Children\u27s health insurance programs in New Hampshire: access, prevention, care management, utilization, and payments (state fiscal year 2010)

Report providing a detailed evaluation and analysis of enrollment, access to care, effectiveness, and utilization of various children\u27s\u27 health insurance programs in N.H

Beyond corporate transparency: The right to know in the electronics industry

The fundamental rights of workers in the global electronics industry are violated on a massive scale. Millions of workers are working under precarious and toxic conditions, resulting in poor livelihoods, and high rates of despair, injury and even death. Corporate secrecy and lack of transparency of supply chains plays a key role in perpetuating these harms. Workers in the global electronics production network, their families and communities are denied access to vital information and not allowed to play a role in decision-making processes with impact their working lives and conditions. Barriers to such information are based on corporate demands of confidentiality that fail to properly take into account the rights of workers. Whilst electronics companies nowadays boast of their commitment to transparency, we found it is all talk and no action. Workers, their families, and community members that are affected or potentially affected by the electronics industry are the primary ‘rights-holders’ of the right to know, or, in other words, the right to access information. Companies are responsible for disclosing all information that may impact on, or is necessary to realise workers’ rights, and information that affects workers’ lives and livelihoods to primary rights-holders and to and to other related parties such as worker representatives and representative organisations. States have the obligation to ensure companies do so and that workers can access and engage meaningfully with such information. This makes states and business enterprises ‘duty bearers’. In this report, GE, BHRE and SOMO maintain that the right to information is both a right in itself and a precondition for the realisation of other rights. Disclosed information should include facts and figures on trading and purchasing practices; on buyer-supplier relations; on the position of a company in the value chain; on production facilities, including work place conditions and labour force; on corporate human rights due diligence policies and practices, including the mapping of risks and the findings and outcomes thereof; and on materials, components and end-products. The report presents a break-down and detailed list of the information that should ideally be disclosed and communicated, grouped in seven data sets, each with a varying number of data points. The approach to transparency presented in this report is soundly grounded in two frameworks that are rapidly developing in international and national law and practice: the right to information, and corporate human rights due diligence and non-financial disclosure. Rights-based transparency is implicit within businesses’ responsibility to communicate and engage with rights-holders and other relevant parties and explicitly within states’ obligations to protect human rights. We hope that the work this report does in identifying transparency why, for whom, of what and how, contributes to advance the clarification and full realisation of the right to know and the duty to inform and exercise due diligence to protect the rights of workers, their families and communities

The Regulatory Gift: Politics, regulation and governance

Abstract: This article introduces the ‘regulatory gift’ as a conceptual framework for understanding a particular form of government-led deregulation that is presented as central to the public interest. Contra to theories of regulatory capture, government corruption, ‘insider’ personal interest or profit-seeking theories of regulation, the regulatory gift describes reform which is overtly designed by Government to reduce or reorient regulators’ functions to the advantage of the regulated and in line with market objectives on a potentially macro (rather than industry-specific) scale. As a conceptual framework, the regulatory gift is intended to be applicable across regulated sectors of democratic states and in this article the empirical sections evidence the practice of regulatory gifting in contemporary UK politics. Specifically, this article analyses the UK Public Bodies Act (2011), affecting some 900 regulatory public bodies and its correlative legislation, the Regulator’s Code (2014), the Deregulation Act (2015) and the Enterprise Bill (2016). The article concludes that whilst the regulatory gift may, in some cases, be aligned with the public interest - delivering on cost reduction, enhancing efficiency and stimulating innovation - this will not always be the case. As the case study of the regulatory body, the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) demonstrates, despite the explicit claims made by legislators, the regulatory gift has the potential to significantly undermine the public interest

Non-hispanic whites have higher risk for pulmonary impairment from pulmonary tuberculosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Disparities in outcomes associated with race and ethnicity are well documented for many diseases and patient populations. Tuberculosis (TB) disproportionately affects economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic minority populations. Pulmonary impairment after tuberculosis (PIAT) contributes heavily to the societal burden of TB. Individual impacts associated with PIAT may vary by race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed the pulmonary function of 320 prospectively identified patients with pulmonary tuberculosis who had completed at least 20 weeks standard anti-TB regimes by directly observed therapy. We compared frequency and severity of spirometry-defined PIAT in groups stratified by demographics, pulmonary risk factors, and race/ethnicity, and examined clinical correlates to pulmonary function deficits.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Pulmonary impairment after tuberculosis was identified in 71% of non-Hispanic Whites, 58% of non-Hispanic Blacks, 49% of Asians and 32% of Hispanics (<it>p </it>< 0.001). Predictors for PIAT varied between race/ethnicity. PIAT was evenly distributed across all levels of socioeconomic status suggesting that PIAT and socioeconomic status are not related. PIAT and its severity were significantly associated with abnormal chest x-ray, <it>p </it>< 0.0001. There was no association between race/ethnicity and time to beginning TB treatment, <it>p </it>= 0.978.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Despite controlling for cigarette smoking, socioeconomic status and time to beginning TB treatment, non-Hispanic White race/ethnicity remained an independent predictor for disproportionately frequent and severe pulmonary impairment after tuberculosis relative to other race/ethnic groups. Since race/ethnicity was self reported and that race is not a biological construct: these findings must be interpreted with caution. However, because race/ethnicity is a proxy for several other unmeasured host, pathogen or environment factors that may contribute to disparate health outcomes, these results are meant to suggest hypotheses for further research.</p

Shared parental leave and the sexual family: the importance of encouraging men to care

This paper considers how shared parental leave could achieve its aim of encouraging fathers to provide care. I will argue that achieving this ambition is dependent upon the legislation continuing to be available only to those performing a parenting role, when two parents are providing childcare. Despite the problems with the two parent family model, it should be retained temporarily because it has unique potential to encourage men to care, as highlighted by Swedish legislation. This is the most effective way to challenge gender inequality. Shared parental leave should only be made available to a wider category of carers after men have been given a realistic chance to care. Widening access earlier risks reinforcing women’s association with caring work

What do introduction sections tell us about the intent of scholarly work: A contribution on contributions

This paper presents empirical examination of the semantics of contribution claims in the introduction sections of journal articles, a significantly under-examined area of scholarly activity, which underpins the methodical act of communicating the value of research to an audience. The paper presents a systematic review of 538 papers in three leading industrial marketing journals, Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing and the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and uses a phased approach to categorize contribution claims made by authors in their introductions and abstracts. The paper identifies four main categories of contribution, defined as incremental, revelatory, replicatory and consolidatory, with sub-categorizations within them, and reports on the proportionality of these strategies in the sample while capturing the semantic games played by authors in pursuit of these claims. Specific findings are of interest to industrial marketers, but the conceptual framework and systematic methods presented in the paper are transferable to any discipline or body of work, and therefore have broader disciplinary appeal. Findings are also of interest to authors, reviewers and editors for coalescing fragmented understanding of contribution strategies into a coherent framework for action

Corporate Social Responsibility at African mines: Linking the past to the present

This paper traces the origins of the 'brand' of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)employed at large-scale mines across sub-Saharan Africa. Conceived within fortified resource enclaves, the policies adopted and actions taken in the area of CSR at many of the region's large-scale mines today have had had minimal effect on community wellbeing. Further examination reveals that contemporary CSR strategy in the region's mining sector is often a 'repackaging' and 'rebranding' of moves made by major operators during the colonial period and early years of country independence to pacify and engage local communities. Today, this work is being championed as CSR but failing to deliver much change, its impact minimized by the economic and political forces at work in an era of globalization, during which extractive industry enclaves that are disconnected from local economies have been able to flourish. As case study of Ghana, long one of the largest gold mining economies in sub-Saharan Africa, is used to illustrate these points. © 201