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1. Consumer perceptions of information features in healthcare service advertisements and attitudes toward advertising

   https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPHM-02-2022-0016  

   Park, Sung-Yeon; Yun, Gi Woong; Cook, Daniel M.; Coppes, Max J. (February 2023, International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing)

   Purpose With the increasing dependence on market-based distribution of health-care resources in the USA, spending on health-care service advertisements directly targeting consumers has also increased. Previous research has shown that the ads fail to deliver information deemed essential by regulators. Nevertheless, the attitude of consumers toward health-care service advertising has been more positive than negative. The purpose of this study is to create a taxonomy of advertising information features to better describe the relationships between information features in the advertisements and consumer attitudes toward them. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 128 health-care consumers in a western state in the USA. Findings Factor analysis generated seven groups of information features. Among them, information features about access, cost and quality of care were rated as most helpful, whereas providers’ clinical qualifications and communication were rated least helpful. The advertising attitude measure was validated to contain two subscales, one regarding health-care service advertising and the other regarding physicians who advertise. People who highly rated the consumerism features had more positive attitudes toward health-care service advertising and people who highly rated provider clinical qualification features had more negative attitudes toward advertising physicians. Originality/value This study made methodological improvements in health-care service advertising research that would be crucial for its theoretical development. It also shed light on consumer characteristics and perceptions about information features that could influence their attitudes toward health-care service advertising. 

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2. The capitalization of property rights to groundwater

   https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12494  

   Edwards, Eric_C; Hendricks, Nathan_P; Sampson, Gabriel_S (September 2024, American Journal of Agricultural Economics)

   Abstract There is limited empirical evidence on the value of formal property rights to natural resources when they are not transferable, and there is regulatory uncertainty about enforcement. This paper takes a hedonic approach to understanding how three core features of groundwater property rights—access, allocation, and seniority—are capitalized into agricultural land values in the High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas. We find that groundwater access rights confer an average land value premium of 71%, or $1445/acre in 2019 dollars. Water rights having larger allocations and more seniority are more highly valued in the land market. The seniority effect is small but is consistent with more junior rights facing greater regulatory risk of curtailment. Taken together, these results suggest that the land market capitalizes constraints to groundwater pumping provided by groundwater property rights. We use our empirical estimates to quantify the distributional costs of modifying existing patterns of pumping, a common challenge of groundwater management organizations seeking to improve the sustainability of extraction. 

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3. Student interest, concerns, and information-seeking behaviors related to COVID-19

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-022-00053-2  

   Elsner, Jamie N.; Sadler, Troy D.; Zangori, Laura; Friedrichsen, Patricia J.; Ke, Li (April 2022, Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research)

   Abstract COVID-19 creates an opportunity for science classrooms to relate content about viruses to students’ personal experiences with the pandemic. Previous researchers have shown that students are interested in crisis situations like disease outbreaks; however, they primarily acquire information about these events through internet sources which are often biased. We argue that it is important to understand student interest, concerns, and information-seeking behaviors related to COVID-19 to support science classroom learning and engagement about the virus and other potential outbreaks. We surveyed 224 high school students and analyzed their responses to six open-ended questions. We found that students expressed the most interest in topics related to the origin of COVID-19 and vaccines. Their greatest concerns included contracting the virus or someone they know contracting the virus and vaccine distribution. Of our sample, only 6.7% reported using their teachers as their source of COVID-19 information. Science classrooms have the potential to pique students’ situational interest by discussing COVID-19 topics that are important to students, which can increase their academic performance, content knowledge, attention, and engagement in learning about viruses. Moreover, classroom instruction about COVID-19 by teachers has shown to alleviate students’ stress and anxiety. We provide key areas of student interest about COVID-19 to help educators address students’ questions and improve curricular resources on viral pandemics. 

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4. Inferring sources of substandard and falsified products in pharmaceutical supply chains

   https://doi.org/10.1080/24725854.2023.2174277  

   Wickett, Eugene; Plumlee, Matthew; Smilowitz, Karen; Phanouvong, Souly; Pribluda, Victor (January 2023, IISE Transactions)

   Substandard and falsified pharmaceuticals, prevalent in low- and middle-income countries, substantially increase levels of morbidity, mortality and drug resistance. Regulatory agencies combat this problem using post-market surveillance by collecting and testing samples where consumers purchase products. Existing analysis tools for post-market surveillance data focus attention on the locations of positive samples. This article looks to expand such analysis through underutilized supply-chain information to provide inference on sources of substandard and falsified products. We first establish the presence of unidentifiability issues when integrating this supply-chain information with surveillance data. We then develop a Bayesian methodology for evaluating substandard and falsified sources that extracts utility from supply-chain information and mitigates unidentifiability while accounting for multiple sources of uncertainty. Using de-identified surveillance data, we show the proposed methodology to be effective in providing valuable inference. 

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5. “How will you construct a pathway system?”: Microanalysis of teacher-child scientific conversations

   https://doi.org/10.37291/2717638X.202123117  

   Haber, Amanda S.; Puttre, Hannah; Ghossainy, Maliki E.; Corriveau, Kathleen H. (December 2021, Journal of Childhood, Education & Society)

   During the preschool years, children’s question-explanation exchanges with teachers serve as a powerful mechanism for their early STEM knowledge acquisition. Utilizing naturalistic longitudinal classroom data, we examined how such conversations in an inquiry-based preschool classroom change during an extended scientific inquiry unit. We were particularly interested in information-seeking questions (causal, e.g. “How will you construct a pathway?”; fact-based, e.g., “Where’s the marble?”). Videos (n = 18; 14 hours) were collected during a three-week inquiry unit on forces and motion and transcribed in CLAN-CHILDES software at the utterance level. Utterances were coded for delivery (question vs. statement) and content (e.g., fact-based, causal). Although teachers ask more questions than children, we found a significant increase in information-seeking questions during Weeks 2 and 3. We explored the content of information-seeking questions and found that the majority of these questions were asked by teachers, and focused on facts. However, the timing of fact-based and causal questions varied. Whereas more causal questions occurred in earlier weeks, more fact-based questions were asked towards the end of the inquiry. These findings provide insight into how children’s and teacher’s questions develop during an inquiry, informing our understanding of early science learning. Even in an inquiry-learning environment, teachers guide interactions, asking questions to support children’s learning. Children’s information-seeking questions increase during certain weeks, suggesting that providing opportunities to ask questions may allow children to be more active in constructing knowledge. Such findings are important for considering how science questions are naturally embedded in an inquiry-based learning classroom. 

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