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Background: Health care organizations need to be responsive to the needs of increasingly diverse patient populations. We compared the contents of six publicly available approaches to organizational responsiveness to diversity. The central questions addressed in this paper are: what are the most consistently recommended issues for health care organizations to address in order to be responsive to the needs of diverse groups that differ from the majority population? How much consensus is there between various approaches?Methods: We purposively sampled six approaches from the US, Australia and Europe and used qualitative textual analysis to categorize the content of each approach into domains (conceptually distinct topic areas) and, within each domain, into dimensions (operationalizations). The resulting classification framework was used for comparative analysis of the content of the six approaches.Results: We identified seven domains that were represented in most or all approaches: organizational commitment, empirical evidence on inequalities and needs, a competent and diverse workforce, ensuring access for all users, ensuring responsiveness in care provision, fostering patient and community participation, and actively promoting responsiveness. Variations in the operationalization of these domains related to different scopes, contexts and types of diversity. For example, approaches that focus on ethnic diversity mostly provide recommendations to handle cultural and language differences; approaches that take an intersectional approach and broaden their target population to vulnerable groups in a more general sense also pay attention to factors such as socio-economic status and gender.Conclusions: Despite differences in labeling, there is a broad consensus about what health care organizations need to do in order to be responsive to patient diversity. This opens the way to full scale implementation of organizational responsiveness in healthcare and structured evaluation of its effectiveness in improving patient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Even though in situ breast cancer (BCIS) accounts for a large proportion of the breast cancers diagnosed, few studies have investigated potential risk factors for BCIS. Their results suggest that some established risk factors for invasive breast cancer have a similar impact on BCIS risk, but large population-based studies on lifestyle factors and BCIS risk are lacking. Thus, we investigated the association between lifestyle and BCIS risk within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort.Methods: Lifestyle was operationalized by a score reflecting the adherence to the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) cancer prevention recommendations. The recommendations utilized in these analyses were the ones pertinent to healthy body weight, physical activity, consumption of plant-based foods, energy-dense foods, red and processed meat, and sugary drinks and alcohol, as well as the recommendation on breastfeeding. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to assess the association between lifestyle score and BCIS risk. The results were presented as hazard ratios (HR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI).Results: After an overall median follow-up time of 14.9 years, 1277 BCIS cases were diagnosed. Greater adherence to the WCRF/AICR cancer prevention recommendations was not associated with BCIS risk (HR = 0.98, 95% CI 0.93-1.03; per one unit of increase; multivariable model). An inverse association between the lifestyle score and BCIS risk was observed in study centers, where participants were recruited mainly via mammographic screening and attended additional screening throughout follow-up (HR = 0.85, 95% CI 0.73-0.99), but not in the remaining ones (HR = 0.99, 95% CI 0.94-1.05).Conclusions: While we did not observe an overall association between lifestyle and BCIS risk, our results indicate that lifestyle is associated with BCIS risk among women recruited via screening programs and with regular screening participation. This suggests that a true inverse association between lifestyle habits and BCIS risk in the overall cohort may have been masked by a lack of information on screening attendance. The potential inverse association between lifestyle and BCIS risk in our analyses is consistent with the inverse associations between lifestyle scores and breast cancer risk reported from previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The manner in which organizational downsizing is implemented can make a substantial difference as to whether the exposed workers will suffer from psychological ill health. Surprisingly, little research has directly investigated this issue. We examined the likelihood of psychological ill health associated with strategic and reactive downsizing.Methods: A cross-sectional survey included 1456 respondents from France, Sweden, Hungary and the United Kingdom: 681 employees in stable workplaces (reference group) and 775 workers from downsized companies. Reactive downsizing was exemplified by the exposures to compulsory redundancies of medium to large scale resulting in job loss or surviving a layoff while staying employed in downsized organizations. The workforce exposed to strategic downsizing was represented by surplus employees who were internally redeployed and supported through their career change process within a policy context of "no compulsory redundancy". Symptoms of anxiety, depression and emotional exhaustion were assessed in telephone interviews with brief subscales from Hospital Anxiety Scale (HADS-A), Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL-CD6) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-GS). Data were analyzed using logistic regression.Results: We observed no increased risk of psychological ill health in the case of strategic downsizing. The number of significant associations with psychological ill health was the largest for the large-scale reactive downsizing: surviving a layoff was consistently associated with all three outcome measures; returning to work after the job loss experience was related to anxiety and depression, while persons still unemployed at interview had elevated odds of anxiety. After reactive medium-scale downsizing, unemployment at interview was the only exposure associated with anxiety and depression.Conclusions: The manner in which organizational downsizing is implemented can be important for the psychological wellbeing of workers. If downsizing is unavoidable, it should be achieved strategically. Greater attention is needed to employment and health policies supporting the workers after reactive downsizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous research has reported that sexual harassment can lead to reduced mental health. Few studies have focused on sexual harassment conducted by clients or customers, which might occur in person-related occupations such as eldercare work, social work or customer service work. This study examined the cross-sectional association between sexual harassment by clients or customers and depressive symptoms. We also examined if this association was different compared to sexual harassment conducted by a colleague, supervisor or subordinate. Further, we investigated if psychosocial workplace initiatives modified the association between sexual harassment by clients or customers and level of depressive symptoms.Methods: We used data from the Work Environment and Health in Denmark cohort study (WEHD) and the Work Environment Activities in Danish Workplaces Study (WEADW) collected in 2012. WEHD is based on a random sample of employed individuals aged 18-64. In WEADW, organizational supervisors or employee representatives provided information on workplace characteristics. By combining WEHD and WEADW we included self-reported information on working conditions and health from 7603 employees and supervisors in 1041 organizations within 5 occupations. Data were analyzed using multilevel regression and analyses adjusted for gender, age, occupation and socioeconomic position.Results: Exposure to workplace sexual harassment from clients or customers was statistically significantly associated with a higher level of depressive symptoms (2.05; 95% CI: 0.98-3.12) compared to no exposure. Employees harassed by colleagues, supervisors or subordinates had a higher mean level of depressive symptoms (2.45; 95% CI: 0.57-4.34) than employees harassed by clients or customers. We observed no statistically significant interactions between harassment from clients and customers and any of the examined psychosocial workplace initiatives (all p > 0.05).Conclusions: The association between sexual harassment and depressive symptoms differed for employees harassed by clients or customers and those harassed by colleagues, supervisors or subordinates. The results underline the importance of investigating sexual harassment from clients or customers and sexual harassment by colleagues, supervisors or subordinates as distinct types of harassment. We found no modification of the association between sexual harassment by clients or customers and depressive symptoms by any of the examined psychosocial workplace initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is a common harmful traditional practice in many communities in Africa and to a lesser extent in Middle East and other regions in the world. In order to better understand publishing on this topic, we conducted a bibliometric study on FGM/C. Bibliometric analyses can be used as an indicator of the extent of interaction of researchers, health authorities, and communities with a particular health issue. Methods: Scopus database was used to retrieve data on FGM/C. Keywords used were "female genital mutilation", "female genital circumcision", "female genital cutting" and "female circumcision". Specifically, the number of publications, top productive countries and institutions, highly cited articles, citation analysis, co-authorships, international collaboration, role of African countries, top active authors, and journals involved in publishing articles on FGM/C were reviewed and analyzed. We indirectly assessed the impact of publications using total number of citations received, average number of citations per article, Hirsch-index, percentage of highly cited articles, and journal's impact factor. Results: One thousand and thirty-five publications on FGM/C were retrieved. The h-index of retrieved articles was 37. A steep rise in number of publications was noticed in mid-1990s and again in 2012. More than half of retrieved articles were published from 2006 - 2015. A total of 65 countries contributed. The top ten productive countries included ones from Northern America, Europe and Africa. Nigeria and Egypt were the most active African countries in FGM/C publications. At least nine African academic institutions were actively involved on FGM/C publications. Articles on FGM/C that received the highest number of citations were those that focused on negative physical and psychosexual consequences of FGM/C. Journal topic areas were obstetrics/gynecology, public health, and psychological sociology. Collaboration between African and European countries on FGM/C research was evident. Conclusion: Bibliometric analysis reveals that research publications on FGM/C have been increasing since the l970s, with collaboration between African and Western countries, and articles are being published in higher impact journals, not only obstetrics, but also public health and social sciences. FGM/C research can be helpful to international health agencies and governments not only to document negative outcomes, but also to identify best practices, and to note gaps in implementation and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to 1) estimate the associations between innovation and international orientation of early-stage entrepreneurs and their growth aspirations and 2) determine whether these associations differ across south-eastern European countries (SeECs) and western European countries (WECs). We used the data from the 2003-2008 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Adult Population Survey for 3,098 SeEC and 3,626 WEC entrepreneurs. The results show that 1) a firm's high level of competition inhibits its growth aspirations in both regions, albeit more so in SeECs; 2) innovative products/services stimulate firm growth aspirations in WECs only; and 3) international orientation stimulates firm growth aspirations in both regions, albeit more so in WECs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The cooperation of actors across policy fields and the need for cross-sector cooperation as well as recommendations on how to implement cross-sector cooperation have been addressed in many national and international policies that seek to solve complex issues within societies. For such a purpose, the relevant governance structure between policy sectors is cross-sector cooperation. Therefore, cross-sector cooperation and its structures need to be better understood for improved implementation. This article reports on the governance structures and processes of cross-sector cooperation in health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) policies in six European Union (EU) member states.Methods: Qualitative content analysis of HEPA policies and semi-structured interviews with key policymakers in six European countries.Results: Cross-sector cooperation varied between EU member states within HEPA policies. The main issues of the cross-sector policy process can be divided into stakeholder involvement, governance structures and coordination structures and processes. Stakeholder involvement included citizen hearings and gatherings of stakeholders from various non-governmental organisations and citizen groups. Governance structures with policy and political discussions included committees, working groups and consultations for HEPA policymaking. Coordination structures and processes included administrative processes with various stakeholders, such as ministerial departments, research institutes and private actors for HEPA policymaking. Successful cross-sector cooperation required joint planning and evaluation, financial frameworks, mandates based on laws or agreed methods of work, communication lines, and valued processes of cross-sector cooperation.Conclusions: Cross-sector cooperation required participation with the co-production of goals and sharing of resources between stakeholders, which could, for example, provide mechanisms for collaborative decision-making through citizen hearing. Clearly stated responsibilities, goals, communication, learning and adaptation for cross-sector cooperation improve success. Specific resources allocated for cross-sector cooperation could enhance the empowerment of stakeholders, management of processes and outcomes of cross-sector cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is desirable that health researchers have the ability to conduct research on health equity and contribute to the development of their national health system and policymaking processes. However, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), there is a limited capacity to conduct this type of research due to reasons mostly associated with the status of national (health) research systems. Building sustainable research capacity in LMICs through the triangulation of South-North-South (S-N-S) collaborative networks seems to be an effective way to maximize limited national resources to strengthen these capacities. This article describes how a collaborative project (SDH-Net), funded by the European Commission, has successfully designed a study protocol and a S-N-S collaborative network to effectively support research capacity building in LMICs, specifically in the area of social determinants of health (SDH); this project seeks to elaborate on the vital role of global collaborative networks in strengthening this practice.Methods: The implementation of SDH-Net comprised diverse activities developed in three phases. Phase 1: national level mapping exercises were conducted to assess the needs for SDH capacity building or strengthening in local research systems. Four strategic areas were defined, namely research implementation and system performance, social appropriation of knowledge, institutional and national research infrastructure, and research skills and training/networks. Phase 2: development of tools to address the identified capacity building needs, as well as knowledge management and network strengthening activities. Phase 3: identifying lessons learned in terms of research ethics, and how policies can support the capacity building process in SDH research.Results: The implementation of the protocol has led the network to design innovative tools for strengthening SDH research capacities, under a successful S-N-S collaboration that included national mapping reports, a global open-access learning platform with tools and resources, ethical guidelines for research, policy recommendations, and academic contributions to the global SDH discourse.Conclusions: The effective triangulation of S-N-S partnerships can be of high value in building sustainable research capacity in LMICs. If designed appropriately, these multicultural, multi-institutional, and multidisciplinary collaborations can enable southern and northern academics to contextualize global research according to their national realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]