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Stigma reduction has been identified as a key public health strategy to increase enrollment in behavioral health services. As our understanding about stigma reduction has become more sophisticated, there has been an increased recognition that efforts to reduce stigma must engage the complex relationships between stigma, literacy, and contact with others who have a behavioral health condition.The goal of this project was to improve understanding about the relationships between behavioral health literacy, stigma, and contact to inform efforts to increase public behavioral health literacy and decrease stigma. Specifically, this project explored how the structure of these relationships varied for different substance use and mental health conditions.Structural equation modeling was used to depict relationships with data from a nationally-representative survey on behavioral health literacy and stigma.The impact of prior contact and literacy on stigma varied by behavioral health condition.Stigma reduction efforts will be most successful when they match the level of literacy and prior contact with the condition among the target audience for stigma reduction efforts.

Socio–environmental synthesis as a research approach contributes to broader sustainability policy and practice by reusing data from disparate disciplines in innovative ways. Synthesizing diverse data sources and types of evidence can help to better conceptualize, investigate and address increasingly complex socio–environmental problems. However, sharing qualitative data for re-use remains uncommon when compared to sharing quantitative data. We argue that qualitative data present untapped opportunities for sustainability science, and discuss practical pathways to facilitate and realize the benefits from sharing and reusing qualitative data. However, these opportunities and benefits are also hindered by practical, ethical and epistemological challenges. To address these challenges and accelerate qualitative data sharing, we outline enabling conditions and suggest actions for researchers, institutions, funders, data repository managers and publishers. Opportunities, challenges and recommended targeted actions to accelerate qualitative data sharing to address complex socio–environmental problems

Diversifying crop production has been proposed as a means of reducing food and nutrition insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, but previous empirical studies yield mixed results. Much of this evidence has focused at the household level, but there are plausible reasons to expect that the presence of crop diversity at other scales affects human health. Utilizing data from 11 sub-Saharan African countries housed in the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)-Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) system, this study assesses the association between village-level crop diversity and both dietary diversity and height-for-age among young children. Our findings indicate that, overall, village-level crop diversity contributes to higher dietary diversity and improved height-for-age and that functional diversity measures best account for nutritional outcomes. These findings provide an important basis for future research to explore the importance of crop diversity at scales beyond the household and to consider other contextual determinants of child health.

This paper integrates historical and contemporary theorizations of relational values in both people–nature and people–people relationships, in order to further develop concepts used to analyze how values are embedded in systems of human–environment interactions. We focus on people–people relational values that can motivate sustainable agricultural practices, projects and systems by drawing on Polanyi’s articulation of substantive economics, and the distinction between the principles that organize economic systems and the ability of those systems to express multiple types of values. We apply these concepts to characterize how relational values are operationalized within sustainable agriculture projects, and we review how descriptions of such projects in the literature characterize their organizing principles and specific values. Our review suggests that instrumental and relational values can coexist within a single system, and we argue that it is the values, and not the organizing principles of the system, that determine potential impacts of agricultural sustainability.

National governments across Sub-Saharan Africa include climate-smart agriculture (CSA) - context-specific interventions that support resilience, productivity, and climate mitigation-in plans and policies and strategies to jointly address climate change, agricultural production and rural livelihood goals. This paper synthesizes the evidence on field-based CSA management practices generated through ten years of research led by the CGIAR in Tanzania, an agriculturally diverse country in East Africa that has prioritized climate-smart agriculture practices in its climate adaptation strategies. Tanzania provides an illustrative example of how countries can use evidence of impacts, synergies and tradeoffs to prioritize activities for sustainable development.

Water scarcity has resulted in extensive wastewater recycling for agricultural irrigation in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories. However, minimal data have been collected regarding perceptions about wastewater recycling between the populations in these two areas. While geographically close and economically linked, these two populations differ in terms of governance, income, and access to technology for wastewater recycling. To address the data gap pertaining to perceptions of wastewater recycling, a survey was administered among a convenience sample of subjects (n = 236) recruited from Eilat, Israel and Bethlehem, West Bank, from May to November 2018. The survey included questions addressing knowledge of water sources, water scarcity, and recycled water; willingness to use recycled water for produce irrigation and household tasks; and demographics. Israeli willingness to use recycled water for various purposes ranged from 8.3% to 55.1%, and more than half of Israeli respondents were willing to serve both raw and cooked produce irrigated with recycled water. Willingness to use recycled water ranged from 28.9% to 41.7% among the Palestinian respondents, and Palestinian respondents were more willing to engage in high-contact uses (i.e. drinking and cooking) than Israeli respondents. Among the Israeli respondents, experience or familiarity with wastewater recycling and water contamination were frequently significantly associated with willingness to use recycled water. In contrast, among Palestinian respondents, personal water contamination experience, home water safety testing, and trust in authorities to monitor recycled wastewater reuse were frequently significantly associated with willingness to use recycled water. Given the likely increasing water stress in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories, as well as the continued evolution of wastewater treatment technologies and the substantial amount of agricultural trade ongoing between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, it is important to identify effective and appropriate outreach and communication strategies to enable successful and acceptable water recycling.

Author(s): Filbee-Dexter, K; Symons, CC; Jones, K; Haig, HA; Pittman, J; Alexander, SM; Burke, MJ | Abstract: A key challenge facing ecologists and ecosystem managers is understanding what drives unexpected shifts in ecosystems and limits the effectiveness of human interventions. Research that integrates and analyses data from natural and social systems can provide important insight for unravelling the complexity of these dynamics. It is, therefore, a critical step towards the development of evidence-based, whole-system management approaches. To examine our ability to influence ecosystems that are behaving in unexpected ways, we explore three prominent cases of “ecological surprise.” We captured the social-ecological systems (SES) using key variables and interactions from Ostrom’s SES framework, which integrates broader ecosystem processes (e.g. climate, connectivity), management variables (e.g. quotas, restrictions, monitoring), resource use behaviours (e.g. harvesting) and the resource unit (e.g. trees, fish, clean water) being managed. Structural equation modelling revealed that management interventions often influenced resource use behaviours (e.g. rules and limits strongly affected harvest or pollution), but they did not have a significant effect on the abundance of the managed resource. Instead, most resource variability was related to ecological processes and feedbacks operating at broader spatial or temporal scales than management interventions, which locked the resource system into the degraded state. Synthesis and applications. Mismatch between the influence of management systems and ecosystem processes can limit the effectiveness of human interventions during periods of ecological surprise. Management strategies should shift from a conventional focus on removal or addition of a single resource towards solutions that influence the broader ecosystem. Operationalizing Ostrom’s framework to quantitatively analyse social-ecological systems using structural equation models shows promise for testing solutions to navigate these events.

Place theory can be used in natural resource sociology as a heuristic for identifying and incorporating differences in human and natural systems into large landscape conservation efforts. This pape...

In this paper, we apply Polanyi's double movement to characterize the potential and observed impacts of public-private and public-philanthropic partnerships for the development of pro-poor value chains. We highlight the contradiction between the goals of these partnerships in international agricultural development, which seek to shift power dynamics and counter market exclusion, and the internal logic of these hybrid governance approaches, which reflect the tensions of market society from which they come. We present case studies from Honduras, Peru, and Mali of agricultural public-private and public-philanthropic partnerships and their constituent actors, identifying roles and relationships among actors that personify double movement negotiations within pro-poor market-oriented development. The cases highlight the implications for civil society actors of hybrid governance systems that utilize market mechanisms to address the destructive tendencies of capitalist development. We conclude that partnerships characterized by a mismatch of responsibilities and power relations among civil society and private actors generate a new type of double movement that does not generate durable institutions and that limits the impacts of the partnerships for poor farmers.

Reducing food loss and waste (FLW) is critical for achieving healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Within the United States, 30% to 50% of food produced is lost or wasted. These losses occur throughout multiple stages of the food supply chain from production to consumption. Reducing FLW prevents the waste of land, water, energy, and other resources embedded in food and is therefore essential to improving the sustainability of food systems. Despite the increasing number of studies identifying FLW reduction as a societal imperative, we lack the information needed to assess fully the effectiveness of interventions along the supply chain. In this paper, we synthesize the available literature, data, and methods for estimating the volume of FLW and assessing the full environmental and economic effects of interventions to prevent or reduce FLW in the United States. We describe potential FLW interventions in detail, including policy changes, technological solutions, and changes in practices and behaviors at all stages of the food system from farms to consumers and approaches to conducting economic analyses of the effects of interventions. In summary, this paper comprehensively reviews available information on the causes and consequences of FLW in the United States and lays the groundwork for prioritizing FLW interventions to benefit the environment and stakeholders in the food system.

Actors in contemporary food systems have the potential to contribute to or hinder a broad range of outcomes related to human and environmental health and well-being, as well as to increase equity and sustainability along food value chains. At the same time, health professionals, food and agriculture businesses, environmental and poverty activists, and policymakers have all begun to acknowledge a core set of interrelated food systems challenges, namely: How to produce enough food in a sustainable manner, how to support those who produce our food to earn a viable livelihood, and how to access and maintain a healthy diet. Transformation of the global food system is clearly needed if we wish to embed equity, sustainability, and health as priorities in food provision and consumption. Some of these transformations will be facilitated through new technologies, while others will require public policy shifts, changes in the private agro-food industry, actions by civil society, and behavioral changes by individuals. This chapter presents an overview of alternative food initiatives led by non-profit organizations, public and private institutions, and consumers, all of which are proactively working to generate positive changes and impacts along food value chains. These efforts are transforming not only what people eat, but also how they think of food in relation to issues such as climate change, environmental degradation, and social justice. In this dynamic context, institutional foodservice actors and the consumers they serve sit at an important nexus within the food system, and have the potential to make decisions that cut across the challenges and opportunities to improve food system outcomes for people and the environment.

Connectivity conservation is an emergent approach to counteracting landscape fragmentation and enhancing resilience to climate change at local, national, and global scales. While policy that promotes connectivity is advancing, there has been no systematic, evidence-based study that assesses whether connectivity conservation plans (CCPs) resulted in conservation outcomes, and identifies specific plan attributes that may favor successful implementation. To fill this gap, we gathered 263 terrestrial CCPs from around the world, characterized attributes of 109 plans by surveying plan authors, and conducted semi-structured interviews with authors and implementers of 77 CCPs. The production of CCPs started around 1990 and has increased markedly in all parts of the world, most notably in the United States (led by NGOs and a few states, with little federal involvement), Europe (led by the EU and national policies and implemented at local levels), and the Republic of South Africa (where national legislation mandates each municipality to map corridors and zone all land by 2020). All of the 109 plans that we examined in detail were followed by implementation actions such as crossing structures, ecological restoration, land purchases or easements, recognition of corridors through zoning or government designation, and public engagement. Interviewees emphasized the importance of initial buy-in from key government stakeholders, stakeholder involvement beyond initial buy-in, minimizing staff turnover, and transparent and repeatable procedures. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses similarly suggested that implementation of a CCP was enhanced by enduring partnerships among stakeholders, continuity of leadership, specific recommendations in the CCP using tools appropriately selected from a large toolbox, the existence of enabling legislation and policy, a transparent and repeatable scientific approach, adequate funding, and public outreach.

Agriculture plays a key role in national economies and individual livelihoods in many developing countries, and yet agriculture as a field of study and an occupation remain under-emphasized in many educational systems. In addition, working in agriculture is often perceived as being less desirable than other fields, and not a viable or compelling option for students who have received a post-secondary education. This article explores the historical and contemporary perceptions of agriculture as a field of study and an occupation globally, and applies themes from the literature to analyze primary data from focus groups with international students studying for university degrees in the United States. The article analyzes students’ perceptions and experiences in four countries—Bangladesh, Nepal, Honduras and Haiti—in order to make recommendations about how best to address challenges and develop capacity in agricultural education and employment in low-income countries.

This article argues that Bourdieu’s theory of practice offers a unified epistemological foundation for mixed methods research by emphasizing the reflexive and iterative nature of knowing, and the relational aspects of knowledge construction. The increasing presence of spatial data and tools in research fields that focus on sociospatial phenomena suggests that visual representation can facilitate the resituating of objective patterns within a subjective context of geographic and symbolic space. The article presents the foundations of the theory of practice as a unifying framework for mixed methods research that incorporates spatiality. The article then offers an example of empirical research that characterizes changing seed systems in West Africa using the theory of practice to guide mixed methods research and analysis.

Understanding how cities can transform organic waste into a valuable resource is critical to urban sustainability. The capture and recycling of phosphorus (P), and other essential nutrients, from human excreta is particularly important as an alternative organic fertilizer source for agriculture. However, the complex set of socio-environmental factors influencing urban human excreta management is not yet sufficiently integrated into sustainable P research. Here, we synthesize information about the pathways P can take through urban sanitation systems along with barriers and facilitators to P recycling across cities. We examine five case study cities by using a sanitation chains approach: Accra, Ghana; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Beijing, China; Baltimore, USA; and London, England. Our cross-city comparison shows that London and Baltimore recycle a larger percentage of P from human excreta back to agricultural lands than other cities, and that there is a large diversity in socio-environmental factors that affect the patterns of recycling observed across cities. Our research highlights conditions that may be “necessary but not sufficient” for P recycling, including access to capital resources. Path dependencies of large sanitation infrastructure investments in the Global North contrast with rapidly urbanizing cities in the Global South, which present opportunities for alternative sanitation development pathways. Understanding such city-specific social and environmental barriers to P recycling options could help address multiple interacting societal objectives related to sanitation and provide options for satisfying global agricultural nutrient demand. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10113-017-1257-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Recognizing that community is both a geographic and social space, public health professionals have historically worked to improve health within the community as well as to improve the health of the community. Beginning with the first Healthy People report in 1979, community has been a central theme in public documents which outline the priorities of federal public health agencies. Over the course of four subsequent documents, the meaning of community has been fluid and evolving, and has incorporated the social determinants of health, the ecological model of influence, and broader concepts about the role of place in health outcomes. This chapter identifies the concept of community within each of these documents to provide a critical engagement with the concept of community in American public health over the past forty years. The chapter concludes that the concept of community has shifted from being the geographic location of public health interventions to being the problem for public health interventions, a distinction reflected in the contrast between making a community healthy by improving health within it or making a healthy community by improving the health of the community. Understanding the different possible conceptualizations of community within public health that have existed in the recent past and present in American public health can help practitioners and those working with local organizations to better understand the range of goals and approaches taken by those working on public health issues within communities.

With climate change at the forefront of the popular imagination, understanding how heat shapes human experience of place can provide insight into how human systems have persisted and can persist as temperatures rise. Exploring the human-environment interactions that shape human experience in different types of hot places complicates the perception of heat as being hopeless and dreaded. Dormancy and austerity are human articulations of characteristics of the natural environment in hot dry places, characteristics that are reflected as well in stable and simple social systems. When expectations for the human experience incorporate fundamental aspects of life in a specific climate, the innovations of history and necessity rise to the surface and provide a road map for sustaining viable societies as temperatures change and rise.

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to observe and experience first-hand changing social policies and their impacts for individuals and communities. This article overviews an action research and teaching project developed at an undergraduate liberal arts university and focused on providing ACA enrollment assistance as a way to support student engagement with community health. The project was oriented around education, enrollment and evaluation activities in the community, and students and faculty together reflected on and analyzed the experiences that came from the research and outreach project. Student learning centered around applying concepts of diversity and political agency to health policy and community health systems. Students reported and faculty observed an unexpected empowerment for students who were able to use their university-learned critical thinking skills to explain complex systems to a wide range of audiences. In addition, because the project was centered at a university with no health professions programs, the project provided students interested in community and public health with the opportunity to reflect on how health and access to health care is conditioned by social context. The structure and pedagogical approaches and implications of the action research and teaching project is presented here as a case study for how to engage undergraduates in questions of community and public health through the lens of health policy and community engagement.

In this paper, four researchers who share a commitment to applied research and fieldwork methodologies reflect on the ambiguities associated with maintaining and adapting this commitment to changing professional, personal, and contextual situations. The authors focus on the use of fieldwork for the study and support of agricultural change in sub-Saharan Africa, as an example of a setting and topic in which long-term work in the field can improve understanding and support contextualized development. In analyzing a range of experiences associated with maintaining and adapting fieldwork approaches, we complicate and build upon the assertion that professional development pulls international development practitioners and applied researchers away from the field. The experiences analyzed in this paper suggest that the situation of changing orientations toward the field is not dichotomous, and that instead, a commitment to fieldwork can result in innovative approaches to remaining at least partially focused ‘outw...

To analyze the experiences of farmers involved in a participatory plant breeding project in West Africa, we develop a two-dimensional framework for evaluating the process and outcomes of participatory agricultural research for development projects. On one axis, we draw on existing typologies to describe the participatory process as consultative, collaborative, or collegial. On another axis, we theorize and test the outcomes of participation; specifically, whether the process achieves instrumental goals, is empowering for participants, or is manipulative toward participants. Qualitative interviews with farmers and technicians indicate a range of instrumental and empowering outcomes emerging from the participatory process, which support food security through access to seeds and a new ability to share information learned through the research process.

There is an urgent need to develop capacity in African agricultural education and training (AET) through innovative methods that achieve the goals of food security, economic development and poverty reduction. InnovATE (Innovation for Agricultural Training and Education) is a five year, demand-driven USAID-funded program with a mandate for capacity development in AET systems in low income and emerging economies across the world. Though innovATE’s primary focus is on formal AET, the program’s activities and findings are oriented toward developing capacity across agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKIS), which includes agricultural extension activities. Through innovATE’s learn-design-train approach, the program has developed capacity through various activities in Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA). These have included the generation of AET system studies on countries and thematic issues, the creation of an online Community of Practice, in-country assessment of AET systems in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the provision of training workshops for capacity development in Senegal and Mozambique. Evaluating the results of these activities provides the context for critical examination of the most effective approaches for AET system capacity development in SSA. Key words : Agriculture Education and training, AKIS, extension, InnovATE, Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper seeks to contribute to the genetically engineered crop debates by exploring some social dimensions of new agricultural technologies. After assessing the social dimensions of current GE crops as they relate to agricultural research and development, we examine issues related to farmer adoption of GE crops. We conclude with a discussion on obstacles to socially equitable agricultural innovation and potential policy solutions. We contend that failing to consider these social dimensions of technology development and diffusion are likely to generate unforeseen problems and unsustainable technological developments.

A family is described in which the mother and 2 of the 5 children had Felty's syndrome, a pattern of inheritance suggesting a dominant defect and one which has not previously been reported. The family is also of interest in that the other sib had rheumatoid arthritis.

Liver function and histology, together with the haematological changes, were investigated in 12 patients with Felty9s syndrome. Six of them were anaemic. The red cell mass was either normal or increased, and the anaemia was due to a considerable increase in the plasma volume. Two patients had increased haemolysis associated with red cell sequestration by the enlarged spleens. In eight patients liver function tests were abnormal, while in five the liver histology showed lymphocytic infiltration of the sinusoids and portal tracts together with portal tract fibrosis. One of these was later found to have a macronodular cirrhosis. In another there were apparent nodules without a true cirrhosis, and this appearance was also seen in two other patients with Felty9s syndrome in whom histology was available. An increased blood flow through the spleen was found in the two patients examined.