Birth and prenatal care outcomes of Latina mothers in the Trump era: Analysis by nativity and country/region of origin.

We examined whether and how birth outcomes and prenatal care utilization among Latina mothers changed over time across years associated with the Trump sociopolitical environment, using restricted-use birth records from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). To assess potential variation among subpopulations, we disaggregated the analyses by maternal nativity and country/region of origin. Our results indicate that both US- and foreign-born Latina mothers experienced increasingly higher risks of delivering low birthweight (LBW) and preterm birth (PTB) infants over the years associated with Trump's political career. Among foreign-born Latinas, adverse birth outcomes increased significantly among mothers from Mexico and Central America but not among mothers from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and South America. Levels of inadequate prenatal care utilization remained largely unchanged among groups who saw increases in LBW and PTB, suggesting that changes in prenatal care did not generally explain the observed worsening of birth outcomes among Latina mothers during the Trump era. Results from this study draw attention to the possibility that the Trump era may have represented a source of chronic stress among the Latinx population in the US and add to the growing body of literature linking racism and xenophobia in the sociopolitical environment to declines in health among Latinx people, especially among targeted groups from Mexico and Central America.

Darwin and American public administration Woodrow Wilson's Darwinian argument for administration.

This research note addresses a gap in the public administration literature by arguing that a political Darwinism was present in the intellectual origins of American administrative theory. By examining the arguments of Woodrow Wilson, this article demonstrates that Darwinism complemented the German political thought that contributed to the establishment of America's administrative state. The application of Darwinian evolutionary biology to politics was a vital element of Wilson's reconceptualization of the state as a living organism. Darwinism was a key rhetorical tool employed by Wilson in his argument against the Constitution's separation of powers. This note finds that Darwinism was present in the early stages of public administration theory in Wilson's argumentation and persists today in the public administration literature. It concludes by sketching out an agenda for further research on Darwinism's influence on public administration.

Understanding the corporate political activity of the ultra - processed food industry in East Asia: a Philippines case study.

BACKGROUND: Evidence is mounting that the ultra - processed food industry seeks to influence food and nutrition policies in ways that support market growth and protect against regulatory threats, often at the expense of public health. However, few studies have explored how this occurs in lower - middle income countries. We aimed to explore if and how the ultra - processed food industry seeks to influence food- and nutrition - related policy processes in the Philippines, a lower - middle income country in East Asia. METHODS: Semi - structured key informant interviews were conducted with ten representatives from the Philippines government and non - government organisations closely involved with nutrition policy making in the Philippines. Interview schedules and data analysis were guided by the policy dystopia model, which we used to identify the instrumental and discursive strategies used by corporate actors to influence policy outcomes. RESULTS: Informants were of the view that ultra - processed food companies in the Philippines sought to delay, prevent, water - down and circumvent implementation of globally recommended food and nutrition policies by engaging in a range of strategies. Discursive strategies included various tactics in which globally recommended policies were framed as being ineffective or highlighting potential unintended negative impacts. Instrumental strategies included: directly engaging with policymakers; promoting policies, such as industry - led codes and practices, as substitutes for mandatory regulations; presenting evidence and data that industry has generated themselves; and offering gifts and financial incentives to government individuals and agencies. CONCLUSIONS: In the Philippines, the ultra - processed food industry engaged in overt activities designed to influence food and nutrition policy processes in their favour. A range of measures to minimise industry influence on policy processes should be introduced, to ensure that implemented food and nutrition policies align with best practice recommendations.

Introduction to the Special Issue-Life Science in Politics: Methodological Innovations and Political Issues.

We introduce the Special Issue on Life Science in Politics: Methodological Innovations and Political Issues. This issue of Politics and the Life Sciences is focused on the use of life science theory and methods to study political phenomena and the exploration of the intersection of science and political attitudes. This issue is the third in a series of special issues funded by the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences that adheres to the Open Science Framework for registered reports. Pre-analysis plans are peer reviewed and given in-principle acceptance before data are collected and/or analyzed, and the articles are published contingent upon the preregistration of the study being followed as proposed. We note various interpretations and challenges associated with studying the science of politics and discuss the contributions.

Racial and ethnic variation in the negativity bias-ideology connection: A registered report.

This is a registered report for a study of racial and ethnic variation in the relationship between negativity bias and political attitudes. Pioneering work on the psychological and biological roots of political orientation has suggested that political conservatism is driven in large part by enhanced negativity bias. This work has been criticized on several theoretical fronts, and recent replication attempts have failed. To dig deeper into the contours of when (and among whom) negativity bias predicts conservatism, we investigate a surprisingly overlooked factor in existing literature: race and ethnicity. We propose that political issues represent threat or disgust in different ways depending on one's race and ethnicity. We recruited 174 White, Latinx, and Asian American individuals (in equal numbers) to examine how the relationship between negativity bias and political orientation varies by race/ethnicity across four domains: policing/criminal justice, immigration, economic redistribution, and religious social conservatism.

Politics, preparedness, or resources Examining state responsiveness to the COVID-19 pandemic.

U.S. states are often the primary decision makers during a public health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic led to several different reopening processes across states based on their unique characteristics. We analyze whether states' reopening policy decisions were driven by their public health preparedness, resources, COVID-19 impact, or state politics and political culture. To do so, we summarized state characteristics and compared them across three categories of reopening scores in a bivariate analysis using the chi-square or Fisher exact test for the categorical variables and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the continuous variables. A cumulative logit model was used to assess the primary research question. A significant factor in a state's reopening decision was the party of the governor, regardless of the party in control of the legislature, state political culture, public health preparedness, cumulative number of deaths per 100,000, and Opportunity Index score.

Sleeping giant: A research agenda for politics and chronobiology.

Sleep research presents an important frontier of discovery for political science. While sleep has largely been neglected by political scientists, human psychology is inextricably linked with sleep and so political cognition must be as well. Existing work shows that sleep is linked to political participation and ideology, and that contentious politics can disrupt sleep. I propose three directions for future research-on participatory democracy, on ideology, and on how context shapes sleep-politics links. I also note that sleep research intersects with the study of political institutions, of war and conflict, of elite decision-making, and of normative theory. In short, political scientists across subfields can and should consider whether and how sleep influences political life in their area of expertise and how to influence relevant policies. This new research agenda will enrich our theories of politics and enable us to identify pressing areas for policy interventions to revitalize our democracy.

Chapitre 4. La « démocratie Internet ¼, une disparition sociale des corps ?

The article discusses the impact of the digitalisation of politics on the place of bodies in the political and social life of liberal democracies. The author intends to show that the promise of the disappearance of bodies from the public space has only been partially fulfilled, and that ’surveillance capitalism’ has instead given new vigour to new forms of mobilisation characterised by the instrumentation of bodies for political purposes.

Median voter dynamics in a laboratory experiment on voting over redistribution.

This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment that investigates the prevalence of median voter dynamics in the Meltzer-Richard redistribution mechanism. I focus on the model's microfoundations and analyze how individuals translate material incentives into proposed tax rates and how these individual proposals get aggregated into a collective group choice under two different voting rules; majority rule and voting by veto. My experimental results show that material incentives do not fully determine individual proposals. In addition, personal characteristics and justice attitudes constitute additional facets of individual motivations. Median voter dynamics are prevalent under both voting rules at least when looking at aggregate behavior. Both decision rules thus lead to an un-biased aggregation of voters' preferences. Moreover, the experimental results show only minor behavioral differences between decisions employing majority rule and collective choices using voting by veto.

Threshold Effect of Environmental Regulation and Green Innovation Efficiency: From the Perspective of Chinese Fiscal Decentralization and Environmental Protection Inputs.

In the context of China's 14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 visionary goals of national economic and social development, to achieve the national dual carbon goals, an innovation-driven green development strategy must be implemented, and the relationship between environmental regulation and green innovation efficiency must be clarified. Based on the DEA-SBM model, in this study, we measured the green innovation efficiency of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2011 to 2020 by introducing environmental regulation as the core explanatory variable, and two threshold variables, environmental protection input and fiscal decentralization, to empirically analyze the threshold effect of environmental regulation on green innovation efficiency. We found that: (1) The green innovation efficiency of 30 provinces and municipalities in China is spatially distributed as strong in the east and weak in the west. (2) A double-threshold effect exists with environmental protection input as the threshold variable. Environmental regulation showed an inverted N-shaped relationship of first inhibiting, then promoting, and finally inhibiting green innovation efficiency. (3) A double-threshold effect exists with fiscal decentralization as the threshold variable. Environmental regulation showed an inverted N-shaped relationship of inhibiting, promoting, and then inhibiting green innovation efficiency. The study results provide theoretical guidance and practical reference for China to achieve the dual carbon goal.

Modeling the Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Energy Poverty: Do Energy Efficiency and Technological Innovation Matter?

As an important factor affecting economic and social development, energy poverty (EP) has received widespread concern, and many countries have actively proposed policies to eliminate energy poverty. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the current situation of energy poverty in China, explore the factors that affect energy poverty, find sustainable and effective approaches to alleviate energy poverty, and provide empirical evidence for eliminating energy poverty. This research investigates the effect of fiscal decentralization (FD), industrial structure upgrading (ISU), energy efficiency (EE), and technological innovation (TI), as well as urbanization (URB) on energy poverty using a balanced dataset of 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2017. The empirical outcomes revealed that fiscal decentralization, industrial upgrading, energy efficiency, and technological innovation significantly reduce energy poverty. Moreover, urbanization is positively and significantly correlated with energy poverty. The outcomes further revealed that fiscal decentralization significantly increases the residents' access to clean energy and drives energy management agencies and infrastructure. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis results indicate that the effect of fiscal decentralization in reducing energy poverty is greater in regions with high economic development. Finally, mediation analysis denotes that fiscal decentralization indirectly reduces energy poverty by promoting technological innovation and energy efficiency. Finally, based on the results, policy suggestions for eradicating energy poverty are proposed from the perspective of implementing targeted energy alleviation policies reasonably dividing the rights and responsibilities of local and central governments and encouraging scientific and technological innovation.

Power and politics in a pandemic: Insights from Finnish health system leaders during COVID-19.

Power and politics are both critical concepts to engage with in health systems and policy research, as they impact actions, processes, and outcomes at all levels in health systems. Building on the conceptualization of health systems as social systems, we investigate how power and politics manifested in the Finnish health system during COVID-19, posing the following research question: in what ways did health system leaders and experts experience issues of power and politics during COVID-19, and how did power and politics impact health system governance? We completed online interviews with health system leaders and experts (n = 53) at the local, regional, and national level in Finland from March 2021 to February 2022. The analysis followed an iterative thematic analysis process in which the data guided the codebook. The results demonstrate that power and politics affected health system governance in Finland during COVID-19 in a multitude of ways. These can be summarized through the themes of credit and blame, frame contestation, and transparency and trust. Overall, political leaders at the national level were heavily involved in the governance of COVID-19 in Finland, which was perceived as having both negative and positive impacts. The politicization of the pandemic took health officials and civil servants by surprise, and events during the first year of COVID-19 in Finland reflect recurring vertical and horizontal power dynamics between local, regional, and national actors. The paper contributes to the growing call for power-focused health systems and policy research. The results suggest that analyses of pandemic governance and lessons learned are likely to leave out critical factors if left absent of an explicit analysis of power and politics, and that such analyses are needed to ensure accountability in health systems.

Organizational politics and professional struggles in nursing.

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the professional struggles between nursing organizational entities, in Rio de Janeiro, during the Regional Nursing Council's electoral process (1990-1993 administration). METHOD: historical study. We used journalistic articles, normative documents, legislation and semi-structured interviews with five nursing professionals who participated in this process. Interpretation of findings was supported by Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, capital, and symbolic power. RESULTS: Electoral Code changes of the aforementioned council, under the influence of administration (1987-1990), candidate for re-election, influenced the disclosure and eligibility criteria, making it difficult for broad participation, especially of Associação Brasileira de Enfermagem Rio de Janeiro Section. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: nursing, in this period, generated a field of disputes related to positions of power and gender, which was evidenced in the electoral process studied, which highlighted using limiting strategies by a group, making it difficult for the entire category to participate.

The Public Health Fixes That Missed the Omnibus.

This JAMA Forum discusses the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill passed in December 2022 and the areas of pandemic preparedness and the public health system it addresses and misses.

The effects of provider contract types and fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of the Polish hospital sector: A data envelopment analysis across 16 health regions.

BACKGROUND: Expenditures on hospitals constitute a large proportion of total health expenditures. In Poland the share of hospital spending is higher than the European Union average. The efficiency of the Polish hospital sector merits investigation. RESEARCH GOAL: The goal of this study is to estimate the relative technical efficiencies of Polish hospital regions, and to measure the impacts of provider contract types, fiscal decentralization, and the 2017 reform on the relative efficiencies. METHODS: Using data from 16 hospital regions in Poland for the years 2007 to 2019, we estimate relative technical efficiencies and their determinants using a two-stage approach. In the first stage, we apply Data Envelopment Analysis, in which we assume variable returns to scale and an output orientation. In the second stage we use a truncated regression with double bootstrapping. RESULTS: Our findings are threefold. First, fiscal decentralization may reduce technical efficiency, but the results was not statistically significant. Second, efficiency tended to be higher in regions where a greater proportion of nurses and midwives were offered employment as opposed to consulting contracts. Contract types offered to physicians were not statistically significant. Third, the 2017 reforms seem to have had a positive impact on efficiency to date. CONCLUSION: Policy makers may wish to consider offering less fiscal autonomy and control to regions and encouraging employment contracts with nurses and midwives.

Red and blue states: dichotomized maps mislead and reduce perceived voting influence.

In the United States the color red has come to represent the Republican party, and blue the Democratic party, in maps of voting patterns. Here we test the hypothesis that voting maps dichotomized into red and blue states leads people to overestimate political polarization compared to maps in which states are represented with continuous gradations of color. We also tested whether any polarizing effect is due to partisan semantic associations with red and blue, or if alternative hues produce similar effects. In Study 1, participants estimated the hypothetical voting patterns of eight swing states on maps with dichotomous or continuous red/blue or orange/green color schemes. A continuous gradient mitigated the polarizing effects of red/blue maps on voting predictions. We also found that a novel hue pair, green/orange, decreased perceived polarization. Whether this effect was due to the novelty of the hues or the fact that the hues were not explicitly labeled "Democrat" and "Republican" was unclear. In Study 2, we explicitly assigned green/orange hues to the two parties. Participants viewed electoral maps depicting results from the 2020 presidential election and estimated the voting margins for a subset of states. We replicated the finding that continuous red/blue gradient reduced perceived polarization, but the novel hues did not reduce perceived polarization. Participants also expected their hypothetical vote to matter more when viewing maps with continuous color gradations. We conclude that the dichotomization of electoral maps (not the particular hues) increases perceived voting polarization and reduces a voter's expected influence on election outcomes.

Reflections upon having been elected a fellow of APA.

In this article, the author offers his reflections on being elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association as an historian of psychology. The author didn't start out as an historian. His bachelor and doctorate are both in psychology. But he did also certainly choose to leave psychology, then to return with a different perspective. So this election feels like an affirmation of that decision, and an endorsement of the scholarship that resulted: his service to science by other means, after he was himself "revised and resubmitted." Nearly two decades after his original departure from experimental psychology, the author has decided that "science" is the set of tested- and defended boundaries of what we think we know, which move as they're renegotiated. In other words, science is the shared collection and discussion of what has been accepted to be the case (as well as the process of careful revision). But it's also then the history of science that provides evidence to answer the philosophical "demarcation problem," not science itself. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).