In tackling agricultural challenges, policy-makers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have increasingly considered genetically modified (GM) crops as a potential tool to increase productivity and to improve product quality. Yet, as elsewhere in the world, the adoption of GM crops in SSA has been marked by controversy, encompassing not only the potential risks to animal and human health, and to the env...

BACKGROUND It is deemed good practice to involve patients routinely in research but no study has investigated the practical benefits, particularly to successful recruitment. AIMS To identify whether patient involvement is associated with study success. METHOD All studies listed on the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN) portfolio database (n = 374) were interrogated using logistic regress...

BACKGROUND The adherence to treatment with injectable disease-modifying drugs (DMDs) in multiple sclerosis (MS) may benefit from adequate information provision and management of expectations. The communication between patients and physicians is very important in this respect. The current study investigated the perspectives and experiences of the MS patients and neurologists concerning the choic...

RESULTS: Fifty-five participants (31 patients and 24 parents) completed all questionnaires, 98.2% preferred active involvement in therapeutic decision-making. The SDM-Q-9 scores, assessed by patients and physicians, were acceptable (mean 68 out of 100). However, the independently assessed OPTION-5 scores were significantly lower (mean 31 out of 100). In the consultations, physicians rarely aske...

Some US states have introduced measures to increase voter participation. I develop a formal model of elections to study how these measures affect political outcomes. I find that at high enough levels, measures to increase turnout lead to candidates converging at the median voter’s ideal point, as candidates switch from choosing policies that motivate their partisan base to competing over centri...

This article uses a microsimulation model to estimate how freezing all remaining private-sector and one-third of all public-sector defined benefit (DB) pension plans over the next 5 years would affect retirement incomes of baby boomers. If frozen plans were supplemented with new or enhanced defined contribution (DC) retirement plans, there would be more losers than winners, and average family i...

Self-criticism of physicians and patient participation are the pillars of modern medical ethics and medical programmes. Patients expect risk minimisation from physicians, mostly without realising how much they could actively do themselves in this respect. But what about the willingness of German people to take risks, how high is it really at present? Direct empirical data are not available, but...

The rapid development of communication and information technology has made electronic voting technologically and economically feasible. In this study, we will examine the differential impact of four electronic voting system (EVS) characteristics (privacy, accessibility, mobility, and accuracy) on voter participation intention (i.e., EVS voting) and on preferred EVS mechanism (telephone, Web-bas...

Measuring clinicians' shared decision-making (SDM) performance is a key requirement given the intensity of policy interest in many developed countries - yet it remains one of the most difficult methodological challenges, which is a concern for many stakeholders. In this Viewpoint Article, we investigate the development of existing patient-reported measures (PRMs) of SDM identified in a recent r...

Although the importance of patient participation is acknowledged in today's healthcare, many challenges remain before patient participation can become an integral part of care provision. The ward round has traditionally been the forum for crucial decisions about patient care, but often with limited possibilities for patient participation. As part of the process of improving patient participatio...