The Smiley Faces task and how it can help teach some fundamentals for good clinical trials

Background: Many factors need to be considered when designing a clinical trial. Although structures such as PICOT (Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome, Timeline) are helpful, people with little or no prior knowledge can find designing and implementing a trial to be overly complicated. We developed a simple exercise to illustrate key features of trials: the Smiley Faces task.Aim: We describe how the Smiley Faces task can demonstrate the importance of good planning of trials and highlight pitfalls.Method and Results: The Smiley Faces task is centred on the simple, intuitive task to “draw a smiley face”. It requires no existing knowledge about trials or research generally, but can be used to highlight key features of a trial; such as formulating the research question; planning for coding, collection and analysis of data; handling of missing data and drawing of conclusions. We present insights from conducting the exercise dozens of times and collecting hundreds of smiley face drawings in a range of educational settings.Conclusion: The simplicity and accessibility of the task makes it relatively easy to demonstrate key points for careful planning of clinical trials. The approach is generalizable and applicable to researchers and teachers in a variety of medical settings

Scottish Life And Chemical Science Skills Summit

The Scottish Life and Chemical Skills Summit was led and hosted by Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) with support from Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA).We would like to thank members of the steering group, the Life and Chemical Sciences (LCS) Skills Group and the SULSA Skills Committee for their support in developing the summit and for their engagement on the day.This report is a summary of the outcomes from the summit which, through further collaboration, may inform future planning, investment and policy making in pursuit of the identified opportunities

Local food environment interventions to improve healthy food choice in adults: a systematic review and realist synthesis protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Local food environments have been linked with dietary intake and obesity in adults. However, overall evidence remains mixed with calls for increased theoretical and conceptual clarity related to how availability of neighbourhood food outlets, and within-outlet food options, influence food purchasing and consumption. The purpose of this work is to develop a programme theory of food availability, supported by empirical evidence from a range of local food environment interventions. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A systematic search of the literature will be followed by duplicate screening and quality assessment (using the Effective Public Health Practice Project tool). Realist synthesis will then be conducted according to the Realist And Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards (RAMESES) publication standards, including transparent appraisal, synthesis and drawing conclusions via consensus. DISSEMINATION: The final synthesis will propose an evidence-based programme theory of food availability, including evidence mapping to demonstrate contextual factors, pathways of influence and potential mechanisms. With the paucity of empirically supported programme theories used in current local food environment interventions to improve food availability, this synthesis may be used to understand how and why interventions work, and thus inform the development of theory-driven, evidence-based interventions to improve healthy food choice and future empirical work. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: PROSPERO CRD42014009808.The work was undertaken by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR, MR/K023187/1), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. Additionally, TLP's PhD studentship is generously supported by the Cambridge International Scholarship, a scheme funded by the Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the British Medical Journal via http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-00716

Equality, diversity and inclusion perspectives

An overview of the developments arising from equality, diversity and inclusion events at this year’s National Astronomy Meeting, by Vinesh Maguire-Rajpaul on behalf of the organizers

Exploring Women’s Education and Employment Opportunities in India, Syria, and the Philippines

The implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 marked a new chapter in global development and laid the foundations for addressing inequalities that hinder holistic progress. However, gender gaps pose a significant threat to achieving these goals. Project DREAM (Developing Resilience, Education, Aspiration, and Motivation) sought to explore women’s sense of aspiration, achievement, and lived experience in India, Syria, and the Philippines, as well as develop pilot interventions to address gender disparities. Semi-structured interviews with 69 young women from India, Syria, and the Philippines informed the development of three interventions, namely an aspiration and job skills workshop series in the Philippines, Motivational Interviewing training in Syria and the Philippines, and a social media presence and launch event worldwide. This paper presents the findings of this international project, identifying four key parallels underpinning women’s lived experience: poverty, incomplete education, tradition, and patriarchy. Pre-existing gender inequalities, aggravated by the widespread health, economic, and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, must be urgently addressed to ensure that no one is left behind on the road to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030

The power of media : responsible and sustainable living : images and objects : active methodology toolkit 6

Teaching and learning about Responsible and Sustainable Living often necessitates the introduction and development of rather complex themes. Media can be a powerful medium to support and enhance teaching and learning. In the context of this toolkit, media is used as a mode of communication, a means to effectively engage students, a way to evoke a profound response and a tool to generate deep meaningful classroom discussioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An evaluation of tuberculosis contact investigations against national standards.

BACKGROUND: Contact tracing is a key element in England's 2015 collaborative TB strategy, although proposed indicators of successful contact tracing remain undescribed. METHODS: We conducted descriptive and multivariable analyses of contact tracing of TB cases in London between 1 July 2012 and 31 December 2015 using cohort review data from London's TB Register, identifying characteristics associated with improved indicators and yield. RESULTS: Of the pulmonary TB cases notified, 60% (2716/4561) had sufficient information for inclusion. Of these, 91% (2481/2716) had at least 1 contact (median: 4/case (IQR: 2-6)) identified, with 86% (10 251/11 981) of these contacts evaluated. 4.1% (177/4328), 1.3% (45/3421) and 0.70% (51/7264) of evaluated contacts of pulmonary smear-positive, pulmonary smear-negative and non-pulmonary cases, respectively, had active disease. Cases who were former prisoners or male were less likely to have at least one contact identified than those never imprisoned or female, respectively. Cases diagnosed at clinics with more directly observed therapy or social workers were more likely to have one or more contacts identified. Contacts screened at a different clinic to their index case or of male index cases were less likely to be evaluated than those screened at the same clinic or of women, respectively; yield of active disease was similar by sex. 10% (490/4850) of evaluated child contacts had latent TB infection. CONCLUSIONS: These are the first London-wide estimates of TB contact tracing indicators which are important for monitoring the strategy's success and informing risk assessment of index cases. Understanding why differences in indicators occur between groups could improve contact tracing outcomes