Barriers and Challenges to Implementing a Quality Improvement Program: Political and Administrative Challenges.

Quality improvement (QI) programs have rapidly grown in health care over recent years. Despite increasing evidence of successful QI initiatives resulting in improved outcomes, the adoption and implementation of QI programs remain a challenge worldwide. This paper briefly describes political and administrative barriers that impede the implementation of QI programs, including political and ideological factors, socioeconomic and educational barriers, and barriers related to data collection, privacy, and security. Key political and administrative barriers identified include resource limitations due to inadequate public funding, stringent laws, and change resistance. Potential solutions include support and commitment from regional and national authorities, consultation of all involved parties during QI program development, and financial incentives. The barrier of limited resources is starker among low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with high-income countries (HICs) due to the absence of adequate infrastructure, personnel equipped with QI-oriented skills, and analytical technology. Solutions that have facilitated QI programs in some LMICs include outreach and collaboration with other health centers and established QI programs in HICs. The lack of QI-specific training and education in medical curricula challenges QI implementation but can be mitigated through the provision of QI promotion webinars, QI-specific project opportunities, and formalized QI training modules. Finally, barriers related to data collection, privacy, and security include laws hindering the availability of quality data, inefficient data collection and processes, and outdated clinical information systems. Access to high-quality data, organized record-keeping, and alignment of data collection processes will help alleviate these barriers to QI program implementation. The multidimensional nature of these barriers means that proposed solutions will require coordination from multiple stakeholders, government support, and leaders across multiple fields.

Support for a right-wing populist party and subjective well-being: Experimental and survey evidence from Germany.

With the rise of populism in many countries, including Germany, it is more important than ever to better understand the causes and consequences of populist support. Using two experiments within the context of a large panel survey, we study how support for the German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is associated with subjective perceptions of personal and financial well-being. In both experiments, we rely on priming the identity of AfD supporters, once in a controlled manner and once in a natural setting. We document a causal relationship from AfD support to diminished well-being for new and marginal AfD supporters. Our findings challenge the prevailing assumption that causality moves unidirectionally, from life dissatisfaction to support for populist parties, and suggest that early interventions focusing on positive messages are particularly promising to win voters back into the mainstream.

Individual differences in sharing false political information on social media: Deliberate and accidental sharing, motivations and positive schizotypy.

False political information-misinformation or disinformation-is widely spread on social media. Individual social media users play a large part in this. However, only a minority actively share false material. It is important to establish what sets these individuals apart from those who do not, and why they do it. Motivations for sharing may vary and are likely to differ between people who share false material unknowingly and on purpose. In this paper we consider the extent to which individual differences in personality and other variables, and motivations for sharing, are associated with the likelihood of people sharing false political information both accidentally and deliberately. In a series of four studies (Ns = 614, 563, 627, 113) we examined predictors of sharing false political information using different methodological approaches. Across the four studies, a key finding was that positive schizotypy is associated with measures of sharing false information both accidentally and deliberately. Motivations for sharing political information online were also relevant, with sharing for reasons of 'raising awareness' appearing particularly important. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Can money buy control of Congress?

Can a political party spend enough across electoral campaigns to garner a majority within the U.S. Congress? Prior research on campaign spending minimizes the importance of campaign heterogeneity and fails to aggregate effects across campaigns, rendering it unable to address this question. Instead, we tackle the question with a system-level analysis of campaign expenditures. First, using a flexible machine learning approach, we show that spending has substantial and nonlinear marginal effects on outcomes at the level of the campaign. Second, by aggregating these effects to the entire U.S. Congress, we show that large seat swings that change congressional control have, in the past, been possible for expenditure levels consonant with those presently observed after having removed the most extreme levels. However, this possibility appears to have faded over the past decade. Our approach also allows us to illustrate the often significant effects that eliminating campaign spending could have.

Republicans float plan to overhaul NIH.

Lawmakers propose reducing 27 institutes to 15.

Reimagining Public Health: Mapping A Path Forward.

The COVID-19 pandemic and other ongoing public health challenges have highlighted deficiencies in the US public health system. The United States is in a unique moment that calls for a transformation that builds on Public Health 3.0 and its focus on social determinants of health and partnerships with diverse sectors while also acknowledging how the pandemic altered the landscape for public health. Based on relevant literature, our experience, and interviews with public health leaders, we describe seven areas of focus within three broad categories to support transformational change. Contextual areas of focus include increasing accountability and addressing politicization and polarization. Topical areas of focus highlight prioritizing climate change and sharpening the focus on equity. Technical areas of focus include advancing data sciences, building the workforce, and enhancing communication capacity. A transformed public health system will depend highly on leadership, funding incentives, and both bottom-up and top-down approaches. A broad effort is needed by public health agencies, governments, and academia to accelerate the transition to a next phase for public health.

Doctor, Indian nationalist and humanitarian: Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari (1880-1936).

Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari was a doctor and remarkable political figure in the late 19th century and the first half of 20th century. After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he returned to his country and became interested in political issues. Not unlike other educated Indian Muslims, Ansari first expressed his concerns about the situation in the Ottoman empire and went to Istanbul as the head of the medical mission. Ansari, who became more interested in politics after his days in Istanbul, came to the forefront as one of the leading figures of the Indian independence movement. Along with Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Ansari did not engage in violence but supported the unity of Muslims and Hindus and opposed communalism. Despite his active political life, Ansari continued his medical studies with great seriousness and played an active role in establishing the Delhi Medical Association in 1914. During this period, his most important aim was to graft animal testicles onto human beings.

E-learning platforms in ideological and political education at universities: students' motivation and learning performance.

BACKGROUND: The study aimed to examine the impact of using the MOODLE e-learning platform in ideological and political education on Chinese students' motivation and academic performance. METHODS: The study involved 447 students from China-based universities (the experimental group - 232 students who studied using electronic educational platforms, and the control group - 215 students who used no digital technologies in their learning). The following methods were used: Measuring the need to achieve success among students; T. I. Ilyina's method for studying motivation to study at university; Method for studying student success motivation; Method for studying the motives of students' educational activities; Method for determining the main motives for choosing a profession (E. M. Pavlyutenkov); Motivation of learning activities: Levels and types (I. S. Dombrovskaya). Students' academic performance was assessed by testing in the studied disciplines at the beginning and end of the study. RESULTS: As a result, the significance of the motivational component in achieving the success of ideological and political education and the impact on students' motivation to use e-learning platforms is theoretically substantiated. CONCLUSIONS: It has been confirmed that using e-learning platforms in ideological and political education helps increase student motivation and academic performance.

Political party affiliation, social identity cues, and attitudes about protective mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

This cross-sectional study aimed to determine 1) whether German citizens' adherence to health professionals' recommendations and mandates regarding protective masks during the COVID-19 pandemic varied according to their political party affiliations, and 2) how behavioral cues provided by members of shared social groups, such as family and friends, influenced individual mask-wearing behavior. A quota-based sample of German voters (n = 330) consisting of 55 citizens whose voting intentions aligned with each of the country's six main political parties responded to an online questionnaire consisting of multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Univariate descriptive statistical analyses of quantitative data were conducted, and multiple regressions were performed to determine log odds and significant variations among group-based responses. A pragmatic inductive coding process was used to conduct a thematic analysis of qualitative data. Results indicated that those participants who expressed an intention to vote for the populist radical right party were the least likely to follow health experts' recommendations and the most likely to express anger and dissatisfaction over mask mandates. Prospective Left Party voters were the most likely to adhere to the advice of their doctors, while those associated with the Green Party were the most likely to adhere to the advice of public health experts. Most survey participants reported aligning their mask-wearing behavior with that of family and friends, with prospective CDU/CSU voters particularly likely to consider the mask-wearing behavior of family members. The results indicate that public health officials should consider how group-related factors influence public health compliance in order to encourage protective mask-wearing in the future.

Squeezed from the top: "Social Outburst" (2019) and elite overproduction. A study of the dynamics of Chilean political instability from the approach of Structural Demographic Theory.

On October 18, 2019, Chile experienced the most important social upheaval since the country regained democracy in the late 1980s. The "Social Outbreak" surprised economic and political elites and seemed paradoxical to the international community who had often praised Chile as a model of successful development. In this paper, we used structural-demographic theory to analyze the interaction between the overproduction of elites and the stagnation in the relative income of the population as the underlying structural cause of Chilean political instability. This theory was able to predict the three most significant instances of political tension in the recent history of Chile: the crisis of the late 1960s that culminated in the coup d'état of 1973, popular mobilizations during the 1980s, and the recent student mobilizations and social upheaval. Our results suggest that, at least during the period 1938-2019, Chilean sociopolitical dynamics is determined by the same structural drivers.

Presidential election results in 2018-2022 and its association with excess mortality during the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic in Brazilian municipalities.

We evaluated the hypothesis of an association between excess mortality and political partisanship in Brazil using municipal death certificates registered in the Brazilian Ministry of Health database and first-round electoral results of Presidential elections in 2018 and 2022. Considering the former Brazilian President's stance of discrediting and neglecting the severity of the pandemic, we expect a possible relationship between excessive mortality rates during the COVID-19 health crisis and the number of municipal votes for Bolsonaro. Our results showed that, in both elections, the first-round percentage of municipal votes for Bolsonaro was positively associated with the peaks of excess deaths across Brazilian municipalities in 2020 and 2021. Despite the excess mortality during the pandemic, the political loyalty to Bolsonaro remained the same during the electoral period of 2022. A possible explanation for this is linked to the Brazilian political scenario, which presents an environment of tribal politics and affective polarization.

[Germinal Rodríguez: public health, politics and medical popularization in the first person, Argentina, 1922-1960]. / Germinal Rodríguez: salud pública, política y divulgación sanitaria en primera persona, Argentina, 1922-1960.

This article examines the career of Argentine doctor Germinal Rodríguez, situating it within the context of social history of medicine and the recent trend of medical biographies. Using a qualitative documentary analysis methodology, we analyzed various sources, including official records from the University of Buenos Aires, journalistic articles, and books by Rodríguez himself. Our analysis reveals that Rodríguez's enjoyed a successful academic career in university teaching, while concurrently engaging in active socialist activism between 1920-1930. Beyond academia, Rodríguez served as a science popularizer, a policy consultant for his party, and even a public official during the Peronist era.

Este trabajo reconstruye la trayectoria del médico argentino Germinal Rodríguez en diálogo con la historia social de la salud y la enfermedad y con una reciente corriente historiográfica de biografías médicas. En base a una metodología cualitativa de análisis documental, analizamos expedientes oficiales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, fuentes periodísticas, libros de Rodríguez y otras fuentes secundarias. Como resultado, podemos afirmar que su vida profesional estuvo marcada por la enseñanza universitaria y una exitosa carrera académica, así como por su intensa militancia socialista entre 1920-1930. Rodríguez fue también un divulgador, un experto de consulta en políticas públicas para su partido y funcionario estatal en los años del peronismo.