Browsing by Subject "Public policy"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Abortion Restrictions and the Impact on Families
    (American Medical Association, 2024) Wilkinson, Tracey A.; Bernard, Caitlin; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
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    Philanthropy, policy, and politics : power and influence of health care nonprofit interest groups on the implementation of health care policy
    (2018-03-29) Qaddoura, Fady A.; Burlingame, Dwight F.; Benjamin, Lehn; Menachemi, Nir; Kennedy, Sheila
    Nonprofit organizations that “speak for, act for, and look after the interests of their constituents when they interact with government are, by any definition of political science, interest groups.” Indiana’s recent implementation of the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0 (HIP 2.0) under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) opened a window of opportunity to closely examine the role of nonprofits in shaping the implementation of health care policy. Existing literature on health and human service nonprofit organizations did not examine in depth the role and influence of nonprofits as interest groups in the implementation of public policy. This study examines a deeper research question that was not given adequate attention under existing studies with a special focus on the health care policy field: whose interest do nonprofit organizations advance when they attempt to influence the implementation of public policy? To answer this question, it is critical to understand why nonprofits engage in the public policy process (motivation and values), the policy actions that nonprofits make during the implementation of the policy (how?), and the method by which nonprofits address or mitigate conflicts and contradictions between organizational interest and constituents’ interest (whose interest do they advance?). The main contribution of this study is that it sheds light on the implementation of the largest extension of domestic social welfare policy since the “War on Poverty” using Robert Alford’s theory of interest groups to examine the role of nonprofit organizations during the implementation of HIP 2.0 in Indiana. Given the complexity of the policy process, this study utilizes a qualitative methods approach to complement existing quantitative findings. Finally, this study provides a deeper examination of the relationships between nonprofits as actors within a policy field, accounts for the complexity of the policy and political environment, analyzes whether or not dominant interest groups truly advance the interest of their constituents, and provides additional insights into how nonprofits mitigate and prioritize competing interests.
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    Sharing Is Scaring: Legal + Ethical Issues with Shared Content in Social Media and Mobile Messaging Apps
    (2016-09-30) Faklaris, Cori; Hook, Sara Anne
    Even if you can reuse, aggregate or share that photo, video, meme or text, should you? Our mixed-methods study explores the legal and ethical issues involved in content-sharing practices in social media and messaging apps through analysis of public policy challenges, related work in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) literature and quantitative and qualitative data. Key concepts in the study include copyright law, plagiarism, user-generated content (UGC) and fair use.
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    Snus use and rejection in the USA
    (BMJ, 2016-07) Biener, Lois; Roman, Anthony M.; McInerney, Scott A.; Bolcic-Jankovic, Dragana; Hatsukami, Dororthy K.; Loukas, Alexandra; O’Connor, Richard J.; Romito, Laura; Biomedical and Applied Sciences, School of Dentistry
    OBJECTIVE: To determine whether snus might become a strategy for reducing the harm associated with cigarette smoking in the USA as appears to be the case in Sweden, we examined receptivity to snus use in two cities with the greatest exposure to the major brands. METHODS: A dual frame, telephone survey and a brief mail survey were conducted in 2011 and 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana and Dallas/Fort Worth Texas. Over 5000 adults completed surveys. Trial, ever use, current use and reasons for using or quitting snus after trial were measured. RESULTS: Among male smokers, 29.9% had ever tried snus (CI 22.7 to 38.1) and 4.2% were current users (CI 1.6 to 10.7). Among female smokers, 8.5% ever tried snus (CI 4.4 to 15.7) and current use was unknown. Current use was virtually absent among former smokers and never smokers. A major predictor of any level of snus use was current use of conventional smokeless tobacco. Those who tried and gave up snus cited curiosity (41.3%) and the fact that it was available at low or no cost (30%) as reasons for trial; reasons for not continuing included preferring another form of tobacco (75.1%) and disliking the mouth feel (34.6%). Almost all current snus users indicated that they were trying to cut down on cigarettes, but few (3.9%) were using it to quit smoking entirely. CONCLUSIONS: The low rate of adoption of snus suggests that neither the hopes nor the fears surrounding this new product are likely to be realised in the USA with the current marketing patterns.
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    Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the nation’s public health information systems infrastructure: synthesis of discussions from the 2022 ACMI Symposium
    (Oxford University Press, 2023-05-05) Acharya, Jessica C.; Staes, Catherine; Allen, Katie S.; Hartsell, Joel; Cullen, Theresa A.; Lenert, Leslie; Rucker, Donald W.; Lehmann, Harold P.; Dixon, Brian E.; Health Policy and Management, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health
    Objective: The annual American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) symposium focused discussion on the national public health information systems (PHIS) infrastructure to support public health goals. The objective of this article is to present the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities (SWOT) identified by public health and informatics leaders in attendance. Materials and methods: The Symposium provided a venue for experts in biomedical informatics and public health to brainstorm, identify, and discuss top PHIS challenges. Two conceptual frameworks, SWOT and the Informatics Stack, guided discussion and were used to organize factors and themes identified through a qualitative approach. Results: A total of 57 unique factors related to the current PHIS were identified, including 9 strengths, 22 weaknesses, 14 opportunities, and 14 threats, which were consolidated into 22 themes according to the Stack. Most themes (68%) clustered at the top of the Stack. Three overarching opportunities were especially prominent: (1) addressing the needs for sustainable funding, (2) leveraging existing infrastructure and processes for information exchange and system development that meets public health goals, and (3) preparing the public health workforce to benefit from available resources. Discussion: The PHIS is unarguably overdue for a strategically designed, technology-enabled, information infrastructure for delivering day-to-day essential public health services and to respond effectively to public health emergencies. Conclusion: Most of the themes identified concerned context, people, and processes rather than technical elements. We recommend that public health leadership consider the possible actions and leverage informatics expertise as we collectively prepare for the future.
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    The Long Road to Semantic Interoperability in Support of Public Health: Experiences from Two States
    (Elsevier, 2014) Dixon, Brian E.; Vreeman, Daniel J.; Grannis, Shaun J.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Proliferation of health information technologies creates opportunities to improve clinical and public health, including high quality, safer care and lower costs. To maximize such potential benefits, health information technologies must readily and reliably exchange information with other systems. However, evidence from public health surveillance programs in two states suggests that operational clinical information systems often fail to use available standards, a barrier to semantic interoperability. Furthermore, analysis of existing policies incentivizing semantic interoperability suggests they have limited impact and are fragmented. In this essay, we discuss three approaches for increasing semantic interoperability to support national goals for using health information technologies. A clear, comprehensive strategy requiring collaborative efforts by clinical and public health stakeholders is suggested as a guide for the long road towards better population health data and outcomes.
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    What are the key pediatric public policy priorities as the COVID-19 pandemic persists?
    (Springer Nature, 2023) Schleiss, Mark R.; Permar, Sallie R.; John, Chandy C.; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
    The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and its impact is just beginning to be felt on children. COVID-19 vaccines protect both the pregnant patient and newborns, and breastfeeding provides a key component of passive protective immunity. "Long COVID" has contributed to the current crisis in pediatric mental health, and vaccines confer protection against this long-term complication of COVID-19 disease. Vaccine misinformation is not only impacting compliance with maternal and pediatric COVID-19 immunization efforts, but also other routine childhood vaccinations. As a public health priority, we must improve our response to vaccine misinformation and find novel strategies to improve vaccine compliance.