Innovating Cultural Competence Education for Nurses

Objective To improve cultural competency levels of registered nurses on the Mother/Baby unit by educating nurses. Background Demographics are shifting in the U.S. with an increase in minority populations. Research has revealed insufficient education or a complete absence of education, resulting in nurses that are not equipped to adequately care for culturally diverse patients. Methods The Evidence-Based Practice Improvement (EBPI) Model guided the development and implementation of the project. A cultural competence education module was developed utilizing resources from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Outcomes were measured using a pretest/posttest design tool, the Inventory for Assessing the Process of Cultural Competence Among Healthcare Professionals- Revised (IAPCC-R) to assess cultural competency levels. Results A paired sample t-test was used to determine if there was a significant change between pretest and posttest scores in 14 participants. Scores significantly increased (p=0.002) from 73.57 at pretest to 81.64 at posttest. Items were summed to create subscales scores for awareness, desire, skill, knowledge and encounters. Scores significantly increased for all constructs, though knowledge did not significantly increase. Conclusion Cultural competence education increased the overall cultural competency levels of registered nurses on the Mother/Baby unit. Implication for Nurses Culturally competent education has been associated with improved awareness, desire, skill and encounters, which in turn supports patient-centered care

Developing a comparative marine socio-economic framework for the European Atlantic Area

Availability and easy access to a wide range of natural and human-activity data on the oceans and coastal regions of Europe is the basis for strategic decision-making on coastal and marine policy. Strategies within Europe’s Integrated Maritime Policy, including the Maritime Strategy for the Atlantic Area, Blue Growth, Maritime Spatial Planning and Marine Data and Knowledge, require coherent and comparable socio-economic data across European countries. Similarly, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive requires member states to carry out economic and social analysis of their waters and the reformed Common Fisheries Policy includes a social dimension requiring socio-economic data. However, the availability of consistent, accessible marine socio-economic data for the European Atlantic Arc regions is limited. Ocean economy studies have been undertaken in some countries (for example, Ireland, France, and UK) but timescales and methodologies are not necessarily comparable. Marnet is an EU transnational co-operation project involving eight partners from five member states of the Atlantic Area (Ireland, Spain, UK, France and Portugal). Marnet has developed a methodology to collate comparable marine socio-economic data across the Atlantic regions. The comparative marine socio-economic information system developed by Marnet could provide a template for other European States to follow that could potentially facilitate the construction of a Europe-wide marine economic information system as envisaged under the EU Integrated Maritime Policy

Blue Growth: A Transitions Approach to Developing Sustainable Pathways

The sustainable management of Blue Growth is an urgent issue for coastal states. Marine industries have rapidly expanded over the last two decades and this is projected to continue with the European Green Deal and post-COVID economic recovery policies. The intensification of Blue Growth could have adverse socio-ecological implications and must, therefore, be managed in terms of sustainability, natural resource boundaries, and coastal community well-being. Managing Blue Growth in a sustainable manner however, is challenging due to the longstanding inefficiencies and inertia of existing marine governance regimes. Adopting a transitions approach has been advanced as a way of steering regime change so that it is not inhibited by these persistent problems. This paper reports on four case studies that adopt transitions thinking and use the multi-level perspective as a broad analytical framework through which to understand institutional dynamics, drivers and responses within core marine sectors. Our case studies analysis reveals several significant pressures for regime change within key marine sectors. These pressures need to be addressed through the adoption of a transition management approach. By adopting this approach and engaging key stakeholders, national and EU marine governance authorities can develop sustainable Blue Growth pathways that minimize the impact of continued growth on communities and the marine environment, maximizing the implementation of sustainable practices and addressing issues such as biodiversity loss and climate change

Challenges in measuring indicators of progress for the Atlantic Action Plan

The EU Atlantic Action Plan (AAP) has recently been updated and revised to support ‘blue growth’ along Europe’s western coastal regions. The revisions reflect recent challenges facing the Atlantic Arc maritime economies including the Covid-19 crisis, Brexit and the new requirements of the European Green Deal. This new revision, termed AAP 2.0, also addresses some of the weaknesses highlighted in the original Atlantic Action Plan particularly regarding identifying indicators that may be used to measure progress in the achievement of the Plan’s objectives. Using a database with comparable marine socio-economic data across the Atlantic regions, a number of indicators are identified that may be used to monitor progress of the AAP 2.0. Recent trends and spatial distributions across the Atlantic Arc region are shown for these indicators. The challenges in measuring progress are also highlighted, including where some AAP objectives and associated indicators may conflict with other EU policy aims and where the current monitoring framework can be bolstered with the inclusion of new indicators

A Measurement of Third Level Marine Education & Training in Ireland

This report provides an aggregate estimated value of Marine Education and Training in Ireland, in relation to the size of its ocean economy. The research estimates that the overall value of Marine Education and Training is €11.5m, which represents 0.4% of the total turnover of Ireland’s Ocean Economy. According to the latest SEMRU estimates1 , the overall turnover of Ireland’s ocean economy in 2012 was €4.2 billion, of which €1.3 billion was direct gross value added (GVA). This represents approximately 0.7% of national GDP. In 2012, Ireland’s ocean economy employed approximately 17,425 people (FTE)

Public Perceptions of the Irish Marine Environment

This paper presents the results of a nationwide survey in Ireland that explored the values, concerns and preferences of individuals towards the Irish marine environment. The results of the Irish survey are also compared to the results from similar surveys carried out in other maritime countries in the EU. The views of the Irish public towards the seas and oceans around the Irish coast are relatively unknown. This is despite the fact that that Ireland has sovereign rights over 900,000km2 of seabed (which is an area 10 times the size of the land area of Ireland). The results of the Irish survey demonstrate a reasonable level of knowledge of the main threats facing Ireland’s marine environment and of the importance of non-market as well as market ecosystem services provided by the seas around the Irish coast. The results also suggest that the Irish public are sceptical of the ability of government and private industry to manage the Irish marine economy but instead place a large amount of trust in the competency of scientists. The perception of whether or not they consider where they live as being a coastal area would also suggest that the Irish public hold a much more narrow view of what constitutes a coastal area than that held by statistical agencies such as Eurostat

Ireland's Ocean Economy Report - Reference Year 2010

Results from the report show that in 2010, the direct economic value of the Irish ocean economy was €1.2 billion or approximately 0.8% of GDP. The sector had a turnover of €3.5 billion, and provided employment for approximately 16,300 people (Full Time Equivalent). The report allows for the comparative analysis of the contribution of the marine sector to the national economy in the 2007-2010 period