Households' willingness to pay for water for the environment in an urban setting.

Continued population growth, and climate change are placing stress on many of the world's water sources and this often manifests in environmental damage to rivers and wetlands. Most of the published literature around allocating more water to the environment considers trade-offs with agriculture. In contrast this study focusses on scenarios for different potable water supplies in cities and thus adds a novel perspective on the value of riverine restoration. This study sheds light on urban households' willingness to pay for more water to be allocated to the environment where it directly competes with their own water demands. The study uses two stated preference techniques (choice modelling and best-worst scaling) to establish the value of environmental water and the motivations for households paying for an increase in environmental water reserves. The study is set in Australia's fastest growing city, Melbourne, although the approach and method have implications for other developed-world settings. The paper also offers practical advice on the management of water allocated for different uses. Overall, the results indicate a positive and significant willingness to pay by households for additional water entitlements. Importantly, this provides a benchmark for contemplating the costs and benefits of activating alternative water supplies, such as desalination, to free up rainwater for environmental purposes.

Survey data on preferences and attitudes towards participatory irrigation management in India and Pakistan.

The data described in this paper were collected from four jurisdictions in south Asia, Assam and Bihar in India and Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan. The data were collected from farmer households involved in surface water irrigation with the aim of understanding the merits of participatory irrigation management (PIM) in different settings in south Asia. The data were collected using four structured survey instruments, which comprised three paper-based surveys and one online survey collected via tablets. This data can be used by researchers to empirically analyze: overall institutional performance and its relationship to agro-economic variables; drivers of compliance; gender differences and their impact on participation in water groups and perceptions of performance; preferred charging regimes and broader institutional arrangements for managing water at the local level. These data are unique, having been collected simultaneously across the four jurisdictions.

A framework for implementing Patient and Public Involvement in mental health research: The PATHWAY research programme benchmarked against NIHR standards.

BACKGROUND: Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research has become a key component recommended by research commissioners, grant award bodies and specified in government policies. Despite the increased call for PPI, few studies have demonstrated how to implement PPI within large-scale research studies. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the current study was to provide a case example of the implementation of a patient advisory group in a large-scale mental health research programme (PATHWAY) and to benchmark this against UK standards. METHOD: A PPI group was incorporated throughout the PATHWAY research programme, from grant development to dissemination. The group attended regular meetings and supported participant recruitment, evaluated patient-facing documents, supported the piloting of the research intervention and co-developed the dissemination and impact strategy. The implementation of PPI throughout the project was benchmarked against the UK standards for PPI. RESULTS: The inclusion of PPI in the PATHWAY project provided tangible changes to the research project (i.e., improving study documents, co-developing dissemination materials) but also proved to be a beneficial experience to PPI members through the development of new skills and the opportunity to provide a patient voice in research. We show how PPI was involved across seven study phases and provide examples of implementation of the six UK standards. The study did not include PPI in data analysis but met all the UK standards for PPI. Challenges regarding practical components (i.e., meeting frequency, language use), increasing diversity and PPI members' knowledge of research were highlighted as areas for further improvement. CONCLUSIONS: We provide a case example of how PPI can be implemented throughout a research lifecycle and we note the barriers faced and make suggestions for PPI in future implementation and research. PATIENT AND PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: PPI members were involved throughout the lifecycle of the research programme. The PPI lead was a co-author on the manuscript and contributed to report writing.

Maintaining a social license to operate for wastewater-based monitoring: The case of managing infectious disease and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wastewater monitoring as a public health tool is well-established and the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has seen its widespread uptake. Given the significant potential of wastewater monitoring as a public health surveillance and decision support tool, it is important to understand what measures are required to allow the long-term benefits of wastewater monitoring to be fully realized, including how to establish and/or maintain public support. The potential for positive SARS-CoV-2 detections to trigger enforced, community-wide public health interventions (e.g., lockdowns and other impacts on civil liberties) further emphasises the need to better understand the role of public engagement in successful wastewater-based monitoring programs. This paper systematically reviews the processes of building and maintaining the social license to operate wastewater monitoring. We specifically explore the relationship between different stakeholder communities and highlight the information and actions that are required to establish a social license to operate and then prevent its loss. The paper adds to the literature on social license to operate by extending its application to new domains and offers a dynamic model of social license to help guide the agenda for researcher and practitioner communities.

Exploring the factors that influence trauma team activation in emergency department staff.

Regional trauma networks enable the rapid and safe management and transfer of patients with traumatic injury between designated trauma units and one of 27 major trauma centres throughout the UK. Multispecialty trauma teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are activated immediately upon receipt of a patient presenting with major trauma. With most serious trauma patients going direct to major trauma centres rather than a less specialised hospital-based trauma unit, it can be challenging for hospital-based trauma unit staff to gain experience and skill in this area, leading to potential inconsistencies in the process of activating the trauma team. The aim of this service evaluation was to identify factors influencing the decision to activate the trauma team in emergency department (ED) staff working within a 700-bed trauma unit. A questionnaire was sent to 107 staff and 70 completed it, a response rate of 65%. Results indicated that shortfalls in trauma-specific training, lack of clinical experience, undefined roles and responsibilities, department culture, ambulance handover, knowledge of clinical guidelines and previous experience of trauma team activation all affected the decision to activate the trauma team. Trauma-specific training and the support of senior staff could enhance confidence and appropriate trauma team activation rates.

Cardiac rehabilitation patients experiences and understanding of group metacognitive therapy: a qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: Depression and anxiety are up to three times more prevalent in cardiac patients than the general population and are linked to increased risks of future cardiac events and mortality. Psychological interventions for cardiac patients vary in content and are often associated with weak outcomes. A recent treatment, metacognitive therapy (MCT) has been shown to be highly effective at treating psychological distress in mental health settings. This is the first study to explore qualitatively, cardiac rehabilitation (CR) patients' experiences and understanding of group MCT with the aim of examining aspects of treatment that patients experienced as helpful. METHODS: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 24 purposively sampled CR patients following group MCT. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Two main themes were identified: (1) general therapy factors that were seen largely as beneficial, where patients highlighted interaction with other CR patients and CR staff delivery of treatment and their knowledge of cardiology; (2) group MCT-specific factors that were seen as beneficial encompassed patients' understanding of the intervention and use of particular group MCT techniques. Most patients viewed MCT in a manner consistent with the metacognitive model. All the patients who completed group MCT were positive about it and described self-perceived changes in their thinking and well-being. A minority of patients gave specific reasons for not finding the treatment helpful. CONCLUSION: CR patients with anxiety and depression symptoms valued specific group MCT techniques, the opportunity to learn about other patients, and the knowledge of CR staff. The data supports the transferability of treatment to a CR context and advantages that this might bring.

Chemical probes targeting the kinase CK2: a journey outside the catalytic box.

CK2 is a protein kinase that plays important roles in many physio-pathological cellular processes. As such, the development of chemical probes for CK2 has received increasing attention in the past decade with more than 40 lead compounds developed. In this review, we aim to provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of the chemical probes acting outside the highly-conserved ATP-site developed to date. Such probes belong to different classes of molecules spanning from small molecules to peptides, act with a range of mechanisms of action and some of them present themselves as promising tools to investigate the biology of CK2 and therefore develop therapeutics for many disease areas including cancer and COVID-19.

Peptides as a platform for targeted therapeutics for cancer: peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs).

Peptides can offer the versatility needed for a successful oncology drug discovery approach. Peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs) are an emerging targeted therapeutic that present increased tumour penetration and selectivity. Despite these advantages, there are still limitations for the use of peptides as therapeutics exemplified through their slow progression to get into the clinic and limited oral bioavailability. New approaches to address these problems have been studied and successfully implemented to enhance the stability of peptides and their constructs. There is great promise for the future of PDCs with two molecules already on the market and many variations currently undergoing clinical trials, such as bicycle-toxin conjugates and peptide-dendrimer conjugates. This review summarises the entire process needed for the design and successful development of an oncology PDC including chemical and nanomaterial strategies to enhance peptide stability within circulation, the function of each component of a PDC construct, and current examples in clinical trials.

Comparative in vitro toxicity profile of electronic and tobacco cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and nicotine replacement therapy products: e-liquids, extracts and collected aerosols.

The use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) continues to increase worldwide in parallel with accumulating information on their potential toxicity and safety. In this study, an in vitro battery of established assays was used to examine the cytotoxicity, mutagenicity, genotoxicity and inflammatory responses of certain commercial e-cigs and compared to tobacco burning cigarettes, smokeless tobacco (SLT) products and a nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) product. The toxicity evaluation was performed on e-liquids and pad-collected aerosols of e-cigs, pad-collected smoke condensates of tobacco cigarettes and extracts of SLT and NRT products. In all assays, exposures with e-cig liquids and collected aerosols, at the doses tested, showed no significant activity when compared to tobacco burning cigarettes. Results for the e-cigs, with and without nicotine in two evaluated flavor variants, were very similar in all assays, indicating that the presence of nicotine and flavors, at the levels tested, did not induce any cytotoxic, genotoxic or inflammatory effects. The present findings indicate that neither the e-cig liquids and collected aerosols, nor the extracts of the SLT and NRT products produce any meaningful toxic effects in four widely-applied in vitro test systems, in which the conventional cigarette smoke preparations, at comparable exposures, are markedly cytotoxic and genotoxic.