Blinded by Science

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wastell ◽  
Susan White
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Disadvantaged Children ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday World ◽  
Public Imagination

In recent years, new areas of biology, especially epigenetics and neuroscience, have enthralled the public imagination. They have been used as powerful arguments for developing social policy in a particular direction, from early intervention in the lives of disadvantaged children to seeking 'biomarkers' as identifiers of criminality. This book critically examines the capabilities and limitations of these biotechnologies, exploring their implications for policy and practice. The book will enable social scientists, policy makers, practitioners and interested general readers to understand how the new biologies of epigenetics and neuroscience have increasingly influenced the fields of family policy, mental health, child development and criminal justice. The book will facilitate much needed debate about what makes a good society and how best to build one. It also draws attention to the ways that the uncertainties of the original science are lost in their translation into the everyday world of practice and policy, and how the primary work is co-opted and manipulated to support particular moral agendas.

Who Is Listening? When Scholars Think They Are Talking to Congress

2014 ◽  
Vol 657 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-273
Author(s):  
Kenneth Prewitt
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

The editors asked for my view on whether, in the current political climate, the recommendations in this volume of The ANNALS are likely to be heeded. The question that precedes this one is whether the volume’s contributors understand why policy-makers make use of science at all. “No” is the obvious answer, though I see this not as a failure particular to their effort but rather as a broader failure of social science. Getting the science right is a necessary but not sufficient step in getting it used. Social scientists have not investigated the use of science in policy in a serious way. They must if science is to have influence in the public sphere. I also comment on the political climate, unhelpfully described by many worried observers as antiscience. It is more informative to say that there is a Congress-led effort to push science policy and federal expenditures toward short-term and narrow national goals. This is harmful to science and consequently to the nation, and scientists should explain why. But they must also respect that science policy and setting priorities for spending public funds are congressional responsibilities.

Knowledge translation and health policy for burden of disease

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
E Pallari ◽  
S T Thomsen ◽  
H B M Hilderink
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Knowledge Translation ◽  
Burden Of Disease ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Regional Office ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
European Public ◽  
Disability Adjusted Life ◽  
Life Years

Abstract A key goal of most Burden of Disease (BoD) studies is to support public health policies. However, while the concepts of BoD and Disability Adjusted Life years have been introduced more than 25 years, BoD researchers are still struggling to find better ways to translate their findings and communicate them to the relevant decision makers and other stakeholders. To address this gap, the burden-eu COST Action aims to generate better guidance of the use of BoD metrics in policy-making processes. In collaboration with experts in knowledge translation and risk communication, the Action will compile good practices in knowledge translation and develop a roadmap to integrate knowledge translation in national BOD studies. To support these objectives, collaborations have been established with knowledge translation experts from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, the WHO Regional Office for Europe, and the European Public Health Association. During an initial meeting of the “knowledge translation” working group, 29 participants identified elements in the pathway from evidence generation to practice that need to be addressed. Building on the outcomes of this meeting and the inputs from the knowledge translation experts, this presentation will introduce the knowledge translation framework, and address some of the challenges in identifying best routes to reach out to the public and policy-makers. Specific emphasis will be placed in profiling the context, actors and processes of each country within the policy triangle, and drawing on best and worst example case studies. Additionally, the process will be discussed to co-create a toolkit or guide for using BoD evidence in policy and practice. The session will conclude with an interaction with the audience to learn about the perceived barriers for implementing knowledge translation within the BoD framework.

Can There Be a Recovery-Oriented Diagnostic Practice?

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Pavlo ◽  
Elizabeth H. Flanagan ◽  
Larry M. Leitner ◽  
Larry Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Diagnostic System ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Health Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Diagnostic Practices ◽  
Diagnostic Practice ◽  
Public Imagination

Despite the prevalence of the DSM in mental health practice, research, and the public imagination, it remains the target of criticism. With the publication of another volume in the DSM series, we have seen increased dialogue regarding the necessity of viable alternatives that do not succumb to the pitfalls of a descriptive diagnostic system. In this article, we explore a framework for a recovery-oriented and person-centered diagnostic practice along with an example based in Experiential Constructivism. We discuss 10 principles of a recovery-oriented approach founded on our requirements that diagnosis should be collaborative, future-oriented, and facilitative of meaning making. We argue for diagnosis that goes beyond labeling people’s mental health conditions, enhances provider–consumer relationships, and supports recovery-oriented practices. We then provide one example of this approach from a study that explored client and therapist understandings of DSM and Experiential Constructivist diagnoses. We conclude by briefly discussing the implications of developing and applying new diagnostic practices in mental health care, specifically the practices that would also need to be in place to sustain any alternative diagnostic approach to the DSM.

Breastfeeding and emotions: reflections for policy and practice

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-94
Author(s):  
Sally Johnson ◽  
Sally Tedstone
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Perinatal Mental Health ◽  
Professional Roles ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Rich Material

We found a wealth of rich material in these chapters, enough to fuel many conversations and stimulate much reflection. Faced with the constraints of bringing all of this together for one short reflective chapter, we decided to focus on the aspects of the chapters which are the most relevant to the public health outcomes that are the focus of our professional roles, namely, breastfeeding prevalence at six weeks and supporting good perinatal mental health. In particular, we were drawn to the issues of guilt and shame, especially when breastfeeding does not go well, that were discussed by Dawn Leeming and Lisa Smyth (...

scholarly journals Beyond apologies Historical reflections on policy and practice relating to the out-of-home care of children in contemporary Australia

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Cuthbert
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Past ◽  
Out Of Home Care ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Way

A series of harrowing reports across the 1990s on the past removal of children, black and white, from their families have impacted on children and family policy in contemporary Australia, and on the way in which this is reported by the media and understood by the public. This paper briefly surveys some of these consequences and asks how we, as a community, can learn from the past with respect to questions of the welfare of children, without being burdened by that past.

“You Talk Of Terrible Things So Matter-of-Factly in This Language of Science”: Constructing Human Rights in the Academy

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charli Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Skill Sets ◽  
The Public ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
The Media

How does the everyday politics behind scientific inquiry impact what we come to know about the world? Here I consider this question in the context of my own fieldwork on the human rights response to children born of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. First, I reflect on how the academy functions to direct researchers' attention and skill sets to certain types of human rights problems in certain ways, inevitably affecting what we can know about our subject matter. Second, I consider the practical politics by which human rights scholars interface with policy-makers, the media, and the public, and the extent to which members of the human rights scholarly community constitute nodes in the wider networks we are studying.

scholarly journals Invited commentary on … Rethinking funding priorities in mental health research

2016 ◽  
Vol 208 (6) ◽  
pp. 510-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamaldeep Bhui
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Mental Health Research ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Economic Perspectives

SummaryThis commentary takes up the notion proposed by Lewis-Fernández and colleagues that we need more balance in research priorities. Specifically, our reliance on neurobiology may be misplaced and likely to be unrewarding unless we ensure that: (a) research with better return for patients and the public is also pursued; (b) research findings are put into practice; and (c) we retain a focus on proportionate investment in service provision. Patient, public and economic perspectives should drive the decision making for better investment, and behaviour change might be better targeted at commissioners and policy makers rather than patients and providers.

scholarly journals The traditional belief system in relation to mental health and psychiatric services in Sudan

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-19
Author(s):  
E. A. Sorketti ◽  
N. Z. Zuraida ◽  
M. H. Habil
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Central Sudan

Traditional healers' centres may constitute community resources for people with a mental illness. Many low-income countries are seeking to integrate mental health into their mainstream health services and primary healthcare, so as to decrease the duration of untreated illness. Traditional healers can help to meet these needs. A series of four studies has been conducted in central Sudan. In-patients with mental disorders undergoing treatment with traditional healers were recruited, as well as some of the healers themselves. The resulting observations should help practitioners trained in Western psychiatry to better understand traditional healing as an alternative healthcare system. The results should contribute to current debates on whether or not traditional healers in Africa should be officially recognised as healthcare providers. They should also deepen social scientists' understanding of the role of culture in mental health and help policy makers to improve mental health services.

scholarly journals Pragmatic vs explanatory trials: the pragmascope tool to help measure differences in protocols of mental health randomized controlled trials

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-215 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Randomized Controlled Trial ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
The Other ◽  
Controlled Trials ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Trial Protocols ◽  
Explanatory Trials

In the pragmatic-explanatory continuum, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) can at one extreme investigate whether a treatment could work in ideal circumstances (explanatory), or at the other extreme, whether it would work in everyday practice (pragmatic). How explanatory or pragmatic a study is can have implications for clinicians, policy makers, patients, researchers, funding bodies, and the public. There is an increasing need for studies to be open and pragmatic; however, explanatory trials are also needed. The previously developed Pragmatic-explanatory continuum indicator summary (PRECIS) was adapted into the Pragmascope tool to assist mental health researchers in designing RCTs, taking the pragmatic-explanatory continuum into account. Ten mental health trial protocols were randomly chosen and scored using the tool by three independent raters. Their results were compared for consistency and the tool was found to be reliable and practical. This preliminary work suggests that evaluating different domains of an RCT at the protocol level is useful, and suggests that using the Pragmascope tool presented here might be a practical way of doing this.

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