Understanding vaccine knowledge,attitudes, and decision-making through college student interviews

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to explore knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about vaccines required for college-entry and vaccine-related behaviors among college students. Participants: Thirty-three full-time undergraduate students, ≥ 18 years old, enrolled at public (2) and private (3) colleges and universities in metropolitan Philadelphia in fall 2016. Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews, which were double-coded with 5,015 comments overall and 99.3% intercoder reliability (κ?=?0.779) using NVivo 11 software. Results: Six key themes emerged: (1) low knowledge about vaccines and requirements; (2) mixed attitudes about required vs. recommended vaccines; (3) high trust in medical professionals; (4) low perceived risk for vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks; (5) substantial parental influence on students’ decision-making; and (6) low utilization of Student Health Services. Conclusions: This study revealed lack of knowledge about and low prioritization of vaccination despite overall positive attitudes towards vaccines. Prematriculation education of college students is critical to increasing vaccine knowledge and use.     

Financial journeys of Australian parents after separation – transitions into and out of poverty

It is well established that relationship separation has greater negative economic consequences for mothers than for fathers in Australia and other developed countries. While research has shown that, at an aggregate level, such negative impacts tend to diminish with time, the rate of change is generally slower for mothers than fathers, and a higher proportion of mothers than fathers continue to experience entrenched financial difficulties. Less is known about the variability of economic journeys experienced by women and men, taken separately, and factors influencing diverse economic trajectories. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Separated Families (LSSF), which followed up a large sample parents at three post‐separation points, this article examines poverty rates across a 4‐year period, transitions into and out of poverty and factors affecting these pathways.     

Do changes in patent policy influence firms’ technology strategy? Evidence from manufacturing in India

India made patent policy changes to comply with TRIPs agreement that increased the rights of patent owners. Considering that such policy changes influence both in-house research and development investments and technology licensing from external sources, the firms have to accordingly devise their technology strategy. This study employs a simple and fixed effects multinomial logit regression models to study the impact of policy changes on the technology strategy of 402 firms operating in Indian manufacturing sector from 1999 to 2014. The results show that changes in patent policy have a significant impact on technology strategy of firms.     

Stimulating effects of intelligent policy on the performance of listed manufacturing companies in China

Based on the pilot projects of intelligent manufacturing of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China and the annual data reported by listed companies, this paper studies the effect of China's intelligent policy on the performance of listed manufacturing companies by using the panel data of relevant enterprises from 2011 to 2017, as well as the mechanism of impact. Our empirical tests, using the difference-in-difference method, shows that intelligent policy can significantly improve the economic performance of manufacturing enterprises by guiding enterprises to optimize their intelligent management, strengthening investment in intelligent equipment and promoting collaborative manufacturing. Further empirical tests show that the impact of intelligent policy on economic performance is different in time. In the later selected pilot enterprises, the impact of intelligent policy on their economic performance is more significant; there is regional heterogeneity in the effects of intelligent policy: in regions with low intelligence, the positive impact of intelligent policy on the economic performance of manufacturing industry is more significant. Based on these conclusions, relevant intelligent policy suggestions are put forward.     

A Fiasco of Volcanic Proportions? Eyjafjallajökull and the Closure of European Airspace

Abstract

The unprecedented and recurrent closure of much of UK and northern European airspace from 14 April 2010, following the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, caused the cancellation of 108,000 flights, disrupted the travel plans of 10.5 million passengers, and cost the airline industry in excess of $1.7 billion in lost revenue. The airspace closures highlighted the inherent riskiness of aviation and destabilised dominant cultural discourses of the ‘superiority’ and capability of aviation technology. It also brought issues of risk acceptability and our socio‐economic reliance on air travel into sharp relief. This paper explores how the political and media framing of the response to the airspace closures as a human ‘policy fiasco’ served to obfuscate the inherent dangers of aviation and ‘get Europe flying’ again. Thus, this paper contends that this particular fiasco was ‘necessary’ in that it served to highlight the fragility of air travel and the vulnerabilities of the mobile citizen.     

陕西省义务教育经费“校财局管”模式研究

2006年以来,陕西省按照中央部署,对义务教育“校财局管”模式进行了积极有益的探索。从校财局管的“局”是教育局还是财政局看,“校财局管”在我省有三种模式：教育局主导的？‘校财局管”模式、财政局主导的“校财局管”模式和混合型的“校财局管”模式;从是否实行国库集中支付来看,分为两种模式即实行国库集中支付的“校财局管”模式和非国库集中支付的“校财局管”模式。陕西省义务教育经费“校财局管”模式的完善,应按照中央关于教育资金管理的相关规定,对义务教育“校财局管”的管理、使用权限与责任进行科学界定。对目前正在运行的教育局主导的“校财局管”模式从两个方面进行改造：一是对接国库中支付模式,二是实行远程核算。     

Social assistance in China and Sweden: how policy intentions are translated into local practices

This article compares social assistance policies in China and Sweden, with a special focus on the means of translating policy intentions into local practices. Unlike China, Sweden has laws regulating social assistance, which is intended to ensure a ‘reasonable standard of living’. Though considered a legal right, assistance is Sweden is means-tested. While social assistance claims are dealt with by the welfare bureaucracy in Sweden, in China the process of application involves the input of cadres, administrative officials from different levels of government, and neighbours. The challenges facing Sweden are to find ways to cope with long-term social assistance and to help recipients find work. The challenges facing China are to establish a social assistance law and standardized management procedures, and to incorporate the resources of social work.     

Attributing Outcomes to Social Policy Interventions – ‘Gold Standard’ or ‘Fool's Gold’ in Public Policy and Management?

In recent years there has been increased interest in outcome‐based social policy‐making and management. The UK has been in the forefront of this movement but similar movements have been identified internationally. This interest in outcome‐based decision‐making has been given particular impetus through the ‘results’‐based movement in evaluation and performance management since the 1980s, which has increased in scope over time, slowly changing its emphasis from cost reduction and measuring outputs to measuring outcomes. This change has been widely welcomed by policymakers, practitioners and academics. However, there is evidence that the reality is often rather less than the rhetoric. Moreover, the ‘attribution problem’ of attributing changes in outcomes to specific social policies has remained a major issue. The conceptual solution of constructing ‘cause‐and‐effect’ models, imported from the policy evaluation field, has only recently become common for operationalising these models. This article outlines the evolution of interest in outcome‐based social policy‐making up to recent times and the growing realization of the importance of the attribution problem. It then outlines both how the ‘cause‐and‐effect’ policy modelling approach can partially tackle the attribution problem, but also its inherent limitations. Lastly, the article uses several case studies in current UK social policy‐making to demonstrate the potential importance of the reasoning embedded within cause‐and‐effect models but also the dangers in policy‐making which adopts this approach without understanding its conceptual basis or in fields where it is inappropriate, given the current state of our knowledge of social policy systems.     

Social Policy from Olson to Ostrom: A Case Study of Dutch Disability Insurance

Social policy development and reform in corporatist welfare states often follows a pattern of subsequent collectivization and de‐collectivization. This has to do, the article argues, with the social problems these phases address. Early social policy development forms a response to Olson‐type collective action problems that organized actors (labour and employers' organizations) in the field experience: state‐obliged benefits solve free rider problems, while bipartite administration allows labour and employers' organizations to organize their constituencies. This solution to Olson‐type collective action problems, however, also constitutes an Ostrom‐type collective action problem. Such a system functions as a common pool resource. Individual benefit take‐up is experienced as free and the costs of benefit take‐up are collectivized in the common pool. The article illustrates this pattern with reference to Dutch disability insurance.     

Strategic Planning for Support Services for Children with a Parent or Close Relative in Prison

It has long been recognized that children with a parent or close relative in prison are more likely to experience educational difficulties, emotional distress, family breakdown and a substantial reduction in family income (Boswell 2002; Smith et al. 2007; Morgan et al. 2013b; Morgan and Gill 2013). Consequently, children with a parent in prison are more likely to require support from statutory services, especially education and social care. However, statutory support for this group of children is sparse, and children of prisoners tend not to be identified as a priority group. The demand on local authorities to spend their limited budgets wisely means tough decisions have to be made. These decisions are not taken in a vacuum: they are taken in a context of local need, consumer representation, central and local politics; underpinned by the values and attitudes of individual members as well as by the ethos or culture of the local authority itself. In this article we apply Axford's typology (2009) of the different cultures which underpin local authority service provision to data from a research study carried out in 2011 in one local authority which explored support provision in schools for children of prisoners. We examine the contradictions and gaps within the local authority's attempts to synergize the different modules of service delivery into a coherent pattern of provision, and we explore how changes in strategic culture might lead to improvements being made in terms of service delivery to this group of ‘vulnerable’ children.