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Drug shortages continue at crisis levels in the United States, with no end in sight. Extensive research in disparate areas has been conducted to explore the impact that shortages have on patients and the healthcare system. We conducted a scoping review to categorize existing work in order to identify opportunities for further research. We considered peer‐reviewed and non‐peer‐reviewed articles involving non‐vaccine, human drug shortages in the United States published in English between January 2001 and May 2019. In total, 430 papers were charted according to the following categories: causes, impacts on care, health outcomes, costs, management, prevention, and federal government response. Of these, 112 papers considered causes; 199 discussed effects, 158 considered management strategies, and 140 discussed prevention. We provide a resource to navigate the vast literature on drug shortages in the United States, identifying areas in need of further research. This review highlights the widespread negative effects that drug shortages have on patients, providers, and health system costs in the United States. Evidence of their ramifications should be sufficient to justify policy change. Future work should move from characterizing the problem to working toward solutions to reduce the impact, occurrence, and effects of shortages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares two modern sanctuary institutions primarily construed for undocumented peoples in the U.S.; Christian-based church sanctuaries, and public-school districts that have declared themselves as 'sanctuaries.' Through examination of 10 church sanctuary resolutions and 10 school district resolutions from across the country, the study inquires about the extent to which sanctuary school districts and churches similarly provide not only material but also symbolic protection for undocumented individuals and families. Herein we examine the extent to which school districts mirror those of churches, towards the goal of understanding how sanctuary itself is being framed and practiced in the U.S. Working with Hilary Cunningham's framing of sanctuary movements, as well as David Kertzer's "Ritual, Politics, and Power," our analysis suggests that churches and public-school districts are strikingly similar in their sanctuary legitimation and community mobilisation processes, even if the content of their resolutions differ.

This paper explores the relationship between federalism and the policy design of labour market policies in two liberal welfare state regimes – Canada and the United States – addressing the following research question: How do variations in policy design intersect with federalism in both countries and how can these variations provide powerful, self-reinforcing or self-undermining feedback effects over time? Combining the literatures on the varieties of federalism, the liberal welfare regime, and policy design and feedback, the paper shows that paying close attention to federalism is necessary to understand diverse national policy designs that produce self-reinforcing feedback effects over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper accepts that the OECD's PISA has become influential in policy terms globally, but analyses the ways that the main PISA and PISA for Schools tests are positioned differently in Australia and the USA because of contrasting educational federalisms in the two nations. Our argument is that while PISA is undoubtedly influential, its effects are nonetheless mediated by the political structures--here, the different models of federalism--present within different nations, which in turn leads to quite distinct "PISA effects". For instance, Australia oversamples on main PISA to make its data available for national and state-level policymaking, whereas the USA, with its focus on local governance in schooling, does not oversample, meaning that main PISA does not have a comparable policy salience as in Australia. Conversely, the newer PISA for Schools test originated in the USA with pressure from educators and philanthropic interests and has been implemented in a good number of schools, but it has not been taken up in the same way in Australia. Our analyses show how these differences reflect the idiosyncratic workings of federalism in the two nations, in which the federal government has a stronger policy and funding role in Australia than has hitherto been the case for the federal government in the USA.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court declared that there was no longer a right to abortion under the federal constitution. This decision has allowed states to promulgate different restrictions on abortion, many of which implicate the practice of emergency medicine. An abortion is defined as a "medical intervention provided to individuals who need to end the medical condition of pregnancy" and includes care such as termination of an ectopic pregnancy and induction of labor for previable preterm premature rupture of membranes--interventions that emergency physicians either perform or rely on the assistance of consultants to perform. State bans on abortion must be evaluated against duties under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a federal law that preempts state law. In this paper we examine the conflict between state and federal law as it applies to emergency abortion care and describe how emergency physicians can continue caring for patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of U.S. states have legalized marijuana for medical use and some states have legalized marijuana for recreational use; yet, marijuana remains illegal federally. Given the misalignment between state and federal policies, this paper seeks to explore how hospitals handle inpatients' medical marijuana use in states where medical marijuana is legal. To examine this phenomenon, we conducted an anonymous, online, cross-sectional survey of nurse leaders working in acute care inpatient settings in states that had legalized medical marijuana. Using descriptive statistics, we report on these nurse leaders' experiences. There were 811 survey responses—291 who worked in an acute care inpatient setting in a state that had legalized medical marijuana. Among those respondents, only a small percentage reported that inpatients had some access to their medical marijuana: 5.8% reported that the drug was kept in the pharmacy and dispensed like other prescriptions; another 3.4% indicated that patients kept the medical marijuana in their rooms and took it, as needed. Most respondents (55.6%) reported that patients were switched to an alternative medication during their inpatient hospital stays. Almost half (49.4%) of the nurse leaders who reported that alternative medications were used, reported that opioids were substituted, and the majority reported that the marijuana was safer than the opioids. These findings are concerning given the increase in opioid overdose deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument presented in this paper is that the failure of the United States federal government to enact adequate gun control laws that would help prevent school shootings is a state crime by omission. Drawing on international law, as critical criminologists have recommended since the 1970s, the paper shows that the federal government is failing to act when it has a duty to protect schoolchildren. The paper concludes with recommendations for federal gun control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the possibility of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) has been a high priority for numerous countries over the last few years. A CBDC seems to be the next development in the global currency regime, with many countries already using or piloting a CBDC program. The United States and its accompanying central bank--the Federal Reserve--have recently shown strong interest in developing and issuing a CBDC. While the government is deeply entrenched in researching possible CBDC outcomes and strategies, it appears to lack research and development into a proper regulatory scheme that will ensure a well-ordered rollout of a CBDC. The United States' monetary and financial regulatory regimes are ones that are notably fragmented among numerous federal and state agencies, some of which perform overlapping or quite similar duties. This issue of regulatory fragmentation and overlap among regulators exists in numerous respects regarding the issuance and creation of a U.S. CBDC. For this reason, among others, it is paramount that the federal government coordinate between and within its branches to ensure that the next development in U.S. Currency--a CBDC--is created, issued, and regulated in a way that minimizes regulatory overlap and enhances intragovernmental communication and cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the planned invasion of New Orleans organized by the United States in late 1803 to enforce the terms of the Louisiana Purchase treaty. This story is a little-­known but revealing moment in the history of the Louisiana Purchase and the early U.S. republic, and it demonstrates the varied levels of power and authority the United States depended on to implement its imperial projects. The federal system necessitated cooperation between the Jefferson administration and state governments in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, all of which were active partners in U.S. empire-­building. West of the Appalachian Mountains, however, local conditions shaped the abilities of the states to fulfill Jefferson’s request for troops. By focusing on the intricacies of the federal system as the Jefferson administration attempted to accomplish a single goal of acquiring Louisiana in a narrow window of time, this essay highlights how crucial the contingencies of politics and power on the ground were to the federal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will first discuss how legal materials are considered to fall into two categories: primary and secondary sources. Primary sources consist of the law as produced by the three branches of government at the state and federal levels: statutes (enacted by legislatures and Congress), judicial opinions (issued by courts), and regulations (issued by administrative agencies of the executive branch). Secondary sources explain or analyze the law. Examples of secondary sources include treatises, law journal articles, and legal practice aids such as form books and checklists. The paper will then discuss the place of grey literature in the realm of legal materials, within the context of grey literature as defined by Taryn L. Rucinski in her 2015 Law Library Journal article "The Elephant in the Room: Toward a Definition of Grey Legal Literature," and, to a lesser extent, less scholarly writings. The third part of the paper will discuss the challenges of discoverability of various types of grey legal materials. The paper will conclude by considering potential options for enabling discoverability of grey legal literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disproportionally high rates of child abuse and neglect on Native American reservations are striking, demanding the interest and focus of child welfare advocates. This paper may benefit child welfare professionals who develop and administer federal and state policies and processes integral to Tribal child welfare (TCW) systems. It argues that an affirming and cursory approach to TCW by federal and state agencies contributes to ineffective engagement and inept system development/reform. Using a critical systems approach, the organizations, structures, and sentinel policy, or key system components, are discussed and explored to demonstrate how a change in perspective can improve the stewardship of federal resources, inform effective policy change, and advance federal and state agencies abilities to support TCW initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teoría & Derecho. Revista de Pensamiento Jurídico is the property of Editorial Tirant Lo Blanch SL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper takes PA research on organizational performance in a new direction by testing a configurational model using self-organizing maps, a machine learning methodology. The model was built and tested using six performance dimensions from 2017 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). Four distinct performance profiles or groups were identified: very low performers, average performers, transitional performers, and high performers. Implications for theory development and practice of configurational models of public organizational performance were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some accounts focus on the role of governmental systems in the management of the 2020-22 Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic. But studies with such an emphasis have typically taken second place to interpretations of outcomes in terms of cases and deaths based on cultural and demographic differences. In theory, federal systems would seem to have certain advantages in managing pandemics given the presumed ability to co-manage national challenges at the federal level (testing, vaccines, resources, etc.) with local differences in demography and behaviour at the state level. This paper argues that, in the case of the United States, its federal system was central to its failure in managing the pandemic. But rather than an indictment of federalism broadly construed, this was the result of a vision of federalism put into practice since the 1980s reflecting a strict division of powers between the states and the federal government. Rather than partners or collaborators with the federal government, the states became competitors with one another and with the federal government. This was the recipe for failure more than was federalism as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal market is a cornerstone of every federal polity. It would be difficult to imagine American federalism without the internal free trade constitutionalized by the Dormant Commerce Clause (DCC). This Article provides a criticism of the Supreme Court's DCC case law and proposes a new approach that takes economic reality into account. The Article demonstrates that the Supreme Court's DCC case law, owing to its countenancing unnecessary restrictions of trade, fails to fulfill the constitutional function one may attribute to a federal market. First, it seems the Supreme Court replaced the inquiry that fits the Constitution with one that it felt comfortable with. Although the case law promises to suppress state protectionism, in fact, it deals merely with naked protectionism and, thus, gives states a very wide playing field to shelter local economic interests. Second, the Supreme Court's case law is inconsistent in the sense that it does not do what it promises to do. The Court promises to suppress state protectionism but, instead, it invalidates only those measures that are outrageously protectionist; it examines existential necessity but ignores the question of extensional necessity. Furthermore, it promises a two-step analysis that distinguishes between the restriction of trade and its justification, but the analysis usually does not get to the second step, since only those measures are pronounced restrictive in the first place that could not be sufficiently justified in the second place. The paper proposes a substantive sliding-scale approach that takes economic reality into account. This implies that the current two-limb test should be replaced with a three-limb test providing for an increasingly closer scrutiny of symmetric, asymmetric, and discriminatory impact. It demonstrates that the idea of suppressing state protectionism implies two requirements of necessity. The first one, labeled by this Article as "existential necessity," requires that completely unnecessary restriction of trade be ruled out. The second one, baptized as "extensional necessity," filters out restrictions that go beyond what is necessary and turns on the existence of less restrictive regulatory alternatives. This calls for the comparison of policy options in terms of trade restrictiveness and effectiveness but involves no genuine value choice. The proposed doctrine's novelty lies in the introduction of extensional necessity, which is patently overlooked in the Supreme Court's current case law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the involvement of American journalist Clarence Streit in federalist movements following the publication of his book "Union Now" in 1939. Topics explored include his proposed establishment of a federal union of major nations in the North Atlantic region, the significant interest demonstrated by media mogul Henry Luce in the said book in 1941, the scholarship of Streit on American wartime politics, the way Streit promoted the merits of federal union at both Democratic and Republican national conventions in the 1940s, and the increased public interest in the American constitution and federal system due to "Union Now."

The increasing trend of special districts deserves more attention as it raises concerns on the efficiency and accountability of the fragmented local governance system in America. This paper examines whether the rapid growth of special districts can be partially explained by the expansion of state-imposed tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) during the last several decades. Using panel data from 1972 to 2007, this paper finds that TELs produce unintended circumvention effects among local governments. Specifically, the results reveal TELs motivate local general-purpose governments to create new special districts as an institutional strategy to evade the fiscal constraints imposed by the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The protection of critical infrastructure (water, energy, food supply, healthcare etc.) from cyberattack has moved from a hypothetical concern to a very real one for the United States. Unfortunately, the cybersecurity for such infrastructure is provided by a multiplicity of organisations, inside and outside the US federal government. In this paper, the authors address how the US Department of Homeland Security and US Department of Defense have evolved to address the cyber critical infrastructure protection (CIP) mission and the issues that have emerged in doing so. Presented here is a description of critical infrastructure's vulnerability to cyberattack, an assessment of relevant cybersecurity efforts by the US government, and consideration of the civilian–military issues involved in finding remedies to the problem of cybersecurity in critical infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increased attention paid to federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) schemes after the Great Recession (2007–2009), research examining the policy characteristics and the underlying logic shaping the social protection provided by a federal-state UI system is limited. Integrating the perspectives of policy design theory, comparative welfare politics, and fiscal welfare, this paper examines the unequal social protection under the American UI system during and after the Great Recession. By using model-based cluster analysis and fixed-effect panel regression models, this paper identifies three distinct UI approaches, i.e. the limited social protection approach, the unbalanced social protection approach, and the balanced social protection approach. The policy choices made by those states that follow the three approaches reflect different mixtures of policy logic, including social protection, economic stabilization, work disincentives, and interstate competition. The overall downward trend in social protection signals that the American UI system is under-prepared for the next economic recession, thereby exposing unemployed workers to the risk of economic insecurity. These findings provide implications for future policy designs aiming to strengthen the social protection of the federal-state UI system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of November 2020, the United States leads the world in confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths. Over the past 10 months, the United States has experienced three peaks in new cases, with the most recent spike in November setting new records. Inaction and the lack of a scientifically informed, unified response have contributed to the sustained spread of COVID-19 in the United States. This paper describes major events and findings from the domestic response to COVID-19 from January to November 2020, including on preventing transmission, COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, ensuring sufficient physical infrastructure and healthcare workforce, paying for services, and governance. We further reflect on the public health response to-date and analyse the link between key policy decisions (e.g. closing, reopening) and COVID-19 cases in three states that are representative of the broader regions that have experienced spikes in cases. Finally, as we approach the winter months and undergo a change in national leadership, we highlight some considerations for the ongoing COVID-19 response and the broader United States healthcare system. These findings describe why the United States has failed to contain COVID-19 effectively to-date and can serve as a reference in the continued response to COVID-19 and future pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volume of food purchased by the American military makes it perhaps the single largest intermediated market for food in the USA. Consequently, it is not surprising that those seeking to enhance the economic viability of small and mid-scale farms may view military bases as a promising market for locally produced foods. This is a challenging prospect, however, due to the centralized structure of military command, the nature of the military procurement system and federal mandates to obtain products that maximize value at the lowest available cost. This paper describes the US military food procurement system and the work of a 3-yr initiative to increase the amount of locally produced, source-identified products used at a North Carolina military installation. Our experiences serve as a cautionary tale, with this paper designed as both a primer on 'how it works' for food procurement at the federal and base level, and a description of our largely unsuccessful attempts to increase the volume of local food products from small-/mid-scale producers moving through the supply chain into base dining halls and restaurants. Based on our experiences, we also make recommendations on possible entry points for local food and farm advocates to work within the existing system to localize food procurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naturalization has long been recognized as a crucial step in the full integration of immigrants into US society. Yet until now, sufficient information on the naturalization-eligible has not been available that would allow the federal government, states, localities, and non-governmental service providers to develop targeted strategies on a local level to assist this population to naturalize and to overcome barriers to eligibility. This paper remedies that deficiency by providing detailed estimates on the naturalization-eligible from data collected in the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). Naturalization rates have traditionally been calculated by dividing the naturalized or the "naturalization eligible" populations by all foreignborn persons; i.e., the naturalized, legal non-citizens, and undocumented residents. By including the unauthorized in this calculation, naturalization rates have appeared misleadingly low for populations that can naturalize. By contrast, the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) provides "naturalization eligibility" rates, which it calculates by dividing the "naturalization eligible" by the foreign-born population, minus undocumented residents and legal residents who arrived after mid-2008. The paper reports that 8.6 million US residents were eligible to naturalize in 2013. This figure approximates the 8.8 million estimate of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Mexican nationals constitute the largest naturalization-eligible population at 2.7 million, followed by Indian (337,000), Chinese (320,000), Cuban (316,000), and Canadian (313,000) nationals. Fifty countries have 25,000 or more naturalization eligible persons. The large number of legally resident Mexican nationals and this population's high naturalization eligibility rate mean that US states with large Mexican populations have relatively high percentages of legal foreign-born residents who can naturalize. The overall "naturalization eligibility" rate was 31 percent in 2013, including 48 percent for Mexican nationals. Nine of the 25 largest US naturalizationeligible populations by source country have naturalization eligibility rates in excess of 40 percent, including Mexico (48 percent), Canada (45 percent), El Salvador (42 percent), the United Kingdom (41 percent), Guatemala (44 percent), Japan (56 percent), Honduras (48 percent), and Brazil (41 percent). On a state level, California, Texas, New York, and Florida contain roughly five million of the US naturalization-eligible or about 58 percent of the total population. The paper finds that a large number of naturalization-eligible immigrants may have difficulty meeting the naturalization requirements or may need intensive support to do so. This population likely includes substantial percentages of the 2.87 million naturalization-eligible who have lived in the United States for more than 25 years; 1.16 million who do not speak English; 3.0 million with less than a high school education; and the 1.8 million with incomes below the poverty level. On the other hand, high percentages of eligible immigrants would seem to be well-situated to naturalize, including those who have lived in the United States for more than 10 years (78 percent); are age 35 or older (74 percent); are married (64 percent); speak English well, very well, or only English (65 percent); have access to both a computer and the internet (74 percent); earn income above the poverty level (79 percent); and have health insurance (72 percent). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comparative analysis of national curriculum reforms in Australia and the USA, set against the backdrop of global trends since the 1980s. The analysis is driven by an interest in the reconstitution of national policy spaces in global times, and draws particularly upon Stephen Carney’s notion ofglobal policy-scapesas a way of understanding the complex and disjunctive flows of transnational policy ideas and practices. The paper begins by arguing that reforms since the early 1980s have been driven by global panics about globalisation, equity and market competitiveness. These global influences have underpinned parallel reform attempts in each country, including the development of national goals in the late 1980s, failed attempts at national standards in the early 1990s and rejuvenated attempts towards national consistency in the 2000s. Building on this, we argue that despite shared global drivers and broad historical similarities, reforms in each country remain distinct in scope and form, due to several unique features that inform the national policy space of each country. These distinctive national policy spaces provide differentconditions of possibilityfor reform, reminding us that despite global commonalities, policy reforms are relational and locally negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper adopts a socio-historical perspective to explore when, how and why the eradication of poliomyelitis has become politicised to the extent that health workers and security personnel are targeted in drive-by shootings. Discussions of the polio crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan have tended to focus on Taliban suspicions of a US-led public health intervention and the denunciation of ‘modernity’ by Islamic ‘extremists’. In contrast, this paper considers a broader history of indigenous hostility and resistance to colonial immunisation on the subcontinent, suggesting how interconnected public health and political crises today have reactivated the past and created a continuity between events. The paper explores how the biomedical threat posed by polio has become intertwined with military and governmental discourses premised on the ‘preemptive strike’. Here, the paper tracks the connections between biological immunity and a postcolonial politics that posits an immunological rationale for politico-military interventions. The paper concludes by reflecting on the consequences for global public health of this entanglement of infectious disease with terror. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This autoethnography explores a fictional character known as "Sarah" who represents the Black woman's leadership experience in the U.S. federal government. Sarah is professional, loyal, and passionate in her pursuit of authentic leadership. Yet, she continues to struggle to find acceptance in her authentic identity and leadership style amongst her peers. Sarah has learned to create a balance of personal harmony and professional success and seeks to pass this wisdom on to the next generation. This paper contributes to the field of qualitative inquiry by providing poetic musings and insight into the work culture, race, and gender barriers that often impact Black women. Black women's voices were silenced during slavery, and they continue to seek a platform from which they can speak, be heard, and be equally included in modern conversations. Sarah's story seeks to provide voice, wisdom, and a unique forum to share four women's leadership journeys, in a palatable manner, to all audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although stepfamilies exist in some form in nearly every country in the world, they are most common in Western countries. This paper provides a summary of laws, policies, and programs pertaining to stepfamilies in a selection of Western countries, with a special focus on the United States. Although stepfamilies have been prevalent throughout the West for decades, they remain "incompletely institutionalized," and governments have been slow to address their needs and concerns. There is large variation across Western countries with respect to how stepfamilies are treated under the law, with some countries employing more liberal definitions of "parents," "children," and "families," than others. In contrast, stepfamilies in the United States must contend with a complex and conflicting set of federal laws, state laws, and court precedents. Their legal status is uncertain and the way stepfamilies are treated is inconsistent across social programs and policies. Overall, there is clear bias against stepfamilies within most U.S. institutions. The review includes recommendations for change that would enhance stepfamily stability and quality of life in both Western and non-Western contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1991, the Fundamental Principles have been a foundation of official statistics. In this paper we examine the interactions between them and a nation's political processes. In particular, we consider the extent that political processes militate against attainment of the fundamental principles. We examine the importance of institutional independence and examine how the political process either enables or militates against the attainment of the principles. After describing the relevant aspects of the United States federal statistical system we consider some examples where professional independence has been compromised or threatened. We use the recent controversy in the United States over the proposed addition of a question on citizenship to the decennial census to illustrate the challenges in holding to the Fundamental Principles. Finally, we consider extension of these issues internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boundaries of what constitutes "sufficient" health have always been open and, as such, health care has proven to be an opportune area for profit growth. In the United States, the allure of health as a market commodity has proven very strong, but even here it cannot be a mere spontaneous product of the market. It requires government to foster and develop public policy that effectively promotes and maintains health care delivery across the population. Historically, U.S. public policy has veered away from anything akin to universal care, and it has typically been understood as an outlier among advanced industrial states. But, simultaneously, it is also the largest health care market in the world, soon to engulf a full fifth of its GDP. In this paper, I argue that the complicated dynamic between a growing market in health delivery and a patchwork of political reforms has encouraged "adaptive accumulation," a process whereby capital secures optimized accumulation outcomes from enhanced government intervention, deriving extra-market benefits along the way. To make this argument, I explore critical components of the health system, including Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, as well as the Affordable Care Act and its aftermath. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though research administration is governed by one body of law and regulations within the United States of America, there are many differences on how these laws are implemented. These differences are determined by the type of entity (Federal, state, non-profit, corporation) and may have further laws and regulations imposed by the state in which the organization is located. This paper will compare the differences of internal processes associated with operations, financial, and personnel management between a U.S. Federal Government agency and private sector organizations within the United States through the experiences of a seasoned U.S. research administrator who transitioned into Federal service near the end of her career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, I have been arguing for a global constitutional convention focused on protecting future generations. This deliberative body would be akin to the American constitutional convention of 1787, which gave rise to the present structure of government in the United States. It would confront the "governance gap" that currently exists surrounding concern for future generations. In particular, contemporary institutions tend to crowd out intergenerational concern, and thereby facilitate a "tyranny of the contemporary." They not only fail to address a basic standing threat to humanity and other species, but help that threat become manifest. Climate change is a prime example. In this paper, I sketch out a natural argumentative path toward the global constitutional convention and argue that is difficult to resist. I also insist that we should be evenhanded in the way we treat the proposal. Those who put their faith in alternatives (e.g., the emergence of a great leader, a grand alignment of interests, bottom up climate anarchism, or national governments understood as effective intergenerational stewards) must also confront standard complaints about naivety, urgency, threats to democratic values, and the like. Moreover, the global constitutional convention has the advantage of addressing the problem we face head on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research note, we describe the results of the first validation study of the U.S. Census Bureau's new Community Resilience Estimates (CRE), which uses Census microdata to develop a tract-level vulnerability index for the United States. By employing administrative microdata to link Social Security Administration mortality records to CRE, we show that CRE quartiles provide more stable predictions of COVID-19 excess deaths than single demographic categorizations such as race or age, as well as other vulnerability measures including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Risk Index (NRI). We also use machine learning techniques to show that CRE provides more predictive power of COVID-19 excess deaths than standard socioeconomic predictors of vulnerability such as poverty and unemployment, as well as SVI and NRI. We find that a 10-percentage-point increase in a key CRE risk measure is associated with one additional death per neighborhood during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States. We conclude that, compared with alternative measures, CRE provides a more accurate predictor of community vulnerability to a disaster such as a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health disparities that are prevalent among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities are connected to the ideology of sovereignty and often ignored in social work and public health literature. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the health outcomes of American Indians from the time of contact with European settlers to the present through the ideology of sovereignty and federal government AI health policy. The foundation for the health outcomes of AIs and the governmental policies affecting them lie in the ideology of tribal sovereignty. This ideology has greatly impacted how the government views and treats AIs and consequently, how it has impacted their health. From the earliest treaties between European settlers and AIs, this legal relationship has been and remains a perplexing issue. With the examination of tribal sovereignty comes the realization that colonization and governmental polices have greatly contributed to the many social and health problems that AIs suffer from today. Understanding that the health disparities that exist among AI/AN populations cannot only be attributed to individual behavior and choice but is driven by societal, economic and political factors may be used to inform social work education, practice, and research.

Universities' sexual consent policies remain the focus of national media and government attention in the United States. Affirmative consent (i.e. physical and verbal consent) is increasingly the norm for institutional definitions of consent; yet these policies remain at odds with how students report consenting to sexual activity. In this paper, we examine how students formulate their understanding of sexual consent in ways that either resist or align with their university's policies on sexual assault. Using conversation analysis, we analyse interviews in which students make explicit references to university policy when defining personal definitions of consent. We show that interviewees who do not align with university policy orient to this position as problematic and accountable, and conduct significantly more interactional work when defining consent. These findings illustrate the complex challenges that university students may face in articulating personal understandings of sexual consent, which may have consequences for policy and sexual consent programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Anbar University for Law & Political Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Common Rule originally issued in 1991 and last amended in 2005 is scheduled to be replaced on January 19, 2018 by a revised Common Rule (the final rule). The goal of the revisions is to modernize and improve applicability of the rule to a research landscape that has dramatically changed since 1991. Translating these changes into action will require comprehensive understanding of the final rule and detailed implementation planning by Human Research Protection Programs. This paper presents select changes that require substantial attention; including for example: expansion of the exempt category, changes to continuing review requirements, changes to the informed consent form and the use of single IRBs for domestic multi-site research. In addition, myriad policies, procedures and workflows will have to be developed, drastically rewritten, or just mildly tweaked.

Fiscal federalism in the USA has a distinctive structure that contrasts sharply with that in most other industrialized nations. Our purpose in this paper is to describe and explore the US “brand” of fiscal federalism. We demonstrate that there is a striking amount of variety in the 50 state fiscal systems and that these differences have prevailed in the face of potentially disruptive forces. The variety we find stems in large part from states having meaningful fiscal autonomy, in particular, the authority to levy taxes. The result is likely higher societal welfare than would ensue without this autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, as medical and mental health associations increasingly have expressed support for the gender-affirming care model for trans and gender expansive youth, this model has been paradoxically banned across the United States. Ban proponents have deemed the science behind gender-affirming care to be dangerously uncertain. Examining the first gender-affirming care ban for minors, Arkansas's Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act of 2021, we addressed the following two questions: 1) who are the scientists, clinicians, and political organizations that promote SAFE and similar bans?; and 2) what are the scientific arguments they make to defend SAFE in federal court? First, we developed a typology of the various "agents of scientific uncertainty" behind these bans, drawing on literature from the sociology and history of science and medicine as well as the political economy of scientific doubt. Second, we created and qualitatively analyzed a dataset featuring 375 unique citations referenced throughout federal litigation over SAFE to identify these agents of scientific uncertainty's arguments. We sorted these arguments into eight categories, which reveal how agents distorted scientific evidence and exaggerated real uncertainties and risks in gender-affirming care. This case study establishes a frame for understanding the growing prevalence and legal impact of scientific arguments against gender-affirming care. • Gender-affirming care (GAC) for minors has been increasingly banned in the U.S. • Despite growing medical support, ban proponents label GAC dangerously uncertain. • The paper outlines the scientists, clinicians, and political groups defending bans. • It also describes the scientific arguments used in litigation defending bans. • Scientific uncertainty arguments have been successful at unduly restricting GAC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]