Public health,research and rights: the perspectives of deliberation panels with politically and socially active disabled people

Public health research purports to provide the evidence base for policies, programmes and interventions to improve the health of a population. However, there is increasing awareness that the experiences of disabled people have played little part in informing this evidence base. This paper discusses one aspect of a study commissioned by England’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to review the implications for public health of theories and models of disability. This part of the study focused on the development of a tool or decision aid to promote ethical inclusion of disabled people in public health randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and evaluative research. The tool was introduced at four regional ‘deliberating panels’ involving politically and socially active disabled people. In addition, we held a panel with public health professionals. The deliberation panels debated how the focus of public health was narrowing, why disability was excluded and positive and negative issues with using rights to guide research and evaluative practice. Politically active disabled people argued for a social model of human rights to guide any rights based tools or decision aids in public health and disability research.     

SPC—making it work for the gas transportation business

Transco is the main provider of gas transportation to domestic and commercial customers in mainland Britain. Gas arrives in Britain at a steady rate but is consumed with a distinct diurnal pattern. The safe and timely movement of gas from arrival at the beach in various places in Britain to delivery at burners is the main driver for System Operations. The movement of gas is meticulously controlled and monitored resulting in a mass of information on pressure, flow and temperature. Gas is stored temporarily in various storage vessels and is moved around the pipes and in and out of storage as demand dictates. Demand is mostly dictated by the weather and is therefore subject to much variation. Transco and its predecessors have been transporting gas for over 50 years and are very successful as judged by their excellent safety record and the continual delivery of gas. Nevertheless, the company wished to improve itself and make further use of the many measurements collected. SPC is ideal for improving communication and understanding through increased visibility of data. All companies have special issues to face when they implement SPC, and this paper describes the way these were dealt with in System Operations and the lessons learnt along the way. The first part describes how performance measures were chosen for investigation. It includes a novel use of correlation between output and day-to-day conditions, which was successfully turned into a measure to check the uncheckable. The second part is about the issues involved with early application of SPC when features of the system are still unexplained. SPC has helped enhance understanding of the complex transportation process, encouraged team work, improved performance and provided an objective means of decision making.     

The ACORN story: An analysis of crisis response strategies in a nonprofit organization

In 2009, two political activists published hidden-camera recordings of their visits to the offices of a national, community-based, nonprofit organization. In the videos, the activists posed as a prostitute and a pimp in order to elicit damaging information from the organization's employees. This incident was just the latest in a series of disastrous situations for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). In the year prior to the video controversy, the organization addressed allegations of voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election and reacted to the expose of a hidden embezzlement by a family member of ACORN's founder. This study employs the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) to analyze how ACORN responded to this series of damaging public relations attacks. The study investigated ACORN's crisis response strategies through an analysis of media coverage about the crises.     

Projecting future utilization of medically assisted fertility treatments

This study estimates the future utilization of medically assisted fertility treatments in Australia, focusing on assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), intrauterine insemination (IUI), and ovulation induction. A multistate cohort component population projection model is used to determine future fertility rates from 2016 to 2026 by age and education level. These are combined with information on recent trends in use and success rates to indirectly estimate future age-specific probabilities of fertility treatment utilization. The number of ART cycles is expected to increase by 61 per cent between 2016 and 2026 if treatment success rates remain at 2015 levels, or by 34 per cent if recent improvements in ART success rates continue. The model also predicts that numbers of IUI cycles and ovulation induction cycles will decrease by 17 and 3 per cent, respectively. This research confirms the importance of including both technological improvements and socio-demographic changes when predicting future fertility treatment utilization.     

Breadth or depth? A content analysis of the use of public relations theory

In a 2003 content analysis of scholarly public relations journal articles, Sallot, Lyon, Acosta-Alzura and Jones stated that, although no dominant paradigms had yet emerged, scholarship and theory building in public relations was well on its way. Entering into this project, the authors expected to see public relations at a stage where the majority of public relations research and scholarly journal articles were focusing on a centralized body of theory as the field entered the first decade of the 21st century. The results of the study presented in this article, however, suggest that this expectation was unduly optimistic. The evidence demonstrates that, after more than three decades of scholarly efforts, it is still not the case that public relations has enough of a central focus in its research and theory building to be deemed a mature discipline.     

Executive catalysts: Predicting sustainable organizational performance amid complex demands

We propose a conceptual model to better understand core capacities that equip some executives to be effective catalysts of organizational performance over time. Drawing on constructivist theory of ego development, we suggest that the combined effects of self differentiation/complexity and self-integration are individual level predictors of being an effective catalyst. We assert that capacity for meaning making at the individual level is a prerequisite for the type of sense giving that coordinates stakeholder actions. From coordinated action outstanding leadership performance becomes possible. We link our contribution with leadership theory on the importance of vision and complexity. We offer measures and propositions to support empirical testing. We also address directions and implications for further research with emphasis on how executives may develop these capacities.