Evaluating participant experiences of Community Panels to scrutinise policy modelling for health inequalities: the SIPHER Consortium

Data-intensive research, including policy modelling, poses some distinctive challenges for efforts to mainstream public involvement into health research. There is a need for learning about how to design and deliver involvement for these types of research which are highly technical, and where researchers are at a distance from the people whose lives data depicts. This article describes our experiences involving members of the public in the SIPHER Consortium, a data-intensive policy modelling programme with researchers and policymakers working together over five years to try to address health inequalities. We focus on evaluating people’s experiences as part of Community Panels for SIPHER. Key issues familiar from general public involvement efforts include practical details, careful facilitation of meetings, and payment for participants. We also describe some of the more particular learning around how to communicate technical research to non-academic audiences, in order to enable public scrutiny of research decisions. We conclude that public involvement in policy modelling can be meaningful and enjoyable, but that it needs to be carefully organised, and properly resourced

Report of the National Expert Panel on Community Health Promotion

In response to the 1979 Surgeon General's Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Healthy People, the Center for Health Promotion and Education was created at CDC in 1981. This center was established as a broad-based entity that focused on health issues including reproductive health, nutrition, smoking, alcohol use, physical fitness, stress, violence, accidents, and other risk factors of public health significance. In subsequent years, the center's scope expanded to include important infant and maternal health initiatives, the widely used Planned Approach to Community Health, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and other key surveillance programs. By 1988, CDC established the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP), which became increasingly disease-specific, spreading the expertise in health education and community health promotion across diversified programs. Consequently, no one unit within NCCDPHP is the primary resource for public health practitioners seeking to improve the efficacy and effectiveness of community health promotion. NCCDPHP is focused on strengthening services to improve community health promotion by facilitating translation of research into practice and expanding collaborative efforts. The Division of Adult and Community Health (DACH) provides a home for cross-cutting expertise and consultation about community-based public health work at NCCDPHP. DACH is also working to expand the ability of the Community Health and Program Services Branch (CHAPS) to build healthy communities and eliminate health disparities by providing national leadership in community health promotion and disease prevention. The long-term goal for NCCDPHP and DACH is to serve as a center for cross-cutting expertise and support for community health promotion. Furthermore, in the future, CHAPS is intended to be a point of public access to evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence ready for translation in community settings.prepared by Amanda Navarro, Karen Voetsch, Leandris Liburd, Clem Bezold, Marsha Rhea.4/8/2008 - date from document propertiesThe Community Health and Program Services Branch, along with the Division of Adult and Community Health's Office of the Director, hosted a meeting of the National Expert Panel on Community Health Promotion on March 23-24, 2006, in Atlanta, Georgia. The purpose was to convene a group of experts external to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop recommendations for efforts of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) to promote community health. Twenty-five experts from academia, state and local health departments, national nonprofit organizations, and community-based groups participated in the meeting. In addition, each division in NCCDPHP was represented in a CDC ad hoc committee that observed the meeting and provided continual feedback and support. An evaluation of CDC's roles and the subsequent recommendations are presented here.Mode of access: World Wide Web as an Acrobat .pdf file (477.67 KB, 22 p.).Text document (PDF)

Visitor expenditure estimation for grocery store location planning: a case study of Cornwall

Visitor expenditure is an important driver of demand in many local economies, supporting a range of services and facilities which may not be viable based solely on residential demand. In areas where self-catering accommodation is prevalent visitor demand makes up a considerable proportion of sales and revenue within grocery stores, yet this form of visitor consumption is commonly overlooked in supply and demand-side estimates of visitor spend. As such, store location planning in tourist resorts, decisions about local service provision and the local economic impacts of tourism are based on very limited demand-side estimates of visitor spend. Using Cornwall, South West England as a study area, we outline a methodology and data sources to estimate small-area visitor grocery spend. We use self-catering accommodation provision, utilisation and visitor expenditure rates as key factors driving visitor spend. We identify that the use of visitor accommodation accounts for the spatial and temporal complexities of visitor demand that may be overlooked when using alternative approaches, such as the up-scaling of residential demand. Using a spatial interaction model, we demonstrate that our expenditure estimates can be used to generate store level revenue estimation within tourist resorts, and we make a number of recommendations for service provision and store location planning in these areas

From Ice Sheets to Main Streets: Intermediaries Connect Climate Scientists to Coastal Adaptation

Despite the societal relevance of sea‐level research, a knowledge‐to‐action gap remains between researchers and coastal communities. In the agricultural and water‐management sectors, intermediaries such as consultants and extension agencies have a long and well‐documented history of helping to facilitate the application of scientific knowledge on the ground. However, the role of such intermediaries in adaptation to sea‐level rise, though potentially of vital importance, has been less thoroughly explored. In this commentary, we describe three styles of science intermediation that can connect researchers working on sea‐level projections with decision‐makers relying on those projections. We illustrate these styles with examples of recent and ongoing contexts for the application of sea‐level research, at different spatial scales and political levels ranging from urban development projects to international organizations. Our examples highlight opportunities and drawbacks for the researchers involved and communities adapting to rising seas.Key PointsThere are many more sea‐level adaptation decisions that could use scientific information than there are scientists available to adviseScience intermediaries (boundary organizations, consultancies, extensions) offer an avenue for researchers to engage more in decision‐makingAll parties to climate adaptation decision‐making, including scientists, should attend to equity and accountability in those processesPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143786/1/eft2308_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143786/2/eft2308.pd

Religion, Resources and Representation: three narratives of engagement in British urban governance

Faith groups are increasingly regarded as important civil society participants in British urban governance. Faith engagement is linked to policies of social inclusion and “community cohesion,” particularly in the context of government concerns about radicalization along religious lines. Primary research is drawn upon in developing a critical and explicitly multifaith analysis of faith involvement. A narrative approach is used to contrast the different perspectives of national pol- icy makers, local stakeholders, and faith actors themselves. The narratives serve to illuminate not only this specific case but also the more general character of British urban governance as it takes on a more “decentered” form with greater blurring of boundaries between the public, private, and personal

Australia's insurance crisis and the inequitable treatment of self-employed midwives

Based upon a review of articles published in Australia's major newspapers over the period January 2001 to December 2005, a case study approach has been used to investigate why, when compared with other small business operators, including medical specialists, Australian governments have appeared reluctant to protect the economic viability of the businesses of self-employed midwives. Theories of agenda setting and structuralism have been used to explore that inequity. What has emerged is a picture of the complex of factors that may have operated, and may be continuing to operate, to shape the policy agenda and thus prevent solutions to the insurance problems of self-employed midwives being found

State of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Climate System

This paper reviews developments in our understanding of the state of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean climate and its relation to the global climate system over the last few millennia. Climate over this and earlier periods has not been stable, as evidenced by the occurrence of abrupt changes in atmospheric circulation and temperature recorded in Antarctic ice core proxies for past climate. Two of the most prominent abrupt climate change events are characterized by intensification of the circumpolar westerlies (also known as the Southern Annular Mode) between ∼6000 and 5000 years ago and since 1200–1000 years ago. Following the last of these is a period of major trans-Antarctic reorganization of atmospheric circulation and temperature between A.D. 1700 and 1850. The two earlier Antarctic abrupt climate change events appear linked to but predate by several centuries even more abrupt climate change in the North Atlantic, and the end of the more recent event is coincident with reorganization of atmospheric circulation in the North Pacific. Improved understanding of such events and of the associations between abrupt climate change events recorded in both hemispheres is critical to predicting the impact and timing of future abrupt climate change events potentially forced by anthropogenic changes in greenhouse gases and aerosols. Special attention is given to the climate of the past 200 years, which was recorded by a network of recently available shallow firn cores, and to that of the past 50 years, which was monitored by the continuous instrumental record. Significant regional climate changes have taken place in the Antarctic during the past 50 years. Atmospheric temperatures have increased markedly over the Antarctic Peninsula, linked to nearby ocean warming and intensification of the circumpolar westerlies. Glaciers are retreating on the peninsula, in Patagonia, on the sub-Antarctic islands, and in West Antarctica adjacent to the peninsula. The penetration of marine air masses has become more pronounced over parts of West Antarctica. Above the surface, the Antarctic troposphere has warmed during winter while the stratosphere has cooled year-round. The upper kilometer of the circumpolar Southern Ocean has warmed, Antarctic Bottom Water across a wide sector off East Antarctica has freshened, and the densest bottom water in the Weddell Sea has warmed. In contrast to these regional climate changes, over most of Antarctica, near-surface temperature and snowfall have not increased significantly during at least the past 50 years, and proxy data suggest that the atmospheric circulation over the interior has remained in a similar state for at least the past 200 years. Furthermore, the total sea ice cover around Antarctica has exhibited no significant overall change since reliable satellite monitoring began in the late 1970s, despite large but compensating regional changes. The inhomogeneity of Antarctic climate in space and time implies that recent Antarctic climate changes are due on the one hand to a combination of strong multidecadal variability and anthropogenic effects and, as demonstrated by the paleoclimate record, on the other hand to multidecadal to millennial scale and longer natural variability forced through changes in orbital insolation, greenhouse gases, solar variability, ice dynamics, and aerosols. Model projections suggest that over the 21st century the Antarctic interior will warm by 3.4° ± 1°C, and sea ice extent will decrease by ∼30%. Ice sheet models are not yet adequate enough to answer pressing questions about the effect of projected warming on mass balance and sea level. Considering the potentially major impacts of a warming climate on Antarctica, vigorous efforts are needed to better understand all aspects of the highly coupled Antarctic climate system as well as its influence on the Earth\u27s climate and oceans