Openness in participation, assessment, and policy making upon issues of environment and environmental health: a review of literature and recent project results

Issues of environment and environmental health involve multiple interests regarding e.g. political, societal, economical, and public concerns represented by different kinds of organizations and individuals. Not surprisingly, stakeholder and public participation has become a major issue in environmental and environmental health policy and assessment. The need for participation has been discussed and reasoned by many, including environmental legislators around the world. In principle, participation is generally considered as desirable and the focus of most scholars and practitioners is on carrying out participation, and making participation more effective. In practice also doubts regarding the effectiveness and importance of participation exist among policy makers, assessors, and public, leading even to undermining participatory practices in policy making and assessment

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Changing cooperation to competition disrupts attitudes and valence: First test of a dynamical model

With the cessation of cooperation between groups or individuals comes the threat that temporary competition transforms into destructive intractable conflict. To better understand how intractable conflicts develop, Liebovitch, Naudot, Vallacher, Nowak, Bui-Wrzosinksa, and Coleman (2008) recently developed a non-linear model of two-actor cooperation-competition incorporating interaction feedback and valence. This study tested their model's predictions by investigating attitude and valence change depending on whether a social exchange was cooperative or competitive. Participants experiencing an exchange that switched from cooperation to competition exhibited greater attitude change than participants in the control or the continuously competitive interaction condition and more valence change than the control or competition switching to cooperation condition. These results support the model's prediction that greater attitude and valence fluctuation manifests in interactions transitioning from cooperation to competition, providing the first verification of the model. These findings offer new insights into how human cooperation and competition evolve over time

A Study of American Response to Climate Change and the Influence of Carbon Dependency, Social Capital, and Political Orientation

Climate change is one major challenge that has brought substantial costs to the United States. To implement mitigation measures and gain public support, it is critical to understand Americans’ attitudes toward this issue. Our study investigates how carbon dependency, social capital, and political orientation influence public response to climate change by perceiving its threat, changing behaviors, and supporting policies. We first build an integrative paradigm to explore the theoretical connections. Next, we employ data from different sources to measure these key concepts at individual and state levels and then estimate the relationships empirically. Multilevel regression results show that carbon dependency inhibits public response while social capital enhances such response. Democrats and liberals are motivated to respond and residents of Democratic Party controlled states are also more likely to believe in climate change and perceive the risk than their counterparts. These factors can be leveraged to mobilize public engagement in climate activism

Social Capital, Carbon Dependency, and Public Response to Climate Change in 22 European Countries

Climate change is one of the most challenging issues facing the world today, and it is important to have effective policies to address its impact. One critical factor in shaping climate policy is public response to climate change. In this study, we theoretically and empirically focus on examining the impacts of personal social capital and national carbon dependency on citizens’ response to climate change in 22 European countries. Utilizing individual-level data from the 2016 European Social Survey and corresponding country-level data from multiple sources, we conduct multilevel regression analyses. Findings show that in these 22 European countries people with higher social capital are more likely to have climate-mitigation behavioral intention and show support for climate policy, while greater national carbon dependency tends to inhibit public response to climate change. We conclude by discussing this study’s contributions to the literature and policy implications and offer suggestions for future research

Social Capital’s Influence on Environmental Concern in China: An Analysis of the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey

This study examines the ways in which social capital influences people’s environmental concern in China. Using data obtained from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey, we measure social capital through social networks and trust. We find that the ways people think about and act toward others influence the ways they think about and act toward the environment. The structural equation modeling results suggest that one’s connections with others, including socializing with relatives and friends as well as general social networking, are significantly and positively related to various dimensions of environmental concern. Greater trust is positively related to one’s willingness to make sacrifices for the benefit of the environment but is also negatively related to perceived dangerousness of pollution. Our findings highlight the value of social capital in promoting environmental concern. We discuss these findings in the context of existing literature, and propose policy implications and suggest directions for future research

Belongingness is a Mediating Factor Between Religious Service Attendance and Reduced Psychological Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study aimed to test whether pre-pandemic religious service attendance relates to both lesser impact from the COVID-19 pandemic and lower levels of psychological distress among a sample of 645 American adults across nine US regions. A second aim was to test whether belongingness mediated these relationships. First, it was expected that more frequent pre-pandemic religious service attendance relates to belongingness, which mediates the religious service attendance and psychological distress association. Second, it was expected that people who felt greater belongingness also experienced less perceived impact from the pandemic. Results from a path model supported these hypotheses. This is among the first studies to provide empirical evidence for religion’s association with psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic

Beyond Stewardship and Dominion? Towards a Social Psychological Explanation of the Relationship Between Religious Attitudes and Environmental Concern

Research about the religion and environmental attitudes relationship in the United States has yielded mixed results. Some studies find that religion relates to heightened concern about environmental threats and greater environmental interest whereas others find religion relates to diminished concern and interest. A new perspective that applies ideas from psychology and sociology may help resolve these discrepant findings. It is hypothesized that religious meaning reduces concern with environmental threats since meaning helps people cope with distressing stimuli. This reduction is specific to threats and does not extend to environmental interest. Using the 2016 General Social Survey to test this hypothesis, after controlling for sociodemographic and political variables, structural equation modeling shows Americans who are more religious experience diminished sense of danger from environmental threats, yet exhibit heightened general environmental interest. These findings align with the proposed theory and suggest new ways to promote environmentalism and policy change