Older adults' perceptions of government handling of COVID-19: Predictors of protective behaviors from lockdown to post-lockdown.

BACKGROUND: Distrust, and more broadly, public perception of government's handling of a crisis, has been a widely studied topic within health crisis research and suggests that these perceptions are significantly associated with the behavior of its citizens. PURPOSE: To understand which aspects of the public's perception of government handling of the COVID-19 pandemic predicted engagement of protective behaviors among older adults, who are the most vulnerable to COVID-19. METHODS: Participants were recruited from an ongoing biopsychosocial study on aging amongst community-dwelling older adults. There were two rounds of data collection, during the national lockdown and post-lockdown. The average length of follow-up was 5.88 months. N = 421 completed the first round of data collection and N = 318 subsequently completed the second round of questionnaires. RESULTS: During the lockdown, perceptions that pandemic-related measures in place were sufficient, effective, timely, provided a sense of safety, important information was easily accessible, and government handling of the pandemic could be trusted, were found to significantly predict engagement in protective behaviors. During post-lockdown, only perceptions that measures in place were sufficient, provided a sense of safety, and important information was easily accessible, remained significant predictors. The perception that COVID-19 measures were clear and easy to understand now became a significant predictor. CONCLUSIONS: Public perceptions of government handling of the pandemic predicted engagement in protective behaviors but were less important during post-lockdown. To effectively engage older adults in protective behavior, our findings suggest for pandemic-related information to be accessible, introducing timely safety measures, and having easy-to-understand instructions for nuanced measures.

Several explorations on how to construct an early warning system for local government debt risk in China.

This paper aims to explore several ways to construct a scientific and comprehensive early warning system (EWS) for local government debt risk in China. In order to achieve this goal, this paper studies the local government debt risk from multiple perspectives, i.e., individual risk, contagion risk, static risk and dynamic risk. Firstly, taking China's 30 provinces over the period of 2010~ 2018 as a sample, this paper establishes early warning indicators for individual risk of local government debt, and uses the network model to establish early warning indicators for contagion risk of local government debt. Then, this paper applies the criteria importance though intercrieria correlation (CRITIC) method and coefficient of variation method to obtain the proxy variable Ⅰ, which combines the above two risks. Secondly, based on the proxy variable Ⅰ, both the Markov-switching autoregressive (MS-AR) model and coefficient of variation method are used to obtain the proxy variable Ⅱ, which comprehensively considers the individual risk, contagion risk, static risk and dynamic risk of local government debt. Finally, machine learning algorithms are adopted to generalize the EWS designed in this paper. The results show that: (1) From different perspectives of local government debt risk, the list of provinces that require early warning is different; (2) The support vector machines can well generalize our EWS.

EBP-Colombia and the bioeconomy: Genomics in the service of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

The 2016 Peace Agreement has increased access to Colombia's unique ecosystems, which remain understudied and increasingly under threat. The Colombian government has recently announced its National Bioeconomic Strategy (NBS), founded on the sustainable characterization, management, and conservation of the nation's biodiversity as a means to achieve sustainability and peace. Molecular tools will accelerate such endeavors, but capacity remains limited in Colombia. The Earth Biogenome Project's (EBP) objective is to characterize the genomes of all eukaryotic life on Earth through networks of partner institutions focused on sequencing either specific taxa or eukaryotic communities at regional or national scales. Colombia's immense biodiversity and emerging network of stakeholders have inspired the creation of the national partnership "EBP-Colombia." Here, we discuss how this Colombian-driven collaboration between government, academia, and the private sector is integrating research with sustainable, environmentally focused strategies to develop Colombia's postconflict bioeconomy and conserve biological and cultural diversity. EBP-Colombia will accelerate the uptake of technology and promote partnership and exchange of knowledge among Colombian stakeholders and the EBP's global network of experts; assist with conservation strategies to preserve Colombia's vast biological wealth; and promote innovative approaches among public and private institutions in sectors such as agriculture, tourism, recycling, and medicine. EBP-Colombia can thus support Colombia's NBS with the objective of sustainable and inclusive development to address the many social, environmental, and economic challenges, including conflict, inequality, poverty, and low agricultural productivity, and so, offer an alternative model for economic development that similarly placed countries can adopt.

Green credit, environmental protection investment and debt financing for heavily polluting enterprises.

The paper takes listed companies in the heavily polluting industry from 2009-2017 as a research sample to explore whether heavy pollution enterprises' environmental protection investment helps their debt financing under the institutional background of China's continuous implementation of green credit policy. It is found that, in general, the environmental protection investment of heavy pollution enterprises helps them to obtain more and relatively long-term new loans; in terms of time, this effect is more evident after the release of China's Green Credit Guidelines in 2012; in addition, the level of regional environmental pollution, the level of financial development and the green fiscal policy also have a moderating effect on this. This paper enriches the study of the economic consequences of corporate environmental protection investment from the perspective of debt financing. It examines the effects of the implementation of China's green credit policy and other institutional factors to provide a reference for the heavy pollution enterprises' environmental protection investment and the implementation of green credit policy by local governments in China.

Poverty reduction in rural China: Does the digital finance matter?

As digital finance is widely spread and applied in China, this new format of financial technology could become a new way to reduce poverty in rural areas. By matching digital financial indexes of the prefectural-level cities with microdata on rural households from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2017, we find that digital finance significantly suppresses absolute poverty and relative poverty among rural households in China, which is supported by a series of robustness tests, such as the instrumental variable approach, using alternative specifications, and excluding extreme observations. Additionally, we provide evidence that the poverty reduction effect of digital finance is likely to be explained by alleviating credit constraints and information constraints, broadening social networks, and promoting entrepreneurship. Our findings further complement the research field on financial poverty reduction and offer insights for the development of public financial policies of poverty reduction in other countries, especially in some developing countries.

Infant and young child feeding practices and its associated factors among mothers of under two years children in a western hilly region of Nepal.

Infant and young child feeding is a key area to improve child survival and promote healthy growth and development. Nepal government has developed and implemented different programs to improve infant and young child feeding practice. However, the practice remains poor and is a major cause of malnutrition in Nepal. This study aims to identify infant and young child feeding practices and its associated factors among mothers of children aged less than two years in western hilly region of Nepal. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among 360 mothers of under two years' children in Syangja district. A semi structural questionnaire was used. Data was entered in EpiData and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics were used to report the feeding practices and other independent variables. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression model was used to establish the factors associated with infant and young child feeding practices. The prevalence of breastfeeding, timely initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding, timely initiation of complementary feeding, minimum dietary diversity, minimum meal frequency and minimum acceptable diet (MAD) were 95.6%, 69.2%, 47.6%, 53.3%, 61.5%, 67.3% and 49.9% respectively. Normal delivery (AOR 6.1, 95% CI 1.2-31.3) and higher maternal autonomy (AOR 5.2, 95% CI 1.8-14.6) were significantly associated with exclusive breastfeeding. Similarly, crop production and food security (AOR 3.8, 95% CI 1.9-7.7), maternal knowledge on MAD (AOR 2.5, 95% CI 1.0-6.2) and maternal autonomy (AOR 4.2, 95% CI 2.1-8.4) were significantly associated with minimum acceptable diet. Factors such as maternal education, maternal health services utilization, maternal knowledge, and maternal autonomy were associated with infant and young child feeding practices, which warrants further attention to these factors to reduce malnutrition.

Tracking development assistance for health and for COVID-19: a review of development assistance, government, out-of-pocket, and other private spending on health for 204 countries and territories, 1990-2050.

BACKGROUND: The rapid spread of COVID-19 renewed the focus on how health systems across the globe are financed, especially during public health emergencies. Development assistance is an important source of health financing in many low-income countries, yet little is known about how much of this funding was disbursed for COVID-19. We aimed to put development assistance for health for COVID-19 in the context of broader trends in global health financing, and to estimate total health spending from 1995 to 2050 and development assistance for COVID-19 in 2020. METHODS: We estimated domestic health spending and development assistance for health to generate total health-sector spending estimates for 204 countries and territories. We leveraged data from the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database to produce estimates of domestic health spending. To generate estimates for development assistance for health, we relied on project-level disbursement data from the major international development agencies' online databases and annual financial statements and reports for information on income sources. To adjust our estimates for 2020 to include disbursements related to COVID-19, we extracted project data on commitments and disbursements from a broader set of databases (because not all of the data sources used to estimate the historical series extend to 2020), including the UN Office of Humanitarian Assistance Financial Tracking Service and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. We reported all the historic and future spending estimates in inflation-adjusted 2020 US$, 2020 US$ per capita, purchasing-power parity-adjusted US$ per capita, and as a proportion of gross domestic product. We used various models to generate future health spending to 2050. FINDINGS: In 2019, health spending globally reached $8·8 trillion (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 8·7-8·8) or $1132 (1119-1143) per person. Spending on health varied within and across income groups and geographical regions. Of this total, $40·4 billion (0·5%, 95% UI 0·5-0·5) was development assistance for health provided to low-income and middle-income countries, which made up 24·6% (UI 24·0-25·1) of total spending in low-income countries. We estimate that $54·8 billion in development assistance for health was disbursed in 2020. Of this, $13·7 billion was targeted toward the COVID-19 health response. $12·3 billion was newly committed and $1·4 billion was repurposed from existing health projects. $3·1 billion (22·4%) of the funds focused on country-level coordination and $2·4 billion (17·9%) was for supply chain and logistics. Only $714·4 million (7·7%) of COVID-19 development assistance for health went to Latin America, despite this region reporting 34·3% of total recorded COVID-19 deaths in low-income or middle-income countries in 2020. Spending on health is expected to rise to $1519 (1448-1591) per person in 2050, although spending across countries is expected to remain varied. INTERPRETATION: Global health spending is expected to continue to grow, but remain unequally distributed between countries. We estimate that development organisations substantially increased the amount of development assistance for health provided in 2020. Continued efforts are needed to raise sufficient resources to mitigate the pandemic for the most vulnerable, and to help curtail the pandemic for all. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Chronic disease stigma, skepticism of the health system, and socio-economic fragility: Qualitative assessment of factors impacting receptiveness to group medical visits and microfinance for non-communicable disease care in rural Kenya.

BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality in the world, and innovative approaches to NCD care delivery are being actively developed and evaluated. Combining the group-based experience of microfinance and group medical visits is a novel approach to NCD care delivery. However, the contextual factors, facilitators, and barriers impacting wide-scale implementation of these approaches within a low- and middle-income country setting are not well known. METHODS: Two types of qualitative group discussion were conducted: 1) mabaraza (singular, baraza), a traditional East African community gathering used to discuss and exchange information in large group settings; and 2) focus group discussions (FGDs) among rural clinicians, community health workers, microfinance group members, and patients with NCDs. Trained research staff members led the discussions using structured question guides. Content analysis was performed with NVivo using deductive and inductive codes that were then grouped into themes. RESULTS: We conducted 5 mabaraza and 16 FGDs. A total of 205 individuals (113 men and 92 women) participated in the mabaraza, while 162 individuals (57 men and 105 women) participated in the FGDs. In the context of poverty and previous experiences with the health system, participants described challenges to NCD care across three themes: 1) stigma of chronic disease, 2) earned skepticism of the health system, and 3) socio-economic fragility. However, they also outlined windows of opportunity and facilitators of group medical visits and microfinance to address those challenges. DISCUSSION: Our qualitative study revealed actionable factors that could impact the success of implementation of group medical visits and microfinance initiatives for NCD care. While several challenges were highlighted, participants also described opportunities to address and mitigate the impact of these factors. We anticipate that our approach and analysis provides new insights and methodological techniques that will be relevant to other low-resource settings worldwide.

The implementation and role of a staff naloxone program for non-profit community-based sites in British Columbia: A descriptive study.

INTRODUCTION: The BC Centre for Disease Control implemented the Facility Overdose Response Box (FORB) program December 1st, 2016 to train and support non-healthcare service providers who may respond to an overdose in the workplace. The program aims to support staff at non-profit community-based organizations by ensuring policy development, training, practice overdose response exercises, and post-overdose debriefing opportunities are established and implemented. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three data sources were used in this descriptive cross-sectional study: FORB site registration data; naloxone administration forms; and a survey that was distributed to FORB sites in February 2019. FORB program site and naloxone administration data from December 1st, 2016 to December 31st, 2019 were analyzed using descriptive statistics. A Cochran-Armitage test was used to assess trends over time in naloxone administration event characteristics. Site coordinator survey results are reported to supplement findings from administrative data. RESULTS: As of December 31st, 2019, FORB was implemented at 613 sites across BC and 1,758 naloxone administration events were reported. The majority (86.3%, n = 1,517) were indicated as overdose reversals. At registration, 43.6% of sites provided housing services, 26.3% offered harm reduction supplies, and 18.6% provided Take Home Naloxone. Refusal to be transported to hospital following overdose events when emergency services were called showed an increasing trend over time. Most respondents (81.3%) reported feeling confident in their ability to respond to the overdose and 59.6% were offered staff debrief. Based on the 89 site survey responses, supports most commonly made available following an overdose were debrief with a fellow staff member (91.0%), debrief with a supervisor (89.9%), and/or counselling services (84.3%). CONCLUSIONS: The uptake of the FORB program has contributed to hundreds of overdose reversals in community settings in BC. Findings suggest that the FORB program supports developing staff preparedness and confidence in overdose response in community-based settings.

Seeking community water fluoridation information on state health department websites.

Community water fluoridation (CWF) is the most effective and equitable approach to preventing dental caries (tooth decay). Yet millions of Americans, especially those at highest risk of caries, do not know what CWF is or its preventive benefits. State health departments are responsible for educating their respective populations. Thus, this study assessed health department websites (N = 50) to determine if CWF content existed, the ease of finding it, and if it was written in plain language and for a consumer audience. We used the web component of the HLE2: The Health Literacy Environment of Hospitals and Health Centers (HLE2) to assess how easy or difficult it was to the navigate a website and find information. Forty-one websites had CWF information; 37 states had content written for a consumer audience. HLE2 scores ranged from 0 to 54 points (60 possible). Only five states had websites with a HLE2 score of 50 or higher. SHDs with higher HLE2 scores were easy to navigate and their content was written for a consumer audience. Study findings suggest most SHDs should improve their website's CWF content and its accessibility to better promote the role of fluoridated water in preventing dental caries.

Stillbirth rates, service outcomes and costs of implementing NHS England's Saving Babies' Lives care bundle in maternity units in England: A cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess implementation of the Saving Babies Lives (SBL) Care Bundle, a collection of practice recommendations in four key areas, to reduce stillbirth in England. DESIGN: A retrospective cohort study of 463,630 births in 19 NHS Trusts in England using routinely collected electronic data supplemented with case note audit (n = 1,658), and surveys of service users (n = 2,085) and health care professionals (n = 1,064). The primary outcome was stillbirth rate. Outcome rates two years before and after the nominal SBL implementation date were derived as a measure of change over the implementation period. Data were collected on secondary outcomes and process outcomes which reflected implementation of the SBL care bundle. RESULTS: The total stillbirth rate, declined from 4.2 to 3.4 per 1,000 births between the two time points (adjusted Relative Risk (aRR) 0.80, 95% Confidence Interval (95% CI) 0.70 to 0.91, P<0.001). There was a contemporaneous increase in induction of labour (aRR 1.20 (95%CI 1.18-1.21), p<0.001) and emergency Caesarean section (aRR 1.10 (95%CI 1.07-1.12), p<0.001). The number of ultrasound scans performed (aRR 1.25 (95%CI 1.21-1.28), p<0.001) and the proportion of small for gestational age infants detected (aRR 1.59 (95%CI 1.32-1.92), p<0.001) also increased. Organisations reporting higher levels of implementation had improvements in process measures in all elements of the care bundle. An economic analysis estimated the cost of implementing the care bundle at ~£140 per birth. However, neither the costs nor changes in outcomes could be definitively attributed to implementation of the SBL care bundle. CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of the SBL care bundle increased over time in the majority of sites. Implementation was associated with improvements in process outcomes. The reduction in stillbirth rates in participating sites exceeded that reported nationally in the same timeframe. The intervention should be refined to identify women who are most likely to benefit and minimise unwarranted intervention. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered on (NCT03231007); www.clinicaltrials.gov.

Do recipients of the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in December have a legal case against the UK government's decision to postpone their second dose?

The Covid-19 pandemic in the UK has been greatly worsened by the mutation of the virus, which began in the South East and was rapidly spreading and in danger of overwhelming the NHS as hospital admissions and deaths continued to rise. In consequence, the Chief Medical Officers of all four nations supported the UK government's sudden decision to delay the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech and Oxford/AstraZeneka vaccines for 12 weeks (instead of 3) so that more people in the most vulnerable population groups would receive a first dose and some immunity sooner. The expectation is that this strategy would reduce hospital admissions and deaths. This article considers key medical and legal issues arising from this decision and discusses inter alia rationing of scarce resources, fairness, whether it is for the greater good, consent, individual human rights, negligence and claims for potential or actual injury.

Sanctuary policies reduce deportations without increasing crime.

The US government maintains that local sanctuary policies prevent deportations of violent criminals and increase crime. This report tests those claims by combining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation data and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime data with data on the implementation dates of sanctuary policies between 2010 and 2015. Sanctuary policies reduced deportations of people who were fingerprinted by states or counties by about one-third. Those policies also changed the composition of deportations, reducing deportations of people with no criminal convictions by half-without affecting deportations of people with violent convictions. Sanctuary policies also had no detectable effect on crime rates. These findings suggest that sanctuary policies, although effective at reducing deportations, do not threaten public safety.

Why the Economic Aspects of Healthcare are not Unique.

Frequent claims suggest that healthcare and its production are not only different from other goods, but that they differ to such an extent that healthcare should be viewed as unique. Various features of healthcare, such as the lack of a perfect market and the existence of information asymmetry, are cited as evidence of this claim. However, such a view results from unduly emphasising the characteristics of healthcare as being atypical. This article redresses this imbalance by taking an alternative approach and examines the ways in which the economic aspects of healthcare are similar to those of other goods. It was found that the differential aspects are less distinctive than claimed and the economic aspects of healthcare are not unique.

National Institutes of Health Research Plan on Rehabilitation: Analysis and Progress.

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the progress toward the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Plan on Rehabilitation goals and the methods by which tracking occurred. DESIGN: Each grant award was manually coded by NIH staff for research plan goals, type of science categories (eg, basic, applied, infrastructure, etc), and if applicable, training, and then validated by NIH institute and center (IC) experts. Data for years 2015 through 2017 were used to develop a coding algorithm to automatically code grants in 2018 for validation by NIH IC experts. Additional data for all years (2015-2018) were also analyzed to track changes and progress. SETTING: The research utilized administrative data from NIH Reporter and internal NIH databases. PARTICIPANTS: The data sample included research grants and programs funded from fiscal years 2015 through 2018. The year 2015 was considered a baseline year as the research plan was published in 2016. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome measures were substantial growth in NIH funding and numbers of awards for rehabilitation research, across most research plan goals and types of science, as well as validation of an automatic algorithm for coding grants. RESULTS: Number of grants, funding dollars, funding mechanisms, patent data, scientific influence and translational science, research plan goals, and type of science categories were tracked across years (2015-2018). Algorithm validation is presented for 2018 data. CONCLUSIONS: NIH advanced the goals stated in the Research Plan on Rehabilitation, but gap areas remain. Though funding in this portfolio is growing, continued focus and participation by the field is needed to advance rehabilitation science.

Robert Nozick and Axel Honneth: An attempt to shed light on mental health service in Norway through two diametrical philosophers.

This article aims at giving insight into Norwegian mental health service by exploring the ideologies of two diametrical philosophers, the American Robert Nozick (1938-2002) and the German Axel Honneth (1949-). Nozick proposes as an ideal a minimal state in which citizens have a "negative right" to the absence of interference and to follow their own interests without restriction from the state. On the other side, Axel Honneth claims that there is no freedom without state interference. In his view, governmental involvement is understood as a prerequisite for personal freedom. We may call this state an opposite of the minimal state; a maximal state. To get a better understanding of these opposite philosophies, we use texts written from conversations with people suffering from mental health problems, nurses and other caregivers in four Norwegian municipalities. Nozick's notion of the minimal state and Honneth's political philosophy of freedom and recognition were used as analytical tools. Among patients and helpers, there were different opinions about good care and how much caregivers should intervene. Some emphasized autonomy, independency, minimal involvement in human contact by nurses and other caregivers, similar a minimal state. Others perceived good care as bonding between helpers and service-users. They underlined equal and personal relationships, as well as helping with practicalities, similar a maximal state. In the discussion, we focus on how people with chronic illnesses are supposed to transform themselves into self-cared individuals, able to manage their own condition successfully with minimal help from public welfare and at a lower cost. Finally, we express concerns about who will care for disempowered patients without family and other resources in a minimal state.