The Impact of Cash Transfers on School Enrollment: Evidence from Ecuador

This paper presents evidence about the impact on school enrollment of a program in Ecuador that gives cash transfers to the 40 percent poorest families. The evaluation design consists of a randomized experiment for families around the first quintile of the poverty index and of a regression discontinuity design for families around the second quintile of this index, which is the program's eligibility threshold. This allows us to compare results from two different credible identification methods, and to investigate whether the impact varies with families' poverty level. Around the first quintile of the poverty index the impact is positive while it is equal to zero around the second quintile. This suggests that for the poorest families the program lifts a credit constraint while this is not the case for families close to the eligibility threshold

An assessment of medical students' experiences of learning about the psychosocial enquiry in their introductory clinical course

Medical students' ability to take a meaningful psychosocial history has been shown to decline during clinical training. We postulated that psychosocial histories are given a low priority in busy clinical attachments. The aim of this study was to identify factors that affect how medical students gain skills in psychosocial assessment. A random sample of 37 students filled in a questionnaire before and after their introductory course, and they were asked to keep a logbook of their experiences of teaching about psychosocial history taking. There were 504 teaching experiences recorded of which less than half were positive. Negative experiences often related to poor communication by clinicians. At the end of the course less than half the students felt confident in taking a psychosocial history. To improve doctors' skills in this important area we suggest that teaching in psychosocial history taking should be made explicit, as an integrated part of the overall assessment of a patient

Shared decision making between registrars and patients--web based decision aids

BACKGROUND: Current evidence suggests that doctors do not always involve patients in decisions; this may be due to lack of training. This study explores the feasibility of using web based decision aids (DAs) to improve the skills of general practice registrars in sharing decisions with patients. METHOD: Interviews were conducted with registrars to explore their attitudes to shared decision making. Following an educational intervention, registrars were asked to adopt shared decision making within their consultations using DAs as appropriate. The registrars were interviewed again to explore their experiences and any barriers to the process. RESULTS: Registrars had positive views about the shared decision making process but required more training. They had mixed opinions about the use of DAs and identified several barriers to their use. They felt that they had learned from the project and process without necessarily wanting to pursue the use of DAs as interactive tools, preferring to use them as educational resources

Data dossier on 'Solidarity in Europe'

State of the Union 10-12 May 2018, FlorenceThe main Data Dossier on ‘Solidarity in Europe’ offers key statistics and data visualisations on each of the six topics of the EUI’s The State of the Union 2018 conference to provide a first insight into each area, namely Economic, Monetary and Fiscal Policies; Social Investment; European Defence and Security; Migration; Climate Change and Energy; and Development. The contents and data narrative have been conceptualised and written by the GlobalStat team, with the contribution of Anton Hemerijck for text on Social Investment. Based on this, Christian Dietrich, a data scientist and graphic designer, has developed and designed the magnificent data visualisations