Influential Report Research Articles

A UK Specification for Trusted Research Environments

ObjectivesThe need for Trusted Research Environments (TREs) is clear. Several influential reports have highlighted that personal or sensitive data which have been collected for operational, commercial or governmental reasons need to be managed securely in an environment that encourages best practices. TREs are designed to enable only authorised projects and researchers access to sensitive data whilst minimising risk of data exposure. Yet the TRE landscape has grown organically over at least the last decade resulting in heterogeneous environments, making it harder for data to be discovered, shared and used for public benefit. A baseline specification for TREs is required. ApproachWe engaged with around 60 organisations covering government, industry, health and academia through regular, online, shared spaces or “Collaboration Cafés”. We also embedded the public voice within the project by having members of the public within the research team and developed a series of workshops to include and reflect their input to the architecture. The whole project was developed in the open to instil trustworthiness. ResultsThe SATRE project has produced a reference TRE architecture and implementation through significant engagement with the UK TRE community. This baseline specification for UK TREs includes a set of four pillars, 28 capabilities and 160 statements. Conclusions and ImplicationsAn open and transparent TRE specification and architecture for a wide range of stakeholders has been developed. TREs can now use the SATRE specification to evaluate their environments against a common baseline.

From greedy grocers to carbon taxes and everything in between:

In Canada, the task of explaining food prices falls to a handful of grey literature reports that shape media coverage and public understanding and carry significant political and policy influence. We performed an in-depth analysis of fifty-one of these influential reports, including thirty-nine reports by Statistics Canada (including Consumer Price Index reports and other studies) and twelve reports from the Canada Food Price Report (CFPR) series. Our goal was twofold: 1) to identify and classify the various explanations given for food price changes, and 2) to evaluate the scientific rigor of these explanations. We identified 232 total explanations for food price changes, spread across seven thematic categories and thirty-two sub-categories. We find that most claims made in these reports are scientifically incomplete (only 28.6% of all claims meet established criteria for the completeness of scientific arguments). We also identify a lack of comprehensiveness in the areas of emphasis and the claims being presented and drivers being explored, particularly with respect to issues presently at the centre of food price discourse in Canada, such as the agency of grocers and other supply chain actors, corporate growth imperatives, and climate change. Considering the importance of food prices and food security to prosperity and well-being in Canada, we conclude with a series of recommendations for

Heating Standards and Obsolescence in Post-War Britain’s Homes for Today and Tomorrow

In 1962, a short film by Shell-Mex and BP Limited (Companies of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group and the British Petroleum Group) was prepared for the 29th Annual Conference and Exhibition of the National Society of Clean Air in Britain to encourage British households to shift from coal domestic fires to smokeless heating appliances. One year earlier, in 1961, the most influential report on space standards in Britain was published, titled <em>Homes for Today and Tomorrow </em>(also known as the <em>Parker Morris Report</em>), which advocated for flexibility in the home through larger size homes and better heating. This article focuses on the report’s emphasis on better heating as one way to fulfil the concept of the “adaptable home,” and it introduces the discussions about heating standards during the report’s making, underlining the open domestic fire as an obsolete technology. These discussions, however, were entangled with socio-cultural endeavours and consumerist aspirations for modernisation, placing the removal of an otherwise pervasive domestic element within a broader net of forces, actors, and dilemmas involved in decision-making and planning. This article, composed as a historical acquisition, oscillates from the scale of the domestic fireplace to the housing scale, raising the issue of obsolescence in housing provision, which is still salient today.

AI-Powered Patient-Centered Care: A Call to Action for Innovation.

The influential report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century established six core objectives to enhance healthcare quality. It highlighted the necessity for healthcare to encompass safety, effectiveness, a patient-centered approach, timeliness, efficiency, and equity. This essay focuses on one of these six core objectives: a patient-centered approach. Healthcare leaders actively seek solutions to improve and ensure the delivery of high-quality care. The imperative to provide quality healthcare underscores the need for artificial intelligence (AI) to become an essential component in a patient-centered approach rather than merely an optional advantage. Despite the expansion of AI, there is a lack of understanding of how AI can improve patient-centered care. This essay examines the fundamental aspects of patient-centered care, as outlined by the Picker Institute, while also exploring the prospective role of AI in advancing the core principles of patient-centered care and proposing frameworks for applying AI in healthcare.

Effective argumentation for action in health policy: a case study of the UK’s review on antimicrobial resistance

This article is a rhetorical analysis of an influential report on antimicrobial resistance in the context of national and global health policymaking. Through a textual-intertextual analysis, it examines how the report’s argumentation structure, grammatical moods, and use of strategic ambiguity direct multiple audiences to debate policy action, without becoming mired in manufactured scientific controversy about the existence or extent of the problem. The report successfully deploys a “beachhead” argumentation strategy by moving swiftly past arguments of scientific fact, definition, and quality, to focus public debate more effectively on matters of procedure. This analysis reveals promising strategies for future reports arguing on behalf of scientific consensus and seeking to stimulate policy action.

No evidence for magnetic field effects on the behaviour of Drosophila

Migratory songbirds have the remarkable ability to extract directional information from the Earth’s magnetic field1,2. The exact mechanism of this light-dependent magnetic compass sense, however, is not fully understood. The most promising hypothesis focuses on the quantum spin dynamics of transient radical pairs formed in cryptochrome proteins in the retina3–5. Frustratingly, much of the supporting evidence for this theory is circumstantial, largely because of the extreme challenges posed by genetic modification of wild birds. Drosophila has therefore been recruited as a model organism, and several influential reports of cryptochrome-mediated magnetic field effects on fly behaviour have been widely interpreted as support for a radical pair-based mechanism in birds6–23. Here we report the results of an extensive study testing magnetic field effects on 97,658 flies moving in a two-arm maze and on 10,960 flies performing the spontaneous escape behaviour known as negative geotaxis. Under meticulously controlled conditions and with vast sample sizes, we have been unable to find evidence for magnetically sensitive behaviour in Drosophila. Moreover, after reassessment of the statistical approaches and sample sizes used in the studies that we tried to replicate, we suggest that many—if not all—of the original results were false positives. Our findings therefore cast considerable doubt on the existence of magnetic sensing in Drosophila and thus strongly suggest that night-migratory songbirds remain the organism of choice for elucidating the mechanism of light-dependent magnetoreception.

Cosmetic surgery

Facial cosmetic surgery has a long and rich history, dating back to ancient times when people attempted to improve their appearance through various methods such as using makeup, wigs, and even undergoing rudimentary surgical procedures. With the advancement of medical knowledge and technology, facial cosmetic surgery has evolved into a sophisticated and specialized field that aims to enhance the aestheticfeatures of the face while also ensuring functional outcomes. This chapter will review the history of facial cosmetic surgery and present some of the most influential case reports that have contributed to the development of facial cosmetic surgery as we know it today.

Antimicrobial resistance: a Biochemical Society position statement

Antimicrobial resistance: a Biochemical Society position statement

Unchaining Workers

Abstract An influential report on protecting the medical supply chain in the next pandemic fails to include a commitment to protecting the workers who protect the supply chain. The securing strategy outlined by Richard Locke, Ben Armstrong, Samantha Schaab-Rozbicki, and Geordie Young offers examples of such an approach, and the analytical framework for protecting the chain-awareness, mitigation, preparedness, and response-can be applied equally well to the workforce. Considerations of equity and fairness should lead us to unchain the workers strung along the chain of medical and consumer supplies.

Teaching as regulated improvisation

In this paper, we address the work of teachers at the intersection of educational policy and professional discretion, by undertaking a conceptual reading of Through Growth to Achievement: Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, and examining how the report conceptualises teacher practice. Drawing on the Bourdieusian notion of regulated improvisation, the study explores the constraints of pedagogical practices as conceptualised by influential policy reports of this kind, highlighting the paradoxical expectations of the report on teachers whose situational awareness of classrooms is curtailed through regulation. The study examines the tension between teacher autonomy and constraints, negating important considerations to temporalities of learning. The central contribution of the paper is a conceptual understanding of how policy drivers position teacher expertise through standardisation, compliance and performance, a concern not unique only to the Australian context of educational policy, nor schooling.

Introduction: Revisiting the Role of State-Owned Enterprises in Strategic Sectors

ABSTRACT A few years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the World Bank published Bureaucrats in Business, an influential report on State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) that provided a road-map on how to reform - or privatize - those “loss making state-owned-enterprises that are a significant burden on government budgets and […] hinder growth, impede market liberalization and thus both directly and indirectly limit efforts to reduce poverty” (World Bank, 1995, p. ix). Some 25 years later SOEs are still pervasive. This special issue follows up on Bureaucrats in Business, and sheds light on the continued important phenomena of SOEs and attempts to understand what the perception is about the role that SOEs should play both in tranquil and in turbulent times. We firstly set out an overview of the presence of SOEs over time and across sectors and country groups). Because the topic of the role SOEs should play in the economy is influenced by politics, second, we summarize the results of a Delphi study that presents new consensus on SOEs according to experts. Third, we then review the linkages between ownership and performance in the infrastructure and financial sectors. Fourth, we shed light on the new phenomenon of SOEs abroad, and then conclude.

Neither market nor hierarchy—coordination costs in the allocation of track capacity in the Swedish railway network

AbstractTransaction costs have been an issue since the advent of the deregulation of the European railway markets in the 1990s. Transaction cost economics received renewed attention in research on the deregulated railway markets in the EU after the publications of two influential reports in the early 2010s.In this article, we develop a model that enables classification and measurement of transaction costs and other coordination costs in deregulated markets. This model is then used to analyze the costs of path allocation in the Swedish railway sector and to compare the results with findings in previous research. We also discuss the economic rationale of the distribution of coordination costs among the involved parties.Our key empirical findings are that the total coordination costs in the Swedish market‐mimicking path allocation process are as low as or lower than the most cost‐efficient market coordination processes studied in railway markets, and that the state administrations take on nearly all the coordination costs in order to minimize the effects of opportunism, rent‐seeking and information impactedness. Another finding is that the size of the coordination costs found by different studies seems to be dependent on whether a bottom‐up or a top‐down approach is used.

‘Technology not taxes’: A viable Australian path to net zero emissions?

In the absence of a price on carbon and a renewable energy target supported by emissions credit trading, the Australian Government is relying on financial support for early-stage technologies to reduce emissions: the ‘technology not taxes’ ‘principle’. Recent studies of global implementation indicate that pricing carbon is the most economically efficient way to achieve economy-wide emissions reductions. Nonetheless, financial support for early-stage technology can be a useful complementary or ‘second best’ approach. Australia's Technology Investment Roadmap and Net Zero Plan could be strengthened by detailed emissions plans on a sectoral basis, supported by interim targets set in legislation. Projected fossil fuel exports in coming decades in the Net Zero Plan are consistent with the Australian Government's ‘gas led’ Covid 19 economic recovery strategy. This underpins reliance on carbon capture and storage (CCS), despite cost and technical barriers that have led to minimal development compared to renewable energy. In the absence of interim emissions targets, Australia risks locking in fossil fuel developments on the basis of uncertain future CCS capacity. A Net Zero Plan focused primarily on scale-up of renewable energy and its use to produce hydrogen, reflecting several influential reports, state government initiatives and private sector mega projects, would have better prospects for achieving net zero emissions.

What problems in health care quality should we target as the world burns around us?

[See related article at www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.211416][1] KEY POINTS In 2001, an influential report defined quality health care in terms of 6 domains: safety, effectiveness, timeliness, efficiency, patient-centredness and equity.[1][2] Physicians primarily focus on effectiveness, which

Influential methods reports for group-randomized trials and related designs.

This article identifies the most influential methods reports for group-randomized trials and related designs published through 2020. Many interventions are delivered to participants in real or virtual groups or in groups defined by a shared interventionist so that there is an expectation for positive correlation among observations taken on participants in the same group. These interventions are typically evaluated using a group- or cluster-randomized trial, an individually randomized group treatment trial, or a stepped wedge group- or cluster-randomized trial. These trials face methodological issues beyond those encountered in the more familiar individually randomized controlled trial. PubMed was searched to identify candidate methods reports; that search was supplemented by reports known to the author. Candidate reports were reviewed by the author to include only those focused on the designs of interest. Citation counts and the relative citation ratio, a new bibliometric tool developed at the National Institutes of Health, were used to identify influential reports. The relative citation ratio measures influence at the article level by comparing the citation rate of the reference article to the citation rates of the articles cited by other articles that also cite the reference article. In total, 1043 reports were identified that were published through 2020. However, 55 were deemed to be the most influential based on their relative citation ratio or their citation count using criteria specific to each of the three designs, with 32 group-randomized trial reports, 7 individually randomized group treatment trial reports, and 16 stepped wedge group-randomized trial reports. Many of the influential reports were early publications that drew attention to the issues that distinguish these designs from the more familiar individually randomized controlled trial. Others were textbooks that covered a wide range of issues for these designs. Others were "first reports" on analytic methods appropriate for a specific type of data (e.g. binary data, ordinal data), for features commonly encountered in these studies (e.g. unequal cluster size, attrition), or for important variations in study design (e.g. repeated measures, cohort versus cross-section). Many presented methods for sample size calculations. Others described how these designs could be applied to a new area (e.g. dissemination and implementation research). Among the reports with the highest relative citation ratios were the CONSORT statements for each design. Collectively, the influential reports address topics of great interest to investigators who might consider using one of these designs and need guidance on selecting the most appropriate design for their research question and on the best methods for design, analysis, and sample size.

The 1996 TheMHS Conference, Brisbane: A Reflection on Consumer Involvement in Mental Health and the Birth of the Australian National Consumer Network

The 1996 TheMHS Conference, Brisbane: A Reflection on Consumer Involvement in Mental Health and the Birth of the Australian National Consumer Network Melanie Schuth (née Scott) (bio), Helen Glover (bio), and V. Kalyansundarum (bio) As compared to the rest of Australia, deinstitutionalisation and the development of community mental health services commenced relatively late in Queensland. Yet, once it started in the mid-1990s, there was a time of exceptional innovation and change in the state’s mental health sector. After the publication of the influential Burdekin report (1993) and with the momentum of the first National Mental Health Strategy, there was an openness among government officials and policymakers to explore new ideas and explore new ways of working.1 Consumer voices were being heard—many dared not only to speak, but to speak loudly. Many people are able to ignore the history of the Australian consumer movement until it is told boldly and loudly. During the early 1990s, the involvement of lived experience in mental health was still novel in Australia. In 1994, The Mental Health Services conference (TheMHS; one of the most progressive organisations in Australia and New Zealand in mental health), responding to then prominent consumer advocacy voices, advanced consumer involvement by dedicating a day to consumers.2 This spearheaded opportunities that would not have occurred as early, organically, or as genuinely as they did during this period. The organisers were convinced that consumer involvement should not be merely tokenistic: if lived experience voices were to be incorporated in the planning and running of mental health services, they had to be incorporated in an authentic and genuine way. We, the authors of this paper—Dr Kalyansandarum (Kaly in everyday life), Helen Glover, and Melanie Scott—were involved in the planning of the 1996 TheMHS conference and in various initiatives in mental health afterwards. We came together nearly thirty years later to reflect on what transpired during that time. We realised that much time had passed since the mid-1990s and that our memories were somewhat patchy as to the finer details of how the three of us joined forces and how both lived and learned experiences participated to co-create the 1996 TheMHS [End Page 135] conference and attempted to advance the ‘consumer’ movement. To this end, we recorded interviews about our recollections with each other about the conference and what emerged afterwards. Three key themes emerged from the discussions about our recollections. These themes, we think, remain pertinent today: 1. A strong desire to do things differently 2. Thinking big and well outside the box 3. An openness to experimentation A note on language: In the 1990s, the term ‘consumer’ indicated a radical shift from the term ‘patient’ or ‘ex-patient’. We acknowledge that we use the term in the context of the time it originated, noting that a broader range of person-first language is currently widely accepted in the sector’s linguistic lexicon and preferred by individuals who access services. 1. A Strong Desire to do Things Differently In our conversations with Dr Kaly, we inquired about his motivation to engage and include people with a lived experience of mental ill-health in the work he did in mental health. As this was during the post-Burdekin era, we anticipated that he would emphasise the importance of upholding people’s human rights, and their right to be heard and taken seriously in matters of service delivery. Whilst this was important to him, it was not his main motivation: Dr. Kaly: I was not so much interested in lived experience involvement in itself, but much more interested in the notion of personal recovery and learning from that to improve both my own practice and how we delivered services. Involvement and participation was the method we utilised. Instead of reading books about it I wanted to hear from their hearts. I wanted to learn from people who knew, based on their experiences. I firmly believed in the potential that people with serious mental illness and institutionalisation can lead good and fulfilling lives. Dr Kaly’s ethos about being led, informed, and, very often, challenged by lived experience wisdom extended well beyond mere consultation. His genuine desire...

If We Knew Then: A Postscript to the Kerner Report

The Kerner Report, which examined why 1967s rioting occurred, is one of America’s most important works on race and the inner city. Yet, for many, a belief exists that it has been ignored and represents a lost opportunity. Knowing now how the report was received, is there anything that could have been done to produce a more influential report? To answer this question, this article utilizes recent interviews with key Kerner Report participants. Such information not only expands our knowledge about the report, but given recent proposals to create new Kerner-type commissions to address today’s disparities, it possesses additional relevance.

Skills of the future for a high‐performing workforce: Implications of recent evidence for the public sector

AbstractAdvances in technology spur speculation as to the challenges inherent to the future of work and the skills and abilities that will be necessary to meet these challenges. We challenge this speculation by reviewing scientific evidence regarding 20 so‐called skills and abilities of the future that are identified in five influential reports in the popular literature (i.e., research‐oriented but non‐academic publications intended for government or business audiences), while focusing on empirical evidence of relationships with performance on the job. We find that many of the skills identified in the popular literature surveyed have not been empirically tested, that when they were tested the quality of data is often very limited, and that there is much conceptual confusion regarding skills and abilities in the popular literature. Now, and for the foreseeable future, general mental ability appears to be the best validated factor upon which performance can be built.

Communications in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report cycle

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been renewing its communications activities in the current assessment cycle, building on the innovations that underpinned the Fifth Assessment Report. An Expert Meeting on Communication in Oslo in 2016 sought to compile and discuss the lessons learnt during Fifth Assessment Report and inform the Communications Strategies for the Sixth Assessment Report (The overall Communications Strategy is adopted by the IPCC. Individual communications strategies for the various reports are signed off by the Chair and respective Co-Chairs.) This article describes the progress made, in the context of the IPCC’s communications goals and specific challenges. Developments in the current cycle include a more systematic approach to developing key statements to communicate the findings of the reports. The IPCC has expanded the number and geographic range of its outreach activities, targeting interested stakeholders beyond the core audience of policymakers. Communications work was strengthened by reinforcing the Working Group Technical Support Units, which support the author teams, with communications specialists. The first product in this cycle, the 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, was by some measures the most influential report on climate change to date. It attracted enormous media coverage, transforming and galvanizing public interest in global warming. With the two subsequent special reports in 2019 on land and the ocean and cryosphere, this has focused attention and scrutiny on the IPCC. The latest report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, was released in August 2021 and broke all records for coverage of an IPCC report. This makes effective communication all the more important, for the remainder of the current cycle due for completion in 2022 and beyond.

11.M. Round table: System leadership, the pandemic & implications for the public health workforce and systems in the UK

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on public health as never before, and highlighted the critical importance of having strong, well-resourced and well-trained workforce; public health (PH) system, leadership and the need to address continuing structural injustices in society. The purpose this workshop is to describe and reflect on the research by the UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH) to assess the impact of the pandemic on the PH workforce and systems in the UK, and the strategies to support the workforce and system and the discourse in building a fairer healthier future for all, including work by FPH to address issues around inequalities and injustices further revealed by the pandemic. FPH is the UK's professional standards body for public health specialists and practitioners, with over 4000 members working around the world. FPH has played a leading role in assuring an internationally respected PH workforce, development of robust PH systems; and powerful advocated for the reduction of inequalities and the best conditions for health and wellbeing to flourish. FPH members have been centre stage during the pandemic and their experience and learning is of value to other countries and PH systems. There will be presentations by distinguished senior members of FPH, who have also played significant influential roles in their own professional roles during the pandemic. While the PH pandemic response has been described by commentators as “nothing less than heroic”, what is clear is that the PH systems and workforce has been under stress, pressure and scrutiny. It's therefore important to understand the nature and impacts of the challenges so that the PH workforce is adequately supported, and PH systems are robust, resilient and fit for purpose.The session will include presentations on: “the wellbeing survey” conducted by FPH on the impact of the pandemic on health and wellbeing of the public health workforce.an influential report produced by FPH on Functions and standards of a Public Health System as part of efforts to ensure integrated robust PH systems, recognition of the key role of the specialist PH workforce and local Directors of public health at a time when these have been under intense work pressure and scrutinyand explore activities, experience and learning in response to issues of inequalities, racism and injustice, brought to the fore during the pandemic, and the responses of FPH and its members. These have not been considered as optional extras to the powerful epidemiological analysis and modelling work of PH workforce and the remarkable vaccination programme, but core to the moral mandate of the profession and work of FPH. We will reflect and consult with participants on the evidence, learnings and their implications, experiences and collaboration opportunities. These will be important not only to tackle the Covid 19 PH emergency, to build fairer healthier future, but also to address other ongoing and emerging PH challenges and issues.Speakers/Panelists John Newton Public Health England, London, UK Farhang Tahzib Faculty of Public Health, London, UK Samia Latif Public Health England, Nottingham, UK Key messages The public health workforce and systems have risen to meet the intense challenges and pressures of the pandemic, with impacts on their health and wellbeing.The lessons learnt are important not only for other public health emergencies and to build back fairer but also to meet other public health challenges and issues.