Browsing by Subject "Policy"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 21
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    Abstinence and abstinence-only education
    (Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 2007-10) Ott, Mary A.; Santelli, John S.; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
    PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review recent literature on medical accuracy, program effectiveness, and ethical concerns related to abstinence-only policies for adolescent sexuality education. RECENT FINDINGS: The federal government invests over 175 million dollars annually in 'abstinence-only-until-marriage' programs. These programs are required to withhold information on contraception and condom use, except for information on failure rates. Abstinence-only curricula have been found to contain scientifically inaccurate information, distorting data on topics such as condom efficacy, and promote gender stereotypes. An independent evaluation of the federal program, several systematic reviews, and cohort data from population-based surveys find little evidence of efficacy and evidence of possible harm. In contrast, comprehensive sexuality education programs have been found to help teens delay initiation of intercourse and reduce sexual risk behaviors. Abstinence-only policies violate the human rights of adolescents because they withhold potentially life-saving information on HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. SUMMARY: Federal support of abstinence-only as an approach to adolescent sexuality education is of much concern due to medical inaccuracies, lack of effectiveness, and the withholding and distorting of health information.
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    Addressing Homelessness in Marion County: Policy Considerations and Recommendations
    (Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy, 2022-08-16) Bow, Brendan; Lawrence, Roxy; Eckert, Marissa
    In July of 2022, the Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy—in collaboration with the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention—released a brief describing the findings of the 2022 Marion County Point-in-Time (PIT) Count. In this follow-up report, researchers compared Indianapolis to four similar cities—Charlotte, North Carolina; Columbus, Ohio; Fort Worth, Texas; and Nashville, Tennessee—to examine homeless populations. This report also examines factors affecting homelessness in Marion County. Those include a dwindling housing/rental market combined with rising housing/rental costs, specific laws and ordinances that criminalize homelessness, recent increases in youth homelessness, and a lack of facilities and support systems to house and help those experiencing homelessness.
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    Addressing Unequal Access to Energy in Indiana
    (Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy, 2022-12-12) Schultz, Kristi; Deitz, Ted; Morris, Cheyenne; Eckert, Marissa
    In 2019, state leaders formed the 21st Century Energy Policy Development Task Force to explore and make policy recommendations addressing Indiana’s energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy alternatives. As part of their charge, the task force is researching the affordability and reliability of energy as well as how these energy issues impact low-income and racially minoritized communities. The definition of energy access varies but often includes the delivery and use of a minimum level of energy a household requires for basic needs, such as heating a home or cooking meals. As renewable energy sources become more widely available, it is important that all communities have equitable access to these resources. Addressing these concerns early and proactively deploying strategies focused on energy transition could foster more equitable access to clean energy. This report discusses unequal access to energy in Indiana and the resulting impact on underserved communities. This brief also highlights several strategies to address these disparities.
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    Affordable Housing in Indiana (2022): Policy considerations and recommendations
    (Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy, 2022-12-12) Bow, Brendan; Mullin, Hannah; Rapolu, Sreemayi Reddy; Eckert, Marissa
    The Indiana General Assembly passed House Bill 1306 in 2022. When it was signed into law in March 2022, Indiana Public Law 99 established a task force to review housing related issues and housing shortages in Indiana. This task force must issue a report to the general assembly and governor no later than November 1, 2022. In August 2022, researchers from the Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy produced a policy brief containing recommendations for local and state officials to address homelessness, much of which concerned housing issues in Indianapolis. This brief expands on the previous report by examining housing availability and affordability in Indiana, while also comparing Indiana to four other similar states. Using this information, the research team provides policy suggestions to address housing shortages in Indiana.
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    Beyond Food Deserts: Assessing the Impact of Public Transit Availability Change on Spatial Access to Food
    (2021-03) Katz, Brandon P.; Wilson, Jeffrey S.; Johnson, Daniel P.; Thapa, Bhuwan; Dwyer, Owen J., III
    Food access is a dimension of food security that many struggle with even in high- income countries, which is a contributing factor to chronic diet-related disease. Inequalities in economic access to food has been addressed in public policy for several decades, but spatial access to food has only been seriously studied and addressed by policy for the past twenty-five years. After the food desert metaphor emerged, it was promptly accepted as a standard measure of food access for governments and a basis for policies created to address inequalities. Conceptual criticisms and methodological limitations of the metaphor have led the study of spatial access to food towards newer methods that measure food access more realistically and assist in the development and assessment of intervention strategies to inform policy decisions. This thesis describes the history of the food desert metaphor from its emergence until its adoption in US public policy, the conceptual criticisms and methodological limitations that surround it, and offers an analysis that measures the impact of change in the availability of public transportation on spatial access to food for various population subgroups that are more at risk of food insecurity in Marion County, Indiana. Results demonstrate that policies and plans designed without consideration for food access have an impact on it nevertheless, and that policymakers and planners can leverage such strategies to better coordinate efforts across government to reduce inequalities in spatial access to food and food insecurity overall.
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    Biobanks and Electronic Health Records: Ethical and Policy Challenges in the Genomic Age
    (IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, 2009-10) Meslin, Eric M.; Goodman, Kenneth
    In this paper we discuss the ethical and policy challenges presented by the construction and use of biobanks and electronic health records systems, with a particular focus on how these resources implicate certain types of security concerns for patients, families, health care providers and institutions. These two technology platforms are selected for special emphasis in this paper for two reasons. First and foremost, there is a close connection between them. Indeed, of the many accepted definitions, this one from the German National Bioethics Commission provides a sense of this close connection and the great power and reflects the great power these two separate platforms provide to probe more deeply the connection between genotype and phenotype: "...[B]iobanks are defined as collections of samples of human bodily substances (e.g., cells, tissues, blood or DNA as the physical medium of genetic information) that are or can be associated with personal data and information on their donors." Second, these two topics implicate both clinical ethics issues (those arising at the bedside for health care providers and patients), and human research ethics issues (issues arising for scientists, research subjects, ethics review bodies and regulatory authorities). Both of these sub-specialty areas confront similar and complementary ethical issues; for example, issues arising from the nature and adequacy of informed consent, the sufficiency of systems to protect personal privacy and confidentiality, or the need to balance concerns relating to data security and the need to know. A growing research base supports calls for more attention to these issues, and yet current professional ethics frameworks and policy consultation methods are poorly organized and ill-equipped to anticipate and fully address ethical issues in health information technology generally, or to provide adequate ethical assessment of the tools that elicit these issues. Our strategy is to orient readers to the history and context of these issues, to frame several key challenges for researchers and policy makers, and then to close with several recommendations for next steps.
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    Charitable Giving During the COVID-19 Pandemic
    (Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, 2020-06-08) Osili, Una; IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
    My written testimony will focus on addressing three crucial questions: 1) What are the current trends in charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic 2) How should these trends be interpreted in light of overall charitable giving patterns? 3) What are the policies that can strengthen charitable giving by American households now and in the future?
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    Divergence of military and civilian trauma research priorities
    (BMJ, 2021-06-15) Baer, David; Donaldson, Ross; McKinley, Todd; Guldberg, Robert; Orthopaedic Surgery, School of Medicine
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    An educational strategy to inform legislators and nurses about the professional nursing role
    (2019) Young, Judith
    Nurses provide an informed perspective to influence decision making with health care-related legislation. This article describes a strategy that can inform legislators about the contemporary nursing role and its influence on patient safety, as well as raise nurse awareness of the professional responsibility for political advocacy and how to engage in this role.
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    An Examination of How National Policies are Driving Population Health Outcomes and Organizational Change in Private and Public Sectors
    (2020-03) Hilts, Katy Ellis; Menachemi, Nir; Blackburn, Justin; Gibson, P. Joseph; Halverson, Paul K.; Yeager, Valerie A.
    The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, but still trails most other countries when it comes to important health indicators. There has been an increasing recognition that in order to address this discrepancy, the U.S. health system must begin to address the underlying social determinants contributing to poor health outcomes. In light of this, the concept of “population health” has emerged as a framework and model for how to better address the social determinants contributing to unhealthy behaviors and increased rates of morbidity and mortality in the U.S. Various national initiatives, including reform related to how doctors and hospitals are paid, have been developed with the purpose of increasing the adoption of strategies to address population health among public and private organizations. In this dissertation I attempt to assess how these national policies are driving behavior and outcomes related to improving population health in private and public sectors. It is comprised of three papers focused on 1) a systematic review of literature to assess how hospitals are responding to policies that encourage them to form partnerships to address population health, 2) a quantitative analysis of how the Affordable Care Act has impacted population health by addressing tobacco use with policies to increase Medicaid coverage for tobacco cessation services, and 3) an empirical examination to identify hospital strategic partnerships to address population health and determine hospital and market characteristics associated with these partnerships. The main findings of this study indicate that while there is a growing amount of peer reviewed literature focused on hospital partnerships for population health there is still a need for more generalizable studies with rigorous study designs in this area; Medicaid Expansion as a part of the Affordable Care Act is associated with lower prevalence of tobacco use; and policies, such as Accountable Care Organization and Bundled Payment models, may be influencing hospitals to engage with a broad set of partners to support population health activities. Collectively these studies provide new evidence to suggest that national policies may be driving behavior in private and public sectors related to population health.