How transport users perceive personal safety apps

Fear of crime and a perceived sense of being unsafe have the potential to discourage individuals from using public transport. This paper presents analysis of the results of a survey on aspects of personal safety apps and how individuals perceive them in relation to their personal safety, privacy and their preference to purchase them. It explores their willingness to download for free or purchase such an app, their impression of features that an app might include such as revealing their location, how they would rate police force monitoring if included as a feature of the app and finally how they would rate a personal safety app against other technologies used to improve perceived transport user safety. The results show that the majority of respondents would consider downloading a personal safety app. Lower levels of engagement with technology, a higher level of education, being resident in the city of Dublin (as opposed to surrounding regions) and privacy concerns tended to make females less likely to consider downloading the app. These findings were not repeated for males. The results suggest that younger respondents were more likely to be negatively impacted by the inclusion of a facility to report location in an emergency on the app, while the older age groups were more likely to be unaffected. For the location tracking feature, cluster membership, gender and resident outside Dublin were significant. Less than half of the respondents would be negatively influenced in their decision to buy the app if a cost of €1.79 were introduced. When respondents were asked about the inclusion of police monitoring as a feature of the app, the results suggested that police monitoring had a more definite effect on perceived personal safety than on privacy.     

Applying the Interactive Systems Framework to the Dissemination and Adoption of National and State Recommendations for Hypertension

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP), commissioned an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report to identify the highest priority action areas for CDC, state health departments, and other public health partners in their efforts to reduce and control hypertension. To assess the dissemination and adoption of the IOM report recommendations, DHDSP developed an evaluation based on the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation (ISF). The evaluation incorporates data collection at critical points across 3 years. In this article, we focus on the ISF systems to describe the role of funded state partners and their relationship with CDC in implementing public health recommendations. We describe baseline results for three data collection activities: (1) key informant interviews, (2) a Web‐based survey, and (3) content analysis of state workplans to determine the degree of alignment with IOM recommendations. For example, currently 30 % of surveyed programs are implementing most (or all) of the recommendations in the IOM report, however 76 % intend to change hypertension program priorities based on the recommendations of the IOM report. Qualitative data suggest that there are several facilitators and barriers in implementing public health policy recommendations. DHDSP will use these baseline results to provide additional technical assistance and support to state health departments in their efforts to implement the IOM report's recommendations. Special Issue: Advances in Bridging Research and Practice Using the Interactive System Framework for Dissemination and Implementation; Guest Editors: Abraham Wandersman, Paul Flaspohler, Catherine A. Lesesne, Richard Puddy; Action Editor: Emilie Phillips Smith     

Navigating the Road Ahead: Public Health Challenges and the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation

Public health is currently faced with an array of critical challenges and disconnects. Research and evaluation have identified a number of evidence‐based strategies for effecting behavior change at individual, group, organizational, and environmental levels, all of which hold promise for leading to substantial reductions in morbidity and mortality, and increased quality of life. Unfortunately, there is huge variability across the public health system in awareness of the value of using evidence to inform decision making, let alone in capacity to locate, assess, compare, select, justify, adapt, implement, and evaluate evidence‐based strategies, or to participate in building the evidence base for practice‐based innovations. As a result, many communities may not be benefitting from research‐tested and practice‐based strategies that could help them to meet their public health goals more efficiently and effectively. CDC's Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation (ISF), released in 2008, was designed to help close this gap between research and practice. This commentary identifies the ways in which the ISF framework is useful in addressing the research practice gap; revisits the elements of the framework that have continued to guide research and practice in fruitful ways; and highlights areas that need further development to meet current public health challenges. Special Issue: Advances in Bridging Research and Practice Using the Interactive System Framework for Dissemination and Implementation; Guest Editors: Abraham Wandersman, Paul Flaspohler, Catherine A. Lesesne, Richard Puddy; Action Editor: Emilie Phillips Smith     

Insights into the effectiveness of messaging promoting intentions to use connected vehicle technology

Connected vehicles offer considerable promise for reducing congestion, pollution, and crashes. Nonetheless, less than a third of road users are aware of the potential for connected vehicles to transform transport systems. This study examined the effectiveness of messaging aimed to increase the public’s knowledge of connected vehicle technologies using a short, animated video and its effects as assessed via a survey. Participants were assigned to either a control group, who were not exposed to the messaging, or an intervention group, who were exposed to the messaging, within a pre-post design. Participants (in the intervention group) answered questions about their knowledge of and experience with connected vehicle technologies prior to seeing the messaging and again following being exposed to such messaging together with their intentions to use these technologies in the future. As a theoretically informed investigation, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) constructs of attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control were also measured. The results showed that the messaging increased knowledge about and intention to use connected vehicle technologies. Furthermore, changes in how the TPB constructs predicted intentions were found between the control and intervention groups which may help to explain how the messaging influenced participants’ intentions to use such technology in the future.     

Adolescents' perceptions of school neighbourhood built environment for walking and cycling to school

Walking is a more common transport mode to school than cycling among adolescents in many countries worldwide. Adolescents' and their parents' have different perceptions of walking versus cycling to school. This study compared adolescents' perceptions of school neighbourhood built environment characteristics for walking versus cycling to school. Adolescents familiar with their school neighbourhoods (n=411; age: 15.0 ± 1.2 years; male: 31.3%) from six secondary schools in Dunedin, New Zealand completed an online survey about their travel to school and perceptions of their school neighbourhood environments for walking and cycling to school. Overall, 32.8% of adolescents walked to school, and only 1.2% cycled. More adolescents reported sufficient footpaths than cycle paths (77.9% vs 42.3%) in their school neighbourhoods. Compared to walking, adolescents reported that their school neighbourhood environments provided less support for cycling to school, including fewer crossings/signals for cyclists versus pedestrians (52.8% vs 69.3%), fewer street lights (cycling vs walking; 57.9% vs 70.3%) and fewer destinations within easy cycling versus walking distance from their school (65.5% vs 50.4%) (all p<0.05). Active transport users perceived lower traffic volume, higher traffic speed, and fewer hilly streets along the walking and cycling routes to school than motorised and mixed transport users (all p<0.05). Future active transport interventions in school neighbourhoods need to be tailored to address walking- and/or cycling-specific barriers, including built environment and traffic safety in a local context.     

Soutien social perçu du supérieur,plafonnement de carrière et engagement affectif dans le secteur public camerounais

This research analyzes relation between the various types of career plateauing (objective, structural, content) and work emotional commitment. It also examines the influence of perceived social support from hierarchy on the different types of career plateauing, most especially its moderating role on the relation between the different types of career plateauing and emotional commitment. The results, which were obtained through data collected from 615 workers highlight that perceived social support from hierarchy limits and almost moderates negative relations between the different types of content plateauing (objective, content) and emotional commitment. Its direct effect on content plateauing is negative whereas the relation is positive with structural plateauing.     

应当重视医生“公共人”的角色定位

“经济人”的价值理念刺激了医疗行业的逐利行为,我国公立医院公益性淡化已然是事实,医生的“公共性”日渐缺失.医患之间的信任危机从来没有像今天这样严峻,很重要的原因是医生的价值取向的迷失.医生确实面临多价值选择冲突,但过分强调“经济人”特性,而忽视公共性的重要,已然导致了种种恶果.所以,应当重视医生“公共人”的角色定位.医生和医院要回归对医疗职业本性的认识,让医生成长为“为了人类的幸福和自身的完美而工作”的“公共人”,让医院回归“为社会公众谋取利益,追求社会效益目标”的公益性.     

应当重视医生“公共人”的角色定位

“经济人”的价值理念刺激了医疗行业的逐利行为,我国公立医院公益性淡化已然是事实,医生的“公共性”日渐缺失.医患之间的信任危机从来没有像今天这样严峻,很重要的原因是医生的价值取向的迷失.医生确实面临多价值选择冲突,但过分强调“经济人”特性,而忽视公共性的重要,已然导致了种种恶果.所以,应当重视医生“公共人”的角色定位.医生和医院要回归对医疗职业本性的认识,让医生成长为“为了人类的幸福和自身的完美而工作”的“公共人”,让医院回归“为社会公众谋取利益,追求社会效益目标”的公益性.     

Publics and Populations: The Politics of Ancestry and Exchange in Genome Science

While researchers collect and assemble relevant populations for genome studies, they are also, along with project designers and managers, interested in assembling publics. The public holds significant symbolic and discursive appeal for large-scale genome science. This is particularly the case in projects that collect or study aspects of human genome variation where histories of biological racism continue to cast a shadow over the promises of genomic medicine. In one of Canada's first large-scale biobanks, French Canadians, who are understood as a genetically close or homogenous population, are contrasted with what are referred to as ‘immigrants’ and ‘Québecers from various ethnic and racial backgrounds’ in public engagement and consultation forums. These latter groups, thought to provide a form of diversity, both in their views and their biology, are harnessed in the consultation practices as well as in the branding of the biobank. Within the local area of sample collection, the already constructed and available ways to categorise groups provide a powerful frame to narrate the relationship between the public and genome science. The process of making and consulting niche publics not only naturalises particular narratives of national belonging but also enables forms of exchange and sharing in international genome science. Just as assembling populations forms a central component of genome science, displays of publicness are integral for economies of exchange in genome science.