In "Evangelium Vitae" Pope John Paul II calls for a renewal of culture to combat the culture of death. He criticizes various aspects of a pluralistic, liberal society--a type of society that he claims is based on moral relativism and a view of democracy that becomes a substitute for moral law. He maintains that such a view trivializes moral choice. In this essay I argue that John Rawls's notion of a liberal society as an overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines can (...) avoid relativism while allowing for reasonable debate among opposed positions. While Rawls maintains that comprehensive doctrines, including religions, should employ a form of public reason that is not a unique feature of any one comprehensive doctrine, I argue that this requirement is too strong. One is often justified in appealing to features of comprehensive doctrines other than one's own, features that are unique to the doctrines themselves. Such an appeal does not pretend to be neutral as public reason would seem to be. In the final section of the paper I discuss some suggestions made by the Pope regarding actions in civil society that are independent of debates about legal change and suggest some ways in which they might contribute to desired cultural transformation. (shrink)

Behavior analysis, a rapidly growing profession, began with the use and application of conditioning and learning techniques to modify the behavior of children or adults presenting severe management problems, often because of developmental disabilities. Now behavior analysts work in a variety of settings, from clinics and schools to workplaces. Especially since their practice often involves aversive stimuli or punishment, they confront many special ethical challenges. Recently, the Behavior Analysis Certification Board codified a set of ten fundamental ethical guidelines to be (...) followed by all behavior analysts and understood by all students and trainees seeking certification. This book shows readers how to follow the BACB guidelines in action. The authors first describe core ethical principles and then explain each guideline in detail, in easily comprehensible, everyday language. The text is richly illuminated by more than a hundred vivid case scenarios about which the authors pose, and later answer questions for readers. Useful appendices include the BACB Guidelines, an index to them, practice scenarios, and suggested further reading. Practitioners, instructors, supervisors, students, and trainees alike will welcome this invaluable new aid to professional development. (shrink)

First published: Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.

In 2007, there were 182,479 injury-related deaths in the United States — including homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries – making injuries the leading cause of death for persons under age 45. Also in 2007, nearly 30 million Americans suffered a non-fatal injury serious enough to warrant hospital treatment. The lifetime cost of fatal and non-fatal injuries occurring in 2000 is estimated to exceed $400 billion.Efforts to prevent injuries have often focused on changes to the built environment or potentially dangerous products (...) to reduce risks. Building safety into a product or environment — especially in ways that require little or no user action to confer protection — is often more effective than trying to change consumer behavior. For example, improving the crashworthiness of cars through design changes such as air bags, fire-resistant fuel systems, or electronic stability programs, is more effective than simply trying to teach operators to become safer drivers. (shrink)

There were more than 36,000 firearm-related deaths in the U.S. in 2015. Under federal law, a background check is required only for gun purchases from licensed dealers. Research suggests that some persons prohibited from owning a gun turn to private sellers, including those identified online, to attempt to obtain a firearm. State-level approaches to make it more difficult for high-risk persons to purchase or possess firearms include universal background check and gun violence restraining order laws. UBC laws, on the books (...) in 18 states as of the end of 2016, can reduce both homicide and suicide rates. After Colorado adopted a UBC law in 2013, the number of background checks conducted by private sellers for sales occurring at places other than gun shows steadily increased. GVRO laws give law enforcement and families the authority to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from an individual who presents a danger to himself or others during times of crisis, regardless of whether that person has been diagnosed with a mental illness. California enacted a GVRO law in 2014. Data are emerging to suggest the effectiveness of GVRO-type laws at averting suicides and providing an entryway to services. (shrink)

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Until recently, no federal appellate court had ever struck down any gun law as a violation of the Second Amendment. In fact, even laws outlawing most handgun possession, or restricting other types of firearms, had been upheld, in part, because the laws did not interfere with (...) the functioning of state militias.Then, in 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court — for the first time in nearly 70 years — decided a case squarely addressing the meaning of the Second Amendment. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court concluded that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to own handguns in the home, invalidating a Washington, D.C. law.But Heller left many issues undecided, including the precise scope of the Second Amendment. (shrink)

In our experience, public health practitioners seeking to address a health problem often have just two very basic questions about the law: how can I use the law to create new interventions, or improve existing ones, to protect the public’s health; and will the law prevent me from successfully implementing certain interventions? In this way, the law is seen as either an opportunity for intervention to affect a public health problem, or an obstacle to enacting or implementing a desired intervention.In (...) addition, because some public health practitioners may not fully understand the intricacies of a given legal area, some possible obstacles to intervention may be either real or perceived. A real legal obstacle is not necessarily an insurmountable one, but it does have genuine legal force. A perceived obstacle has little, if any, true legal application to a given kind of intervention. (shrink)

For at least the past three decades, injuries have been recognized as an important public health problem in the United States. In 2001, there were approximately 157,000 deaths due to injuries in the US. There were also almost 30 million non-fatal injury incidents.Injuries have been defined as: “…any unintentional or intentional damage to the body resulting from acute exposure to thermal, mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen”. Within public health, the (...) field of injury prevention and control is dedicated to reducing the burden of injuries on the lives of people around the world.Injury prevention seeks to reduce injuries by: 1) identifying risk factors, 2) designing interventions to address the risk factors, 3) implementing those interventions, 4) evaluating their effectiveness, and 5) replicating those that work. As with many other public health problems, interventions can target factors associated with the human or host, vehicle or vector, and the physical or social environment. (shrink)

Supplementing the best-selling textbook, Analyzing Ethics Questions from Behavior Analysts, this book analyzes over 50 original and up-to-date ethics cases recently faced by behavior analysts. The workbook provides "solutions" to each question written by the most expert professionals in the field using the Behavior Analyst Certification Board® Ethics Code. Covering all ten sections of the code and designed to allow the reader to see the original question, respond given their knowledge of the Code, and then compare their answers with the (...) authors' answers at the back of the book, Jon S. Bailey and Mary R. Burch provide the necessary guided practice for both students and clinicians to improve ethical competency in behavior analysis. (shrink)

On April 16, 2007, Cho Seung-Hui used two semiautomatic handguns to kill 32 persons and then himself at Virginia Tech University in the largest campus shooting in U.S. history. Mr. Cho purchased his handguns from a pawnshop and a gun store in Virginia, where under state law a background check was conducted to determine whether he had any disqualifying criminal or mental health history. The paperwork for the background check was completed at the gun store, and the check itself was (...) conducted through an “instant” system facilitated by a toll-free telephone number. The entire transaction took approximately 20 minutes. At no point was Mr. Cho asked why he wished to purchase the guns. And although he had been deemed a potential danger to himself by a state magistrate in 2005 – which should have disqualified his purchase of a gun under federal law – this information never reached those conducting the background check. (shrink)

The acceptability of sentences in natural language is constrained not only grammaticality, but also by the relationship between what is being conveyed and such factors as context and the beliefs of interlocutors. In many languages the critical element in a sentence (its focus) must be given grammatical prominence. There are different accounts of the nature of focus marking. Some researchers treat it as the grammatical realization of a potentially arbitrary feature of universal grammar and do not provide an explicit account (...) of its origins; others have argued, however, that focus marking is a (grammaticalized) functional solution to the problem of efficiently transmitting information via a noisy channel. By adding redundancy to highlight critical elements in particular, focus protects key parts of the message from noise. If this information‐theoretic account is true, then we should expect focus‐like behavior to emerge even in non‐linguistic communication systems given sufficient noise and pressures for efficiency. We tested this in an experiment in which participants played a simple communication game in which they had to click cells on a grid to communicate one of two line figures drawn across the grid. We manipulated the noise, available time, and required effort, and measured patterns of redundancy. Because the lines in many cases overlapped, meaning that only some parts of each line could be used to distinguish it from the other, we were able to compare the extent to which effort was expended on adding redundancy to critical (non‐overlapping) and non‐critical (overlapping) parts of the message. The results supported the information‐theoretic account of focus and shed light on the emergence of information structure in language. (shrink)

This practical textbook will enable students training to become registered behavior technicians (RBTs) to fully understand and follow the new RBT Ethics Code administered by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). Starting with an overview of the role of ethics and core ethical principles, subsequent chapters provide concrete guidance for each of the three sections of the RBT Ethics Code: responsible conduct, responsibility to clients, and competence and service delivery. The authors then show correct and incorrect applications of each code (...) item and provide practical examples and solutions for applying each section to everyday practice. Also included are test questions where RBTs can test themselves on their newfound knowledge along with a glossary, the complete RBT Code of Ethics, and suggested readings. This book is intended to serve as a primary text for the training of Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs) as well as a reference and study guide for these RBTs as well as their trainers. (shrink)

Firearms were associated with 30,136 deaths in the United States in 2003; of these, 11,920 were homicides. For every firearm homicide, there are four people who suffer non-fatal firearm assaults. Like many other consumer products in the US, most guns are initially sold to the public through a network of retail dealers. Persons in the business of selling firearms must obtain a federal firearm dealer's license. There were more than 54,000 federally licensed gun dealers in the United States in 2005, (...) though this reflects a seventy-eight percent decline since 1994. Some states also require a state license to sell firearms.Licensed firearm dealers are an important source of guns for criminals and gun traffickers. In one analysis of gun trafficking investigations conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, licensed dealers accounted for a plurality of all guns diverted to the illegal market. (shrink)

Following the tragic shootings in Newtown, Aurora, Isla Vista and others, increased national attention has focused on the relationship between mental illness and gun violence. While some have called for enhanced regulation of firearm possession by persons with mental illness, others have argued that such actions would be ineffective and enhance stigma associated with mental illness while discouraging treatment seeking.

Firearm violence is a major public health problem in the United States. In 2000, firearms were used in 10,801 homicides – two-thirds of all homicides in the U.S. – and 533,470 non-fatal criminal victimizations including rapes, robberies, and assaults. The social costs of gun violence in the United States are also staggering, and have been estimated to be on the order of $100 billion per year.Illegal gun carrying, usually concealed, in public places is an important risk factor for firearm-related crime. (...) In the 1980s and 1990s, police departments across the country began to develop and implement strategies to address illegal weapons carrying. Often these strategies have involved aggressive efforts to identify and physically search individuals suspected of illegally carrying a firearm. (shrink)

Worldwide, obesity has become a major cause of preventable death, disease, and disability. While the epidemic of obesity is a significant public health issue in many developed nations, the United States has the highest prevalence of obesity among adults and children internationally. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimates that over 60 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “overweight” refers to adults whose body mass index, a number calculated (...) using weight and height measurements, is between 25 and 29.9. “Obese” refers to adults whose BMI is 30 or higher. Among American children and adolescents, approximately 17 percent are overweight. (shrink)

Objectives:Over the past two decades, all U.S. states have incorporated alcohol ignition interlock technology into sentencing laws for individuals convicted of driving while intoxicated. This article provides the first 50-state summary of these laws to include changes in the laws over time and their effective dates. This information is critical for policy makers to make informed decisions and for researchers to conduct quantitative evaluation of the laws.Methods:Standard legal research and legislative history techniques were used, including full-text searches in the Westlaw (...) legal database and identification of state session laws. Because ignition interlock device laws often change over time, we identified the date of each law's initial enactment as well as the effective date of each law in its current form.Results:Beginning with California and Washington in 1987, all 50 states have enacted IID laws as a sentencing option for DWI offenders. Initially, most of these laws were discretionary. Today, however, 48 states mandate IID installation for at least some types of DWI offenders to maintain lawful driving privileges. Of these, 27 mandate an IID for all offenders; seven mandate an IID for repeat offenders only; and 21 for some combination of specific groups of DWI offenders, including repeat offenders, offenders with a blood alcohol content above a legislatively-specified level, and aggravated offenders.Conclusion:States have wrestled with a number of IID policy issues, including for whom to mandate IIDs and whether to suspend a license for DWI prior to reinstating driving privileges with or without an IID. By understanding how state interlock laws differ, policy makers and researchers can ultimately better ascertain the impact of these laws. (shrink)

Bicycle helmets protect against head injury. Mandatory helmet laws likely increase their use. Although 21 states and Washington, DC have mandatory helmet laws for youth bicyclists, no U.S. state has a mandatory helmet law that applies to all ages; however, some localities have all-age helmet laws for bicyclists. This study abstracted local helmet laws applicable to all-ages to examine their elements.

Law plays a critical role in all stages of a public health emergency, including planning, response, and recovery. Public health emergencies introduce health concerns at the population level through, for example, the emergence of a novel infectious disease. In the United States, at the federal, state, and local levels, laws provide an infrastructure for public health emergency preparedness and response efforts: they grant the government the ability to officially declare an emergency, authorize responders to act, and facilitate interjurisdictional coordination. Law (...) is perhaps most visible during an emergency when the president or a state's governor issues a disaster declaration establishing the temporal and geographic parameters for the response and making financial and other resources available. This legal authority has increasingly been used during the last decade. (shrink)

When a disaster occurs, adults over age 65 may be disproportionately impacted due to sensory deficits, chronic health conditions, diminished social support and isolation, and financial limitations. Although older adults comprised approximately 15 percent of the New Orleans population, they accounted for over 70 percent of the fatalities associated with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Disasters can also impact older adults’ morbidity, as a disaster may disrupt established habits and routines and result in removal from a familiar environment, promoting disorientation. This (...) may raise particular challenges for older adults with mental and physical co-morbidities, and subsequently for their formal and informal caregivers.While some older adults may need care for physical health problems following a disaster, mental health needs are often overlooked or unmet. One study of Hurricane Katrina survivors found that, compared to older adults, middle-aged individuals were twice as likely to have received mental health services in the eight months after the hurricane. (shrink)

State health departments are at the core of the United States public health infrastructure. Surveillance to monitor trends in disease and injury; the development, coordination, and delivery of services; and public education are some of the core functions health department employees oversee every day. As such, agencies and their employees are well positioned to inform policy decisions that affect the public’s health. However, little is known about the role of health department staff — a sizeable proportion of the public health (...) workforce — as advocates for public health policies, independent of their agency roles. Anecdotally, some health department employees with whom we have spoken expressed reluctance to engage in policy advocacy for fear of violating little known or understood agency or state rules. (shrink)

Leveraging a massive dataset of over 400 million potential matches between single heterosexuals on a leading mobile dating application we were able to identify numerous characteristics of effective matching. Effective matching is defined as the exchange of contact information with the intent to meet in person. The characteristics of effective match include alignment of psychological traits (i.e. extroversion), physical traits (i.e. height), personal choices (i.e., the relationship type they desired), and shared experiences. For nearly all characteristics, the more similar the (...) individuals were the higher the likelihood of them finding each other desirable and opting to meet in person. The only exception was introversion, where introverts rarely had an effective match with other introverts. Additionally, we investigated the preliminary stages of the choice process. We looked at the consistency between the choice of men/women, the time it took users to make these binary choices and the tendency of yes/no decisions. We used a biologically-inspired choice model to estimate the time allotted to a decision and could predict the decision and response time with nearly 60% accuracy. Given that people make their initial selection within no more than 11 seconds and ultimately converge to a partner who shares numerous attributes with them, we suggest that users are less selective in their early preferences and gradually converge to clusters with high degree of similarity in characteristics during their conversation. (shrink)

Drug-impaired driving is a growing problem in the U.S. States regulate drug-impaired driving in different ways. Some do not name specific drugs or amounts. Others do identify specific drugs and may regulate cannabis separately. We provide up-to-date information about these state laws.

Meister Eckhart has been a huge influence on spirituality for more than 800 years. This book of meditations is for people seeking the 'wayless way.' It is not for those looking for a simple path. These fresh, stunning renderings of Eckhart's writings in poetic form bring life to one of the great spiritual voices of any age. They reveal what it means to love God and find meaning in darkness-not darkness in general, but your darkness. Only when you are in (...) the darkness, Meister says, do you have even the possibility of seeing the light. (shrink)

This article discusses the effects of the OECD Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, which was signed in 1997 and is due to be implemented by the signatory nation‐states this year. The Convention represents the expansion of legal measures to combat the bribery of foreign public officials by individuals or corporations, and it has been accompanied by the Organisation of American States’ Convention Against Corruption. Previously the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act , which applied only to United States (...) individuals or corporations, ‘stood alone in the world as a legal barrier to transnational bribery’ . This article proceeds in stages to evaluate implications of the Convention. Firstly the Convention is placed in the context of the increased focus on transnational business bribery in recent years. Second, the main points of the Convention are outlined. Third, the issues and problems posed by the Convention for business are discussed. Finally some themes regarding enforcement by the relevant authorities are outlined. (shrink)

Increasing geographical mobility and international travel augment the ease and speed by which infectious diseases can spread across large distances. It is therefore incumbent upon each state to ensure that immunisation programmes are effective and that herd immunity is achieved. Across Europe, a range of immunisation policies exist: compulsion, the offer of financial incentives to parents or healthcare professionals, social and professional pressure, or simply the dissemination of clear information and advice. Until recently, immunisation against particular communicable diseases was compulsory (...) in Italy. The Italian National Vaccination Plan paved the way for regions to suspend the sanctions associated with compulsory vaccinations for children when certain criteria are met—for example when immunisation coverage is high and when effective monitoring/surveillance systems are in place—and thus marked a milestone in the move from compulsory to voluntary immunisation. The forthcoming NVP for 2008–10 confirms the liberal approach to vaccination in Italy as it entrusts to the regions responsibility for the achievement and maintenance of herd immunity. This paper reviews the arguments for and against compulsory and voluntary immunisation in relation to the Italian NVP and in the context of the diverse immunisation policies that exist across Europe. It concludes with cautious support for the NVP and an associated shift from compulsory to voluntary immunisation in Italy, and draws similarities between issues concerning regional variation in immunisation policy in Italy and national variation in immunisation policy across Europe and beyond. (shrink)

An onslaught of ethically questionable actions by top government, business, and religious leaders during the 1980s has brought the issue of ethics in decision making to the forefront of public consciousness. This study examines the ethical orientation of university students in four decision-making situations. The dependent variable — ethical orientation toward work-related decisions — is measured through student responses to questions following four work-related vignettes. Possible responses to each vignette are structured to permit categorization of respondents into two broad orientations: (...) egoistic and ethical. Independent variables are academic major, ethics in business orientation, gender, and religiosity. Generally, students tended to choose an ethical orientation over an egoistic orientation in each vignette. Business majors were generally no less likely to choose an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than nonbusiness majors. Respondents characterized by moral unity (belief in the consistency between general ethical principles and work-related ethical standards) were more likely to have an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than those subscribing to the amoral theory of business. Females showed a consistent tendency to be more ethically oriented toward work-related decisions than males. Finally, respondents high on religiosity tended to be more ethically oriented. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Tiny Person, Big ImpactT.S. MoranI met J on a Tuesday, the second day of my new job as the pediatric oncology social worker. Five days later, he died.Although J was 8 months old, he seemed tiny, like a preemie. When I saw him, he was snuggled into the shoulder of the attending physician. It was evident that one of his diagnoses was failure to thrive. He also had what (...) was thought to be a low-grade glioma of the optic pathway, and despite months of treatment, he was declining. It was clear that the team cared for J very much. They visited him, held him, played with him, and sang lullabies to him in Spanish. I was so impressed by their compassion.J had spent about half of his short life at the hospital. He was born prematurely to a young mother, herself in foster care. His mother had numerous obstacles preventing her from visiting often and it did not seem that she bonded well with him. J's mother stated that her boyfriend discouraged her from visiting. She did not have transportation and declined offers of hospital-funded Uber rides. She had little prenatal care or education about becoming a mother.J's mother seemed guarded in her interactions; hesitant to reveal anything that might show her vulnerability. The team was frustrated as it seemed she was not receptive to their efforts. The team was also concerned that she did not fully understand J's condition due to her poor health literacy, despite the use of a certified language interpreter. Still, when she did visit, she was kind and caring and stated that she did not want her foster mother involved in providing J's care.Part of my job was to help prepare the family for discharge to home. I had been speaking to their caseworker from Child Protective Services. She was a strong advocate for both mother and baby. After several meetings with the team that included J's mother and the caseworker, J's mother accepted his prognosis. She was willing to provide care at home with hospice support. She came to the unit several times that week to receive training about his care needs. The hospice nursing visit was scheduled, and J and his mother left the hospital on a Friday.The caseworker called on Monday to tell us that J had passed away peacefully on Sunday. The reaction on the unit was palpable. New residents and seasoned chiefs were teary-eyed and sighing. To some, it seemed like a relief. Given the team's extraordinary care and concern shown to this family, I was not surprised by their emotions.What surprised me was my level of grief. I had spent the 12 years prior serving adult hospice patients; I understood end-of-life care and death's eventuality. I thought I was well prepared. This experience was different from my past. I was able to cope with an adult patient's passing without much distress, accepting that most adults had lived a full life.I felt grief for the team who had invested in J, and for his short life filled with illness and pain. I felt grief for his mother, who had experienced a horrific childhood, had lost her innocence too young, and had been robbed of the opportunity to experience joyful parenting. [End Page 82]The chief recognized the team's need for support and quickly organized a "debriefing." A lot of the team participated, even those who only had brief contact with J. Everyone had a chance to reflect on their experience in caring for this child. Because of my hospice training, I was included. I validated their loss, their efforts, and their love for J. I provided basic grief education, enumerating their possible reactions of sadness, anger, frustration, fatigue, confusion, or numbness, and this helped me to feel like I also contributed to his care. I encouraged self-care—from taking time off, to lingering over an extra cup of tea, to speaking about their experience with me or another social worker.When I spoke about my feelings to my coworkers, they were understanding and acknowledged... (shrink)

The Anthropology of Sport and Human Movement represents a collection of work that reveals and explores the often times dramatic relationship of our biology and culture that is inextricably woven into a tapestry of movement patterns. It explores the underpinning of human movement, reflected in play, sport, games and human culture from an evolutionary perspective and contemporary expression of sport and human movement.

Until approximately twenty years ago, advances in the study of human genetics had little influence on the practice of medicine. In the 1980s, this changed dramatically with the mapping of the altered genes that cause cystic fibrosis and Huntington disease. In just a few years, these discoveries led to DNA-based tests that enabled clinicians to determine whether prospective parents were carriers of CF or whether an individual carried the Huntington gene and, as a result, would almost certainly develop the disease.Observers (...) interested in the social and economic implications of genetic technology realized that such genetic tests could be used by insurance companies to predict which insurance applicants were likely to become ill or even die from these diseases. (shrink)