Human health and pesticide use in Sub‐Saharan Africa

While pesticides–such as insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides–are often promoted as inputs that increase agricultural productivity by limiting a range of pre‐harvest losses, their use may have negative human health and labor productivity implications. We explore the relationship between pesticide use and the value of crop output at the plot level and a range of human health outcomes at the household level using large‐scale, nationally representative panel survey data from four Sub‐Saharan African countries where more than 10% of main season cultivators use pesticides. We find that pesticide use is strongly correlated with increased value of harvest, but is also correlated with higher costs associated with human illness, including increased health expenditures and time lost from work due to sickness in the recent past. We take these results as suggestive that the findings of more targeted studies are indeed generalizable beyond their original, purposively chosen samples.     

Fish consumption: efficacy among fishermen of a brochure developed for pregnant women

The risk to human consumers from contaminants in fish is often dealt with by issuing consumption advisories, or in some cases, information brochures. Normally advisories and brochures are developed and tested with anglers. We examine the efficacy of a fish consumption brochure that was developed for pregnant women on people engaged in fishing in the Newark Bay Complex. The brochures were in English and Spanish, and subjects could read and be interviewed in either language. Of the 151 people interviewed, 32% were women, 58% spoke only English, 22% spoke mainly Spanish and the rest felt comfortable with both languages. There were no differences in the percent that were present as a function of preferred language. There were significant differences in the understanding of the brochure, depending upon preferred language (and the language of the brochure). In general, anglers preferring Spanish and who read the brochure in Spanish obtained fewer of the messages correctly than those who preferred English (seven of seven questions). There were also gender differences in efficacy of the brochures; a higher percentage of female anglers thought that the fish were not safe to eat from the port and thought that eating contaminated fish from the port could harm their baby. Although the correct message was obtained by 34–100% of the anglers, depending upon the question, and 60–75% of the anglers believed the pamphlet, only 16% (Spanish‐speaking) to 47% (Bilingual) planned on changing the species of fish they eat or the method of cooking. These data suggest that a pamphlet designed for pregnant women is useful for anglers, and they can obtain the ‘correct’ message from it. However, a relatively small percentage of subjects were persuaded to change their cooking or consumption behavior. In addition to television, subjects felt that the direct approach of distributing brochures face‐to‐face was an important method of communication of fish consumers.     

Improving public health emergency preparedness through enhanced decision-making environments: A simulation and survey based evaluation

Public health emergency preparedness officials use several modes of education and training programs to improve their response capability, including tabletop exercises. Tabletop exercises allow participants to role-play during a health emergency in an experiential practice environment and evaluate performance using existing benchmarks. Although tabletop exercises are routinely used in public health to identify gaps in emergency planning, quantitative measures of the impact of participating in an exercise are less common. To this end, we have designed a state-of-the-art simulation-driven hybrid tabletop exercise which is informed by local leadership interests and options, and tied into a research platform that enables rigorous assessment and improvements. The exercise and assessment were used by the state of Arizona during the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak. The simulation allows participants to respond to a hypothetical pandemic influenza scenario and make iterative policy decisions in a group setting. The exercise provided a valuable forum reviewing and assessing emergency plans for schools to prepare for, respond to, and recover from an influenza pandemic. After the exercise, participants reported a significantly increased level of confidence in performing core public health functional capabilities around the five main topic areas.     

Fiscal Realities for the State and Local Governments

The U.S. economic slump of 2008, as usual for all economic slumps, has taken a dramatic toll on state and local government revenues and budget surpluses. As predictable as this is when properly modeled, states in particular have been even less well prepared than normal. Therefore, it appears that government budget officers, policymakers and their economic advisors, and private-sector economists need help in understanding the external and internal drivers of budget outcomes. A primary goal of this study is to quantify the highly regular, cyclical revenue patterns that emerge when actual revenues are purified of legislated changes. This should assist policy formulation today—as states consider higher tax rates or borrowing—by promoting an understanding of what is temporary and what is permanent in the current revenue weakness. Moreover, if these lessons are learned, future revenue forecasting and budget planning at the state and local levels should be materially enhanced. A second goal is to examine the true sources of the exceptional expenditure growth that precluded the normal buildup of a solid surplus during the economic boom of 2003–2007. The principal culprit is shown to be state and local government pay inflation that has far exceeded private sector norms for the past three years rather than an exceptional medical care burden, as some might think.     

Adolescent Summer Camp Volunteers' Attitudes Toward Peers with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

This study explored the malleability of adolescent attitudes toward their peers with disabilities after volunteering in a summer day-camp. The Contact with Disabled Persons Scale (CDP) and the Multi-Dimensional Attitude Scale (MAS) were used to collect data in order to determine the association between volunteering in a recreation-based summer day camp and adolescent attitudes toward disability. After a covariate-adjusted regression analysis, contact with individuals with disabilities was found to significantly predict change in attitudes toward disability. Dyadic interviews were held after camp participation to provide additional sources of data with potential for deeper understanding of the camp experience for volunteers. The data suggested that participants perceived camp as a setting for the development of relationships with peers who have disabilities. These relationships further framed participants' understanding of the experience as fun, difficult, and resulting in perceived personal change. Implications for future research are discussed.     

The Socially Aware Baby Boomer: Gaining a Lifestyle-Based Understanding of the New Wave of Ecotourists

As the Baby Boomers approach retirement, tourism, in general, is expected to increase among members of this generation. This increase in travel is expected to be accompanied by a surge of interest in ecotourism—resulting in a new wave of ecotourists, over the next quarter century. This four-nation analysis of the post-war Baby Boom generation in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States (the CANZUS countries) argues that Baby Boomers should be segmented by their lifestyle characteristics, in order to isolate the best prospects for ecotourism. Data are presented to show that the prime-prospect ecotourist among Baby Boomers is in the Socially Aware lifestyle group, in Australia, and its counterparts in the other CANZUS populations—Autonomous Rebels in Canada, Educated Liberals in New Zealand, and Actualisers in the United States. Additional data on the travel motives and value priorities of Socially Aware Baby Boomers give a fuller picture of this group. Members of the Baby Boom generation are currently experiencing middle age; the psychological implications of this life stage for ecotourism activity are also given. Strategy pointers are offered for the ecotourism manager, given the growing importance of the Socially Aware Baby Boomer as an ecotourist.     

Patents, Thickets and the Financing of Early-Stage Firms: Evidence from the Software Industry

Legal changes in the patentability of software since the mid 1990s have resulted in a substantial increase in the number of patents on software inventions. We focus here on the impact of transactions costs associated with patent "thickets" on new entrants' interactions with the capital markets. Using data on the financing of entrants into 27 narrowly defined software markets, we show that start-up software companies operating in markets characterized by denser patent thickets saw their initial acquisition of VC funding delayed relative to firms in markets less affected by patents after the mid 1990s. The relationship between patent thickets and subsequent financing activity such as IPO or acquisition is more complex, but there is weak evidence that firms without patents became less likely to go public if they operated in a market characterized by patent thickets. Firms with patents are more likely to be funded or experience a liquidity event. However, the application for a patent appears to matter more than its grant.     

Political Party Impacts on Direct Democracy: the 2015 Greek Austerity Referendum

On July 5, 2015, Greek voters were asked whether to approve or reject the terms of an austerity program offered by the European Union (EU) to resolve an ongoing financial crisis. With a turnout rate of 62.5% overall, 61.3% of Greeks voted “no.” While a majority of voters in every district opposed the bailout’s terms, the margin against the proposed austerity measures ranged from 51.2% in Lakonias to 73.8% in Chanion. This paper presents empirical evidence on the determinants of the “no” vote across Greece’s 56 electoral districts. Our analysis is grounded in public choice theories of why large numbers of people turn out to vote in mass elections. In addition to controlling for standard “instrumental” vote motives, we ask whether political party labels, which serve as summary measures of partisan positioning, and party platforms, which express partisan preferences on ballot questions, are salient in determining electoral outcomes. Holding constant the unemployment rate and average voter age (at the regional level) and the fraction of young people casting ballots for the first time on July 5, 2015 (at the district level), we find that the percentage of ‘no’ votes was reduced significantly by voter support for Greece’s leading pro-austerity party (New Democracy) in the previous nationwide election held in January 2015. In contrast, voter support in January for the anti-austerity party (Syriza), led by sitting Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, had no measurable impact on July’s referendum results. This finding offers support for both instrumental and expressive theories of voting and bolsters the claim that political parties can shape electoral outcomes on questions decided by an institution of direct democracy.     

Accounting for self interest in the credit crisis

Taking as its starting point Alan Greenspan’s ‘shocked disbelief’ in the failure of institutional self interest to prevent the credit crisis, this paper sets out to explore two related questions. How was self interest constructed in financial markets? And how might we account for its failure? Conceptually the paper draws upon Callon’s (1998) analysis of ‘agent–networks’, the importance this gives to the agency of non-humans, and his complementary notions of ‘framing’/‘disentanglement’ and ‘overflowing’ as these allow and subvert the calculation of self interest. Empirically, the paper then presents a sketch of these processes in the rise and then fall of the market for collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) that was central to the credit crisis. The final substantive section of the paper reflects on the role and ‘hyperreal’ interaction of accounting and models as ‘mediators’ in these processes.     

The Power of Leisure: “I Was an Anorexic; I'm Now a Healthy Triathlete”

This autoethnographic account describes the ambiguities of the author's ongoing struggle with anorexia nervosa and how leisure was integral to her quasi-recovery from the illness. By showing the emotional and mental struggles of the illness, this paper offers an alternative to the traditional scientific studies of the illness that buries people's voices beneath layers of analysis. The purpose of the paper is to extend and deepen an understanding of both anorexia and the power that leisure can have in stimulating an individual's recovery from anorexia nervosa. The paper also offers an alternative to the traditional thought that exercise plays a negative role in eating disorders.