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AbstractThis article advances a theory that brings real-world outcomes into our current understanding of the dynamic relationship between public opinion and policy. It examines a vital public good – air pollution remediation in 319 American localities – and estimates a dynamic model of relationships among three key variables: public opinion, policy, and air pollution outcomes. The analysis focuses on both public opinion and air pollution outcomes as dependent variables. I find that public opinion reacts to changes in statewide policy and local air pollution, which suggests the public forms its opinions with whatever reliable information is most readily available. I also find that local public opinion's impact on local air pollution is substantively meaningful on timescales smaller than 5 years, indicating that the additional policy effort prompted by public opinion change is sufficient to yield tangible real-world outcomes even in the short term.

AbstractBackgroundPublic opinion has a dynamic relationship with policy and real‐world outcomes in liberal settings where reliable information is abundant. In these settings, the public continuously updates its opinions with reliable policy‐relevant information, and the changes in public opinion go on to affect policy and outcomes. It is unknown whether this dynamic exists in illiberal settings where the public's access to reliable information is heavily restricted.ObjectivesThis article advances a theory of public opinion's dynamic relationship with policy and outcomes that applies to illiberal settings.MethodsOur study examines a vital public good in one of the world's most restrictive information environments and estimates a dynamic model of relationships among three variables—public opinion, policy, and outcomes—with a focus on public opinion and outcomes as the key dependent variables. The analysis looks at air pollution remediation in 274 Chinese localities.ResultsWe find that public opinion reacts to objective air pollution outcomes and not to misleading information that downplays air pollution severity, which suggests the public can accurately evaluate the reliability of available information. We also find that local public opinion's impact on local air pollution is substantively meaningful on timescales as short as 1 to 2 years, indicating that the additional policy effort prompted by public opinion change is sufficient to yield tangible real‐world outcomes even in the short term.ConclusionPublic opinion has a dynamic relationship with policy and real‐world outcomes even in highly illiberal settings. We argue that these findings are likely to generalize across issue domains with outcomes that can be directly observed by the public.

It can be predicted that a substantial number of patients will seek medical care during a possible disaster, placing an increased strain on hospital resources, including health information services. With medical records playing a vital role in the identification of patients and documentation of patient care, the ability of the health information system to cope with this projected surge in demand needs to be addressed. This study was designed to investigate the expected use of specialised health information systems for disasters in Victorian hospitals during such contingencies. Specifically, this study investigated what type of specialised systems hospitals had in place at the time and whether a standard for specialised health information systems for disasters was needed. While 79% of responding hospitals reported having a specialised health information system for disasters, 91% of all responding hospitals reported that specialised health information systems for disasters were necessary. All specialised systems were paper-based, and 94% were based on the standard medical record format and content. Finally, 64% of hospitals believed that a Standard for specialised disaster medical records should be developed.

This paper reviews the documentation and coding of External causes of admitted fall cases in a major hospital. Intensive analysis of a random selection of 100 medical records included blind re-coding in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM), Fifth Edition for External causes to ascertain whether: (i) the medical records contained sufficient information for assignment of specific External cause codes; and (ii) the most appropriate External cause codes were assigned per available documentation. Comparison of the hospital data with the state-wide Victorian Admitted Episodes Database (VAED) data on frequency of use of External cause codes revealed that the index hospital, a major trauma centre, treated comparatively more falls involving steps, stairs and ladders. The hospital sample reflected lower usage, than state-wide, of unspecified External cause codes and Other specified activity codes; otherwise, there was similarity in External cause coding. A comparison of researcher and hospital codes for the falls study sample revealed differences. The ambulance report was identified as the best source of External cause information; only 50% of hospital medical records contained sufficient information for specific code assignation for all three External cause codes, mechanism of injury, place of occurrence and activity at time of injury. Whilst all medical records contained mechanism of falls injury information, 16% contained insufficient details, indicating a deficiency in medical record documentation to underpin external cause coding. This was compounded by flaws in the ICD- 10-AM classification.