Healthcare access in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the light of European Union accession efforts

European Union (EU) member states are bound to ensure accessible, good quality healthcare for all of their citizens. In 2018, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been named as a candidate for accession to EU membership as part of the “Strategy for the Western Balkans”. This scoping review identifies healthcare access issues in the country, aiming to inform policy-makers of challenges that may be faced in a possible membership application process and beyond. While the country has seemingly improved citizens’ healthcare access—as measured by the Healthcare Access and Quality Index—various specific problems remain unresolved. The main barrier to equal access appears to lie in the division of the healthcare system between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republika Srpska, and the Brcko District, which also influences medicine availability and pricing. Although not necessarily systematic, studies further report distance from healthcare providers, alleged widespread corruption, discrimination of minorities and vulnerable populations, as well as vaccination gaps as problems in healthcare access for specific groups. While certainly not easy to realise, this scoping review concludes that possible solutions could include efforts to unify the healthcare and pricing system, and the implementation of the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines List, as well as investigating and tackling corruption and stigma issues

Applying Behavioural Insights to Policy: From Evidence to Practice

Evidence from the behavioural sciences is increasingly used to inform and improve policy around the world across many domains. These behavioural insights can be used for a number of purposes, such as improving communication to the public, encouraging healthier behaviour, and increasing the uptake of social services that improve life outcomes. However, not all evidence can be equally applied to any policy; the strength of the evidence and suitability for the situation at hand should be assessed case by case and ideally more evidence within the new context should be established. This report presents an approach to incorporating behavioural insights into policy using a number of examples while leveraging original work on mental health, trust, and decision-making in Lebanon. The aim is not to present a specific recipe or set of recommendations, but to share general concepts and examples for consideration in establishing a behavioural policy framework.This publication is funded through the UK Research and Innovation GCRF Research for Health in Conflict (R4HCMENA); developing capability, partnerships and research in the Middle and North Africa ES/P010962/1

The science behind the magic?. The relation of the Harry Potter “Sorting Hat Quiz” to personality and human values

The Harry Potter series describes the adventures of a boy and his peers in a fictional world at the “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”. In the series, pupils get appointed to one of four groups (Houses) at the beginning of their education based on their personality traits. The author of the books has constructed an online questionnaire that allows fans to find out their House affiliation. Crysel, Cook, Schember, and Webster (2015) argued that being sorted into a particular Hogwarts House through the Sorting Hat Quiz is related to empirically established personality traits. We replicated their study while improving on sample size, methods, and analysis. Although our results are similar, effect sizes are small overall, which attenuates the claims by Crysel et al. The effect vanishes when restricting the analysis to participants who desired, but were not sorted into a particular House. On a theoretical level, we extend previous research by also analysing the relation of the Hogwarts Houses to Schwartz’s Basic Human Values but find only moderate or no relation

Healthcare access in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the light of European Union accession efforts

European Union (EU) member states are bound to ensure accessible, good quality healthcare for all of their citizens. In 2018, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been named as a candidate for accession to EU membership as part of the “Strategy for the Western Balkans”. This scoping review identifies healthcare access issues in the country, aiming to inform policy-makers of challenges that may be faced in a possible membership application process and beyond. While the country has seemingly improved citizens’ healthcare access—as measured by the Healthcare Access and Quality Index—various specific problems remain unresolved. The main barrier to equal access appears to lie in the division of the healthcare system between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republika Srpska, and the Brcko District, which also influences medicine availability and pricing. Although not necessarily systematic, studies further report distance from healthcare providers, alleged widespread corruption, discrimination of minorities and vulnerable populations, as well as vaccination gaps as problems in healthcare access for specific groups. While certainly not easy to realise, this scoping review concludes that possible solutions could include efforts to unify the healthcare and pricing system, and the implementation of the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines List, as well as investigating and tackling corruption and stigma issues

Responsiveness to evidence : a political cognition approach

Questions of societal import have both normative (what should be done) and descriptive (what is the case) dimensions. In this chapter, we address disagreements about the latter through the lens of political cognition, a research effort spanning cognitive psychology and experimental political science. We consider various explanations for fierce disagreements about "facts on the ground" and find that first, extensive evidence shows that judgments sort by political partisanship. Second, individual differences in threat sensitivity and uncertainty tolerance predict partisan group membership, which aids understanding of group differences but not necessarily differences in descriptive beliefs. Third, no evidence suggests a historically unusual deficit in scientific understanding. Fourth, some evidence implicates well-studied features of thought (confirmation bias, motivated reasoning), but these features appear to be symmetrical across the partisan divide. Finally, emergent evidence implicates people's assessments of information sources, processes that are also susceptible to motivated reasoning and partisan cueing and moreover are challenged by a media environment that is historically unusual. We conclude that the most promising conceptualizations of disagreement over empirical matters will acknowledge that partisan cues are often valid cues indicating the beliefs of people's groups and address difficulties of information source assessment in our current, unstable information environment

Registered report: How open do you want your science? An international investigation into knowledge and attitudes of psychology students.

The use of Open Science practices is often proposed as a way to improve research practice, especially in psychology. Open Science can increase transparency and therefore reduce questionable research practices, making research more accessible to students, scholars, policy makers, and the public. However, little is known about how widespread Open Science practices are taught and how students are educated about these practices. In addition, it remains unknown how informing students about Open Science actually impacts their understanding and adoption of such practices. This registered report proposes the validation of a questionnaire. The aim is to survey how much psychology students know about Open Science and to assess whether knowledge of and exposure to Open Science in general-be it through university curricula or social media-influences attitudes towards the concept and intentions to implement relevant practices

A synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19

Scientific evidence regularly guides policy decisions1, with behavioural science increasingly part of this process2. In April 2020, an influential paper3 proposed 19 policy recommendations (‘claims’) detailing how evidence from behavioural science could contribute to efforts to reduce impacts and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we assess 747 pandemic-related research articles that empirically investigated those claims. We report the scale of evidence and whether evidence supports them to indicate applicability for policymaking. Two independent teams, involving 72 reviewers, found evidence for 18 of 19 claims, with both teams finding evidence supporting 16 (89%) of those 18 claims. The strongest evidence supported claims that anticipated culture, polarization and misinformation would be associated with policy effectiveness. Claims suggesting trusted leaders and positive social norms increased adherence to behavioural interventions also had strong empirical support, as did appealing to social consensus or bipartisan agreement. Targeted language in messaging yielded mixed effects and there were no effects for highlighting individual benefits or protecting others. No available evidence existed to assess any distinct differences in effects between using the terms ‘physical distancing’ and ‘social distancing’. Analysis of 463 papers containing data showed generally large samples; 418 involved human participants with a mean of 16,848 (median of 1,699). That statistical power underscored improved suitability of behavioural science research for informing policy decisions. Furthermore, by implementing a standardized approach to evidence selection and synthesis, we amplify broader implications for advancing scientific evidence in policy formulation and prioritization

A synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19

Scientific evidence regularly guides policy decisions 1, with behavioural science increasingly part of this process 2. In April 2020, an influential paper 3 proposed 19 policy recommendations (‘claims’) detailing how evidence from behavioural science could contribute to efforts to reduce impacts and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we assess 747 pandemic-related research articles that empirically investigated those claims. We report the scale of evidence and whether evidence supports them to indicate applicability for policymaking. Two independent teams, involving 72 reviewers, found evidence for 18 of 19 claims, with both teams finding evidence supporting 16 (89%) of those 18 claims. The strongest evidence supported claims that anticipated culture, polarization and misinformation would be associated with policy effectiveness. Claims suggesting trusted leaders and positive social norms increased adherence to behavioural interventions also had strong empirical support, as did appealing to social consensus or bipartisan agreement. Targeted language in messaging yielded mixed effects and there were no effects for highlighting individual benefits or protecting others. No available evidence existed to assess any distinct differences in effects between using the terms ‘physical distancing’ and ‘social distancing’. Analysis of 463 papers containing data showed generally large samples; 418 involved human participants with a mean of 16,848 (median of 1,699). That statistical power underscored improved suitability of behavioural science research for informing policy decisions. Furthermore, by implementing a standardized approach to evidence selection and synthesis, we amplify broader implications for advancing scientific evidence in policy formulation and prioritization

Improved clinical investigation and evaluation of high-risk medical devices: the rationale and objectives of CORE-MD (Coordinating Research and Evidence for Medical Devices)

: In the European Union (EU) the delivery of health services is a national responsibility but there are concerted actions between member states to protect public health. Approval of pharmaceutical products is the responsibility of the European Medicines Agency, whereas authorizing the placing on the market of medical devices is decentralized to independent 'conformity assessment' organizations called notified bodies. The first legal basis for an EU system of evaluating medical devices and approving their market access was the medical device directives, from the 1990s. Uncertainties about clinical evidence requirements, among other reasons, led to the EU Medical Device Regulation (2017/745) that has applied since May 2021. It provides general principles for clinical investigations but few methodological details-which challenges responsible authorities to set appropriate balances between regulation and innovation, pre- and post-market studies, and clinical trials and real-world evidence. Scientific experts should advise on methods and standards for assessing and approving new high-risk devices, and safety, efficacy, and transparency of evidence should be paramount. The European Commission recently awarded a Horizon 2020 grant to a consortium led by the European Society of Cardiology and the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, that will review methodologies of clinical investigations, advise on study designs, and develop recommendations for aggregating clinical data from registries and other real-world sources. The CORE-MD project (Coordinating Research and Evidence for Medical Devices) will run until March 2024; here we describe how it may contribute to the development of regulatory science in Europe