Converting retirement benefit into a life care annuity with graded benefits*

This paper deals with life care annuities, i.e. bundled products comprising a life annuity and long-term care insurance. It aims to assess the cost of converting retirement benefit into a life care annuity with graded benefits using a pre-existing public pay-as-you-go pension scheme. With this objective in mind, we present an actuarial method based on array calculus for valuing this type of life care annuity. The health dynamics of the annuitant rely on a reversible illness-death multistate framework. The paper contains a numerical example in which mortality and disability assumptions are based on data from the USA and Australia, although this should be viewed simply as an illustration. In addition, in order to check the coherence of these data, we compute life expectancy for both healthy and dependent persons, and then for dependent persons in each of the states of dependence. The effect of ruling out the recovery assumption on the annuity’s cost is also assessed. The analysis provides valuable insights into how much it would cost to introduce these annuities and enables us to make some policy recommendations to help ensure that this combined pension scheme has a good actuarial design.     

Purchasing natural personal care products in the era of fake news? The moderation effect of brand trust

Natural personal care products are gaining popularity due to their benefits in terms of health and well-being. However, consumers are wary of these products and are guided by the fake news circulating about them. Since natural product consumption offers several personal and environmental benefits, it would be worthwhile to understand consumers’ tendency to let fake news influence their consumption decisions. Accordingly, the current study examined the association of fake news and purchasing behaviour towards natural personal care products, utilising Stimulus-Organism-Behaviour-Consequence (SOBC) as the theoretical framework. The study proposed openness to change as the stimulus, perceived benefits and perceived risks as organismic internal states, purchase intentions as the behaviour, and the propensity of believing and acting on fake news as the consequence, which is further associated with system trust. The model was tested by analysing data collected from 390 existing consumers, considering the moderation effect of brand trust and controlling the effect of age and gender. The findings confirmed that openness to change is associated with perceived benefits and risks. Furthermore, perceived benefits and system trust are associated with purchase intentions, which are, in turn, associated with the propensity of believing and acting on fake news. The study presents several novel contributions to theory and practice.     

The U.S. health care expenditure: evidence from 2001 to 2009

This study utilizes state-level data from 2001 to 2009 to estimate the impact of the 2007 financial crisis upon health care expenditures. Higher death rates are consistently found to have a positive and statistically significant impact on health expenditures. While mental health and COPD are not generally found to impact expenditures, increases in the percentage of the population diagnosed with cholesterol and obesity tend to increase health expenditures. Increases in health expenditures slowed considerably after the financial crisis. Even though recessions (high unemployment rates) are generally found to have a positive impact on health expenditures, the post-financial crisis time period is estimated to have much lower health expenditures than in other time periods. Our results can be used to give insight into the conditions under which the slower rate of increase in health expenditures can be expected to increase. More research will be needed to be able to more completely explore not only the reasons for these changes in health expenditures but also whether they are likely to continue into the future.     

Health and cosmetics: Investigating consumers’ values for buying organic personal care products

In investigating consumers’ intentions to re-purchase organic personal care products (PCP), this study extends the theory of planned behaviour by including perceived value dimensions as the antecedents of attitude in the model. The findings revealed that most of the hypothesised relationships linking the consumer perceived value constructs (namely, health, safety, hedonic and environmental) with attitude towards the rebuying of organic PCP, were supported. Also, better product knowledge about organic PCP would lead to more positive attitudes towards re-purchasing the product. In contrast, social value was not important in predicting attitude. Similarly, the influence of subjective norm on rebuying intention was not supported. In terms of ranking of importance with regards to prediction of re-purchasing intention, attitude was the most important predictor followed by perceived behavioural control, product knowledge, hedonic value, environmental value and safety value.     

保乳手术治疗早期老年乳腺癌的临床价值

目的探讨保乳手术治疗早期老年乳腺癌的临床价值。方法将我院近期收治的早期老年乳腺癌患者150例,随机分为治疗组和对照组,各75例,治疗组患者进行保乳手术,对照组患者进行传统手术,对比分析两组患者经过手术后临床疗效,以及生活质量等。结果治疗组患者的手术中出血量、拔引流管时间、总的引流量及术后并发症显著优于对照组患者(P<0.05),同时治疗组患者经手术治疗后其生活质量高于对照组患者(P<0.05)。结论相比于传统的手术保乳手术具有手术后恢复时间短、并发症少及患者生活质量高等方面的优势,在临床治疗上可以进行大力推广。     

退休老年人身体形态与力量素质相关关系的研究

近年来老年人的身体健康现状日益成为人们关注的焦点问题之一,为了对退休老年人的身体健康状况有进一步的了解,对58-68年龄段退休老年人进行身体形态和力量素质的测试。研究发现身高与握力（r=0.659）、体重和握力（r=0.655）均有显著相关性,且呈正相关趋势,身高与体重（r=-0.243）呈负相关。因此在适度原则下,应加强以力量素质为主的体育锻炼,其对于提高身体素质,增进健康有非常重要的意义。     

Reorganizing School Lunch for a More Just and Sustainable Food System in the US

Public school lunch programs in the United States are contested political terrains shaped by government agencies, civil society activists, and agri-food companies. The particular organization of these programs has consequences for public health, social justice, and ecological sustainability. This contribution draws on political economy, critical food studies, and feminist economics to analyze the US National School Lunch Program, one of the world's oldest and largest government-sponsored school lunch programs. It makes visible the social and environmental costs of the “heat-and-serve” economy, where widely used metrics consider only the speed and volume of service as productive work. This study demonstrates that such a narrow understanding of the labor of lunch devalues care and undercuts the potential for school food provisioning to promote ecological and feminist goals. Further, it proposes a “high road” alternative and outlines an agenda for reorganizing school food provisioning to maximize care in all its dimensions.     

高职院校老年服务与管理专业晨练模式改革探析——以老年福祉学院为例

晨练作为高职院校体育工作的重要内容,是学生日常行为规范养成、良好道德品质与纪律规范形成的重要措施之一。本文通过对现有晨练项目的问卷调查,分析老年服务与管理专业学生对晨练项目的态度,试图探索符合专业发展、灵活多样的晨练形式,以满足学生发展需求。     

Hospital Marketing and Communications Via Social Media

Social media usage by health care organizations has increased dramatically. Findings from this research show that 95% of the top ranked hospitals use social media. The purpose of this study is to examine whether social media usage varies according to size of hospital and types of services provided. Since social media platforms appeal to different groups of people, this prompts the question of whether certain platforms are more appealing to people who partake in different health services. Findings reveal differences in social media usage depending on the services provided by a hospital.