Democracy, Trust, and Political Orientation: Disentangling Mechanisms Shaping Individuals' Vaccine Attitudes.

Context: In recent decades, many countries experienced a reduction in the quality and functioning of democratic institutions and norms, accompanied by rising social distrust and opposing political views. The decline in vaccine confidence might be linked to these trends. This study explores the political factors influencing individual attitudes towards vaccination across 22 upper-middle-income and high-income countries, examining the interaction between political orientation, trust in public health authorities, and levels of democracy.

Impact of vaccine mandates and removals on COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Australia and international comparators: a study protocol.

Background: Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 was a crucial public health measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the multiple strategies developed to increase vaccine uptake, governments often employed vaccine mandates. However, little evidence exists globally about the impact of these mandates and their subsequent removal on vaccine uptake, including in Australia, France, Italy and the USA.

Are we ready for the next pandemic? Public preferences and trade-offs between vaccine characteristics and societal restrictions across 21 countries.

In vaccination decisions, individuals must weigh the benefits against the risks of remaining unvaccinated and potentially facing social restrictions. Previous studies have focused on individual preferences for vaccine characteristics and societal restrictions separately. This study aims to quantify public preferences and the potential trade-offs between vaccine characteristics and societal restrictions, including lockdowns and vaccine mandates, in the context of a future pandemic.

Willingness to participate in placebo-controlled surgical trials of the knee.

Aims: Surgeon and patient reluctance to participate are potential significant barriers to conducting placebo-controlled trials of orthopaedic surgery. Understanding the preferences of orthopaedic surgeons and patients regarding the design of randomized placebo-controlled trials (RCT-Ps) of knee procedures can help to identify what RCT-P features will lead to the greatest participation. This information could inform future trial designs and feasibility assessments.

Patients' Preferences for Cytoreductive Treatments in Newly Diagnosed Metastatic Prostate Cancer: The IP5-MATTER Study.

Background And Objective: Cytoreductive treatments for patients diagnosed with de novo synchronous metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) confer incremental survival benefits over systemic therapy, but these may lead to added toxicity and morbidity. Our objective was to determine patients' preferences for, and trade-offs between, additional cytoreductive prostate and metastasis-directed interventions.

Methods: A prospective multicentre discrete choice experiment trial was conducted at 30 hospitals in the UK between December 3, 2020 and January 25, 2023 (NCT04590976).

Political determinants of COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine rollouts: The case of regional elections in Italy and Spain.

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most significant public health crises in modern history, with considerable impacts on the policy frameworks of national governments. In response to the pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and mass vaccination campaigns have been employed to protect vulnerable groups. Through the lens of Political Budget Cycle (PBC) theory, this study explores the interplay between incumbent electoral concerns and political dynamics in influencing the implementation of NPIs and vaccination rollout within the administrative regions of Italy and Spain during the period spanning June 2020 to July 2021.

Keeping an eye on cost: What can eye tracking tell us about attention to cost information in discrete choice experiments?

Concern has been expressed about including a cost attribute within discrete choice experiments (DCEs) when individuals do not have to pay at the point of consumption. We use eye tracking to investigate attention to cost when valuing publicly financed health care. One-hundred and four individuals completed a DCE concerned with preferences for UK general practitioner appointments: 51 responded to a DCE with cost included and 53 to the same DCE without cost.

Public acceptability of non-pharmaceutical interventions to control a pandemic in the UK: a discrete choice experiment.

Objective: To understand how individuals trade off between features of non-pharmaceutical interventions (eg, lockdowns) to control a pandemic across the four nations of the UK.

Design: A survey that included a discrete choice experiment. The survey design was informed using policy documents, social media analysis and input from remote think-aloud interviews with members of the public (n=23).

Metastatic prostate cancer men's attitudes towards treatment of the local tumour and metastasis evaluative research (IP5-MATTER): protocol for a prospective, multicentre discrete choice experiment study.

Introduction: Systemic therapy with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and intensification with agents such as docetaxel, abiraterone acetate and enzalutamide has resulted in improved overall survival in men with synchronous metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC). Novel local cytoreductive treatments and metastasis-directed therapy are now being evaluated. Such interventions may provide added survival benefit or delay the requirement for further systemic agents and associated toxicity but can confer additional harm.

The role of solar energy and eco-innovation in reducing environmental degradation in China: Evidence from QARDL approach.

In the past decade, researchers have shifted their interests to explore different ways to mitigate environmental degradation. In that context, the present study explores the role of solar energy and eco-innovation in reducing environmental degradation in China. The study utilized data for the period 1990-2018 and applied the latest available econometric technique, a quantile autoregressive distributed lag model, to determine the impacts of solar energy and eco-innovation on improving China's environmental quality.

The trade-off between economic growth and environmental quality: does economic freedom asymmetric matter for Pakistan?

This empirical study investigates the dynamic effects of economic freedom on economic growth and air quality for Pakistan over the period 1990-2019. The ARDL results suggest that economic freedom and other variables do not have any visible impact on economic growth and pollution in the short-run. However, in the long-run, economic freedom significantly mitigates air pollution whereas inflation instability increases emissions.

Weighting or aggregating? Investigating information processing in multi-attribute choices.

Multi-attribute choices are commonly analyzed in economics to value goods and services. Analysis assumes individuals consider all attributes, making trade-offs between them. Such decision-making is cognitively demanding, often triggering alternative decision rules.

Understanding public preferences and trade-offs for government responses during a pandemic: a protocol for a discrete choice experiment in the UK.

Introduction: Social distancing and lockdown measures are among the main government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. These measures aim to limit the COVID-19 infection rate and reduce the mortality rate of COVID-19. Given we are likely to see local lockdowns until a treatment or vaccine for COVID-19 is available, and their effectiveness depends on public acceptability, it is important to understand public preference for government responses.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: Policy and technology impact on health and non-health outcomes.

Background: Italy was the first Western country to experience a major coronavirus outbreak and consequently faced large-scale health and socio-economic challenges. The Italian government enforced a wide set of homogeneous interventions nationally, despite the differing incidences of the virus throughout the country.

Objective: The paper aims to analyse the policies implemented by the government and their impact on health and non-health outcomes considering both scaling-up and scaling-down interventions.

The role of heterogeneity of patients' preferences in kidney transplantation.

We elicit time and risk preferences for kidney transplantation from the entire population of patients of the largest Italian transplant centre using a discrete choice experiment (DCE). We measure patients' willingness-to-wait (WTW) for receiving a kidney with one-year longer expected graft survival, or a low risk of complication. Using a mixed logit in WTW-space model, we find heterogeneity in patients' preferences.