Economic Harm Research Articles

Global Medical Supply Inequities

The global issue of medical supply inequity exists as some countries have excess medical supplies, which leads to large amounts of medical supply waste resulting in both economical and environmental harm. However, many countries face the opposite issue and instead have a shortage of necessary, life-saving medical supplies. The duality of the issue is a harsh and widespread reality throughout the world. For example, the United States generates about 4.7 million pounds of medical waste yearly (Zygourakis et al., 2015; Thiel et al., 2020). In contrast, India, especially during the COVID-19 epidemic, faced a massive shortage of essential equipment like N-95 respirators, face shields, as well as ventilators. To reduce the worldwide inequities that arise due to the imbalance of medical supplies, Blueprints for Pangaea (B4P), a medical surplus recovery organization was founded. B4P, headquartered at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, redistributes unused medical supplies to places in need both locally and internationally, effectively reducing medical supply inequities one shipment at a time. This paper aims to explore the key components and global dynamics contributing to medical waste and to consider B4P as a potential model for addressing this problem.

Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its control measures on women and children: A Zimbabwe case study.

COVID-19 presented countries with unprecedented health policy challenges. For low-income countries in particular, policymakers had to contend with both the direct threats posed by COVID-19 as well as the social, educational, and economic harms associated with lockdown and other infection prevention and control measures. We present a holistic and contextualised case study of the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 on women and children, with some assessment of their uneven distribution across socio-economic, age and gender groups. We used different types of primary and secondary data from multiple sources to produce a holistic descriptive analysis. Primary data included: qualitative data obtained from 28 in-depth interviews of key informants, six focus group discussions; and 40 household interviews. We also extracted data from government reports and announcements, the District Health Information Software version 2 (DHIS2), newspaper articles and social media, as well as from published research articles. Our findings show that the direct and indirect adverse impacts of COVID-19 were compounded by many years of severe political economic challenges, and consequent deterioration of the healthcare system. The indirect effects of the pandemic had the most severe impacts on the poorest segment of society and widened age and gender inequalities. The pandemic and its accompanying infection prevention and control measures negatively affected health service delivery and uptake. The management of COVID-19 presented enormous challenges to policymakers and public health specialists. These included managing the greatest tension between direct and indirect harms; short-term and long-term effects; and the unequal distribution of harms across different segments of society.

BOYCOTTING PRODUCTS: A DETERRENT APPROACH BY CONSUMER PROTECTION ASSOCIATIONS

Boycott is considered one of the most important means employed by consumer protection associations to deter interveners in product presentation for consumption and halt their illegitimate practices against consumers. It involves systematic refusal and voluntary abstention from consuming the products of a company or a country to pressure or compel them to respond to specific demands by urging consumers to boycott purchasing a certain product, using a particular service, or boycotting paying its price. Despite the importance and effectiveness of this method, there is a noticeable absence of regulation that precisely defines the powers of consumer protection associations to resort to it, thus its legitimacy remains a subject of debate between opponents due to social, economic, and legal considerations, and supporters for the same reasons. Based on this premise, this study aims to investigate how consumer protection associations intervene within their deterrent role framework by advocating for boycotts to maintain a balance between consumer interests and protecting interveners, considering the economic harm that this method may inflict on their interests.

Addressing misinformation about cancer care in the clinical setting: A pilot study of a conversation guide and training for cancer care providers.

e23250 Background: Medical misinformation about cancer care is understudied despite its pervasiveness and harmful effects on patients. This misinformation causes a) delays in care or forgoing of treatment for curable conditions; b) economic harm such as spending and travel on ineffective or harmful treatments; c) potentially toxic effects of the suggested test/treatment; and d) harmful medical interactions with standard curative treatments. Recently, in an IRB study we surveyed MD Anderson clinicians about their ability to successfully address patients who endorse medical misinformation. We found that ~40% of physicians report success rates below 60% for correcting misinformation. ~50% of respondents answered that they have insufficient resources to address patients who endorse misinformation; ~65% answered that they have insufficient training, and ~50% answered that there is insufficient institutional support. In response to these findings, we developed (as far as we know) the first pilot conversation guide and training to improve provider skills and confidence in addressing misinformation about cancer in clinical encounters. Methods: For our quality improvement project, we partnered with clinicians in integrative oncology and gynecologic oncology to develop the conversation guide. The techniques, strategies, and model dialogue in the guide are adapted from best practices developed for addressing vaccine hesitancy. Before the training, we asked 11 physicians to provide a self-assessment of their comfort, confidence, and competence in addressing patients who endorse misinformation about cancer. Then we provided a 25min training in which participants role-played to learn strategies and model dialogue for four common scenarios. After, we resurveyed participants’ self-assessment measures and assessment of the training’s utility. Results: All participants believed the conversation guide and training will be significantly (82%) or moderately (18%) helpful for correcting patients/families who endorse medical misinformation about cancer. 91% said the conversation guide and training significantly (9% moderately) improved their ability to correct patients/patients’ families who endorse medical misinformation. All participants reported improved comfort, confidence, and competence in their ability to address patients/families who endorse misinformation about cancer care. 100% would recommend the guide and training to their peers. Conclusions: Given the prevalence of medical misinformation generally, the training and resources we have developed will be valuable to clinicians effectively address the growing number of patients who endorse misinformation about their care. Our long-term goal is to conduct a larger study and turn our conversation guide and training into a replicable model available for widespread use.

The Quality of Life of Women Divorced due to Domestic Violence

The Indonesian government defines domestic violence as any act of violence against a person, particularly women, that results in physical, sexual, psychological, or economic harm or suffering within the home. This encompasses threats of violence, coercion, and the deprivation of freedom. The high prevalence of domestic violence and the negative impacts that occur on victims of domestic violence make problems related to domestic violence a significant problem that affects the quality of life. This research employs a qualitative research method with a case study approach, with the objective of elucidating the quality of life of women who are divorced as a result of domestic violence. The findings of this study indicate that the participants' physical condition deteriorated following divorce, increasing their susceptibility to disease. Furthermore, the psychological condition of the participants was found to be poor, their spiritual quality was low, and their social relationships declined. However, following the commencement of employment, women who were divorced due to domestic violence were ultimately able to enhance their quality of life, including attaining greater financial stability and psychological well-being. This was characterized by a lack of fear and depression. Furthermore, there was a discernible improvement in their quality of life in social relationships, manifested in the form of numerous interpersonal connections

Automatic Content Analysis Systems: Detecting Disinformation in Social Networks

In the 21st century, the rapid rise of disinformation and propaganda has become a significant global issue, undermining democratic processes and socio-political institutions. Disinformation, defined as intentionally false or misleading information, aims to manipulate public opinion and cause economic harm. This paper explores the use of computational linguistics and machine learning methods to detect disinformation. Techniques such as text preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification algorithms (e.g., SVM, naive Bayes) are adapted for identifying fake news. Recent studies demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods in social media and news platforms, highlighting the importance of advanced models like GPT-4 in improving detection accuracy and combating the spread of disinformation.

Considering climate change impact on the global potential geographical distribution of the invasive Argentine ant and little fire ant.

The Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) and the little fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata) are among the top 100 invasive alien species globally, causing significant ecological and economic harm. Therefore, it is crucial to study their potential geographic distribution worldwide. This study aimed to predict their global distribution under current and future climate conditions. We used distribution data from various sources, including CABI, GBIF, and PIAKey, and key climate variables selected from 19 environmental factors to model their potential geographic distribution using MaxEnt. The AUC values were 0.925 and 0.937 for L. humile and W. auropunctata, respectively, indicating good predictive performance. Suitable areas for L. humile were mainly in southern North America, northern South America, Europe, central Asia, southern Oceania, and parts of Africa, while W. auropunctata suitable areas were mostly in southern North America, most of South America, a small part of Europe, southern Asia, central Africa, and some parts of Oceania. Under climate change scenario, suitable areas for L. humile increased, while highly suitable areas for W. auropunctata decreased. The top four countries with the largest areas of overlapping suitable habitat under current climate were Brazil, China, Australia, and Argentina, while under future SSP585 climate scenario, the top four countries were Brazil, China, Indonesia, and Argentina. Some countries, such as Estonia and Finland, will see an overlapping adaptation area under climate change. In conclusion, this study provides insight into controlling the spread and harm of L. humile and W. auropunctata.

The Linear Non-Threshold Hypothesis-A Failed Concept

The linear non-threshold (LNT) hypothesis is based on the premise that the smallest amount of ionizing radiation produces a biological detriment. It implies that exposure to low-dose radiation be minimized. The LNT approach causes fear and anxiety regarding the beneficial use of radiation and radioactive materials. Contrary to its intended goal of protecting workers and the public, the LNT premise causes physical and economic harm by encouraging radiophobia.

Do Geopolitical Risk and Economic Uncertainty Harm Bank Credit ?

Do Geopolitical Risk and Economic Uncertainty Harm Bank Credit ?

Critical environmental justice and the Wasteocene: Oppression and resistance in an Italian prison during the Covid-19 pandemic

This article aims to frame the state violence and socio-ecological injustice perpetrated against prisoners through the lens of both critical environmental justice studies and the concept of the Wasteocene. We seek to uncover the socio-ecological relationships that have historically shaped the enforcement of the prison and waste systems through a focus on the Italian context during the Covid-19 pandemic. We explore the case of a jail in Campania, a region in the South of Italy infamous for its troubled waste management that has caused uncountable and entangled health, social, and economic harms. The jail is adjacent to an area with a long history of waste disposal practices and numerous legal conflicts and corruption scandals: all characteristics that make this case emblematic of the broader problem of carceral environmental injustice. We argue that carceral institutions are generative sites for examining the dynamics of violence, expendability, and wasting relationships that are built into their structures and core functions We also maintain that the Covid-19 pandemic has both uncovered and exacerbated such dynamics and therefore stands as a framing device that further corroborates our argument. We conclude with lessons and observations for scholars studying environmental concerns and carceral systems through a multidisciplinary lens.

Growing crisis of urban rat infestation in Karaj city, Iran: Insights from hotspot mapping and social network analysis

To control the increasing growth of rat populations in metropolitan areas, several factors need to be considered to mitigate the risks posed by rats. Identifying rat density hotspots with more efficient methods and assessing people's experiences and attitudes toward them can be useful in prioritizing rat control efforts. We focused on the two most common species of rats (Rattus rattus and Rattus norvegicus) in the metropolis of Karaj, the fourth most populous and the largest immigrant-friendly city in Iran. The urban rat infestation is one of the problems caused by the high population growth in Karaj and the insufficient development of urban infrastructure and waste collection. It has led to discontent and public concern about rat infestations and there is a need to address the associated threats. We applied the Kernel Density Function and Optimized Hotspot Analysis to the presence points of the aforementioned types of rats and found that while Optimized Hotspot projects a macro view of hotspots at the city level, the Kernel Density Function prioritizes neighborhoods for initial actions. In addition, social network analysis with complementary regression models was conducted to determine people's experiences. The results show that fear of rats and concern about their presence form the basis of people's attitudes toward rats and lead to feelings of hatred. Moreover, economic harm reinforces people's motivation to control or eliminate this species. Despite their unpleasant feelings toward rats, people have a great influence on the growth of rat infestations by creating food sources through improper waste disposal. They prefer to use traps and poison instead of disposing of household waste and following the principles of cleanliness as preventive measures and believe that the lack of proper garbage collection by the municipality is the most important reason for the growth of rat populations. They are not sufficiently aware of their position in addressing this crisis. Our findings argue for the formation of a stronger network between the relevant authorities and residents, especially those living in the hotspots, to educate them about their role in rat control and to gain their cooperation in improving the city's waste management system.

Deceptive choice architecture and behavioral audits: A principles‐based approach

AbstractRegulators are increasingly concerned about deceptive, online choice architecture, including dark patterns and behavioral sludge. From a behavioral science perspective, fostering a regulatory environment which reduces the economic harm caused by deceptive designs, while safeguarding the benefits of well‐meaning behavioral insights, is essential. This article argues for a principles‐based approach and proposes behavioral audits as a tool to support this approach.

Public Debt Ratios Will Increase For Some Time. We Must Make Sure That They Do Not Explode

Abstract Given high long-term interest rates, most industrial countries have to either cut spending or increase taxes to contain government debt. As an immediate fiscal consolidation would cause economic and political harm, adjustment must be steady and slow, based on a credible plan. This implies that government debt levels have to increase before falling. This is not good, but not catastrophic, as advanced economies can sustain a higher debt ratio, so long as it is not exploding.

Strategically Hijacking Victimhood: A Political Communication Strategy in the Discourse of Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump

This article introduces the concept of “hijacked victimhood” as a form of strategically leveraging victimhood narratives. It is a subset of strategic victimhood, which is a relatively common communicative strategy whereby groups claim victimhood status in contests over power and legitimacy. Political leaders who use the strategy of hijacked victimhood present dominant groups as in danger, as current or future victims, and in need of protection (especially by the crafter of the narrative) from oppressive forces consisting of—or indirectly representing—marginalized and subaltern groups. In the process, leaders hijacking victimhood blunt the rights-based claims of such groups. Analyzing Viktor Orbán’s and Donald Trump’s elite rhetoric in Hungary and the United States, respectively, we inductively document varieties of hijacked victimhood in their political communication, showing how Orbán leverages historical suffering and resistance while Trump constructs economic and value-based harms for dominant groups. Making both conceptual and empirical contributions, we argue that at the heart of hijacked victimhood is a reversal of the victimizer–victim dichotomy, a new portrayal of moral orders, a teleological ordering of past and future harms, and a mobilization of security threats—all used to preserve or expand a dominant group’s power.

GRACE: Empowering LLM-based software vulnerability detection with graph structure and in-context learning

Software vulnerabilities inflict considerable economic and societal harm. Therefore, timely and accurate detection of these flaws has become vital. Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as a promising tool for vulnerability detection in recent studies. However, their effectiveness suffers when limited to plain text source code, which may ignore the syntactic and semantic information of the code. To address this limitation, we propose a novel vulnerability detection approach GRACE that empowers LLM-based software vulnerability detection by incorporating graph structural information in the code and in-context learning. We also design an effective demonstration retrieval approach that identifies highly relevant code examples by considering semantic, lexical, and syntactic similarities for the target code to provide better demonstrations for in-context learning. To evaluate the effectiveness of GRACE, we conducted an empirical study on three vulnerability detection datasets (i.e., Devign, Reveal, and Big-Vul). The results demonstrate that GRACE outperforms six state-of-the-art vulnerability detection baselines by at least 28.65% in terms of the F1 score across these three datasets. Therefore, our study highlights the effectiveness of integrating graph structural information and in-context learning in LLMs for vulnerability detection. These findings motivate further investigation into tailoring such approaches for specific vulnerability types or adapting them to other security tasks.

Law enforcement and auditors' roles, responses, and complicated relationships in accounting fraud?

Financial statement falsification or fraud that directly affects financial statements. The most extreme financial statement manipulation is accounting fraud. Beyond financial losses, fraud affects employees, industry, the environment, and society (International Public Sector Fraud Forum, 2020). Fraud causes corporate bankruptcy, reducing family income. Fraud distorts markets by giving fraudulent companies an advantage over legal ones. Accounting fraud can cause controversies that impact society and stakeholders. Regulators, practitioners, and researchers prioritize preventing these potentially dangerous events. Corporate activity monitoring has improved, but severe accounting fraud remains in ostensibly robust and diverse institutional environments. Accounting literature on auditor-law enforcement fraud coordination is examined in this study. This literature review uses a mixed methods research synthesis to analyze accounting journal articles from 2014 to 2024 using keywords like "Auditors," "Enforcement," "Accounting fraud," "responses," and "complicated relationships." Auditor and law enforcement roles, leading fraud indicators, and stages will be studied. Use Publish or Perish (PoP) and SLR 7P to collect data from SINTA, SEMANTIC Scholar, and Google Scholar. The investigations show the range of fraud terminologies and concepts, quantitative measurement discrepancy, and shallow fraud analysis. This study suggests more law enforcement-auditor case studies. This work will inform fraud accounting research. This paper underlines the need for academic, political, and practitioner cooperation to limit fraud's economic and social harms in a complex and interrelated system. This study examines how the accounting literature addresses law enforcement-auditor relationships in accounting fraud rather than monitoring systems or broad fraud discussions. Law enforcement actions have a significant impact on auditor-client relationships and information disclosure. Customers' perceptions of auditor quality and risks will be examined in the essay.

Freedom to Operate analysis as competitive necessity—the Selden automobile patent case revisited

Abstract We contribute a unique empirical account of Freedom to Operate (FTO) analysis in respect to patent claims of others to avoid infringement liability. Over a century ago, the Selden automobile patent owners asserted that its scope encompassed early US automobiles. FTO analyses of the Selden patent claims demonstrated their narrow scope and hence their non-infringement. The legal opinion by patent attorney Parker on the Selden patent gave Ford Motor Company the confidence to publicly indemnify its customers from infringement liability and to publicly challenge the broad claim interpretation of the Selden patent. The asserted broad interpretation of Selden’s patent claims is sometimes alleged today to have retarded US automobile industry development but a review of commercial evidence of the development does not support this conjecture. That developers were undeterred is consistent with the FTO analyses conducted by Ford and others, and the patentee’s avoidance of a court challenge to the validity of the Selden patent on the merits. The Selden case should be known as the classic empirical example of how firms conduct FTO analysis to assess patent scope and validity to enable continued development. The prevalence of FTO practice today should be considered as a reason why such conjectured economic harms from ‘over-broad’ patents may not be realized today. Yet, we found a dearth of publicly available FTO analyses and lack of rigorous empirical studies demonstrating the actual extent of FTO analyses. Given continuing concerns over the harms from ‘over-broad’ patents, there is a need for research into the economics and behavioural influence of FTO analysis.

Influences of Software Changes on Oxycodone Prescribing at an Australian Tertiary Emergency Department: A Retrospective Review.

Opioid prescribing and dispensing from emergency departments is a noteworthy issue given widespread opioid misuse and diversion in many countries, contributing both physical and economic harm to the population. High patient numbers and the stochastic nature of acute emergency presentations to emergency departments (EDs) introduce challenges for prescribers who are considering opioid stewardship principles. This study investigated the effect of changes to electronic prescribing software on prescriptions with an auto-populated quantity of oxycodone immediate release (IR) from an Australian tertiary emergency department following the implementation of national recommendations for reduced pack sizes. A retrospective review of oxycodone IR prescriptions over two six-month periods between 2019 and 2021 was undertaken, either side of a software adjustment to reduce the default quantities of tablets prescribed from 20 to 10. Patient demographic details were collected, and prescriber years of practice calculated for inclusion in linear mixed effects regression modelling. A reduction in the median number of tablets prescribed per prescription following the software changes (13.5 to 10.0, p < 0.001) with little change in the underlying characteristics of the patient or prescriber populations was observed, as well as an 11.65% reduction in the total number of tablets prescribed. The prescriber's years of practice, patient age and patient sex were found to influence increased prescription sizes. Reduced quantity of oxycodone tablets prescribed was achieved by alteration of prescribing software prefill parameters, providing further evidence to support systems-based policy interventions to influence health care providers behaviour and to act as a forcing function for prescribers to consider opioid stewardship principles.

Emerging Insect Pests of Vegetable Crops under Changing Climate Scenario

Crop losses in vegetables vary greatly depending on plant variety, cropping season, geographical location, and pest damage potential. Vegetable crops are heavily impacted by insect pests and diseases due to their softness, fragility and short duration in comparison to other crops. An emerging insect pest is one that has been observed in a specific crop-infested area and has progressively increased in population over time. Emerging insect pests have the potential to cause economic harm. In other words, an emerging insect pest is a pest insect whose position has shifted from minor to major or secondary to primary pest. The number of existing minor pests is increasing, as is the arrival of new ones, such as mealybugs, fruit flies, stem borers, diamondback moths among phytophagous insects and red spider mites among acarine. Recent infestations, such as South American tomato pinworm and chili black flower thrips, have caused serious damage to tomato and chili harvests. This review envisages on the variables that contribute to the establishment of new invasive pests, the persistence of main pests, general pest management practices, and integrated pest management to achieve sustainable vegetable production.

Social and legal conditionality of customs duties evasion criminal liability

The subject of this article is the socio-legal conditionality of establishing liability for criminal evasion of customs and other payments. This article aims to answer the question of the validity of the elevation of the specified illegal act in the field of economic activity to the category of criminally punishable acts by analyzing relevant statistical data, recent legislative changes in the criminal law, studying the author's positions on the expediency of criminal law protection of calculation and collection of customs and other payments, and also taking into account technical transformations in the customs infrastructure. The author used dialectical, systemic, sociological, statistical, comparative legal methods to study the patterns of changes in the field of customs relations and subsequent legislative transformations in criminal legislation, the impact of these legislative decisions on statistical indicators of countering customs crime. As a result of the analysis of current statistical data related to the dynamics of the number of registered crimes, economic harm caused, recent legislative changes in the criminal law sphere, the study of author's positions on the expediency of criminal law protection of public relations related to the calculation and collection of customs and other payments, as well as taking into account information and technical transformations in the customs infrastructure the author concludes that it is advisable to establish a criminal law prohibition on evasion of customs payments, special, anti-dumping and (or) countervailing duties levied on organizations, as well as individuals. The relevance of this article is also due to the fact that over the past almost 10 years there have been no works devoted to the analysis of the socio-legal conditionality of establishing liability for evasion of customs and other payments paid in connection with the movement of goods across the customs border.