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Goolsby JB, Cravens AE, Rozance MA. Becoming an Actionable Scientist: Challenges, Competency, and the Development of Expertise. Environ Manage 2023; 72:1128-1145. [PMID: 37567957 PMCID: PMC10570157 DOI: 10.1007/s00267-023-01863-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2023] [Accepted: 07/22/2023] [Indexed: 08/13/2023]
Abstract
Demand has grown for actionable science to support real-world decision-making around climate change and related environmental management challenges. Producing actionable science requires scientists to hold a distinct set of competencies, yet relatively little is known about what these competencies are or how to train scientists to develop them. We conducted interviews with mid- and late-career scientists to empirically identify competencies they used when producing actionable science and to understand how they developed those competencies. We describe expertise in terms of 18 competencies-categorised as cognitive, interpersonal, or intrapersonal-that scientists integrated and applied to address the challenges associated with actionable science. We argue that scientists must engage in the social process of producing actionable science (i.e., learning by doing) to become an expert. Expert actionable scientists discussed the importance of learning through different contexts, processes, interactions, and relationships. By naming the competencies that constitute expertise, as well as methods for expertise development, our findings facilitate greater conscious awareness of the process of becoming an actionable scientist, a gradual process that starts during graduate training and continues as a career proceeds. Our results can inform the development of formal learning opportunities as well as the informal learning process that occurs whereby scientists take charge of their own learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia B Goolsby
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Amanda E Cravens
- U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
- U.S. Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Corvallis, OR, USA.
| | - Mary Ann Rozance
- University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
- Cascadia Consulting Group, Seattle, WA, USA
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Qi D, Roe BE, Apolzan JW, Martin CK. Learning about Our Vices from Devices: A Model of Individual Learning with an Application to Consumer Food Waste. J Agric Resour Econ 2023; 48:296-308. [PMID: 37333048 PMCID: PMC10274380 DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.320676] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/20/2023]
Abstract
The proliferation of personal, household and workplace sensors and devices has created individual environments rich with purposeful and incidental feedback capable of altering behavior. We formulate an empirical learning model suitable for understanding individual behavioral responses in such environments. We estimate this model using data collected about the joint personal decisions of food selection, intake, and waste during a study in which users photographed their meal selections and plate waste over the course of a week with a cell phone. Despite neutral recruitment language and no expectation that participants would alter food intake in response to the assessment procedures, we found a substantial learning-by-doing effect in plate waste reduction as those who document greater plate waste in their captured photographs waste less on subsequent days. Further we identified that participants reduced plate waste by learning to eat more rather than by learning to reduce the amount of food selected.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danyi Qi
- Dept. of Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness, Louisiana State University AgCenter
| | - Brian E Roe
- Dept. of Agricultural, Environmental & Development Economics, Ohio State University
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Abstract
The decades-long effort to produce a workable HIV vaccine has hardly been a waste of public and private resources. To the contrary, the scientific know-how acquired along the way has served as the critical foundation for the development of vaccines against the novel, pandemic SARS-CoV-2 virus. We retell the real-world story of HIV vaccine research – with all its false leads and missteps – in a way that sheds light on the current state of the art of antiviral vaccines. We find that HIV-related R&D had more than a general spillover effect. In fact, the repeated failures of phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of HIV vaccine candidates have served as a critical stimulus to the development of successful vaccine technologies today. We rebut the counterargument that HIV vaccine development has been no more than a blind alley, and that recently developed vaccines against COVID-19 are really descendants of successful vaccines against Ebola, MERS, and SARS. These successful vaccines likewise owe much to the vicissitudes of HIV vaccine development. We then discuss how the failures of HIV vaccine development have taught us how adapt SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to immune escape from emerging variants. Finally, we inquire whether recent advances in the development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 might in turn further the development of an HIV vaccine - what we describe as a reverse spillover effect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jeffrey E Harris
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Eisner Health, Los Angeles, CA 90015, USA
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Gracía-Pérez ML, Gil-Lacruz M. The impact of a continuing training program on the perceived improvement in quality of health care delivered by health care professionals. Eval Program Plann 2018; 66:33-38. [PMID: 28987860 DOI: 10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2017.09.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2017] [Revised: 08/30/2017] [Accepted: 09/26/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
There is abundant scientific literature concerning factors that affect patients' perceptions of the quality of health care. However, there are few published works that consider the opinions of health care professionals. This article aims to conjointly analyse two organisational strategies that determine professional health care practice: continuous training and quality of care. The objective is to examine the opinions of physicians and nurses on the improvement of the quality of care after a 'learning by doing' program. An evaluation method was designed that integrates the main variables that intervene in quality of care. An online questionnaire was utilised for collecting opinions on the effects of the training program. A total of 184 nurses and 180 other medical professionals participated in the program and all of them were asked to complete the questionnaire. A descriptive, and inferential statistical analysis was undertaken and results showed that there is a direct relationship between perceptions about: satisfaction, professional competence, training modality, optimisation of health resources and quality of care.
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Affiliation(s)
- María Luisa Gracía-Pérez
- Faculty of Social Sciences and Work, University of Saragossa, C. Violante de Hungria, 23, 50009 Saragossa, Spain.
| | - Marta Gil-Lacruz
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Saragossa, C. Domingo Miral s/n, 50009 Saragossa, Spain.
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Paina L, Wilkinson A, Tetui M, Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Barman D, Ahmed T, Mahmood SS, Bloom G, Knezovich J, George A, Bennett S. Using Theories of Change to inform implementation of health systems research and innovation: experiences of Future Health Systems consortium partners in Bangladesh, India and Uganda. Health Res Policy Syst 2017; 15:109. [PMID: 29297374 PMCID: PMC5751673 DOI: 10.1186/s12961-017-0272-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Background The Theory of Change (ToC) is a management and evaluation tool supporting critical thinking in the design, implementation and evaluation of development programmes. We document the experience of Future Health Systems (FHS) Consortium research teams in Bangladesh, India and Uganda with using ToC. We seek to understand how and why ToCs were applied and to clarify how they facilitate the implementation of iterative intervention designs and stakeholder engagement in health systems research and strengthening. Methods This paper combines literature on ToC, with a summary of reflections by FHS research members on the motivation, development, revision and use of the ToC, as well as on the benefits and challenges of the process. We describe three FHS teams’ experiences along four potential uses of ToCs, namely planning, communication, learning and accountability. Results The three teams developed ToCs for planning and evaluation purposes as required for their initial plans for FHS in 2011 and revised them half-way through the project, based on assumptions informed by and adjusted through the teams’ experiences during the previous 2 years of implementation. All teams found that the revised ToCs and their accompanying narratives recognised greater feedback among intervention components and among key stakeholders. The ToC development and revision fostered channels for both internal and external communication, among research team members and with key stakeholders, respectively. The process of revising the ToCs challenged the teams’ initial assumptions based on new evidence and experience. In contrast, the ToCs were only minimally used for accountability purposes. Conclusions The ToC development and revision process helped FHS research teams, and occasionally key local stakeholders, to reflect on and make their assumptions and mental models about their respective interventions explicit. Other projects using the ToC should allow time for revising and reflecting upon the ToCs, to recognise and document the adaptive nature of health systems, and to foster the time, space and flexibility that health systems strengthening programmes must have to learn from implementation and stakeholder engagement. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12961-017-0272-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ligia Paina
- Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, 21205, United States of America.
| | - Annie Wilkinson
- Institute of Development Studies, Library Road, Brighton, BN1 9RE, United Kingdom
| | - Moses Tetui
- Department of Health Policy, Planning and Management, Makerere University School of Public Health, New Mulago Hospital Complex, Kampala, Uganda.,Epidemiology and Global Health Unit, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden
| | - Elizabeth Ekirapa-Kiracho
- Department of Health Policy, Planning and Management, Makerere University School of Public Health, New Mulago Hospital Complex, Kampala, Uganda
| | - Debjani Barman
- IIHMR University, 1 Prabhu Dayal Marg, Sanganer, Jaipur, 302029, India
| | - Tanvir Ahmed
- Institute of Development Studies, Library Road, Brighton, BN1 9RE, United Kingdom.,Health System and Population Studies Division, ICDDR,B, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sarani, Mohakhali, Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh
| | - Shehrin Shaila Mahmood
- Health System and Population Studies Division, ICDDR,B, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sarani, Mohakhali, Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh
| | - Gerry Bloom
- Institute of Development Studies, Library Road, Brighton, BN1 9RE, United Kingdom
| | | | - Asha George
- School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
| | - Sara Bennett
- Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, 21205, United States of America
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