Role Of Scientific Evidence Research Articles

Management challenges of urban biosolids: narratives around facility siting in rural Ontario

The emerging challenge of managing increasing volumes of urban sewage has resulted in municipalities pursuing sustainable ways to manage urban biosolids and their by-products. Using content analysis of public debates, and situating the debate within science, policy and facility siting literature, this study examines claims and counterclaims relating to the siting of a biosolid processing facility in rural Ontario. The equivocal evidence on the health and environmental effects of biosolids resulted in a heated “expert versus lay” debate. The study critically evaluates the importance of trust and the shifting role of scientific evidence in politicised settings, while making relevant policy recommendations.

Evidence based politics: knowing and acting today to shape tomorrow

The role of scientific evidence in influencing political decisions that affect the future and the importance of research in generating such evidence is highlighted in the context of the Swiss federation. Within the Swiss federation the responsibilities are balanced between the confederation and the cantons. Currently Switzerland faces several challenges such as epidemiological transition, increase in chronic non-communicable diseases, increasing social costs, increasing health care costs, need for more medical professionals and health inequalities. Therefore we need more scientific knowledge to tackle these problems. Considerable investment in research infrastructure is needed in the form of cohorts and biobanks. Two new federal laws have been enacted which pertain to prevention, health promotion, managed care and disease management. However such laws need scientific support and collaboration across political, economic, academic and social forces.

Health Protection or Industry Protection: The Endogenous Food Standards

This study argued that food standards are endogenous and determined by the contest or balance among five relevant interest groups: industry, government, consumers (civil society), academia, and external influence. After a comprehensive review on the Maximum Residue Limit regulation system around the world, this study carried out an econometric estimation to find out what factors determined the stringency of MRLs.The results show that the stringency of MRLs is majorly determined by good governance and MRLs generally reflect consumer’s demand for higher health protection. The stable government with low corruption and good credibility in its people, which can provide high quality of public, civil services and relevant services, tends to have relax MRLs, while government focusing on formulating and enforcing effective rule of law and implement sound policies to permit and promote private interests (regulatory quality), tends to generate tight MRLs. Net apple importers and net traditional apple exporters tend to impose loose MRLs while countries specified in world food market but not in apple tend to apply stricter MRLs. Consumers in richer countries with free access to information and have great accountability on their government tends to demand more stringent import MRLs. Countries with higher proportion of employers in R&D and more journal publications tend to have more stringent MRLs while more expenditure in R&D tends to generate less stringent MRLs when all other factors controlled. The role of scientific evidence in determining the regulatory stringency could be very complicated. However, this study does not find evidence that MRLs are related to a country's competition environment in the world market or its political importance of agriculture/apple industry or its export-driven strategy.

The influence of neuroscience on US Supreme Court decisions about adolescents' criminal culpability

In the past 8 years, the US Supreme Court has issued landmark opinions in three cases that involved the criminal culpability of juveniles. In the most recent case, in 2012, a ruling prohibited states from mandating life without parole for crimes committed by minors. In these cases, the Court drew on scientific studies of the adolescent brain in concluding that adolescents, by virtue of their inherent psychological and neurobiological immaturity, are not as responsible for their behaviour as adults. This article discusses the Court's rationale in these cases and the role of scientific evidence about adolescent brain development in its decisions. I conclude that the neuroscientific evidence was probably persuasive to the Court not because it revealed something new about the nature of adolescence but precisely because it aligned with common sense and behavioural science.

Tsunami Waves of Destruction: The Creation of the “New Australian Catastrophe”

Tsunami Waves of Destruction: The Creation of the “New Australian Catastrophe”

The role of scientific evidence in the management of high-risk groups using genetic information

The role of scientific evidence in the management of high-risk groups using genetic information Sue K. Park, MD·Daehee Kang, MD·Soyoung Park, MD·Dong Yoon Kang, MD·Boyoung Park, MD· Sungwan Kim, PhD·Sung Hyun Ma, MD·Hyuna Sung·ByungJoo Park, MD Department of Preventive Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Seoul National University Graduate School, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Coronary Angiography Following Acute Myocardial Infarction in Ontario, Canada

The role of scientific evidence in shaping recommendations on capacity targets and cardiovascular technology utilization is unclear. The temporal growth in the use of coronary angiography services and the use of statins after an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was determined for all patients older than 65 years admitted to any hospital in Ontario, Canada, between 1992 and 2004. A Bayesian change-point regression model was used to determine the rate of maximum uptake (inflection point) for use of cardiac catheterization service and statins after AMI. The inflection points were compared with the corresponding publication dates of the first positive evidence for outcome efficacy of use of cardiac catheterization service and statins after AMI as obtained from randomized control trials. The use of post-AMI coronary angiography closely mirrored overall temporal increases in cardiac catheterization capacity between 1992 and 2004 (r = 0.95, P<.001). The inflection point for post-AMI angiography service use was September 1998, 11 months before the publication of the first positive randomized controlled trial demonstrating benefit of routine post-AMI angiography. Conversely, the inflection point for statin therapy occurred in October 1998, 47 months after the publication of the first positive randomized controlled trial demonstrating the benefits of statin therapy for the secondary prevention of coronary artery disease. These findings were consistent regardless of the presence of on-site cardiac catheterization facilities at the admitting AMI institution and patient illness severity levels. The proliferation of cardiac catheterization in Ontario is attributable to factors other than the emergence of published scientific evidence.

‘Tackling Drugs Together’ and the establishment of the principle that ‘treatment works’

This article considers the fears and tensions surrounding debate on treatment issues in the 1990s and the contribution of Tackling Drugs Together and the related Effectiveness Review to establishing the principle that ‘treatment works’ and the role of scientific evidence in the policy process.

Shining Through the Everlasting Twilight

The world of physical therapy became a much less interesting place on August 27, 2005, with the untimely death of Jules Rothstein, PT, PhD, FAPTA, Editor in Chief Emeritus of Physical Therapy . Under his leadership as Editor in Chief, Physical Therapy became recognized worldwide as the premier physical therapy scientific journal. It is easy to forget the limited role of science and scholarship in our profession back in 1989 when Jules assumed his position as Editor. There were too few physical therapists actively conducting and publishing research, and too few physical therapists who received any external funding for their studies. As Jules himself often lamented, many of the studies being published in our field were student projects, with limited relevance to practice. Jules was instrumental in providing leadership at a critical time in our profession's history and helped transform the role of scientific evidence in our field over the past 15 years. Much of his leadership was wielded—mightily—from the tip of his editorial pen. As noted in a letter the Journal recently received from Dr Rob Herbert, Scientific Editor of the Australian Journal of Physiotherapy , …

Dispelling disaster myths about dead bodies and disease: the role of scientific evidence and the media

For decades, after nearly every natural disaster, fear of disease has encouraged communities, local authorities, and governments to rapidly dispose of the bodies of the victims without first identifying them. In May 2004 this journal published the first-ever review article to comprehensively assess the scientific evidence on the infectious disease risks of dead bodies following natural disasters, along with an editorial commenting on the persistence of myths concerning the dangers allegedly posed by dead bodies. This paper assesses the impact that the review article and the editorial have had on the way that health risks from dead bodies have been reported by the media over the following year, especially focusing on the South Asian tsunami disaster of December 2004. While some media outlets have reported erroneous information, hundreds of other news stories have accurately reported that dead bodies pose no public health risk, and have explained the priority for properly identifying the deceased. Nevertheless, publication of scientific evidence alone is insufficient to bring about public health action. International agencies need to continue their work on producing standards, guidelines, and practical guidance on managing dead bodies. There needs to be a community-centered approach to informing communities about the management of the dead following disasters and the rights of individuals to be treated respectfully after death. Nongovernmental organizations should be encouraged to provide expertise and technical support in identifying and burying large numbers of dead. There also needs to be ongoing assessment of the technical processes involved in the recovery, identification, and disposal of dead bodies, as well as the effectiveness of disaster preparedness plans and communication with the affected population.

The Role of Scientific Evidence in the Decision to Use Complementary and Alternative Medicine

In a recent survey of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by adults with inflammatory bowel disease, 65% of participants reported that they would continue to use CAM despite a negative scientific report. This assertion was related to reported positive experiences with CAM, suggesting that positive experiences may comprise sufficient evidence to continue CAM use and may override scientific evidence. These results raise two concerns: (i) many patients do not pay attention to the evidence that we, as researchers, generate; and (ii) the evidence that we generate may not reflect patients’ experiences.

Look at it this Way

The debate on genetically modified (GM) foods has been intense in Western Europe and North America over recent months. It has served as a focus for very wide-ranging discussion on the safety and ecological impact og GM crops, the role of scientific evidence in public debate, public trust of scientists and government, and the role of capitalism in the world economy. These debates can appear to the disinterested outsider to be complex and occasionally irrational. In this short paper I discuss the contribution ethical reasoning can make to the debate. What place, if any, do spiritual values have ?

Hazardous waste and technological risk: The limits of science in decision‐making

AbstractThe role of scientific evidence in the decision making process is critical. However, the validity of scientific information is often disputed. With reference to the hazardous waste industry, Denis Smith and Peter Elliot illustrate the problems which may be encountered where science is called upon to reconcile conflict in the application of environmental policy.

Planning According to the ‘Scientific Conception of the World’: The Work of Otto Neurath

Neurath, a prominent member of the Vienna Circle, was involved in much practical reform work. He was also a member of CIAM, and participated in the famous Athens meeting where its basic principles were formulated. But his plans for intensive cooperation with CIAM did not come to fruition, because of fundamental differences regarding the role of scientific evidence in decisionmaking and planning. CIAM members were looking for a solid bedrock on which to base design norms and principles. Neurath was a sceptic and emphasised the pluralistic nature of knowledge. He also held that decisions were to be taken on pragmatic grounds, reflecting one's chosen “path of life”. Experts had no superior skill in this. Neurath developed the Vienna Method of pictorial statistics to allow people to make their own inferences from such evidence as there was. Neurath's views of decisionmaking in planning are very modern, and suggest that the critique of positivism in planning needs to be reconsidered.