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Current and predicted continued dramatic increases in international migration and ethnocultural diversity of older adult cohorts pose challenges for health care services. Review studies on ethnoculturally diverse older adults and health care show a lack of focus on their service use experiences. This study aims to report a meta-ethnography that addresses this knowledge gap through answering the review question: How do ethnoculturally diverse older adults who are immigrants experience health careservices?

The authors applied a seven-phase method of meta-ethnography to guide the review. The authors conducted two literature searches (April 2018 and June 2020) in MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, Sociological Abstracts and Abstracts in Social Gerontology that yielded 17 papers eligible for review.

“There’s always something positive and something negative” is the overarching metaphor for answering the review question. Findings highlight positive and negative tensions within ethnoculturally diverse older adults’ health care use experiences of understanding and being understood, having trust in providers and the health care system, having needs, preferences and resources met and desire for self-care over dependency. The majority of experiences were negative. Tipping points towards negative experiences included language, fear, provider attitudes and behaviours, service flexibility, attitudes towards Western and traditional health care and having knowledge and resources.

The authors propose concrete actions to mitigate the tipping points. The authors discuss policy recommendations for health care system changes at the micro, meso and macro service levels to promote positive experiences and address mainstream service policy inequities.

Of critical concern to the world is the need to reduce consumption and waste of natural resources. This study provides a multi-level exploration of the ways situational and transformational links between levels and challenges are related to the adoption and utilization of material flow cost accounting in Vietnam, to encourage green productivity.

Based on triangulation of public documents at different institutional levels and a set of semi-structured interviews, situational and transformational links and challenges for material flow cost accounting in Vietnam are examined using purposive and snowball sampling of key actors.

Using a multi-level framework the research identifies six situational and transformational barriers to implementation of material flow cost accounting and suggests opportunities to overcome these. The weakest links identified involve macro-to meso-situational and micro-to macro-transformational links. The paper highlights the dominance of meso-level institutions and lack of focus on micro transformation to cut waste and enable improvements in green productivity.

The paper identifies ways for companies in Vietnam to reduce unsustainability and enable transformation towards sustainable management and waste reduction.

The paper is the first to develop and use a multi-level/multi-time period framework to examine the take-up of material flow cost accounting to encourage transformation towards green productivity. Consideration of the Vietnamese case builds understanding of the challenges for achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 12, to help enable sustainable production and consumption patterns.

As many businesses faced economic disruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic and sought financial relief, existing bank relationships became critical to getting a loan. This study examines factors associated with the development of personal relationships of rural small businesses with community bank representatives.

We applied a mixed-method approach. We employed descriptive statistics, principal factor analysis and logistic regression for data analysis. We distributed an online survey to rural small businesses in five states in the United States. Key informant interviews with community bank representatives supplemented the survey results.

A business owner’s trust in a banker was positively associated with the establishment of a business–bank relationship. However, an analysis of individual trust’s components revealed that the nature of trust is complex, and a failure of one or more components may lead to decreased trustworthiness in a banker. Small businesses that preferred personal communication with a bank were more inclined to relationship banking.

Due to the relatively small sample size and cross-sectional data, our results may not be conclusive but should be viewed as preliminary and as suggestions for future research. Bankers should be aware of the importance of trust for small business owners and of the actions that lead to increased trustworthiness.

The study extends the existing knowledge on the business–bank relationship by focusing mainly on social (instead of economic) factors associated with the establishment of the business–bank relationship in times of crisis and high uncertainty.

In the state of Hawaii, it has been shown that certain ethnic minority groups, such as Filipinos and Pacific Islanders, suffer disproportionally high rates of cardiovascular disease, evidence that local health-care systems and governing bodies fail to equally extend the human right to health to all. This study aims to examine whether these ethnic health disparities in cardiovascular disease persist even within an already globally disadvantaged group, the houseless population of Hawaii.

A retrospective chart review of records from Hawaii Houseless Outreach and Medical Education Project clinic sites from 2016 to 2020 was performed to gather patient demographics and reported histories of type II diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia, hypertension and other cardiovascular disease diagnoses. Reported disease prevalence rates were compared between larger ethnic categories as well as ethnic subgroups.

Unexpectedly, the data revealed lower reported prevalence rates of most cardiometabolic diseases among the houseless compared to the general population. However, multiple ethnic health disparities were identified, including higher rates of diabetes and obesity among Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders and higher rates of hypertension among Filipinos and Asians overall. The findings suggest that even within a generally disadvantaged houseless population, disparities in health outcomes persist between ethnic groups and that ethnocultural considerations are just as important in caring for this vulnerable population.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study focusing on ethnic health disparities in cardiovascular disease and the structural processes that contribute to them, among a houseless population in the ethnically diverse state of Hawaii.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many industries, and reports indicate that this includes the illicit drug market. Recent research suggests that the homeless are particularly vulnerable during the pandemic, and the UK Government has acted to house rough sleepers. Research is scarce regarding homeless people’s experiences of the illicit drug market. This study aims to explore homeless people’s experiences of the drug supply in the UK during COVID-19.

Eight homeless people who use illicit drugs, residing in hostels for homeless people in Southampton, participated in semi-structured one-on-one telephone-based interviews.

A thematic analysis revealed five themes: availability of drugs, presence of dealers, quality of drugs, finances and personal experiences. Participants reported varying experiences of the drug supply, with lockdown measures expressed as the main reason for reduced supplies, as users found it difficult to find dealers and generate income for purchasing drugs.

The results may lack generalisability to the wider population, such as rough sleepers and drug dealers, suggesting a need for further research into people’s experiences of the drug supply during COVID-19. Research on this topic could be more in-depth through the use of research methods that are convenient for the homeless population.

Services should invest in harm reduction services and encourage homeless people who use drugs to engage in substitution treatment. Homeless services should provide psychological support for homeless people who use drugs.

The changes in homeless people’s behaviour following the pandemic may have implications for their interactions with the rest of society (e.g. begging in town centres may reduce). These changes in behaviour may also change the way society can best support homeless people.

The results are partially consistent with other research findings about the illicit drug supply; however, they also suggest that some individuals experienced minimal change in the illicit drug supply.

This paper aims to understand the religio-spiritual insights of the consumers and investigate their relationship with the consumers’ attitude towards advertising and its antecedents. Religious festivals, such as Ramadan, are celebrated with high religio-spiritual contemplations, which are often targeted by intensive marketing campaigns. During these religious festivals, consumers’ attitude toward advertising is influenced when television commercials contain “unnecessary” entertainment, “inappropriate casting” of celebrities with less credibility, “cluttered” information, “phony claims” related to good for economy and “annoying content” increasing consumers’ irritation.

This study developed a higher-order construct of religio-spiritual insights and used “Theory of Reasoned Action” for measuring the effect of religio-spiritual insights on consumers’ attitude toward advertising. Exploratory sequential mixed methods research design was used to develop and validate the instrument. A total of 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted during i-depth analysis phase to generate themes and questionnaire. During instrument validation phase, 839 Muslim consumers were surveyed by using the questionnaire, and instrument was validated by using the co-variance-based structural equation modeling approach.

This study develops and validates the instrument of religio-spiritual insights and identifies its significant direct and mediating effects between the consumer’s attitude toward advertising and its determinants.

The newly developed instrument of religio-spiritual insights is based on six dimensions, namely, “beliefs and practices,” “association with higher power,” “interconnectedness,” “self-actualization,” “heart and mind involvement,” “knowledge and meanings.” This instrument of religio-spiritual insights was validated and then tested by using a conceptual framework based on the several variables, such as attitude toward advertising, irritation, good for economy, entertainment, credibility and information.

The purpose of this study is to frame digital transformation (DT) within municipalities to improve the life cycles of urban infrastructure.

The study provides the results from a systematic review of the literature on concepts of DT and its implications for municipalities, barriers and challenges to DT, as well existing DT frameworks for municipalities and their built assets. This literature review leads to the development of a DT framework to help cities conduct a planned and federated DT beforehand. Then, workshops are conducted with two major Canadian municipalities.

The results of these studies point to the need for a dedicated DT framework for municipalities because of their particular context and their role and proximity to citizens. The theoretical framework develops 22 elements, which are divided among 6 categories. Through its application, the framework helps to identify and target the predominant issues hindering the DT of municipalities, specifically “legacy practices” and “data management.”

Limitations include limited experimental conditions and small sample size. Further work is needed to validate the framework. Other approaches are advocated to complement the data collection and analysis to generate more convincing results.

The theoretical framework was validated through two case studies on two large Canadian municipalities.

Municipalities maximize the value they provide to citizens and to be at the forefront of resilience and sustainability concerns. The use of technology, digital processes and initiatives helps cities to improve planning, optimize works and provide better services to citizens.

The framework is original in that it specifically aligns assets management with DT in a municipal context.