The paper after having examined the concept and possibilities of e-democracy, examines the situation in Italy and in Europe. The impact on daily social life has been given particular study through the introduction of a taxonomy of e-democracy in relation to the category of services and the targeted citizen segment. Finally, a technological solution has been proposed which allows for greater par...

ôbjective: there is evidence to show an increase in use of stimulant substances among university students. this study is a qualitative assessment of the existing situation and the underlying reasons for stimulant use among the students of tehran üniversity of medical sciences in 2006. methods: three qualitative methods have been used: focus group discussions with 7 groups (60 individuals) consi...

OBJECTIVE Increasing uptake of cancer screening is a priority for health systems internationally, however, some patients may not attend because they are undergoing active treatment for the cancer of interest or have other medical reasons that mean participation would be inappropriate. This study aims to quantify the proportion of non-participants who have a medical reason for not attending canc...

This article describes partial results from a case study of community participation in "New Directions for a Healthy B.C.", a now-abandoned health reform policy. For this study, focus groups were conducted to explore the perspectives of traditionally under-represented citizens in understanding reasons for nonparticipation and to identify strategies for fostering participation in the health refo...

BACKGROUND Given the rise in US obesity rates in adulthood, efforts are needed to assess physical activity engagement during the college years as a strategy to promote a lifetime of being physically active. This study identifies the reasons incoming college freshman enrolled in basic physical education activity courses (BPEAC) and the perceived benefits they anticipated receiving as a result of...

Krasno and Green have argued that political advertising has no impact on voter turnout. We remain unconvinced by their evidence, given concerns about how they measure the advertising environment, how they measure advertising tone, their choice of modeling techniques and the generalizability of their findings. These differences aside, we strongly agree that political advertising does little to u...

This commentary talks about patient involvement in one of the biggest EU projects to date-U-BIOPRED. It describes how people and carers of people with asthma have been able to develop and drive their input and have their voice heard among the >200 healthcare professional project members. Five key principles for the success of the patient involvement group are presented: involve early, involve d...

INTRODUCTION Patient and public involvement in healthcare planning, service development and health-related research has received significant attention. However, evidence about the role of patient involvement in quality improvement work is more limited. We aimed to characterize patient involvement in three improvement projects and to identify strengths and weaknesses of contrasting approaches. ...