This paper presents a framework for evaluating mechanisms that involve the public in environmental decision-making. These include traditional participatory mechanisms--such as public hearings, notice and comment procedures, and advisory committees--as well as those considered more innovative--such as regulatory negotiations, mediations, and citizen juries. The framework is based on a set of "so...

BACKGROUND An evaluation of progress with participatory approaches for improvement of health knowledge and health experiences of disadvantaged people in eight Districts of Eastern Nepal has been undertaken. METHODS A random selection of Village Development Committees and households, within the eight Districts where participation and a Rights-based Approach had been promoted specifically by lo...

BACKGROUND This study aims to promote occupational health in the informal sector in Thailand by using a participatory approach. The success of the intervention is based on an evaluation of the informal sector workers, a) knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in occupational health and safety, b) work practice improvement, and c) working condition improvement. METHODS This study applies the Part...

Participatory epidemiology (PE) is an evolving branch of veterinary epidemiology which uses a combination of practitioner communication skills and participatory methods to improve the involvement of animal keepers in the analysis of animal disease problems, and the design, implementation and evaluation of disease control programmes and policies. This review describes the origins of PE and how t...

The budget is the key means for effecting policy in democracies, yet its preparation is typically an opaque and arcane process. Participatory budgeting is making inroads in municipalities, but is usually limited to a small fraction of the total budget as its methods do not scale: They cannot handle quantitative budget items nor hierarchical budget construction. Here we apply the Condorcet princ...

Participatory intervention approaches that are embedded in existing organizational structures may improve the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational interventions, but concrete tools are lacking. In the present article, we use a realist evaluation approach to explore the role of kaizen, a lean tool for participatory continuous improvement, in improving employee well-being in two cluster...

Participatory budgeting enables the allocation of public funds by collecting and aggregating individual preferences; it has already had a sizable real-world impact. But making the most of this new paradigm requires a rethinking of some of the basics of computational social choice, including the very way in which individuals express their preferences. We analytically compare four preference elic...