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Health-seeking behaviors (HSB) for infertility are influenced my multiple factors. The Behavioral Model of Health Services Utilization states that enabling resources and predisposing factors are essential in predicting HSB, and this study examined the relationship between state-level mandates that insurance providers cover infertility service on the rates of HSB for infertility among a nationally representative sample of women.

This study used data from the National Survey of Family Growth, identified 15 states with state-level mandates as enabling resources, and used sociodemographic characteristics as predisposing resources. Using discrete-time event-history analyses, and retrospective accounts of infertility HSB, these variables were examined to determine if residing in a state with state-level insurance mandates would increase the likelihood of HSB for infertility.

Results indicated an impact of state-level mandates on HSB for infertility. Specifically, the rates of HSB for infertility were higher among women residing in states with state-level mandates.

A limitation in this research stems from a data restriction that forced identifying a place-of-residence before or after 2000. To overcome this, multiple analyses, and a nested model comparison were tested to measure the effect of state-level mandates on HSB.

The comparative analysis of the rates of HSB for women residing in states with state-level mandates has not been considered before, and the results provide further detail into the infertility experience for women and their partners.

This article addresses the problems and opportunities of on-site cost estimation of state mandates on the law enforcement and justice system in five Arizona counties. On-site cost estimation was time consuming and costly, involving a great deal of travel with numerous return visits to conduct hundreds of interviews with county staff throughout 68 departments. Estimates are based on qualitative as well as quantitative data and thus limited to conveying a general sense of the costs of carrying out a mandate in a given year. On-site data collection also provided opportunities to gain new perspectives on the workings of the law-justice system, on state-county funding arrangements, on the need to view the law-justice system as an interrelated whole, and on the utility of considering community value along with costs of the law-justice system.

Ten years after the first comprehensive review of fiscal noting in the states, revisiting the impact of cost analysis on unfunded state mandates yields pessimistic conclusions. More states have adopted fiscal noting over the period, yet few report that the process is successful. The majority of fiscal notes contain no cost estimates at all for a variety of reasons, including lack of time, lack of resources, lack of legislative attention, and perhaps lack of institutional capacity.

As of 2011, the average US state had 37 health insurance benefit mandates, laws requiring health insurance plans to cover a specific treatment, condition, provider, or person. This number is a massive increase from less than one mandate per state in 1965, and the topic takes on a new significance now, when the federal government is considering many new mandates as part of the “essential health benefits” required by the Affordable Care Act. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors use fixed effects estimation on 1996-2010 data to determine why some states pass more mandates than others.

The authors find that the political strength of health care providers is the strongest determinant of mandates.

A large body of literature has attempted to evaluate the effect of mandates on health, health insurance, and the labor market. However, previous papers did not consider the political processes behind the passage of mandates. In fact, when they estimate the laws’ effect, almost all papers on the subject assume that mandates are passed at random. The paper opens the way to estimating the causal effect of mandates on health insurance and the labor market using an instrumental variables strategy that incorporates political information about why mandates get passed.

Policymakers often mandate and regulate the network formation to tackle complex issues of public interest. However, the imposed legal, procedural, and political constraints (i.e. mandated specifications) can affect the structuring and functioning of these networks and thus the sustainability and effectiveness of the collaboration over time. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how mandated specifications affect the formation of public networks.

Four networks of healthcare providers were selected and studied from the inception of the collaboration until the services’ activation, focusing specifically on how mandated specifications (i.e. mandated purpose, mechanisms for access to resources, structure, and timing) affected their processes of formation.

The cases show that mandated purpose facilitates goal alignment within the networks. The leeway granted to the actors for access and internal distribution of resources enhances the network flexibility, if appropriate monitoring against opportunism is applied. If structuring requirements are too stringent and the actors are forced to respect timing constraints that go against the organic evolution of internal relationships, the network capability to adapt and solve conflicts could be jeopardized.

Based on the findings, the authors formulate four propositions about the impact that mandated specifications have on the process of network formation, which policymakers should be aware of, when deciding to instigate a network.

The purpose of this paper is to examine two channels through which accounting standard differences could affect cross-listing: compliance costs and/or comparability benefits.

The authors use two settings to disentangle the two channels. First, financial reporting requirements are more stringent for cross-listings via direct listings than cross-listings via depositary receipts; as a result, the effect of compliance costs (if any) would be manifested differently in the two venues of cross-listings. Second, some host countries allow foreign firms to report under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) without mandating IFRS for domestic firms; compared to host countries that mandate IFRS for both domestic and foreign firms, these IFRS-permitting countries provide a setting to test the importance of comparability benefits while holding constant compliance costs.

The authors find that prior to IFRS adoption, direct listings decrease with accounting standards differences between two countries while depositary receipts increase with such differences, consistent with the costs of complying with host country’s accounting standards affecting firms’ cross-listing decisions. After the harmonization of accounting standards, the authors find that IFRS-mandating host countries gain cross-listings from other IFRS-mandating jurisdictions, while IFRS-permitting countries do not experience such gains. These combined results suggest that accounting related compliance costs and comparability benefits both influence cross-listing decisions.

The paper employs unique settings that enable an in-depth examination of the role of compliance costs vs that of comparability benefits on cross-listing decisions. The settings employed by the authors allow them to disentangle the two channels and provide an important insight that accounting standard-related compliance costs and comparability benefits both affect cross-listing decisions.

Contrary to the popular view of mandates as rigid and dictatorial mechanisms, this article advances a view of mandates as mechanisms for cooperation and negotiation. The relationship between several state and local actors is investigated in Maryland, particularly within the context of the development of a "loosely" mandated public health program, the Targeted Funding Program (TFP). An analysis of the TFP and the actors involved in the program's development demonstrates how this program is designed to achieve much more than increased fiscal responsibility. The TFP is designed, and continues to be redesigned, to meet the political and professional objectives of various elected and appointed officials at the state and local levels.

One explanation for why people wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 focuses on political party affiliation. This study explores the role of values in attempts by five South Dakota cities to pass local mask mandates.

A nonrandom convenience sample used search engines to find documents on mask mandates in South Dakota. The working hypotheses are: (1) the debate over mask mandates is a form of value conflict over freedom of choice and the role of government that reflect those held by Emerson, Thoreau, and Spencer and (2) the mandates themselves prescribe Value-Rational rather than Instrumental-Rational action to control the pandemic.

Antimaskers valued freedom of choice, and were willing to defy authority while promasker health professionals valued science and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the health of their patients. South Dakota cities encouraged mask wearing but did not include penalties for noncompliance. The vociferous opposition to the mask mandates resembles the opposition cities encountered when deciding to fluoridate drinking water in the 1950s and 1960s.

A case study cannot be generalized and may reflect sampling and researcher bias. Future research could include a content analysis of documents and videos presenting both sides of the debate.

This case study may provide the first in-depth analysis of values in the masking debate.

Purpose – Patient safety and adverse events continue to present significant challenges to the US health care delivery system. Mandated reporting of adverse events can be a mechanism to “coerce” hospitals to identify, evaluate, and ultimately improve the quality and safety of patient care. The objective of this study is to determine if the coercion of mandated reporting impacts hospital patient safety scores.

Methods – We utilize the US News and World Report 2012–2013 Best Hospital Rankings which includes patient safety data from US teaching hospitals. The dependent variable is a composite measure of six indicators of patient safety during and after surgery. The independent variable is state mandated reporting of hospital adverse events. Three control variables are included: Magnet accreditation status, surgical volume, and the percentage of surgical admissions.

Findings – Using ordered logistic regression (n = 670 hospitals) we find a positive, but not significant, relationship between state mandated reporting and better patient safety scores.

Implications – This finding suggests that regulatory policy may not actually prompt performance improvement, and our data point to the need for further study of both formal and informal processes to manage patient safety within the hospital.

Originality – While increased reporting of adverse events has been linked to hospitals providing safer care, no research to date has examined whether or not state-level mandates actually lead to improvements in patient safety.

This chapter outlines libraries’ (and librarians’) changing identities in the new world of research mandates from funders, institutions, and publishers. As libraries respond to the demands of these mandates on their users at the individual, departmental, and institutional levels, they need to revise their approaches to relationship building and user engagement, as well as maintain flexibility in the face of changing roles and skill requirements. This chapter will (1) outline the changing scholarly ecosystem; (2) summarize major terms and concepts to understand the process of producing research outputs; (3) discuss the perspectives of the major players in the research enterprise; (4) present some of the challenges that research mandates and the changing research environment have brought to libraries; and finally (5) review ways in which libraries have successfully addressed them. The focus here is on the academic research setting, although many of the strategies outlined can be equally applicable in both non-academic research and non-research funding contexts.