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Fruit and vegetable consumption and injurious falls among adults aged ≥ 50 years from low- and middle-income countries
Get PDFOBJECTIVE: Inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption may increase risk for falls. However, to date, only one study has examined this association in a sample restricted to females, while the mediators of this association are largely unknown. Therefore, we aimed to examine the association between fruit and vegetable consumption and injurious falls, and to identify potential mediators in a sample including both males and females.METHODS: Cross-sectional, nationally representative data from the World Health Organization (WHO) Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) were analyzed. Fruit/vegetable consumption was divided into two groups: ≥2 servings of fruits and ≥3 servings of vegetables per day (adequate consumption) or else (inadequate consumption). Fall-related injury referred to those that occurred in the past 12 months. Multivariable logistic regression and mediation analysis were conducted.RESULTS: Data on 34,129 individuals aged ≥ 50 years were analyzed (mean age 62.4 years; 52.1% females). Overall, inadequate fruit/vegetable intake was associated with a significant 1.41 (95%CI = 1.05-1.90) times higher odds for injurious falls. This association was only significant among females (OR = 1.96; 95%CI = 1.32-2.85). Mediation analysis showed that affect (mediated percentage 8.8%), cognition (7.2%), and sleep/energy (7.5%) were significant mediators, but vision, grip strength, and gait speed were not.CONCLUSIONS: Inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption was associated with higher odds for injurious falls among adults aged ≥ 50 years (especially females), and this association was partly mediated by cognition, affect, and sleep/energy. Future longitudinal studies are necessary to provide more insight into the underlying mechanisms, and to assess whether increasing fruit/vegetable consumption may reduce risk for falls.</p
Integrating sustainability and economic perspectives in reshoring: insights from the German automotive industry
Get PDFPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to integrate sustainability and economic factors into a framework for understanding the reshoring decision.Design/methodology/approach – This paper integrates sustainability and economic factors into a reshoring framework through using the theoretical perspectives of the natural resource-based view (NRBV) and transaction cost economics (TCE), and carrying out case study research with a number of firms involved in reshoring in the German automotive industry.Findings – Through adopting a multi-theory approach, the framework captures the complexities of the reshoring decision and illustrates that reshoring is not a location decision alone, but encompasses a range of sourcing options such as local production in-house, using a local supplier or addressing sustainability problems with the offshore operation. The importance of sustainability capability development as a basis of extending the range of reshoring sourcing options available is highlighted.Research limitations/implications – Using the NRBV has allowed to develop value creating drivers in the context of reshoring. Integrating the logic of TCE with this analysis provided an understanding of how cost reducing drivers were present alongside the value creating drivers for reshoring at the case companies. Beyond previous frameworks integrating the RBV and TCE, bringing in the NRBV allowed us to highlight the importance of sustainability capability development as a basis of extending the range of reshoring sourcing options available. While this study’scases were in the automotive industry in Germany, future research could sample for further geographies and industries to cover varying regulatory pressures for sustainability as well as sustainability-related industry initiatives.Practical implications – The framework can provide guidance to managers on the conditions that favour the selection of each sourcing option when making the reshoring decision.Originality/value – Although there are frameworks in the literature that explain the reshoring decision, limited attention has been given to integrating sustainability issues into the analysis. The findings here contribute important insights into the complementary and contradictory prescriptions of the NRBV and TCE in reshoring decisions, and several propositions are offered outlining these relationships. The resulting framework provides an integrated approach for managerial decision-making beyond economic factors alone
Who should manage worker safety to reduce occupational accidents?
Get PDFPurpose – Operations management research and practice has started to embrace sustainability in all its forms, including worker safety. Worker safety is a pivotal component of social sustainability, with accidents occurring largely in a firm’s operations. Nevertheless, workplaces are still not safe. To further understand why, we explore how workplace accidents are affected by who manages occupational safety (i.e., owner/partner, managing director/site/branch manager, OHS officer, or safety representative), and if this effect isdependent on the size of the establishment.Design/methodology/approach – Stakeholder-agency theory is utilized to develop a theoretical framework on the efficacy of having different job roles manage safety in establishments of different sizes. The derived hypotheses are tested using health and safety survey data from the EU-OSHA ESENER I (2014) and ESENER II (2019) surveys.Findings – We provide evidence that it is not beneficial to have owners manage safety in establishments. When owners manage safety in establishments, accidents increase, even when controlling for firm size. When exploring size more deeply, we find that in smaller establishments, it is more beneficial to have an employee representative manage safety, while in larger establishments, a dedicated safety officer should be in charge of managing safety. These findings are highly relevant for creating a path towards safer operations.Originality/value – This study contributes to our understanding of socially sustainable operations by exploring a path to making workplaces safer. It advances knowledge on how to effectively enhance operational safety. This perspective contributes to the expanding worker safety literature in operations management by introducing organizational job responsibilities as a relevant level of analysis, complementing existing explorations in our domain that haveprimarily focused on traits of the operations. The findings not only enhance scholarly and managerial knowledge but also offer clear guidance to policymakers for creating safer workplaces.<br/
The urge for specific standards of telepharmacy services: Lessons learned from qualitative study in Indonesian community pharmacies
Get PDFObjective: Like many low- and middle-income countries, Indonesia lacks specific standards for telepharmacy practices, which requires adherence to traditional pharmacy guidelines to evaluate the services. This study aims to explore the disparities between the implementation of telepharmacy services in community pharmacies and the established Indonesian pharmaceutical service standards. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in seven community pharmacies in Depok, an urban area near Jakarta. Data were collected in 2023 using triangulation methods: semi-structured interviews, direct observations, and simulated patient interactions. Verbatim transcriptions and thematic analysis were performed using NVivo®12 to analyse the findings. Results: Four identified themes were the structures, daily practices, challenges, and enablers of telepharmacy services. The scope of telepharmacy services consisted of dispensing medicines, patient education, and providing drug information through mobile applications by pharmacy electronic system organisers (PSEF) or social media platforms. Challenges in daily practice revealed gaps in traditional pharmaceutical service guidelines, including systems interoperability, effective communication among pharmacists-physician-patients, and the need for standards specific to digital pharmaceutical services. Common problems in telepharmacy were uncertain medicine availability, unclear e-prescription validity, limited pharmacist-physician collaboration, and impeded patient education, particularly in services provided through PSEF applications. On the other hand, the availability of digital technologies was seen as beneficial, highlighting the necessity for predefined standardised facilities to ensure the quality of telepharmacy services. Conclusion: While traditional pharmaceutical service standards can be applied to evaluate telepharmacy practices, specific challenges must be explicitly addressed within a dedicated telepharmacy standard to ensure patient safety and service quality
Delay, Energy, and Outage Considerations in GenAI-Enhanced MEC-NOMA-Enabled Vehicular Networks
Get PDFIn recent years, vehicular networks have experienced substantial growth, transforming the landscape of the transportation industry. In particular, the issue of computing task offloading in vehicular networks is critically important. The two key considerations are offloading task delay and energy consumption. Thus, a multiple access (MA) scheme is necessary in vehicular networks to facilitate more efficient computation task offloading. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is recognized as a promising candidate for multiple access in fifth-generation (5G) and beyond networks due to its potential to improve overall spectrum efficiency through superposition coding. Moreover, mobile edge computing (MEC) can minimize computation task delay and energy consumption by bringing computational resources closer to vehicles. Therefore, this paper examines the potential of employing mobile edge computing (MEC) with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in vehicular networks to reduce overall computation offloading task delay and energy consumption. Specifically, computation models for task delay and energy consumption are presented. Additionally, considering universal frequency reuse, we analyze interference-limited scenarios and allow interference from the transmissions of other vehicles and roadside units. The optimization problems for delay and energy are formulated based on the described models. Due to the non-convex nature of the optimization problem, they are solved numerically using the Python programming language. Furthermore, analytical expressions for outage probability are provided to evaluate the typical vehicle’s outage performance. Simulation results demonstrate the delay and energy performance of the MEC-NOMA-enabled vehicular networks compared to their OMA-based counterparts. The results indicate that MEC-NOMA achieves lower delay, reduced energy consumption, and improved outage performance compared to OMA-based vehicular networks
Dilemmas, limitations and challenges of place leadership: Instability and transitional dynamics in post-Brexit Northern Ireland
Get PDFThis paper considers place leadership in sub-national settings characterised by complex post-conflict legacies that are engendering volatility and stasis. Using Northern Ireland as an illustrative case, we identify leadership dilemmas through the experience of a region where those in leadership roles are struggling to navigate problematic community and policy legacies. While the idea of place leadership offers much conceptual promise as a means of overcoming instability, there are many critical tensions ‘on the ground’ in Northern Ireland that render place leadership approaches risky to enact and vulnerable to a combination ofopposing forces and ongoing post-Brexit policy turbulence
A systematic review of sport-based adolescent mental health awareness programmes
Get PDFBackground: Adolescent mental illness is of increasing concern, with a high prevalence in many parts of the world. Early engagement, detection and receiving support are warranted to reduce the severity of symptoms. Increasing mental health literacy (MHL) through sport to adolescents is one way of engaging young people and signposting them to services. The aim of this systematic review was to identify the effect of interventions, risk of bias, and theoretical application in sport-based adolescent mental health awareness programmes. Methods: Six electronic databases (MEDLINE Ovid, PsycINFO, Scopus, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, Cochrane) were searched from 2012 to September 2022 (updated January 2024). Inclusion criteria stated the sample had to include adolescents aged 11–17 years, include mental health outcomes, and a sport component. Results: Six studies met the inclusion criteria. Sample size ranged from nine to 816 participants. Four distinct sport-based programmes were evaluated, with three interventions applying a psychological behaviour change theory. The results of the interventions indicated positive effects on several indices of MHL, such as increased knowledge of mental health, depression and anxiety literacy and the recognition of disorders, increased resilience and intentions to provide help. It was found that addressing stigma remains a challenge. The interventions produced the most significant effects for those who scored lower at baseline measures and the younger cohorts. Conclusions: Sport is useful for the engagement and dissemination of mental health awareness information to adolescents. Given the limited number of psychological theory informed interventions, there is a need for further interventions that explicitly adopt behaviour change theories and improve the quality of research design for these interventions. The findings from this review will be of interest to health promotion and public health practitioners and those designing mental health awareness programmes for adolescents. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD4202231226
Food literacy and eating motivation in relation to diet quality and general and abdominal obesity: a cross-sectional study
Get PDFThis cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the associations of food literacy and eating motivation with diet quality and obesity. Participants were 1055 Japanese adults aged 20-69 years. The self-perceived food literacy scale was used to assess food literacy (food preparation skills, resilience and resistance, healthy snack styles, social and conscious eating, examining food labels, daily food planning, healthy budgeting, and healthy food stockpiling). The Eating Motivation Survey was used to assess eating motives (liking, habits, need and hunger, health, convenience, pleasure, traditional eating, natural concerns, sociability, price, visual appeal, weight control, affect regulation, social norms, and social image). Diet quality (Healthy Eating Index-2020) was assessed based on 4-day weighed dietary records. After adjustment for potential confounders, higher scores for food preparation skills (β 0.64), healthy snack styles (β 1.62), examining food labels (β 0.72), healthy budgeting (β 0.71), and natural concerns motive (β 0.75) and lower scores for convenience (β -0.45) and pleasure (β -0.62) motives were significantly associated with a higher diet quality. In contrast, higher scores for liking (odds ratio (OR) 1.32) and weight control (OR 1.19) motives and lower scores for resilience and resistance (OR 0.76), daily food planning (OR 0.84), and health motive (OR 0.67) were significantly associated with a higher prevalence of abdominal obesity (waist circumference ≥90 cm for males; ≥80 cm for females); all of these variables (except for daily food planning) were also associated with general obesity (body mass index ≥25 kg/m 2). In conclusion, the food literacy domains and eating motives associated with diet quality differed from those associated with obesity. The findings have important implications for effective strategies to improve diet quality and combat the obesity epidemic. </p
Family-Centred Care Research in Paediatrics: A Scoping Review
Get PDFFamily-centred care (FCC) is central to care of children and families across healthcare settings. Research exploring FCC is increasing, so there is a need to identify clinical and research priority areas. This review aimed to describe FCC research for children and families in the 21st century. Studies were sourced from CINAHL, Ovid Medline, and Embase and underwent two-stage screening, guided by a published protocol. Data were extracted on study authorship, author discipline, funding, study methodology, study findings and use of “FCC”. Analysis included descriptive statistics, Pearson’s Chi-Squared tests, and content analysis. Five hundred and seventy-nine articles were included. Most used quantitative methodologies and were published from 2010, predominantly by authors from nursing or medical disciplines. Most studies were conducted in acute care settings, typically in North America, and primarily included nurses or mothers as participants. FCC was typically defined using multiple references, with several key authors identified. Future research should focus on historically underrepresented clinical and geographical areas and include multidisciplinary team members. Increasing cultural and familial diversity in FCC research is also necessary to ensure inclusive FCC practices that are transferrable within and between clinical and geographical settings