How have liberalized drug policies impacted international policing practices across urban and rural jurisdictions? A scoping review.

It Is Time We Start Asking: Handgun Carrying Among Youth in Rural Contexts

Scoping Review Question: How do adults experience hospital to home transitions in rural settings? Background: Adequate preparation for transition from hospital to home can ensure continuity of patient care and is important in rural communities, which lack equitable access to healthcare services and professionals. After hospital discharge, rural patients feel unprepared, and have more emergency visits and hospital readmissions than urban patients. Methods: The scoping framework designed by Arksey & O'Malley (2005) guides the methods. Eligible papers were published peer-reviewed reports in English of data collected in a rural setting that examined experiences of adults during transition from hospital to home. The search included MeSH and keywords and was adapted to fit different databases. Screening of titles and abstracts was followed by full text screening and data extraction. Results: A total of 1448 papers were accessed, 701 titles and abstracts screened, 68 screened at full text, with 28 meeting inclusion criteria. The two main reasons for exclusion were that the topic was not transition from hospital to home, and the setting was unidentified or not rural. Findings: There was a broad range of geographic distribution, care settings, recipient groups, research designs, and transition experiences. Four main factors influenced transitions: communication; continuity of care; variations in patients, healthcare professionals, and/or services; and attention to the rural context. Recommendations: Based on the review, recommendations were made to improve discharge processes in rural settings. Keywords: scoping review, hospital discharge, hospital to home, transitional care, rural, patient experience, nursing DOI: https://doi.org/10.14574/ojrnhc.v22i1.703

Purpose and ObjectivesPolicy change is a lengthy and complex process. Thus, it is important to articulate hypothesized causal pathways between advocacy activities and policy change outcomes and to identify and monitor early indicators of progress toward policy change.Intervention ApproachThe Kansas Health Foundation supports grantee efforts to address the public health effects of obesity through evidence-based policy, systems, and environmental change interventions. To build support for policy, systems, and environmental changes in schools, workplaces, and health care and retail settings, grantees mobilize communities, educate government policy makers, and advocate with organizational decision makers.Evaluation MethodsTo understand whether early outcomes from obesity-prevention advocacy efforts predict interim outcomes related to eventual policy change, we conducted surveys of the general public and of opinion leaders in Kansas, which were designed to measure components of Kansas Health Foundation’s theory of change. We then used structural equation modeling to test the theory of change’s underlying relationships by using support for obesity prevention policies as the outcome.ResultsOur findings supported the hypothesized model: perceptions of obesity as a serious community problem influence beliefs about causes of the problem. Beliefs about causes predict beliefs about who is responsible for the solution to the problem, which in turn predicts support for obesity prevention policies.Implications for Public HealthEvaluators of advocacy for policy change interventions can use this approach to monitor proximal changes in public and opinion leader beliefs related to eventual policy change and to determine whether efforts are likely to be successful or need to be adapted or abandoned.

PCN73 - Economic Outcomes of Medicare Reimbursement Policy Change on Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents in Cancer Patients

Unintended Consequences of Regionalizing Specialized VA Addiction Services

Alternative to discipline programs, defined as programs for nurses 'impaired' by issues such as alcohol and/or drug use, provide treatment and support to return to the profession. This paper aims to explore alternative to discipline programs for nurses to determine whether these programs are relevant to other geographical contexts. A scoping review was conducted in accordance with the JBI methodology. The PRIMSA-ScR checklist was used in this scoping review. The databases searched included MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase (Elsevier), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (EBSCOhost), and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global (ProQuest) from 1984 to 2024. Title and abstract screening was conducted on 1622 papers, resulting in 90 papers for full-text screening. After full-text screening, 19 papers met the inclusion criteria for this scoping review. Issues related to the cost of programs, strict requirements for abstinence, and a lack of 'bespoke' options that address participant needs were identified in this review and need to be addressed prior to global implementation of these programs. Impairment of nurses due to alcohol and/or drug use threatens workforce sustainability, and without 'alternatives to discipline', can mean experience nurses are lost to the profession, often without treatment. Exploration of alterative to discipline programs is essential to ensure that nurses with alcohol and other drug challenges are retained in the profession and receive the treatment required to remain safe practitioners. Likewise, the perception that programs were punitive in nature should be addressed to ensure acceptability of these programs as an alternative to the loss of employment.

Introduction. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the major health threats causing cancer. Asian Americans are especially vulnerable to HBV infection risk compared to other racial/ethnic groups in America. New mHealth interventions have promising potential to save lives by increasing HBV screening among racial/ethnic minority groups, but its scope, range, and uptake among Asian Americans are not clear. This study aims to scope the literature describing the research of mHealth interventions on HBV screening among Asian Americans. Methods. A scoping systematic review search is conducted in PubMed and Embase. Eligible studies focus on Asian Americans aged 18 years or older who have participated in an mHealth Hepatitis B screening. All types of mHealth interventions on HBV are relevant (e.g., health apps and text messages). Studies not published in the English language will be excluded. Results. A review protocol is developed. Next. We will covert our search strategy to Embase, Medline, and other databases to get more records. At present, title and abstract screening are under development. After that, full-text screening, data extraction, data management, quality assessment, and data synthesis and analysis will be conducted. Initial results will be discussed. Potential impact. The results of this scoping and systematic review could improve our understanding of mHealth HBV screening use and uptake among Asian Americans and inform the development of a future intervention to encourage mHealth HBV screening for this patient population. In the long run, it could encourage the development of a future tailored mHealth intervention to facilitate the HBV screening uptake among Asian Americans Citation Format: Di Zhu, Yarra Zisman-Ilani, Stephanie Roth, Lin Zhu, Grace X. Ma. The effective of mHealth intervention on hepatitis B virus screening among Asian Americans: A scoping review [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A131.

This paper demonstrates a method for reconstructing flexible form production functions using minimal disaggregated data sets. The policy focus of our approach puts emphasis on the ability of the model to reproduce the existing production system and predict the disaggregate outcomes of policy changes. We combine Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) with Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) estimation to capture the individual heterogeneity of the local production environment, and allow the reconstructed production function to precisely replicate the input usage and outputs produced in the base year. Since we can generate demand, supply and substitution elasticities from the reconstructed model we can represent a wide range of policy responses. The empirical application used in this paper is a production model of California's irrigated crop sector that was constructed to measure the economic effect of environmental policy changes to irrigation water supplies, as part of a joint State and Federal program termed CalFed. We demonstrate that the disaggregate regional models give greater predictive precision, when compared with the model reconstructed on the aggregate data, and that they show a significant variation in the calculated regional elasticities of input demand and output response. From this, we conclude that any gains from aggregation - namely the reduction of small sample bias of the parameter estimates - would be swamped by the distortion of production response to policy changes, given the heterogeneity of the regions and the resultant bias.

The global impact of climate change ranges from intense heatwaves to extreme weather events that endanger entire ecosystems and people's way of life. Adverse climate change events place undue stress on food and health systems, with consequences for human food security and mental health status. Ubiquitous digital devices, such as smartphones, have the potential to manage existing and emerging climate-related crises, given their ability to enable rapid response, instant communication, and knowledge sharing. This scoping review aimed to identify digital apps being used to capture or address climate change impacts on food security and mental health to inform the development of a digital citizen science initiative. A scoping review was conducted using 3 peer-reviewed databases (PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and Web of Science) and manual gray literature searches of relevant organizational (ie, governmental and nonprofit) websites to identify articles and reports published between January 2012 and July 2023. Three separate searches were conducted in each database to identify digital apps focused on climate change and (1) food security, (2) mental health, and (3) food security and mental health. Two reviewers conducted initial screening, with a third reviewer resolving any discrepancies. Articles focused on climate change impacts on wildlife or agriculture (ie, not human food security) were excluded. Full-text screening was conducted for shortlisted articles, and a final data abstraction table was generated, summarizing key app features, contextual factors, and participant involvement. From the 656 records screened, 14 digital apps met the inclusion criteria. The food security apps (n=7, 50%) aimed to capture traditional knowledge to preserve food systems, conduct food security assessments, and aid users in decreasing food insecurity risk. The mental health apps (n=7, 50%) assessed climate change-related stress and provided users with coping strategies following adverse weather events. No digital apps examined the intersection of climate change, food security, and mental health. Key app features included user-to-user communication (n=5, 36%), knowledge databases (n=5, 36%), data collection and analysis (n=3, 21%), gamification (n=1, 7%), and educational resources (n=2, 14%) to address climate change impacts on food security or mental health. In total, 3 approaches to participant involvement were used across studies, including contributory (n=1, 7%), collaborative (n=1, 7%), and cocreative (n=1, 7%) approaches, to ensure the relevance and use of digital apps. Most digital apps identified provided a service to citizens to either prevent adverse climate change-related health impacts or manage these effects following an acute event or a natural disaster. The capacity of ubiquitous digital tools to enable near real-time communication, the involvement of various stakeholder groups, and their ability to share relevant educational resources in a timely manner are important for developing tailored climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies across jurisdictions.

The influence of psychological, social and contextual factors on recovery following a sport-related knee injury: a scoping review

The provision of workplace accommodations is a proven strategy in supporting individuals with disabilities at work. Accommodations include a wide range of supports and strategies that are not very well defined beyond the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States. Understanding the landscape of accommodations is important to measure the impact of programs that support employment of individuals with disabilities. To conduct a scoping review and thematic analysis of research literature to identify how workplace accommodations are operationalized and to identify knowledge gaps in its conceptualization. Keywords searches were conducted in seven electronic databases. Title, abstract, and full text screening was conducted followed by a thematic analysis of the content to identify how workplace accommodations are operationalized. Overall, 47 studies were selected for review. 433 different types of accommodations were identified, of which assistive technology and specialized equipment represented the most frequently reported type of accommodation (40%). A very small percentage of studies included policy changes (9%) and human assistance (5%) as an accommodation strategy. This scoping review aims to clarify how accommodations are operationalized in the research literature. Key knowledge gaps identified include the systematic exclusion of certain types of supports or disability types.

Background School-to-work transition is a sensitive period that can have a substantial impact on health over the life course. Previous studies suggest pronounced health inequalities during this period but little is known about the determinants at the individual, meso- and macro-levels. We aim to further elucidate possible health inequalities during school-to-work transitions with a focus on multilevel determinants, e.g. evidence on potential effects of contextual and compositional factors of specific institutions involved. Methods We are currently conducting a scoping review (funded by the German Research Foundation) to map the evidence on the above mentioned topic among young adults (aged 16-24 years), following the methodological framework proposed by Arksey and ÓMalley and PRISMA. The literature search was performed in Ovid MEDLINE, Web of Science, ILO and NIOSH, using sensitive search strategy developed by text-analysis. Only articles published between January 2000 - February 2020 and written in English or German are considered. The selection process is conducted following a two-step approach:1) screening of titles and abstracts 2) screening of full-texts by two independent reviewers. Any discrepancies in the selection process are resolved by a third researcher. Preliminary Results Following the five stages of the methodological framework, the scoping review is currently in stage 3 (study selection-screening phase). We found 25,069 potentially relevant articles in our primary search. 15,508 articles remained after the duplicates were removed. Up to now, 8,825 papers were screened of which 7,629 were excluded and 1,176 included which qualified for full-text reading. Complete results of the scoping review will be presented at the conference. Conclusions This scoping review will improve our knowledge about the emergence and development of health inequalities during school-to-work transitions by examining health of individuals in different institutional contexts. Key messages Improving our knowledge of health inequalities during school-to-work transitions. the role of determinants at the individual, meso- and macro-levels during this stage will also be examined.

This paper demonstrates a robust maximum entropy approach to estimating flexible-form farm-level multi-input/multi-output production functions using minimally specified disaggregated data. Since our goal is to address policy questions, we emphasize the model’s ability to reproduce characteristics of the existing production system and predict outcomes of policy changes at a disaggregate level. Measurement of distributional impacts of policy changes requires use of farm-level models estimated across a wide spectrum of sizes and types, which is often difficult with traditional econometric methods due to data limitations. We use a two-stage approach to generate observation-specific shadow values for incompletely priced inputs. We then use the shadow values and nominal input prices to estimate crop-specific production functions using generalized maximum entropy (GME) to capture individual heterogeneity of the production environment while replicating observed inputs and outputs to production. The two-stage GME approach can be implemented with small data sets. We demonstrate this methodology in an empirical application to a small cross-section data set for Northern Rio Bravo, Mexico and estimate production functions for small family farms and moderate commercial farms. The estimates show considerable distributional differences resulting from policies that change water subsidies in the region or shift price supports to direct payments.

This scoping review aims to systematically identify and map the roles of primary healthcare professionals in rural and remote areas during natural, man-made and pandemic disasters. Disasters can be caused by natural events, man-made incidents or infective agents resulting in a pandemic. Healthcare practitioners working in primary care settings have important roles during disaster prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. When rural and remote settings are affected by disasters, there are unique challenges for healthcare professionals. This review will aim to contribute to disaster management knowledge within rural and remote primary health care, and assist in the development of practice-based disaster preparedness and future policy discussion. This review will consider studies that include primary healthcare professionals, defined as having first-level contact with patients in the community, in rural or remote areas only. The role of the healthcare professional will also be discussed within the paper. Research from Australia, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and the UK will be included. Databases to be searched include CINAHL (EBSCOhost), PubMed, Scopus and Embase (Elsevier), as well as gray literature within Trove, MedNar and OpenGrey. The search will be limited to articles written in English and published from 1978 to the present. Titles and abstracts will be screened by two independent reviewers, and full-text studies will be retrieved and assessed against the inclusion criteria. Results will be recorded in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) diagram. Data will be extracted and presented as a tabular summary with supporting narratives and figures.

Devising, promoting, and implementing changes in policies and regulations are important components of population-level health promotion. Whether advocating for changes in school meal nutrition standards or restrictions on secondhand smoke, policy change can create environments conducive to healthier choices. Such policy changes often result from complex advocacy efforts that do not lend themselves to traditional evaluation approaches. In a challenging fiscal environment, allocating scarce resources to policy advocacy may be particularly difficult. A well-designed evaluation that moves beyond inventorying advocacy activities can help make the case for funding advocacy and policy change efforts. Although it is one thing to catalog meetings held, position papers drafted, and pamphlets distributed, it is quite another to demonstrate that these outputs resulted in useful policy change outcomes. This is where the emerging field of advocacy evaluation fits in by assessing (among other things) strategic learning, capacity building, and community organizing. Based on recent developments, this article highlights several challenges advocacy evaluators are currently facing and provides new resources for addressing them.