News by Subject Social & Behavior

Research shows higher continuity of care, meaning a care team cooperatively involved in ongoing healthcare, is better for health outcomes, but can there be too much of a good thing? New research in the INFORMS journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management finds the answer is 'yes.'

A new policy report, Electronic Registration Systems for Cooling Towers -- Improving Public Health and Sustainability Outcomes, published by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) proposes a standardized yet flexible template for cooling tower registries that are designed to improve health outcomes, address disparity in affected populations, and increase water and energy efficiency.

A new study looked at how the risk of readmission progressed over multiple visits to emergency departments (EDs) by patients with chronic diseases. The study explored a way to identify distinct groups of patients who are more likely to be readmitted so medical professionals can intervene to prevent or reduce the possibility of future readmissions.

Researchers developed a new method of analyzing travel survey data to show that the rates of households in the Kumamoto, Japan metropolitan area with everyone out-of-home has increased from 41.3% in 1984 to 51.5% in 2012. This increase partly explains the recent rise in failed parcel redeliveries. The researchers believe their work can be used to reduce redeliveries, develop efficient at-home interview survey methods, and for crime prevention such as burglary countermeasures.

The 'Monday Effect' is real -- and it's impacting your Amazon package delivery. So says Lehigh University researcher Oliver Yao, a professor of decision and technology analytics at Lehigh University. He and colleagues at University of Maryland and University of California, San Diego, have found that the 'Monday Effect' -- that letdown of returning to work after a weekend, known to impact finance, productivity and psychology -- also negatively affects supply chains.

Researchers from the US Army and North Carolina State University have developed a computational model that can be used to expedite military operations aimed at evacuating noncombatants, disaster response or humanitarian relief.

Drawing on Cybernetic Big Five Theory, this study proposes that chronic job insecurity is associated with an increase in neuroticism and decreases in agreeableness and conscientiousness.

When consumers are trying to decide between traditional and online shopping, many factors come into play, such as price, quality, convenience and timeframe. Now, thanks to new research reported in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, eco-conscious consumers could have another consideration: greenhouse gas emissions. In the study, researchers estimated that shopping at brick-and-mortar stores for personal and home care products often produces less greenhouse gas than one type of online shopping, but more than another.

Food waste is a big problem in the United States. According to the US Department of Agriculture, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. New research in the INFORMS journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management finds that increasing the number of grocery stores in certain areas can drastically decrease waste.

A recent study finds that corporate financial managers do a great job of detecting signs of potential fraud, but are less likely to voice these concerns externally when their company is under pressure to meet a financial target.