Religion and Innovation in Europe: Implications for Product Life-Cycle Management

This paper analyzes the relationship between religion and innovation in Europe. To the best knowledge of the authors, no paper has been published about the association of religion with innovation and innovative products and services, at an individual level, for all the countries that belong to the European Union. This is the main goal of our paper. The results show that the orientation of innovativeness depends on religion. This study contains a segmentation of the main religions in Europe, taking into account their innovative profile. Connecting the characteristics of the religious segments found and the innovations life-cycle concept, companies have a tool to manage different innovations’ evolutive stages taking into consideration the religion of their customers. The European policy-makers, still dominated by a traditional innovation approach, gain a demand-side perspective to improve citizen’s innovativeness awareness and acceptance. Finally, religiosity does not seem to have a very strong relationship with attitudes towards innovation once we control for religious affiliation

Global Vaccine Hesitancy Segmentation: A Cross-European Approach

Vaccine-preventable diseases are global mainly in a globalized world that is characterized by a continuous movement of people and goods across countries. Vaccine hesitancy, the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines, is rising worldwide. What if the problem of vaccine hesitancy could be most effectively managed when treated globally rather than on a national or regional basis? What if a global vaccine-hesitant segment exists and the differences among countries are not so significant? Based on the Global Marketing Strategy paradigm, this paper shows that seven different cross-European segments exist based on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors collected in 28 European countries. These pan-European segments are differentiable (people in those segments have similar characteristics that are visibly dissimilar from the ones in other segments) and actionable (organizations would be able to propose interventions to the hesitant segments based on their profiles). With segmentation being the starting point of many public health intervention strategies for avoiding vaccine-hesitancy, the results recommend moderating the full-adaptation strategy that follows the "context matters" principle suggested by several political and public health international organizations. Embracing a more standardized strategy will allow the development of better services and strategies that support and enable desirable vaccination behaviors

Influence of Media Information Sources on Vaccine Uptake: The Full and Inconsistent Mediating Role of Vaccine Hesitancy

Vaccine hesitancy is a significant public health concern, with numerous studies demonstrating its negative impact on immunization rates. One factor that can influence vaccine hesitancy is media coverage of vaccination. The media is a significant source of immunization information and can significantly shape people’s attitudes and behaviors toward vaccine uptake. Media influences vaccination positively or negatively. Accurate coverage of the benefits and effectiveness of vaccination can encourage uptake, while coverage of safety concerns or misinformation may increase hesitancy. Our study investigated whether vaccine hesitancy acts as a mediator between information sources and vaccination uptake. We analyzed a cross-sectional online survey by the European Commission of 27,524 citizens from all EU member states between 15 and 29 March 2019. The study used structural equation modeling to conduct a mediation analysis, revealing that the influence of media on vaccine uptake is fully mediated by vaccine hesitancy, except for television, which depicted an inconsistent mediating role. In other words, the effect of different media on vaccine uptake is largely driven by the extent to which individuals are hesitant or resistant to vaccinating. Therefore, media outlets, governments, and public health organizations must work together to promote accurate and reliable information about vaccination and address vaccine hesitancy

Building Physicians’ Trust In e-Health: An Application To EHCR Systems

This paper explains physicians’ acceptance, in terms of usage intentions, of one of the most relevant eHealth services or applications: Electronic Health Care Records (EHCR). For this purpose, the original structure of the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis et al. 1989: 985), which included perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, and usage intention, is extended with trust and risk-related factors such as physicians’ perceptions of institutional trust, perceived risk, and information integrity. The results stress the special importance of cognitive instrumental processes (mainly, usefulness perceptions) and attitudinal dimensions (attitude towards usage and perceived institutional trust), as key determinants of physicians’ acceptance of EHCR systems. Perceptions of institutional trust exert strong direct effects on physicians’ perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and attitude towards the use of EHCR. Additionally, trust mediates the influence of perceived risk and information integrity perceptions on physicians’ acceptance of EHCR

Global Vaccine Hesitancy Segmentation: A Cross-European Approach

Vaccine-preventable diseases are global mainly in a globalized world that is characterized by a continuous movement of people and goods across countries. Vaccine hesitancy, the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines, is rising worldwide. What if the problem of vaccine hesitancy could be most effectively managed when treated globally rather than on a national or regional basis? What if a global vaccine-hesitant segment exists and the differences among countries are not so significant? Based on the Global Marketing Strategy paradigm, this paper shows that seven different cross-European segments exist based on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors collected in 28 European countries. These pan-European segments are differentiable (people in those segments have similar characteristics that are visibly dissimilar from the ones in other segments) and actionable (organizations would be able to propose interventions to the hesitant segments based on their profiles). With segmentation being the starting point of many public health intervention strategies for avoiding vaccine-hesitancy, the results recommend moderating the full-adaptation strategy that follows the “context matters” principle suggested by several political and public health international organizations. Embracing a more standardized strategy will allow the development of better services and strategies that support and enable desirable vaccination behaviors

Food Reward and Food Choice. An Inquiry Through The Liking and Wanting Model

What if consumers are getting obese because eating less calories is more difficult for persons that have a higher pleasure and desire towards food (Ikeda et al., 2005) and food companies do not help given only a two extreme option choice to satisfy their needs (i.e., low calories vs. high calories or healthy vs. unhealthy)? Reward systems are being described with a new conceptual approach where liking—the pleasure derived from eating a given food—and wanting—motivational value, desire, or craving—can be seen as the significant forces guiding eating behavior. Our work shows that pleasure (liking), desire (wanting), and the interaction between them influence and are good predictors of food choice and food intake. Reward responses to food are closely linked to food choice, inducing to caloric overconsumption. Based on the responses given to a self-administered questionnaire measuring liking and wanting attitudes, we found three different segments named ‘Reward lovers,’ ‘Half epicurious,’ and ‘Non indulgents’. Their behavior when choosing food is quite different. Results show differential effects on caloric consumption depending on segments. The introduction of more food choices that try to balance their content is a win-win strategy for consumers, companies, and society

Vaccine Hesitancy and Political Populism. An Invariant Cross-European Perspective

Vaccine-hesitancy and political populism are positively associated across Europe: those countries in which their citizens present higher populist attitudes are those that also have higher vaccine-hesitancy rates. The same key driver fuels them: distrust in institutions, elites, and experts. The reluctance of citizens to be vaccinated fits perfectly in populist political agendas because is a source of instability that has a distinctive characteristic known as the “small pockets” issue. It means that the level at which immunization coverage needs to be maintained to be effective is so high that a small number of vaccine-hesitants have enormous adverse effects on herd immunity and epidemic spread. In pandemic and post-pandemic scenarios, vaccine-hesitancy could be used by populists as one of the most effective tools for generating distrust. This research presents an invariant measurement model applied to 27 EU + UK countries (27,524 participants) that segments the different behaviours found, and gives social-marketing recommendations for coping with the vaccine-hesitancy problem when used for generating distrust

Construcción teórica de la asesoría psicopedagógica

La formación del Licenciado en Educación. Pedagogía-Psicología como asesor psicopedagógico demanda la apropiación teórica de la asesoría psicopedagógica a directivos y docentes como modo de actuación profesional, en correspondencia con el objeto de la profesión y las esferas de actuación. En la comprensión del rol de asesor psicopedagógico se manifiestan insuficiencias que limitan la configuración teórico-metodológica de este proceso profesional. En esta dirección y como respuesta a esta problemática se propone, desde un enfoque interdisciplinar, la lógica de la construcción de la asesoría psicopedagógica en pos de favorecer el dominio del modo de actuación a partir de la relación académica, laboral e investigativo. Este trabajo es resultado de investigaciones doctorales de los autores. Se emplea desde una perspectiva sistémica métodos teóricos: analítico-sintético, histórico-lógico y empíricos: observación, encuesta, entrevista y análisis documental. Los resultados expresan la dialéctica integradora del proceso de formación para la asesoría psicopedagógica y su aplicación contextualizada en situaciones educativas. PALABRAS CLAVE: construcción; asesoría psicopedagógica; modo de actuación profesional. THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTION OF PSYCHOPEDAGOGICAL ADVICE ABSTRACT The formation of the Bachelor of Education. Pedagogy-Psychology as a psychopedagogical advisor demands the theoretical appropriation of psychopedagogical advice to managers and teachers as a mode of professional action, in correspondence with the object of the profession and the spheres of action. In the understanding of the role of psychopedagogical advisor, there are inadequacies that limit the theoretical-methodological configuration of this professional process. In this direction and in response to this problem, from an interdisciplinary approach, the logic of the construction of psycho-pedagogical advice is proposed in order to favor the mastery of the mode of action based on the academic, labor and research relationship. This work is been of the authors' doctoral investigations. Theoretical methods are used from a systemic perspective: analytical-synthetic, historical-logical and empirical: observation, survey, interview and documentary analysis. The results express the integrative dialectic of the training process for psychopedagogical advice and its contextualized application in educational situations. KEYWORDS: construction; psychopedagogical advice service; way of professional behavior

Influenza A(H5N1) detection in two asymptomatic poultry farm workers in Spain, September to October 2022: suspected environmental contamination

In autumn 2022, the Spanish Influenza National Reference Laboratory (NRL) confirmed the detection of influenza A(H5N1) in samples from two asymptomatic workers linked to an outbreak in a poultry farm in Spain. Nasopharyngeal swabs were taken according to a national screening protocol for exposed workers. Absence of symptoms, low viral load and negative serology in both workers suggested environmental contamination. These findings motivated an update of the early detection strategy specifying timing and sampling conditions in asymptomatic exposed persons.S