Impact Of Policy Interventions Research Articles

Impact of Policy Interventions on Postoperative Opioid Prescribing.

To assess postoperative opioid prescribing in response to state and organizational policy changes. We used an observational study design at an academic medical center in the Northeast United States over a time during which there were two important influences: 1) implementation of state rules regarding opioid prescribing and 2) changes in organization policies reflecting evolving standards of care. Results were summarized at the surgical specialty and procedure level and compared between baseline (July-December 2016) and postrule (July-December 2017) periods. We analyzed data from 17,937 procedures from July 2016 to December 2017, two-thirds of which were outpatient. Schedule II opioids were prescribed in 61% of cases and no opioids at all in 28%. The median morphine milligram equivalent (MME) prescribed at discharge decreased 40%, from 113 MME in the baseline period to 68 MME in the postrule period. Decreases were seen across all the surgical specialties. Postoperative opioid prescribing at the time of hospital discharge decreased between 2016 and 2017 in the setting of targeted and replicable state and health care organizational policies. Policies governing the use of opioids are an effective and adoptable approach to reducing opioid prescribing following surgery.

Complex systems modeling for evaluating potential impact of traffic safety policies: a case on drug-involved fatal crashes

Driving under the influence of illicit drugs is a critical road safety and public health concern. The U.S. National Drug Control Strategy has set a goal in 2010 to lower drugged driving significantly. In this study we presented a complex systems approach and developed a system dynamics (SD) model of drugged driving for assessing the impact of drugged driving per se law on the crash fatalities over time. The experimental analyses presented the behavioral change on the trend of number of annual drug-related fatally injured drivers when per se law is implemented with certain effect and investigated on the impact of drugged driving per se law on the number drug-related fatally injured drivers. By considering multiple interrelated factors that may influence drugged driving behaviors, the SD model was helpful in analyzing the potential “real world” impact of policy interventions on improving roadway safety and the behavior of drivers given the road infrastructure. Analyses showed that per se law would have negative exponential effect on the drugged driving fatalities over time and the policy effect would require time to be visible. In addition, combining policies of drugged driving and investing on public transportation would cause a higher change over time on reversing the trend of number of drugged driving-related crashes, however, cost effectiveness of policies still need further investigation.

Social Media as a Catalyst for Policy Action and Social Change for Health and Well-Being: Viewpoint.

This viewpoint paper argues that policy interventions can benefit from the continued use of social media analytics, which can serve as an important complement to traditional social science data collection and analysis. Efforts to improve well-being should provide an opportunity to explore these areas more deeply, and encourage the efforts of those conducting national and local data collection on health to incorporate more of these emerging data sources.Social media remains a relatively untapped source of information to catalyze policy action and social change. However, the diversity of social media platforms and available analysis techniques provides multiple ways to offer insight for policy making and decision making. For instance, social media content can provide timely information about the impact of policy interventions. Social media location information can inform where to deploy resources or disseminate public messaging. Network analysis of social media connections can reveal underserved populations who may be disconnected from public services. Machine learning can help recognize important patterns for disease surveillance or to model population sentiment. To fully realize these potential policy uses, limitations to social media data will need to be overcome, including data reliability and validity, and potential privacy risks.Traditional data collection may not fully capture the upstream factors and systemic relationships that influence health and well-being. Policy actions and social change efforts, such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s effort to advance a culture of health, which are intended to drive change in a network of upstream health drivers, will need to incorporate a broad range of behavioral information, such as health attitudes or physical activity levels. Applying innovative techniques to emerging data has the potential to extract insight from unstructured data or fuse disparate sources of data, such as linking health attitudes that are expressed to health behaviors or broader health and well-being outcomes.

The Impact of Policy Intervention on Regional Economic Growth in China

As a grand policy of realizing the rapid development of the western region and narrowing the income gap between the western region and the eastern and central regions after China’s reform and opening up, it is of great practical significance to objectively study its policy effects. This paper uses the data of municipal districts in Chinese cities from 1997 to 2014 in China City Statistical Yearbook to evaluate the policy effect of the western development strategy by using the method of difference-in-difference propensity score matching (PSM-DID). The research results show that the western development policy has not improved the economic growth of the western region, but has negatively affected the economic growth of the western region. In addition, economic growth in the western region may be due to factors such as fixed asset investment, foreign direct investment, and higher education levels, etc. Therefore, the strategic direction of the development of the western region should focus on human capital investment, improve the market economy system, and strengthen exchanges and cooperation between regions in the future.

Regional Inequality and Decentralized Governance: Canada’s Provinces

Regional scientists commonly concern themselves with topics involving regional inequalities—why they occur and persist, how inequality may be reduced or what exacerbates it, and the impact of policy interventions. Regional nequalities fuel our research and its policy relevance. For most of us, these investigations are in the context of exogenously defined “regions,” with political and administrative boundaries originating in a decentralized government context. The regions that are our units of analysis seldom reflect economic realities, yet their boundaries, once drawn, are very persistent and to a large extent determine the degree to which inequalities may be reduced over time, either through private decisions or through government policy. This paper offers a descriptive illustration of fundamental differences among Canada’s provinces as a potential constraint on the possibility of convergence over time, interregional migration responses, and the impacts of an explicit national government equalization.

Experimental Evidence on Transfer Pricing

Abstract We use incentivized economics experiments to test both the point predictions and comparative static predictions of optimal transfer pricing models, comparing behavior under varying conditions, including wholly versus partially-owned subsidiaries and different tariff and tax rates. As predicted, we find that transfer prices are responsive to relative tax and tariff rates as well as ownership proportions. Additionally, we examine convergence and learning in this setting. While individuals do not choose optimal transfer prices, their choices converge to optimal levels with experience. This paper thus makes two important contributions. First, by comparing behavior with theoretical predictions it provides evidence of whether (and when) individuals set transfer prices optimally. Second, by comparing behavior under conditions of full and partial ownership it provides evidence on the impact of policy interventions (like regulating ownership proportions by MNEs) on tax revenues.

World survey of mental illness stigma

ObjectiveTo obtain rapid and reproducible opinions that address mental illness stigma around the world. MethodRandom global Web users were exposed to brief questions, asking whether they interacted daily with someone with mental illness, whether they believed that mental illness was associated with violence, whether it was similar to physical illness, and whether it could be overcome. ResultsOver a period of 1.7 years, 596,712 respondents from 229 countries completed the online survey. The response rate was 54.3%. China had the highest proportion of respondents in daily contact with a person with mental illness. In developed countries, 7% to 8% of respondents endorsed the statement that individuals with mental illness were more violent than others, in contrast to 15% or 16% in developing countries. While 45% to 51% of respondents from developed countries believed that mental illness was similar to physical illness, only 7% believed that mental illness could be overcome. To test for reproducibility, 21 repeats of the same questions were asked monthly in India for 21 months. Each time, 10.1±0.11% s.e., of respondents endorsed the statement that persons who suffer from mental illness are more violent than others, indicating strong reproducibility of response. ConclusionThis study shows that surveys of constructs such as stigma towards mental illness can be carried out rapidly and repeatedly across the globe, so that the impact of policy interventions can be readily measured. LimitationsThe method engages English speakers only, mainly young, educated males.

Research and evidence needs for decarbonisation in the built environment: a UK case study

The research and evaluation needs to support radical decarbonisation in the built environment are examined for the UK. Since buildings account for approximately 40% of UK energy demand, energy use in buildings will need to be transformed if ambitious climate policy objectives are to be met. In the context of wider energy system change, the needs are for greater efficiency, greater use of electric technologies such as heat pumps as electricity become cleaner, and the use of renewable heat such as biomass. At the same time, the introduction of smart technology offers new opportunities to measure and evaluate changes in demand patterns and the impact of policy interventions. The paper notes that the technical and social dimensions of radical decarbonisation are intimately intertwined. Therefore, social and economic research has a vital role to play in supporting the design and implementation of effective policy, taking advantage of new data-collection opportunities. Drawing on lessons from other policy domains, the paper explores the role that rigorous policy evaluation techniques, little used in the energy domain, could play. It identifies a range of concerns, relating to the political sphere, policy delivery and consumer acceptance, that would need to be addressed. Il est procédé à l'examen pour le Royaume-Uni des besoins en matière de recherche et d'évaluation pour appuyer une décarbonisation radicale dans le cadre bâti. Etant donné que les bâtiments représentent 40 % environ de la demande énergétique britannique, la consommation d'énergie dans les bâtiments devra être transformée si l'on veut atteindre des objectifs ambitieux en matière de politique climatique. Dans le contexte d'une évolution plus large du système énergétique, les besoins portent sur une efficacité accrue, une plus grande utilisation de technologies électriques telles que les pompes à chaleur au fur et à mesure que l'électricité devient plus propre, et l'utilisation d'une source de chaleur renouvelable telle que la biomasse. Dans le même temps, l'introduction des technologies intelligentes offre de nouvelles possibilités de mesurer et d'évaluer les changements intervenant dans les schémas de la demande et l'impact des interventions de politique. L'article note que les aspects techniques et sociaux d'une décarbonisation radicale sont intimement liés. En conséquence, les travaux de recherche dans le domaine social et économique ont un rôle essentiel à jouer dans l'appui à apporter à la conception et à la mise en oeuvre d'une politique efficace, en tirant parti des nouvelles possibilités de collecte de données. Tirant les enseignements des autres domaines d'intervention politique, l'article examine le rôle que pourraient jouer les techniques rigoureuses d'évaluation des politiques, peu utilisées dans le domaine de l'énergie. Il identifie un éventail de préoccupations, en rapport avec la sphère politique, la mise en oeuvre des politiques et leur acceptation par les consommateurs, auxquelles il conviendrait d'apporter des réponses. Mots clés: bâtiments, changement climatique, efficacité énergétique, énergie, mesures politiques, chaleur renouvelable, recherche et évaluation, programme de recherche

Mobile Telephony Access & Usage in Africa

This paper uses data from nationally representative household survey conducted in 17 African countries to analyse mobile adoption and usage. This paper shows that countries differ in their levels of ICT adoption and usage and also in factors that influence adoption and usage. Income and education vastly enhances mobile adoption but gender, age and membership in social networks have little impact. Income is the main explanatory variable for usage. In terms of mobile expenditure the study also finds linkages to fixed-line, work and public phone usages. These linkages need however be explored in more detail in future. Mobile expenditure is inelastic with respect to income, ie the share of mobile expenditure of individual income increases less than 1% for each 1% increase in income. This indicates that people with higher income spend a smaller proportion of their income on mobile expenditure compared to those with less income. The study provides tools to identify policy intervention to improve ICT take up and usage and define universal service obligations based on income and monthly usage costs. It help to put a number to what can be expected from lower access and usage costs in terms of market volume and number of new subscribers. Linking this to other economic data such as national household income and expenditure surveys and GDP calculation would allow to forecast the economic and social impact of policy interventions. Key policy interventions would be regulatory measure to decrease access and usage costs, rural electrification and policies to increase ICT skills of pupils and teachers.

The Analysis of Conflict: A Micro-Level Perspective

This article introduces a special issue on the micro-level dynamics of mass violent conflict. While most analyses of conflict typically adopt a regional, national or global perspective, often using country-level data, this special issue takes an explicit micro-level approach, focusing on the behaviour and welfare of individuals, households and groups or communities. At a fundamental level, conflict originates from individuals' behaviour and their repeated interactions with their surroundings, in other words, from its micro-foundations. A micro-level approach advances our understanding of conflict by its ability to account for individual and group heterogeneity within one country or one conflict. The contributors to this special issue investigate the nature of violence against civilians, the agency of civilians during conflict, the strategic interaction between civilians and armed actors, the consequences of displacement, the effectiveness of coping strategies and the impact of policy interventions. The core message from these articles is that in order to understand conflict dynamics and its effects on society, we have to take seriously the incentives and constraints shaping the interaction between the civilian population and the armed actors. The kind of interaction that develops, as well as the resulting conflict dynamics, depend on the type of conflict, the type of armed actors and the characteristics of the civilian population and its institutions.

Microeconomic Perspectives on the Structure and Operation of Local Housing Markets

This paper provides a highly selective review of the voluminous literature on the economic analysis of local housing markets. It is suggested that, although it often appears that mainstream economics is more concerned with improving technical elements of the modelling approach than enhancing our understanding of how markets function, there is in fact a rich literature that is largely concerned with explaining market processes and dynamics and with the impact of policy interventions on the workings of the market. The housing economics literature is more methodologically diverse than many housing analysts might expect and, in the UK and Europe in particular, this has helped stimulate several new developments in local market analysis. These advancements have been associated, in part, with improvements in statistical techniques and conceptual models. This has resulted in renewed interest in the treatment of neighbourhood segmentation and complex spatial processes in local market analysis. It is argued that further progress might be made by abducting insights from qualitative analysis in order to improve the specification of models and in their refinement and development.

Impact of policy interventions on land management in Honduras: results of a bioeconomic model

This study examines the effects of State policies on farmers' incomes and natural resource conditions in central Honduras. We combined dynamic linear programming with a biophysical model and applied this bioeconomic model to a microwatershed where, in recent years, farmers have turned to intensive production of vegetables. We compared the outputs of different model scenarios with historical data over the last 20 years (1975–95). The main results of the simulations are: (1) the 1990 liberalization has had a beneficial impact on the incomes of small farmers who adopted a `vegetable pathway'; (2) the shift from extensive production to intensive vegetable production does not reduce erosion, as the greater opportunity cost of labor increased the cost of investing in land conservation; and (3) small farmers are more likely than ranchers to erode soils, because they are more likely to produce vegetables during the rainy season and usually cultivate steeper slopes. However, small farmers are more likely to invest in land conservation because soil depth becomes a limiting factor for production. ©

The Evolution of Poverty and Inequality in Indian Villages

This paper examines the evolution of poverty and inequality in rural India by reviewing longitudinal village studies. It explores the main forces of economic change-agricultural intensification, changing land relations, and occupational diversification-from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, and it considers the roles of various institutions as conduits of change. Although most village studies support the survey-based judgment that rural poverty declined in India during the 1970s and 1980s, they find that progress has been slow and irregular and that inequalities within villages have persisted. These continued inequalities may constrain both the scope for further poverty reduction from economic growth and the impact of policy interventions.