Do Gun Buybacks Save Lives? Evidence from Panel Data

In 1997, Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth. Using differences across states in the number of firearms withdrawn, we test whether the reduction in firearms availability affected firearm homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80 per cent, with no statistically significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The estimated effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude, but is less precise. The results are robust to a variety of specification checks, and to instrumenting the state-level buyback rate.firearms ownership, homicide, suicide, panel data

Weak Tests and Strong Conclusions: A Re-Analysis of Gun Deaths and the Australian Firearms Buyback

Using time series analysis on data from 1979-2004, Baker and McPhedran (2006) argue that the stricter gun laws introduced in the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) post- 1996 did not affect firearm homicide rates, and may not have had an impact on the rate of gun suicide or accidental death by shooting. We revisit their analysis, and find that their results are not robust to: (a) using a longer time series; or (b) using the log of the rate rather than the level (to take account of the fact that the rate cannot fall below zero). We also show that claims that the authors had allowed both for method substitution and for underlying trends in suicide or homicide rates are misleading. The high variability in the data and the fragility of the results with respect to different specifications suggest that time series analysis cannot conclusively answer the question of whether the NFA led to lower gun deaths. Drawing strong conclusions from simple time series analysis is not warranted, but to the extent that this evidence points anywhere, it is towards the firearms buyback reducing gun deaths

Do gun buybacks save lives? Evidence from panel data

In 1997, Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth (and nearly halved the number of gun-owning house-holds). Using differences across states, we test whether the reduction in firearms availability affected homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise. The results are robust to a variety of specification checks and to instrumenting the state-level buyback rate

Barriers to supportive care during the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa: Results of a qualitative study

© 2018 Loignon et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Background During the 2013–2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, supportive care was the only non-experimental treatment option for patients with Ebola virus disease (EVD). However, providing care that would otherwise be routine for most clinical settings in the context of a highly contagious and lethal pathogen is much more challenging. The objective of this study was to document and deepen understanding of barriers to provision of supportive care in Ebola treatment units (ETUs) as perceived by those involved in care delivery during the outbreak. Methods This qualitative study consisted of 29 in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (decision-makers, physicians, nurses) involved in patient care delivery during the outbreak. Analysis consisted of interview debriefing and team-based transcript coding in NVivo10 software using thematic analysis. Findings Participants emphasized three interconnected barriers to providing high-quality supportive care during the outbreak: 1) lack of material and human resources in ETUs; 2) ETU organizational structure limiting the provision of supportive clinical care; and 3) delayed and poorly coordinated policies limiting the effectiveness of global and national responses. Participants also noted the ethical complexities of defining and enacting best clinical practices in low-income countries. They noted tension between, on one hand, scaling up minimal care and investing in clinical care preparedness to a level sustainable in West Africa and, on the other, providing a higher level of supportive care, which in low-resource health systems would require important investments. Conclusion Our findings identified potentially modifiable barriers to the delivery of supportive care to patients with EVD in West Africa. Addressing these in the inter-outbreak period will be useful to improve patient care and outcomes during inevitable future outbreaks. Promoting community trust and engagement through long-term capacity building of the healthcare workforce and infrastructure would increase both health system resilience and ability to handle other outbreaks of emerging diseases

Long-term ecological legacies in western Amazonia

M.B.B would like to acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation (grant nos. EAR1338694 and BCS0926973), the Belmont Forum, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (grant no. NNX14AD31G). C.N.H.M would like to acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC 2019 StG 853394). C.N.H.M and M.F.R would like to acknowledge funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (ALWOP.322). S.N.H, M.P, and Jo.V performed this research as a part of the BSc research program of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam.1. Modifications of Amazonian forests by pre‐Columbian peoples are thought to have left ecological legacies that have persisted to the modern day. Most Amazonian palaeoecological records do not, however, provide the required temporal resolution to document the nuanced changes of pre‐Columbian disturbance or post‐disturbance succession and recovery, making it difficult to detect any direct, or indirect, ecological legacies on tree species. 2. Here, we investigate the fossil pollen, phytolith and charcoal history of Lake Kumpaka, Ecuador, during the last 2,415 years in c. 3–50 year time intervals to assess ecological legacies resulting from pre‐Columbian forest modification, disturbance, cultivation and fire usage. 3. Two cycles of pre‐Columbian cultivation (one including slash‐and‐burn cultivation, the other including slash‐and‐mulch cultivation) were documented in the record around 2150–1430 cal. year BP and 1250–680 cal. year BP, with following post‐disturbance succession dynamics. Modern disturbance was documented after c. 10 cal. year BP. The modern disturbance produced a plant composition unlike those of the two past disturbances, as fire frequencies reached their peak in the 2,415‐year record. The disturbance periods varied in intensity and duration, while the overturn of taxa following a disturbance lasted for hundreds of years. The recovery periods following pre‐Columbian disturbance shared some similar patterns of early succession, but the longer‐term recovery patterns differed. 4. Synthesis. The trajectories of change after a cessation of cultivation can be anticipated to differ depending on the intensity, scale, duration and manner of the past disturbance. In the Kumpaka record, no evidence of persistent enrichment or depletion of intentionally altered taxa (i.e. direct legacy effects) was found but indirect legacy effects, however, were documented and have persisted to the modern day. These findings highlight the strengths of using empirical data to reconstruct past change rather than relying solely on modern plant populations to infer past human management and ecological legacies, and challenge some of the current hypotheses involving the persistence of pre‐Columbian legacies on modern plant populations.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Congestive Heart Failure Patient Education Intervention to Address 30 Day CHF Readmission

Introduction. The ACA Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program recently cut reimbursement for 30 day readmissions. Risk-adjusted congestive heart failure (CHF) 30-day readmission rate at Fletcher Allen Health Care (FAHC) in 2012 approached 22.2% among Medicare patients.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1203/thumbnail.jp

Seeing lockdown through the eyes of children from around the world: Reflecting on a children's artwork project.

The COVID-19 pandemic created new challenges for children including access to education and limiting social and emotional connections to extended family, friends, and the community. Globally, opportunities for sharing children’s self-reported experiences during lockdown were limited. The primary aim of this project was to create an art-E-Book that reflects children’s experiences of life during the COVID-19 pandemic that could be shared with other children around the world. Secondly, we wanted to reflect on the consultation undertaken within the International Network of Child and Family Centered Care (INCFCC) using Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle framework. Children from around the world were invited to submit a piece of artwork that reflected their experience during the COVID-19 pandemic via a Qualtrics-survey in May 2020. The children’s artwork and written pieces were transcribed verbatim into an E-Book and the artwork was further placed into groups based on similarity of meaning. Fifty-five children from 17 countries submitted an artwork piece. Four groups were evident within the children’s artwork including infection control measures, positive experiences and emotions (connection to family, fun activities), negative experiences and emotions (social impact, emotional impact), and uniting children globally. The E-Book is available to download free of charge via the INCFCC website. The E-Book illustrates how children of all ages can provide meaningful insightful commentary and valuable information on their experiences during an unprecedented pandemic

Deep soils modify environmental consequences of increased nitrogen fertilizer use in intensifying Amazon agriculture

Agricultural intensification offers potential to grow more food while reducing the conversion of native ecosystems to croplands. However, intensification also risks environmental degradation through emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitrate leaching to ground and surface waters. Intensively-managed croplands and nitrogen (N) fertilizer use are expanding rapidly in tropical regions. We quantified fertilizer responses of maize yield, N2O emissions, and N leaching in an Amazon soybean-maize double-cropping system on deep, highly-weathered soils in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Application of N fertilizer above 80 kg N ha−1 yr−1 increased maize yield and N2O emissions only slightly. Unlike experiences in temperate regions, leached nitrate accumulated in deep soils with increased fertilizer and conversion to cropping at N fertilization rates \u3e80 kg N ha−1, which exceeded maize demand. This raises new questions about the capacity of tropical agricultural soils to store nitrogen, which may determine when and how much nitrogen impacts surface waters

A nova-like red variable in M31

A late-type supergiant which appeared in the bulge of M31 in the last observing season faded 3 bolometric magnitudes in 100 days and is now no longer detectable. It is suggested that the object was a nova of an unusual type