With attention to the field of public health ethics growing, significant time has been devoted to identifying a sound ethical justification for paternalistic interventions that override individual ...autonomy to prevent people from adopting unhealthy behaviors. Efforts focused on specifying the conditions that warrant paternalism, however, are largely misplaced. On empirical and ethical grounds, public health should seek instead to expand individual autonomy to improve population health. To promote autonomy, the field should redirect current efforts toward clarifying principles of justice. Although public health's most highly visible stance is associated with an egalitarian conception of "social justice," it is imperative that public health professionals address gaping divisions in public understandings of justice. I present recommendations for initiating this process.
How will groups of survivors behave in a doomsday scenario? Will there be competition for scarce resources? Will they collaborate in reconstruction? While we cannot research these questions directly, ...we can find clues in four places. First, there are historical examples of apocalyptic events. Second, social identity theory offers explanations of group behavior. Third, there have been studies undertaken of group dynamics in extreme contexts. We discuss the limitations of these three sources, before turning a fourth-a fictional account-in search of ideas. Adopting a narrative theoretical lens, we consider "the theory on offer" in the television series The Walking Dead, which portrays a zombie apocalypse. We find that group behavior is shaped by the nature of survivor group composition, and by the properties of the doomsday context that they face. We demonstrate the potential for the emergence of a dark, violent side of group behavior. We illustrate a methodological solution to the problem of researching extreme contexts using "speculative fiction." And, by exploiting the zombie movie genre, we address the "failure of imagination" that can increase society's vulnerability to unforeseen events. Our analysis has implications for organization theory as well as for policy and practice in doomsday scenarios.
The incidence and impact of crises, disasters and other extreme events appears to be increasing, thus heightening the significance of crisis research. The nature of such events – sudden, ...inconceivable, damaging, sensitive, unique – has encouraged unconventional methodological perspectives and practices. A review of these developments is timely. This article presents a bounded, temporally bracketed overview of the literatures exploring extreme events, structured around an ‘ideal type’ event sequence with six phases: incubation period, incident, crisis management, investigation, organizational learning and implementation of ‘lessons learned’. While not a traditional review, this approach serves to overcome problems associated with phenomena resistant to precise definition, and maps the structure of a field characterized by fragmentation, insular traditions and epistemological pluralism, generating a template against which crises can be explored. Crisis research appears to have overcome the problems associated with relying on retrospective research designs, accessing sensitive data, addressing novel ethical concerns, developing multi‐level explanations and using single case studies to develop generalizable theory. The wider adoption of these approaches in ‘mainstream’ organization and management studies may prompt innovation and fresh insights in other areas, particularly where the temporal structure of events, the role of slow‐moving causes, and conjunctural reasoning, play significant roles.
This paper reports the findings of a survey of 250 British managers, exploring their experience and perceptions of organization politics. Political behaviour appeared to be common. Most managers ...viewed political behaviour as ethical and necessary, and aspects of organizational effectiveness, change, resourcing and reputation were attributed to political tactics, although 80% had no training in this area. Tactics experienced frequently included networking, using ‘key players’ to support initiatives, making friends with power brokers, bending the rules, and self‐promotion. Tactics experienced as rare, but not unknown, included misinformation, spreading rumours, and keeping ‘dirt files’ for blackmail. A consistent pattern of responses concerning willingness to engage in politics, the need to act ruthlessly and the appropriateness of reciprocity when faced with political behaviour implies an attitude of ‘you stab my back, I'll stab yours’. Findings are discussed using an ‘antecedents–behaviours–consequences’ framework of perceived organization politics to guide research.
On the History of Cattle Genetic Resources Felius, Marleen; Beerling, Marie-Louise; Buchanan, David S ...
Diversity,
11/2014, Letnik:
6, Številka:
4
Journal Article, Book Review
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Cattle are our most important livestock species because of their production and role in human culture. Many breeds that differ in appearance, performance and environmental adaptation are kept on all ...inhabited continents, but the historic origin of the diverse phenotypes is not always clear. We give an account of the history of cattle by integrating archaeological record and pictorial or written sources, scarce until 300 years ago, with the recent contributions of DNA analysis. We describe the domestication of their wild ancestor, migrations to eventually all inhabited continents, the developments during prehistory, the antiquity and the Middle Ages, the relatively recent breed formation, the industrial cattle husbandry in the Old and New World and the current efforts to preserve the cattle genetic resources. Surveying the available information, we propose three main and overlapping phases during the development of the present genetic diversity: (i) domestication and subsequent wild introgression; (ii) natural adaptation to a diverse agricultural habitat; and (iii) breed development.
This review sets extreme jobs in the context of the institutional, occupational, organizational and individual drivers of long hours and work intensification and identifies the consequences for ...gender equality, human sustainability and long-term productivity. We suggest that extreme jobs derive not from the ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work but from working practices and occupational discourses which have developed to suit the gendered norms of ‘ideal workers’. These practices and discourses encourage long hours rather than working-hours choices. Extreme jobs extend the gendered division of labour and increase the separation of work and non-work spheres; they are a structure of gender inequality. This review suggests that future research should seek to identify alternative but business-neutral working practices which contest the extreme ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work, measure the social value of non-work activities and deepen our understanding of the personal and social significance of non-work identities other than motherhood, and disentangle situational motivation, work passion and workaholism as motives for devoting long hours to work so that impacts on well-being and productivity can be more clearly understood.
What can the classic zombie movie, Day of the Dead, tell us about leadership? In our analysis of this film, we explore leadership behaviours in an extreme context – a zombie apocalypse where ...survivors face persistent existential threat. Extreme context research presents methodological challenges, particularly with regard to fieldwork. The use of films as proxy case studies is one way in which to overcome these problems, and for researchers working in an interpretivist perspective, ‘social science fiction’ is increasingly used as a source of inspiration and ideas. The contribution of our analysis concerns highlighting the role of leadership configurations in extreme contexts, an approach not previously addressed in this field, but one that has greater explanatory power than current perspectives. In Day of the Dead, we observe several different configurations – patterns of leadership styles and behaviours – emerging, shifting and overlapping across the phases of the narrative, each with radically different consequences for the group of survivors. These observations suggest a speculative theory of leadership configurations and their implications in extreme contexts, for exploring further, with other methods.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates are lower among Latinos and people living in poverty. Fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) is one recommended screening modality that may overcome cost and access ...barriers. However, the ability of FOBT to reduce CRC mortality depends on high rates of adherence to annual screening.
To determine whether a multifaceted intervention increases adherence to annual FOBT compared with usual care.
Patient-level randomized controlled trial conducted in a network of community health centers. Included were 450 patients who had previously completed a home FOBT from March 2011 through February 2012 and had a negative test result: 72% of participants were women; 87% were Latino; 83% stated that Spanish was their preferred language; and 77% were uninsured.
Usual care at participating health centers included computerized reminders, standing orders for medical assistants to give patients home fecal immunochemical tests (FIT), and clinician feedback on CRC screening rates. The intervention group also received (1) a mailed reminder letter, a free FIT with low-literacy instructions, and a postage-paid return envelope; (2) an automated telephone and text message reminding them that they were due for screening and that a FIT was being mailed to them; (3) an automated telephone and text reminder 2 weeks later for those who did not return the FIT; and (4) personal telephone outreach by a CRC screening navigator after 3 months.
Completion of FOBT within 6 months of the date the patient was due for annual screening.
Intervention patients were much more likely than those in usual care to complete FOBT (82.2% vs 37.3%; P < .001). Of the 185 intervention patients completing screening, 10.2% completed prior to their due date (intervention was not given), 39.6% within 2 weeks (after initial intervention), 24.0% within 2 to 13 weeks (after automated call/text reminder), and 8.4% between 13 and 26 weeks (after personal call).
This intervention greatly increased adherence to annual CRC screening; most screenings were achieved without personal calls. It is possible to improve annual CRC screening for vulnerable populations with relatively low-cost strategies that are facilitated by health information technologies.
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01453894.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) data play an increasing role in clinical practice as they provide detailed quantification of blood glucose levels during the entire 24-hour period. The R package ...iglu implements a wide range of CGM-derived metrics for measuring glucose control and glucose variability. The package also allows one to visualize CGM data using time-series and lasagna plots. A distinct advantage of iglu is that it comes with a point-and-click graphical user interface (GUI) which makes the package widely accessible to users regardless of their programming experience. Thus, the open-source and easy to use iglu package will help advance CGM research and CGM data analyses. R package iglu is publicly available on CRAN and at https://github.com/irinagain/iglu.
In 2015, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended targeted screening for prediabetes and diabetes (dysglycemia) in adults who are aged 40 to 70 y old and overweight or ...obese. Given increasing prevalence of dysglycemia at younger ages and lower body weight, particularly among racial/ethnic minorities, we sought to determine whether the current screening criteria may fail to identify some high-risk population subgroups.
We investigated the performance of the 2015 USPSTF screening recommendation in detecting dysglycemia among US community health center patients. A retrospective analysis of electronic health record (EHR) data from 50,515 adult primary care patients was conducted. Longitudinal EHR data were collected in six health centers in the Midwest and Southwest. Patients with a first office visit between 2008 and 2010 were identified and followed for up to 3 y through 2013. We excluded patients who had dysglycemia at baseline and those with fewer than two office visits during the follow-up period. The exposure of interest was eligibility for screening according to the 2015 USPSTF criteria. The primary outcome was development of dysglycemia during follow-up, determined by: (1) laboratory results (fasting/2-h postload/random glucose ≥ 100/140/200 mg/dL 5.55/7.77/11.10 mmol/L or hemoglobin A1C ≥ 5.7% 39 mmol/mol); (2) diagnosis codes for prediabetes or type 2 diabetes; or (3) antidiabetic medication order. At baseline, 18,846 (37.3%) participants were aged ≥40 y, 33,537 (66.4%) were overweight or obese, and 39,061 (77.3%) were racial/ethnic minorities (34.6% Black, 33.9% Hispanic/Latino, and 8.7% Other). Overall, 29,946 (59.3%) patients had a glycemic test within 3 y of follow-up, and 8,478 of them developed dysglycemia. Only 12,679 (25.1%) patients were eligible for screening according to the 2015 USPSTF criteria, which demonstrated the following sensitivity and specificity (95% CI): 45.0% (43.9%-46.1%) and 71.9% (71.3%-72.5%), respectively. Racial/ethnic minorities were significantly less likely to be eligible for screening yet had higher odds of developing dysglycemia than whites (odds ratio 95% CI: Blacks 1.24 1.09-1.40; Hispanics 1.46 1.30-1.64; and Other 1.33 1.16-1.54). In addition, the screening criteria had lower sensitivity in all racial/ethnic minority groups compared to whites. Limitations of this study include the ascertainment of dysglycemia only among patients with available test results and findings that may not be generalizable at the population level.
Targeted diabetes screening based on new USPSTF criteria may detect approximately half of adult community health center patients with undiagnosed dysglycemia and proportionately fewer racial/ethnic minorities than whites. Future research is needed to estimate the performance of these screening criteria in population-based samples.
PDF
