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Pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) have been shown to influence the prescribing patterns of physicians. Some of the blame has been shifted from physicians to PSRs due to perceived inadequacies in PSRs' education and certification. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature regarding the current certification requirements for PSRs, motivation for nationally standardized certification and the controversy surrounding pharmaceutical detailing impact on physicians' prescribing behavior.

Articles related to certification for PSRs were identified via searches of PubMed and IPA from inception to March 2011. Search terms included PSRs, PSRs certification, PSRs registration, PSRs education, and PSRs requirements. Articles describing the roles and responsibilities of PSRs, physician and public perception of PSRs, certification processes, and the future of PSRs' roles were included. An internet search was also performed to identify articles in the lay press related to this topic.

This paper shows that the certification for PSRs may become necessary, or even required, to help ensure that the prescribing patterns of physicians are not negatively affected due to false information coming from the PSRs. Therefore, ensuring that PSRs are well certified can lead to better health outcomes for patients. Although pharmaceutical companies do not require certification to gain employment as a sales representative, the certification provides a good knowledge base and insight into the industry.

The paper shows that appropriate training and certification of PSRs may be on the rise for this career path.

Successive policy documents concerning older people's health and well‐being have aimed to improve their care, by raising standards and promoting independence. These policies also emphasise the need for research to prevent disability, and reduce admission to hospitals and long‐term care settings. This paper reports an evaluation in progress of a health technology approach designed to achieve these objectives. An ‘expert system’ is described that is intended to improve older people's access to health and social care information, to enable service providers to review the health and social care needs of older people, and to allow planners to assess the needs of whole populations. The paper ends by inviting discussion and responses from readers of this journal.

Using two main research questions, the purpose of this paper is to examine well-being and preparedness among Cambodian and Laotian immigrants living near the Gulf Coast of the USA, and the ways in which indicators such as sense of community and risk perception are related to these constructs.

This study employed a cross-sectional prospective design to examine disaster preparedness and well-being among Laotian and Cambodian immigrant communities. Quantitative survey data using purposive snowball sampling were collected throughout several months in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana.

Results from two multiple regressions revealed that sense of community and age contributed to well-being and were significant in the model, but with a negative relationship between age and well-being. Risk perception, confidence in government, confidence in engaging household preparedness and ability to cope with a financial crisis were significant predictors and positively related to disaster preparedness.

Well-being and disaster preparedness can be bolstered through community-based planning that seeks to address urgent needs of the people residing in vulnerable coastal locations. Specifically, immigrants who speak English as a second language, elder individuals and households in the lowest income brackets should be supported in disaster planning and outreach.

Cambodian and Laotian American immigrants rely upon the Gulf Coast’s waters for fishing, crab and shrimp income. Despite on-going hazard and disasters, few studies address preparedness among immigrant populations in the USA. This study fills a gap in preparedness research as well as factors associated with well-being, an important aspect of long-term resilience.

This study aims to examine how change in white college students’ beliefs about race over the course of a semester impacted their interactions with diverse others. While there is an increasing interest in understanding people's beliefs about race, there has been limited research examining how people’s beliefs about race can and do change over time and how education can facilitate this change.

White students (N = 98) at a predominantly white college completed a multidimensional racial essentialism measure and measures of both self-report and behavioral interactions with diversity, at the beginning and end of a semester. Multilevel modeling with time-varying predictors was used to examine how change in beliefs about race related to change in diversity interactions.

The impact of racial essentialism on student diversity interaction varied considerably depending on the type of racial essentialism. Higher levels of speciation and genotypic essentialism at Time 1 were related to lower interaction with diversity at Time 2. Decreases in phenotypic essentialism were concurrent with increases in diversity interaction over the duration of the semester. For a subgroup of students enrolled in a race and diversity course, unexpectedly, decreases in genotypic essentialism were concurrent with decreases in diversity interaction.

By using a multidimensional model of beliefs about race with a longitudinal assessment, this study contributes to our understanding of how specific components of beliefs about race change over time and how change in these beliefs occurs concurrently with students’ diverse interactions. The findings are discussed in relation to the impact of education on students’ peer interactions with diverse others, with specific implications for race and diversity pedagogy.

This chapter aims to advance understandings of agency and embodiment by considering the relationship between identifying as a feminist and choosing to engage in sexually submissive practices with men.

Thematic analysis of seven feminist-identified women’s solicited diaries and follow-up interviews are paired with a feminist phenomenological framework of agency and embodiment in order to highlight how inhabiting and investing in dominant heterosexual norms is a means of locating oneself in one’s own desires and sexuality.

Engaging in sexual submission as a feminist can be met with feelings of guilt and a sense of justification; a number of participants questioned whether these sexual choices put their political identity in crisis or open to critique. Others felt that their choice to be submissive warranted no problematization – even if the female, feminist subject inhabits dominant heterosexual norms surrounding what it means to be a woman as defined by heteronormative, patriarchal terms.

The present study is part of a broader PhD project based on heterosexuality and feminism in practice, where choosing submission also occurs between instances of sex (in everyday encounters with men) and beyond the context of sex (within the broader context of a romantic relationship). As such, choosing submission within the context of sex is only one aspect of this much more complex relationship.

This chapter aims to contribute to a growing body of literature that considers the way agency is conceptualized and in doing so, offers empirical evidence to show these theories are applicable to sexual practices as well as understandings of gender and feminism.

In the context of organizational change, identifying, and organizing the various roles of change agents remains a challenge for practitioners and scholars alike. This chapter examines how different agents can enable an effective change process. Empirical evidence from three hospitals illustrates the process of transformation and its underlying arrangements to identify agents and their roles. The findings underline the importance of designing a coherent system of agents, determining where they come from, their role during the process, and how this may change throughout the change process. Managerial choices in the cases are discussed, leading to implications for theory and practice.

This chapter explores two policies guiding the education and funding related to students with and without disabilities in the United States. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 serves as the nation's primary legislation outlining policies, procedures and funding for the education of students with disabilities. Thus, IDEA 2004 is integral in understanding inclusion throughout the United States. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 is regarded as the primary educational legislation concerned with funding to provide all students with access to a well-rounded education. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the laws in relation to inclusion and funding for teacher professional development (PD) and argues in support of funding specifically aimed at the PD of highly effective classroom teachers. Preparing, recruiting and retaining high quality teacher candidates must be a top priority in PK-12 education. In the current political climate, there is a need to examine how to use available resources in a time of shrinking budgets, teacher shortages and increasing equity gaps.

This chapter will examine budgets from the most recent five years available and make connections to issues related to funding for inclusive programming, including professional development of teachers. While ESSA does not guide PD of teachers, it guides the funding for said programmes. Through budget evaluations and analysis of the President's rationale for decreasing funding under Title II of ESSA, we demonstrate that the current President is decreasing funds for PD, recruitment, preparation and more on the basis that Title I funding of ESSA covers these activities. With a new election set to take place next year, this chapter explores how the budgets have impacted funding for inclusive programming while looking to the future and its impact on the preparation and development of teachers.

This paper examines the implications of the disability rights critique of prenatal testing on the development of genetic policy and abortion rights. It traces the reappearance of the disabled body in public deliberations over reproductive and genetic politics that use disability to frame arguments about which bodies are worthy of protection, how and why we limit reproductive choices, and what reasons women may use to terminate their pregnancies. The disability critique of prenatal testing and selective abortion finds itself in productive tension with reproductive rights politics, which increasingly features disability in both pro-life and pro-choice messages. The uneasy alliance between disability and pro-life interests has profound implications for both disability legal scholarship and the sociolegal inquiry into the role of rights articulation – and rejection – by social movements.

This descriptive qualitative study explores how working conditions impact the health of taxi drivers in Toronto, Canada.

Drivers were recruited between September 2016 and March 2017. A total of 14 semi-structured qualitative interviews and one focus group (n = 11) were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed inductively through a socioecological lens.

The findings of this study are as follows: drivers acknowledged that job precariousness (represented by unstable employment, long hours and low wages) and challenging workplace conditions (sitting all day and limited breaks) contribute to poor physical/mental health. Also, these conditions undermine opportunities to engage in health-protective behaviors (healthy eating, regularly exercising and taking breaks). Drivers do not receive health-enabling reinforcements from religious/cultural networks, colleagues or their taxi brokerage. Drivers do seek support from their primary care providers and family for their physical health but remain discreet about their mental health.

As this study relied on a convenience sample, the sample did not represent all Toronto taxi drivers. All interviews were completed in English and all drivers were male, thus limiting commentary on other experiences and any gender differences in health management approaches among drivers.

Given the global ubiquity of taxi driving and an evolving workplace environment characterized by growing competition, findings are generalizable across settings and may resonate with other precarious professions, including long-haul truck operators and Uber/Lyft drivers. Findings also expose areas for targeted intervention outside the workplace setting.

Health management among taxi drivers is understudied. A fulsome, socioecological understanding of how working conditions (both within and outside the workplace) impact their health is essential in developing targeted interventions to improve health outcomes.