Sustainable Safety in The Netherlands Creating a Road Environment where People on Foot and on Bikes are as Safe as People in Cars

Road crashes claim over one million lives each year worldwide, overwhelmingly in low- and middle-income countries. A handful of higher-income countries have made great progress in reducing traffic fatalities and are moving toward Vision Zero. The goal of this study is to evaluate how one such country, the Netherlands, has cut its traffic fatalities by over 90%. The results show that the Dutch have virtually eliminated the concept of “vulnerable road users” in that the risk of fatality for pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicle occupants has all converged at a low level. This is an amazing achievement, especially when compared with countries like the U.S. where the risk of fatality for non-vehicle occupants is 5–8 times that of vehicle occupants. In this paper, we assess the evolution of risk for different types of road users in the Netherlands since 1970. We also review critical events, advocacy, policies, and programs that were implemented in the Netherlands over the last five decades to address the issue of traffic safety. This analysis demonstrates that the Dutch used protests and advocacy campaigns to garner support for policies and programs that promoted non-motorized transportation as routine mobility choice. Furthermore, the governing body for safety in the Netherlands was an early adopter (in the 1990s) of a systems-based approach to traffic safety called Sustainable Safety. A 2020 FHWA webinar highlights that this systems-based approach is now beginning to take hold in the U.S.

International Efforts to Combat Corruption

Attempts to improve the domestic quality of government often involve international arrangements and the fight against corruption is a prominent example. Since the 1990s, anticorruption pledges, international treaties, soft law arrangements, transnational advocacy campaigns, and other commitments have proliferated to control bribery and corruption in a range of contexts. This chapter surveys the literature on the emergence and characteristics of these various initiatives and provides an overview of what is known about their impacts on policy and discourse, law, and behavior. While empirical evidence on the impact of international anticorruption efforts is mixed, existing studies and directions for future research suggest that the quality of government in highly developed states is crucial when it comes to controlling transnational business bribery, money laundering, and other illicit financial flows.

The effects of screen time and social media on depressed feelings and suicidal thoughts among undergraduates

Beginning around 2011, there have been increases in mental health issues among teens and young adults. A possible reason for this rise has been the growth of social media through electronic communication; therefore, this study examined social media usage and suicide among undergraduates. An online survey was developed and after Institutional Review Board approval, was completed by 506 undergraduates (67.9% female, 32.1% male) at 23 southeastern and midwestern higher education institutions. Among these undergraduates, it was found that 24% thought about suicide in the past year and 4.2% had actually attempted to kill themselves. Those who considered killing themselves in the past year were significantly more likely to feel the need to compare themselves to others when browsing social media (p<.0001), felt their life was worse than others based on what they saw on social media (p<.0001), and had feelings of sadness or suicidal thoughts after browsing social media (p<.0001) compared to those who had not thought of suicide. Undergraduates who had attempted suicide in the past year were more likely to feel their self-image was negatively affected by interaction with social media websites (p<.05) and also had feelings of sadness or suicidal thoughts after browsing social media (p<.05) compared to those who had not attempted suicide. Females were more likely than males to report negative effects of browsing social media (p<.001). These significant associations between suicidal thoughts and social media usage should be studied further to better devise health education and advocacy campaigns among this population.

Knowledge, attitudes and practices towards people living with HIV/AIDS in Lebanon

Background Up till today, studies carried in Lebanon have focused more on the prevalence of HIV and behaviors and quality of life of infected individuals, however, none of these studies discussed the degree of stigma towards these populations. Therefore, the aim of this study is to measure the rate of stigma in terms of knowledge, attitude and practice towards patients living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (PLWHA) and examine the factors associated with this stigma. Methods A cross-sectional survey, enrolling 862 participants, was carried across the five governorates in Lebanon: Beirut, Mount Lebanon, North, South and Bekaa. The survey was a self-administered questionnaire which covered information about participants’ general demographics, their knowledge, attitudes, practices and awareness towards HIV/AIDS in Lebanon., attitudes towards PLWHA, practices related to HIV/AIDS and awareness regarding HIV/AIDS situation in Lebanon. Results The response rate to the survey was 78.36% (862 participants). Being Muslim (Beta = -2.56) or Druze (Beta = -2.64) compared to Christians were significantly associated with lower knowledge towards HIV/AIDS, whereas having a secondary (Beta = 2.71) and a university (Beta = 3.04) levels of education compared to illiteracy and higher age (Beta = 0.05) were significantly associated with higher knowledge. Higher knowledge (Beta = 0.66) was significantly associated with better attitude, whereas higher age (Beta = -0.14) and being Muslim compared to Christian (Beta = -3.44) were significantly associated with worse attitude. Better attitude (Beta = 0.02) was significantly associated with better practice, whereas females compared to males (Beta = -0.39), having a secondary level of education compared to illiteracy (Beta = -0.88) and being Muslim compared to Christian (Beta = -0.32) were significantly associated with worse practice. Conclusion Our results stress the need for educational programs, advocacy campaigns and policies to help reduce HIV stigma. This will then help start developing interventions and strategies for a possible reduction in the stigmatization level.

Conserving the Oceans

Conserving the Oceans: The Politics of Large Marine Protected Areas documents the efforts of activists and states to increase the pace and scale of global ocean protections, leading to a new global norm in ocean conservation of large marine protected areas (MPAs) exceeding 200,000 km2. Through an analysis of domestic political economies, the book explains how states have protected millions of square kilometers of ocean space while remaining highly responsive to the interests of businesses. It argues that states design environmental policies above all around two key features of a given space: (1) the composition of extractive versus non-extractive industry interests; and (2) the salience of various industry interests, defined as the degree to which businesses would suffer tangible and significant costs in response to new environmental regulations. Through an analysis of large MPA advocacy campaigns in Australia, Palau, and the US, this book demonstrates how the political economy of a given marine space shapes how governments align their environmental and economic goals, sometimes strengthening conservation but more often than not undermining it. While recognizing important global progress and growing ambition to conserve ocean ecosystems, Conserving the Oceans demonstrates that even ambitious large MPAs have so far not fundamentally challenged a neoliberal paradigm of environmentalism that has caused considerable ecological harm.

The past and future of human rights

This chapter reflects on the lessons to be derived from the advocacy campaigns in Pakistan, Argentina, and Ireland discussed in earlier chapters. Insights drawn from those campaigns are used to refine the experimentalist account of human rights advanced in Chapter 2, particularly as regards the importance of social movements and of building broad social support for human rights campaigns. The remainder of the chapter describes five major challenges of the current era—illiberalism, climate change, digitalization, pandemics, and inequality—and considers the difficulties they pose for the experimentalist account of human rights advocacy. It argues that the experimentalist practice of human rights advocacy is reasonably resilient and adaptive, and that internal contestation from within the human rights movement as well as external critiques have already helped to catalyze reform and to push activists and advocates to think more innovatively about the changes needed to strengthen the ability of the movement to engage with these major challenges in the future. It concludes that in a turbulent era, rather than abandon human rights, we should redouble our efforts to bolster, renew, and reinvigorate a movement that has galvanized constituencies and communities around the globe to mobilize for a better world.

Media Coverage and Framing of Oakland’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax, 2016-2019

Purpose: To describe media coverage and framing of Oakland, California’s, sugar-sweetened beverage tax. Design: Media content analysis. Sample: Media documents (n = 90), published January 1, 2016-August 31, 2019, were retrieved from Oakland news outlets and ProQuest, NexusUni, EBSCO, and Google. Analysis: Documents were coded using constant comparative analysis in Atlas.ti v8; with descriptive analyses conducted using Stata/SE v. 15.1. Results: Documents were published evenly between pre- and post-ballot periods (n = 45); the majority (n = 47) provided neutral framing. Protax documents (n = 33) highlighted SSB consumption and health associations and countered antitax messaging; antitax documents (n = 10) focused on misinformation and sowing public confusion. Conclusion: Neutral media educates and raises awareness. Published prior to a vote, the media may help influence public opinion regarding SSB taxes. SSB tax media advocacy campaigns, giving particular attention to timing and perspective-based framing, may help to secure adoption and support implementation.

A Qualitative Exploration of Indicators of Health Equity Embeddedness Among Public Health Policy Advocacy Campaigns

There are socioeconomic and racial/ethnic health disparities that warrant policy change to advance health equity. The purpose of this qualitative study was to elucidate primary activities and/or tangible characteristics that indicate that a policy advocacy campaign has an embedded health equity focus. Researchers interviewed policy advocacy experts ( n = 13) and campaign leaders ( n = 9), transcribed audio recordings of interviews, and conducted a thematic analysis to examine health-equity-related processes within policy campaigns. Based on experiences of policy advocacy experts and campaign leaders, mostly within the Voices for Healthy Kids initiative, several objective aspects and activities were identified that indicate that a policy campaign, and the coalition that conducts the campaign, has an embedded health equity focus. It should be stressed that these activities are not intended to represent the extent of all campaign activities, only the subset of activities and aspects of a campaign that indicate a health equity orientation. Broadly, aspects identified were related to what had the campaign done to engage with the community, who in the community was providing input about direction of the campaign, and how had that community input been used. Authentic Community engagement was seen as the foundation of a campaign’s health equity focus. A model synthesizing these findings is included in the results. A major strength of this study is that factors associated with health equity in campaign functioning are not typically assessed. These findings support identification of associated constructs to inform measurement development, and can help guide organizations, campaigns, and researchers working to advance health equity.

THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES OF LOBBYING FOR THE MODERN DEMOCRACY

This paper explores the use of information technologies for lobbying in modern democracy and the peculiarities of their practical implementation. The author characterised varieties of information technology lobbying with the selection of advocacy campaigns, technologies for public mobilisation and technologies of the media-jacking.