Dilemmas of public participation in science policy

Public participation is ubiquitous in many contemporary democratic societies – used for many purposes, and in many contexts, with particular and growing relevance for policy-making on science and technology issues. However, there is a dearth of evidence as to its qualities and benefits. We contend that the implementation and interpretation of participation faces a number of dilemmas that – together –undermine its successful adoption. In this paper, we identify and discuss six specific dilemmas that – together – may militate against the practice and development of good quality participation in science and technology policy, notably dilemmas of Timing; of Relevance; of Representation; of Evaluation; of Criticism; and of Impact. We theoretically account for these dilemmas and discuss their likely impacts. Finally, we provide some suggestions as to how the participation community might attempt to pre-empt difficulties due to these dilemmas and demonstrate participation effectiveness.     

Partnering with community stakeholders: engaging rural African American families in basic research and The Strong African American Families Preventive Intervention Program

The Center for Family Research has implemented the first family-community preventive intervention program designed specifically for rural African American families and youths. Basic information garnered during a decade of research in rural African American communities formed the theoretical and empirical foundations for the program, which focuses on delaying the onset of sexual activity and discouraging substance use among youths. The Center's researchers have formulated future directions for engaging rural families in basic research and preventive intervention programs.     

Impact of Japanese investment in U.S. automobile production

The transfer of automobile production by Japanese firms to the United States represents a giant direct foreign investment. Using the disaggregated NIRA U.S.-Japan model in the framework of Project LINK, this article evaluates the impact of these investments on the U.S. and Japanese economies. The benefit in terms of auto production, capacity, employment, activity in supplier industries, and aggregate GNP in the United States is readily apparent. Japanese industry has incentives to move production into the United States to avoid protectionism and to guard against adverse movements of the exchange rate and production costs, but there is some loss in output and related variables in Japan.     

The Place of Values In Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a value-laden process because the very notions of therapeutic', 'cure', and 'health' involve patients and therapists in making value choices. Two hierarchies of health values as they apply to therapy are reviewed. The first guides the therapist in setting limits on pathological behavior and constitutes the so-called 6 D's of pathology: destructiveness, dysphoria, disorganization, deviancy, dependency, and disillusionment. The second illuminates the therapist's role-modeling or ideal-setting function and takes the form of a developmental sequence of positive health values, as derived from Kohlberg's work on moral judgment. These health values, from the lowest to the highest forms, are fit-survival, pleasure-seeking, social-belonging, structural duty, adaptive flexibility, and universal commitment. this hierarchy has important implications for understanding the nature of therapeutic changeand the appropriate matching of therapist and patients     

Analyzing center specific outcomes in hematopoietic cell transplantation

Reporting transplant center-specific survival rates after hematopoietic cell transplantation is required in the United States. We describe a method to report 1-year survival outcomes by center, as well as to quantify center performance relative to the transplant center network average, which can be reliably used with censored data and for small center sizes. Each center's observed 1-year survival outcome is compared to a predicted survival outcome adjusted for patient characteristics using a pseudovalue regression technique. A 95% prediction interval for 1-year survival assuming no center effect is computed for each center by bootstrapping the scaled residuals from the regression model, and the observed 1-year survival is compared to this prediction interval to determine center performance. We illustrate the technique using a recent center specific analysis performed by the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research, and study the performance of this method using simulation.     

Looks can be deceiving: Using a risk assessment instrument to evaluate the out-comes of child protection services

This study explores the use of a risk assessment instrument based on the Illinois CANTS-17B in the child protection services division of a large urban public social services agency. It addresses the usefulness of the instrument as an outcome measure tool, that is, as means of measuring successful case outcomes based on reductions in maltreatment risk between case opening and case closing. Two separate studies were conducted in which the initial and closing risk levels on the 14-item scale were compared. Results were highly statistically significant in both studies, with the difference being in the expected and desired direction: a decrease in risk scores at case closing. However, a more detailed exploration of the data and of the practice issues involved in the agency setting strongly suggests that these differences are largely due to the artificial inflation of initial risk scores by caseworkers in order to ensure children's acceptance for ongoing child protection services. These factors are discussed in detail, along with the policy decisions that ensued from the study.     

Social Capital and Fire Service Performance: Evidence from the U.S. States*

Objective. The present study evaluates whether areas with high levels of social capital are likely to have better fire service performance. Method. Utilizing Robert Putnam's 14‐measure index of social capital, OLS regression techniques are applied to objective data on the rate of unintentional fire deaths in the U.S. states between 1980 and 2003. Results. The findings show that social capital is associated with a low unintentional fire death rate, even when controlling for a range of important environmental constraints. However, the effects of social capital vary by its conceptual components. Conclusions. The study supports the argument that social capital is likely to be an important determinant of fire service outcomes, and suggests that the political engagement and social trust components may be the most important focus for public policies seeking to build social capital in order to reduce fire fatalities.