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The ‘fit healthy’ body has been invoked in popular discourse as far less vulnerable to communicable diseases like the novel coronavirus both in mainstream accounts of the pandemic and in more fringe anti-vaccine discourse. Those opposed to vaccination argue the management of the body through diet and exercise allows for natural immune processes to manage COVID-19. This chapter interrogates anti-vaccine sentiment in Western countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States to demonstrate the pervasiveness of discourses that position the maintenance of a ‘fit healthy’ ideal body as an alternative to preventative medicine such as vaccines. Drawing on several key examples, this conceptual chapter explores the ways bodily ‘wellness’ became a part of vaccine hesitancy discourse during the pandemic, as risk is balanced through calculations of what vaccines might ‘do’ to a body and the body’s capacity to respond to illness.

Professional interpreter use improves care in patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) but inequalities in outcomes remain. We explore the experience of US Latinos with LEP and diabetes in language discordant care.

We conducted in-depth interviews of 20 low-income Latino patients with diabetes and LEP. We interviewed participants in Spanish, digitally recorded and transcribed interviews, and read transcripts to identify themes and interpret meanings using interpretive phenomenology as theoretical framework.

While patients preferred, and experienced greater trust in, language concordant clinical encounters, they did not believe that language discordance affected outcomes because they felt that these depended largely on their compliance with physicians’ recommendations. Patients also downplayed structural barriers to care and outcomes. Self-blame was paradoxically encouraged by physicians’ praise vis-à-vis favorable outcomes.

Limitations include small and convenience sample and limited generalizability. However, findings illustrate communicational dynamics between patients and clinicians with important implications for health care practice and policy. They support the perception that trust develops best within language concordant care, which underscores the importance of recruiting clinicians with diverse language skills. They highlight the importance of sensitizing clinicians to the social determinants of health, which may be overlooked when treating patients with conditions requiring substantial self-management, like diabetes. Language barriers in health care must be understood in the broader context of structural inequalities in health care. The necessary emphasis on self-management may (inadvertently) strengthen the hegemonic view that places responsibility for diabetes outcomes on patients’ ability to self-manage their condition to the neglect of social/political determinants of diabetes.

Studies have quantitatively examined the effects of language discordant care on diabetes outcomes, yet few have done so qualitatively. To our knowledge, no study has attempted to understand the experience of language discordance from the perspective of LEP patients with diabetes and how this experience may explain observed differences in outcomes.

Through the metaphor of navigation, we offer the reader a journey that goes from the literature review about the main theories of creativity throughout the last century to the present, to later address it for Latin America, outlining some reflections on its current context, as well as what the future holds. The literature review shows that, unlike the Western Hemisphere, creativity as a line of research in our region has been somewhat neglected, without being given its rightful place, generally very little addressed. Therefore, it is proposed to get back on track, rescuing what has been done and through an exercise of reflection, proposing new lines of research linked to creativity itself, to innovation, and also toward entrepreneurship.

The study critically evaluates the theory of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in an attempt to provide directions for future research. Using the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 79 articles, and in particular the topic-related 57 articles were analysed. Nine journals contribute to 51% of articles (29 of 57 articles). In particular, the three journals published 15 articles: Critical Perspectives on Accounting (7), Accounting, Organizations and Society (4), and Journal of Applied Accounting Research (4). In total, 83% (47 of 57) of the articles were published 2009–2018. A total of 1,168 citations were found from 45 articles since 12 articles were without citations. The highest cited authors were Ball (2006) – 410 citations, Kothari, Ramanna, and Skinner (2010) – 135 citations, and Napier (1989) – 85 citations. In particular, five theories have been used widely: institutional theory (13), accounting theory (6), agency theory (3), positive accounting theory (3), and process theory (2). Future studies’ focus could be on theory implications in IFRS adoption/implementation studies in a country or a group of countries’ experience. Future studies could also focus on various theories rather depending on a single theory (i.e. institutional theory).

Is the death penalty dying? This autobiographical essay offers observations on the application of capital punishment in three very different legal jurisdictions at three different time periods when – partially by happenstance and partially by design – she was a homicide researcher, a participant and an observer of profound changes in the jurisdiction's application of the death penalty.