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Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice Nov 2021Policy advocacy is a fundamental component of nursing's social mandate. While it has become a core function of nursing organizations across the globe, the discourse... (Review)
Review
Policy advocacy is a fundamental component of nursing's social mandate. While it has become a core function of nursing organizations across the globe, the discourse around advocacy has focused largely on the responsibilities and accountabilities of individual nurses, with little attention to the policy advocacy work undertaken by nursing organizations. To strengthen this critical function, an understanding of the extant literature is needed to identify areas that require further research. We conducted a scoping review to examine the nature, extent, and range of scholarly work focused on nursing organizations and policy advocacy. A systematic search of six databases produced 4,731 papers and 68 were included for analysis and synthesis. Findings suggest that the literature has been increasing over the years, is largely non-empirical, and covers a broad range of topics ranging from the role and purpose of nursing organizations in policy advocacy, the identity of nursing organizations, the development and process of policy advocacy initiatives, the policy advocacy products of nursing organizations, and the impact and evaluation of organizations' policy advocacy work. Based on the review, we identify several research gaps and propose areas for further research to strengthen the influence and impact of this critical function undertaken by nursing organizations.
Topics: Health Policy; Humans; Policy
PubMed: 34787526
DOI: 10.1177/15271544211050611 -
Current Cardiology Reports Aug 2019Tobacco continues to kill about 0.48 million Americans per year and there are currently 34.3 million smokers in the USA. As a consequence of the First Surgeon General's... (Review)
Review
Tobacco continues to kill about 0.48 million Americans per year and there are currently 34.3 million smokers in the USA. As a consequence of the First Surgeon General's Report on Tobacco in 1964, tobacco control interventions on part of the government led to a significant decline in conventional tobacco product usage over the last few decades. However, more recently, a new entity in the form of electronic cigarettes has risen rapidly and has exposed a younger population to a plethora of dangerous consequences. Looking at e-cigarettes from the perspective of tobacco control however raises a lot of challenges. There is little doubt that existing smokers of combustible cigarettes who switch to e-cigarettes will be switching to a less harmful product. However, if the younger generation begins using e-cigarettes as a result of targeted marketing, appealing flavors and 'safer alternative' perception, decades of progress made in conventional tobacco control will be negated. Governments at the federal, state, and local levels have a mandate to once again implement new public health policies to ensure that non-conventional tobacco products like e-cigarettes are available as smoking cessation tools for existing smokers but at the same time do not play a role in ruining the health of future generations through addiction and disease. PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review the present scenario of regulations and policies impacting public health with respect to electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) with the objective of providing a meaningful and balanced view of the challenges at hand with plausible recommendations. RECENT FINDINGS: Nicotine in tobacco is known to cause addiction and dependence. It is particularly potent in children and young adults. E-cigarettes can deliver high concentrations of nicotine, and these concentrations can vary depending on the numerous constituents within the e-cigarette which vary greatly from one another. Use of e-cigarettes is implicated as a risk factor for future cigarette use in young adults. Moreover, e-cigarette usage patterns also depend on several sociodemographic factors. Banning tobacco products has shown to reduce smoking risk in youth and as such, strong e-cigarette regulation measures are needed for prevention. Effective regulation of ENDS faces a multitude of challenges. One such challenge is to prevent youth and non-smokers from getting habituated to nicotine through e-cigarettes. The intention of tobacco companies to sustain sales through harmful marketing strategies that tone down the risks and highlight e-cigarettes as a "much safer alternative" while promoting flavors appealing to children should be immediately prohibited. Another hazard is the endorsement of ENDS as devices meant for enhancing social interaction which opens a path for youth to make erroneous choices under peer pressure. On the other hand, several studies have reported that e-cigarettes significantly reduce an existing smoker's risk of being exposed to toxic tobacco smoke constituents that are normally present in cigarette smoke. This leads to the conclusions that e-cigarettes can be a tool for smoking cessation for current smokers. Public policy must take a multi-dimensional approach to balance these two extremes.
Topics: Adolescent; Child; Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems; Health Policy; Humans; Public Health; Public Policy; Smoking; Smoking Cessation; United States; Young Adult
PubMed: 31463564
DOI: 10.1007/s11886-019-1204-y -
Harm Reduction Journal Aug 2022In Scotland drug policy and consequently the progress of evidence-based treatment options has been struggling for many years. Political inaction is brought about by a... (Review)
Review
In Scotland drug policy and consequently the progress of evidence-based treatment options has been struggling for many years. Political inaction is brought about by a complex chain of legal and operational obstructions with local authorities deferring to national Government which in turn is paralysed by international convention. Scotland represents a case study demonstrating the adverse consequences of management by non medical requirements rather than implementation of a clinically proven progressive policy. The difficulty of translating theory and evidence into practice is acknowledged but suggestions are made for pragmatic and humanitarian initiatives.
Topics: Benzodiazepines; Drug Overdose; Harm Reduction; Health Policy; Humans; Politics; Public Policy; Scotland
PubMed: 36038934
DOI: 10.1186/s12954-022-00680-y -
Frontiers in Public Health 2023
Topics: Public Policy; Health Policy
PubMed: 37593723
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1227503 -
Australian and New Zealand Journal of... Aug 2017
Topics: Climate Change; Humans; Politics; Public Health; Public Policy
PubMed: 28762610
DOI: 10.1111/1753-6405.12707 -
Frontiers in Public Health 2023
Topics: Public Policy; Public Opinion; Health Policy
PubMed: 37026127
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1166645 -
Journal of Public Health Policy Jun 2023By recognizing the structural causes of health and illness, public health has often been associated with values of compassion and solidarity, and a relational... (Review)
Review
By recognizing the structural causes of health and illness, public health has often been associated with values of compassion and solidarity, and a relational understanding of human agency. Rather than supporting the consistent integration and application of these insights, however, public health is now sometimes invoked more as a rhetorical move, used to construct issues as simple questions of neoliberal scientistic rationalism. Public health practitioners must reckon, therefore, with how the field can be discursively deployed in the public square, for multiple divergent political ends. If public health is always positioned as a value-neutral and detached scientific approach to addressing complex subjects, from drug use to pandemics, it not only fails to connect with the arguments of its critics, but further divorces what was once called the public health 'movement' from the strong and progressive political and theoretical positions it was founded upon and should advocate for today.
Topics: Humans; Public Health; Politics; Health Policy
PubMed: 37012486
DOI: 10.1057/s41271-023-00404-x -
The Milbank Quarterly Apr 2023Policy Points Public health science regarding alcohol consumption and problems, alcohol's role in equity and social justice, and identification of effective policy...
Policy Points Public health science regarding alcohol consumption and problems, alcohol's role in equity and social justice, and identification of effective policy interventions has grown steadily stronger in the past 30 years. Progress on effective alcohol policies has stalled or gone backward in the United States and much of the world. Because alcohol influences at least 14 of the 17 sustainable development goals, as well as more than 200 disease and injury conditions, reducing alcohol problems should offer a platform for collaboration across public health silos but will require that public health itself respect and follow its own science.
Topics: United States; Alcohol Drinking; Public Health; Public Policy; Health Policy
PubMed: 37096612
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0009.12631 -
Chronic Respiratory Disease May 2016
Topics: Behavior Therapy; Health Promotion; Humans; Motivation; Product Packaging; Public Policy; Smoke-Free Policy; Smoking Cessation; Taxes; Tobacco Products; Tobacco Use Cessation Devices; Tobacco Use Disorder
PubMed: 27440789
DOI: 10.1177/1479972316647179 -
Social Studies of Science Feb 2022A fixation on 'scaling up' has captured current innovation discourses and, with it, political and economic life at large. Perhaps most visible in the rise of platform...
A fixation on 'scaling up' has captured current innovation discourses and, with it, political and economic life at large. Perhaps most visible in the rise of platform technologies, big data and concerns about a new era of monopolies, scalability thinking has also permeated public policy in the search for solutions to 'grand societal challenges', 'mission-oriented innovation' or transformations through experimental 'living labs'. In this paper, we explore this scalability zeitgeist as a key ordering logic of current initiatives in innovation and public policy. We are interested in how the explicit preoccupation with scalability reconfigures political and economic power by invading problem diagnoses and normative understandings of how society and social change function. The paper explores three empirical sites - platform technologies, living labs and experimental development economics - to analyze how scalability thinking is rationalized and operationalized. We suggest that social analysis of science and technology needs to come to terms with the 'politics of scaling' as a powerful corollary of the 'politics of technology', lest we accept the permanent absence from key sites where decisions about the future are made. We focus in on three constitutive elements of the politics of scaling: solutionism, experimentalism and future-oriented valuation. Our analysis seeks to expand our vocabulary for understanding and questioning current modes of innovation that increasingly value scaling as an end in itself, and to open up new spaces for alternative trajectories of social transformation.
Topics: Politics; Public Policy; Social Change; Technology
PubMed: 34625011
DOI: 10.1177/03063127211048945