Evaluating and improving prevention programs: a strategy from drug abuse.

This paper describes a methodology used to overcome the difficulties in evaluating and improving prevention programs. The methodology was applied in this case to a drug abuse prevention program. The methodology includes using health-oriented rather than pathology-oriented outcome measures, random assignment to groups, multiple settings, multiple outcome measures, goal-free evaluation, and the recording of process variables. The first year results showed program effectiveness in one setting and not in the other. Process analyses pointed toward improvements that could be made. Those improvements were implemented and led to greater program effectiveness in the second year.     

Evaluating a basic-needs strategy and population policies: the BACHUE approach

The BACHUE model, a dynamic simulation technique developed within the International Labour Organization's World Employment Program, has been applied to the Philippines. The model simulates behavior and consequences in a number of key areas: fertility, marriage, migration, savings and expenditure, and labor force participation for households and a macro-model for demand, ouput, employment, and income. The design and development of the model are discussed in detail. The model was run for a series of 13 experiments ranging from nationlization of modern sectors, increasing self-employment, movement toward labor-intensive techniques, changes in growth rates of various sectors, and a reduction in fertility by 2% over 1976-1985, an increase over the 1% assumed in the base run. Runs R-2 to R-11 all showed that a change in basic needs is associated with significant declines in fertility, largely because of increasing education and decreasing mortality. Better economic conditions in rural areas also reduced migration. R-13 which examined the effects of a family planning program of moderate size on ultimate fertility, showed that even by year 2000 the effects were small. The population is reduced 5% over the run which assumes negative income tax and government subsidies to poor families but the gain in income per adult is less than 4%. Any real improvement in income as the result of family planning will take 40-50 years to achieve. Economic incentives, on the other hand, have much faster demographic results. The models also show that rural-urban migration is responsive to policy changes. Planners are cautioned that the model is not a picture of the entire range of human behavior but is an adjunct for use in analyzing interaction between policies.     

Comparison of web and mail surveys in collecting illicit drug use data: a randomized experiment

This randomized experiment examined survey mode effects for self-reporting illicit drug use by comparing prevalence estimates between a Web-based survey and a mail-based survey. A random sample of 7,000 traditional-aged undergraduate students attending a large public university in the United States was selected to participate in the spring of 2001. Students were randomly assigned to self-administer a survey via the Web or U.S. mail. The Web survey produced a significantly higher response rate than the U.S. mail survey. The prevalence estimates of illicit drug use (lifetime and past year) did not differ significantly between the two survey modes. The findings provide preliminary evidence that Web and U.S. mail surveys produce similar results regarding illicit drug use among undergraduate students. Although additional research is needed involving more diverse samples, these findings bode well for using Web surveys in college-based research.     

Changes from compliance to deterrence among federal fishery officers: an atypical case of regulatory policing?

Les études portant Bur les fonctionnaires chargés de l'application des règlements indiquent que ces derniers préfèrent l'adhésion volontaire à la dissuasion. Les responsables de la pěche ctière à Terre-Neuve semblent représenter une anomalie à cet égard, car ils sont chargés de faire respecter la réglementation, mais ils recourent de moins en moins à la persuasion et de plus en plus à la dissuasion. Ce changement peut s'expliquer par le rle de l'État dans la restructuration de la pěche ctière au Canada. Le cas étudié montre que la distinction qu'on retrouve dans un grand nombre d'études socio-juridiques entre les responsables de la réglementation qui font de la persuasion et les corps policiers qui interviennent de fason dissuasive n'est pas acquise et mérite d'ětre reconsidérée.
Studies of regulatory officials have shown that there is a preference for compliance over deterrence in the regulatory process. However, fishery officers based in the Newfoundland inshore fishery appear to be an anomaly. While they are regulatory officials, their role has shifted from the use of compliance to the use of deterrence. This shift can be explained in terms of the role of the state in restructuring the inshore fisheries of Canada. Given this case, the common distinction between regulatory officials engaged in compliance and the public police engaged in deterrence, from the socio-legal literature, should not be taken for granted and needs to be re-examined.     

A general causal model to guide alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug prevention: assessing the research evidence

The problems associated with the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) extract a significant health, social, and economic toll on American society. While the field of substance abuse prevention has made great strides during the past decade, two major challenges remain. First, the field has been disorganized and fragmented with respect to its research and prevention practices; that is, there are often separate ATOD prevention "specialists." Second, both the prevention researchers who test the efficacy of specific prevention strategies and the practitioners who implement prevention efforts often lack an overall perspective to guide strategy selection. To address these limitations, we present an ATOD causal model that seeks to identify those variables (Domains) that are theoretically salient and empirically connected across alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs. For the researcher, the model demonstrates important commonalities, as well as gaps, in the literature. For the practitioner, the model is a means to recognize both the complexity of the community system that produces ATOD problems and the multiple intervention points that are possible within this system. Researchers and practitioners are thus challenged to work synergistically to find effective and cost-effective approaches to change or reduce ATOD use and associated problems.     

An outcome evaluation of refusal skills program as a drug abuse prevention strategy

In recent years successful strategies developed in the antismoking campaign became the basis for widely publicized and federally endorsed antidrug "Just Say No" programs. Similarly, many refusal skills programs have been introduced as a new strategy in adolescent drug abuse prevention. However, none of these programs have been evaluated. While employing a typical refusal skills program entitled "WHOA! A Great Way To Say NO," the effectiveness of the program was examined. Through this outcome evaluation, it has been learned that the program was not able to impact on the "high-risk" attitudinal syndromes that are closely related to student drug involvement. Unexpectedly, a significantly larger proportion of students in the program felt it was more difficult to say "No" at the time of the posttest than during the time of the pretest. This seems to suggest that the program participants became more attentive to the issues surrounding saying "No" or, perhaps, were more sensitized to the whole issue involving saying "No," thereby making it more difficult for them to say "No" during the posttest period.     

Collaboration as a strategy to accelerate change

Abstract

As a strategy, collaboration is increasingly recognized by governments and by library partnerships as a critical component in achieving next generation change, particularly where it leads to trust in shared infrastructure, collections and expertise. Collaboration reduces the risks to the library industry. These risks stem from the capability of libraries to respond rapidly to changing technology and user needs, and to drive an increase in the digitization of collections and ensure the preservation of digital content. The ten National, State and Territory Libraries of Australia and New Zealand have committed to collaboration to accelerate change in their libraries and to new principles of open and easy access to information. The challenge is to bring these elements together as a transformed and implemented service.     

It's a long way to Auchterarder! 'Negotiated management' and mismanagement in the policing of G8 protests

Recent analyses of protest policing in Western democracies argue that there has been a marked shift away from oppressive or coercive approaches to an emphasis on consensus based negotiation. King and Waddington (2005) amongst others, however, suggest that the policing of international summits may be an exception to this rule. This paper examines protest policing in relation to the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. We argue that 'negotiated management' cannot be imported wholesale as a policing strategy. Rather it is mediated by local history, forms of police knowledge and modes of engagement. Drawing on interviews and participant observation we show that 'negotiated management' works best when both sides are committed to negotiation and that police stereotyping or protestor intransigence can lead to the escalation of any given event. In closing we note the new challenges posed by forms of 'global' protest and consider the implications for future policing of protest.     

Using occupational structure to measure employability with an application to the Brazilian labor market

We propose measuring individual employability as a weighted average across occupations of a worker’s predicted wage for each occupation. Weights are given by the individual occupational probability distribution. Under this measure, a worker is more employable than another if she has a greater chance to obtain a better paid occupation. After normalization, expected employability corresponds to the population correlation between occupational predicted wages and the chance to obtain employment in these occupations and serves as a measure of the allocative efficiency of labor market. We apply the methodology to Brazil and found that employability increased and became less unequally distributed from 2002 to 2011. We used a decomposition method to investigate the causes of these changes. Although average normalized employability is weakly positive, it has increased for the period, which suggests that there is room for efficiency gains in the allocation of workers to occupations in the Brazilian labor market.     

做市场“追随者”更有优势

人们通常崇高独立思考,因此也就推崇各种第一。所以主动选择做新产品市场的“追随者”有悖于传统。但无数公司正是靠这样做赚大钱的。产品市场把这叫做“追随策略”。     

Evaluating the design and implementation fidelity of an adapted Plan-Do-Study-Act approach to improve health system performance in a Nigerian state

BackgroundThe Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is fundamental to many quality improvement (QI) models. For the approach to be effective in the real-world, variants must align with standard elements of the PDSA. This study evaluates the alignment between theory, design and implementation fidelity of a PDSA variant adapted for Nigeria’s health system performance improvement.MethodsAn iterative consensus building approach was used to develop a scorecard evaluating new conceptual indices of design and implementation fidelity of QI interventions (design and implementation index, defects and gaps) based on Taylor’s theoretical framework.ResultsDesign (adaptation) scores were optimal across all standard features indicating that design was well adapted to the typical PDSA. Conversely, implementation fidelity scores were only optimal with two standard features: prediction-based test of change and the use of data over time. The other features, use of multiple iterative cycles and documentation had implementation gaps of 17 % and 50 % respectively.ConclusionThis study demonstrates how both adaptation and implementation fidelity are important for success of QI interventions. It also presents an approach for evaluating other QI models using Taylor’s PDSA assessment framework as a guide, which might serve to strengthen the theory behind future QI models and provide guidance on their appropriate use.     

企业的竞争战略与核心竞争力——姜特斯·邦威的成功之路

任何一个产业中,参加竞争的每个公司都有其显式的或隐式的竞争战略。竞争战略的根本作用在于提升企业的竞争能力。面对国际市场激烈的竞争,企业必须有自己的竞争战略,而通过竞争战略形成的企业特有核心竞争力是保持企业竞争优势的必要保障。竞争战略与核心竞争力美国哈佛商学院教授迈克尔·波特在《竞争战略》一书中把竞争战略描述为:采取进攻型或防守型行动,在产业中建立起进退有据的地位,成功地对付五种竞争力(进入威胁;替代威胁;买方侃价能力;供方侃价能力;现有竞争对手的竞争),从而为公司赢得超常的投资收益。一个公司欲成为同行业的佼…     

Towards an effective strategy to cope with housing land scarcity in the Gaza Strip as a sustainable development priority

Consistent with the global trends towards the adoption and implementation of sustainable urban planning strategies, this study discusses the problem of housing land shortage, considering the ever rapidly growing human population. Urban land is one of the most precious resources that need to be consumed and developed wisely. In this context, housing density is a widely used tool to control housing land consumption and ensure acceptable housing environments. With reference to the Gaza Strip (Palestinian Territories), the main aim of this study is to highlight the role of increasing housing density in order to face the problem of housing land scarcity. Within this scope, building legislation implemented in Gaza has been reviewed with reference to housing density. A questionnaire and a case study have been analyzed to propose recommendations related to housing planning and design. It has been concluded that rationalising urban land consumption in Gaza can be achieved by a dual strategy approach that increases housing density above the currently specified limit, and reduces the area of the typical Palestinian housing unit. This has to be done without sacrificing the limited open spaces available in the local housing environment. Thus, solutions that strike a balance between dense housing patterns and adequate urban environment, are essentially required here.     

Evaluating skill acquisition in motivational interviewing: the development of an instrument to measure practice skills

Social work education has long emphasized the need to provide competence-based education. However, little work has been done to identify, validate and evaluate competencies in specific fields such as addictions. The purpose of this study was to isolate a set of substance abuse intervention competencies using Motivational Interviewing that could be used to teach and evaluate students. The research proceeded in three stages. First, a modified Delphi approach involving social work practitioners was used to discern a set of positive and dysfunctional skills related to Motivational Interviewing. The primary researcher taught a graduate social work class aimed at teaching students theory and skills related to this model. Students demonstrated these skills with simulated clients through videotaped interviews. Finally, three observers rated the student interviews using this developed instrument. While inter-observer agreement was lower than anticipated, this study does provide early support for the development of competencies related to specific theoretical frameworks.     

Teacher drug use: a response to occupational stress

Work-related stress is predicted to be correlated with wanting to leave the teaching profession and drug use. A stratified random sample of 500 Texas teachers was surveyed (56.5% responded), regarding working conditions, collegial and supervisory relationships, job satisfaction, rigidity of attitudes and drug use. Two-thirds of teachers may want to quit the profession, while 36.4 percent are likely to quit. Teachers report higher rates than a national sample of lifetime alcohol, amphetamine, and tranquilizer use and higher rates of alcohol use in the last year and last month. Selected measures of stress are correlated with drug use, particularly amphetamine use, over the lifetime, last year, and last month.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of a school drug and alcohol prevention curriculum: a new look at "Here's Looking at You, Two"

The article reports on the results of an evaluation of a school drug and alcohol prevention curriculum marketed under the title, "Here's Looking at You, Two." Previous evaluations, unreported in the literature and having unresolved methodological problems, have found that while the program appears effective at transmitting information regarding drug and alcohol abuse, it has not been effective at changing the underlying attitudes and behaviors that, in part, explain substance abuse. Employing a more rigorous methodology, our examination of a relatively large sample across five school districts provides support for previous findings. Over the short-term of one year, the program was particularly effective at transmitting substance information to primary and middle school students. The program, however, produced very little of the expected effect on the underlying attitudes that are critical to changing substance abuse behaviors.     

On heeding the lessons of the past and adapting them to the present: a strategy for an effective Fifth International

ABSTRACT

The establishment of a Fifth International that would coordinate and provide support to progressive forces from around the world as proposed by the late Samir Amin is long overdue, but its effectiveness will hinge on its ability to heed the lessons of the past and adapt them to the present. This essay argues that an effective Fifth International should move beyond the simplistic and exaggerated interpretations of the capitalist ruling classes wielding absolute power over the world system that leave the revolutionary shortcut as the only viable path forward, and should instead embrace the path of incremental progress and focus on providing support in educating, organizing, and agitating with the specific aim of securing electoral gains. These activities should be oriented globally, but priority should be given to the core, as it is in the core that the key disciplinary structures of capitalist power reside, and without progress against them, progress anywhere else can only be limited. Finally, an effective Fifth International should be organized around a long-term agenda which is at once inspiring and ambitious, broad and flexible, but also safe and familiar, as well as a short and medium term agenda made up of specific policy objectives that not only noticeably improve the lot of the masses, but also undermine the ideological and material bases of power of the capitalist ruling classes.