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Browsing Department of Science, Technology, and Society by Department "Science, Technology, and Society"
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- Exposing the myths of household water insecurity in the global north: A critical reviewMeehan, Katie; Jepson, Wendy; Harris, Leila M.; Wutich, Amber; Beresford, Melissa; Fencl, Amanda; London, Jonathan; Pierce, Gregory; Radonic, Lucero; Wells, Christian; Wilson, Nicole J.; Adams, Ellis Adjei; Arsenault, Rachel; Brewis, Alexandra; Harrington, Victoria; Lambrinidou, Yanna; McGregor, Deborah; Patrick, Robert; Pauli, Benjamin; Pearson, Amber L.; Shah, Sameer; Splichalova, Dacotah; Workman, Cassandra; Young, Sera (2020-11)Safe and secure water is a cornerstone of modern life in the global North. This article critically examines a set of prevalent myths about household water in high-income countries, with a focus on Canada and the United States. Taking a relational approach, we argue that household water insecurity is a product of institutionalized structures and power, manifests unevenly through space and time, and is reproduced in places we tend to assume are the most water-secure in the world. We first briefly introduce "modern water" and the modern infrastructural ideal, a highly influential set of ideas that have shaped household water provision and infrastructure development over the past two centuries. Against this backdrop, we consolidate evidence to disrupt a set of narratives about water in high-income countries: the notion that water access is universal, clean, affordable, trustworthy, and uniformly or equitably governed. We identify five thematic areas of future research to delineate an agenda for advancing scholarship and action-including challenges of legal and regulatory regimes, the housing-water nexus, water affordability, and water quality and contamination. Data gaps underpin the experiences of household water insecurity. Taken together, our review of water security for households in high-income countries provides a conceptual map to direct critical research in this area for the coming years. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Human Water
- Qualitative exploration of the medical learner's journey into correctional health care at an academic medical center and its implications for medical educationHashmi, Ahmar H.; Bennett, Alina M.; Tajuddin, Nadeem N.; Hester, Rebecca; Glenn, Jason E. (2020-10-19)Correctional systems in several U.S. states have entered into partnerships with academic medical centers (AMCs) to provide healthcare for persons who are incarcerated. One AMC specializing in the care of incarcerated patients is the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB), which hosts the only dedicated prison hospital in the U.S. and supplies 80% of the medical care for the entire Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). Nearly all medical students and residents at UTMB take part in the care of the incarcerated. This research, through qualitative exploration using focus group discussions, sets out to characterize the correctional care learning environment medical trainees enter. Participants outlined an institutional culture of low prioritization and neglect that dominated the learning environment in the prison hospital, resulting in treatment of the incarcerated as second-class patients. Medical learners pointed to delays in care, both within the prison hospital and within the TDCJ system, where diagnostic, laboratory, and medical procedures were delivered to incarcerated patients at a lower priority compared to free-world patients. Medical learners elaborated further on ethical issues that included the moral judgment of those who are incarcerated, bias in clinical decision making, and concerns for patient autonomy. Medical learners were left to grapple with complex challenges like the problem of dual loyalties without opportunities to critically reflect upon what they experienced. This study finds that, without specific vulnerable populations training for both trainees and correctional care faculty to address these institutional dynamics, AMCs risk replicating a system of exploitation and neglect of incarcerated patients and thereby exacerbating health inequities.
- Rediscovering the King of Woodpeckers: Exploring the ImplicationsWalters, J. R.; Crist, E. L. (Resilience Alliance, 2005-12)The Ivory-billed Woodpecker has long held a special place in the psyche of North American conservation, eliciting unusually colorful prose, even from scientists, as an icon of the wild. The reverence in which it was held did little to slow the habitat loss that led to its apparent extinction 60 years ago. A consequence of the emotion and attention associated with the amazing rediscovery of this species is that conservation biologists will be under considerable pressure to make good on this "second chance." This poses a challenge to conservation paradigms that has important political consequences. First, the decline of the species is due to habitat loss, recovery from which has been much more seldom achieved than recovery from declines due to impacts on vital rates. This challenge is exacerbated by the enormous area requirements of the species. Second, the species at best exists as a critically small population. It will be difficult to make the case that a viable population can be established without undermining the small population paradigm that underlies conservation strategies for many other species. This has already resulted in some political backlash. Conservation of this species is best based on the one point of clear scientific consensus, that habitat is limiting, but this may result in additional political backlash because of conflicts with other land uses.
- A Transdisciplinary Approach to Address Climate Change Adaptation for Human Health and Well-Being in AfricaWright, Caradee Yael; Moore, Candice Eleanor; Chersich, Matthew; Hester, Rebecca; Nayna Schwerdtle, Patricia; Mbayo, Guy Kakumbi; Akong, Charles Ndika; Butler, Colin D. (MDPI, 2021-04-17)The health sector response to dealing with the impacts of climate change on human health, whether mitigative or adaptive, is influenced by multiple factors and necessitates creative approaches drawing on resources across multiple sectors. This short communication presents the context in which adaptation to protect human health has been addressed to date and argues for a holistic, transdisciplinary, multisectoral and systems approach going forward. Such a novel health-climate approach requires broad thinking regarding geographies, ecologies and socio-economic policies, and demands that one prioritises services for vulnerable populations at higher risk. Actions to engage more sectors and systems in comprehensive health-climate governance are identified. Much like the World Health Organization’s ‘Health in All Policies’ approach, one should think health governance and climate change together in a transnational framework as a matter not only of health promotion and disease prevention, but of population security. In an African context, there is a need for continued cross-border efforts, through partnerships, blending climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, and long-term international financing, to contribute towards meeting sustainable development imperatives.
- Using Timeline Methodology to Visualize Treatment Trajectories of Youth and Young Adults Following Inpatient Opioid TreatmentMonico, Laura B.; Ludwig, Ariel; Lertch, Elizabeth; Mitchell, Shannon Gwin (2020-10-28)While the use of visual methods in qualitative research is gaining recognition, there has been less attention to timelines. This paper addresses this gap and contributes to the overall literature on qualitative research design and analysis. In a randomized trial of extended release naltrexone for youth with opioid use disorder timelines were used as a part of the semi-structured interview process. Timelines were constructed in a participatory manner in which both youth and their caregivers were separately asked to recount significant events related to substance use, treatment, and criminal justice involvement that took place between interview time points. This paper suggests that using timelines in qualitative, substance use research offers two main advantages: 1) improving the data collection process, and 2) advancing understandings of temporally contextualized narratives through a visual format. Here, timelines were an integral tool for summarizing and illustrating the complexity of youths' experiences following residential drug treatment.