Alan Shiell
Biographic Data
| ID | 116306 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alan Shiell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alan |
| FAMILY NAME | Shiell |
| SIGNATURE | SHIELL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Calgary |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5914-1084 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 273 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Icing or cake? Grant competitions as a model for funding chronic disease prevention in Tasmania, Australia
Competitive grant funding is a well-established mechanism for generating activity and interventions in the field of chronic disease prevention. Yet grant competitions may be burdensome for organizations, and money may not be enough to bring about lasting change in communities. In this study, we explore the dynamics of awarding and receiving money in the context of a state-level government grant competition to support community organizations and p…
Soft infrastructure
Processes of health promotion funding, and even standard processes of program scale-up and readiness assessment, risk underestimating the range of resources that are fundamental for community health improvement, particularly among disadvantaged communities. Funders should design ways to resource communities so that there is constant attention to and coaching of critically important diverse processes of resource growth, independent of program-spec…
Can adaptation to ‘extraordinary’ times teach us about ways to strengthen community-based chronic disease prevention? Insights from the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-I9 pandemic represents a massive challenge to the ordinary work of community-based organisations. We present results from a study of the actions and experiences of community-based organisations and funding agencies in the context of a grants program for chronic disease prevention in Tasmania, Australia during 2020. Community-based organisations had just received funding to implement programs targeting smoking, obesity, nutrition and phy…
Resources, relationships, and systems thinking should inform the way community health promotion is funded
Public health agencies tasked with improving the health of communities are poorly supported by many ‘business-as-usual’ funding practices. It is commonplace to call for more funding for health promotion, but additional funding could do more harm than good if, at the same time, we do not critically examine the micro-processes that lead to health enablement – micro-processes that are instigated or amplified by funding. We are currently engaged in a…
Evidence suggests a need to rethink social capital and social capital interventions
The need for a complex systems model of evidence for public health
Subpopulation differences in the association between neighborhood urban form and neighborhood-based physical activity
The prevention access and risk taking in young people (Party) project protocol
ISRCTN16059206
The relationship between cluster-analysis derived walkability and local recreational and transportation walking among Canadian adults
In search of causality
Eliciting individual preferences for health care
Objective To demonstrate how a discrete choice experiment (DCE) can be used to elicit individuals’ preferences for health care and how these preferences can be incorporated into a cost–benefit analysis. Methods A DCE which elicited preferences for three perinatal services: specialist nurse appointments; home visits from a trained lay visitor; and home‐help. Cost was included to obtain a monetary measure of the value that individuals place on the …
Small area contextual effects on self-reported health
These findings demonstrate that, even within a cohesive community, contextual effects on health can be located at a smaller geographic level than the Census tract. Research on the effects of local area socio-economic disadvantage on health that combines administrative and survey data enables researchers to develop more comprehensive measures of social and material deprivation. Our findings suggest that both social and material deprivation affect …
Assessing the congruence between perceived connectivity and network centrality measures specific to pandemic influenza preparedness in Alberta
The results suggest in terms of pandemic preparedness that perceived connectivity may serve as a partial proxy measure of formal out-degree network connectivity
Research Review
Evidence about the cost‐effectiveness of interventions in children's services can help decision‐makers make more efficient use of scarce resources. We returned to six somewhat disparate interventions on which we had collated research evidence identified by service planners and practitioners as relevant to the well‐being of children in the course of the Economic and Social Research Council‐funded What Works for Children project. These are home vis…
Sex- and age-specific seasonal variations in physical activity among adults
BACKGROUND: To examine seasonal variations in self-reported physical activity among an urban population of Calgarian adults. METHOD: Telephone surveys were conducted with two independent random cross-sectional samples of adults in summer and autumn 2007 (n=2199) and in winter and spring 2008 (n=2223). Participation and duration of walking for recreation (WR), walking for transportation (WT), moderate (MODPA) and vigorous physical activity (VIGPA)…
How health managers think about risk and the implications for portfolio theory in health systems
Attention is now being paid in the health economics literature to the insights offered by portfolio theory. Portfolio theory points to the advantages that arise from consideration of both risk and return when setting priorities. Realising these benefits assumes that managers in the health sector have the same understanding of risk as that suggested by the theory. We set out to explore this issue in interviews with health care managers in Alberta,…
Theorising Interventions as Events in Systems
Conventional thinking about preventive interventions focuses over simplistically on the “package” of activities and/or their educational messages. An alternative is to focus on the dynamic properties of the context into which the intervention is introduced. Schools, communities and worksites can be thought of as complex ecological systems. They can be theorised on three dimensions: (1) their constituent activity settings (e.g., clubs, festivals, …
The Worldview of Hospital Security Staff
Interventions to encourage compliance with smoking control policies often rely on intermediaries for implementation, and the culture of the intermediary group might affect policy implementation. The authors present an ethnography of security staff involved in enforcing restrictive smoking policies in a large hospital in Canada. They find strong norms associated with control, mutuality, and deference to authority. Common sense interpretation rathe…
Complex interventions or complex systems? Implications for health economic evaluation
Although guidelines exist for evaluating complex interventions, they may be of little help in dealing with the multiple effects of interventions in complex systems such as hospitals. Alan Shiell , Penelope Hawe , and Lisa Gold explain why it is important to distinguish the two types of complexity
Socioeconomic disadvantage within a neighborhood, perceived financial security and self-rated health
Convergent validity between a discrete choice experiment and a direct, open-ended method
A mother's choice
An Early Discharge Programme (EDP) for medically uncomplicated obstetric patients operated from three hospitals in Sydney's western suburbs. A number of women who were eligible for this programme declined to take part. This study investigated the reasons why some women chose to remain longer in hospital rather than go home early with domiciliary midwifery support. The results showed a lack of awareness and information about the EDP, particularly …
Public health preparedness
Public health and emergency preparedness have become central concepts in the current restructuring of various regional-, national- and global-level public health and emergency management agencies and systems. In this article, a glossary of the most important terms and concepts currently pertaining to public health preparedness is provided with a focus on systems-level and organisational issues
A simple guide to chaos and complexity
The concepts of complexity and chaos are being invoked with increasing frequency in the health sciences literature. However, the concepts underpinning these concepts are foreign to many health scientists and there is some looseness in how they have been translated from their origins in mathematics and physics, which is leading to confusion and error in their application. Nonetheless, used carefully, “complexity science” has the potential to invig…
Public health preparedness in Alberta
The organizational dimensions of public health preparedness depend on a complex mix of individual organizational characteristics, inter-agency relationships, and institutional environmental factors. Our study is designed to discriminate among these different system components and assess the independent influence of each on the other, as well as the overall level of public health preparedness in Alberta. While all agree that competent organization…
Theorising Interventions as Events in Systems
Conventional thinking about preventive interventions focuses over simplistically on the “package” of activities and/or their educational messages. An alternative is to focus on the dynamic properties of the context into which the intervention is introduced. Schools, communities and worksites can be thought of as complex ecological systems. They can be theorised on three dimensions: (1) their constituent activity settings (e.g., clubs, festivals, …
The Privileging of Communitarian Ideas
The growing use of social science constructs in public health invites reflection on how public health researchers translate, that is, appropriate and reshape, constructs from the social sciences. To assess how 1 recently popular construct has been translated into public health research, we conducted a citation network and content analysis of public health articles on the topic of social capital. The analyses document empirically how public health…
Evidence suggests a need to rethink social capital and social capital interventions
Methods for exploring implementation variation and local context within a cluster randomised community intervention trial
Insignificant or modest findings in intervention trials may be attributable to poorly designed or theorised interventions, poorly implemented interventions, or inadequate evaluation methods. The pre-existing context may also account for the effects observed. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is outlined that will permit the determination of how context level factors might modify intervention effectiveness, within a cluster ran…
The health of nations in a global context
Lost in translation
Study objective: To examine the genealogy of the social capital concept in public health, with attention to the epistemological concerns and academic practices that shaped the way in which this concept was translated into public health. Design: A citation-network path analysis of the public health literature on social capital was used to generate a genealogy of the social capital concept in public health. The analysis identifies the intellectual …
A simple guide to chaos and complexity
The concepts of complexity and chaos are being invoked with increasing frequency in the health sciences literature. However, the concepts underpinning these concepts are foreign to many health scientists and there is some looseness in how they have been translated from their origins in mathematics and physics, which is leading to confusion and error in their application. Nonetheless, used carefully, “complexity science” has the potential to invig…
A glossary of terms for navigating the field of social network analysis
Social network analysis is the study of social structure. This glossary introduces basic concepts in social network analysis. It is designed to help researchers to be more discriminating in their thinking and choice of methods
Is general practitioner decision making associated with patient socio-economic status
Understanding place and health
The relationship between cluster-analysis derived walkability and local recreational and transportation walking among Canadian adults
Subpopulation differences in the association between neighborhood urban form and neighborhood-based physical activity
Cost effectiveness of brief interventions for reducing alcohol consumption
The Worldview of Hospital Security Staff
Interventions to encourage compliance with smoking control policies often rely on intermediaries for implementation, and the culture of the intermediary group might affect policy implementation. The authors present an ethnography of security staff involved in enforcing restrictive smoking policies in a large hospital in Canada. They find strong norms associated with control, mutuality, and deference to authority. Common sense interpretation rathe…
Socioeconomic disadvantage within a neighborhood, perceived financial security and self-rated health
Convergent validity between a discrete choice experiment and a direct, open-ended method
Health economic evaluation
A glossary is presented on terms of health economic evaluation. Definitions are suggested for the more common concepts and terms
The inertia of self-regulation
Research Review
Evidence about the cost‐effectiveness of interventions in children's services can help decision‐makers make more efficient use of scarce resources. We returned to six somewhat disparate interventions on which we had collated research evidence identified by service planners and practitioners as relevant to the well‐being of children in the course of the Economic and Social Research Council‐funded What Works for Children project. These are home vis…
Sex- and age-specific seasonal variations in physical activity among adults
BACKGROUND: To examine seasonal variations in self-reported physical activity among an urban population of Calgarian adults. METHOD: Telephone surveys were conducted with two independent random cross-sectional samples of adults in summer and autumn 2007 (n=2199) and in winter and spring 2008 (n=2223). Participation and duration of walking for recreation (WR), walking for transportation (WT), moderate (MODPA) and vigorous physical activity (VIGPA)…
Reliability of health utility measures and a test of values clarification
Contingent valuation in health care and the persistence of embedding effects without the warm glow
Is general practitioner decision making associated with patient socio-economic status
Participation in treatment decision‐making by women with early stage breast cancer
Objective This study aimed to assess the way women treated for early stage breast cancer perceived the treatment selection process. The purpose was to understand more fully patients’ experiences of the decision process and their preferences for participation in treatment decisions. Setting and participants The study informants were 40 women, treated at a teaching hospital in Sydney Australia, who were interviewed face to face 1 year after their f…
Quality of life three months and one year after first treatment for early stage breast cancer
Social capital and health promotion
The inertia of self-regulation
Cost effectiveness of brief interventions for reducing alcohol consumption
Contingent valuation in health care and the persistence of embedding effects without the warm glow
Health economic evaluation
A glossary is presented on terms of health economic evaluation. Definitions are suggested for the more common concepts and terms
Reliability of health utility measures and a test of values clarification
Complex interventions
Complex interventions are more than the sum of their parts, and interventions need to be better theorised to reflect this
A glossary of terms for navigating the field of social network analysis
Social network analysis is the study of social structure. This glossary introduces basic concepts in social network analysis. It is designed to help researchers to be more discriminating in their thinking and choice of methods
Methods for exploring implementation variation and local context within a cluster randomised community intervention trial
Insignificant or modest findings in intervention trials may be attributable to poorly designed or theorised interventions, poorly implemented interventions, or inadequate evaluation methods. The pre-existing context may also account for the effects observed. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is outlined that will permit the determination of how context level factors might modify intervention effectiveness, within a cluster ran…
Contextualizing and assessing the social capital of seniors in congregate housing residences
Working with seniors living in 5 congregate housing residencies in Calgary, the project uses a mixed method approach to develop grounded measures of the social capital of seniors. The project integrates both qualitative and quantitative methods in a 3-phase research design: 1) qualitative, 2) quantitative, and 3) qualitative. Phase 1 uses gender-specific focus groups; phase 2 involves the administration of individual surveys that include a social…
The Privileging of Communitarian Ideas
The growing use of social science constructs in public health invites reflection on how public health researchers translate, that is, appropriate and reshape, constructs from the social sciences. To assess how 1 recently popular construct has been translated into public health research, we conducted a citation network and content analysis of public health articles on the topic of social capital. The analyses document empirically how public health…
Public health preparedness in Alberta
The organizational dimensions of public health preparedness depend on a complex mix of individual organizational characteristics, inter-agency relationships, and institutional environmental factors. Our study is designed to discriminate among these different system components and assess the independent influence of each on the other, as well as the overall level of public health preparedness in Alberta. While all agree that competent organization…
Understanding place and health
Lost in translation
Study objective: To examine the genealogy of the social capital concept in public health, with attention to the epistemological concerns and academic practices that shaped the way in which this concept was translated into public health. Design: A citation-network path analysis of the public health literature on social capital was used to generate a genealogy of the social capital concept in public health. The analysis identifies the intellectual …
The health of nations in a global context
A mother's choice
An Early Discharge Programme (EDP) for medically uncomplicated obstetric patients operated from three hospitals in Sydney's western suburbs. A number of women who were eligible for this programme declined to take part. This study investigated the reasons why some women chose to remain longer in hospital rather than go home early with domiciliary midwifery support. The results showed a lack of awareness and information about the EDP, particularly …
Public health preparedness
Public health and emergency preparedness have become central concepts in the current restructuring of various regional-, national- and global-level public health and emergency management agencies and systems. In this article, a glossary of the most important terms and concepts currently pertaining to public health preparedness is provided with a focus on systems-level and organisational issues
A simple guide to chaos and complexity
The concepts of complexity and chaos are being invoked with increasing frequency in the health sciences literature. However, the concepts underpinning these concepts are foreign to many health scientists and there is some looseness in how they have been translated from their origins in mathematics and physics, which is leading to confusion and error in their application. Nonetheless, used carefully, “complexity science” has the potential to invig…
Complex interventions or complex systems? Implications for health economic evaluation
Although guidelines exist for evaluating complex interventions, they may be of little help in dealing with the multiple effects of interventions in complex systems such as hospitals. Alan Shiell , Penelope Hawe , and Lisa Gold explain why it is important to distinguish the two types of complexity
Socioeconomic disadvantage within a neighborhood, perceived financial security and self-rated health
Convergent validity between a discrete choice experiment and a direct, open-ended method
How health managers think about risk and the implications for portfolio theory in health systems
Attention is now being paid in the health economics literature to the insights offered by portfolio theory. Portfolio theory points to the advantages that arise from consideration of both risk and return when setting priorities. Realising these benefits assumes that managers in the health sector have the same understanding of risk as that suggested by the theory. We set out to explore this issue in interviews with health care managers in Alberta,…
Medicine (34 works) · Nursing (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Political science (18 works) · Public health (18 works) · Psychology (17 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Health Policy Implementation Science (12 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (11 works) · Psychological intervention (11 works)