Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTWidespread spontaneous evacuation, the tendency for people to evacuate even when not advised to do so, has been highlighted as one of the likely behavioral responses to a nuclear power plant emergency. Utility company representatives contend that protective action advisories can be structured so as to stifle the magnitude and geographic extent of spontaneous evacuation. Data from a utility‐company‐sponsored telephone survey of households on Long Island, New York, where the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station is located, are used in this paper to test this proposition. Analyses of responses given to three sets of increasingly serious reactor accident scenarios, with and without information instructing people what protective actions to take, raise serious questions about the ability of emergency notification messages to affect human behavior in a radiological emergency. The results suggest firstly, that even if people me specifically advised not to evacuate, most would be inclined to do so; and secondly, that attempts to stifle the propensity to evacuate among those who are not at risk are likely to increase the propensity to stay behind among those who are at risk and should evacuate.

Americans' overwhelming desires for single family homeownership have been so well documented that they have been termed the 'American Dream'. Government and financial incentives for homeownership are believed to allow the fulfillment of uniformly accepted housing norms which drive people to buy their own homes. This research takes apart that American Dream by examining the preferences of different income and family life cycle groups for housing and neighborhood characteristics associated with the housing bundle. Based on a sample of Syracuse metropolitan respondents, this research applies the factorial survey method to assess the variations in housing preferences by socio-economic status and family composition. Findings show that all groups of respondents were indifferent to housings' tenure. All respondents desired single family housing but the intensity of these preferences for single family homes over other types of housing varied among subgroups. Strong desires were expressed not to live among blacks nor lower income households, although respondents expressed no desires for either suburban locations or physically homogeneous neighborhoods. These findings suggest that surface desires for homeownership may proxy for desires to control local racial and socio-economic composition.

Human values represent an important but neglected level of analysis in the study of energy conservation behavior. This article examines the role values play in people's commitment to energy conservation, using data from an in-depth survey of 376 households in Southern California. The impact of values on commitment is considered in terms of a theoretical framework that includes attributes of the person and his or her context. The results indicated that a number of values (particularly those pertaining to environmental quality and personal growth) were weakly but positively related to both conservation behavior and beliefs about the efficacy and necessity of conservation. Values influenced behavioral commitment independently of person and contextual factors, but did not predict such behavior above and beyond these other factors. It is concluded that personal values do not exert a major impact on personal commitment to conserve and therefore do not constitute a significant obstacle to such efforts. Public policy efforts directed at promoting conservation should therefore focus on providing services and resources that enhance the public's opportunities for channeling their willingness to conserve into concrete action.

Book reviewed in this article:
Public Administration: An Introduction
Stuart MacRae and Douglas Pitt. Pitman Business Education, 1980. Pp. 226. £4.50.
The Government of the United Kingdom: Political Authority in a Changing Society
Max Beloff and Gillian Peele.
Public Spending Decisions: Growth and Restraint in the 1970s
Maurice Wright (ed.).
The House of Commons in the Twentieth Century
S. A. Walkland (ed.).
Party Politics in Local Government: Officers and Members
Policy Studies Institute and Royal Institute of Public Administration.
The Reports and Accounts of Nationalized Industries: a User's Guide
Andrew Likierman.
The Telecommunications Function in the British Post Office: A Case Study of Bureaucratic Adaptation
Douglas C. Pitt.
Government and Shipbuilding: The Politics of Industrial Change
B. W. Hogwood.
Outside the State: Voluntary Organizations in Three English Towns
Stephen Hatch.
Poverty in the United Kingdom: A Survey of Household Resources and Standards of Living
Peter Townsend.
Social Services by Government Contract: A Policy Analysis
Kenneth R. Wedel, Arthur J. Katz and Ann Weick (eds.)
Health Care: Priorities and Management
Gwyn Bevan, Harold Copeman, John Perrin and Rachel Rosser.
In On the Act: Memoirs of a Lawmaker
Sir Harold S. Kent.

Examined are differences in actors' behavior & in the form of questioning during personal & telephone interviews. In analyzing the attitudes & behaviors of respondents, the focus was on those characteristics that suggest that the modes differ in the amount of nonresponse & response bias. Data came from a project which conducted two national telephone surveys with a total of 1,734 respondents, one using a stratified random sample with phone numbers spread over the entire United States, the other using 74 counties & metropolitan areas in the Survey Research Center's (SRC) national household sample. The same questions were asked of the personal interview sample by SRC field interviewers & of the two telephone samples by a central telephone staff. The achieved response rates showed that few respondents preferred the telephone as an interviewing tool, & that the great majority of personally interviewed respondents preferred the face-to-face method. If telephone interviews are to achieve higher response rates than personal interviews, improved telephone questioning techniques must be devised to reassure respondents of the legitimacy, confidentiality & importance of the interview. 5 Tables, 3 Figures. Modified AA.

The threat of unemployment in the US is much more immediate than the threat of poverty & hence is more likely to influence econ decisions. Between 1958 & 1963, awareness of unemployment was an important drag on consumer optimism & confidence. Concern about unemployment grows out of the news circulated through the MM & the observed experiences of relatives & friends more often than out of personal financial reverses. Lack of consumer confidence in turn acts as a deterrent to consumer spending. Thus uneasiness about unemployment after 1958 created a self-perpetuating inhibition to econ growth that spelled underemployment of human & material resources. This conclusion emerges from studies of consumer att's conducted by the Survey Res Center of the U of Michigan 4 times a yr & based on stratified random samples of about 1,500 cases each, representative of all households in the continental US. Surveys are conducted by personal interviews using open-ended questions to which R's reply in their own words. The analysis of this material involves bivariate distributions, time series R, & a multivariate cross-sectional technique called the Automatic Interaction Detector model. AA.

Background Canada depends on Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs), also known as migrant workers, to fill labour shortage in agriculture, hospitality, construction, child/senior care, and other low-skilled occupations. Evidence shows that TFWs, especially women live-in caregivers (LC), constitute a vulnerable population. Their health is compromised by the precarious and harsh working and living conditions they encounter. There is a paucity of research on the mental health of LCs, their support systems and access to mental health services. Method In this community-based exploratory study, we used mixed methods of survey and focus groups to explore the work related experiences and mental health of migrant live-in caregivers in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. Convenience and snowball sampling were used to recruit participants. The inclusion criteria were: being 18 years or older, initially migrated to Canada as TFWs under LC program, resided in the Greater Toronto Area, and able to understand and converse in English based on self-report. This paper reports on the focus group results derived from inductive thematic analysis. Results A total of 30 women LCs participated in the study. Most of them were from the Philippines. A number of key themes emerged from the participants' narratives: (1) precarious migration-employment status (re)produces exploitation; (2) deskilling and downward social mobility reinforce alienation; (3) endurance of hardship for family back home; (4) double lives of public cheerfulness and private anguish; and (4) unrecognized mental health needs. The study results reflected gross injustices experienced by these women. Conclusion A multi-faceted approach is required to improve the working and living conditions of this vulnerable group and ultimately their health outcomes. We recommend the following: government inspection to ensure employer compliance with the labour standards and provision of safe working and living conditions; change immigration policy to allow migrant caregivers to apply for permanent residence upon arrival; the TFWs Program to establish fair wages and subsidized housing so that caregivers can truly access the live-out option; and local ethno-specific, settlement and faith organizations be leveraged to provide TFWs with social support as well as information about their rights and how to access health and social care. ; Vahabi, M., & Wong, J. P. (2017). Caught between a rock and a hard place: Mental health of migrant live-in caregivers in canada. BMC Public Health, 17(1), 498-15. doi:10.1186/s12889-017-4431-4

Bibliography leaves 230-248. ; This study attempts to assess the equity and technical efficiency aspects of the South African health system. It empirically assesses the status qua and trends in equity as it relates to child morbidity and mortality and self-reported illness and utilization of different service providers in adulthood. Furthermore, an assessment of the technical efficiency and productivity of a sample of public sector hospitals is conducted. This is meant to explore the size of potential efficiency gains that is tantamount to the injection of additional resources, which are highly needed for addressing inequities in a scenario where mobilization of additional resources from the public purse is seriously constrained as a result of poor economic performance, stringent fiscal policies and competing priorities, among other things. Secondary data are used in the analyses. These include data from the Living Standards and Development Survey (LSDS) of 1993, conducted jointly by the World Bank and the South African Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, and data from the October Household Survey (OHS) series (OHS 1995 and OHS 1998) that are conducted annually by Statistics South Africa. For the analysis of hospital efficiency, data are obtained from annual statistical publications of provincial health departments. The equity analysis is done using concentration indices (and curves). In the adult population, standardized concentration indices are computed to rule out a possible confounding effect of the demographic variables, age and gender. Furthermore, utilization of services is standardized for need as measured by self-reported acute or chronic illness. Additionally, to identify some factors, which may be associated with inequities in child health, probit models are estimated. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and DEA-based Maimquist productivity index are used to examine the state of hospital technical efficiency and productivity respectively. With the limited data available a tobit regression is also run to identify factors influencing the technical efficiency of hospitals. Overall, the findings of this study indicate that the huge income-related inequalities in health and health care that existed prior to the change of the political system in 1994 have been reduced significantly in the years after the installation of the new government. Analyses of the LSDS 1993 indicate significant pro-rich inequities in all the dimensions of equity in health and health care utilization examined in this study. Under-five mortality and child malnutrition manifest pro-rich inequalities of high magnitude. In the adult population, as is seen in many other studies, pro-poor inequities are seen in self-reported acute illness. This paradoxical pro-poor finding is, however, changed to pro-rich inequalities in the OHS 1995 and 1998 data. Inequalities in under-five mortality in the OHS 1998 data that do not show when income is used as a measure of socio-economic status (SES) are prominently seen when SES is proxied by race and residential location. This implies that the apparent bridging of inequities seen when income is used as a measure of SES may not enable us to definitively assert the absence of socio-economic inequities in health. Utilization statistics from all data sets indicate pro-poor horizontal inequities in the use of primary and other public health facilities, implying an appropriate targeting of public sector health care resources. The data clearly show that considerable health and health system inequities remain in South Africa. In order to rapidly address these inequities, additional resources are required to improve health and other health-promoting services in currently under-served areas and for specific disadvantaged groups. However, given the macro-economic context, the allocation of additional resources to the health sector is unlikely. The hospital sector, which absorbs the lion's share of the public health resources, seems to be plagued by high degrees of technical inefficiency. With the prevailing high levels of technical inefficiency and the adverse economic realities of the country, it would be difficult to mobilize additional resources needed for addressing existing inequities. Hence it is of paramount importance to address the existing technical inefficiencies in the hospital sector. Finally the study recommends that to address the inequities that besiege the country's health system, policies that transcend the health sector are needed and that there is an urgent need to rectify existing inefficiencies.

This paper assesses the social impact of the Asian financial crisis, drawing on the results of studies in six countries, namely, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. The impacts appear to be less than were anticipated early in the crisis. However, it seems too early to draw conclusions about the eventual social consequences. First, the data on which the present is based were collected at a relatively early stage in the crisis. There was a lag of several months between the economic effects and the social impacts of the crisis. Second, many of the coping mechanisms used by poor households to maintain current consumption levels are likely to have deleterious consequences in the future. Third, due to data limitations, the study is incomplete in some areas. For these reasons, the study should be considered at best as an interim assessment of the social impact of the crisis. Nevertheless, the study findings make it clear that further monitoring and assessment of the social impact are required. The Asian financial crisis also provides a rare opportunity to learn how existing social systems function under duress. If the lessons are adequately documented and effectively communicated to policymakers, the experience gained during the crisis can provide a useful guide to needed policy reforms. The crisis has revealed that considerable effort needs to be directed to the further development of social safety nets throughout the region, given the limited capacity of families to sustain their members through difficult times. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that, given the inadequacy of government-fostered safety nets, the family system has yet again carried out its traditional fallback role of seeing its members through tremendous hardships. In developing then social safety nets, most Asian countries will have the benefit of building from the ground up, not only drawing on the experiences of countries outside the region but also shaping systems that are best suited to the needs of Asian societies in the context of an emerging information-based global economy.

This paper assesses the social impact of the Asian financial crisis, drawing on the results of studies in six countries, namely, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. The impacts appear to be less than were anticipated early in the crisis. However, it seems too early to draw conclusions about the eventual social consequences. First, the data on which the present is based were collected at a relatively early stage in the crisis. There was a lag of several months between the economic effects and the social impacts of the crisis. Second, many of the coping mechanisms used by poor households to maintain current consumption levels are likely to have deleterious consequences in the future. Third, due to data limitations, the study is incomplete in some areas. For these reasons, the study should be considered at best as an interim assessment of the social impact of the crisis. Nevertheless, the study findings make it clear that further monitoring and assessment of the social impact are required. The Asian financial crisis also provides a rare opportunity to learn how existing social systems function under duress. If the lessons are adequately documented and effectively communicated to policymakers, the experience gained during the crisis can provide a useful guide to needed policy reforms. The crisis has revealed that considerable effort needs to be directed to the further development of social safety nets throughout the region, given the limited capacity of families to sustain their members through difficult times. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that, given the inadequacy of government-fostered safety nets, the family system has yet again carried out its traditional fallback role of seeing its members through tremendous hardships. In developing then social safety nets, most Asian countries will have the benefit of building from the ground up, not only drawing on the experiences of countries outside the region but also shaping systems that are best suited to the needs of Asian societies in the context of an emerging information-based global economy.

Background: Differences in health status and health care utilization between socioeconomic groups are evident in low-income and high-income countries. The situation in rural Vietnam is not well known. Empirical results on health by socioeconomic group, or geographic location may provide useful information for designing equity-oriented health policy and poverty focused interventions. Objective: To study socioeconomic differences and deviations from equality in health, health care utilization and health care expenditure in a rural district in Vietnam in relation to existing health care policy and available services. Methods: The studies were conducted within a demographic surveillance system (FilaBavi) in the BaVi district, northern rural Vietnam. The basic study used was the FilaBavi baseline survey with 11,547 house¬holds and 49,893 persons. The results on utilization and payment for outpatient services were based on a sub-study of 4,769 individuals. Socioeconomic differentials in prolonged cough prevalence were estimated for 35,832 individuals aged 15 or more. The socioeconomic differences in mortality were estimated using the quarterly follow-ups during 1999-2002. Main findings: Different indicators: income, expenditure, household asset, housing conditions and official classification give different descriptions of the economic situation. The indicators are not closely correlated. Sensitivity and positive predictive value for poverty are low for all indicators. Self-treatment is the most common choice and accounts for 50.7 % of the health care actions taken. It is reported more often by the better-off than the poor (56.1 % vs. 41.2 %). Private practitioners are important sources of health care. They account for 18%, and are consulted more often by the poor than by the better-off (21.0 % vs. 16.1 %). The poor choose commune health centers more often than the better-off (20.0 % vs. 15.5 %). Poor patients are more likely to deter from seeking health care in public health facilities. Twenty percent in the lowest income quintile deter from seeking health care in public health services due to financial difficulties, compared to 8.2 percent in the highest income quintile. The mean payment for treatment during a 4-week recall period is 7.4 percent of the household monthly income, a substantial share. The percentage of the household income used for treatment decreases as the income increases. The poorest quintile spends 16.9 % of their monthly household income, while the richest quintile spends only 3.7 %. There are differences in sources of payments between income groups. The richest income quintile relies on household saving more often than the poorest (37.8 % vs. 28.6 %), while the latter reports borrowing money as a main source of payment for health care to a larger extent than the richest quintile (38.1 % and 21.3 % respectively). The estimated prolonged cough prevalence is higher for persons classified as poor, regardless of indicator used. The standardized mortality rate of males in the lowest wealth quintile is much higher than that of males in the highest wealth quintile. Conclusions and recommendations: The studies gave indications as regards socioeconomic differences in health and in access to health services especially for the poorer groups of the population in the study area. Poor persons and households are in worse situations regarding health, utilization of health care and payments for health services. The results urge for policy initiatives to reduce the burden of the poor and to satisfy the greater needs of the poorer part of the population. For egalitarian health polices, it is important to ensure not only an absolute level of health but also smaller relative differentials between socioeconomic groups. A combination of developing risk-sharing schemes; exemption, partial or full from payment; differentiation of prices; appropriate allocation of scarce public resources; supporting and regulating the private health sector; government subsidized health insurance for low income groups, and in the long-run universal coverage of health insurance may be possible solutions to improve access to health care for the poorer section of the population.

In 2013, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched two programs to help monitor progress toward a new global goal to increase modern contraceptive use by 2020. The Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020) program aimed to support annual, rapid-turnaround, nationally representative surveys of households and service delivery points in nine countries. Track20 was designed to support global standardization of key family planning indicators and country-level monitoring and capacity-building in 22 countries. This evaluation of both programs is based on interviews with more than 260 stakeholders in the United States and 15 program countries, statistical analysis of the PMA2020 survey, and analysis of stakeholder ratings of data maturity and sustainability. Stakeholders felt that PMA2020 has successfully conducted annual, rapid-turnaround surveys with high-quality data. However, it has not fully achieved its original objectives of promoting data use, meeting local data needs, or integrating PMA2020 into country data systems. The team's statistical analysis of PMA2020 surveys identified opportunities for modifications in survey frequency, design, and content. Stakeholders felt that Track20 is on target to achieve most of its objectives. Monitoring and evaluation officers are the core of Track20 in program countries: They are highly skilled personnel, typically embedded within ministries of health, giving them ready access to decisionmakers. The RAND research team recommended that both programs promote country-driven agendas for data collection, use, and ownership; intensify focus on data use; and plan for and measure data maturity and data system sustainability. The research team also recommended a new program--Data for Action Training Activity for Family Planning (DATA-FP)--to increase country capacity for data system management

These studies are based on information on time use in nine countries. Such studies will become more common as more governments fund time-budget surveys and as economists realize the benefits of using this type of data. Each does something that either could not have been accomplished at all, or that could have been done much less convincingly on the data that one typically obtains from households. Part I deals with the when? and with whom? questions describing human behavior. These questions have been essentially ignored by social scientists generally, and have been completely ignored by economists. So long as we believe that people have preferences over the timing and the context of their activities, we should be able to apply economic analysis usefully to their decisions. Part II deals with what is done? questions of the quantities and determinants of economic activities.While many of these questions have been addressed using readily available retrospective data, time-diary data allow both recording them more accurately and the kind of disaggregation by type that is not possible with other kinds of data. Part III deals with children's issues - the determination of time spent at home with children and its impacts on the parents and on the children themselves. Here we have economic analyses using detailed time-diary data and special survey questions that have not heretofore been used to address these topics. Part IV consists of a single study focussed on the issues involved in the creation of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which began full-scale operations in January 2003

Purpose
Due to e-commerce growth, technological advancements and environmental concerns, developing a more nuanced service portfolio has become a critical issue for last-mile logistics service providers. Concurrently, consumers are adopting new modes of consumption. This paper aims to investigate the potential for last-mile logistics service providers to act as intermediaries in access-based consumption and to revitalise their service offerings through product-service systems – a pioneering strategy not executed in the market yet.


Design/methodology/approach
This strategic customer foresight study uses a quantitative survey of 1,000 respondents and an online focus group comprising 10 early adopter consumers to investigate emerging last-mile service models. Potential service concepts were identified through the survey, and two distinct concepts were subsequently selected for evaluation and co-development within the focus group. The research was conducted in partnership with an SME logistics company in Finland.


Findings
The consumers expressed selective interest in access-based consumption related to the proposed offering of essential household goods. Young adults and consumers in early middle age living in the city centre emerged as the most potential user groups. Economic reasons and short-term needs were the primary motivations for adopting access-based consumption.


Practical implications
The study showed that engaging consumers in a customer foresight process is viable for SMEs innovating their offerings and demonstrates how the process works in practice.


Originality/value
Documented cases of customer integration into foresight processes are rare in earlier research, and this paper extends the knowledge base through a multidisciplinary examination of future consumer behaviour in the last-mile logistics domain. The paper also expands the limited literature on the role of logistics in access-based consumption.

Abstract

Aims
The COVID-19 pandemic presents the opportunity to learn about solitary drinking as many people were forced to spend time at home. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between solitary drinking and living without other adults on alcohol consumption.


Methods
A longitudinal study with four survey waves (between May and November 2020) obtained seven-day drinking diary data from Australian adults living in New South Wales. In May, a convenience sample of 586 participants (Mage = 35.3, SD = 14.8; 65.3% women) completed the first wave. Participants then completed a survey in June (n = 319, 54.4% response rate), July/August (n = 225, 38.4% response rate), and November (n = 222, 37.9% response rate). Information about alcohol consumption including risky drinking (more than four drinks on one occasion), household structure, solitary drinking, and demographics were collected. We conducted random-effects panel bivariate and multivariable regression analyses predicting the number of standard drinks and risky drinking.


Results
Participants with solitary drinking occasions consumed more and had more risky drinking occasions than participants with no solitary drinking occasions, which was also found to be the case during lockdown. Living without other adults was associated with less consumption and less risky drinking than living with other adults. However, participants who lived without other adults and had frequent solitary drinking occasions (solitary drinking in >50% drinking occasions) reported more consumption than participants without a solitary drinking occasion.


Conclusions
Individuals who consume alcohol alone and live without other adults or spend long periods of time at home may be more at risk of alcohol-related harm.