scholarly journals Effects of COVID-19 Uncertainty Visualizations on Novice Risk Estimates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lace Padilla ◽  
Helia Hosseinpour ◽  
Racquel Fygenson ◽  
Jennifer Lee Howell ◽  
Rumi Chunara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Uncertainty Visualization ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Risk Estimates ◽  
Visualization Techniques ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Data Visualizations ◽  
Global Population ◽  
Increases In Risk

Policy-makers and the general public have made decisions using COVID-19 data visualizations that have affected the health of the global population. However, the impact that such wide use of data visualizations has had on people's beliefs about their personal risk for COVID-19 is unclear. We conducted two experiments (N = 2,549) during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States to examine if real-time COVID-19 visualizations influenced participants' beliefs about the risk of the pandemic to themselves and others. This work also examined the impact of two elements of COVID-19 data visualizations, data properties (cumulative- vs. incident-death metrics) and uncertainty visualization techniques (historical data only, and forecasts with no uncertainty, vs. nine uncertainty visualization techniques). The results revealed that viewing COVID-19 visualizations with rising trends resulted in participants believing themselves and others at greater risk than before viewing the COVID-19 visualizations. Further, uncertainty visualization techniques that showed six or more models evoked the largest increases in risk estimates compared to the visualizations tested. These results could inform the design of public pandemic risk communication.

scholarly journals What If the Influenza Vaccine Did Not Offer Such Variable Protection?

2020 ◽  
Vol 222 (7) ◽  
pp. 1138-1144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M Bartsch ◽  
Elizabeth A Mitgang ◽  
Gail Geller ◽  
Sarah N Cox ◽  
Kelly J O’Shea ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Vaccine ◽  
Compartment Model ◽  
Medical Costs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Factors ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Direct Medical Costs ◽  
Productivity Losses ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background The protection that an influenza vaccine offers can vary significantly from person to person due to differences in immune systems, body types, and other factors. The question, then, is what is the value of efforts to reduce this variability such as making vaccines more personalized and tailored to individuals. Methods We developed a compartment model of the United States to simulate different influenza seasons and the impact of reducing the variability in responses to the influenza vaccine across the population. Results Going from a vaccine that varied in efficacy (0–30%) to one that had a uniform 30% efficacy for everyone averted 16.0–31.2 million cases, $1.9–$3.6 billion in direct medical costs, and $16.1–$42.7 billion in productivity losses. Going from 0–50% in efficacy to just 50% for everyone averted 27.7–38.6 million cases, $3.3–$4.6 billion in direct medical costs, and $28.8–$57.4 billion in productivity losses. Going from 0–70% to 70% averted 33.6–54.1 million cases, $4.0–$6.5 billion in direct medical costs, and $44.8–$64.7 billion in productivity losses. Conclusions This study quantifies for policy makers, funders, and vaccine developers and manufacturers the potential impact of efforts to reduce variability in the protection that influenza vaccines offer (eg, developing vaccines that are more personalized to different individual factors).

scholarly journals 1414. #Vaccine Twitter Influencers: is it Just About Reach and Followers?

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S714-S715
Author(s):  
Jean-Etienne Poirrier ◽  
Theodore Caputi ◽  
John Ayers ◽  
Mark Dredze ◽  
Sara Poston ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Small Proportion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Support ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background A small number of powerful users (“influencers”) dominates conversations on social media platforms: less than 1% of Twitter accounts have at least 3,000 followers and even fewer have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. Beyond simple metrics (number of tweets, retweets...) little is known about these “influencers”, particularly in relation to their role in shaping online narratives about vaccines. Our goal was to describe influential Twitter accounts that are driving conversations about vaccines and present new metrics of influence. Methods Using publicly-available data from Twitter, we selected posts from 1-Jan-2016 to 31-Dec-2018 and extracted the top 5% of accounts tweeting about vaccines with the most followers. Using automated classifiers, we determined the location of these accounts, and grouped them into those that primarily tweet pro- versus anti-vaccine content. We further characterized the demographics of these influencer accounts. Results From 25,381 vaccine-related tweets available in our sample representing 10,607 users, 530 accounts represented the top 5% by number of followers. These accounts had on average 1,608,637 followers (standard deviation=5,063,421) and 340,390 median followers. Among the accounts for which sentiment was successfully estimated by the classifier, 10.4% (n=55) posted anti-vaccine content and 33.6% (n=178) posted pro-vaccine content. Of the 55 anti-vaccine accounts, 50% (n=18) of the accounts for which location was successfully determined were from the United States. Of the 178 pro-vaccine accounts, 42.5% (n=54) were from the United States. Conclusion This study showed that only a small proportion of Twitter accounts (A) post about vaccines and (B) have a high follower count and post anti-vaccine content. Further analysis of these users may help researchers and policy makers better understand how to amplify the impact of pro-vaccine social media messages. Disclosures Jean-Etienne Poirrier, PhD, MBA, The GSK group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Theodore Caputi, PhD, Good Analytics Inc. (Consultant) John Ayers, PhD, GSK (Grant/Research Support) Mark Dredze, PhD, Bloomberg LP (Consultant)Good Analytics (Consultant) Sara Poston, PharmD, The GlaxoSmithKline group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Cosmina Hogea, PhD, GlaxoSmithKline (Employee, Shareholder)

scholarly journals The Impact of Audit Committees on US Nonprofit Organizations’ Governance

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Husam Abu-Khadra
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Audit Committee ◽  
Nonprofit Sector ◽  
The United States ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Audit Committees ◽  
Public Companies ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Impact

All public companies in the United States are required by the securities and exchange commission (SEC) to have an audit committee. Such enforcement can be attributed to high-profile corporate failures and their connections to nonexistence, ineffective or weak audit committees and governance. Despite the efforts to establish a similar argument and enforcement structure for the nonprofit sector, the internal revenue service (IRS) has not pursued legislation, and no empirical evidence has been established to support any public policy changes. This paper contributes to the literature in this field by being the first study to examine 124,980 nonprofit organizations during the period of 2010 to 2015 to test the association between governance in nonprofit organizations and audit committees. We included fifteen measures from these organizations’ IRS Form 990 filings to formulate the study variables. We found significant evidence that the existence of audit committees improves the governance scores of nonprofit organizations. Our study findings have significant implications for nonprofit executives, policy makers and any other interested parties; these findings act as preliminary evidence to support more proactive policies regarding mandatory audit committees for nonprofit organizations. 

Cloudy days ahead: Cross-border evidence collection and its impact on the rights of EU citizens

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Lawrence Siry
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Cloud Storage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Assistance ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Evidence Collection ◽  
The Impact

In recent years, the development of cloud storage and the ease of cross-border communication have rendered the area of evidence collection particularly difficult for law enforcement agencies (LEAs), courts and academics. Evidence related to a criminal act in one jurisdiction might be stored in a different jurisdiction. Often it is not even clear in which jurisdiction the relevant data are, and at times the data may be spread over multiple jurisdictions. The traditional rules related to cross-border evidence collection, the mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) regimes, have proved to be out-dated, cumbersome and inefficient, as they were suited for a time when the seeking of cross-border evidence was more infrequent. In order to tackle this problem, the United States has enacted the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, which gives extraterritorial e-evidence collection powers to US courts. Simultaneously, the European Union (EU) has proposed similar sweeping changes which would allow for LEAs in Member States to preserve and collect cloud-based evidence outside of the MLAT system. This article critically evaluates these developments from the perspective of the impact on the rights of EU citizens.

Branding Cultural Products in International Markets: A Study of Hollywood Movies in China

2020 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 86-105
Author(s):  
Weihe Gao ◽  
Li Ji ◽  
Yong Liu ◽  
Qi Sun
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Brand Name ◽  
Chinese Market ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Hollywood Movies ◽  
The Impact

Cultural products are a major component of the world economy and are responsible for a growing share of U.S. exports. The authors examine brand name strategies when cultural products are marketed in foreign countries. Incorporating the unique characteristics of these products, the authors develop a theoretical framework that integrates similarity, which focuses on how the translated brand name relates to the original brand name, and informativeness, which focuses on how the translated brand name reveals product content, to study the impact of brand name translations. The authors analyze Hollywood movies shown in China from 2011 to 2018. The results show that higher similarity leads to higher Chinese box office revenue, and this effect is stronger for movies that perform better in the home market (i.e., the United States). When the translated title is more informative about the movie, the Chinese box office revenue increases. The informativeness effect is stronger for Hollywood movies with greater cultural gap in the Chinese market. Moreover, both similarity and informativeness effects are strongest when the movie is released and reduce over time. This research provides valuable guidance to companies, managers, and policy makers in cultural product industries as well as those in international marketing.

scholarly journals Closing Time! Examining the Impact of Gender and Executive Branch Policy Makers on the Timing of Stay-at-Home Orders

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 935-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laine P. Shay
Keyword(s):  
Event History Analysis ◽  
Health Agency ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Female Leadership ◽  
Closing Time ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
History Analysis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
At Home

AbstractThe 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic has significantly altered lives across the globe. In the United States, several states attempted to manage the pandemic by issuing stay-at-home orders. In this research note, I examine whether the gender of state policy makers in the executive branch might impact a state's adoption of a stay-at-home order. Using event history analysis, I find that the governor's gender has no impact on the likelihood of a state adopting a stay-at-home order. However, I find that gender plays a significant role for agency heads. Specifically, my analysis shows that states with a female-headed health agency tend to adopt stay-at-home orders earlier than states with a male administrator. These findings shed light on how female leadership in the executive branch may impact public policy regarding COVID-19.

The Role of Sex and Age on Pre-drinking: An Exploratory International Comparison of 27 Countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 378-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Ferris ◽  
Cheneal Puljević ◽  
Florian Labhart ◽  
Adam Winstock ◽  
Emmanuel Kuntsche
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel Models ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drinking Behaviour ◽  
Single Model ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Worldwide Phenomenon ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Multivariate Multilevel Models

Abstract Aims This exploratory study aims to model the impact of sex and age on the percentage of pre-drinking in 27 countries, presenting a single model of pre-drinking behaviour for all countries and then comparing the role of sex and age on pre-drinking behaviour between countries. Methods Using data from the Global Drug Survey, the percentages of pre-drinkers were estimated for 27 countries from 64,485 respondents. Bivariate and multivariate multilevel models were used to investigate and compare the percentage of pre-drinking by sex (male and female) and age (16–35 years) between countries. Results The estimated percentage of pre-drinkers per country ranged from 17.8% (Greece) to 85.6% (Ireland). The influence of sex and age on pre-drinking showed large variation between the 27 countries. With the exception of Canada and Denmark, higher percentages of males engaged in pre-drinking compared to females, at all ages. While we noted a decline in pre-drinking probability among respondents in all countries after 21 years of age, after the age of 30 this probability remained constant in some countries, or even increased in Brazil, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. Conclusions Pre-drinking is a worldwide phenomenon, but varies substantially by sex and age between countries. These variations suggest that policy-makers would benefit from increased understanding of the particularities of pre-drinking in their own country to efficiently target harmful pre-drinking behaviours.

Community Lifeline Framework for Leveraging Stabilization in Response and Recovery to Major Hurricanes

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-9
Author(s):  
Judy Kruger
Keyword(s):  
Transmission Lines ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Emergency Managers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Response And Recovery ◽  
The Impact

The United States (US) and Caribbean regions remain vulnerable to the impact of severe tropical storms, hurricanes, and typhoons. In 2017, a series of hurricanes posed threats to residents living in inland and coastal communities as well as on islands isolated from the US mainland. Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria caused catastrophic infrastructure damage, resulting in a loss of electrical power and communications due to damaged or downed utility poles, cell towers, and transmission lines. Critical services were inoperable for many months. Emergency managers are public officials who are accountable to both political leaders and the citizens. During disaster events, emergency managers must prioritize areas of effort, manage personnel, and communicate with stakeholders to address critical infrastructure interdependences. Essential lifeline services (eg, energy and communications) were inoperable for many months, which led to increased attention from policy-makers, media, and the public.

scholarly journals Economic Effects on Million Dollar Giving

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una O. Osili ◽  
Jacqueline Ackerman ◽  
Yannan Li
Keyword(s):  
Human Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Macroeconomic Conditions ◽  
Corporate Giving ◽  
Human Services Organizations ◽  
The Impact

This study investigates the impact of economic conditions on the number of charitable gifts of 1 million dollars or more within the United States using the Million Dollar List (MDL) data set. We investigate key donor types—individuals, corporations, and foundations—using quarterly data. Results indicate that individual donors are significantly responsive to underlying economic conditions, foundation giving tends to be countercyclical, and corporate giving is less closely linked with aggregate macroeconomic conditions. We also find that economic conditions vary in their influence on million dollar giving to subsectors, and gifts to public benefit and human services organizations increase significantly during periods of recession, holding other factors constant. In contrast, million dollar giving to arts and education organizations is significantly associated with favorable economic conditions, holding other factors constant. Findings have direct implications for philanthropists, fundraisers, and policy makers as they seek to understand how economic conditions affect large gifts.

Maximizing Autonomy: Reforming Personal Support Laws in Sweden and the United States

1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley S. Herr
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Support Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mental Disabilities ◽  
Related Services ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Personal Assistants ◽  
The Impact

Reforming outmoded systems of guardianship requires that governments assess personal support and related services. U.S. policy-makers and reformers in individual states have begun to question how current guardianship laws may disempower individuals with mental disabilities. This article explores some remarkable legal and public policy innovations in Sweden that replace guardianship with personal support services such as mentors, administrators, “kontakt” persons, and personal assistants. It then examines the impact of Sweden's reforms on the autonomy, independence, and integration of its citizens and discusses possibilities for similar changes worldwide.

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