Assembling the evidence jigsaw: insights from a systematic review of UK studies of individual-focused return to work initiatives for disabled and long-term ill people

Background: Employment rates of long-term ill and disabled people in the UK are low and 2.63 million are on disability-related state benefits. Since the mid-1990 s, UK governments have experimented with a range of active labour market policies aimed to move disabled people off benefits and into work to reduce the risk of poverty and social exclusion. This systematic review asks what employment impact have these interventions had and how might they work better? Methods: A systematic review of observational and qualitative empirical studies and systematic reviews published between 2002 and mid-2008 reporting employment effects and/or process evaluations of national UK government interventions focused on helping long-term sick or disabled people (aged 16-64) into the open labour market. This built on our previous systematic review which covered the years 1970 to 2001. Results: Searches identified 42 studies, 31 of which evaluated initiatives with an individual focus (improving an individual's employability or providing financial support in returning to work) while 11 evaluated initiatives with an environmental focus (directed at the employment environment or changing the behaviour of employers). This paper synthesises evidence from the 31 studies with an individual focus. The use of personal advisors and individual case management in these schemes helped some participants back to work. Qualitative studies, however, revealed that time pressures and job outcome targets influenced advisors to select 'easier-to-place' claimants into programmes and also inhibited the development of mutual trust, which was needed for individual case management to work effectively. Financial incentives can help with lasting transitions into work, but the incentives were often set too low or were too short-term to have an effect. Many of the studies suffered from selection bias into these programmes of more work-ready claimants. Even though these were national programmes, they had very low awareness and take-up rates, making it unlikely that a population-level impact would be achieved even if effective for participants. Conclusions: The evidence reveals barriers and facilitators for the effective implementation of these types of interventions that could inform the continuing welfare reforms. The evidence points towards the need for more long-term, sustained and staged support for those furthest from the labour market

The impact of community engagement on health and social outcomes: a systematic review

Community engagement is central to national strategies for promoting health, yet there have been few attempts to systematically review the evidence on the impact of initiatives that aim to engage communities. This rapid review fills this gap by exploring the population impact of initiatives which sought to address social determinants of health. It took a novel approach to synthesizing a sample of the enormous UK literature on community engagement. The synthesis found no evidence of positive impacts on population health or the quality of services, but initiatives did have positive impacts on housing, crime, social capital and community empowerment. Methodological developments are needed to enable studies of complex social interventions to provide robust evidence of population impact in relation to community engagement

Estimating cardiac exposure from breast cancer radiotherapy in clinical practice.

PURPOSE: To assess the value of maximum heart distance (MHD) in predicting the dose and biologically effective dose (BED) to the heart and the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery for left-tangential breast or chest wall irradiation. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A total of 50 consecutive breast cancer patients given adjuvant left-tangential irradiation at a large U.K. radiotherapy center during 2006 were selected. For each patient, the following were derived using three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) planning: (1) mean dose and BED to the heart, (2) mean dose and BED to the LAD coronary artery, (3) MHD, (4) position of the CT slice showing the maximum area of the irradiated heart relative to the mid-plane slice, and (5) sternal and contralateral breast thickness (measures of body fat). RESULTS: A strong linear correlation was found between the MHD and the mean heart dose. For every 1-cm increase in MHD, the mean heart dose increased by 2.9% on average (95% confidence interval 2.5-3.3). A strong linear-quadratic relationship was seen between the MHD and the mean heart BED. The mean LAD coronary artery dose and BED were also correlated with the MHD but the associations were weaker. These relationships were not affected by body fat. The mid-plane CT slice did not give a reliable assessment of cardiac irradiation. CONCLUSION: The MHD is a reliable predictor of the mean heart dose and BED and gives an approximate estimate of the mean LAD coronary artery dose and BED. Doses predicted by the MHD could help assess the risk of radiation-induced cardiac toxicity where individual CT-based cardiac dosimetry is not possible