Vision and state health department public relations practitioners: Prepared to lead?

Visions are important to organizational effectiveness. Although providing vision has been identified as one of the behaviors that best captures organization-wide public relations leadership, little public relations research has focused on vision. Similarly, state health departments have drawn little interest among public relations scholars even though states are a central part of the nation's public health system. This study addressed the perceptions of the top public relations professionals at state health departments concerning vision and their involvement in the visioning process. The practitioners were nearly unanimous in their belief that organizational visions are important. However, results indicate that some top public relations practitioners at state health departments are not prepared to make optimal contributions to the visioning process. In order to take full advantage of opportunities to serve as organization-wide leaders, public relations practitioners should seek out information about visioning in order help chart their organization's future and enhance their careers.     

The cost‐effectiveness of UK parenting programmes for preventing children's behaviour problems – a review of the evidence

Parenting programmes are widely used in the UK, promoted in policy documents as a cost‐effective way for children's services to address behaviour problems and thereby the longer‐term costs associated with conduct disorders, particularly antisocial behaviour and criminality. To explore whether these programmes are a cost‐effective component of family intervention, this paper examines evidence from cost‐effectiveness studies based on randomized controlled trials, modelling studies estimating longer‐term costs and outcomes, and studies estimating costs of UK parenting programmes, including evidence from routine practice. Findings indicate that parenting programmes have the potential to be cost‐saving in the long term; however, gaps in the evidence include: lack of follow‐up of families who drop out of programmes, absence of control groups in longer‐term follow‐ups, and little information about costs and effects of programmes in routine practice. The size of savings resulting from implementation of effective parenting programmes will depend on the extent to which families likely to be most costly to society attend and experience lasting benefit.     

Trust and the Dilemmas of Suicide Risk Assessment in Non-government Mental Health Services

Reducing suicide rates is a national mental health priority as over 2,200 people die from suicide each year in Australia. Increasingly, nongovernment organisations (NGOs) provide services to people experiencing severe and persistent mental illnesses—a significant cohort at risk of suicide. While clinical services are generally seen as the arbiters of risk, little is known of how suicide risk assessments are undertaken in NGOs. This article reports the findings of a survey-based pilot study of 44 frontline workers in mental health-focused NGOs in Tasmania, Australia, with the aim of sketching a preliminary picture of this under-studied terrain. We identified the assessment practices utilised by workers, and the challenges and dilemmas they experienced in navigating issues of trust in suicide risk assessment in contexts where they often felt vulnerable and under-prepared. We argue that these early findings demonstrate the need for organisations to foster cultures of trust to facilitate both the activities of relationship building between practitioners and clients, and those of monitoring risk.     

Changes in the labour market and health inequalities during the years of the recent economic downturn in Italy

There is widespread concern that episodes of unemployment and unstable working conditions adversely affect health. We add to the debate by focusing on the relationship between work trajectory and the self-reported health of Italian men and women during the present economic downturn. Relying on Italian data in the EU-SILC project (from 2007 to 2010), our sample includes all individuals aged 30 to 60 in 2010, and uses multivariate binomial regression models for preliminary analyses and the Structural Equations modelling (SEM) to observe the cumulative effects of health status according to different job trajectories. Our main findings show similar pictures for men and women. Individuals who are unemployed, ejected or in precarious occupational positions have a higher risk of worsening their health status during these years.     

Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation,health, and well-being

Religious disaffiliation—leaving the religious tradition in which one was raised for no religious affiliation in adulthood—has become more common in recent years, though few studies have examined its consequences for the health and well-being of individuals. We use an innovative approach, comparing the health and subjective well-being of religious disaffiliates to those who remain affiliated using pooled General Social Survey samples from 1973 through 2012. We find that religious disaffiliates experience poorer health and lower well-being than those consistently affiliated and those who are consistently unaffiliated. We also demonstrate that the disadvantage for those who leave religious traditions is completely mediated by the frequency of church attendance, as disaffiliates attend church less often. Our results point to the importance of the social processes surrounding religious disaffiliation and emphasize the role of dynamics in the relationship between religious affiliation and health.     

地下钱庄行为的定性与防控——刑法与经济法互动的视角

地下钱庄并非规范的法律概念，我国对地下钱庄法律价值的判断是基于其组织的非正规性而非其行为的违法性，对地下钱庄行为更多地是借助刑法规制和执法严惩而非制度规范和监管指引。以刑法与经济法互动为视角，对地下钱庄所从事的三类主要业务进行具体分析，对相关法律法规予以细致梳理和客观评价，并结合我国金融生态环境和地下钱庄行为特点提出相应的立法建议和防控对策。提出在治理地下钱庄的过程中应当做到经济法规制在前、刑法惩治在后，监管在前、执法在后，宽严相济、疏堵结合。     

Deriving Behavior Model Parameters from Survey Data: Self‐Protective Behavior Adoption During the 2009–2010 Influenza A(H1N1) Pandemic

In this paper, we demonstrate how public opinion surveys can be designed to collect information pertinent to computational behavior modeling, and we present the results of a public opinion and behavior survey conducted during the 2009–2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic. The results are used to parameterize the Health Belief Model of individual health‐protective decision making. Survey subjects were asked questions about their perceptions of the then‐circulating influenza and attitudes towards two personal protective behaviors: vaccination and avoidance of crowds. We empirically address two important issues in applying the Health Belief Model of behavior to computational infectious disease simulation: (1) the factors dynamically influencing the states of the Health Belief Model variables and (2) the appropriateness of the Health Belief Model in describing self‐protective behavior in the context of pandemic influenza.     

Examining Outpatient Health Care Utilization Among Adults with Severe or Profound Intellectual Disabilities Living in an Urban Setting

Abstract

The present study examined the health status and outpatient health care utilization among 52 adults with severe or profound intellectual disabilities (IDs) living with their families or in group homes in New York City. Bivariate and regression analyses among demographic variables, medical conditions, health care utilization, and type of living situation were conducted. Findings indicate that demographic factors andhealth statuses were similar regardless of living situation, except for ageand the presence of Down Syndrome, that is, younger people and people with Down Syndrome were more likely to live with family than in group homes. The results indicated that regardless of where they lived, individuals had high rates (70%) of overweight/obesity. The mean number of internal medicine, specialty medicine, nursing, and total clinic visits were significantly higher for those living in group homes compared to those living with their families. The findings and their implications are discussed with respect to social work policy and practice.     

Efficacy of Statistical Outlier Analysis for Monitoring Quality of Care

Researchers have proposed that hospitals with excessive statistically unexplained mortality rates are more likely to have quality-of-care problems. The U.S. Health Care Financing Administration currently uses this statistical “outlier” approach to screen for poor quality in hospitals. Little is known, however, about the validity of this technique, since direct measures of quality are difficult to obtain. We use Monte Carlo methods to evaluate the performance of the outlier technique as parameters of the true mortality process are varied. Results indicate that the screening ability of the technique may be very sensitive to how widespread quality-related mortality is among hospitals but insensitive to other factors generally thought to be important.     

目标取向对员工创新行为的影响机制研究——基于隐性知识共享行为的视角

在目前中国经济创新驱动转型的时代,企业对员工个人创新行为的依赖度越来越高.文章基于11家企业184名被试的问卷调查数据,采用结构方程分析方法,探索员工不同的目标取向通过隐性知识共享行为对创新行为的影响机制.研究结果表明,学习目标取向对隐性知识共享行为产生正向影响;绩效证明取向对隐性知识共享行为产生正向影响;绩效回避取向对隐性知识共享行为的影响效果不显著;同时,隐性知识共享行为对员工创新行为有显著影响,目标取向通过隐性知识共享行为对员工创新行为起间接作用.该研究结论进一步拓展了隐性知识共享行为在目标取向和员工创新行为中间接作用的研究领域,也为创新驱动型组织建设提供理论指导依据.