Prospectus, 14, 2007

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2007/1004/thumbnail.jp

Prospectus, January 17, 2007

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2007/1000/thumbnail.jp

Prospectus, December 6, 2006

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2006/1029/thumbnail.jp

Why we struggle to make progress in obesity prevention and how we might overcome policy inertia:Lessons from the complexity and political sciences

Despite evidence for the effectiveness of policies that target obesogenic environments, their adoption remains deficient. Using methods and concepts from complexity and political science (Stock-and-Flow analysis and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory) and a qualitative literature review, we developed system maps to identify feedback loops that hinder policymaking on mitigating obesogenic environments and feedback loops that could trigger and sustain policy change. We found numerous self-reinforcing feedback loops that buttress the assumption that obesity is an individual problem, strengthening the biomedical and commercial weight-loss sectors' claim to “ownership” over solutions. That is, improvements in therapies for individuals with obesity reinforces policymakers' reluctance to target obesogenic environments. Random events that focus attention on obesity (e.g., celebrities dismissing soda) could disrupt this cycle, when actors from outside the medical and weight-loss sector (e.g., anti-weight stigma activists) successfully reframe obesity as a societal problem, which requires robust and politically relevant engagement with affected communities prior to such events taking place. Sustained prioritization of policies targeting obesogenic environments requires shared problem ownership of affected communities and nonhealth government sectors, by emphasizing cobenefits of policies that target obesogenic environments (e.g., ultraprocessed food taxation for raising revenue) and solutions that are meaningful for affected communities.</p

International perceptions of an integrated, multi-sectoral, ecosystem approach to management:Editor’s Choice

Abstract The Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM) has emerged over the past decades, largely to promote biodiversity conservation, and more recently sectoral tradeoffs in the management of marine ecosystems. To ascertain the state of practice of EAM operationalization, a workshop was held, which included a pre-workshop online survey. The survey gauged international participants’ perspectives regarding capacity, knowledge, and application of EAM. When asked about the subject, most survey respondents had a general understanding of EAM, and provided a clear definition. Major perceived challenges to EAM objectives by those surveyed included limited knowledge, conflicting interests, insufficient communication, and limited organizational legal frameworks or governance structures. Of those directly involved in an ecosystem approach, the majority responded that processes were in place or developed for application of integrated knowledge toward assessing key issues within their respective sectors (i.e. fisheries, conservation, energy), and that capacity was generally high. Our results show that most respondents, irrespective of sector or geography, see value in considering an integrated, broader ecosystem approach as they manage their sector. Although many participants were from the North Atlantic region, our results suggest that much of the international community is converging toward continued understanding of broad-scale, integrated approaches to marine resource management.</jats:p

Why we struggle to make progress in obesity prevention and how we might overcome policy inertia:Lessons from the complexity and political sciences

Despite evidence for the effectiveness of policies that target obesogenic environments, their adoption remains deficient. Using methods and concepts from complexity and political science (Stock-and-Flow analysis and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory) and a qualitative literature review, we developed system maps to identify feedback loops that hinder policymaking on mitigating obesogenic environments and feedback loops that could trigger and sustain policy change. We found numerous self-reinforcing feedback loops that buttress the assumption that obesity is an individual problem, strengthening the biomedical and commercial weight-loss sectors' claim to “ownership” over solutions. That is, improvements in therapies for individuals with obesity reinforces policymakers' reluctance to target obesogenic environments. Random events that focus attention on obesity (e.g., celebrities dismissing soda) could disrupt this cycle, when actors from outside the medical and weight-loss sector (e.g., anti-weight stigma activists) successfully reframe obesity as a societal problem, which requires robust and politically relevant engagement with affected communities prior to such events taking place. Sustained prioritization of policies targeting obesogenic environments requires shared problem ownership of affected communities and nonhealth government sectors, by emphasizing cobenefits of policies that target obesogenic environments (e.g., ultraprocessed food taxation for raising revenue) and solutions that are meaningful for affected communities.</p

GREGOR: evaluating global enrichment of trait-associated variants in epigenomic features using a systematic, data-driven approach

Motivation: The majority of variation identified by genome wide association studies falls in non-coding genomic regions and is hypothesized to impact regulatory elements that modulate gene expression. Here we present a statistically rigorous software tool GREGOR (Genomic Regulatory Elements and Gwas Overlap algoRithm) for evaluating enrichment of any set of genetic variants with any set of regulatory features. Using variants from five phenotypes, we describe a data-driven approach to determine the tissue and cell types most relevant to a trait of interest and to identify the subset of regulatory features likely impacted by these variants. Last, we experimentally evaluate six predicted functional variants at six lipid-associated loci and demonstrate significant evidence for allele-specific impact on expression levels. GREGOR systematically evaluates enrichment of genetic variation with the vast collection of regulatory data available to explore novel biological mechanisms of disease and guide us toward the functional variant at trait-associated loci

The matching problem within comparative welfare state research: How to bridge abstract theory and specific hypotheses

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