Developing Age-Friendly Cities: Case Studies From Brussels and Manchester and Implications for Policy and Practice

Developing environments responsive to the aspirations of older people has become a major concern for social and public policy. Policies and programs directed at achieving “age-friendly” communities are considered to require a wide range of interventions, including actions at the level of the social and physical environment. This article compares the age-friendly approaches of two European cities, Brussels and Manchester, with a particular focus on policies and initiatives that promote active aging in an urban context. The article examines, first, the demographic, social, and multicultural contexts of Brussels and Manchester; second, the way in which both cities became members of the World Health Organization Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities; third, similarities and differences in the age-friendly approaches and actions adopted by both cities; and fourth, opportunities and barriers to the implementation of age-friendly policies. The article concludes by discussing the key elements and resources needed to develop age-friendly cities.     

‘Democracy always comes first’: adolescents’ views on decision-making in everyday life and political democracy

Research shows adolescents to be positively oriented towards democracy, but little is known about what it actually means to them and what their views are on decision-making in both everyday situations and political democracy. To gain insight into these aspects of adolescents’ democratic views, we have interviewed 40 Dutch adolescents from second grade of different types of high school. Potential conflict between various democratic principles prevalent in everyday life situations was discussed and compared to how they view decision-making in political democracy. The results of our qualitative study showed that adolescents’ views on issues concerning collective decision-making in everyday situations are quite rich and reflect different models of democracy (majoritarian, consensual, and deliberative). Moreover, how adolescents deal with tensions between democratic principles in everyday life situations varies. While some adolescents combine several principles (for instance, majority rule as a last resort after trying to find broader consensus), other adolescents tend to strictly focus on only one of these principles. Adolescents’ views on political democracy, however, are rather limited and one-dimensional. Those adolescents who seemed to have a more explicit picture of political democracy often preferred a strict focus on majority rule, neglecting minority interests.     

Public Multichannel Management – an Integrated Framework of Off- and Online Multichannel Government Services

Government institutions have introduced multichannel environments over time following trends and technological innovations. These public multichannel environments often neglect specific channel characteristics and potentials and thus miss the opportunity to make full use of a strategic channel integration and combination with a focus on customer value creation. This study offers a systematic approach to establish an integrated public multichannel system not only taking into account user preferences, habits and their environment, but also the respective channel issuer and the characteristics of channels and public interfaces. Against this background, the study presents a systematic approach to expand services and channels according to their capacities, and provides academics and practitioners with a framework on public multichannel strategies.     

An omnibus lack of fit test in logistic regression with sparse data

The usefulness of logistic regression depends to a great extent on the correct specification of the relation between a binary response and characteristics of the unit on which the response is recoded. Currently used methods for testing for misspecification (lack of fit) of a proposed logistic regression model do not perform well when a data set contains almost as many distinct covariate vectors as experimental units, a condition referred to as sparsity. A new algorithm for grouping sparse data to create pseudo replicates and using them to test for lack of fit is developed. A simulation study illustrates settings in which the new test is superior to existing ones. Analysis of a dataset consisting of the ages of menarche of Warsaw girls is also used to compare the new and existing lack of fit tests.     

Qualitätsmanagement in organisierten HandlungssystemenQuality Management in Organized Systems of Action

Despite their prevalence and prominence, quality management in organizations as well as the various discourses on the topic lack theoretical framework and pervasion. The field is dominated by empirical-inductive experiences stemming from the so-called practice on the one hand and by pragmatic-normative suggestions for this practice. In contrast, for the purpose of a theoretically based analysis, we identify four implicit principles as the basal grammar of contemporary strategies of quality management, locate them within the Parsonian scheme of organized action systems, and embed them into the broader context of economy and society. This Parsonian perspective makes us aware of quality management as a one-dimensional imperative for action that in reality is still undermined, however, by subversive quality management practices, following a fifth principle.     

Hallmarks of the Political in Community Organizing: An Arendtian Perspective

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s adherence to existential phenomenology, the article advances a political understanding...     

State Immigration Policies: The Role of State Compacts and Interest Groups on Immigration Legislation

US states are active in enacting immigration policies, which vary widely and have substantial impact on the lives of immigrants. Our understanding of what produces these divergent state laws remains limited. Qualitative research demonstrates the importance of a 2010 immigration compact, supported by a powerful religious organization, in shaping immigration policies in Utah, and the Utah Compact was held up as a model for other states. But is the experience of Utah applicable across other states? We test the effects of compacts and interest groups on immigration policy adoption across all 50 states between 2005 and 2013. Our findings suggest that compacts are actually associated with more restrictive immigration policy. Although states with compacts are more likely to pass inclusive immigration laws, these are counterbalanced by higher numbers of exclusive laws. Both religious and non‐religious interests groups are associated with policy, but they do not explain the effects of compacts.     

A Tiered Framework for Risk‐Relevant Characterization and Ranking of Chemical Exposures: Applications to the National Children's Study (NCS)

A challenge for large‐scale environmental health investigations such as the National Children's Study (NCS), is characterizing exposures to multiple, co‐occurring chemical agents with varying spatiotemporal concentrations and consequences modulated by biochemical, physiological, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental factors. Such investigations can benefit from systematic retrieval, analysis, and integration of diverse extant information on both contaminant patterns and exposure‐relevant factors. This requires development, evaluation, and deployment of informatics methods that support flexible access and analysis of multiattribute data across multiple spatiotemporal scales. A new “Tiered Exposure Ranking” (TiER) framework, developed to support various aspects of risk‐relevant exposure characterization, is described here, with examples demonstrating its application to the NCS. TiER utilizes advances in informatics computational methods, extant database content and availability, and integrative environmental/exposure/biological modeling to support both “discovery‐driven” and “hypothesis‐driven” analyses. “Tier 1” applications focus on “exposomic” pattern recognition for extracting information from multidimensional data sets, whereas second and higher tier applications utilize mechanistic models to develop risk‐relevant exposure metrics for populations and individuals. In this article, “tier 1” applications of TiER explore identification of potentially causative associations among risk factors, for prioritizing further studies, by considering publicly available demographic/socioeconomic, behavioral, and environmental data in relation to two health endpoints (preterm birth and low birth weight). A “tier 2” application develops estimates of pollutant mixture inhalation exposure indices for NCS counties, formulated to support risk characterization for these endpoints. Applications of TiER demonstrate the feasibility of developing risk‐relevant exposure characterizations for pollutants using extant environmental and demographic/socioeconomic data.