Stakeholder Analysis: Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program Awareness and Implementation

Study Design: We conducted a qualitative stakeholder analysis project with suppliers of the MDPP and health care providers. Am J Manag Care. 2023;29(6):In Press _____ Takeaway Points More than 5 years after CMS enacted coverage of the CDC-approved Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program (MDPP) in 2018, little is known about why MDPP uptake is so limited. * Findings of our stakeholder analysis with program suppliers and health care providers reinforced existing evidence on insufficient reimbursement and low awareness of the program. * Newer insights include recommendations about lagged payments, ongoing virtual delivery, and formally diagnosing prediabetes among MDPP participants. * Our findings on barriers and facilitators can inform policy to refine the MDPP and research on the MDPP, particularly within the field of implementation science. _____ Population-level strategies to prevent type 2 diabetes are urgently needed for the more than 24 million older adults with prediabetes in the United States.1 Evidence-based lifestyle interventions can prevent diabetes onset, per evidence from the landmark Diabetes Prevention Program trial.2 Thus, the CDC launched the National Diabetes Prevention Program (NDPP) in 2010.3 Significant reductions in weight and medical spending were observed among Medicare beneficiaries who participated in the NDPP,4 prompting CMS to fully cover the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program (MDPP) starting in 2018.5 Despite unprecedented Medicare coverage for a disease prevention program, MDPP uptake is limited. Regarding awareness, national guidelines recommend referral to lifestyle intervention for adults aged 40 to 70 years with prediabetes.9 Yet less than 5% of adults eligible for a NDPP reported receiving a referral,10 which may stem from limited awareness among health care providers.11 Thus, we conducted a qualitative stakeholder analysis to learn about regional awareness of, referral to, facilitators of, and barriers to the MDPP. The 8 interviewees included 5 program directors (3 from YMCAs, 1 from a private organization, and 1 from a hospital system) and 3 health care providers (2 family physicians and 1 dietitian).

Stakeholders' attitudes towards tools for sustainable tourism in historical cities

Urban space is often the cause of disputes. The underlying causes of these disputes are conflicting interests, attitudes and needs regarding the way it is used. Among the various functions performed by cities, tourism activities have been distinguished as the foremost in the cities of historical value. Mass tourism has developed in the last decade and its excessive flow of tourists has in turn led to overtourism which as described in literature is a negative phenomenon. The causes of conflicts related to the development of tourism and their scale are very diverse. The freezing of the tourism economy during the COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity to balance its development in the future. As described in the article, this research aims at identifying the attitudes and expectations of Krakow's residence towards the tools of balancing the tourism economy in the post pandemic period. The statistical analysis of the acquired data collected through questionnaires from 386 respondents during July 2020 revealed that most of the respondents support the preservation of cultural heritage and landscapes over business and profit making.

Stakeholders' Involvement, Organizational Learning and Social Innovation: Factors for Strengthening the Resilience of Moroccan Cooperatives in the Post-COVID-19 Era

The Moroccan cooperative sector is increasingly important, not only in the social and economic fabric of Morocco, but also in the sustainable development of the Kingdom. With the advent of COVID, the cooperative sector offers more inclusive and sustainable economic alternatives than ever before. In this context, organizational resilience is essential to preserve the sustainability of cooperatives and anticipate potential crises. This study addresses the following issue: What are the organizational factors necessary to strengthen the organizational resilience of the Moroccan cooperative in the Fez-Meknes region in times of COVID-19 crisis? The purpose of this paper was to test the hypothesized relationships between a set of latent constructs (actor involvement and mobilization, organizational learning in times of a crisis and social innovation) and the organizational resilience of cooperatives in times of a COVID-19 crisis. The methodology adopted is structural equation modeling based on the PLS-SEM method under the "SmartPLS Version 3” used on data collected through a printed questionnaire administered to 160 cooperatives in the Fez-Meknes region. The results show the significant and positive influence between the exogenous constructs on the strengthening of organizational resilience of cooperatives as an endogenous construct. The novelty of the study lies in the identification of the organizational resources needed to strengthen the organizational resilience of cooperatives in the Moroccan context. The results show that organizational resilience depends on three selected organizational factors: stakeholder involvement and mobilization, organizational learning in the times of a crisis and social innovation.

Bringing order to Petra's tourism economy

The popularity of Petra, Jordan, as a tourist destination has surged among international visitors since the 1980s. This has led to the tourism sector's emergence as a major source of income for indigenous communities living adjacent to the ancient city's ruins. Rapidly expanding visitor numbers and business activity-both licensed and unlicensed-exposed the need for government to play an active role in organizing Petra's tourism industry. Drawing upon a thematic analysis of interviews I conducted in three tourism-reliant, tribal communities in Petra's vicinity in 2022, this case study examines relations between the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority (PDTRA) and indigenous stakeholders in the local economy. Focusing on the period extending from 2019-just before the COVID-19 pandemic's onset-to 2022, I explore local perspectives towards PDTRA policies impacting indigenous work in the tourism sector. I find that legality, size, and internal organization of stakeholder groups affect their capacity to influence political decisions that impact their lives and livelihoods.

Recreational travel behavior and COVID-19: insights from expected utility and the theory of planned behavior

Understanding what factors play a role in people's decisions to travel during a pandemic is important to public health officials and to stakeholders in the travel and tourism industry in the United States (US) and worldwide. This study examines factors influencing people's decisions to cancel/postpone recreational travel within the US amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Our conceptual framework extends the Expected Utility model, commonly used in economics to model decisions under risk and uncertainty, to incorporate subjective norms and perceived behavioral control from the Theory of Planned Behavior. Our results suggest that risk perceptions, subjective norms, and concerns over transmitting COVID-19 to others play a significant role in the decision to cancel and postpone recreational travel. Results also suggest that perceived behavioral control may be less relevant to travel decisions when traveling involves elevated health risks.

Can EMA's Regulatory Science Strategy Meet Medicine's Major Challenges?

[...]the report, which covers both human and veterinary medicines, devotes relatively limited space to ways of using regulatory science to deal with pandemics such as COVID-19, particularly the emergency development and mass-scale manufacture of vaccines. [...]to deal with the outbreak, EMA has implemented its 2018 Health Threat Plan by setting up a COVID-19 EMA Emergency Task Force (ETF), which will assist in the development, authorization, and safety monitoring of therapeutics and vaccines to deal with the pandemic (2). EMA, "Mandate, Objectives, Rules, and Procedure of the COVID-19 EMA Pandemic Task Force (COVID-ETF)," ema.europa. eu (Amsterdam, 31 March 2020).

Teaching and learning during COVID-19: Perceptions of students, parents, and teachers in Egypt

Using a case study approach and an open-ended online questionnaire, this chapter describes the policy and resources that the Ministry of Education and Technical Education in Egypt made available for General High School Grade 12 students in response to COVID-19. It investigates the challenges these students, teachers, and parents describe during COVID-19 as they prepare for high-stakes General Secondary School leaving exams. In addition, it describes the teaching and learning solutions and innovations, as well as coping strategies, that these students, parents, and teachers employed to mitigate such a crisis. Our findings suggest that the following measures could help to mitigate the disparity of advantage caused by COVID-19. Other suggestions include that policies and practices should be introduced in order to offer free/subsidized Internet coverage and technological devices for students from poor backgrounds and rural contexts;to train teachers and students in using mobile learning techniques and technologies;to make online interactive teaching and learning modules available for all students in all subjects;to regulate how private school teachers and private tutors are releasing their own video-recorded sessions;and to conduct further empirical research on how COVID-19 affects examination outcomes in relation to previous years. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

NEW ALLIANCE SEEKS TO BRING INCREASED ACCESSIBILITY TO TRIALS

Amir Kalali: Craig has been actively leading and advocating for decentralized research for more than a decade now, while I have been supporting convening and knowledge-sharing on decentralized trials for years through the CNS Summit. [...]the organization and our approach draw on my experience in global clinical development, and creating non-profit and neutral collaborations, Craig's experience in decentralized trials and leading consortia in clinical research, and both of our trusted networks of leaders that seek to go farther together. [...]when pandemic-related lockdowns took hold across the globe, many study sites were unable to remain open and research participants were unable to leave their homes for study visits. Lipset: They also include gathering data and information from across the community to promote knowledge sharing/education by providing educational resources for all stakeholders to improve awareness and appreciation for the impact of decentralized research;and identifying and removing remaining barriers to the global conduct of decentralized research, charting pathways to resolution.

Empowering oral health in the community: leadership lessons learnt from redeployment

ContextOral health knowledge is fundamental to ensure all healthcare teams achieve holistic patient care within community settings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, dentists were redeployed to district nursing teams to support wider healthcare service demands, where patients exhibited poor oral health and deficits in staff oral health knowledge were observed.During restoration and recovery of services, three post-graduate dental trainees launched a trust wide training needs analysis amongst non-dental professionals working across Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. This identified a lack of confidence in providing mouthcare and oral health advice to patients. As a result, the team created the Oral Health Ambassador Programme, placing oral health leadership with local nursing team leads and providing the resources to champion oral health for patients in their care. Creation of an online training module supported a deficit in oral health training.Issue/ChallengeWorking within a domiciliary setting provided a unique opportunity to experience first-hand the challenges nursing teams face in providing oral health care to their patients. Leading in a novel environment meant incorporating oral health into a holistic care plan whilst overcoming the time restraints of an already stretched workforce during a global pandemic.Assessment of issue and analysis of its causesOn return to service, a trust wide oral health training needs analysis was created and distributed to all patient facing non-dental staff across BCHC. To maximise stakeholder engagement and response rate, promotion via trust publications and senior endorsement within each division was essential.The results of the training needs analysis were used to design a community specific oral health training package and led to the creation of the ‘Oral Health Ambassador' scheme. Results were disseminated alongside the launch of the training package to district nursing teams and presented regionally to 300 trust leaders at the senior leadership brief and to multidisciplinary colleagues at trust quality improvement forums.ImpactResults of the training needs analysis identified that 90% of respondents had concerns about patient oral health. Despite this, 68% had received no previous oral health training. The main barriers to provision of mouthcare and delivery of oral health advice were lack of training, time, insufficient patient cooperation and lack of equipment. A likert scale identified lower confidence levels in providing support for patients with learning difficulties or challenging behaviour and in accessing resources to support patients and families.InterventionThe Oral Health Ambassador scheme was created with the patient and healthcare provider at its core. The survey results provided key themes for learning which were used to divide the online learning into modules, making specific topics easily accessible. Dedicated time was provided to ensure training was part of the working day.To incorporate learning into their daily practice, a local lead was identified in each team as the Oral Health Ambassador, bridging the gap between dental and nursing teams and acting as a direct link for dental support within nursing teams. Oral Health Ambassadors are leading team training and raising resource awareness.Oral health boxes were created and delivered to teams providing an easily accessible wealth of oral resources for providers, patients and families. Equipment was included with information for use and adaptability for individual patient need.Involvement of stakeholders, such as patients, carers or family members:Stakeholder mapping included direct input from district nurses and Health Care Assistants. Piloting the scheme across a variety of sectors provided reassurance that the training would benefit all allied health professionals across the trust.Key MessagesCommunity healthcare staff have a unique opportunity to support oral health needs of vulnerable community patients. Redeployment provided a unique opportunity to lead in changes for oral health pr motion in the community and create local leads, Oral Health Ambassadors, that can continue to champion oral health post pandemic.Lessons learntWhilst dental teams took initial responsibility, passing this onto local leads will create key ambassadors within the teams, passionate about improving patient oral health and providing support for peers to do the same.Measurement of improvementPreliminary data taken from online learning pre-and-post knowledge survey shows an improvement in knowledge and increased confidence levels. Further feedback awaits.Strategy for improvementFollowing on from a successful launch of the scheme, the team suggests creation of an oral health mobile app would allow a wealth of up-to-date information, guidance and resources at the click of a finger.

The Moderating Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Corporate Financial Performance: Evidence from OECD Countries

This study aims to investigate the nature and intensity of the changes in corporate financial performance due to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures as a result of certain relationships between corporate governance and company performance in the non-financial sector. This study selected 625 non-financial companies across six organizations for economic cooperations (OECD) countries' stock markets for the period of 10 years (2012–2021). For this qualitative study, corporate governance, financial performance, and corporate social responsibility score data were collected from the DataStream, a reliable database for examining the research on OECD countries' listed companies. For the data analysis we applied various statistical tools such as regression analysis and moderation analysis. The findings of the study show that all attributes of the corporate governance mechanism, except for audit board attendance, have significant positive impacts on financial performance indicators for all the selected OECD economies except the country France. France's code of corporate governance has a significant negative impact on return on asset (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) due to differences in cultural and operational norms of the country. The audit board attendance has no significant impact on ROA. Moreover, all the attributes except board size (BSIZ) have significant positive impacts on the earnings per share (EPS) in Spain, The United Kingdom (UK) and Belgium. The values obtained from the moderation effect show that Corporate social responsibility is the key factor in motivating corporate governance practices which eventually improves corporate financial performance. However, this study advocated the implications, Investors and stakeholders should consider both corporate governance and CSR disclosures when making investment decisions. Companies that prioritize both governance and CSR tend to have better financial performance and are more likely to mitigate risks. Moreover, the policy makers can improve the code of corporate governance in order to attain sustainable development in the stock market.

Opening industry data: The private sector's role in addressing societal challenges

This commentary explores the potential of private companies to advance scientific progress and solve social challenges through opening and sharing their data. Open data can accelerate scientific discoveries, foster collaboration, and promote long-term business success. However, concerns regarding data privacy and security can hinder data sharing. Companies have options to mitigate the challenges through developing data governance mechanisms, collaborating with stakeholders, communicating the benefits, and creating incentives for data sharing, among others. Ultimately, open data has immense potential to drive positive social impact and business value, and companies can explore solutions for their specific circumstances and tailor them to their specific needs.

Antecedents of freight transportation for sustainable supply chain in the post-COVID era: an emerging market study

PurposeIn past years, the global supply chain has witnessed devastating effects of coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has renewed the interest of the Sustainable Supply Chain (SSC) stakeholders on sustainability. The stakeholders are now rethinking their business processes and strategy to make them sustainable. In this context, the relevant literature is required to support emerging markets to formulate sustainability-focussed strategies. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of potential antecedents that leads towards sustainable development of freight transportation in emerging markets.Design/methodology/approachInitially, the antecedents of the Sustainable Freight Transport (SFT) system are derived from the literature survey followed by verification from the experts. Then, the potential antecedents are categorized under four (social, organizational, operational and environmental) broad categories. Afterwards, a Neutrosophic Analytic Network Process (N-ANP) method is employed to obtain the priority weights of the identified potential antecedents.FindingsThe paper identified and ranked 17 antecedents of the SFT system. According to the study's findings, the top three antecedents of SFT are "the presence of a multimodal transportation system,” "circularity in SFT” and "traffic congestion management”. The results from the study advocate the promotion of existing multi-modal transport facilities which is promising to achieve sustainability. The results suggested the adoption of the digital twin to manage the transport operations.Originality/valueThis study sheds light on how to achieve sustainability in the freight transportation system post-COVID era highlighting the potential antecedents. The study's findings will assist practitioners in developing SFT strategies in the face of such pandemics in future.

Taking Stock: The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on University-Community Engagement

This article examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university-community engagement (UCE) as an academic mission. The aim of the work is to outline the ways in which UCE has been functioning since the turbulent onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. The study undertakes a systematic review of the UCE literature to identify major trends, raising important questions regarding ongoing scholarly discussions and managerial/policy debates on the subject. The results show seven distinct types of engagement responses by higher education institutions (HEIs) across the globe. In addition, the review identified that HEIs faced difficulties in either adapting existing engagement practices or while establishing new ones, especially regarding the efficient use of digital technologies. In terms of implications, the findings suggest that the pandemic has resulted in new debates about the societal role of HEIs, with medium- and long-term implications for policy and management.

Introduction

The COVID-19 crisis that emerged in spring 2020 was unprecedented in its impact on the day-to-day operations of higher education worldwide. This chapter describes the experiences of students, staff, and faculty at the University of Utah as they adapted to the new COVID-19 reality in spring and summer 2020. Participants' experiences of the transition to online learning and work during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic illuminate a number of findings that can provide guidance to higher education for future crises. The chapter explores whether it is realistic to expect campus communities to thrive during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. As it becomes clear that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to impact higher education in the near future, it is important to look back on the experiences of those in higher education as leaders consider the best ways to move forward in this dynamic environment. The chapter offers an in-depth and institutionally broad view of how different higher education stakeholders experienced the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also offers an opportunity to consider how the theoretical concept of thriving operates in practice when an institution is in crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

A Contribution to Sustainable Human Resource Development in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This examines the six drivers and twelve detailed practices of sustainable human resource development (S-HRD) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic across different organizations in Poland. The empirical strategy is based on explorative research conducted using surveys in Poland between 2020 and 2021. The results confirm that the surveyed organizations implemented S-HRD practices driven mainly by the expectations of external stakeholders. They neglected the areas of caring for employees' well-being and developing environmental awareness before the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, most companies maintained their approach to S-HRD. This research is unique because it adds to the body of literature advocating the significance of S-HRD for organizational resilience before, during, and after extreme events. Generalizing the results is challenging because the snowball sample has significant restrictions. However, future research may overcome these shortcomings by using larger samples based on probability or random sampling techniques.

Invited discussant comments during the UCL-Penn Global COVID Study webinar 'How Do We Trust (Again): Paranoia and Mental Health': part 2 of 2.

Loneliness has been reported by the UCL-Penn Global COVID Study participants throughout the pandemic year, not surprisingly, although this has been an issue that has been manifesting itself even before the pandemic. In identifying loneliness in communities, the built environment industry and professionals have been looking at how good and targeted design in the public realm and master planning can help to firstly design interventions and secondly orchestrate or manage these spaces in a way that helps create opportunities to address loneliness. Furthermore, how these spaces create opportunities for people to both interact with each other but also interact with the space can help connect people together and with nature/biodiversity. In doing so this also helps to create better health outcomes for mental health and wellbeing, as well as physical health and wellbeing. Coronavirus (Covid-19) and the associated lockdown periods have caused people to reconnect with local green spaces and has focused the attention to what these spaces provide in terms of opportunities and benefits for people. As a result, the value placed on these and the expectation of how they will provide value to communities is increasing and will continue to increase in the post-Covid-19 world. Better connected, activated and well-structured public realm and green spaces will be central to the development of projects and schemes for housing, and mixed used schemes in the forthcoming years.

Invited discussant comments during the UCL-Penn Global COVID Study webinar 'How Do We Trust (Again): Paranoia and Mental Health': part 1 of 2.

The article provides commentary on Wong et al.'s investigation of the relationship between schizotypal traits, social mistrust and aggression, mental and physical health outcomes across three waves of data collection commencing in April 2020. The researchers aimed to consider the nature of the relationship between these variables and the stability of these relationships as coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions fluctuated over time. Their results suggested that loneliness reflects a hub which links the trait variables of schizotypal and social mistrust to aggression and mental and physical health symptoms. Their network did not vary by demographic factors nor wave of data collection, suggesting that stable individual differences were driving results. Their results propose that interventions which increase social connection could provide positive health benefits as well as decreasing aggression (via reductions in social mistrust). Their data contributes to understanding about how schizotypal traits link to outcomes under conditions of social stress.

The use of Twitter as a strategic dialogue platform for IBEX35 companies during the pandemic

This paper analyses the communication carried out by IBEX35 companies in crisis situations in order to determine the mechanisms that try to favour dialogue between organisations and their stakeholders. The sample is made up of the tweets that include the word covid and that have been issued by the 27 IBEX 35 companies that had verified corporate profiles on the Twitter social platform during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. Taking into consideration the dialogic principles established by Kent and Taylor (1998), which were adapted by Rybalko and Seltzer (2010) for Twitter, an adaptation was made to establish indicators to apply to the conversation established on the platform. To analyse the differences in interaction, the t-test for independent samples and the one-factor ANOVA were used. The results show that companies maintain an interest in engaging with their audiences but continue to deal with topics that are not of interest to users, which makes it difficult for a dialogue or conversation to take place between companies and stakeholders. The article shows that the resources most used by companies in crisis situations are the call to action and dialogue, either by asking their users questions or suggesting the desired interaction. While directly asking users for their opinions does not generate more dialogue, the results show that soliciting attitudes, such as commenting, sharing an image or liking an image, does increase interaction. This implies that there is low interest on the part of audiences to join a real conversation.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted wastewater-based epidemiology?

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) was one of the areas of scientific knowledge that developed significantly with the COVID-19 pandemic, with robust worldwide application to monitor the circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in urban communities at different scales and levels. This mini-review assesses how the COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced the WBE based on the investigation of 1305 scientific reports published (research, review, and conference papers) up to the end of 2022, considering the research objects, funding sources, actors, and countries involved. As a result, 71 % of all WBE-based publications occurred since the beginning of the pandemic, with 62 % addressing SARS-CoV-2, demonstrating the migration of WBE's relative importance in studies on drug abuse, pharmaceuticals consumption, and other disease-causing organisms to the constitution of a tool to support the monitoring of the coronavirus. Before the pandemic, WBE was a tool used for epidemiological surveillance of several diseases (54 % of studies), drug abuse (30 %), and pharmaceutical consumption (9 %). With the pandemic, these research topics lost to space, constituting only 37 % of the area's studies, and SARS-CoV-2 became the central object of studies. In addition, there has been a 4.7 % expansion of developing country participation in sewage surveillance publications and greater diversification of collaborators and funders, especially from government, businesses, and the water industry. International research partnerships had a reduction of 8 %, consequently, there was an increase in local and regional partnerships. With the COVID-19 pandemic, funding for research in WBE became approximately 6.5 % less dependent on traditional research funds. The future of WBE involves different approaches, including different focuses of research and technological advancements to improve the sensitivity, precision, and applicability of these investigations. The new WBE research arrangements are promising, although the post-pandemic challenges are likely to be in maintaining them and overcoming the trend toward a lack of diversity in study subjects.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the construction industry: a literature review of academic research

Over the past 3 years, the global construction sector has been severely affected by the noxious coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Visionary construction stakeholders, including governments, practitioners, and academia, all have been actively devising strategies to deal with the crisis caused by the pandemic. Despite the rich contributions by academia, an in-depth review of their research works to understand how the pandemic has been handled to position the construction industry for post-pandemic actions and future pandemics is hitherto lacking. Hence, an up-to-date literature review is conducted in this study to better understand this terra incognita. It does so by adopting a six-step thematic analysis of 159 empirical peer-reviewed research articles in relation to COVID-19 on construction. The review discovered a growing research interest from different countries from 2020 to 2022. The existing studies can be put under four major topics, namely the COVID-19 impacts, challenges and opportunities, responding strategies, and post-COVID-19 interventions. A framework consisting of four categories of responding strategies, namely vaccination, personal responsibility of workers, government-instructional practices, and organisation-based approaches, is proposed through the lens of the socio-technical system theory to handle the pandemic crisis in construction. Limitations of the existing studies were further identified. Four pertinent research directions were finally proposed: building upon and testing the proposed COVID-19 response framework, adoption of more advanced innovative strategies to increase productivity amid pandemics and survive the risk of future pandemics, beyond the technological response to COVID-19 in construction, and post-pandemic view of the construction industry. This study contributes to the knowledge body by providing a candid evaluation of the knowledge contributed by academia to deal with the risks of future pandemics in the global construction industry. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.