Policy Priorities of Municipal Candidates in the 2014 Local Ontario Elections

This paper reports the results of a survey on the policy priorities of municipal candidates in the 2014 municipal elections in Ontario. As part of a survey of municipal candidates in 47 Ontario municipalities, we asked a series of questions relating to perceived policy priorities, election issues, and electoral success to shed light on the extent to which municipal political candidates are “policy seekers,” and the extent to which their policy priorities vary across municipalities and municipal types, successful and unsuccessful candidates, and urban and rural candidates. We find that reported policy priorities tend to fall into two major categories: fiscal issues and economic development or administration and good governance. The prominence of these fiscal and procedural priorities is steady across a range of local candidate types, including successful and unsuccessful candidates, incumbent and non-incumbent candidates, and even urban and rural candidates. Only in very large municipalities, according to our findings, does the structure of candidate priorities begin to diverge from this standard emphasis on finance and procedure

I\u27m a Barbie Girl, In a Barbie World

Writings and artwork examining beauty standards in advertising and fashion (including The Disney Effect ), eating disorders, dieting, and cosmetic surgery.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/feminist_zines/1015/thumbnail.jp

Academic Accountability between Charter and Public-School Principals in New Jersey

The purpose of this study was to explore school principals\u27 accountability with student academic performance. Charter and public-school principals are responsible for the learning process and academic development. Previously published literature did not reveal a clear understanding of the policies and practices that contributed in obtaining the desired student academic outcomes. Parsons\u27s theory of action served as the foundation for analyzing principals\u27 decisions to achieve accountability and comply with the policies established by the regulating authorities. A snowball sampling of school principals included a public charter school principal and 5 traditional public-school principals in the state of New Jersey. A multiple case study approach with semi structured interviews and open-ended questions was used to collect data, which was then transcribed, coded, and processed in Dedoose software program. Gaining insight may prove beneficial to the accountability of principals\u27 duties disposed by school policies and practices. The study findings helped identify accountability standards common for both types of educational establishments. The study found that academic accountability goes beyond school principals and that school principals spend the least amount of time as instructional leaders. Finding contributes to positive social change by highlighting the need for regulatory agencies to identify and set clear guidelines of accountability, implement effective monitoring and measuring tools of accountability, and hold all stakeholders accountable for promoting student academic performance and achievement

Using video consultation technology between care homes and health and social care professionals: a scoping review and interview study during COVID-19 pandemic

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form athttps://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afab279Background the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected care home residents’ and staffs’ access to health care and advice. Health and social care professionals adapted rapidly to using video consultation (videoconferencing) technology without guidance. We sought to identify enablers and barriers to their use in supporting care home residents and staff. Methods a scoping review of the evidence on remote consultations between healthcare services and care homes. Interviews with English health and social care professionals about their experiences during the pandemic. Findings were synthesised using the non-adoption, abandonment, scale-up, spread, sustainability framework. Results 18 papers were included in the review. Twelve interviews were completed. Documented enablers and barriers affecting the uptake and use of technology (e.g. reliable internet; reduced travelling) resonated with participants. Interviews demonstrated rapid, widespread technology adoption overcame barriers anticipated from the literature, often strengthening working relationships with care homes. Novel implementation issues included using multiple platforms and how resident data were managed. Healthcare professionals had access to more bespoke digital platforms than their social care counterparts. Participants alternated between platforms depending on individual context or what their organisation supported. All participants supported ongoing use of technologies to supplement in-person consultations. Conclusions the evidence on what needs to be in place for video consultations to work with care homes was partly confirmed. The pandemic context demolished many documented barriers to engagement and provided reassurance that residents’ assessments were possible. It exposed the need to study further differing resident requirements and investment in digital infrastructure for adequate information management between organisations.Peer reviewe

Public Engagement with Internet Voting in Edmonton: Design, Outcomes, and Challenges to Deliberative Models

In September 2012, the City of Edmonton launched a four-month strategy to engage a range of citizens in the development of a policy proposal for the use of Internet voting in civic elections. A variety of initiatives were implemented, including public opinions surveys, roundtable advisory meetings with seniors and other stakeholder, and a mock “Jellybean” online election to test the technology. At the core of the public involvement campaign was a Citizens’ Jury – a deliberative forum which engaged a group of citizens, demographically and attitudinally representative of the city’s population, in assessment of Internet voting and the development of recommendations to city council. While the Jury reached a verdict supportive of Internet voting, policymakers in Edmonton rejected the policy proposal. In light of the Edmonton experience, we highlight factors that contribute to the ineffectiveness of deliberative experiments and discuss some challenges for public participation at the local level

Children's biobehavioral reactivity to challenge predicts DNA methylation in adolescence and emerging adulthood.

A growing body of research has documented associations between adverse childhood environments and DNA methylation, highlighting epigenetic processes as potential mechanisms through which early external contexts influence health across the life course. The present study tested a complementary hypothesis: indicators of children's early internal, biological, and behavioral responses to stressful challenges may also be linked to stable patterns of DNA methylation later in life. Children's autonomic nervous system reactivity, temperament, and mental health symptoms were prospectively assessed from infancy through early childhood, and principal components analysis (PCA) was applied to derive composites of biological and behavioral reactivity. Buccal epithelial cells were collected from participants at 15 and 18 years of age. Findings revealed an association between early life biobehavioral inhibition/disinhibition and DNA methylation across many genes. Notably, reactive, inhibited children were found to have decreased DNA methylation of the DLX5 and IGF2 genes at both time points, as compared to non-reactive, disinhibited children. Results of the present study are provisional but suggest that the gene's profile of DNA methylation may constitute a biomarker of normative or potentially pathological differences in reactivity. Overall, findings provide a foundation for future research to explore relations among epigenetic processes and differences in both individual-level biobehavioral risk and qualities of the early, external childhood environment

A study examining the usefulness of a new measure of research engagement

INTRODUCTION: Engagement of relevant stakeholders\u27 ideas, opinions, and concerns is critical to the success of modern research projects. We have developed a tool to measure stakeholder engagement, called the Research Engagement Survey Tool (REST). The purpose of this paper is to present the implementation and uptake of the stakeholder engagement measure REST among research teams, including the assessment of barriers and facilitating factors for use of the new research engagement measure in practice. METHODS: In this implementation study, project team members participated in baseline and follow-up web-based surveys. Web-based interviews were conducted with a subset of project teams that implemented the REST. On the baseline survey, project teams were asked to provide details about up to three ongoing or recently completed projects, were asked if they agreed with compensation for REST completion, and were asked if they would like to send the survey to stakeholders or would prefer our project team to email their project stakeholders. Follow-up surveys contained questions on reactions to implementing REST and results of REST. RESULTS: Project team members/researchers who completed the baseline survey (n=86) were mostly female (79%) and Non-Hispanic/Latino(a) White (76%). Those who implemented REST were also mostly female (86%) and Non-Hispanic/Latino(a) White (71%), with an average of 11 years in academic research. About 98% of all participants completing the baseline survey had the capacity to survey partners, while 100% of all teams who implemented REST did. A small portion of respondents indicated the time commitment of REST would be a barrier (29% of baseline survey respondents, 10% of those who implemented REST) and indicated workload would be a barrier (31% of baseline survey respondents, 14% of those who implemented REST). DISCUSSION: The data presented here indicate that REST implementation is feasible in a volunteer group of ongoing research projects

Commissioning care for people with dementia at the end of life: a mixed methods study.

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ The version of record, Zoe M Gotts, Nicole Baur, Emma McLellan, Claire Goodman, Louise Robinson and Richard P Lee, ‘Commissioning care for people with dementia at the end of life: a mixed methods study’, BMJ Open, 2016,; 6: e013554, is available online at doi: 10.1136/ bmjopen-2016-013554Objectives To understand how end of life care for people with dementia is currently commissioned (.e contracted)and organised, with a view to informing the development of commissioning guidance for good quality community-based end of life care in dementia. Design Mixed-methods study; narrative review and qualitative interviews. Setting 8 NHS clinical commissioning groups and 5 Adult Services across England. Methods Narrative review of evidence; 20 semi structured interviews (telephone and face-to-face) with professionals involved in commissioning end of life care for people with dementia. Main outcome measures Summary of the existing evidence base for commissioning, commissioners’ approaches to the commissioning process for end of life care for people with dementia in England. Results In the context of commissioning end of life care for people with dementia, the literature review generated three key themes; (1) importance of joint commissioning; (2) lack of clarity for the process; and (3) factors influencing commissioning. In exploring health professionals’ perceptions of the commissioning process, ‘uncertainty’ was elicited as an overarching theme across the CCGs interviewed. Organisation of the process, lack of expertise, issues surrounding integration and the art of specification were considered important factors that contribute to the uncertainty surrounding the commissioning process. Conclusions The current evidence base for commissioning end of life care is limited with considerable uncertainty as how clinical commissioners in England undertake the process to ensure future services are evidence-based. Strengths and limitations of this study • The use of a multimethod approach (narrative review, qualitative interviews) allowed for triangulation of our findings. • The evidence indentified in the review may be limited given that ‘commissioning’ is a relatively new term in England. • The review presented is a narrative review; the manuscripts were not subject to a quality assessment process. • Generalisability of findings might be affected by the small number of published studies, their heterogeneity in methodologies, and small sample sizes. • The study highlights that information on commissioning specifically for health and social care in England is limited; this is mirrored in commissioners’ accounts.Peer reviewe

Racial and ethnic heterogeneity in self-reported diabetes prevalence trends across Hispanic subgroups, National Health Interview Survey, 1997–2012

INTRODUCTION: We examined racial/ethnic heterogeneity in self-reported diabetes prevalence over 15 years. METHODS: We used National Health Interview Survey data for 1997 through 2012 on 452,845 adults aged 18 years or older. Annual self-reported diabetes prevalence was estimated by race/ethnicity and education. We tested for trends over time by education and race/ethnicity. We also analyzed racial/ethnic and education trends in average annual prevalence. RESULTS: During the 15 years studied, diabetes prevalence differed significantly by race/ethnicity (P < .001) and by Hispanic subgroup (P < .001). Among participants with less than a high school education, the 5-year trend in diabetes prevalence was highest among Cubans and Cuban Americans (β(5YR) = 4.8, P = .002), Puerto Ricans (β(5YR) = 2.2, P = .06), non-Hispanic blacks (β(5YR) = 2.2, P < .001), and non-Hispanic whites (β(5YR) = 2.1, P < .001). Among participants with more than a high school education, non-Hispanic blacks had the highest average annual prevalence (5.5%) and Puerto Ricans had the highest 5-year trend in annual diabetes prevalence (β(5YR) = 2.6, P = .001). CONCLUSIONS: In this representative sample of US adults, results show ethnic variations in diabetes prevalence. The prevalence of diabetes is higher among Hispanics than among non-Hispanic whites, unevenly distributed across Hispanic subgroups, and more pronounced over time and by education. Findings support disaggregation of data for racial/ethnic populations in the United States to monitor trends in diabetes disparities and the use of targeted, culturally appropriate interventions to prevent diabetes