tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/public-21463/articlesPublic – The Conversation2022-08-28T12:33:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1886832022-08-28T12:33:39Z2022-08-28T12:33:39ZTalking things out: How institutional transparency could improve animal research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481161/original/file-20220825-22-iwk5fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2670&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research using animals must be more transparent regarding how animals are used and treated.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around <a href="https://ccac.ca/en/facts-and-legislation/animal-data/annual-animal-data-reports.html">five million animals are used annually</a> for scientific or educational purposes in Canada. The use of animals in general, especially for research, can be a divisive issue. </p>
<p>Recently, there have been high-profile instances of <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/about-4-000-beagles-destined-for-drug-experiments-finding-new-homes-1.6027105">public outcry</a> and groups <a href="https://sentientmedia.org/how-animal-testing-is-holding-back-medical-progress/">questioning the benefits</a> and <a href="https://www.animalalliance.ca/canadian-council-on-animal-care/">oversight of animal research</a>. This could lead to total or partial abolition of animal research and its life-saving applications. While <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-022-00466-9">non-animal alternatives</a> continue to replace live animals, animal research will still be necessary to achieve scientific and medical advances. </p>
<h2>The animals’ experience</h2>
<p>Negative public perception of animal research can be partly explained by animal-rights groups who forward the message — <a href="https://speakingofresearch.com/2017/09/07/say-no-to-the-harassment-of-christine-lattin-by-peta-activists/">sometimes quite aggressively</a> — that all animal use should be stopped. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a dog stands in front of a protest sign reading WE DON'T WANT ANIMAL TESTED COSMETICS IN CANADA" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481170/original/file-20220825-723-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Luna the dog stands in front of signs as animal lovers and their pets deliver petitions demanding a ban on animal tested cosmetic products on Parliament Hill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these groups often have valid concerns regarding the lack of information about lived experiences of these animals, it does not change how animal research has played an essential role in improving the health of humans and animals alike.</p>
<p>Animal rights activists are vocal about the experiences of research animals, while institutions where animal research is conducted are often secretive about how animals are cared for and what research they participate in. This creates a one-sided narrative that resonates with the public, as most people do not condone animal suffering. </p>
<p>Unfamiliarity with animal research, combined with this narrative, can cause moral conflict. My research examines the role of institutional transparency in the public’s understanding of, and assumed permission, for the use of animals in scientific research.</p>
<h2>Freedom to engage</h2>
<p>For activities to be conducted in society, especially contentious ones like animal research, a type of permission by the general public is needed. This is referred to as “<a href="https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-social-license-to-operate/">social licence</a>.” A social licence provides freedom for a profession to perform its tasks with society’s acknowledgement that it does not understand the profession well enough to regulate it directly, but at the same time, places trust in the sector to self-regulate in ways that follow societal values. </p>
<p>In most developed countries, research at universities is publicly funded and the knowledge it provides is for public benefit. As such, institutions should engage with the public continually to ensure current research practices reflect the evolving values of the community they represent. Without it, certain activities become taboo and can be outright banned.</p>
<p>Scientists cannot just conduct any research they want using animals. In Canada, a protocol describing the intended use of animals, as well as the potential benefits of the experiments, needs to be approved by an <a href="https://ccac.ca/Documents/Assessment/The_Animal_Care_Committee_and_the_Role_of_Its_Members.pdf">animal care committee</a> at each institution. This is mandated by the <a href="http://ccac.ca">Canadian Council on Animal Care</a>, and must be approved for institutions to <a href="https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_56B87BE5.html">receive public funding to conduct animal research</a>. </p>
<p>An animal care committee must involve, at minimum, a veterinarian, a scientist conducting research with animals, and at least one member of the public not affiliated with the institution. The committees often include additional perspectives as well. While this process is not without its flaws, it tries to address the concerns about the experiments that are raised by the committee members.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the public is not usually aware of this process, so the discussions and decisions made by these committees, even though they involve a member of the public, are not enough to maintain social licence. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a person in a white lab coat injects a yellow liquid into a rat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481171/original/file-20220825-18-c898zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In Canada, animal research requires the approval of an animal care committee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Defining transparency</h2>
<p>To maintain social licence, meaningful dialogue involving people of diverse backgrounds and opinions is required. For this to happen, any interested member of the public must have access to basic information about animal research. </p>
<p>This is currently challenging, as broad public input is not generally sought during the process of deciding how animals will be used for research. Institutions can encourage meaningful public dialogue by being transparent about their experiments and policies involving animals. </p>
<p>However, transparency must first be defined and agreed to by all stakeholders at an institution. My studies with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254279">research animal facility managers</a> and <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82324">attending veterinarians</a> showed interpretations of institutional transparency varied within and between Canadian universities. </p>
<p>Some would have liked their institution to view transparency as communicating information for the sake of openness, while others described transparency as a means to educate or manipulate public opinion in support of animal research. Some viewed transparency negatively because they fear it could foster opposition to animal research. Sustained communication will be necessary to build a consensus on how to pursue transparency in a sincere and respectful manner.</p>
<p>In addition to internal discussions within an institution, external factors could greatly help achieve transparency. These could include specific requirements from national <a href="https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_A0A2F2CB.html">granting agencies</a> or some form of transparency agreement by individual institutions, as is <a href="https://concordatopenness.org.uk/">currently present in the United Kingdom</a> and throughout <a href="https://www.eara.eu/transparency-agreements">Europe</a>.</p>
<p>This is important, as the lack of an institutional motivation to change transparency practices in Canada was an obstacle raised by attending veterinarians in their interviews.</p>
<h2>Public involvement</h2>
<p>Some members of the scientific community may doubt if the general public possesses the knowledge to provide useful input concerning the use of animals for scientific experimentation. </p>
<p>My research requesting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260114">public input on proposed animal experiments</a> found participants provided practical and nuanced input that could aid in institutional decision making. </p>
<p>This type of public input would offer institutions a better understanding of societal concerns, such as the severity of animal suffering, and reduce the risk that research practices are out of step with community values.</p>
<p>There is no single solution to this complex and value-laden issue. </p>
<p>Some scholars have recommended a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11020368">new openness</a>” approach that provides diverse opportunities for the public to participate when, and how, they deem appropriate. </p>
<p>Additionally, I suggest releasing information about animal research should be framed as the start of a journey that will involve discussion, collaboration and negotiation. This can lead to improved decisions for animals used in research by further aligning the research community and broader society.</p>
<p><em>Frederic Chatigny, clinical veterinarian, co-authored this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Brunt receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. He is affiliated with the Canadian Association for Laboratory Animal Science and the Canadian Council on Animal Care. </span></em></p>The public’s lack of knowledge about animal research can cause a moral conflict. Institutions that use animals in research need to be more transparent about their practices.Michael W. Brunt, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Ontario Veterinary College, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1807952022-04-06T14:54:35Z2022-04-06T14:54:35ZSouth Africa has lifted most COVID-19 restrictions. But risks remain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456567/original/file-20220406-7184-eau0by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> David Silverman/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In early April South Africa <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-termination-national-state-disaster-response-covid-19-pandemic">ended</a> most of the mandatory measures it put in place to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The country terminated its <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/disaster-management-act-declaration-national-state-disaster-covid-19-coronavirus-16-mar">“state of disaster”</a> and moved to a transitional phase. For 30 days certain measures will remain in place. These include wearing face masks in indoor public spaces, restrictions on gatherings as well as proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test for people travelling to the country. To find out more about the implication of this decision and the reasoning behind it, The Conversation Africa’s Ina Skosana spoke to <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/harsha-somaroo-1296883">Harsha Somaroo</a>, who has been supporting COVID-19 surveillance in South Africa’s economic hub, Gauteng province.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Has South Africa turned the COVID corner?</h2>
<p>I believe so. South Africa has navigated the unpredictable trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic for over two years now. The country has <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-covid-data-south-africa-has-arrived-at-the-recovery-stage-of-the-pandemic-177933">reached a point</a> of understanding which COVID-19 preventive measures work. In addition, effective treatment approaches are accessible, and the development and availability of COVID-19 vaccines has been a game changer. </p>
<p>A decision to lift most restrictions was also informed by the fact that there has been a discernible decoupling of the COVID-19 case numbers from severe cases and deaths. In other words, the number of severe cases and deaths is low despite high numbers of new cases. This suggests that there are high levels of population protection against severe illness and death from COVID-19, due to a combination of naturally-acquired and vaccine-acquired immunity.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-covid-data-south-africa-has-arrived-at-the-recovery-stage-of-the-pandemic-177933">New COVID data: South Africa has arrived at the recovery stage of the pandemic</a>
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<p>At this point it’s pragmatic to integrate COVID-19 management into routine practices and adopt risk-appropriate approaches based on individual vulnerabilities and the prevailing SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk and dynamics in different settings. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-a-two-year-journey-through-lockdowns-lives-lost-and-life-saving-research-178906">COVID: a two-year journey through lockdowns, lives lost and life-saving research</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-termination-national-state-disaster-response-covid-19-pandemic">transitional measures announced</a> by President Cyril Ramaphosa attempt to reduce risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 transmission. They:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>mandate face masks in indoor public spaces</p></li>
<li><p>recommend restrictions on public gatherings </p></li>
<li><p>monitor COVID-19 vaccination and test status at events and of travellers</p></li>
<li><p>maintain the social relief of distress grant. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>A number of factors will help people manage their COVID-19 risks. These include being up to date with COVID-19 vaccination schedules and adherence to related preventive measures. Sustained communication about these measures remains important, especially for the most vulnerable groups. These continue to be: those over the age of 50, those who have a comorbid illness, those attending crowded environments and frontline healthcare workers.</p>
<h2>What has informed the government’s decision?</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/president-ramaphosa-announces-nationwide-lockdown">March 2020</a> the president declared a national state of disaster, and subsequently a national lockdown. This was in response to the uncertainty around an unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic as well as the anticipated impact of transmission on the country’s health and the healthcare system. The aim was to trigger rapid responses for social, economic and medical preparedness. </p>
<p>The state of disaster allowed the government to put in place public health measures nationally to slow viral transmission. It also allowed for access to disaster funds that provided essential economic support. This included boosting medical preparation and hospital capacity, and economic support for workers and businesses during the lockdown period. </p>
<p>Over the following months the government adopted an incremental approach to adjusting lockdown restrictions. The country has been at the lowest level of lockdown for the past six months, following a decline in COVID-19 related morbidity and mortality numbers and sufficient health system capacity. This was the case even during the high COVID-19 transmission rates observed with the omicron variant. </p>
<p>The provisions of the Disaster Management Act are no longer warranted. </p>
<h2>What are the risks?</h2>
<p>A risk is that people associate the end of the disaster management regulations with the end of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19 health risks. This might, in turn, mean that they take less care in managing their individual risks of acquiring COVID-19 – and its potential effects. </p>
<p>Thus public health messaging has a critical role to play in reinforcing the transmission and outcome risks. Hopefully keeping the transition measures in place for 30 days will empower people and communities to manage the continued risk. </p>
<p>Another risk is that we might see the emergence of more transmissible and virulent SARS-CoV-2 variants. But ongoing surveillance will allow for early detection and prompt management of potential resurgences.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-hunt-for-coronavirus-variants-how-the-new-one-was-found-and-what-we-know-so-far-172692">The hunt for coronavirus variants: how the new one was found and what we know so far</a>
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<p>Even if there is a resurgence, the country is unlikely to have to rely on the Disaster Management Act again. This is because revisions are being made to the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-health-act">National Health Act</a> to allow for emergency interventions to be implemented if they’re needed.</p>
<h2>Has South Africa managed the pandemic well?</h2>
<p>South Africa – and the global community – was manoeuvring through uncharted territory with the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the circumstances the country did well. </p>
<p>The early declaration of a national state of disaster allowed for a rapid response that wasn’t possible under existing legislation at the time. This helped slow down rapid viral transmission and gave the health system time to prepare. It also gave the government time to try and balance the risks to health and the economy. </p>
<p>The government also set up a <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/content/national-coronavirus-command-council">national command council</a>. This included an expert advisory committee, to monitor the rapidly evolving pandemic and advise the government on the best evidence-based approaches as these emerged. </p>
<p>Another major factor was that incredible social solidarity emerged at the outset. This helped the country navigate the trajectory and uncertainty of COVID-19 waves.</p>
<p>However, constraints that challenged routine healthcare management – internal and external to the health system – were also magnified during management of the pandemic. This provides further motivation to strengthen the existing governance, operations, and performance of the health system, and to improve collaboration between sectors that support public health.</p>
<p>If we get this right the country will be able to better manage its response to future pandemics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harsha Somaroo is the current president of the Public Health Association of South Africa, and is a Public Health Medicine technical advisor to the Gauteng Department of Health’s COVID-19 Nerve Centre. </span></em></p>At this point it’s pragmatic to integrate COVID-19 management into routine health practices.Harsha Somaroo, Public Health Medicine Specialist, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1466222020-10-05T15:07:53Z2020-10-05T15:07:53ZHow smartphones could help improve child health in Malawi<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360797/original/file-20200930-22-184bwer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Child mortality rates in the country are high. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Fredricks/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many low- and middle-income countries, such as <a href="https://knoema.com/atlas/Malawi/Child-mortality-rate">Malawi</a>, continue to experience high child mortality rates. Most of these deaths are caused by <a href="https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/27/suppl_3/iii88/581542">preventable and treatable diseases</a> such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia. </p>
<p>But managing these conditions is a challenge in Malawi, where around <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/malawi/rural-population-percent-of-total-population-wb-data.html">83%</a> of the population lives in rural areas where access to appropriate health facilities is difficult.</p>
<p>To identify sick children and ensure they get treatment close to home the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF introduced a <a href="https://www.jmir.org/2013/1/e17/">community case management</a> protocol in 2008. It’s mostly managed by community health workers. In Malawi, a cadre of community health workers called <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/87365">health surveillance assistants</a> are at the heart of service provision in hard-to-reach areas. </p>
<p>Health surveillance assistants provide services in village clinics, mainly by assessing the signs and symptoms in acutely unwell children. This allows them to identify and manage conditions according to the community case management protocol. The protocol allows health surveillance assistants to give treatment to sick children. But when a child shows danger signs such as vomiting, not being able to breastfeed, or being unconscious or lethargic, they must be referred to hospital immediately. </p>
<p><a href="https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles">Health surveillance assistants</a>, though, don’t always follow all the steps in the protocol when assessing a child. They may be overburdened, or they may not know what to do. This could result in incorrect treatment.</p>
<p>Several <a href="https://www.scielosp.org/article/bwho/2012.v90n5/393-394/en/">technological interventions</a> were evaluated and later introduced to improve community case management. These included mobile health, or <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jamia/article/23/1/212/2379923">mHealth</a>, which is the use of mobile phones and tablets to support healthcare delivery. </p>
<p>In 2015 we started a project to explore the use of an mHealth application in community case management. We tested whether the mHealth intervention was more effective than doing the same procedure using paper based community case management. We found that with the use of mHealth applications, the consultation time was shorter. We also found that the treatment recommendations given with the guide of mHealth applications were correct and the doses were accurate. Hence the child benefits more from using mHealth application than paper based protocol.</p>
<h2>What we did</h2>
<p>The electronic community case management project was conducted in Nkhata Bay, Rumphi, and Mzimba North districts in northern Malawi. The project had three phases.</p>
<p>In the first phase we conducted a <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/155448">situational analysis</a>. We wanted to find out if it was feasible to use mobile phones for community case management. We also wanted to understand how the community would perceive a health surveillance assistant using a phone while assessing their children.</p>
<p>We recruited 12 village clinics in Mzimba north. In each clinic we selected one health surveillance assistant to take part in the study. Participants were trained to use a smartphone. They were given smartphones with an electronic community case management app installed. Then they were advised to use the app together with the paper-based protocol when assessing and managing children. </p>
<p>We found that health surveillance assistants were positive about using the electronic version of the protocol. They regarded the app as a good innovation as it reminded them of steps to follow when assessing children and helped ensure that the treatment recommendations were correct. Parents of sick children developed more confidence in the decisions made by the health surveillance assistants since the decisions were guided by a smartphone. The involvement of health surveillance assistants in the first phase helped to make improvements to the app to enhance its use in the latter phases.</p>
<p>The second phase was the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6634480/">intervention phase</a>. The aimed was to put the electronic intervention into practice. This was to assess whether electronic community case management would have any impact on referrals to higher level facilities, village clinic re-consultation and hospital admission rates. We recruited and trained 102 health surveillance assistants in Nkhata Bay and Rumphi districts. Some health surveillance assistants used the app along with paper-based assessments. Others used only the paper-based assessment. </p>
<p>Before the clinical trial started, we held community sensitisation meetings with traditional leaders, government departments other than the health department and nongovernmental organisations. Studies show that a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149718909001013?via%3Dihub">“bottom-up”</a> approach in designing an intervention increases the chances that communities will accept it. </p>
<p>A total of 6,965 children were recruited: 3,421 in the paper community case management group and 3,544 in the electronic management group. We found that more children assessed with the aid of the app were referred to higher level healthcare facilities. There were also more repeat consultations at the village clinic by parents within seven days of index visit in the children assessed with the paper based protocol as compared to those assessed using the mHealth app. This suggests that the intervention had a positive impact on children’s healthcare services. This shows that the treatment given with the help of the mHealth application helped children and prevented repeat visits to the clinic. </p>
<p>On the hospital admissions, we found that the number of children who were later admitted to higher level facilities was greater in the group receiving paper-based assessments. This suggests that children evaluated via the app were more likely to have received the correct treatment so that they didn’t need a higher level of care.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352914819302552">final phase</a> was an evaluation and assessment of the sustainability of the app. In this phase we aimed to find out whether there were differences in the quality and functionality of the two apps in use in northern Malawi (Mangologic and Supporting Life). We also assessed factors that might affect the sustainability of using apps in the country.</p>
<p>We found that the apps provided different user interfaces but had very similar functionality. They led to similar diagnosis and treatment recommendations. But there were slight differences in usability such as ease and speed of navigation. </p>
<p>These apps were designed and coded in a way that makes it possible to modify the algorithms if needed. But more stakeholders such as non-governmental organisations need to step in and lead the uptake of mHealth interventions such as these.</p>
<h2>Going forward</h2>
<p>Health surveillance assistants in Malawi adapted very well to the paper-based community case management guidelines and have played a part in their success since 2008. As smartphone technologies play an increasing role in people’s lives, we believe that using apps in the management of childhood illnesses will help reduce child mortality rates in the country. </p>
<p>We therefore recommend that the Ministry of Health in Malawi consider using a single version of the electronic case community case management app across the entire country, and build on the lessons learnt from the testing and evaluation described here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Griphin Baxter Chirambo receives funding from Malawi government through Mzuzu University where he works. This research was supported by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program for research, technological development and demonstration (grant agreement no 305292). The funder of this study had no role in the design of the study, analysis of the results, and preparation of the manuscript or decision to publish. Griphin Baxter Chirambo has no conflicts of interest to declare.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adamson S. Muula receives funding from the Malawi Government generally and specifically through funding to the Africa Center if Excellence in Public Health and Herbal Medicine (ACEPHEM. The ACEPHEM is funded through a credit facility from the World Bank.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bo Andersson, Ciara Heavin, John O'Donoghue, Matthew Thompson, and Yvonne O'Connor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Health surveillance assistants provide services in village clinics, mainly by assessing signs and symptoms in sick children. An electronic community case management app could make their job easier.Griphin Baxter Chirambo, Lecturer, Mzuzu UniversityAdamson S. Muula, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of MalawiBo Andersson, Associate professor, Lund UniversityCiara Heavin, Senior Lecturer, University College CorkJohn O'Donoghue, Lecturer & Director, Imperial College LondonMatthew Thompson, Professor of Global Health, University of WashingtonYvonne O'Connor, Lecturer / Senior Researcher , University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1341962020-03-20T17:34:38Z2020-03-20T17:34:38ZWhen restaurants close, Americans lose much more than a meal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321803/original/file-20200319-22610-d1h165.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C278%2C806%2C745&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Big Texan restaurant, Amarillo, Texas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011630474/">Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1239383795205169152">Arnold Schwarzenegger tweeted</a> a video of himself on March 15 saying: “No more restaurants.” Seated in his palatial kitchen with two miniature horses, Whiskey and Lulu, beside him, the former California governor pronounced: “We don’t go out, we don’t go to restaurants. We don’t do anything like that any more.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1239383795205169152"}"></div></p>
<p>The immediate prompt for the video was, of course, the coronavirus pandemic, spread most easily by human-to-human contact. As a public health measure, mayors of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/foodie-cities-such-new-york-city-los-angeles-restaurant-closures-n1162631">New York</a>, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/seattle-restaurant-week-canceled-due-to-novel-coronavirus-concerns/">Seattle</a>, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2020/03/17/restaurant-unemployment-denver-coronavirus/">Denver</a> and many other cities and states have ordered restaurants to switch to delivery and pickup service only. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.eater.com/2020/3/15/21180529/momofuku-shutters-all-restaurants-in-ny-la-and-dc-over-coronavirus-pandemic">Celebrity chefs</a> David Chang and José Andrés were fast to close up shop. <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/starbucks/starbucks-to-close-some-stores-eliminate-seating-in-all-others-to-slow-spread-of-coronavirus/">Starbucks</a> no longer allows access to seating. </p>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674241770">“The Invention of the Restaurant,”</a> I showed that modern restaurants first appeared in 1760s Paris. For the past 200 years, they have offered a crucial public space for the practice of peaceful coexistence. </p>
<p>Now, they are threatened. How long can the hospitality industry – restaurants, cafes, bars, diners, all the places that welcome people – survive in isolation? And how long can the ideal of the United States as a welcoming country survive without them? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321804/original/file-20200319-22632-3e1zuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two Girls Waffle House, Alaska, 1900s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/99614782/">Frank and Frances Carpenter collection, Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1918 versus 2020</h2>
<p>During the 1918 influenza epidemic, restaurants were actually one of the very few public spaces to be kept open, regardless of other closures. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-pandemic-response-cities">Some cities</a> held major public events despite the crisis. In Philadelphia, the “Liberty Loan” parade was held as planned, attracting a crowd of 200,000; less than a week later, all of the city’s hospital beds were full. </p>
<p>St. Louis, in contrast, was an early exemplar of social distancing: The city closed schools, churches and other venues where people gathered in large numbers. It effectively kept flu cases to a minimum and “flattened the curve.” But neither Philadelphia nor St. Louis closed restaurants. </p>
<p>In Chicago, football games, wrestling matches – anything considered “public amusements” – were all banned, but restaurants were allowed to operate as long as they offered neither music nor dancing. </p>
<p>Washington, D.C. shut schools, stores and public meetings, but left cafeterias and restaurants open. Dozens of restaurants in the city even agreed to offer a <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1918-10-10/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1918&sort=date&rows=20&words=restaurants+war&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=14&state=District+of+Columbia&date2=1922&proxtext=restaurants+war&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1">shared, limited menu</a> to ensure that office workers could feed themselves for under a dollar a day: “Prunes, cereal, toast, coffee—30 cents; Ham, cheese, tongue, salmon, or egg sandwich—10 cents; Soup, meat or fish, potato or rice…”</p>
<p>In 1918, when many city dwellers lived in boarding houses and kitchenless studio apartments, restaurants were seen as vitally necessary for continued wartime functioning. They were sites of social solidarity.</p>
<p>In the days of COVID-19, in contrast, restaurant-going is partisan politics. When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter to encourage social distancing, the one-time Ms. Nevada State, Katie Williams – a school board candidate in Las Vegas – tweeted back: “I just went to a crowded Red Robin … Because this is America. And I’ll do what I want.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1238937001463877632"}"></div></p>
<p>For Ocasio-Cortez and many others, restaurants are chiefly public spaces – places where people congregate. Williams reply asserted that restaurants may be public, but the appetites they satisfy are private and personal. She wanted sweet potato fries and it was nobody else’s business if she had them. </p>
<h2>What restaurants offer</h2>
<p>Are restaurants private or public? </p>
<p>The tension between these ways of thinking erupted two years ago as well, when protesters took to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/kirstjen-nielsen-protesters-restaurant.html">heckling administration figures when they went out to eat</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674241770">Ever since they first emerged in 1760s Paris</a>, restaurants have, paradoxically enough, been public places where people go to be private. To sit at their own tables, to eat their own food, to have their own conversations. </p>
<p>Restaurants are on the front line in fighting the pandemic today, because they are one of the few sites left where strangers might regularly come into contact with one another. <a href="https://prospect.org/infrastructure/ridesharing-versus-public-transit/">Ride-sharing apps</a> have taken people off mass public transport. The “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stores-closing-in-2019-list-2019-3">Retailpocalypse</a>” brought about by online shopping has been underway for years, shuttering brick-and-mortar stores and bringing <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/nordstrom-did-so-much-right-but-its-still-in-trouble-11566136185">department stores</a> to the brink. </p>
<p><a href="https://restaurant.org/research/restaurant-statistics/restaurant-industry-facts-at-a-glance">The National Restaurant Association estimates</a> the industry employs some 15.6 million people. All of those jobs are now on the line, and employers at risk of bankruptcy and permanent closure. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321800/original/file-20200319-22618-wnnmp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dehydrated food luncheon at the Senate in 1942.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017695026/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A world without restaurants?</h2>
<p>The coronavirus pandemic might be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/dining/restaurants-coronavirus.html">the end of restaurants as we know them</a>. That should be a cause for sadness and concern not just among foodies and Michelin-star chasers, but for anyone who thinks capitalism and participatory democracy might actually go together. </p>
<p>Since the 18th century, the Western world has been built around multiple, imperfect and only partly compatible forms of public life. </p>
<p>One kind of public is the market: goods available to anyone willing to pay. Restaurants in this understanding are clearly public in a way that private clubs and dinner parties are not. </p>
<p>Another sense of public – “public broadcasting,” for instance – hinges on a common goal and state support. These are characteristics of food relief programs, but not of restaurants. </p>
<p>Many in Enlightenment-era France, where modern restaurants first appeared, believed the two kinds of public-ness were consistent with each other. Markets would expand to satisfy private appetites, and from that would come public benefits: jobs, commerce, coexistence. </p>
<p>Restaurant-going has historically been an experience through which people learned to coexist as strangers. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ggJaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=Caroline+kirkland+holidays+abroad+restaurants&source=bl&ots=Dz4hVizPzy&sig=ACfU3U2WVoHeQTKJP-1pLFxxnwZ4TI26TQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwimg6LWoKfoAhUUK80KHagKDs0Q6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Caroline%20kirkland%20holidays%20abroad%20restaurants&f=false">As one American remarked in the 1840s</a>, “It really requires some practice… but these [Paris] restaurant dinners are very pleasant things when you are once used to them.” Praising the cuisine and décor, she was struck most forcefully by the simple act of eating dinner in a room where others did the same. </p>
<p>To be one of the people in that space is to make a claim about belonging in society. Remember that a century later, the civil rights movement sit-ins began at <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/greensboro-lunch-counter">a lunch counter</a>. </p>
<p>The self-styled “inventor” of restaurants, Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau, often signed himself, “The Friend of All the World.” Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/22/physiology-of-taste-brillat-savarin">“Physiology of Taste”</a> describes sitting down to dinner as “gradually spread[ing] that spirit of fellowship which daily brings all sorts together.” </p>
<p>These claims have never been fully realized, but for the past 250 years they have provided consumer culture with a plausible alibi: that it gets people what they want or need.</p>
<p>If the pandemic leaves Americans with nothing but <a href="https://www.pix11.com/news/local-news/the-food-i-ordered-came-from-where-how-ghost-kitchens-are-moving-into-the-nyc-delivery-industry">ghost kitchens</a> and GrubHub, we will have abandoned those goals and lost one of the few remaining spaces for coexistence in our fractured country. I, for one, hope that restaurant service has been interrupted rather than terminated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca L. Spang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Restaurants have always been about more than feeding city residents. During the 1918 flu pandemic, they were kept open as sites of social solidarity.Rebecca L. Spang, Professor of History and Director, Liberal Arts and Management Program (LAMP), Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1280612020-02-05T19:02:20Z2020-02-05T19:02:20Z‘I want to stare death in the eye’: why dying inspires so many writers and artists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312728/original/file-20200130-41503-1sawtra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C2%2C1000%2C827&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-image-typewriter-paper-sheet-phrase-381699667">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is one of our occasional <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/essays-on-health-32828">Essays on Health</a>. It’s a long read.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>It may seem paradoxical, but dying can be a deeply creative process.</p>
<p>Public figures, authors, artists and journalists have long written about their experience of dying. But why do they do it and what do we gain?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-poetry-and-pain-80273">On poetry and pain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many stories of dying are written to bring an issue or disease to public attention.</p>
<p>For instance, English editor and journalist Ruth Picardie’s description of terminal breast cancer, so poignantly described in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/424646.Before_I_Say_Goodbye">Before I say Goodbye</a>, drew attention to the impact of medical negligence, and particularly misdiagnosis, on patients and their families.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312716/original/file-20200130-41481-6o52kl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">English editor and journalist Ruth Picardie’s description of terminal breast cancer drew attention to the impact of medical negligence and misdiagnosis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Books</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>American tennis player and social activist Arthur Ashe wrote about his heart disease and subsequent diagnosis and death from AIDS in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/698054.Days_of_Grace">Days of Grace: A Memoir</a>. </p>
<p>His autobiographical account brought public and political attention to the risks of blood transfusion (he acquired HIV from an infected blood transfusion following heart bypass surgery). </p>
<p>Other accounts of terminal illness lay bare how people navigate uncertainty and healthcare systems, as surgeon Paul Kalanithi did so beautifully in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25899336-when-breath-becomes-air">When Breath Becomes Air</a>, his account of dying from lung cancer.</p>
<p>But, perhaps most commonly, for artists, poets, writers, musicians and journalists, dying can provide <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25733900-the-violet-hour">one last opportunity for creativity</a>.</p>
<p>American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak drew people he loved as they were dying; founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, while in great pain, refused pain medication so he could be lucid enough to think clearly about his dying; and author Christopher Hitchens <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Hitch_22.html?id=H6nbV6nLcWcC&redir_esc=y">wrote about</a> dying from <a href="https://www.cancer.org.au/about-cancer/types-of-cancer/oesophageal-cancer.html">oesophageal cancer</a> despite increasing symptoms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to stare death in the eye. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Faced with terminal cancer, renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote, if possible, more prolifically than before.</p>
<p>And Australian author Clive James found dying a mine of new material:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Few people read</p>
<p>Poetry any more but I still wish</p>
<p>To write its seedlings down, if only for the lull</p>
<p>Of gathering: no less a harvest season</p>
<p>For being the last time.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vale-clive-james-a-marvellous-low-voice-whose-gracious-good-humour-let-others-shine-127992">Vale Clive James – a marvellous low voice whose gracious good humour let others shine</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Research shows what dying artists have told us for centuries – creative self-expression is core to their sense of self. So, creativity has <a href="https://www.headspace.com/blog/2017/04/18/grief-creativity-together/">therapeutic and existential benefits</a> for the dying and their grieving families.</p>
<p>Creativity <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.171">provides</a> a buffer against anxiety and negative emotions about death.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312717/original/file-20200130-41554-1ntw9r6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cartoonist Miriam Engelberg chose a graphic novel to communicate her experience of cancer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harper Perennial</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may help us make sense of events and experiences, tragedy and misfortune, as a graphic novel did for cartoonist Miriam Engelberg in <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060789732/cancer-made-me-a-shallower-person/">Cancer Made Me A Shallower Person</a>, and as <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MkcGiLeATe8C&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=%5BCarla+Sofka+and+Illene+Cupit+(eds)++Dying,+Death,+and+Grief+in+an+Online+Universe:+For+Counselors+and+Educators,+Springer+2012&ots=vdXYa_3cvU&sig=Od3eQ4A7_hadLwgIn4liIEoyo5c&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%5BCarla%20Sofka%20and%20Illene%20Cupit%20(eds)%20%20Dying%2C%20Death%2C%20and%20Grief%20in%20an%20Online%20Universe%3A%20For%20Counselors%20and%20Educators%2C%20Springer%202012&f=false">blogging and online writing</a> does for so many.</p>
<p>Creativity may give voice to our experiences and provide some resilience as we face disintegration. It may also provide agency (an ability to act independently and make our own choices), and a sense of normality.</p>
<p>French doctor Benoit Burucoa <a href="https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=INKA_181_0005">wrote</a> art in palliative care allows people to feel physical and emotional relief from dying, and:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] to be looked at again and again like someone alive (without which one feels dead before having disappeared).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A way of communicating to loved ones and the public</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312718/original/file-20200130-41481-b1213u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American tennis player and social activist Arthur Ashe wrote about his heart disease and subsequent diagnosis and death from AIDS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ballantine Books</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When someone who is dying creates a work of art or writes a story, this can open up otherwise difficult conversations with people close to them.</p>
<p>But where these works become public, this conversation is also with those they do not know, whose only contact is through that person’s writing, poetry or art. </p>
<p>This public discourse is a means of living while dying, making connections with others, and ultimately, increasing the public’s “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29402101">death literacy</a>”.</p>
<p>In this way, our <a href="https://www.thegroundswellproject.com/">conversations about death</a> become <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-end-9781742752051">more normal, more accessible</a> and much richer.</p>
<p>There is no evidence reading literary works about death and dying fosters <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology)">rumination</a> (an unhelpful way of dwelling on distressing thoughts) or other forms of psychological harm.</p>
<p>In fact, the evidence we have suggests the opposite is true. There is plenty of <a href="http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg/arts-and-palliative-care-dying-and-bereavement">evidence</a> for the positive impacts of both making and consuming art (of all kinds) at the <a href="http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/Briefings/WWCW.pdf">end of life</a>, and specifically <a href="https://spcare.bmj.com/content/7/3/A369.2">surrounding palliative care</a>.</p>
<h2>Why do we buy these books?</h2>
<p>Some people read narratives of dying to gain insight into this mysterious experience, and empathy for those amidst it. Some read it to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html">rehearse</a> their own journeys to come.</p>
<p>But these purpose-oriented explanations miss what is perhaps the most important and unique feature of literature – its delicate, multifaceted capacity to help us become what philosopher <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/martha-nussbaums-moral-philosophies">Martha Nussbaum</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2026358.pdf?seq=1">described as</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] finely aware and richly responsible. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Literature can capture the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/01/londonreviewofbooks">tragedy</a> in ordinary lives; its depictions of <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2016/08/12/martha-nussbaum-on-emotions-ethics-and-literature/">grief, anger and fear</a> help us fine-tune what’s important to us; and it can show the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Love_s_Knowledge.html?id=oq3POR8FhtgC">value of a unique person</a> across their whole life’s trajectory.</p>
<h2>Not everyone can be creative towards the end</h2>
<p>Not everyone, however, has the opportunity for creative self-expression at the end of life. In part, this is because increasingly we die in hospices, hospitals or nursing homes. These are often far removed from the resources, people and spaces that may inspire creative expression.</p>
<p>And in part it is because many people cannot communicate after a stroke or dementia diagnosis, or are <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/01/how-do-people-communicate-before-death/580303/">delirious</a>, so are incapable of “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691628554/last-words">last words</a>” <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Final-Gifts-Understanding-Awareness-Communications/dp/1451667256">when they die</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-palliative-care-a-patients-journey-through-the-system-82246">What is palliative care? A patient's journey through the system</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Perhaps most obviously, it is also because most of us are not artists, musicians, writers, poets or philosophers. We will not come up with elegant prose in our final days and weeks, and lack the skill to paint inspiring or intensely beautiful pictures.</p>
<p>But this does not mean we cannot tell a story, using whatever genre we wish, that captures or at least provides a glimpse of our experience of dying – our fears, goals, hopes and preferences. </p>
<p>Clive James <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/01/clive-james-poem-story-mind-heading-obivion">reminded us</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] there will still be epic poems, because every human life contains one. It comes out of nowhere and goes somewhere on its way to everywhere – which is nowhere all over again, but leaves a trail of memories. There won’t be many future poets who don’t dip their spoons into all that, even if nobody buys the book.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Public figures, authors, artists and journalists have long written about their experience of dying. But why do they do it? And what do we gain?Claire Hooker, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Health and Medical Humanities, University of SydneyIan Kerridge, Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165792019-07-31T22:57:21Z2019-07-31T22:57:21ZData collected by governments can be useful to researchers, but only when accessed carefully<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285434/original/file-20190724-110149-1hv2hvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C29%2C4000%2C2215&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Data collected by governments is a treasure trove of useful information for researchers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Data are generated every time we make a purchase or receive other services such as health care. This has always been the case, but over the past 20 years, data collection has become increasingly automated, with data collected and stored in digital (rather than paper) formats. </p>
<p>Data collected during the provision of government services are known as administrative data (for example, applying for a driver’s license or updating health card information). These data are particularly powerful for researchers because they contain a wide range of information about whole populations. These large data sets can then be studied to derive important findings that are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i5295">clinically or socially meaningful</a>.</p>
<p>Digital storage increases the potential for the use of data, and increased computing power makes it easier to study the data and find actionable insights. Personal data are being used to make decisions in the public and private sectors. Public concerns over how data are used, stored and who has access to them is forcing government agencies to take a new look at the data they collect and what they do with it.</p>
<p>Our recent research, published in the <em>International Journal of Population Data Science</em>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v4i1.1103">reports the recommendations made by 24 members of the public during a public deliberation</a> — a kind of public engagement event. This event was held in Vancouver, B.C., and was hosted by <a href="https://www.popdata.bc.ca/">Population Data BC</a>, an organization at the University of British Columbia that facilitates data sharing for research and provides education and training on data use. </p>
<h2>Digital information production</h2>
<p>There are both potential risks and benefits to the digital society in which we currently live. The risks include <a href="http://nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/Biological_and_health_data_web.pdf">possibilities for surveillance, loss of privacy, discrimination and loss of reputation and autonomy</a>.</p>
<p>On the other hand, benefits include the use of data for research, leading to new insights about health, diseases and effective services <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i5295">to promote and support the flourishing of individuals and communities</a>. How data are used may also have important ramifications for particular groups of people or communities, as well as individuals. </p>
<p>For example, an analysis of data might inform decisions about health-care delivery; for example, a decision that group X is not likely to benefit from a particular service and therefore should not be eligible for that service. In fact, when public impacts such as these have not been considered or when the public has not been consulted about them, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2053951716688490">data sharing projects may fail</a>. </p>
<p>There are strict government rules surrounding how <a href="http://www.bclaws.ca/Recon/document/ID/freeside/96165_00">administrative data can be shared with researchers</a>. These rules protect data, sometimes at the expense of research, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23633-9_28">when they make data either slow or impossible to acquire</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286175/original/file-20190730-43114-gc3312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Administrative data - generated through the provision of government services - is a valuable resource for researchers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Managing access to data</h2>
<p>Most forms of data are not held together in one huge database in one location, nor are they controlled by one organization. Instead, each agency — for example, a health ministry — or a department within a large agency, manages its data. </p>
<p>In most cases, there is a designated data steward or privacy officer who approves or denies data access requests. Each individual may have different interpretations of privacy regulations or they may disagree on what to share with the researchers; this can result in delays for the researchers to receive the data and start their research. </p>
<p>Privacy legislation and other rules help <a href="https://www.oipc.bc.ca/resources/guidance-documents/">set some boundaries for data use</a>, but the data landscape is changing rapidly as academic and government researchers require for greater access. The big questions then are: What role do we want big data to have in our society? How can the risks and benefits of data use be balanced? </p>
<p>There is no obvious answer to these questions as they involve consideration of conflicting values such as differences between the importance of maintaining privacy and the importance of conducting research for the public benefit. The best balance may be assessed differently by different groups and individuals. As such, it is important to involve the public in establishing norms and guidance for data use.</p>
<h2>Public input on data management</h2>
<p>Public deliberations are distinguished from surveys, focus groups or other types of engagement by their focus on producing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662512472160">collective and civic-minded responses to policy issues</a>. This requires time for the participants to meet and engage with each other, receive and understand technical information and understand the diversity of social perspectives with regard to their opinions about data sharing. </p>
<p>In our study, participants received an information booklet and then met for four days over two non-consecutive weekends. During this time, they heard presentations from five experts on various topics related to data sharing such as privacy legislation, patient concerns and researcher data needs. Participants then deliberated on the issues. Participants were selected to reflect B.C. demographics in terms of factors such as age, ethnicity, income and geographic location, as much as possible. </p>
<p>Participants developed and voted on <a href="https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v4i1.1103">19 recommendations for consideration by policy makers</a> to improve B.C.’s existing data sharing system. These recommendations started by acknowledging clear support for research uses of administrative data and an equal expectation that data would be kept safe and secure both in general and during the research process. </p>
<p>Participants also wanted the data sharing system to be efficient. Several of their recommendations suggested possible improvements in system efficiencies, including standardizing the policies and procedures that data stewards follow when assessing data sharing requests. They suggested different ways of achieving this, such as developing training and certification programs for data stewards. </p>
<p>Participants made it clear that research is important, but that does not mean that all research requests should be automatically granted. Researchers were seen to have responsibilities as well, including transparency about how the data are collected and used, especially with the communities and vulnerable populations from which the data derive. </p>
<p>Clear support for administrative data for research in this deliberation is consistent with <a href="http://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-016-0153-x">other similar public deliberations around the world</a>. Participants’ recommendations provide helpful insight into what is important to them when it comes to sharing data — this type of information is critical to help design data sharing systems that are acceptable and worthy of public trust.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116579/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Teng receives funding from CIHR.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kieran C O'Doherty receives funding from CIHR, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, SSHRC, and the Network of Centres of Excellence. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Burgess receives funding from CIHR, SSHRC and is a collaborator on international collaborations funded by national funding agencies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberlyn McGrail does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A recent public deliberation in British Columbia identified that access to government data should be managed carefully and efficiently.Jack Teng, Project Manager for Public Engagement, University of British ColumbiaKieran C O'Doherty, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of GuelphKimberlyn McGrail, Professor of Health Services and Policy Research, University of British ColumbiaMichael Burgess, Professor of Applied Philosophy, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1120782019-03-06T15:22:01Z2019-03-06T15:22:01ZThe Green New Deal’s contradiction – new infrastructure and redistribution may boost carbon emissions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261454/original/file-20190228-106359-1mx1gv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Chickamauga Dam, completed in 1940, was a crowning achievement of the New Deal.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chickamauga-dam-spillway-built-19361940-by-242289991">Everett Historical/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Green New Deal has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-green-new-deal-is-already-changing-the-terms-of-the-climate-action-debate-112144">broadened imaginations worldwide</a> on the subject of climate change, encouraging people to consider what action to tackle it could do for society. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-green-new-deal-is-already-changing-the-terms-of-the-climate-action-debate-112144">US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> announced the Green New Deal resolution in February 2019, calling for a <a href="https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729033-Green-New-Deal-FINAL">rapid transition</a> to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, a massive investment in infrastructure and financial redistribution. </p>
<p>While the project would attempt to halt further warming, it would also counter inequality and compensate losers from the energy transition, such as workers in carbon-intensive industries like coal mining. </p>
<p>It’s already helped wrest the political agenda in the US from the regressive policies and scandals of the Trump administration, and has gained <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/09/green-new-deal-bipartisan-support-yale-survey">bipartisan support among US voters</a>, despite right-wing pundits denouncing it as a <a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/09/why-the-green-new-deal-is-a-bad-deal-for-america/">communist plot</a>.</p>
<p>The Green New Deal borrows its name and ethos from <a href="http://time.com/5524723/green-new-deal-history/">the New Deal</a> – introduced in the 1930s by then US president Franklin D. Roosevelt to kickstart an economy crippled by the Great Depression. But are strategies which echo the needs of the 1930s and 1940s – ending the Depression and defeating Nazism – suitable for the rapid transition from fossil fuels that defines our needs in the early 21st century? </p>
<p>Can any strategy which relies on <a href="https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-new-deal-and-a-green-new-deal-turning-economic-and-environmental-disasters-into-an-opportunity-for-national-public-renewal/?fbclid=IwAR0xB1I5qCGHshkc-gha-iviE9BA9N7WNurvpo5qFcRAEfg6nff9tbA3nxE%25C3%25A8">historical analogies</a> be adapted to the current climate emergency?</p>
<h2>Teaching an old deal new tricks</h2>
<p>The Green New Deal’s proposed investment in public infrastructure and focus on inequality mirrors the original aims of the New Deal, but economic transformation will look very different under a Green New Deal. Whereas Roosevelt’s New Deal aimed to grow the economy, its modern equivalent entails shrinking many economic activities currently central to the economy’s operations.</p>
<p>Another way of looking at this is that the original New Deal spurred a massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions. By generating huge public investment in roads and power stations, as well as redistributing wealth through the emerging welfare state, it set the stage for what some call the “<a href="http://www.igbp.net/globalchange/greatacceleration.4.1b8ae20512db692f2a680001630.html">great acceleration</a>” in greenhouse gas emissions during and after World War II. </p>
<p>In the US, military build-up was central to this early on, but then it was sustained by the expansion of consumption after the war – most directly by the shift to <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1163718/?site_locale=en_GB">mass car ownership and urban sprawl</a> that “locked in” high fossil energy use, not only in transport but in housing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261452/original/file-20190228-106350-t3630g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261452/original/file-20190228-106350-t3630g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261452/original/file-20190228-106350-t3630g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261452/original/file-20190228-106350-t3630g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261452/original/file-20190228-106350-t3630g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261452/original/file-20190228-106350-t3630g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261452/original/file-20190228-106350-t3630g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The urban sprawl which the New Deal nurtured has ‘locked in’ high-consumption, high-emission lifestyles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-suburban-sprawl-phoenix-arizona-182368937">John Wollwerth/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Green New Deal therefore contains a basic contradiction that anyone pursuing it will have to wrestle with as it develops. Many of the measures proposed – such as investing in infrastructure and spreading wealth more evenly – will intrinsically work in tension with efforts to decarbonise the economy. </p>
<p>They create dynamics that increase energy use at the same time as other parts of the Green New Deal are trying to reduce it. For example, building infrastructure such as new road networks will both create demand for carbon-intensive cement manufacture and opportunities for more people to travel by car. </p>
<p>To reach net zero emissions by sometime early in the second half of the 21st century, as the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a> and the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C</a> state we must, the global economy has to decarbonise by at least <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.506?hootPostID=afbb3ee8e52b5303517fd293d82f7bbc">3% per year</a>. In rich countries such as the US, this needs to happen more rapidly so that poorer countries, which have contributed less overall to global warming, have more time to adapt. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/carbon-emissions-our-research-shows-a-decade-of-steady-decline-across-europe-and-the-us-112389">Carbon emissions: our research shows a decade of steady decline across Europe and the US</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The targets in the Green New Deal are consistent with this sort of time-frame for decarbonising the global economy. But, even if wealthy countries like the US “only” have to achieve 3% cuts per year, as the economy grows by – say – 2%, then in effect the country has to cut emissions by around 5% per year relative to the growing size of the economy. To illustrate the scale of this challenge, historically, emissions have declined relative to GDP by only about <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1332">1% per year</a>, in the aftermath of the 2008 recession.</p>
<p>So the challenge is enormous. But of course, the effect of much of the Green New Deal – to invest in infrastructure, to redistribute income – will be to generate significant economic growth. Indeed, this is the point – to get the US economy out of its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/29/weak-economic-recovery-was-down-to-flawed-policies-not-secular-stagnation">present stagnation</a>.</p>
<p>But it’s hard to see how this will be done without generating new sources of carbon emissions – more housing, more cars and more consumption generally. Herein lies the tension that will recur through the life of the Green New Deal, even if it gets through the immediate quagmire of US politics.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261463/original/file-20190228-106341-1b3kcwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261463/original/file-20190228-106341-1b3kcwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261463/original/file-20190228-106341-1b3kcwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261463/original/file-20190228-106341-1b3kcwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261463/original/file-20190228-106341-1b3kcwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261463/original/file-20190228-106341-1b3kcwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261463/original/file-20190228-106341-1b3kcwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Green New Deal will aim to kickstart manufacturing – can it be done without supercharging carbon emissions?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/nakornrachasrima-thailand-april-21-worker-walking-168535211">Think4photop/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Its supporters will have to <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/green-new-deal-climate-change-policy">manage this tension</a>, even though the <a href="https://grist.org/article/the-green-new-deal-is-here-and-everyone-has-something-to-say-about-it/">vast majority of the US left and environmental movement</a> are behind it. </p>
<p>If one imperative is to build new infrastructure to get the US economy going, how much of this will really do more than pay lip service to the energy system transformation in practice? The “Green” in Green New Deal demands that all new infrastructure built is effectively carbon neutral.</p>
<p>Even new transit infrastructure, for example, would have to be entirely electric, at the same time as that electricity system is supposed to rapidly abandon coal and then natural gas. It’s easy to imagine which will win when that tension works its way through the political process.</p>
<p>It’s not that the Green New Deal isn’t worth pursuing – it’s an extremely promising development. It’s just important to remember Naomi Klein’s invocation that “<a href="https://thischangeseverything.org/">this changes everything</a>” – dealing with climate change is unlikely to lend itself to off-the-shelf solutions from an earlier age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Paterson receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada).</span></em></p>The original New Deal caused a “great acceleration” in carbon emissions. How will a Green New Deal forge its own legacy?Matthew Paterson, Professor of International Politics, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022252018-08-28T10:39:35Z2018-08-28T10:39:35ZElon Musk was right to drop his bungled plan to take Tesla private<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233712/original/file-20180827-75981-1wmjscn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elon Musk changed his mind about privatizing Tesla.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Nummi-Tesla/4b96290d058a47e2b1c5cc87668c6388/33/1">AP Photo/Paul Sakuma</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Elon Musk shocked the world – including his own car company’s board – on Aug. 7 when <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776?mod=article_inline">he tweeted</a> that he had the “funding secured” to take Tesla private. A little more than two weeks of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/25/us/ap-us-tesla-staying-public.html">uncertainty</a>, confusion and a wildly fluctuating stock price later, the billionaire entrepreneur abruptly <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/staying-public">called the whole thing off</a>. </p>
<p>While he said the reason for the change of heart is that investors urged him to keep Tesla public, Musk could have simply glanced at the history of leveraged buyouts, more commonly known as LBOs. </p>
<p>It is a history replete with both <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1988-10-22/business/fi-383_1_average-return">successes</a> that made some people very wealthy and <a href="http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/10/13/350888/index.htm">failures</a> that resulted in big losses – as well as bankruptcies and layoffs.</p>
<p>In my experience, as an <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/erik-gordon-124363">expert on mergers and acquisitions</a>, Tesla’s situation looks more like the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704013004574515450045378722">failures</a> than the success stories. Nonetheless, Musk’s aborted attempt raises an interesting question: What separates success from failure? </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1026872652290379776"}"></div></p>
<h2>The LBO era begins</h2>
<p>While <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nylr49&div=45&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals">the history</a> of taking a company private goes back to at least to the 1930s, the current chapter relevant to Tesla began in the 1980s when deal makers first began to raise large amounts of debt to buy companies. This era marked the birth of the LBO. </p>
<p>Using debt, or leverage, to raise the funds necessary to buy a company increased the payoff if a deal succeeded – but also the risk of large losses should it fail. </p>
<p>The 1982 acquisition of Gibson Greetings by a group that included former Treasury Secretary William Simon <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/07/business/reaping-the-big-profits-from-a-fat-cat.html">became</a> the archetype for later LBOs. The investors acquired the greeting card company for US$80 million and financed all but $1 million with debt and by selling off its real estate holdings. </p>
<p>It was a huge success for the investors and management. Eighteen months later they re-took the company public with a valuation of over $290 million. Simon alone made $70 million on his investment of less than $350,000, an astonishing 80,000 percent gain in a very short period.</p>
<p>Despite the leverage, the deal was conservative in one important sense: The company <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/28/business/market-place-win-or-lose-buyouts-do-it-big.html">generated twice as much cash</a> as it needed in order to meet its debt obligations. </p>
<p>Other successful buyouts, such as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-18/blackstone-is-said-to-plan-sale-of-remaining-stake-in-hilton">Blackstone’s takeover of Hilton Worldwide</a> in 2007 and founder Michael Dell’s <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/dell-sets-23-8-billion-deal-to-go-private">buyout of his eponymous computer maker</a> in 2013, also had lots of so-called free cash flow – the cash left over after paying the bills.</p>
<p>As we’ll see, that made all the difference.</p>
<h2>‘Barbarian’ buyouts</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most famous LBO ever illustrates the perils of going private.</p>
<p>In 1988, private equity firm KKR <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rjr-nabisco-lbo-private-equity-deal-2012-1">bought out RJR Nabisco</a> for $24 billion after an intense bidding war with the tobacco and food conglomerate’s own CEO, Ross Johnson, who started it all by trying to do an LBO of his own. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061655555/barbarians-at-the-gate/">classic business book</a> “Barbarians at the Gate” immortalized the deal’s ups and downs and colorful personalities.</p>
<p>But <a href="http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/06/13/8262550/index.htm">it ended badly</a> for KKR when RJR’s debt burden limited its ability to compete with Philip Morris and makers of low-priced <a href="http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/10/13/350888/index.htm">cigarettes</a>. It ended even worse for the 40 percent of the company’s employees who lost their jobs. </p>
<p>Not everyone lost, however. Johnson walked away with $53 million. This led to the typical criticism of LBOs: They make a few people rich but ruin the lives of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-private-equity-firms-like-bain-really-are-the-worst-of-capitalism-241519/">many others</a>. </p>
<h2>Great for investors</h2>
<p>Academic studies on the success of LBOs have produced differing results, depending on the time period they examine and how they measure success. Overall, they show that buyouts tend to be good for investors but more mixed for employees. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1932316">2011 study</a> found that LBO investors on average earned over 3 percent per year more than had they simply invested in the Standard and Poor’s 500 from the 1980s through the 2000s.</p>
<p>As for workers, <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w17399">studies indicate</a> that, as a whole, there is little net gain or loss of employment as a result of an LBO. That’s because while about 3 percent of a target’s workforce is cut in the first two years, other jobs are eventually created that make it a wash. </p>
<p>Of course, that is little comfort to the thousands of employees or even tens of thousands who suddenly lose their jobs. </p>
<h2>Show me the money</h2>
<p>So what separates the LBO winners from the losers? </p>
<p>Recent post-LBO bankruptcies by Texas utility <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/debtwire/2017/02/16/texas-utility-giant-efh-poised-to-exit-bankruptcy-after-three-years/#bc62ee83a6be">Energy Future Holdings</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/19/toys-r-u-s-files-for-bankruptcy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3b7ef5a9ebc5">Toys R Us</a> has put the spotlight on the risks of acquiring too much debt. The <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/big-texas-utility-files-for-bankruptcy/">$45 billion buyout</a> of Energy Future in 2007 was financed by $37 billion in debt, while Toys R Us has struggled to pay down the more than $5 billion it took on from its 2005 deal.</p>
<p>But that only tells part of the story. Both failures suffered from managerial mistakes and changes to their business environments. Energy Future was clobbered by a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-future-holdings-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-1398767452">drop in energy prices</a>. Executives at Toys R Us <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2017/09/19/toys-r-us-chapter-11-amazon/#2c002c522c50">failed to adapt</a> to new competitive conditions as retailing moved online. </p>
<p>The key point is that excessive leverage leaves a company vulnerable to a single bad decision, market swoon or other surprise. This is where we come back to the importance of free cash flow. Highly leveraged companies must use a lot of cash to repay debt. That leaves them with little to handle problems or invest in the business.</p>
<p>For example, when RJR Nabisco <a href="http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/10/13/350888/index.htm">faced shrinking sales</a>, its pile of debt left it with too little cash to battle stiff competition. In other words, debt magnifies the effects of mistakes and twists of fate.</p>
<p>But a company like Gibson with steady or growing free cash flow is more likely to have the money it needs to service its debt and handle surprises. And such a company is more likely to succeed after an LBO.</p>
<p>Tesla is thoroughly in RJR Nabisco’s camp, except infinitely worse. RJR had low debt and capital <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4479468?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">expenditures</a> and expected to generate over $3.5 billion in free cash flow in the three years after the deal – and that still wasn’t enough. Tesla is burning through every dollar it takes in and more and carries about $10 billion in debt. In 2017 alone, its free cash flow was a <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/tsla/financials/cash-flow">negative $4.1 billion</a>, which means more cash went out its doors than into its coffers, in part because of significant capital expenditures.</p>
<p>Musk suggested the buyout price tag would be $80 billion. Even if he borrowed only a third of that, that would still require significant amounts of cash to cover interest payments. </p>
<h2>A charismatic founder</h2>
<p>A final distinguishing factor worth noting is whether or not a founder or current manager is part of the group taking the company private. </p>
<p>With Tesla, some investors I’ve spoken to thought that having the charismatic CEO lead the buyout would be a big advantage – and would help offset the risks of too much leverage and not enough cash. They pointed to the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-02/dell-to-return-to-public-markets-with-tracking-stock-buyout">success</a> of Dell’s <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/dell-sets-23-8-billion-deal-to-go-private">privatization</a> for $24 billion in 2013. But once again, Dell was a cash machine, with over $5 billion in free cash flow at the time of the LBO. </p>
<p><a href="https://hbr.org/2002/09/the-curse-of-the-superstar-ceo">Some research questions</a> the “special” powers of a charismatic CEO, while companies like Macy’s that were taken private by management <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1992-01-28/news/mn-841_1_bankruptcy-filing">ended up in bankruptcy</a> as well – with tens of thousands of <a href="https://www.apnews.com/ac3cd5829bb93a87122cad767600bb3f">job losses</a>. </p>
<p>When you sum the factors that are likely to lead to LBO success or failure, Musk’s idea to take Tesla private looked bad. Luckily for Tesla stockholders, he wasn’t able to implement it. As history reminds us, some LBOs are better left not done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Gordon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The history of leveraged buyouts suggest Musk was smart to heed the advice of investors and nip his plan to take Tesla private in the bud.Erik Gordon, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649442016-09-20T18:13:58Z2016-09-20T18:13:58ZClass and race shape how young South Africans access the job market<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137233/original/image-20160909-13353-1zjafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tankiso Motaung, an unemployed South African university graduate, takes his hunt for a job to the street in Johannesburg.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Star/Paballo Thekiso</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Getting hired in South Africa can be a serious challenge given the country’s unemployment rate of <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/economy/2016/07/28/economy-continued-to-shed-jobs-latest-report-shows-as-sa-heads-to-the-polls">26.6%</a> and a trend towards declining employment in the formal non-agricultural sector. </p>
<p>There are many possible routes job seekers can take as they seek to enter the workforce. Some are clearly marked out, facilitating a smooth transition. Others are not very clearly marked and are fraught with difficulty, leading to uncertainty and often significant personal hardship.</p>
<p>Individuals and groups access the labour market from different points of departure, depending on their skills, occupations, age, race and gender. This means that it’s not always useful, or accurate, to think about one labour market that operates in the same way for everyone.</p>
<p>Rather, there are many labour markets in which diverse factors such as geography (rural, urban), degree of formality (formal, informal) and political economy (centre, periphery) play a defining role.</p>
<p>We compared insights on this diversity and complexity across <a href="http://www.lmip.org.za/">a set of research projects conducted by the Labour Market Intelligence Partnership</a>. What we found was that social networks and inequality matter a lot in the world of job seekers. This suggests that there is a need for formal public mechanisms to ensure that there’s a fairer distribution of information for people looking for work. </p>
<h2>Inequality in higher education</h2>
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.lmip.org.za/document/pathways-through-university-and-labour-market-report-graduate-tracer-study-eastern-cape">study</a> traced the widely divergent journeys of graduates from two very different universities in South Africa. It followed 469 graduates from Rhodes University and 742 from University of Fort Hare through their degree programmes and into the labour market. </p>
<p>Most of the Rhodes graduates were white, and were more likely to have come from higher income homes and attended elite schools. Most of the Fort Hare graduates were black and were more likely than their Rhodes counterparts to be the first in their families to attend university.</p>
<p>The study found that the different groups used very different job search methods. For Rhodes graduates the most common path of finding employment was through personal networks (30%). Fort Hare graduates relied primarily on newspaper advertisements (36%).</p>
<p>The study concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This finding speaks volumes about the nature of links to the market and about the perpetuation of past sources of inequality in access to higher education and employment. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another <a href="http://www.lmip.org.za/sites/default/files/documentfiles/public%20attitudes%20work%20in%20south%20africa_1.pdf">study</a> of public attitudes to work found that work-seekers used a range of ways to access the labour market. Ninety percent of those surveyed said that social networks were the “most frequent” way to look for work. </p>
<p>This trend isn’t unique to South Africa. Research on job searching globally shows that for a while personal networks have been recognised as an efficient tool to use when looking for employment. </p>
<p>The study on attitudes to work and unemployment also found that job seekers from rural areas were more likely to rely on informal networks, talking to relatives and friends. It notes that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the inaccessibility of information about vacancies supplied through formal sources is a barrier to finding employment. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How do formal public systems contribute?</h2>
<p>How then do formal public employment services in South Africa measure up, to promote transitions to the labour market? </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.lmip.org.za/sites/default/files/documentfiles/HSRC%20LMIP%20ESSA%20Report%20Proof%208_0.pdf">study</a> done in 2015 looked at employer interaction with a government-funded <a href="https://essa.labour.gov.za/EssaOnline/WebBeans/?wicket:bookmarkablePage=wicket-0:za.gov.labour.essa.web.online.MainHomePage">employment service</a> that matches job seekers to employers. The research found that job seekers used a diversity of search methods.</p>
<p>Subscribing companies filled 56% of all their vacancies with work seekers registered on the system. But the service is hampered by a range of obstacles including poor infrastructure, which leads to incomplete records being kept, and network failures that make the system painfully slow. This affects its reliability. </p>
<p>These barriers effect the extent to which both employers and work seekers rely on the system as a route to the labour market. </p>
<h2>The bottom line</h2>
<p>Social networks remain a default method of job search for many South Africans across the labour market spectrum. But the ability to access social networks is shaped unequally by the education, class and race background. This is particularly the case for high-skills jobs that require a university qualification.</p>
<p>For job seekers living in poor rural areas social networks are less helpful. This is why formal public mechanisms are important, particularly for those looking for low-level skilled jobs. </p>
<p>To promote more efficient job search strategies at all levels, the quality and accessibility of formal labour market information needs to be raised significantly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenda Kruss receives funding from the National Skills Fund through the Department of Higher Education and Training.</span></em></p>Many young South Africans struggle to get a job due to the high levels of unemployment. But access to information, which is influenced by race and class, increases the chances of getting employed.Glenda Kruss, Doctor, Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/487872015-10-14T03:55:53Z2015-10-14T03:55:53ZWorld’s largest radio telescope must tap into Africa’s fascination with night skies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98084/original/image-20151012-17811-1y59wwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People throughout Africa can play a part in the work of the Square Kilometre Array even if they are not scientists.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world’s largest and most powerful <a href="http://www.ska.ac.za/qa/">radio telescope</a>, which is to be constructed in South Africa from 2017, has the potential to stimulate interest in astronomy across Africa by tapping into the continent’s traditions of watching the night skies. </p>
<p>The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be used by scientists to understand how the universe evolved as well as how stars and galaxies form and change. </p>
<p>Traditionally, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=TMZMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA280&lpg=PA280&dq=tradition+of+night+sky+watching+in+africa">astronomy</a> on the continent is associated with a history of watching the night sky without the help of telescopes. Such indigenous or cultural astronomy relates to how local cultures interact with celestial bodies. </p>
<p>Africa has a continuing tradition of artistic representations of celestial bodies in identifiable forms, including stars, constellations, the moon, the sun and eclipses. </p>
<p>As no borders exist in the sky it is a shared resource. The night sky is a source of inspiration and fascination used for navigation, time keeping, calendaring and monitoring <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/menses">menses</a> and fertility cycles. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/538461e8-3586-11df-963f-00144feabdc0.html">Tuareg</a> in the Sahara, East Africa’s <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/writing/swahili.htm">Swahili</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=TMZMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA280&lpg=PA280&dq=tradition+of+night+sky+watching+in+africa&source=bl&ots=ghVYBkoPMn&sig=Ct-xRNlzoVtuNnyoWFpBYLFKd88&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=tradition%20of%20night%20sky%20watching%20in%20afri&f=false">people</a> afar as Eritrea and Djibouti are renowned for their dexterity with navigation.</p>
<h2>Stimulating astronomy</h2>
<p>When the decision to co-host the SKA in South Africa and Australia was reached in 2012, it opened the door for collaboration on the African continent. </p>
<p>The arid regions of South Africa are ideal for the high and medium frequency arrays which are vital for the <a href="https://www.skatelescope.org/africa/">SKA</a>. The groundbreaking, continent-wide telescope has a central computer with a capacity of the processing power of about 100 million personal computers. </p>
<p>But South Africa is not the sole host for the components of the SKA in Africa. Eight other African countries will provide sites for radio telescopes that feed the network supplying scientists with the world’s most advanced radio astronomy array. These are Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. The sheer distribution of the countries provides an opportunity to stimulate interest in astronomy through citizen science on the continent.</p>
<h2>Peoples’ science</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit/about/definition">Citizen science</a> is the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge. It is referred to as the the involvement of volunteers in science through active participation without pay. People share and contribute to data monitoring and collection programs.</p>
<p>Often, the natural phenomena that scientists hope to assess have vast geographical distributions that make it cumbersome to study with conventional research methods. </p>
<p>The participation of volunteers enables an enormous geographical reach and gives the public an insight into the scientific process and closer connection to nature. </p>
<h2>How volunteers help</h2>
<p>The Citizen Science blog <a href="http://cosmoquest.org/x/about/">CosmoQuest</a> suggests that, just as it takes a whole village to raise a child, it takes a global community to raise the understanding of science. </p>
<p>Volunteers assist in a variety of ways. These include taking pictures of night skies to give insights on light pollution. They also report on the seasonal changes in plants to understand the impact of climate change. In some cases they take rainfall measurements to assist weather reporting and research, as well as viewing the night skies for space exploration. </p>
<p>Scientific knowledge has consequently been made more easily accessible through the media such as science blogs, social media, <a href="https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization">TED Talks</a> and the <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/">Khan Academy</a>. Similarly, the experimental side of science is coming to the doorstep of the layman by the kind courtesy of citizen science programs.</p>
<h2>Examples</h2>
<p>There are several examples of thriving citizen science programmes around the world. <a href="https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Sustainability/Pages/MelbourneBioBlitz.aspx">BioBlitz</a> is the city of Melbourne’s initial citizen science programme. It has used the public to conduct a survey of animals and plants in the city. Volunteers have since become involved in Melbourne’s ecology strategy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globeatnight.org/">Globe at Night</a> is a global citizen-science drive to increase public awareness on the effects of light pollution. Citizen scientists are invited to assess the brightness of their night sky and send their observations to a website from a computer or smartphone.</p>
<p>Because of a history of the earth being hit by asteroids – huge rocks in space that can result in significant damage upon collision – the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid_initiative.html#.VhthH_mqqko">NASA</a> Asteroid Initiative was launched two years ago. It gives citizens a voice in the decision-making of space exploration to protect the earth from potentially hazardous impacts.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for Africa</h2>
<p>Many countries on the continent have space clubs, astronomy societies, and planetariums associated with educational institutions suitable for teaching and public viewing.</p>
<p>Lay people and volunteers can join space related activities such as recording and identifying changes and features in many solar system bodies. They identify and track solar storms, observe and create light curves of variable stars, take and upload astrophotographs to a database of outer planet images and search images for tracks left by interplanetary dust grains. </p>
<p>Counting stars in certain constellations sometime during a four-day period to determine light pollution is not beyond the ambit of the lay person. </p>
<p>This is potentially an exciting time and opportunity for astronomy and citizen science in Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Donkor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Citizen science will ensure that the skies have no limit when it comes to research, as ordinary people are encouraged to take part in simple acts of exploration.Felix Donkor, Doctoral Researcher, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.