THE FOGARTY INTERNATIONAL CENTER’S COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGIC PLAN AND BUDGET TO REDUCE AND ULTIMATELY ELIMINATE HEALTH DISPARITIES

The FIC will play a unique role in addressing health disparities that exist within and among population groups in the United States. Certain populations abroad share similarities with U.S. groups by virtue of their genetic makeup, health practices, lifestyles or other features and, for this reason, advances made through international research studies stand to benefit both U.S. and foreign populations. Such research could lead to effective and culturally relevant education or counseling strategies; development of novel diagnostics, drugs or other intervention technologies; or could contribute to identification of new avenues of research that would ultimately lead to health care interventions. FIC’s programs to support collaborative research and capacity building in low- and middle-income nations are critical to advancing global health research priorities. In addition, through its training programs, FIC is developing the next generation of scientists and health professionals, including those from U.S. minority groups, to address health disparities that exist within the U.S. and within the global community. The current plan elaborates on how further strengthening FIC programs could address U.S. health disparities, and it describes several new activities toward this end

Stock Market Sensitivity to UK firms? pension discounting assumptions

Article; an earlier version appeared as University of Exeter, Department of Accounting working paper 06-07/04New U.K. pension accounting regulations significantly increase the exposure of the balance sheets of U.K. firms to volatilities in pension fund valuations. We examine whether the abnormal returns of firms that voluntarily used market-based pension discount rates are significantly different from the abnormal returns of industry-matched pair samples of firms that retained traditional cost-based valuation assumptions during the period surrounding the release of the related exposure draft. We also examine the interest rate sensitivity of stock price returns over the 4-year period before and after the announcement date. Consistent with our hypotheses, U.K. stock price returns incorporate the effect of unexpected interest rate changes on sources of pension earnings for firms that voluntarily switched to market-based assumptions but do not incorporate these effects for firms that did not switch. These results suggest that unexpected changes in interest rates have a differential effect on a firm's sources of pension, financial, and core earnings

Identifying structures, processes, resources and needs of research ethics committees in Egypt

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Concerns have been expressed regarding the adequacy of ethics review systems in developing countries. Limited data are available regarding the structural and functional status of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to survey the existing RECs in Egypt to better understand their functioning status, perceived resource needs, and challenges.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We distributed a self-administered survey tool to Egyptian RECs to collect information on the following domains: general characteristics of the REC, membership composition, ethics training, workload, process of ethics review, perceived challenges to effective functioning, and financial and material resources. We used basic descriptive statistics to evaluate the quantitative data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We obtained responses from 67% (12/18) of the identified RECs. Most RECs (10/12) have standard operating procedures and many (7/12) have established policies to manage conflicts of interests. The average membership was 10.3 with a range from 7-19. The predominant member type was physicians (69.5% of all of the REC members) with little lay representation (13.7%). Most RECs met at least once/month and the average number of protocols reviewed per meeting was 3.8 with a range from 1-10. Almost three-quarters of the members from all of the 12 RECs indicated they received some formal training in ethics. Regarding resources, roughly half of the RECs have dedicated capital equipment (e.g., meeting room, computers, office furniture, etc); none of the RECs have a formal operating budget. Perceived challenges included the absence of national research ethics guidelines and national standards for RECs and lack of ongoing training of its members in research ethics.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study documents several areas of strengths and areas for improvements in the operations of Egyptian RECs. Regarding strengths, many of the existing RECs meet frequently, have a majority of members with prior training in research ethics, and have written policies. Regarding areas for improvements, many RECs should strive for a more diverse membership and should receive more financial resources and administrative support personnel. We recommend that RECs include more individuals from the community and develop a continuing educational program for its members. Institutional officials should be aware of the resource capacity needs of their RECs.</p

Medication safety in community pharmacy: a qualitative study of the sociotechnical context

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While much research has been conducted on medication safety, few of these studies have addressed primary care, despite the high volume of prescribing and dispensing of medicines that occurs in this setting. Those studies that have examined primary care dispensing emphasised the need to understand the role of sociotechnical factors (that is, the interactions between people, tasks, equipment and organisational structures) in promoting or preventing medication incidents. The aim of this study was to identify sociotechnical factors that community pharmacy staff encounter in practice, and suggest how these factors might impact on medication safety.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sixty-seven practitioners, working in the North West of England, took part in ten focus groups on risk management in community pharmacy. The data obtained from these groups was subjected to a qualitative analysis to identify recurrent themes pertaining to sociotechnical aspects of medication safety.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The findings indicated several characteristics of participants' work settings that were potentially related to medication safety. These were broadly classified as relationships involving the pharmacist, demands on the pharmacist and management and governance of pharmacists.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is recommended that the issues raised in this study be considered in future work examining medication safety in primary care.</p

Identifying the domains of context important to implementation science: a study protocol

Background There is growing recognition that “context” can and does modify the effects of implementation interventions aimed at increasing healthcare professionals’ use of research evidence in clinical practice. However, conceptual clarity about what exactly comprises “context” is lacking. The purpose of this research program is to develop, refine, and validate a framework that identifies the key domains of context (and their features) that can facilitate or hinder (1) healthcare professionals’ use of evidence in clinical practice and (2) the effectiveness of implementation interventions. Methods/design A multi-phased investigation of context using mixed methods will be conducted. The first phase is a concept analysis of context using the Walker and Avant method to distinguish between the defining and irrelevant attributes of context. This phase will result in a preliminary framework for context that identifies its important domains and their features according to the published literature. The second phase is a secondary analysis of qualitative data from 13 studies of interviews with 312 healthcare professionals on the perceived barriers and enablers to their application of research evidence in clinical practice. These data will be analyzed inductively using constant comparative analysis. For the third phase, we will conduct semi-structured interviews with key health system stakeholders and change agents to elicit their knowledge and beliefs about the contextual features that influence the effectiveness of implementation interventions and healthcare professionals’ use of evidence in clinical practice. Results from all three phases will be synthesized using a triangulation protocol to refine the context framework drawn from the concept analysis. The framework will then be assessed for content validity using an iterative Delphi approach with international experts (researchers and health system stakeholders/change agents). Discussion This research program will result in a framework that identifies the domains of context and their features that can facilitate or hinder: (1) healthcare professionals’ use of evidence in clinical practice and (2) the effectiveness of implementation interventions. The framework will increase the conceptual clarity of the term “context” for advancing implementation science, improving healthcare professionals’ use of evidence in clinical practice, and providing greater understanding of what interventions are likely to be effective in which contexts

Composting of rice straw with effective microorganisms (EM) and its influence on compost quality.

This study aims to assess the effect of EM application on the composting process of rice straw with goat manure and green waste and to evaluate the quality of both compost treatments. There are two treatment piles in this study, in which one pile was applied with EM and another pile without EM. Each treatment was replicated three times with 90 days of composting duration. The parameters for the temperature, pH, TOC and C/N ratio, show that decomposition of organic matter occurs during the 90-day period. The t-test conducted shows that there is a significant difference between compost with EM and compost without EM. The application of EM in compost increases the macro and micronutrient content. The following parameters support this conclusion: compost applied with EM has more N, P and K content (P < 0.05) compared to compost without EM. Although the Fe in compost with EM is much higher (P < 0.05) than in the compost without EM, for Zn and Cu, there is no significant difference between treatments. This study suggests that the application of EM is suitable to increase the mineralization in the composting process. The final resultant compost indicated that it was in the range of the matured level and can be used without any restriction

Here we go again: Cider's turn to highlight anomalies in Australia's alcohol taxation system

Doran, CM ORCiD: 0000-0002-9009-4906In both absolute and per capita terms, the value and volume of cider sales increased enormously in Australia between 2007 and 2011, ranging from 150 to 188%. These increases dwarfed all other types of alcohol; the only other beverages to increase more than 10% were the absolute volume of spirits (11.8%) and wine sales (10.3%), and the absolute value of spirits sales (13.1%). Due to such strong growth, the cider market is valued at $552 million, with volume sales totalling 57 million litre