The effects on health of a publicly funded domestic heating programme: a prospective controlled study

<b>Objective</b>: To assess the effect of a publicly funded domestic heating programme on self-reported health. <b>Design, setting and participants</b>: A prospective controlled study of 1281 households in Scotland receiving new central heating under a publicly funded initiative, and 1084 comparison households not receiving new heating. The main outcome measures were self-reported diagnosis of asthma, bronchitis, eczema, nasal allergy, heart disease, circulatory problems or high blood pressure; number of primary care encounters and hospital contacts in the past year; and SF-36 Health Survey scores. <b>Results</b>: Usable data were obtained from 61.4% of 3849 respondents originally recruited. Heating recipients reported higher scores on the SF-36 Physical Functioning scale (difference 2.51; 95% CI 0.67 to 4.37) and General Health scale (difference 2.57; 95% CI 0.90 to 4.34). They were less likely to report having received a first diagnosis of heart disease (OR 0.69; 95% CI 0.52 to 0.91) or high blood pressure (OR 0.77; 95% CI 0.61 to 0.97), but the groups did not differ significantly in use of primary care or hospital services. <b>Conclusions</b>: Provision of central heating was associated with significant positive effects on general health and physical functioning; however, effect sizes were small. Evidence of a reduced risk of first diagnosis with heart disease or high blood pressure must be interpreted with caution, due to the self-reported nature of the outcomes, the limited time period and the failure to detect any difference in health service use

Protocol for a systematic review of the use of qualitative comparative analysis for evaluative questions in public health research

Background: There is an increasing recognition that health intervention research requires methods and approaches that can engage with the complexity of systems, interventions, and the relations between systems and interventions. One approach which shows promise to this end is qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), which examines casual complexity across a medium to large number of cases (between 10 and 60+), whilst also being able to generalise across those cases. Increasingly, QCA is being adopted in public health intervention research. However, there is a limited understanding of how it is being adopted. This systematic review will address this gap, examining how it is being used to understand complex causation; for what settings, populations and interventions; and with which datasets to describe cases. Methods: We will include published and peer-reviewed studies of any public health intervention where the effects on population health, health equity, or intervention uptake are being evaluated. Electronic searches of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (incorporating Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index), Microsoft Academic, and Google Scholar will be performed. This will be supplemented with reference citation tracking and personal contact with experts to identify any additional published studies. Search results will be single screened, with machine learning used to check these results, acting as a ‘second screener’. Any disagreement will be resolved through discussion. Data will be extracted from full texts of eligible studies, which will be assessed against inclusion criteria, and synthesised narratively, using thematic synthesis methods. Discussion: This systematic review will provide an important map of the increasing use of QCA in public health intervention literature. This review will identify the current scope of research in this area, as well as assessing claims about the utility of the method for addressing complex causation in public health research. We will identify implications for better reporting of QCA methods in public health research and for reporting of case studies such that they can be used in future QCA studies. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO, CRD4201913191

Conceptualising the 'community' as a recipient of money - A critical literature review, and implications for health and inequalities

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. There is increasing attention on how money may bring about positive changes to health, and money-based development approaches are becoming more commonplace at the 'community' level, including in high-income countries. However, little attention has been paid to how the 'community' might be varyingly conceptualised in these scenarios, or to the potential implications of this for interpreting the impacts of such health improvement approaches. This paper presents a critical interpretive review of literature presenting different scenarios from high-income countries in which the 'community' receives money, to explore how 'community' is conceptualised in relation to this process. Some texts gave explicit definitions of 'community', but multiple other conceptualisations were interpreted across all texts, conveyed through the construction of 'problematics', and descriptions of how and why money was given. The findings indicate that the flow of money shapes how conceptualisations of 'community' are produced, and that the implicit power relations and inequalities can construct and privilege particular sets of identities and relationships throughout the process. This highlights implications for approaching public health evaluations of giving money to 'communities', and for better understanding how it might bring about change to health and inequalities, where the 'community' cannot be interpreted merely as a setting or recipient of such an intervention, but something constructed and negotiated through the flow of money itself

Improved planar InAs avalanche photodiodes with reduced dark current and increased responsivity

Indium Arsenide (InAs) infrared photodiodes provide high quantum efficiency in the wavelength range of 1.0-3.0 μm. Planar diode configuration has been adopted to reduce surface leakage. In this work, new fabrication procedures for planar InAs avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are reported. Beryllium (Be) ions were implanted into InAs at a relatively low energy of 34 keV. Effects of duration of post implant annealing on the electrical characteristics of InAs APDs were investigated. It was found that a combination of post implant annealing at 500 °C for 15 min and a shallow surface etch produces planar APDs with good characteristics (room temperature dark current density of 0.52 A/cm 2 at -0.2 V and external quantum efficiency of 51% at 1520 nm at -0.3 V). These represent a 3 times reduction in dark current and 1.4 times increase in responsivity, compared to earlier Be-implanted planar InAs APDs. The APDs' avalanche gain characteristics remain similar to those from earlier reports, with a gain of 4 at a relatively low operating bias of 5 V. This suggests the potential of integrating InAs APDs with low voltage readout integrated circuits (ROIC) for development of infrared imaging arrays. The data reported in this paper is available from the ORDA digital repository (DOI: 10.15131/shef.data.6955037)

"A hard day’s night?" The effects of Compressed Working Week interventions on the health and work-life balance of shift workers: a systematic review

Objective: To systematically review studies of the effects of the Compressed Working Week on the health and work-life balance of shift workers, and to identify any differential impacts by socio-economic group. Methods: Systematic review. Following QUORUM guidelines, published or unpublished experimental and quasi-experimental studies were identified. Data were sourced from 27 electronic databases, websites, bibliographies, and expert contacts. Results: Forty observational studies were found. The majority of studies only measured self-reported outcomes and the methodological quality of the included studies was not very high. Interventions did not always improve the health of shift workers, but in the five prospective studies with a control group, there were no detrimental effects on self-reported health. However, work-life balance was generally improved. No studies reported differential impacts by socio-economic group; however, most of the studies were conducted on homogeneous populations. Conclusion: This review suggests that the Compressed Working Week can improve work-life balance, and that it may do so with a low risk of adverse health or organisational effects. However, better designed studies that measure objective health outcomes are needed

Interpretive analysis of 85 systematic reviews suggests narrative syntheses and meta-analyses are incommensurate in argumentation

Introduction. Using Toulmin’s argumentation theory, we analysed the texts of systematic reviews in the area of workplace health promotion to explore differences in the modes of reasoning embedded in reports of narrative synthesis as compared to reports of meta-analysis. Methods. We used framework synthesis, grounded theory and cross-case analysis methods to analyse 85 systematic reviews addressing intervention effectiveness in workplace health promotion. Results. Two core categories, or ‘modes of reasoning’, emerged to frame the contrast between narrative synthesis and meta-analysis: practical-configurational reasoning in narrative synthesis (‘what is going on here? what picture emerges?’) and inferential-predictive reasoning in meta-analysis (‘does it work, and how well? will it work again?’). Modes of reasoning examined quality and consistency of the included evidence differently. Meta-analyses clearly distinguished between warrant and claim, whereas narrative syntheses often presented joint warrant-claims. Conclusion. Narrative syntheses and meta-analyses represent different modes of reasoning. Systematic reviewers are likely to be addressing research questions in different ways with each method. It is important to consider narrative synthesis in its own right as a method and to develop specific quality criteria and understandings of how it is done, not merely as a complement to, or second-best option for, meta-analysis

A translational framework for public health research

<p><b>Background</b></p> <p>The paradigm of translational medicine that underpins frameworks such as the Cooksey report on the funding of health research does not adequately reflect the complex reality of the public health environment. We therefore outline a translational framework for public health research.</p> <p><b>Discussion</b></p> <p>Our framework redefines the objective of translation from that of institutionalising effective interventions to that of improving population health by influencing both individual and collective determinants of health. It incorporates epidemiological perspectives with those of the social sciences, recognising that many types of research may contribute to the shaping of policy, practice and future research. It also identifies a pivotal role for evidence synthesis and the importance of non-linear and intersectoral interfaces with the public realm.</p> <p><b>Summary</b></p> <p>We propose a research agenda to advance the field and argue that resources for 'applied' or 'translational' public health research should be deployed across the framework, not reserved for 'dissemination' or 'implementation'.</p&gt