scholarly journals Challenges and Lessons Learned from Multi-Level Multi-Component Interventions to Prevent and Reduce Childhood Obesity

Author(s):  
Joel Gittelsohn ◽  
Rachel Novotny ◽  
Angela Trude ◽  
Jean Butel ◽  
Bent Mikkelsen

Multi-level multi-component (MLMC) strategies have been recommended to prevent and reduce childhood obesity, but results of such trials have been mixed. The present work discusses lessons learned from three recently completed MLMC interventions to inform future research and policy addressing childhood obesity. B’more Healthy Communities for Kids (BHCK), Children’s Healthy Living (CHL), and Health and Local Community (SoL) trials had distinct cultural contexts, global regions, and study designs, but intervened at multiple levels of the socioecological model with strategies that address multiple components of complex food and physical activity environments to prevent childhood obesity. We discuss four common themes: (i) How to engage with community partners and involve them in development of intervention and study design; (ii) build and maintain intervention intensity by creating mutual promotion and reinforcement of the intervention activities across the multiple levels and components; (iii) conduct process evaluation for monitoring, midcourse corrections, and to engage stakeholder groups; and (iv) sustaining MLMC interventions and its effect by developing enduring and systems focused collaborations. The paper expands on each of these themes with specific lessons learned and presents future directions for MLMC trials.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (14) ◽  
pp. 3816
Author(s):  
Tao Wang ◽  
Yuanzheng Cai ◽  
Lingyu Liang ◽  
Dongyi Ye

We address the problem of localizing waste objects from a color image and an optional depth image, which is a key perception component for robotic interaction with such objects. Specifically, our method integrates the intensity and depth information at multiple levels of spatial granularity. Firstly, a scene-level deep network produces an initial coarse segmentation, based on which we select a few potential object regions to zoom in and perform fine segmentation. The results of the above steps are further integrated into a densely connected conditional random field that learns to respect the appearance, depth, and spatial affinities with pixel-level accuracy. In addition, we create a new RGBD waste object segmentation dataset, MJU-Waste, that is made public to facilitate future research in this area. The efficacy of our method is validated on both MJU-Waste and the Trash Annotation in Context (TACO) dataset.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing Deng ◽  
Li Luo ◽  
Hui Zhang ◽  
Tianmu Chen ◽  
Yeping Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Globally, there have been 212,544,565 confirmed cases of Corona Virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including 4,441,428 deaths by 24 August 2021, reported to WHO. Facing the global pandemic of COVID-19, countries and regions have implemented different policies and taken different non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) according to their own circumstances. However, the quantitative assessment of national policies and local resilience capabilities is a huge challenge.MethodsIn order to assess interventions and improve local resilience from a comprehensive perspective, this study aims to establish a multi-dimensional and dynamic prevention and control system. The main body of the system is an index system. To make our evaluation system more scientific and useful, the comparative study with several widely used tools or lessons is conducted to report what they have done. Then analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to set up the framework under the concept of a multi-level strategy of public health management. Indicators in the system are determined by literature research and expert interviews.ResultsEmergency capability assessment includes building a well-established system, execution of the system, and measurement. The well-established system exhibits several characteristics: 1) considering indicators about whole-of-society involvement, including country-, city-, local community- and individual-level; 2) improving capability at multi-phases, from the preparedness ability to response ability; 3) at both policy level and implementation level. Categories of containment and closure, response in economic system, and response in public health system constitute the main body of the framework. The well-established system does not necessarily apply to all scenarios, and the actual situation should be taken into consideration in the process of implementation/execution. At the stage of measurement, the case of Wuhan/Hubei response is introduced to implement and test our system. Empirical researches will be conducted to verify the index system quantitatively in our future research. ConclusionsOur index system can assess national policies and capabilities quantitatively. When enough data are available, it will become a tool to assess the local resilience capability for countries or regions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 792-799
Author(s):  
Hanna Kleider

This commentary takes stock of how Multi-level Governance and European Integration has helped scholars frame empirical research agendas. It focuses on three specific research programmes emanating from the book: (1) the role of identity in multi-level governance, (2) political contestation in multi-level systems, and (3) the effect of multi-level governance on policy outcomes. It aims to highlight existing knowledge in these lines of research whilst offering several critical reflections and directions for future research. The commentary argues that the book’s observation that governance structures are ultimately shaped by identities rather than by efficiency considerations has proved almost prophetic given recent backlash against the EU. The book expertly shows that there is an inherent tension in sharing authority across multiple levels of government, and that multi-level systems require constant recalibration and renegotiation of how authority is shared.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Megan F. Hess ◽  
Andrew M. Hess

SYNOPSIS In this study, we investigate the relation between accounting failure and innovation at multiple levels in an organization by developing and testing a model for how top executives and functional managers might change their risk preferences and their innovation investments in response to public disclosures of financial misconduct. At the firm level, we find that accounting failures reduce subsequent investments in R&D, as predicted by a threat rigidity (“play it safe”) psychological response among top executives. At the project level, accounting failures have the opposite effect, resulting in an increase in the number of exploratory projects, as predicted by a failure trap (“swing for the fences”) psychological response among functional managers. Unpacking this relation at multiple levels of analysis helps us to understand the complex ways in which financial misconduct shapes a firm's innovation activities and appreciate the far-reaching consequences of accounting failure.


Author(s):  
Deborah J. Bowen ◽  
Kelly E. Rentscher ◽  
Amy Wu ◽  
Gwen Darien ◽  
Helen Ghirmai Haile ◽  
...  

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has had multilevel effects on non-COVID-19 health and health care, including deferral of routine cancer prevention and screening and delays in surgical and other procedures. Health and health care use has also been affected by pandemic-related loss of employer-based health insurance, food and housing disruptions, and heightened stress, sleep disruptions and social isolation. These disruptions are projected to contribute to excess non-COVID-19 deaths over the coming decades. At the same time municipalities, health systems and individuals are making changes in response to the pandemic, including modifications in the environmental to promote health, implementation of telehealth platforms, and shifts towards greater self-care and using remote platforms to maintain social connections. We used a multi-level biopsychosocial model to examine the available literature on the relationship between COVID-19-related changes and breast cancer prevention to identify current gaps in knowledge and identify potential opportunities for future research. We found that COVID-19 has impacted several aspects of social and economic life, through a variety of mechanisms, including unemployment, changes in health care delivery, changes in eating and activity, and changes in mental health. Some of these changes should be reduced, while others should be explored and enhanced.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane-Heloise Nancarrow ◽  
Chen Yang ◽  
Jing Yang

AbstractThe application of digital technologies has greatly improved the efficiency of cultural heritage documentation and the diversity of heritage information. Yet the adequate incorporation of cultural, intangible, sensory or experimental elements of local heritage in the process of digital documentation, and the deepening of local community engagement, remain important issues in cultural heritage research. This paper examines the heritage landscape of tunpu people within the context of digital conservation efforts in China and the emergence of emotions studies as an evaluative tool. Using a range of data from the Ming-era village of Baojiatun in Guizhou Province, this paper tests an exploratory emotions-based approach and methodology, revealing shifting interpersonal relationships, experiential and praxiological engagement with the landscape, and emotional registers within tunpu culture and heritage management. The analysis articulates distinctive asset of emotional value at various scales and suggests that such approaches, applied within digital documentation contexts, can help researchers to identify multi-level heritage landscape values and their carriers. This methodology can provide more complete and dynamic inventories to guide digital survey and representation; and the emotions-based approach also supports the integration of disparate heritage aspects in a holistic understanding of the living landscape. Finally, the incorporation of community participation in the process of digital survey breaks down boundaries between experts and communities and leads to more culturally appropriate heritage records and representations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7576
Author(s):  
Ana Mitić-Radulović ◽  
Ksenija Lalović

In recent years, nature-based solutions have been increasingly promoted as a climate change adaptation instrument, strongly advocated to be co-created. Achieving clear, coherent, and ambitious urban greening strategies, embedded in urban planning and developed in a co-creative, participatory and inclusive manner, is highly challenging within the EU enlargement context. In this article, such challenges are studied through two recent urban development initiatives in Belgrade, the Capital of Serbia: the first initiative focuses on planning the new Linear Park, within the framework of the CLEVER Cities Horizon 2020 project; the second initiative envisages the transformation of the privatised Avala Film Complex in the Košutnjak Urban Forest, primarily led by private interests but supported by the local authorities. The multiple-case study research method is applied, with an exploratory purpose and as a basis for potential future research on evaluation of co-creation processes for NBS implementation. The theoretical basis of this article is founded in the research on sustainability transitions, focusing on multi-level perspective (MLP) framework. The urban planning system in Belgrade and Serbia is observed as a socio-technical regime of the MLP. In such framework, we recognize co-creative planning of the Linear Park as a niche innovation. We interpret opposition towards planning of the Avala Film Complex as escalation, or an extreme element of the socio-technical landscape, comprised of civic unrests and political tensions on one side, combined with the climate crisis and excessive pollution on the other side. Moreover, the article examines informal urban planning instruments that can be implemented by the practitioners of niche innovations, that could support urban planners and NBS advocates in the Serbian and EU enlargement contexts to face the challenges of motivating all stakeholders to proactively, constructively and appropriately engage in co-creation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Vigna ◽  
Angelo Besana ◽  
Elena Comino ◽  
Alessandro Pezzoli

Although increasing concern about climate change has raised awareness of the fundamental role of forest ecosystems, forests are threatened by human-induced impacts worldwide. Among them, wildfire risk is clearly the result of the interaction between human activities, ecological domains, and climate. However, a clear understanding of these interactions is still needed both at the global and local levels. Numerous studies have proven the validity of the socioecological system (SES) approach in addressing this kind of interdisciplinary issue. Therefore, a systematic review of the existing literature on the application of SES frameworks to forest ecosystems is carried out, with a specific focus on wildfire risk management. The results demonstrate the existence of different methodological approaches that can be grouped into seven main categories, which range from qualitative analysis to quantitative spatially explicit investigations. The strengths and limitations of the approaches are discussed, with a specific reference to the geographical setting of the works. The research suggests the importance of local community involvement and local knowledge consideration in wildfire risk management. This review provides a starting point for future research on forest SES and a supporting tool for the development of a sustainable wildfire risk adaptation and mitigation strategy.


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