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First responders are on the front line of patient care and service, but research has shown that they are also on the front line of exposure to violence. Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based interventions that prepare first responders to handle violence on the job. With the increase in emergency medical services (EMS) call volume and reports of at least 57% of the EMS responders having experienced workplace violence, there is a need to develop scientifically systematic solutions to improve emergency responder safety. Using an adapted version of the hackathon method, academic scholars and practitioner conference attendees at the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research (INGRoup) Conference were deployed into three multidisciplinary teams to analyze the issue and develop specific solutions. These solutions offer unique interventions to improve first responder safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) responders deliver patient care in high-risk, high-stress, and highly variable scenarios. This unpredictable work environment exposes EMS responders to many risks, one of which is violence. The primary goals of this systematic literature review were to (1) define the issue of violence experienced by EMS responders and (2) identify the risk factors of violence associated with the EMS profession. An innovative inclusion of industrial literature with traditional peer-reviewed literature was performed. Of 387 articles retrieved, 104 articles were assessed and reviewed. Career exposure for EMS responders to at least one instance of verbal and/or physical violence was between 57 and 93 percent. There is a great need for rigorously designed, nationally representative examinations of occupational exposures in order to better understand the temporal associations of violence, cumulative occupational stressors, and the outcomes of physical and psychosocial injuries that are occurring as a result of exposures to violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media is used to promote the HPV vaccine through various strategies, including the use of stories and narratives. Understanding the ethical concerns related to the use of social media in this capacity are important. The purpose of this study is to identify ethical concerns of using fictional stories to share information and emotions about the HPV vaccine on social media, ultimately to influence parents on their decision to vaccinate their child., Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey with researchers in the fields of health communication, cancer prevention, social media, and public health ethics from October to December 2021. Respondents were presented with a fictional story that consisted of seven connected vignettes about the HPV vaccine. For each vignette, respondents were asked to rate the potential benefits and risk, as well as the potential for ethical concerns of using the fictional narrative style to share information about the HPV vaccine. Descriptive statistics summarized responses, and qualitative data were analyzed thematically., Results: On average, respondents (n = 41) perceived more benefits than risks when it comes to 1) using social media for health education generally and 2) using a story with connected vignettes for vaccine communication. The vignettes prioritizing vaccine hesitancy, positive emotion, and health equity were seen as having the most potential benefit, while the vignettes highlighting vaccine confidence and skepticism were seen as having the most potential risk. Overall, respondents felt there were several ethical concerns of note - persuasion was the most common (15 % of respondents) followed by deception (9 %) and manipulation (8 %). Qualitative data highlighted the importance of transparency and trust to avoid ethical violations and negative outcomes., Conclusions: Ethical concerns exist when using fictional stories to share health information on social media, particularly as new online technologies make it harder to tell fact from fiction. Practical and actionable recommendations for researchers must be developed, defining a range of ethical responsibilities., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Philip Massey reports financial support was provided by National Cancer Institute. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The purpose of this article is to build upon prior work in social media research and ethics by highlighting an important and as yet underdeveloped research consideration: how should we consider vulnerability when conducting public health research in the social media environment? The use of social media in public health, both platforms and their data, has advanced the field dramatically over the past 2 decades. Applied public health research in the social media space has led to more robust surveillance tools and analytic strategies, more targeted recruitment activities, and more tailored health education. Ethical guidelines when using social media for public health research must also expand alongside these increasing capabilities and uses. Privacy, consent, and confidentiality have been hallmarks for ethical frameworks both in public health and social media research. To date, public health ethics scholarship has focused largely on practical guidelines and considerations for writing and reviewing social media research protocols. Such ethical guidelines have included collecting public data, reporting anonymized or aggregate results, and obtaining informed consent virtually. Our pursuit of the question related to vulnerability and public health research in the social media environment extends this foundational work in ethical guidelines and seeks to advance research in this field and to provide a solid ethical footing on which future research can thrive., (©Philip M Massey, Regan M Murray, Shawn C Chiang, Alex M Russell, Michael A Yudell. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 29.12.2023.)

The stress and violence to fire-based emergency medical service responders (SAVER) Systems-Level Checklist is an organizational-level intervention to address stress and violence in emergency medical service (EMS), focused on the development of policy and training. Fire and EMS leadership, first responders, dispatchers, and labor union representatives participated in the SAVER Model Policy Collaborative to develop model policies that resulted from the most feasible checklist items. ThinkLets technology was employed to achieve consensus on the model policies, and an Action SWOT analysis was then conducted to assess facilitators and barriers to policy implementation. The resultant model policies are a systems-level workplace violence intervention for the U.S. fire and rescue service that is ready for implementation. Expected improvements to organizational outcomes such as burnout, job engagement, and job satisfaction are anticipated, as are decreasing assaults and injuries. The SAVER Model Policies have the potential to inform national standards and regulations on workplace violence in EMS.