Wealthy Countries Research Articles

Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential. By Heba Gowayed

Refugees are often promoted as assets for host states, as investment in their human capital is understood to stimulate economic growth and boost employment in under-resourced industries. Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential inverts this discourse to explore the cost of socioeconomic integration policies for refugees in wealthy Western countries. It proposes ‘state-structured human capital’ as a conceptual frame for understanding how the welfare systems refugees encounter shape their economic mobility and social security, by defining what and whose human capital is recognized and considered worthy of investment. To evidence this proposition, Heba Gowayed documents the experiences of 43 Syrian refugees as they grapple with the social and economic realities of ‘refuge’ in the US, Canada, and Germany. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews conducted in their first years after arrival (2015–18), Refuge paints a picture of men and women striving to enact and advance their human capital on their own terms. Often, this involves struggling against systems that seek to produce them as self-reliant and productive members of society, whilst simultaneously marginalizing them because of their race, religion, gender, and class.

A clinician’s dilemma: what should be communicated to women with oncogenic genital HPV and their partners regarding the risk of oral viral transmission?

Head and neck cancer, the sixth most common cancer worldwide, account for about 1 out of 20 malignant tumors. In recent years a reduction in the incidence of cervical cancer, but a concomitant major increase in the incidence of HPV-mediated oropharyngeal cancer caused by orogenital HPV transmission has been observed. Consequently, in wealthy countries oropharyngeal squamous-cell carcinomas (OPSCC) is now the most frequent HPV-related cancer, having overtaken cervical cancer. Without effective medical interventions, this incidence trend could continue for decades. As no specific precursor lesion has been consistently identified in the oral cavity and oropharynx, HPV vaccination is the logical intervention to successfully counteract also the rising incidence of OPSCCs. However, HPV vaccine uptake remains suboptimal, particularly in males, the population at higher risk of OPSCC. Alternative primary prevention measures, such as modifications in sexual behaviors, could be implemented based on knowledge of individual genital HPV status. Until recently, this information was not available at a population level, but the current gradual shift from cytology (Pap test) to primary HPV testing for cervical cancer screening is revealing the presence of oncogenic viral genotypes in millions of women. In the past, health authorities and professional organizations have not consistently recommended modifications in sexual behaviors to be adopted when a persistent high-risk HPV cervicovaginal infection was identified. However, given the above changing epidemiologic scenario and the recent availability of an immense amount of novel information on genital HPV infection, it is unclear whether patient counseling should change. The right of future partners to be informed of the risk could also be considered. However, any modification of the provided counseling should be based also on the actual likelihood of a beneficial effect on the incidence of HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancers. The risk is on one side to induce unjustified anxiety and provide ineffective instructions, on the other side to miss the opportunity to limit the spread of oral HPV infections. Thus, major health authorities and international gynecologic scientific societies should issue or update specific recommendations, also with the aim of preventing inconsistent health care professionals’ behaviors.

Fished or farmed: Life cycle impacts of salmon consumer decisions and opportunities for reducing impacts

Salmon is a nutritious and popular food among consumers predominantly in wealthy countries around the world. Since the mid-1990s farmed salmon production has exceeded wild salmon harvest, and is now 80 % of total global salmon supply. The environmental impacts of farmed salmon are frequently discussed and consumers are faced with a multitude of choices even after deciding to have salmon for dinner: species, production method, origin, product form. We present life cycle impacts of fresh and frozen salmon products, originating in purse seine fisheries for pink salmon and gill net fisheries for sockeye salmon in Alaska, when sold on markets in Europe and the United States. Norwegian salmon products are then modelled to the same markets in fresh and frozen form, based on literature data. Impact categories included were greenhouse gas emissions, marine eutrophication, marine ecotoxicity and land use. A fish in, fish out ratio is also calculated and differences in content of nutrients and contaminants described. Frozen products from wild sockeye and pink salmon had the lowest emissions in both markets. For consumers in the U.S. and Europe, wild salmon products have 46–86 % and 12–71 % lower greenhouse gas emissions than farmed Norwegian salmon, respectively, depending on species and product form. Farmed salmon also had higher land use, marine ecotoxic and eutrophying emissions and fish in, fish out ratio. Important differences exist in nutritional and contaminant content between the three types of salmon production. Improvement options as well as an optimized supply chain are modelled showing greenhouse gas reduction opportunities of 40–50 % also for the best performing chains. Results can be used as a baseline for improved data collection and emission reductions. Recommendations for consumers, industry and policymakers who can facilitate and even drive development towards more sustainable salmon products are provided.

Assessing the Relationship Between Emergency Food Assistance and Social Vulnerability During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Food insecurity is a major public health challenge that is associated with negative health outcomes in wealthy countries. In US urban areas, food banks and pantries played an expanded role in providing emergency food assistance and addressing food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study seeks to determine if socially vulnerable neighborhoods are more likely to receive emergency food assistance during this pandemic, after controlling for distance to emergency food distribution sites and spatial clustering. The study area is El Paso County, Texas—an urban area on the US-Mexico border. Dependent variables represent both coverage and intensity of emergency food transfers (EFTs) from local food banks and pantries during November 2020, at the census tract level. Independent variables are derived from the widely used Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Our statistical analyses are based on multivariable generalized estimating equations that account for spatial clustering and proximity to emergency food distribution sites. Results indicate that both coverage and intensity of EFTs are significantly greater in neighborhoods with higher social vulnerability and proximity to emergency food distribution sites, but lower in neighborhoods that are more vulnerable in terms of housing and transportation. Our findings highlight the significance of neighborhood-level social factors in influencing access to the emergency food network during a public health crisis and have important implications for government agencies and nonprofit organizations associated with public health and emergency preparedness in US urban areas.

The Grass is Not Always Greener on the Other Side: The Impact of Environmental Campaigns on Green Purchasing Behavior

As a developing country, we confront several environmental challenges. The country's environmental worth lags well behind that of wealthy countries. Nonetheless, the governments have recently paid attention to environmental issues. Aside from that, individuals display a proactive attitude regarding the importance of environmental protection efforts due to severe environmental challenges. This research article investigates the impact of the governmental environmental campaign on green purchasing behaviour in a developing country. The structural equation modelling analysis outcomes show that environmental campaigns for green awareness influence green purchasing behaviour through the green attitude, perceived behavioural control, and subjective green norms. The relationships discovered in this study provide practitioners with insight into understanding and stimulating pro-environmental consumer behaviour knowledge in developing countries. Scholars of environmental management will benefit from the study's novel comprehensive approach to analysing sustainable consumption trends and motivating its population to take action to preserve their environment. Practitioners may find our findings helpful in developing strategies to influence consumer attitudes and behaviour toward sustainable products in developing countries.

The Effects of Sustainable Governance to Sustainable Development

Sustainable development advocates effective and efficient planning of both present and future use of resources. Governance, on the other hand, is based on the joint and coordinated management of multidimensional variables, which is the basis of the sustainability approach. This study aims to determine how much sustainable governance influences the fulfillment of multidimensional sustainable development. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the variables that reveal the impact of governance on development in terms of sustainability while the gray relational analysis method was used to rank the countries. The results reveal that increases in the number of people using the internet in society, as well as in the levels of developments in e-government and human development, environmental performance, and political reform, all assist countries achieve their SDGs. Furthermore, it was found that governance has a positive and significant impact on SDGs. In addition, an MCDM model consisting of BWM and gray relational analysis was used to evaluate countries based on their performance in sustainable development, the economic, governance and environment. The gray relational analysis results, on the other hand, revealed that developed and wealthy countries ranked first, while underdeveloped countries experiencing instability, such as war and conflict, ranked last. Nordic countries outperform other countries in terms of governance and sustainability, depending on the strength of their democracy and executive capacity.

POLICE REFORM IN DIVIDED TIMES

POLICE REFORM IN DIVIDED TIMES

The extreme gendering of COVID-19: Household tasks and division of labour satisfaction during the pandemic.

For many years, scholars have directed our attention to the gender gap in domestic labour. Even when women engage in paid employment, they nevertheless perform the majority of the household labour in most wealthy countries. At the same time, disasters and crises both expose and exacerbate existing social inequalities. In this paper, we ask: in what ways has the COVID−19 pandemic contributed to the gender gap in household labour, including childcare? How do women and men feel about this gap? Using data from the Canadian Perspectives survey series (Wave 3), conducted by Statistics Canada three months into the pandemic, our analyses consider the task distribution that made household labour intensely unequal during COVID−19, with women ten times more likely than men to say childcare fell mostly on them, for example. Yet, in nearly all of our models, women did not ubiquitously report being more dissatisfied with the division of domestic tasks within the house, nor were they more likely than men to say that the household division of labour “got worse” during COVID; however, parents did feel that it got worse. We discuss what these findings mean for women's mental health, long‐term paid labour, and interpersonal power, and raise questions about why it is we are not seeing a decrease in women's reported satisfaction with this division of labour. These findings spotlight gender inequality and the family as ongoing pillars of capitalism, and how the structural and interpersonal weathering of the pandemic comes at a particularly great expense to women.

Climate Change, Agriculture, and Biodiversity: How Does Shifting Agriculture Affect Habitat Availability?

Models show that climate change is likely to push agricultural production in the US region known as the Corn Belt northward in coming decades. The economic and social impacts of this northward shift have received extensive attention, but its environmental impacts, such as effects on biodiversity, have received less focus. The aim of this study was to evaluate the extent and distribution of grassland-type habitat that is vulnerable to a northward-shifting Corn Belt. To analyze this question, geographic shifts in suitable climate conditions for the dominant crop, corn (Zea mays), were modelled. The amount and distribution of uncultivated (potential habitat) land cover classes was then calculated and mapped in current and future (2050) regions suitable for corn. In currently-suitable areas, the degree of climate suitability positively predicted the dominance of corn in the landscape and negatively predicted grasslands. Areas likely to become climatically suited for corn production contained modest amounts of grassland and herbaceous wetland, most of it privately held and lacking protected status. If economic incentives for corn remain strong, pressure to further simplify the landscape and further reduce habitat resources will likely increase in the coming decades. While global concern for biodiversity and habitat conservation is growing, this study raises the question of how wealthy countries are taking action, or not, to reduce further land conversion and habitat losses.

Re-Envisioning an Early Years System of Care towards Equity in Canada: A Critical, Rapid Review.

Background: Many children in high-income countries, including Canada, experience unjust and preventable health inequities as a result of social and structural forces that are beyond their families’ immediate environment and control. In this context, early years programs, as a key population health initiative, have the potential to play a critical role in fostering family and child wellbeing. Methods: Informed by intersectionality, this rapid literature review captured a broad range of international, transdisciplinary literature in order to identify promising approaches for orienting early years systems of care towards equity in Canada. Results: Findings point to the need for a comprehensive, integrated and socially responsive early years system that has top-down political vision, leadership and accountability and bottom-up community-driven tailoring with an explicit focus on health promotion and maternal, family and community wellness using relational approaches. Conclusions: Advancing child health equity in wealthy countries requires structural government-level changes that support cross-ministerial and intersectoral alliances. Employing intersectionality in this rapid review promotes contextualized and nuanced understandings of what is needed in order to advance a responsive, comprehensive and quality early years system of equity-oriented care. Further research is needed to prevent child health inequities that are disproportionally experienced by Indigenous and racialized children in wealthy countries such as Canada. olicy and research recommendations that have relevance for high-income countries in diverse global contexts are discussed.

Specific type of childhood trauma and borderline personality disorder in Chinese patients.

BackgroundChildhood maltreatment (CM) is a known risk factor for the development of mental disorders. An extensive body of literature about CM and mental health has been developed in wealthy countries, but information about this connection is lacking in developing countries including China.AimsTo explore the possible relationship between specific types of CM and borderline personality disorder (BPD) in patients with mental disorders in China.MethodsA survey was conducted in 2006, involving over 3,402 Chinese individuals aged 18–60 years who were randomly selected from the outpatients in the Shanghai Mental Health Center. The patients were screened with the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire and CM was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. The final sample comprised 178 patients with BPD, 178 patients with other personality disorders (PDs), and 178 patients without PDs.ResultsIn Chinese patients, compared to other PDs, patients with BPDs are more likely to have experienced CM. Emotional maltreatment (emotional abuse and neglect) was the strongest predictor of BPD. Female gender and sexual abuse are significant predictors of the self-harm/suicidal risk of BPD patients.ConclusionThis is a pioneering study conducted on a large set of Chinese clinical samples with paired controls to establish and compare the associations between specific CM and BPD. Further studies in this field are necessary to elucidate the mechanism of how various types of childhood trauma have influenced PDs.

Waste Management in Qatar: A Systematic Literature Review and Recommendations for System Strengthening

Billions of tons of waste are generated annually, with the amount of waste rapidly increasing and its management expected to worsen. Qatar is a small and wealthy country in the Arabian Peninsula that is undergoing enormous economic and urban development. This study presents the results of a systematic literature review on waste management in Qatar and offers recommendations for system strengthening based on an analysis of the available evidence. The PRISMA guidelines were followed to review literature from the ProQuest and SCOPUS platforms, from which 82 unique publications were analyzed according to ten themes. The results draw upon diverse disciplinary and research focus areas related to waste management, ranging from the generation of value-added products from wastes to the role of religion in waste management awareness. The main recommendations emerging from the available evidence include the need for a holistic approach to address increasing waste generation, which must include diverse stakeholders such as government entities, researchers, and broad community representation for decision making as well as raising awareness for behavior change. Additionally, the main waste types, including construction, food, plastic, and electronic wastes, require specific attention since the cause of generation and type of management varies accordingly. The rise of interest in improving waste management, in particular to work toward meeting the targets of the Qatar National Vision and the National Development Strategy should bring about positive outcomes for strengthening waste management systems.

Providing Neurocritical Care in Resource-Limited Settings: Challenges and Opportunities.

Acute neurologic illnesses (ANI) contribute significantly to the global burden of disease and cause disproportionate death and disability in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) where neurocritical care resources and expertise are limited. Shifting epidemiologic trends in recent decades have increased the worldwide burden of noncommunicable diseases, including cerebrovascular disease and traumatic brain injury, which coexist in many LMICs with a persistently high burden of central nervous system infections such as tuberculosis, neurocysticercosis, and HIV-related opportunistic infections and complications. In the face of this heavy disease burden, many resource-limited countries lack the infrastructure to provide adequate care for patients with ANI. Major gaps exist between wealthy and poor countries in access to essential resources such as intensive care unit beds, neuroimaging, clinical laboratories, neurosurgical capacity, and medications for managing complex neurologic emergencies. Moreover, many resource-limited countries face critical shortages in health care workers trained to manage neurologic emergencies, with subspecialized neurocritical care expertise largely absent outside of high-income countries. Numerous opportunities exist to overcome these challenges through capacity-building efforts that improve outcomes for patients with ANI in resource-limited countries. These include research on needs and best practices for ANI management in LMICs, developing systems for effective triage, education and training to expand the neurology workforce, and supporting increased collaboration and data sharing among LMIC health care workers and systems. The success of these efforts in curbing the disproportionate and rising impact of ANI in LMICs will depend on the coordinated engagement of the global neurocritical care community.

Edge Technology Based Artificial Intelligence System for Ocean Patrol and Surveillance

The oceans are a principal source of biodiversity, and with a global seafood market worth over $120B, they’re a crucial resource to almost half of the world’s population [1]. Costing society $23.5B annually, overfishing caused by illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) contributes significantly to this depletion of fisheries. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, IUU fishing “threatens marine ecosystems, puts food security and regional stability at risk, and is linked to major human rights violations and even organized crime.” In some locations, government-employed observers accompany boats to prevent IUU fishing [2]. However, even in wealthy countries, observers only monitor a minuscule percentage of fishing vessels. For example, in the expansive region of the Pacific Ocean from Indonesia to Hawaii, just 2% of fishing operations are monitored by observers. To combat the problem of IUU the experimenter developed an Edge Technology Based Artificial Intelligence System for marine protected areas (MPAs) using low-cost edge computing devices to track illegal fishing activity through AI-based image recognition services. The product is a solar-powered, inexpensive, edge computing and monitoring device mounted on buoys with a video camera and processor to analyze images using machine learning models. The model detects vessels, monitors their illegal activity in the oceans, thus reducing the overexploitation of fishing. The edge device does processing locally and sends relevant data to the database, reducing the need for processing vast amounts of images & videos centrally. A stealth Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (drone) with a pre-programmed flight path collects the data from buoys and reports predictions to ground stations providing 24x7 surveillance capabilities.The product has a broad range of potential applications to detect overfishing, piracy, smuggling, and instances of ocean pollution, including oil spills. It can also be deployed for marine surveillance, primarily supporting the national defense. The immediate application for this product is the continuous surveillance and protection of targeted MPAs by alerting illegal fishing activities to governments and NGOs in real-time.

The Influence of Working From Home on Job Performance among Academicians from Kota Bharu Polytechnic, Kelantan During Covid-19 Pandemic: A Pilot Study

The world's wealthiest countries were first hit by the unique coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. One of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a global shift in work ergonomic patterns, since millions of individuals have substituted their typical work environment with their homes in order to restrict the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) infection. The goal of our cross-sectional pilot research was to determine the impact of working from home on job performance among academicians at Kota Bharu Polytechnic who had been working from home before they joined this study. The participants were asked to fill in our printed questionnaire about the impact of working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic job performance and how it influences academicians’ performance. The results indicate that the entire measures achieved a high-reliability coefficient that ranged from 0.768 to 0.945, based on Cronbach’s alpha coefficient test (they all exceeded 0.70 benchmark) with no significant deviation of skewness values from zero. In addition, the results of the study indicated that work from home and work motivation significantly affect academicians’ job performance. The study confirmed the validity of an instrument that investigated at work motivation as a mediating variable when analysing the effects of working from home on job performance and how it affects academicians' performance.

Does money buy health? evaluation of stock market performance and economic growth in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The novel coronavirus pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19) has significantly harmed numerous social and economic activities worldwide, drawing researchers and governments’ attention to the problem and tackling it via persistent healthcare measures. The study’s primary purpose is to examine the effects of total coronavirus cases, total fatalities, total recovered cases, unemployment, and trade openness on stock prices and economic growth in the world’s top 39 affected nations. An analysis of the coronavirus outbreaks found that wealthier countries had a well-established healthcare infrastructure, but they were disproportionately affected by the virus. Conversely, the less wealthy nations had inadequate healthcare infrastructures, but they were not as affected as the wealthier countries. Is it possible to buy health with money? That was the question at the heart of the study’s money-and-health curve. The robust least square regression results indicate that an increase in coronavirus cases influences economic growth and stock market performance due to massive healthcare funding distributed globally, sustaining economic and financial activities for a shorter period. However, a continuous increase in coronavirus fatalities depresses the stock market, resulting in financial depression worldwide. Additionally, a rise in overall coronavirus recovered cases has a negative effect on the country’s economic development and stock market performance because of greater uncertainty in economic and financial activities. Case fatality ratios influence economic growth, whereas case recovery ratios decrease economic and financial performance due to greater healthcare concerns across countries. Finally, trade openness is critical in sustaining the country’s economic development and stock market performance in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic.

The future of diet: what will we be eating in The future?

Food habits and preferences of our population are continuously changing throughout the world, especially in the wealthier countries. One of the consequences in our environment is the abandonment of the Mediterranean Diet, in accordance with an increased consumption of processed and ultraprocessed food, with negative effects on our health by the progressive increase of obesity and its multiple metabolic consequences. On the other hand, foods production is one of the most important reasons for the global warming of the planet, triggered by an increased demand of foods, caused by the grow up of the world population and by the introduction of technologies no respectful with the planet. Fortunately, every day the population is more and more awareness of the need for changing the alimentary model and the news technologies, looking for minimizing such deleterious consequence, always thinking in the health of the people and the planet. This concept, looking for a global welfare for the present and for the future, is discussed in this manuscript.

Advancing Global Palliative Care Over Two Decades: Health System Integration, Access to Essential Medicines, and Pediatrics.

Between 2000 and 2020 Open Society Foundations was one of very few funders that supported global palliative care development and advocacy. To describe progress made in three priority areas-the integration of palliative care into public health systems, access to controlled medicines, and pediatric palliative care-during those 20 years. Activities and developments between 2000 and 2020 on global integration of palliative care into health systems, access to and availability of controlled medicines, and pediatric palliative care are described and analyzed. Major progress has been made in each area. Whereas in 2000, integration of palliative care into public healthcare systems was on the agenda in just a few pioneering countries, by 2020 a global consensus had emerged that palliative care should be integral to all health systems including in universal health coverage and countries were increasingly taking steps to integrate it into national health systems. While limited availability of these medicines was barely recognized as a public health or drug control issue in 2000, it had become an important priority in global drug policy debates by 2020 and numerous countries had taken steps to improve access to these medicines. Pediatric palliative care, available mostly in a small number of wealthy countries in the 1990s, has seen rapid growth, especially in low- and middle-income countries, and now has a solid foothold in all world regions. Despite this progress, significant challenges remain as funding for palliative care advocacy is limited, the overdose crisis in the US has recently had a chilling effect on efforts to improve availability of opioid analgesics, and economic crises related to the COVID-19 pandemic create uncertainty over the future of universal health coverage.

Relative deprivation, national GDP and right‐wing populism: A multilevel, multinational study

AbstractWe conducted a secondary analysis of the 2018 (ninth round) European Social Survey dataset (N = 19,512, nested in 24 countries) to analyse the association between relative deprivation and right‐wing populist voting, moderated by participants' income and their country's GDP. A multilevel moderated model showed that relative deprivation, income and GDP had no association with right‐wing populist votes by themselves. However, income and GDP moderated the relation between relative deprivation and right‐wing populist votes, that was significant for participants with high incomes and for those living in wealthy countries. The strengths, limitations and future developments of the study are discussed.

Overview of the Role of Energy Resources in Algeria’s Energy Transition

Algeria is a wealthy country with natural resources, namely, nuclear, renewable, and non-renewable sources. The non-renewable energy sources are considered the lion’s share for energy production (98%). Algeria’s efforts to ensure and strengthen its energy security will take an important step in the coming decades by commissioning new energy infrastructure based on intensive use of water, coal, nuclear, non-renewable, and renewable sources. The implementation of new power infrastructure is expected to be operational from 2030. The renewable power realization in Algeria is relatively less compared to other African countries, i.e., Morocco, Egypt, South Africa, etc. The total renewable power installed capacity in Algeria reached 686 MW in 2020, as part of its national energy portfolio, although the Algerian government has spent tremendous efforts on introducing new sustainable technologies to enable the transition towards a cleaner and sustainable energy system. Indeed, the country announced its plan to install around 22 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. It will include 1 GW bio-power from the waste, 13.5 GW from solar PV, 2 GW from CSP, 15 MW from geothermal, 400 MW cogeneration, and, finally, 5 GW from wind. The scope of the present research provides general information about the usage of energy resources such as fossil, nuclear, and renewable sources in Algeria and also covers the energy supply outlook. The present effort is the first of its kind which discusses the application of the coal and nuclear as clean energy sources as part of renewable energy transition. Additionally, it also includes the description of the existing Algerian energy sector and information about water and water desalination and their usage in other sectors.