Channels of participation: Political participant types and personality.

This article employs a person-centred approach to test the relationship between personality traits and empirically defined political participant types. We argue that it is more appropriate to focus on types of participants to test the relationship between personality and political participation than on individual modes or latent dimensions of political participation. Our reasoning is that the person-centred approach allows us to learn more about how and why citizens combine different modes of participation from a tool kit of available political activities to achieve a goal as a function of their personality. We rely on data collected by the German Longitudinal Election Study 2017 (GLES, ZA6801). On the basis of a set of survey questions enquiring on political activities that people take part in, Latent Class Analysis allows us to identify three political participant types (inactives, voting specialists, and complete activists). The 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) measures respondents' personality traits. Our findings suggest that conscientious people are more likely to affiliate with the voting specialists and extroverts with the more active participant types in Germany.

Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication.

An increasing number of citizens change and adapt their party preferences during the electoral campaign. We analyze which short-term factors explain intra-campaign changes in voting preferences, focusing on the visibility and tone of news media reporting and party canvassing. Our analyses rely on an integrative data approach, linking data from media content analysis to public opinion data. This enables us to investigate the relative impact of news media reporting as well as party communication. Inherently, we overcome previously identified methodological problems in the study of communication effects on voting behavior. Our findings reveal that campaigns matter: Especially interpersonal party canvassing increases voters' likelihood to change their voting preferences in favor of the respective party, whereas media effects are limited to quality news outlets and depend on individual voters' party ambivalence.

Learning from the Brazilian community health worker model in North Wales.

Health policymakers in many countries are looking at ways of increasing health care coverage by scaling up the deployment of community health workers. In this commentary, we describe the rationale for the UK to learn from Brazil's scaled-up Community Health Worker primary care strategy, starting with a pilot project in North Wales.

Assessing the role of contact tracing in a suspected H7N2 influenza A outbreak in humans in Wales.

BACKGROUND: The detailed analysis of an outbreak database has been undertaken to examine the role of contact tracing in controlling an outbreak of possible avian influenza in humans. The outbreak, initiating from the purchase of infected domestic poultry, occurred in North Wales during May and June 2007. During this outbreak, extensive contact tracing was carried out. Following contact tracing, cases and contacts believed to be at risk of infection were given treatment/prophylaxis. METHODS: We analyse the database of cases and their contacts identified for the purposes of contact tracing in relation to both the contact tracing burden and effectiveness. We investigate the distribution of numbers of contacts identified, and use network structure to explore the speed with which treatment/prophylaxis was made available and to estimate the risk of transmission in different settings. RESULTS: Fourteen cases of suspected H7N2 influenza A in humans were associated with a confirmed outbreak among poultry in May-June 2007. The contact tracing dataset consisted of 254 individuals (cases and contacts, of both poultry and humans) who were linked through a network of social contacts. Of these, 102 individuals were given treatment or prophylaxis. Considerable differences between individuals' contact patterns were observed. Home and workplace encounters were more likely to result in transmission than encounters in other settings. After an initial delay, while the outbreak proceeded undetected, contact tracing rapidly caught up with the cases and was effective in reducing the time between onset of symptoms and treatment/prophylaxis. CONCLUSIONS: Contact tracing was used to link together the individuals involved in this outbreak in a social network, allowing the identification of the most likely paths of transmission and the risks of different types of interactions to be assessed. The outbreak highlights the substantial time and cost involved in contact tracing, even for an outbreak affecting few individuals. However, when sufficient resources are available, contact tracing enables cases to be identified before they result in further transmission and thus possibly assists in preventing an outbreak of a novel virus.

Guidance from WHO on the prevention and control of TB during air travel.

Although tuberculosis (TB) is not highly transmissible, there is a risk of transmission of infection when close contact occurs between a person with active pulmonary TB and other passengers for prolonged periods during air travel. The World Health Organization first published Tuberculosis and air travel: guidelines for prevention and control in 1998, in response to several incidents involving TB in air travellers, with a second edition in 2006. A further revision was undertaken to address issues arising from the emergence of extensively resistant TB (XDR-TB), the occurrence of several international incidents involving TB and air travel, and the entry into force of the revised International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2007. This article describes the process followed in preparing the third edition, the special issues considered and the conclusions reached, with recommendations for travellers, physicians, public health authorities, and airline companies. New material includes: (i) additional guidance on the assessment of infectiousness, and on procedures, roles and responsibilities involved in the prevention of transmission of infection on board and for dealing with incidents; (ii) information on basic provisions of the IHR and measures relevant to incidents involving TB among air travellers; and (iii) a proposed procedure for carrying out contact investigations.