Public Interest Research Articles

Herman G. Canady: A reintroduction.

For nearly four decades, Herman G. Canady actively promoted psychological science in the public interest. A skillful leader and administrator, Canady helped to establish one of the first national organizations of Black psychologists and was purportedly one of the founding members of the West Virginia State Psychological Association. He also collaborated with a diverse range of professional colleagues on relevant social issues of the time. Despite the depth and breadth of Canady's contributions to psychology, very little is known about his impact on the field. The goal of this article is to reintroduce the discipline to Canady. Drawing upon a range of archival materials, personal correspondence, and interviews, I highlight how Canady used the platform of psychological science in ways that not only redefined "racial psychology," but also brought attention to educational inequities, stressed the importance of institution-building, and demonstrated the utility of cross-cultural alliances for addressing important social causes. Canady's influence-and that of others of his generation-merits further study and deeper analysis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Evolution of public interest in the human papillomavirus vaccine: Is the message getting across?

Evolution of public interest in the human papillomavirus vaccine: Is the message getting across?

The creation of social value in the participatory design of housing services

The approach to housing that redefines the home as a service transcends the issue of housing as merely private, bringing it back to a trajectory of collective public interest. The paper reflects on initiatives, whose common element is the investment in intangible aspects for community involvement, activating processes and experiments for the development of collaborative spaces and services that extend the scope of intervention to the neighbourhood, generating mechanisms and dynamics of social impact. The processes and experiments described are examples of how, to make such actions feasible, the public sector synergises with the private sector through welfare models requiring innovative management skills that invest and work on the community with an integrated approach for social cohesion.

Performance Of Village-Owned Enterprises In Tanggetada Village, The Importance Of Tanggetada, Kolaka Regency

The aim of this research is to find out and describe the performance of village-owned enterprises (BUMD) in Tanggetada Village, Tanggetada District, Kolaka Regency. Type of qualitative descriptive research. The research location is Tanggetada Village. The informants in this research consisted of the Tanggetada Village Head, village secretary, village treasurer, Chair of the Village Consultative Body (BPD), hamlet head, as well as the director, secretary, and treasurer of the Tanggetada Village-Owned Enterprise (Bumdes), including the Tanggetada Village community. Types and sources of data are primary data and secondary data. Based on the results of research regarding the performance of Bumdes on efficiency indicators, in terms of providing information to the public, it has not been implemented well. Bumdes and the village government are not thorough in conducting outreach to the community, so the Bumdes program is not yet fully known to the community. In terms of effectiveness, there is still a lack of public interest in purchasing Bumdes program businesses, coupled with business production, which has decreased due to limited capital. In the aspect of justice, community involvement in implementing the Bumdes program is still limited, as can be seen from the decline in sales production, coupled with sales prices that are quite different compared to other places. Meanwhile, in terms of responsiveness, the management of income from the Bumdes program to the village government is generally unknown to the community, and also the development of Bumdes' businesses has not been able to run well.

Towards defining the public interest in technology: lessons from history

Abstract The public interest suggests a singular approach to a social good, but lessons from history illustrate the nuances of sharing open space, transportation networks, and policy mandates. Serving the public exists across a spectrum of possibilities. In this essay, we consider how the emerging field of public interest technology could learn from previous assumptions about who counts as the public and how benefits or harms can be overly concentrated in certain populations. We situate public interest technology as a growing capability of government public service, an institutionalized professional practice like public interest law, as well as a site of critical inquiry. Our definition of the public interest is motivated by a theory of change that recognizes the strength of inclusion. Punctuated with historic and contemporary examples, this essay argues that by acknowledging conflicts of interest and embracing the marginal, public interest technology could build ethical infrastructures to serve all.

Development of a Medical Device Lifecycle Research Database at the MFDS

Abstract So-called big data are potentially useful in the healthcare field and are of interest to researchers, industry, and government agencies. Over the past 10 years, Europe, the United States, and Asia have been making efforts to collect and systematically manage information on the entire process from clinical trials to follow-up management of medical devices (MD). We developed MD lifecycle research database at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) of the Republic of Korea, consisting of 61 tables and 2,053 variables. The MFDS possesses statistical information on all MD, pharmaceuticals, foods, and human tissues produced and distributed. The information in the database is categorized according to four MD lifecycle phases-clinical trial, approval, production, and post-approval. For the clinical trial phase, the database contains information on planning and approval of clinical trial and non-clinical trial. The approval phase includes information on models, raw materials, quality, and changes, while the production phase stores information on production, import, export, supply and use. For the last step, follow-up management phase, provide information on post-marketing safety management, risk management, and administrative disposition. All four steps are linked based on primary key, so it is possible to understand information on the overall MD lifecycle. The MD Lifecycle Research Database will help strengthen the industry’s competitiveness in terms of cost-effectiveness in MD development and facilitate policy monitoring by improving its utilization in the public interest. This database contains information on all MD produced and distributed in Korea depending on the phases of the MD lifecycle, and data is easily accessible due to the lack risk of personal information exposure, so it can be widely used by individual researchers, industries, academia, and governments. Funding This research was supported by a grant (22063MFDS498) from ministry of food and drug safety in 2024. Key messages • We developed a medical device lifecycle database that enables tracking management according to the medical device lifecycle. • This database can be used as a scientific basis to ensure the safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of medical devices.

Drones and Technopreneurship in Malaysia: Unlocking the Economic Potential of Drones in Built Environment Development

Drones, with diverse technological capabilities, are poised to revolutionise various traditional tasks, particularly in-built environment development while driving economic growth, innovation, and job creation. Within the Malaysian context, drones have evolved beyond recreational use to become sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles with untapped business potential. Against this backdrop, this paper explores a comprehensive review of drone development in Malaysia. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the review includes selected publication data from academic journals and online media published between 2018 and 2023, complemented with insights gathered from expert interviews. Aiming to bridge the discursive gap surrounding emerging drone technologies, the review focuses on identifying patterns and trends in recent Malaysian publications on drone applications, as well as understanding current issues related to its technology adoption. The thematic findings reveal a notable surge in interest in drone-related publications and draw clear connections between drone applications and diverse industrial sectors over the past six years. The paper emphasises critical issues such as community acceptance, the transforming landscape of business, diverse industry applications of drone technology, and government strategies for advancing drone technology. As a preliminary study, this paper establishes the foundation for leveraging the benefits of drone technology within the broader context of the built environment, social, and economic landscape. By shedding light on the evolving drone ecosystem in Malaysia, the paper contributes to fostering informed discussions and strategic initiatives in the integration and advancement of drone technologies. Thus, it offers valuable insights for professionals, economists, engineers, policymakers, and researchers alike.

Integrating AI in cause-of-death regular statistical production with human and expert system codings

Abstract Background Cause-of-death (CoD) statistics are key indicators in epidemiology and public health. These statistics are derived from death certificates completed by physicians and are usually coded by official statistics authorities according to the standards of the WHO ICD-10 classification to construct time- and cross-country-comparable statistics. For coding causes of death in free-text format in France according to ICD-10, predictions by deep neural networks (DNNs) are employed in addition to fully automatic batch coding by a rule-based expert system and to interactive coding by the coding team. Methods Seq-to-seq DNNs are trained from scratch on previously coded data to ICD-10 code multiple causes and underlying causes of death. Human coding is focused on certificates with a special public health interest or with low confidence in AI prediction quality to maximize the quality of the overall statistics disseminated when human resources are limited. DNNs also directly predict multiple causes and underlying causes of death for part of the certificates. Hence, the coding campaign aims to optimally allocate a coding mode to a given certificate. Results For deaths in 2021, 63% of the certificates are automatically batch coded by the expert system, 14% by the coding team, and 23% by DNNs. Compared to a traditional campaign that would have relied on automatic batch coding and manual coding, the present campaign reaches an accuracy of 95.7% for ICD-10 coding of the underlying cause (97.3% at the European shortlist level). Conclusions The 3-coding mode approach enables timeliness of dissemination of CoD statistics and may lead in the future to more responsive surveillance. Key messages • Deep neural networks trained on already coded data can be integrated into the regular statistical production of the CoD database in a fully controlled way. • The allocation between the different modes of coding can be optimized to achieve best quality and timeliness under the constraint of limited human resources.

3.N. Round table: Health inequalities over life-course between people with & without childhood social care experience

Abstract The burden of ill health is not carried equally, children and young people with experiences of childhood social care (CSC), e.g. kinship, foster, residential or ‘out-of-home’ care, are affected by multiple cumulative disadvantages and experience high inequalities in health compared to the rest of the population. CSC, and the adversities often associated with it, are linked to health problems that persist into adulthood and adversely affect education, employment, and the future European society. Public and policy interest in improving outcomes for CSC recipients has increased markedly, as has research on the association between CSC and life outcomes. But current research is siloed, with limited comparative perspective and has not led to a strong evidence base to inform policy and practice. Wider international networks to connect research, practice and policy are needed to change this. The objective of the workshop is to bring together evidence on health inequalities between people with and without CSC experience across Europe. The panel will set the scene for the discussion by raising questions that stem from their work for the audience to respond. We will ask the audience to engage with these questions based on their experience (e.g. academic, clinical or other professional). The real-time reactions will be collected via Mentimeter during presentations, moderated and fed back to the audience and panel for discussion. This will allow us to collect diverse responses across countries and from different professional perspectives, providing learning and insights for both the panel and audience. The added value of a EUPHA workshop is the high-profile European level attention on this population. A spotlight on CSC experiences bringing together evidence from topic experts and health practitioners committed to improving childhood health inequalities across Europe and will foster a strong foundation for future collaborations and comparative research. The format is interactive and will include an introductory video of lived experiences of CSC to put a human face on this topic. We will then hear 4x5 minute expert presentations from social epidemiologists, health and social care professionals (20m) followed by a moderated discussion with the audience (35m). The presentations cover research across Europe, consider how inequalities accumulate across the life course to place children in care settings and identify where gaps in services fail children. MA sets the scene by asking what the international evidence is telling us about the health of people with CSC experiences. VS explores the accumulation of disadvantage across the life-course and intergenerational experiences of CSC. HF uses the Swedish example to ask why welfare services are not meeting the health needs of children. Finally, SS will consider solutions: what additions support is required for health practitioners dealing with children in care settings and what can/cannot be achieved from within the doctor’s office? Key messages • Participants will gain new insights on the health of children with social care experience from each other by sharing evidence and discussing key questions from diverse perspectives across Europe. • The workshop provides a foundation for participants to build future international networks and comparative research that will lead to a strong evidence base to inform policy and practice.

The Prosecutor’s Evolution

Abstract It is axiomatic that American prosecutors possess significant discretion. What varies among prosecutors is how they use their discretion. How they use their discretion derives from how prosecutors perceive their role. Different prosecutors perceive their role differently. Some see themselves as representing the victim and others see themselves as ensuring just outcomes. These differences emerge from the American prosecutor’s distinct evolution. Over 200 years, the American prosecutor has transformed through various stages. The private prosecutor, an attorney the victim hired, originated from the British system. With the expansion of democratic institutions, the prosecutor became political, representing a particular political party’s interests. Abuses led to prosecutors becoming more professional, representing the state. This disconnected prosecutors from their community. Proactive prosecutors emerged to reconnect prosecutors to their community. Then, in 2016, a new wave of prosecutors emerged. These prosecutors saw themselves protecting defendants from a punitive criminal justice process. This article explores these different perspectives, looking for commonalities that can define the American prosecutor’s identity. Three emerge. First, prosecutors are public servants. Though they may serve different publics and do so in different ways, all seek to serve public interests. Second, they represent the community. Prosecutorial policies and case selection derive from community values and priorities. Finally, prosecutors are opportunistic. When given the opportunity to expand their discretion

A POLYCENTRIC APPROACH TO THE GREEN ENERGY TRANSITION IN BULGARIA

Ostrom’s polycentric model for the governance of social systems has been gaining popularity as an alternative approach to the low-carbon energy transition in recent years. This article considers its potential application to three issues in Bulgaria’s green energy transition: finding substitutes for coal-based electricity production in the Maritsa-East lignite complex, providing new employment opportunities for workers affected by the transition, and understanding the broader social impacts of moving away from the traditional hierarchic model in the energy sector. It is important to note that while polycentric organizing is intended to support low-carbon solutions, it could also serve the interests of coal energy actors, who may prioritize short-term gains over the long-term public interest. Overcoming inertia is a major challenge for adopting the polycentric principle as part of Bulgaria’s industrial policy, particularly in implementing decentralized low-carbon energy solutions.

THE EVOLVING LANDSCAPE OF INVESTOR PROTECTION: BALANCING STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND INVESTOR RIGHTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The evolving landscape of investor protection in the 21st century requires a delicate balance between safeguarding investor rights and preserving state sovereignty. As global investments expand, investors seek legal assurances to protect their assets, while states must retain the ability to regulate in the public interest, addressing economic, social, and environmental challenges. This tension has sparked debates about the role of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and the need for reform. By modernizing investment treaties and dispute resolution processes, the international community can create a more equitable system that fosters both investment and sustainable development, ensuring mutual benefits for investors and states alike.

Public Perception Towards Insurance Companies in Malaysia

Nowadays, the insurance sector is regulated and driven by profit maximization, just like other providers of financial services. We have been taught that insurance is essential for peace of mind, yet customers generally have a poor perception of insurance providers, and this view is even more evident among younger clients who are so important to the industry's future. The objective of this study is to investigate factors that influence public perception of insurance companies in Malaysia, including fraud, claim settlement, and knowledge. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey research design. This survey was conducted using questionnaires and 110 randomly selected insurance policyholders. The study's findings suggest that the public's perception of insurance companies is significantly influenced by knowledge. As a result, this outcome will assist insurance companies in developing new formulas that take the criteria mentioned above into account to serve the public interest.

Unlocking public infrastructures? State aid and the common European data space

EU state aid rules are part of the EU’s competition policy, a form of soft law developed to nudge states away from public investments in many areas. Rules were used to impose that market competition holds a privileged position, and that enacting social, political, or economic benefits that might stifle competition requires a complicated legal and political negotiation process between the European Commission, Member States, and private companies. Nonetheless, many strategic projects or situations in recent years led to significant state aid. The Commission utilised a variety of means to encourage both private and public investments in EU based digital infrastructure that is critical for public media services and for unified European data space. Despite EU’s balancing act between the private and public interests, business interests are dangerously capturing the development in the media data space. To grasp the social and economic contribution of publicly financed productive activities, we approach public broadcasting systems as producers of public wealth of a peculiar kind whose activities and goals are defined by their public purpose, rather than the imperatives of capital and profitmaking. Unifying data spaces with too many design decisions conceded to capitalist production runs the risk of further neglecting social foundations of member states. We argue that the desired digital transformation would be more successful if it moved towards affirmative approaches to public services and public infrastructures, recognising the historical and contemporary contribution of the production of public wealth and public media in member states.

Failure in Fully Funded Pensions: Voluntary Exchange and Coercion

Private pension failure for much of the economics mainstream would be regarded as an artifact of markets that are insufficiently regulated, such that suppliers are able to exploit monopoly advantages, and are free to make serious errors of judgment. Market failure analysis is flawed, however, by its own failure to acknowledge salient elements of the institutional context of private pension provision, which, while it has been regulated according to approved public interest ends, has been prone to suboptimal investment performance. Drawing on classical liberal political economy, an alternative account of private pension failure would emphasize the perverse consequences of state intrusion in the market for retirement income protection. The origins of regulation failure can be traced back to a combination of two policy decision dynamics, one of intentional rent creation, a second of imperfect knowledge and understanding of markets resulting in flawed regulatory arrangements. By stifling competition, regulation diminishes the capacity of pension markets to serve pension plan participants by means of improved investment performance. The prevalence of private pension failure is an artifact of regulatory intrusiveness. Given this direction of causality, a better approach to policy would rest centrally on the deregulation of pension markets.

Decriminalising terror: for a zemiology of counterterrorism

Over the past two decades, UK counterterrorism efforts have involved contentious legal and social measures aimed at preventing harm and increasing security. Critical scholars argue that these measures narrowly define security, risk, and harm, failing to recognise intervention itself as a potential threat to individuals and communities. Despite significant critical research, the legitimacy of the criminal justice model of counterterrorism persists in criminological scholarship. This article uses zemiology, the study of social harm, to critique contemporary counterterrorism’s impact. It employs UK counterterrorism as its case study, highlighting its ‘security first’ approach and its narrow definition of public interest. Three key arguments are advanced: first, counterterrorism is not an exceptional extension of criminal law but a form of hybrid governance; second, viewing this governance through a crime-centric lens obscures the harms of criminalisation and overlooks non-criminalised politically-motivated violence; third, examining counterterrorism through a social harm lens allows for a focus on social and racial structures, rather than state-defined categories of harm. The social harm perspective challenges the conceptualisation of terrorism as a crisis justifying exceptional measures, highlighting instead counterterrorism’s broader social impact. The zemiological approach highlights the role of law, not just as source of protection, but also as a means of repression and state violence, emphasising state accountability and providing a framework for identifying and preventing social harm. This perspective centres the broader implications of counterterrorism policies on social structures and racial dynamics, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of security and harm.

Information as public good and public service media in Europe: Introduction to this special issue

The right to public life has been one of the most important achievements of modernity. It was a result of long and painful civil struggles for dignity in a democratic public sphere. While de jure we are all welcome in the public sphere, de facto rapid processes of fragmentation and numerous contexts of misinformation insulate the actual chances of meaningful contribution to public life. Platform users are aggressively approached as consumers of goods and services and continuously stimulated to produce large quantities of any content, just to feed the voracious platforms. The sobering truth is that many people on the private high-tech platforms do not act like true democrats, but like private individuals who pursue very personal aims. At the same time, a private person does not have a mandate to act in the public interest of the rest of the citizens. For these reasons, we turn to information as a public good and public responsibility in this special issue. It is about media as a public service that allows democracy to keep centre stage within a polity. When citizens interact with relevant public information, they build the capacity to control their political environment, to form informed opinions and act upon them. When this basic desideratum is not structurally at the core of society, one cannot even start to consider democracy as the first course of action for the generations to come. Information as a public good is not a thing of nature, but a purposeful action. We take this stance when we approach information as a public good, rather than some residual category of market failure. The scope of this special issue is to analyse and explore the resources and institutional settings that allow information to thrive as a public good in the European contemporary informational ecosystem.

STATE POLICY AS A FORM OF TARGETED STATE ACTIVITY

The article examines state policy as an organized and purposeful activity of the state, which provides for the protection of public interests, ensures the adoption of balanced and justified state decisions, and contributes to the stable development of Ukrainian society. Issues of state policy formation in the system of planning and implementation of development plans of modern society are considered. It was determined that with the transition from bureaucratic forms to innovative methods of managing the state and society, state policy acquires certain signs of publicity, due to the involvement of both state and non-state public organizations in its implementation. It has been proven that the European integration of Ukraine is accompanied by changes in state policy, which is based on European values ​​and standards for the formation of a legal, social and democratic state. Therefore, it is better to use the term «public policy», as active purposeful actions of the state based on the cooperation of state institutions, civil society institutions, as well as non-state organizations and individual citizens. It is noted that the participatory theory of democracy should become a universal principle of organizing the public policy of the Ukrainian state. Because the basis of the effective functioning of participatory democracy is a developed civil society, as well as public trust in the activities of state and public institutions, that is, citizens' confidence in the correctness of the actions of public authorities to implement the goals announced by the state. It is substantiated that modern state (public) policy, firstly, is designed to ensure public expression of will, expression of interests and needs of the population and their practical implementation at the level of power institutions; secondly, it should be based on the principles of: openness, transparency and democracy; thirdly, in the process of development and implementation of political decisions, civil society institutions should be involved in this work. The specific characteristics of state policy as an active activity are singled out, which distinguish it from a whole array of other types of policies. In further studies, it is suggested to pay attention to the normative and legal regulation of state policy.

Redressing urban land dispossession of Indians in Cato Manor, Durban, South Africa

ABSTRACT In South Africa, the 1913 Land Act and the Group Areas Act of 1950 resulted in about 3.5 million people being dispossessed of their land and business sites, with little or no compensation. Cato Manor, one of the earliest settlements occupied by Indians after the completion of indenture, was one such site of displacement in Durban. In the democratic era, the Durban City Council used the Section 34 application by the Cato Manor Development Agency (CMDA) to rule out the restoration of land lost by those dispossessed by the Group Areas Act in Cato Manor. Drawing from data collected from the Land Claims Commission, proceedings of the Land Claims Court, and participation in urban restitution workshops, this paper analyses the Cato Manor Section 34 application to illustrate the conflict between two competing public interests: low-cost housing and the need for restoration of land to those who were dispossessed by apartheid forced removals.

Trust and Safety work: internal governance of technology risks and harms

Abstract Trust and Safety work mitigates certain social risks and harms of digital technologies. In a landscape that is only slowly establishing regulatory oversight mechanisms, Trust and Safety work performs a type of internal governance by attempting to mitigate disinformation, online harassment, extremism, and other harms accelerated or amplified by technology products and services. With origins in content moderation, Trust and Safety work now also includes product advice for online services and IRL (in real life) products. Attention to Trust and Safety work can complicate a monolithic view of what tech work is and who does it, as well as point to locations for intervention as we seek to promote Public Interest Technology in globally impactful sociotechnical systems.