Agency Participants Research Articles

Factors associated with compliance payments patient social assurance administrative agency of health independent participants in the hospital Kendari city southeast Sulawesi province Indonesia, 2023

Background: Health is a human right that must be fulfilled by every country. Therefore, the Indonesian government guarantees quality health services through the implementation of national health insurance as a global commitment for every country to implement universal health coverage. In Indonesia, the number of participants in the health social assurance administration agency reached 248.77 million people or the equivalent of 90.73% of the entire population of Indonesia which was recorded at 274.20 million people. Southeast Sulawesi has a total of 8,071,716 health social assurance administration agency participants, while in Kendari City the number of participants from the health social security administration body reached 67,375 as of August 2023. However, health social assurance administration agency membership is not followed by the level of compliance of health social assurance administration agency participants in paying contributions. Method: The type of research used is descriptive quantitative with a cross sectional study approach. The total sample was 505 respondents with sampling methods, namely accidental sampling and purposive sampling. The independent variables are knowledge and sanctions, while the dependent variable is compliance with paying contributions. Data analysis uses bivariate analysis with the unit of analysis, namely the chi-square test with SPSS. Result: The results of the research show that there is a significant relationship between knowledge and compliance with paying health social assurance administration agency. The results of statistical tests using the chi-square test obtained a p-value = 0.000 < 0.05. Meanwhile, there is no relationship between sanctions and compliance with paying health social assurance administration agency. The results of statistical tests using the chi-square test obtained a p-value = 0.541 > 0.05. Conclusion: There is a relationship between knowledge and compliance with paying health social assurance administration agency independent participant and there is no relationship between sanctions and compliance with paying health social assurance administration agency independent participant in hospitals throughout Kendari City. Therefore, health social assurance administration agency needs to collaborate with all stakeholders involved to increase socialization so that health social assurance administration agency independent participant membership achievements are directly proportional to compliance with paying contributions, because this can indirectly affect health services.

Forging a new path for multi-cultural fishery management

In 2007, the state of Michigan and five tribes entered into a consent decree that provides for collaborative fishery management. The parties desire a productive co-management relationship and realize the need to understand perspectives towards fishery management. State and tribal participants were interviewed, with some tribal agency participants being non-tribal member employees. The findings revealed a lack of understanding between the groups for management priorities and a wide cultural distance between backgrounds in either the Indigenous and/or Western knowledge systems. State employees described their qualifications through Western education and individual learning while tribal member employees identified theirs as community experiences and relations with the natural world. The responsibility to manage was described through the public trust doctrine by state participants, whereas tribal participants described sacred responsibilities, and protecting treaty rights and culture. The purpose of fishery management as described by state participants was through sustainability of the resource and harvest while tribal participants spoke of balance within the Circle of Life concept and suggested the term ‘management’ was inappropriate. The tribal agency employees who were non-tribal members, used both knowledge types expressing scientific concepts while using Indigenous expressions learned partially through their normative presence in tribal communities. Opportunities exist for dismantling cultural distance, forming a collective identity, and sharing power, if state governance structures adapt to include Indigenous knowledge and practices. This may require restructuring governance arrangements to promote power sharing and the normative presence of cross-trained employees within the respective communities where structured learning exist and cultural sharing begins.

Agency enhances temporal order memory in an interactive exploration game.

Agency has been shown to facilitate episodic memory. However, most paradigms use simple list-learning tasks, which preclude the ability to characterize more associative forms of memory, such as binding of items into spatial and temporal context. Across two studies, we characterize the role of agency on associative memory formation. We delineate agentive from passive memory encoding by allowing agency participants to play an online text-based game meant to simulate free exploration of objects in different rooms and yoking each passive participant's trajectory to an agentive participant, thus equating their exposure to the stimuli. To assess memory differences, we gathered three measures: item descriptions, spatial location, and temporal order. While memory for spatial location and item features did not differ between groups, there was a marked enhancement of temporal order memory in the agentive group across two independent samples. These findings support a model of self-directed learning, in which agency facilitates the binding of items into a temporal context, which allows for the sequential binding of information into continuous narratives.

Assessment of health and social security agency participants proportion using hierarchical bayesian small area estimation

Data on the number of health insurance participants at the subdistrict level is crucial since it is strongly correlated with the availability of health service centers in the areas. This study’s primary purpose is to predict the proportion of health and social security participants of a state-owned company named Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial Kesehatan (BPJS) in eleven subdistricts in Padang, Indonesia. The direct, ordinary least square, and hierarchical Bayesian for small area estimation (HB-SAE) methods were employed in obtaining the best estimator for the BPJS participants in these small areas. This study found that the HB-SAE method resulted in better estimation than two other methods since it has the smallest standard deviation value. The auxiliary variable age (percentage of individuals more than 50 years old) and the percentage of health complaints have a significant effect on the proportion of the number of BPJS participants based on the HB-SAE method.

Barriers to the access and utilization of healthcare for trafficked youth in the United States

BackgroundChild trafficking is a pervasive public health problem in the United States, with significant health consequences for survivors. Previous studies demonstrated that survivors face barriers to healthcare, though much of the literature has not solely focused on domestic child trafficking. ObjectiveTo identify barriers to healthcare faced by survivors of child trafficking in the United States, and to characterize the landscape of available trauma-informed medical services. Participants62 adult survivors of child trafficking (83% female, 10% male, 7% transgender; 90% sex trafficking, 25% labor trafficking; median age of entry 16) and 37 community agency professionals who work with trafficked children. SettingThe United States of America. MethodsThe Barriers to Care Questionnaire (BCQ) was adapted, piloted with a focus group, and disseminated to participants. ResultsA statistically significant increase in survivors seeking healthcare after compared to before trafficking was demonstrated (p < 0.05). Eighteen consequential barriers to healthcare were identified. The marginalization domain, representing the individual's perception of negative experiences with the healthcare system, had the highest number of consequential barriers. The majority of survivor and agency participants felt the physical and mental health needs of survivors are not being met, but would seek out trauma-informed healthcare if it were available in their community. ConclusionsSurvivors of child trafficking in the U.S. experience a wide range of barriers to healthcare, and a lack of available trauma-informed healthcare. This study identified barriers to healthcare that can be considered by providers hoping to provide accessible and truama-informed services to trafficked children.

Resiliency Engagement and Care in Health (REaCH): a telephone befriending intervention for upskilled rural youth in the context of COVID-19 pandemic\u2014study protocol for a multi-centre cluster randomised controlled trial

BackgroundThe lockdown associated with the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to impact people’s mental health, especially those from economically disadvantaged and vulnerable sections of society. Mental health can be affected by many factors, including fear of disease transmission, from response measures against the pandemic like social distancing, movement restriction, fear of being in quarantine, loneliness, depression due to isolation, fear of losing work and livelihood and avoiding health care due to fear of being infected. Telephonic befriending intervention by non-specialists will be used to provide social and emotional support to the youth from the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDUGKY), an initiative of the Government of India. This study aims to promote mental wellbeing and reduce depressive symptoms by assisting participants to mobilise social support from family, friends and significant others by using the telephonic befriending intervention.MethodsIn this article, we report the design and protocol of a multi-centre cluster randomised controlled trial. In total, 1440 participants aged 18–35 years who have recently completed their course out of the DDU-GKY initiative will be recruited in the study from 12 project-implementing agencies (PIAs) across six geographical zones of India. Participants from 6 of these agencies will be assigned to the telephonic befriending intervention arm, and the other six agency participants will be assigned to the general enquiry phone call arm (control). The primary outcomes of this study are mental wellbeing, depressive symptoms and perceived social support. Baseline assessments and follow-up assessments will be carried out 1 month following the intervention using WHO-5, PHQ and MSPSS-12 questionnaires. The befriending intervention will be provided by DDU-GKY staff, whom a virtual training programme will train.DiscussionThis trial will help assess whether participants who are offered emotional, social and practical support through befriending will experience lesser symptoms of depression and better mental health compared to participants who do not receive this intervention through mobilised social support from friends, family and others.Trial registrationClinical Trial Registry India (ICMR-NIMS) CTRICTRI/2020/07/026834. Registered on 27 July 2020.

Evidence-informed urban health and sustainability governance in two Chinese cities.

Sustainable development is best supported by intersectoral policies informed by a range of evidence and knowledge types (e.g. scientific and lay). Given China’s rapid urbanisation, scale and global importance in climate mitigation, this study investigates how evidence is perceived and used to inform urban health and sustainability policies at central and local levels. Well-informed senior professionals in government/scientific agencies (12 in Beijing and 11 in Ningbo) were interviewed. A thematic analysis is presented using deductive and inductive coding. Government agency participants described formal remits and processes determining the scope and use of evidence by different tiers of government. Academic evidence was influential when commissioned by government departments. Public opinion and economic priorities were two factors that also influenced the use or weight of evidence in policymaking. This study shows that scientific evidence produced or commissioned by government was routinely used to inform urban health and sustainability policy. Extensive and routine data collection is regularly used to inform cyclical policy processes, which improves adaptive capacity. This study contributes to knowledge on the ‘cultures of evidence use’. Environmental governance can be further improved through increased data-sharing and use of diverse knowledge types.

The information content of high-frequency traders aggressive orders: recent evidence

This empirical study uses a unique recent data set provided by the French regulator ‘Autorité des Marchés Financiers’ and gives some evidence concerning the impact of aggressive orders on the price formation process and the information content of these orders according to the different order flow categories (high-frequency traders, agency participants and proprietary participants). We find that both the instantaneous and the transient price impact of aggressive orders consuming exactly the quantity present at the best limit is higher than that of the ones consuming less than the quantity present at the best limit. Furthermore, the price impact is an increasing function with respect to the consumed share in percentage. We show that these price impact disparities are sustainable over time: both price impacts are permanent. In contrast to previous literature, we find that aggressive orders of HFTs carry more information about the short-term behaviour of the price than the ones of agency and proprietary members. This new finding may be an indicator of the evolution of high frequency traders activity over the years.

Virtual Reality for Therapeutic Recreation in Dementia Hospice Care: A Feasibility Study

To explore acceptability, tolerability, and subjective experience of virtual reality (VR) as therapeutic recreation for hospice patients living with dementia (hPLWD). Descriptive study setting. A convenience sample of n = 25 hPLWD cared for by a local hospice agency. Participants viewed a beach scene using VR headset for ≤30 minutes. Tolerability was measured with Pain Assessment IN Advanced Dementia (PAINAD)scores at baseline, every 5 minutes during VR use, and 5 minutes after headset removal. Additionally, follow-up phone calls to caregivers several hours after the intervention were performed to inquire regarding any noted adverse effect after the intervention. The subjective experience was measured with qualitative semistructured interviews with the hPLWD regarding enjoyment for the VR. Descriptive statistics were performed on all collected data. The VR was stopped early in 2 of the participants due to a ≥2-point increase in PAINAD score. Baseline behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) were reported to have worsened in 2 (8%) of the participants at follow-up. There was no significant difference between dementia type and usage time or dementia severity and usage time. Of the 25 participants, 14 (56%) reported enjoying VR and 12 (48%) would do it again. Virtual reality use was generally safe and enjoyable in hPLWD. Virtual reality can provide meaningful activity and enhance quality of life for hPLWD at the end of life. In the future, VR may be a useful intervention for BPSD in hPLWD.

The Information Content of High Frequency Traders Aggressive Orders: Recent Evidences

This empirical study uses a unique recent data set provided by the French regulator Autorite des Marches Financiers and gives some evidence concerning the impact of aggressive orders on the price formation process and the information content of these orders according to the different order flow categories (high frequency traders, agency participants and proprietary participants). As expected, we find that the price impact of aggressive orders consuming exactly the quantity present at the best limit is higher than that of the ones consuming less than the quantity present at the best limit. Furthermore, the price impact is an increasing function with respect to the consumed share in percentage. We show that these price impact disparities are sustainable over time: both price impacts are permanent. On the contrary, the impact of orders consuming more than the quantity present at the best limit starts to diminish one second after the aggressive order. In contrast to previous literature, we find that the aggressive orders of HFTs are more informed than the ones of agency and proprietary members. This new finding may be an indicator of the evolution of high frequency traders activity over the years.

Comparison of USDA Forest Service and Stakeholder Motivations and Experiences in Collaborative Federal Forest Governance in the Western United States.

In the United States, over 191 million acres of land is managed by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, a federal government agency. In several western U.S. states, organized collaborative groups have become a de facto governance approach to providing sustained input on management decisions on much public land. This is most extensive in Oregon, where at least 25 "forest collaboratives" currently exist. This affords excellent opportunities for studies of many common themes in collaborative governance, including trust, shared values, and perceptions of success. We undertook a statewide survey of participants in Oregon forest collaboratives to examine differences in motivations, perceptions of success, and satisfaction among Forest Service participants ("agency participants"), who made up 31% of the sample, and other respondents ("non-agency") who represent nonfederal agencies, interest groups, citizens, and non-governmental groups. We found that agency participants differed from non-agency participants. They typically had higher annual incomes, and were primarily motivated to participate to build trust. However, a majority of all respondents were similar in not indicating any other social or economic motivations as their primary reason for collaborating. A majority also reported satisfaction with their collaborative-despite not ranking collaborative performance on a number of specific potential outcomes highly. Together, this suggests that collaboration in Oregon is currently perceived as successful despite not achieving many specific outcomes. Yet there were significant differences in socioeconomic status and motivation that could affect the ability of agency and nonagency participants to develop and achieve mutually-desired goals.

Building Bridges in New Jersey.

This article describes the experience and outcomes of the National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Studies 2 Improving Best Practices in Assessment and Case Planning for Offenders protocol in the state of New Jersey. The protocol was designed to test the effectiveness of an Organizational Process Improvement Intervention in improving four assessment and case planning domains for drug-involved offenders in correctional settings transferring to community treatment based agencies. This article describes the protocol and the change team model process through which correctional and community agency staff collaborated to improve assessment and case planning for offenders with substance abuse problems. The primary goal of these collaborative efforts was to link information across stages of the treatment continuum to improve service coordination. Data taken from qualitative interviews with agency participants are used to illustrate the common themes that emerged relating to the intervention process, barriers to implementing developed goals, and facilitative factors that contributed to successes. The findings from the current study provide indication that organizational process improvement strategies can be implemented within a correctional setting to reduce interorganizational barriers and to facilitate improvements in the continuum of care involved in the treatment of offenders with histories of substance abuse.

Re‐envisioning State and Tribal Collaboration in Fishery Assessment and Restoration

In 2007, the state of Michigan and five tribes entered into a consent decree that provides opportunity for collaborative fishery assessments and restoration activities. The struggles found in state and tribal cooperation are well known by many fisheries practitioners; less well known is the benefit, although described extensively in literature. To achieve this benefit, each participating culture must be granted an equitable and mutually beneficial role in the comanagement arrangement. To comprehend the range of perspectives and values for fishery assessment and restoration activities, we conducted semistructured interviews with state and tribal agency participants and evaluated work plan data. Similarities included focus on ecosystem sustainability and harvest opportunities; however, participants often assigned and described value differently through divergent western and indigenous knowledge systems. New areas for fostering cultural understanding, broader views, collaboration, and networking to develop shared priorities are proposed.

Characteristics and service use of participants in a large consumer-operated service agency.

Administrative data were used to examine the demographic and service-use characteristics of participants in a large consumer-operated agency in New York City (NYC). Demographic characteristics for all consumer-operated agency participants in 2011 (N = 3,296) were compared with data from the 2011 Office of Mental Health Patient Characteristics Survey (N = 87,131). Consumer-operated participants were more likely to be male and diagnosed with a mood disorder, and less likely to be Latino/a than public mental health recipients. "Advocacy" and "Self-Help Services" were used by 80% of service recipients, and lengths-of-stay averaged less than 6 months. Self-help services were the most common consumer-operated service used in NYC. Given the demographic differences noted, consumer-operated service providers may need to take additional steps to engage women, Latinos, and persons diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders to reach the full range of public mental health consumers.

Enacting change through action learning: mobilizing and managing power and emotion

This paper reports on a study of how action learning facilitates the movement of knowledge between social contexts. The study involved a community organization that provides educational services related to aphasia and members of a complex continuing care (CCC) practice that received training from the agency. People with aphasia (PWA) (a disability often caused by stroke) retain inherent cognitive competence but have difficulty communicating (speaking, writing, and understanding). The agency has developed a communication technique that improves the ability of PWA to communicate. This project used action learning to introduce a reflective learning cycle into two groups: the agency project team responsible for providing the training and the CCC practice members who received the training. Research participants at both the agency and the CCC facility focused on issues of skill and capacity, and both groups credit the action learning process with introducing a helpful problem-solving cycle into the workplace. CCC participants found that the action learning set provided an emotional container for the anxieties experienced in their workplace. Agency participants found that they were able to use power differences as a way of bringing about beneficial changes.

Effects of Community Transition Teams on Interagency Collaboration for School and Adult Agency Staff

This study examined change in indicators of high-quality interagency collaboration after 1 year of establishing a community transition team and compared school and adult agency staff participants. The Transition Collaboration Survey was developed based on research-based indicators of collaboration, piloted, administered to school and agency participants from 16 midwestern community transition teams, and then analyzed through nonparametric statistics. Results indicated a significant increase in indicators of high-quality collaboration in domain areas of shared vision, variety of partnerships, time together, joint planning, shared leadership, structure, training together, minimizing duplication, and sustainability. School and adult agency staff increased collaboration in each domain area, with the exception of only school staff increasing administrative support.

Using Participatory Workshops to Integrate State-and-Transition Models Created With Local Knowledge and Ecological Data

State-and-transition models (STMs) depict current understanding of vegetation dynamics and are being created for most ecological sites in the United States. Model creation is challenging due to inadequate long-term data, and most STMs rely on expert knowledge. There has been little systematic documentation of how different types of knowledge have been integrated in STMs, or what these distinct knowledge sources offer. We report on a series of participatory workshops where stakeholders helped to integrate STMs developed for the same region using local knowledge and ecological field data. With this exploratory project, we seek to understand what kinds of information local knowledge and ecological field data can provide to STMs, assess workshops as a method of integrating knowledge and evaluate how different stakeholders perceive models created with different types of knowledge. Our analysis is based on meeting notes, comments on draft models, and workshop evaluation questionnaires. We conclude that local knowledge and ecological data can complement one another, providing different types of information at different spatial and temporal scales. Participants reported that the workshop increased their knowledge of STMs and vegetation dynamics, suggesting that engaging potential model users in developing STMs is an effective outreach and education approach. Agency representatives and ranchers expressed the value of both the local knowledge and data-driven models. Agency participants were likely to critique or add components based on monitoring data or prior research, and ranchers were more likely to add states and transitions based on personal experience. As STM development continues, it is critical that range professionals think systematically about what different forms of data might contribute to model development, how we can best integrate existing knowledge and data to create credible and useful models, and how to validate the resulting STMs. Los modelos de estados-y-transiciones (METs) describen el estado actual del conocimiento sobre la dinámica de la vegetación y están siendo elaborados para la mayoría de los sitios ecológicos de los Estados Unidos. La elaboración de estos modelos presenta desafíos debido a series históricas de datos inadecuadas, y la mayoría de los METs se basan en conocimiento experto. Ha habido escasa documentación sistemática sobre cómo diferentes tipos de conocimiento han sido incorporados en los METs, o sobre qué ofrece cada una de estas fuentes de conocimiento. Se informan los resultados de una serie de talleres participativos en los que las partes interesadas ayudaron a integrar METs desarrollados para una misma región utilizando conocimiento local y datos ecológicos de campo. Este proyecto exploratorio busca entender qué tipos de información pueden aportar a los METs, el conocimiento local y los datos ecológicos de campo, evaluar a los talleres como un método para integrar conocimientos, y evaluar la percepción de los modelos creados con diferentes tipos de conocimiento por parte de distintos participantes. Nuestro análisis se basa en notas tomadas durante reuniones, comentarios recibidos sobre borradores de modelos, y cuestionarios de evaluación de talleres. Concluimos que el conocimiento local y los datos ecológicos pueden complementarse mutuamente, proveyendo diferentes tipos de información a distintas escalas espacio-temporales. Los participantes manifestaron que el taller aumentó su conocimiento sobre los METs y la dinámica de la vegetación, hecho que sugiere que la participación de los usuarios potenciales de los modelos en el proceso de elaboración de los METs es un método efectivo de extensión y educación. Los representantes de las agencias del gobierno y los productores expresaron el valor tanto del conocimiento local como de los modelos basados en datos. Los participantes de las agencias gubernamentales fueron más propensos a realizar críticas o agregar componentes basados en monitoreo o investigación previa, los productores fueron más propensos a agregar estados y transiciones sobre la base de su experiencia personal. A medida que se continúe con la elaboración de METs, es sumamente importante que los profesionales de manejo de pastizales naturales piensen sistemáticamente acerca de los diferentes tipos de datos que podrían contribuir a la elaboración de los modelos, cuál es la mejor manera de integrar el conocimiento y los datos existentes para crear modelos creíbles y útiles, y cómo validar los METs resultantes.

Conference Report: DIA/PhRMA workshop on DBS Sampling in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Methodology, Implementation &amp; Best Practices

Representing the first industry-led workshop on this topic, the Drug Information Association (DIA) and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) cosponsored a workshop on dried blood spots (DBS) sampling in the pharmaceutical industry. Sampling from DBS on specialty papers is a novel methodology in the area of pharmacokinetics and toxicokinetics that serves to replace conventional plasma analysis for pharmaceutical development. As the awareness around this technology has increased exponentially in recent years, this 1-day symposium aimed to share current best practices for DBS use and implementation, sample collection, handling and associated bioanalysis. The event drew over 150 industry and agency participants; an impressive attendance for a relatively new technology within the industry. Overall, the day was divided into six separate technical sessions plus poster sessions, and included concurrent breakout sessions dedicated to three key areas surrounding DBS implementation: bioanalytical, toxicology/safety assessment and clinical/pharmacokinetics.

Development and Implementation of a Functional Exercise to Assess Public Health Agency Response to Foodborne Bioterrorism

Agroterrorism and food terrorism have been identified as important homeland security issues by officials in the public health, government, and food industry sectors of the U.S. Intentional contamination of food has already occurred both abroad and in North America. Outbreak investigation and control measures in response to intentional contamination differ from those employed in cases of naturally occurring contamination. Operations-based exercise efforts specific to bioterrorism events are essential to train public health personnel and first responders to consider the possibility of deliberate contamination during an outbreak investigation. A recent search of the Rand Corporation's Public Health Preparedness database identified no operations-based (functional or full-scale) exercises involving foodborne contamination with a biological or chemical agent.This manuscript describes a functional exercise developed and conducted by the University of Illinois, College of Veterinary Medicine, Section of Community Health and Preventive Medicine. The functional exercise simulated a food-borne terrorism event and was designed to evaluate the efficacy of the Food Emergency Response Plan (FERP) of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), Division of Food, Drugs and Dairies (DFDD). The exercise was held on November 18th and 19th, 2008 at the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL.Based on this and previous exercises and training programs developed and conducted by CHPM, it is apparent that the more exercise designers, evaluators and public health and support agency participants move away from discussion based exercises and towards operations based exercises, the more strengths and deficiencies in preparation and response of participating agencies are revealed. Although public health agencies have begun training personnel and partner agencies to consider intentional contamination of food during an outbreak investigation, the relative lack of widespread operations-based exercises to assess preparedness in response to an intentional incident of food-borne contamination seems to be an important deficiency in homeland security. Additional funding to create opportunities for public health and first responder personnel to participate in operations-based bioterrorism response exercises is needed.

Voices from the field

Numerous accounts of the difficulties encountered in research collaborations can be found in the extant literature. Most of these accounts, however, are from the perspective of academically based researchers. Comparatively little is known about how agency staff respond to these initiatives. To address this gap in knowledge, the article describes the challenges encountered during a research collaboration from the perspective of agency participants. Interviews were conducted with agency staff who have partnered with a university-based research team in an attempt to implement a continual learning system in their agencies. Despite taking great care to set up the project in a way that was intended to foster collaboration, the project encountered some difficulties over the course of its first three years. The article concludes with suggestions for both the implementation of research collaborations and research on the endeavors themselves.