structural validity of the instrument using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM)

Influences on Attitudes to a Personal Carbon Trading System

There are mixed attitudes to the affect Personal Carbon Trading (PCT) can have on global warming and carbon emissions. The NICHE (Norfolk Island Carbon Health Evaluation) project has been developed to explore attitudes towards PCT. The researchers have designed the project to investigate links between health, obesity and an individual’s carbon footprint. The first stages of the project undertaken in 2012 involve development of point-of-sale applications, personal carbon consumption web site and collection of data to establish a baseline measuring key health indicators and attitudes to climate change and PCT. This paper reports the findings from the correlation analysis of the key variables from the baseline survey. Correlation analysis was used to examine relationships among the variables. The significant relationships identified from the baseline survey will be re-examined in the latter stages of the project during 2014

Participation in Cervical Screening by Older Asian and Middle Eastern Migrants in New South Wales, Australia

Background: There is little information on the detailed patterns of cervical screening uptake in older migrant women in Australia. This linkage study was performed to assess cervical screen-ing participation in older migrants.Methods: We linked year 2000-2001 records for 14,228 Middle Eastern/Asian-born women 40-64 years of age, and an age and area matched random sample of 13,939 Australian-born wom-en in the New South Wales (NSW) Admitted Patients Data Collection (APDC), which records country of birth, to screening register records. Screening behaviour after 1st July 2001 was as-sessed in women without a recorded prior cervical abnormalityResults: Compared to Australian-born women, women born in South Central Asia had a low-er screening participation rate (odds ratio for being screened at least once within a 3 year period 0.78, 95% CI 0.70-0.88). However, participation appeared relatively higher (17%-25%) in women born in the Middle East or other parts of Asia. Screening increased with increasing socioeconom-ic status (SES) in Australian-born women, but this trend was not observed in the migrant wom-en. When we broadly corrected for hysterectomy, the apparent excess of screening in women from the Middle East and other parts of Asia was substantially eliminated and in contrast, the apparent deficiency in screening in women from South Central Asia increased.Conclusions: Older women from the Middle East, and North East and South East Asian countries appeared to have similar overall screening participation to that of Australian-born women. Women from South Central Asia appeared less likely than Australian-born women to participate in cervical screening at the recommended interval

Differences in the carcinogenic evaluation of glyphosate between the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs Programme identifies chemicals, drugs, mixtures, occupational exposures, lifestyles and personal habits, and physical and biological agents that cause cancer in humans and has evaluated about 1000 agents since 1971. Monographs are written by ad hoc Working Groups (WGs) of international scientific experts over a period of about 12 months ending in an eight-day meeting. The WG evaluates all of the publicly available scientific information on each substance and, through a transparent and rigorous process,1 decides on the degree to which the scientific evidence supports that substance\u27s potential to cause or not cause cancer in humans. For Monograph 112,2 17 expert scientists evaluated the carcinogenic hazard for four insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate.3 The WG concluded that the data for glyphosate meet the criteria for classification as a probable human carcinogen. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the primary agency of the European Union for risk assessments regarding food safety. In October 2015, EFSA reported4 on their evaluation of the Renewal Assessment Report5 (RAR) for glyphosate that was prepared by the Rapporteur Member State, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). EFSA concluded that ‘glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential’. Addendum 1 (the BfR Addendum) of the RAR5 discusses the scientific rationale for differing from the IARC WG conclusion. Serious flaws in the scientific evaluation in the RAR incorrectly characterise the potential for a carcinogenic hazard from exposure to glyphosate. Since the RAR is the basis for the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) conclusion,4 it is critical that these shortcomings are corrected

Using caribou knowledge in expanding the Wabakimi protected area

When Wabakimi Wilderness Park was created in 1983, conservation of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) was one of the primary considerations. Twelve years later, in April 1995, the Government of Ontario announced that the Park, measuring some 155 000 ha, was to be expanded into a ca. 890 000 ha protected area. This was done following 2.5 yr of deliberations of the Wabakimi Park Boundary Committee. The Committee tried to reach consensus on an expanded protected area by examining a variety of options in terms of criteria related to a range of key values, one of which was woodland caribou. The analysis procedure involved dividing the 1.25-million-ha study area into more than sixty "assessment units". These were defined primarily on the basis of approximate sub-watershed boundaries. Each assessment unit was ranked on a five-level scale with respect to goodness for each value, including seasonal caribou habitat. High-value habitats for wintering, calving, and migration dominated the assessment of habitat importance for caribou.The initial assessment phase included six park expansion concepts ranging in size from just over 200 000 ha to about 1 million ha. One of the concepts (about 750 000 ha), was based specifically on the caribou value. In the second phase, four refined options were examined, ranging from just under 600 000 to roughly a million ha. Two additional options were added to the four and submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources for consideration. The Committee was, in the end, unable to reach full consensus on which of the final options to recommend. However, upon consideration of the Committee's final report and other input, the Ontario Government announced in April 1995 the more than five-fold expansion. The new protected area contains about 475 000 ha of high-value caribou habitat. Caribou were a key value in determining both the ultimate size and configuration of the expansion

Men?s preferences for treatment of early stage prostate cancer: Results from a discrete choice experiment, CHERE Working Paper 2006/14

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in Australia; each year over 10,000 Australians are diagnosed with this disease. There are a number of treatment options for early stage prostate cancer (ESPC); radical prostatectomy, external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy, hormonal therapy and combined therapy. Treatment can cause serious side-effects, including severe sexual and urinary dysfunction, bowel symptoms and fatigue. Furthermore, there is no evidence as yet to demonstrate that any of these treatments confers a survival gain over active surveillance (watchful waiting). While patient preferences should be important determinants in the type of treatment offered, little is known about patients? views of the relative tolerability of side effects and of the survival gains needed to justify these. To investigate this, a discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted in a sample of 357 men who had been treated for ESPC and 65 age-matched controls. The sample was stratified by treatment, with approximately equal numbers in each treatment group. The DCE included nine attributes: seven side-effects and two survival attributes (duration and uncertainty). An orthogonal fractional set of 108 scenarios from the full factorial was used to generate three versions of the questionnaire, with 18 scenarios per respondent. Multinomial logit (MNL) and mixed logit (MXL) models were estimated. A random intercept MXL model provided a significantly better fit to the data than the simple MNL model, and adding random coefficients for all attributes dramatically improved model fit. Each side-effect had a statistically significant mean effect on choice, as did survival duration. Most attributes had significant variance parameters, suggesting considerable heterogeneity among respondents in their preferences. To model this heterogeneity, we included men?s health-related quality of life scores following treatment as covariates to see whether their preferences were influenced by their previous treatment experience. This study demonstrate how DCEs can be used to quantify the trade-offs patients make between side-effects and survival gains. The results provide useful insights for clinicians who manage patients with ESPC, highlighting the importance of patient preferences in treatment decisions.Prostate cancer, discrete choice experiment, preferences, quality of life