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An editorial is presented on the health consequences of Iran's ideological perspective on population growth. Topics include the human rights abuses following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the government's implementation and subsequent reversal of family planning programs, and the adverse impacts of the Rejuvenation of the Population and Protection of the Family law on reproductive health and women's rights.

Youth engagement is often purported as a critical dimension of health promotion for young people, but the strategies used to facilitate this engagement are seldom evaluated or studied. This study explored the strategies used to engage youth in a strategic planning process to develop comprehensive health and wellness plans in 28 US school districts. Participating school districts conducted listening sessions, administered anonymous surveys, included youth on a district task force, and employed other strategies to engage youth. Following this initiative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from all school districts (n = 34) to enumerate the use of these strategies across districts and understand their perspectives related to the effectiveness and importance of these strategies for engaging youth in health promotion. The most prevalent strategy used by districts was listening sessions (27 districts; 564 youth), followed by including youth on the task force (19 districts; 39 youth), anonymous surveys (18 districts; 1988 youth) and other methods (5 districts). Interviewees clarified the benefits and challenges of each strategy and provided commentary on youth engagement for health promotion. The results stress the importance of building trusting relationships with youth, using multiple strategies to engage youth, and embodying an equity mindset throughout the development and implementation of youth engagement efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disability benefits function by demarcating categories of need (the administrative category of disability) and determine eligibility using assessments of functioning. In the UK, these assessments are the Work Capability Assessment and PIP assessment. Inherently technical and abstruse processes, these assessments have been opportune sites for welfare reform in recent years. Disability benefits have also been a central point of contention between disability studies and sociology. Sociology has traditionally favoured an 'incomes approach' and called for more adequate financial support from the state. Early figures in the disabled people's movement rejected this position, and aligned with an oppression paradigm, argued for a more radical economic and social inclusion. We contend that this divide, set out in the Fundamental Principles of Disability, remains relevant for researching welfare reform today. This article treats benefits assessments as epistemic practices—interactional processes wherein claimants, their personal health professionals and commercial assessment providers come together in the production of knowledge about disability. Data include 50 in‐depth interviews with benefit claimants and a discourse analysis of official texts directed at claimants, personal health professionals and commercial assessment providers. We outline a phenomenon we term 'epistemic sabotage', whereby the knowledge claims of claimants and their health professionals are systemically disqualified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the position statement of the Royal College of Physicians and the National Institute of Health and Care Research about clinical research. Topics discussed include how the Covid-19 pandemic illustrated the importance of clinical research, ways in which doctors and other healthcare professionals can engage with research, and information on the Health and Care Act 2022.

Background: Cities globally have started to make substantial investment in more sustainable forms of transportation. We aimed to evaluate whether the construction of new cycling infrastructure in Paris and Lyon, France, affected population cycling activity along new or improved routes. Methods: Routinely collected cycle count data from January 2014 to March 2020 were acquired for the cities of Paris and Lyon. Improvements were identified at 15 locations with 6 months of pre- and post-intervention data. Comparison streets were chosen within Paris or Lyon for which pre-intervention trends in cycling were similar to those at intervention sites. Controlled interrupted time series analyses and autocorrelation were performed adjusting for seasonality. Random-effects meta-analysis combined results across streets within each city and overall. Results: On average, cycling counts/day increased on both intervention and control streets in Paris and Lyon. In general, results of the ITS analysis indicated no significant change in the level or trend as a result of the improvements in either city. Meta-analysis suggested that intervention streets in Paris had a larger positive pooled effect size for level change (218 cycle counts, 95% CI -189, 626, I2 = 0%) compared to Lyon (34, 95% CI -65, 133, I2 = 14%); however, confidence intervals for both cities were wide and included no effect. Conclusions: The findings suggest that improving or constructing new cycle lanes may be necessary but not sufficient to induce significant changes in cycling levels. There is a need to understand how context, intervention design and other complementary interventions can improve the effectiveness of new cycling infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: While absence and dropout represent challenges to the implementation of vocational rehabilitation programs in Norway, sanctions are rarely used in practice. The purpose of the article was to investigate the extent to which vocational rehabilitation managers and professionals experience that the absence regulations support a viable implementation of vocational rehabilitation programs. Methods: An open-ended question, asking vocational rehabilitation managers about their experiences in handling absence, was presented as part of an electronic questionnaire sent to all vocational rehabilitation companies in Norway. 72 managers (59%) responded to the open-ended question, and a qualitative content analysis was conducted. Insight from ten focus group interviews were included as part of the analyses. Results: Five thematic categories were created, which in their various ways demonstrate challenges associated with absence management in vocational rehabilitation programs: (i) failure of the Labour and welfare administration to react against unfounded absence; (ii) difficulties in distinguishing valid from nonvalid absence; (iii) uncertainty concerning the role of the general practitioner and medical documentation in the rehabilitation process; (iv) the prevalence of diffuse disorders and symptoms, and (v) lack of incentives and motivation among participants. Conclusions: Sound absence management requires a clarification of the role of the general practitioner in the vocational rehabilitation process and closer cooperation between general practitioners and vocational rehabilitation companies, to reduce unnecessary breaks in the process due to hasty issuing of sicknotes. Further, as absence management appears to be most difficult in relation to those with mental and social problems, a comprehensive view on disability and follow-up is needed, where physical, mental, social and contextual factors are seen together. Absence and dropout represent challenges to the implementation of vocational rehabilitation programs in Norway, While a sound regulation of absence could impact positively on both the work-related and rehabilitation outcomes of vocational rehabilitation programs, evidence suggest that absence management is scarce, and that it becomes particularly difficult in relation to participants with mental health problems and social challenges. Clarification of the role of the general practitioner and the medical certificates they issue and strengthening the dialog between vocational rehabilitation companies and general practitioners to prevent unnecessary sick-listing and interruptions in the vocational rehabilitation process, could improve the follow-up of absence. Moreover, a flexible and sensible approach is needed, where absence management is seen in conjunction with the overall follow-up that is provided, and where awareness to individual challenges and needs should be in focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In spite of the effectiveness of the individual placement and support model of supported employment (IPS) for the recovery of people with mental illness, the implementation and dissemination of IPS in Japan have not been straightforward. This paper summarizes barriers against the implementation of IPS in Japan and discusses potential strategies to overcome them. Method: We reviewed IPS research performed in Japan through literature search, and summarized current employment services and policies in Japan along with a practice report of an ongoing IPS program in a local city in Japan. Results: Barriers against the implementation of IPS in Japan included: (a) systems designed mainly for group-based services, (b) weak recognition of IPS, and (c) cultural background. Nevertheless, we identified 4 intervention studies of IPS in Japanese settings, and all found that more than 40% of the participants gained their employment through IPS. By utilizing available services, the IPE program in Hamada City achieved ∼50% employment rate and sufficient fidelity. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: The present data indicate that, by combining currently available services, IPS can be implemented successfully in Japan. Impact and Implications: In Japan, employment of people with mental illness has lagged far behind employment for people with other disabilities. The present paper summarizes the evidence regarding effects of the individual placement and support model of supported employment (IPS) in Japan to elucidate the structural and cultural barriers that are impeding the implementation of IPS. This paper also illustrates potential strategies for implementing IPS in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has relaxed its family planning policy to allow all married couples to have a second child. To ensure a smooth implementation of the new policy (second‐child policy), an efficient detection of public attitudes is necessary. However, traditional methods fail to meet the requirement. This paper aims to examine social media responses, and then uses of linguistic analysis methods to build computational models for automatic detection of attitudinal expressions in social media posts. In this study, a total of 17,305 Sina Weibo posts with keywords were collected and analyzed. First, a content analysis was performed on collected posts to determine whether each of them reflected positive, neutral, or negative attitudes. Second, a series of linguistic features were obtained from each post. Third, based on selected linguistic features, decision tree models were built for differentiating among posts indicating different types of attitudes (positive, neutral, and negative). Results showed that 22.30% of analyzed posts indicated negative attitudes. 62.88% of relevant posts reflected a negative desire for bearing a second child. "Cost and burden" was recognized as a major barrier to the birth of a second child (56.55%). The classification accuracy of decision tree models ranged from 71.6 to 74.4%. This paper supports the need for improving public attitudes towards the second‐child policy, and confirms that the use of linguistic analysis method can add to the validity of online detection of public attitudes towards significant social events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Understanding how to successfully implement care coordination programs across diverse settings is critical for disseminating best practices. We describe how we operationalized the Practical Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model (PRISM) to guide the assessment of local context prior to implementation of the rural Transitions Nurse Program (TNP) at five facilities across the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).Methods: We operationalized PRISM to create qualitative data collection techniques (interview guides, semi-structured observations, and a group brainwriting premortem) to assess local context, the current state of care coordination, and perceptions of TNP prior to implementation at five facilities. We analyzed data using deductive-inductive framework analysis to identify themes related to PRISM. We adapted implementation strategies at each site using these findings.Results: We identified actionable themes within PRISM domains to address during implementation. The most commonly occurring PRISM domains were "organizational characteristics" and "implementation and sustainability infrastructure." Themes included a disconnect between primary care and hospital inpatient teams, concerns about work duplication, and concerns that one nurse could not meet the demand for the program. These themes informed TNP implementation.Conclusions: The use of PRISM for pre-implementation site assessments yielded important findings that guided adaptations to our implementation approach. Further, barriers and facilitators to TNP implementation may be common to other care coordination interventions. Generating a common language of barriers and facilitators in care coordination initiatives will enhance generalizability and establish best practices.Impact Statements: TNP is a national intensive care coordination program targeting rural Veterans. We operationalized PRISM to guide implementation efforts. We effectively elucidated facilitators, barriers, and unique contextual factors at diverse VHA facilities. The use of PRISM enhances the generalizability of findings across care settings and may optimize implementation of care coordination interventions in the VHA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At reproductive healthcare charity the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), midwives play an essential role in providing a high-quality service and upholding women's choices [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Sexual and reproductive health conditions (eg, infections, cancers) represent public health concerns for American women. The present study examined how knowledge of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) relates to receipt of preventive reproductive health services among women.Design: Cross-sectional online survey.Setting: Online questionnaires were completed via Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing website where individuals complete web-based tasks for compensation.Participants: Cisgendered women aged 18 to 44 years (N = 1083) from across the United States.Measures: Participants completed online questionnaires assessing demographics, insurance status, preventive service use, and knowledge of PPACA provisions.Analysis: Chi-squares showed that receipt of well-woman, pelvic, and breast examinations, as well as pap smears, was related to insurance coverage, with those not having coverage at all during the previous year having significantly lower rates of use. Hierarchical logistic regressions determined the independent relationship between PPACA knowledge and use of health services after controlling for demographic factors and insurance status.Results: Knowledge of PPACA provisions was associated with receiving well-woman, pelvic, and breast examinations, human papillomavirus vaccination, and sexually transmitted infections testing, after controlling for these factors. Results indicate that expanding knowledge about health-care legislation may be beneficial in increasing preventive reproductive health service use among women.Conclusion: Current findings provide support for increasing resources for outreach and education of the general population about the provisions and benefits of health-care legislation, as well as personal health coverage plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the changes to the current regime for the regulation of financial advice in New Zealand proposed in the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 (291-1). It examines critically the regulatory strategies that have been deployed and how the new rules may help consumers to overcome asymmetric information and limitations in their own decision-making capacity. Special emphasis is placed on the main conduct of business obligations that address the perceived imbalance in the relationship between financial advisers and their clients, and in particular on the measures designed to deal with remuneration-based risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1935 and 1985, Irish law criminalized the sale and importation of condoms. Activists established illegal markets to challenge the law and alleviate its social consequences. They distributed condoms through postal services, shops, stalls, clinics, and machines. Though they largely operated in the open, their activities attracted little direct punishment from the state, and they were able to build a stable network of medical and commercial family planning services. We use 30 interviews conducted with former activists to explore this history. In doing so, we also examine the limits of 'illegality' in describing acts of everyday resistance to law, arguing that the boundaries between legal and illegal, in the discourses and practices of those who sought to challenge the state, were shifting and uncertain. In turn, we revisit 'illegality', characterizing it as an assemblage of varying selectively-performed political practices, shaped by complex choreographies of negotiation between state and non-state actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Young adults, including college students, have higher rates of chlamydia than the general population. Patient-delivered partner therapy (PDPT) is a partner treatment option for sex partners of individuals diagnosed with chlamydia or gonorrhea. We examined college health center use of PDPT in a national sample of colleges.Methods: During 2014 to 2015, we collected data from 482 colleges and universities (55% of 885 surveyed), weighting responses by institutional characteristics abstracted from a national database (eg, 2-year vs 4-year status). We asked whether the school had a student health center and which sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services were offered. We also assessed the legal and perceived legal status of PDPT in states where schools were located. We then estimated PDPT availability at student health centers and measured associations with legal status and SRH services.Results: Most colleges (n = 367) reported having a student health center; PDPT was available at 36.6% of health centers and associated with perceived legality of PDPT in the state in which the college was located (odds ratio [OR], 4.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.17-18.28). Patient-delivered partner therapy was significantly associated with availability of SRH services, including sexually transmitted disease diagnosis and treatment of STI (56.2% vs 1.1%), gynecological services (60.3% vs 12.2%), and contraceptive services (57.8% vs 7.7%) (all P < .001). Compared with schools taking no action, PDPT was more likely to be available at schools that notified partners directly (OR, 8.29; 95% CI, 1.28-53.85), but not schools that asked patients to notify partners (OR, 3.47; 95% CI, 0.97-12.43).Conclusions: PDPT was more likely to be available in colleges that offered SRH services and where staff believed PDPT was legal. Further research could explore more precise conditions under which PDPT is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Fortification of food-grade (edible) salt with iodine is recommended as a safe, cost-effective and sustainable strategy for the prevention of iodine-deficiency disorders. The present paper examines the legislative framework for salt iodization in Asian countries.Design: We reviewed salt iodization legislation in thirty-six countries in Asia and the Pacific. We obtained copies of existing and draft legislation for salt iodization from UNICEF country offices and the WHO's Global Database of Implementation of Nutrition Actions. We compiled legislation details by country and report on commonalities and gaps using a standardized form. The association between type of legislation and availability of iodized salt in households was assessed.Results: We identified twenty-one countries with existing salt iodization legislation, of which eighteen were mandatory. A further nine countries have draft legislation. The majority of countries with draft and existing legislation used a mandatory standard or technical regulation for iodized salt under their Food Act/Law. The remainder have developed a 'stand-alone' Law/Act. Available national surveys indicate that the proportion of households consuming adequately iodized salt was lowest in countries with no, draft or voluntary legislation, and highest in those where the legislation was based on mandatory regulations under Food Acts/Laws.Conclusions: Legislation for salt iodization, particularly mandatory legislation under the national food law, facilitates universal salt iodization. However, additional important factors for implementation of salt iodization and maintenance of achievements include the salt industry's structure and capacity to adequately fortify, and official commitment and capacity to enforce national legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article extends the concept of regulatory capture to a prominent element of responses to the 2007–2008 global financial crisis overlooked in political science: the out-of-court settlements undertaken between regulators and financial firms. In outsourcing accountability to markets and diverging from previous crisis responses, these billion dollar agreements have remained highly controversial. How have financial regulators sought to legitimate this novel approach to post-crisis accountability? Contrasting material and cognitive conceptions of regulatory capture, I illustrate how American financial regulators have persistently prioritized market values in self-legitimating post-crisis financial accountability. Inconsistencies in the stress on transparency and growth, however, are shown to undermine the wider legitimation of this market-based approach. These limits underpin the scepticism with which post-crisis settlements have been received, as well as to the broader sense that accountability for the most severe period of volatility since the Great Depression has remained lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To analyze the initial effect following the relaxation of China's population control policy on the cesarean delivery (CD) rate using the 10-Group Classification System (TGCS).Methods: A retrospective study included all deliveries at a center in Nanjing, China, during 2014-2015. The deliveries were classified using the TGCS. The obstetric populations and the CD rates in each group were compared between 2014 and 2015.Results: Overall, 11 006 deliveries were analyzed. The overall CD rate increased from 28.3% (1623/5737) in 2014 to 33.8% (1782/5269) in 2015 (P<0.001). The largest contributor to the overall CD rate-accounting for approximately one-third of all CDs-were nulliparous women with a single cephalic term pregnancy and induced labor or prelabor CD (group 2); the CD rate in this group increased from 27.2% to 31.4%. Moreover, the proportion of women with a single cephalic term pregnancy with previous CD (group 5) steeply increased from 6.4% to 10.4% of all deliveries; the CD rate in this group during 2014-2015 was 76.6%.Conclusion: With China ending its one-child policy, the characteristics of the obstetric population changed. Women with a single cephalic term pregnancy with previous CD were the largest contributor to the CD rate increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the perception of Americans on their retirement investments and fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. Topics discussed include regulation of retirement savings products and fiduciary standards of retirement investment advisers; and amendments of fiduciary rule by the U.S. Department of Labor.

In countries that have experienced decentralisation processes, the role that central and sub-national authorities play in the governance of some social policies may vary considerably across regions. In Italy, for instance, whereas some regions (and municipalities) have been very active in financing social assistance programmes, others still overwhelmingly rely on resources directly allocated by the central government. This indicates that, in a ‘regionalised’ system, the development of a sub-national social dimension is not a territorially homogeneous phenomenon. Interestingly, cross-regional variation is mainly explained by differences in the strength of regionalist parties. The share of total social assistance spending allocated by sub-national authorities has increased significantly in those areas of the country where regionalist parties are stronger and does not seem to depend on ideological shifts on the left-right spectrum. Surprisingly, the positive effect of regional economic development on sub-national spending is not as strong as expected. On the other hand, female employment and population ageing seem to explain part of territorial divergence, the former having a positive effect and the latter a negative one on the dependent variable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: There have been numerous global calls to action to utilize human resources information systems (HRIS) to improve the availability and quality of data for strengthening the regulation and deployment of health workers. However, with no normative guidance in existence, the development of HRIS has been inconsistent and lacking in standardization, hindering the availability and use of data for health workforce planning and decision making (Riley et al., 2012). CDC and WHO partnered with the Ministry of Health in several countries to conduct HRIS functional requirements analyses and establish a Minimum Data Set (MDS) of elements essential for a global standard HRIS. As a next step, CDC advanced a study to examine the alignment of one of the HRIS it supports (in Zimbabwe) against this MDS.Method: For this study, we created a new data collection and analysis tool to assess the extent to which Zimbabwe's CDC-supported HRIS was aligned with the WHO MDS. We performed systematic "gap analyses" in order to make prioritized recommendations for addressing the gaps, with the aim of improving the availability and quality of data on Zimbabwe's health workforce.Results: The majority of the data elements outlined in the WHO MDS were present in the ZHRIS databases, though they were found to be missing various applicable elements. The lack of certain elements could impede functions such as health worker credential verification or equitable in-service training allocation. While the HRIS MDS treats all elements equally, our assessment revealed that not all the elements have equal significance when it comes to data utilization. Further, some of the HRIS MDS elements exceeded the current needs of regulatory bodies and the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) in Zimbabwe. The preliminary findings of this study helped inspire the development of a more recent HRH Registry MDS subset, which is a shorter list of priority data elements recommended as a global standard for HRIS.Conclusion: The field-tested assessment methodology presented here, with suggested improvements to the tool, can be used to identify absent or unaligned elements in either an HRH Registry or a full HRIS. Addressing the prioritized gaps will increase the availability of critical data in the ZHRIS and can empower the MOHCC and councils to conduct more strategic analyses, improving health workforce planning and ultimately public health outcomes in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the study that investigates the effectiveness of the family planning services, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in decreasing unintended pregnancy and abortions in the U.S. The topics discussed include the changes proposed by U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump on ACA by eliminating the safety net of family planning services and defunding the Planned Parenthood, the reduction of access to contraception, and the implications of the said changes on women.

The article focuses on the issues of use of irrevocable trusts in long-term Medicaid care planning in the U.S. Topics discussed include Medicaid laws concerning an individual's ability to use irrevocable trusts in long-term care planning; limiting State Medicaid agency in Massachusetts; and Doherty v. Director of the Office of Medicaid court case on same.

Objectives To describe processes and preliminary outcomes from the implementation of a systematic advance care planning ( ACP) intervention in the nursing home setting. Design Specially trained project nurses were embedded in 19 nursing homes and engaged in ACP as part of larger demonstration project to reduce potentially avoidable hospitalizations. Setting Nursing homes. Participants Residents enrolled in the demonstration project for a minimum of 30 days between August 2013 and December 2014 (n = 2,709) and residents currently enrolled in March 2015 (n = 1,591). Measurements ACP conversations were conducted with residents, families, and the legal representatives of incapacitated residents using a structured ACP interview guide with the goal of offering ACP to all residents. Project nurses reviewed their roster of currently enrolled residents in March 2015 to capture barriers to engaging in ACP. Results During the initial implementation phase, 27% (731/2,709) of residents had participated in one or more ACP conversations with a project nurse, resulting in a change in documented treatment preferences for 69% (504/731). The most common change (87%) was the generation of a Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment form. The most frequently reported barrier to ACP was lack of time. Conclusion The time- and resource-intensive nature of robust ACP must be anticipated when systematically implementing ACP in the nursing home setting. The fact that these conversations resulted in changes over 2/3 of the time reinforces the importance of deliberate, systematic ACP to ensure that current treatment preferences are known and documented so that these preferences can be honored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October, 2015, China's one-child policy was replaced by a universal two-child policy. The effects of the new policy are inevitably speculative, but predictions can be made based on recent trends. The population increase will be relatively small, peaking at 1·45 billion in 2029 (compared with a peak of 1·4 billion in 2023 if the one-child policy continued). The new policy will allow almost all Chinese people to have their preferred number of children. The benefits of the new policy include: a large reduction in abortions of unapproved pregnancies, virtual elimination of the problem of unregistered children, and a more normal sex ratio. All of these effects should improve health outcomes. Effects of the new policy on the shrinking workforce and rapid population ageing will not be evident for two decades. In the meantime, more sound policy actions are needed to meet the social, health, and care needs of the elderly population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Albanian agriculture has been experiencing a dramatic and difficult transition period from a centralized, planned economy to a market economy. The main reasons for these difficulties are because of the expropriation of peasant property and their incorporation into the cooperative system transformed them into salaried workers with one of the lowest per capita income levels in the world. Also the laws restricting the mobility of rural people kept about 65 percent of the population in the countryside and increased impoverishment of the rural population reduced the supply of food for the cities. Ownership rights include the right to exclusive use and enjoyment as well as the right to transfer property through selling, making gifts, mortgaging, leasing, inheritance etc. At the same time, there are certain responsibilities for property owners that may limit some of these rights. Examples of these limits include zoning, environmental standards and urban planning laws. Equally important to the right of private ownership of property is the maintenance and use of property for public purposes. The purpose of this research is to move beyond the rather simplistic notions of land use and land tenure that have informed research on postsocialist land reforms. Land use generates or modifies a large variety of products and services, as highlighted by recent research on the multifunctional nature of European agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Medical News article is an interview with Leana Wen, MD, the new president of Planned Parenthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the Title X Family Planning Program under the U.S. government agency Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It highlights the effect of the regulation to quality and effectiveness of services offered by health care providers to reproductive health and childbearing decisions. Benefits of the program to distinguish abortions from other services, are also mentioned.

The article focuses on the Kansas Pension System for Kansas's public employees. It discusses how the Kansas Supreme Court has adopted the "California Rule" for interpreting pension issues. It reports several U.S. Supreme Court cases which indicates that Kansas has more flexibility in adjusting pension plans than the Kansas Supreme Court has previously applied.

Arthropod vectors transmit organisms that cause many emerging and reemerging diseases, and their control is reliant mainly on the use of chemical insecticides. Only a few classes of insecticides are available for public health use, and the increased spread of insecticide resistance is a major threat to sustainable disease control. The primary strategy for mitigating the detrimental effects of insecticide resistance is the development of an insecticide resistance management plan. However, few examples exist to show how to implement such plans programmatically. We describe the formulation and implementation of a resistance management plan for mosquito vectors of human disease in Zambia. We also discuss challenges, steps taken to address the challenges, and directions for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We assessed the impact on depot medroxyprogesterone continuation when a large care provider was banned from a state-funded family planning program.Study Design: We used three methods to assess the effect of the ban: (a) In a records review, we compared how many state program participants returned to two Planned Parenthood affiliates for a scheduled dose of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) immediately after the ban; (b) We conducted phone interviews with 224 former Planned Parenthood patients about DMPA use and access to contraception immediately after the ban; (c) We compared current contraceptive method of our interviewees to that of comparable DMPA users in the National Survey of Family Growth 2006-2010 (NSFG).Results: (a) Fewer program clients returned for DMPA at a large urban Planned Parenthood, compared to a remotely located affiliate (14.4%, vs. 64.8%), reflecting different levels of access to alternative providers in the two cities. (b) Among program participants who went elsewhere for the injection, only 56.8% obtained it at no cost and on time. More than one in five women missed a dose because of barriers, most commonly due to difficulty finding a provider. (c) Compared to NSFG participants, our interviewees used less effective methods of contraception, even more than a year after the ban went into effect.Conclusions: Injectable contraception use was disrupted during the rollout of the state-funded family planning program. Women living in a remote area of Texas encountered more barriers.Implications: Requiring low-income family planning patients to switch healthcare providers has adverse consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, abortion can be lawfully performed in China at any gestational stage for a wide range of social and medical reasons. I critically explore the Chinese regulatory model of abortion in order to examine its practical effects on women. Although I focus on the post-Maoist abortion law, I also analyse the imperial Confucianism-dominated regulation and the Maoist ban on abortion in order to scrutinise the emergence of the notion of 'glorious motherhood'. By examining how 'glorious motherhood' is constructed and reinforced in the Chinese family planning context, I argue that the post-Maoist government intentionally made abortion 'law in the books' unrestrictive in order to impose its control over female fertility. As a result of this, women are persuaded and even forced to lead a 'glorious' maternal life, which means sacrificing themselves for the purpose of achieving the state's Malthusian and eugenic demographic goals. Furthermore, I argue that, in addition to exacerbating gender oppression, abortion law's embrace of the idea of 'glorious motherhood' also produces 'group oppression' of unmarried women and working-class women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut. Topics discussed include laws against birth control, family planning and use of contraception in United States. Other topics such as health care, reproductive health and non-governmental organization Planned Parenthood are also discussed.

This Viewpoint discusses SB8, the recent law passed in Texas that essentially prohibits abortion after 6 weeks of gestational age, and the effect this will have on persons seeking pregnancy termination as well as the future of constitutional protection of abortion services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) for sustainable economic development. It discusses the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in 1994 in Cairo, Egypt recognizing reproductive rights as human rights. It mentions the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission report on SRHR providing insights into advancing SRHR by associating them with health services, and achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The article focuses on several aspects of Medicaid coverage for family planning in the U.S. It mentions ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in the "Does v. Gillespie" court case. It also mentions that the Eighth Circuit has the power to reconsider and change its ruling, upon an appeal from the plaintiffs and several U.S. states have sought to illegally exclude planned parenthood clinics from Medicaid.

The question of who counts and how we construct just who can ‘be disabled’ is central to our concerns in disability studies. As Stone makes clear, disability is exactly what a state deems it to be; the very malleable nature of the category has been exploited to widen or more commonly to narrow just who counts as disabled. This article will apply and adapt Stone’s thesis to current plans to revise the Personal Independence Payment extra costs benefit. Using official and disabled people’s narratives, the article will make clear the force with which new definitions of disability are being put forward. This process arguably risks doing state violence to a number of disabled people. These reforms have also used the language of independence in a way that fundamentally distorts the origins and potential of the term in an enabling society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning-related conflicts have been well documented in academic literature. However, the appeal tribunal, a prominent site where these conflicts are deliberated, remains an underexamined area of study. Where appeal tribunals are addressed, the literature has not focused much attention on appellate bodies or the contents of their decisions. The main purpose of this article is to explore appeal tribunals in the field of land-use planning. This is done through an exploratory survey and reorganization of current literature. The article highlights the international prevalence of appeal tribunals, offers insight about their role, points to existing gaps in knowledge, and explores future research needs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the services provided by the nonprofit organization Planned Parenthood in need to improve women's health in the U.S.. Topics discussed include plans of leaders of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists regarding its intensions to defund Planned Parenthood, effects of defunding Planned Parenthood on many women, services provided by Planned Parenthood like health services, economic security and child planning.

The authors discuss the two-child policy of China being inforced by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, focusing on the maternity care and concerns over shortage of obstetricians, sonographers, and midwives. They explore the challenges presented by older pregnant women for obstetricians, the growing challenge of morbidity adherent placenta, and the requirement of increased maternity care services for high-risk pregnancies.