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To cope with the rising demand for psychological treatment, evidence-based low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (LiCBT) delivered by trained para-professionals was introduced internationally.
Aims:
This pilot study aimed at examining the effectiveness of LiCBT in Hong Kong.
Method:
This study was of an uncontrolled pre- and post-treatment design, testing LiCBT at a local community mental health centre in Hong Kong. Two hundred and eighty-five Chinese adult help-seekers to the centre attended two or more sessions of LiCBT delivered by trained para-professionals. These participants also rated their depression and anxiety on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Generalised Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 (GAD-7), respectively, at pre- and post-treatment.
Results:
Comparison of the pre- and post-treatment PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores of 285 participants indicated significant improvements in depression and anxiety with large effect sizes (depression: d = 0.87; anxiety: d = 0.95). For those participants reaching the clinical level of either depression and/or anxiety at pre-treatment (n = 229, 80.4%), they reported even larger effect sizes (depression: d = 1.00; anxiety: d = 1.15). The recovery rate was 55.9% with a reliable improvement rate of 63.9%. An average of 5.6 sessions was offered to the participants with each session spanning a mean of 42 minutes. The baseline clinical conditions and participants’ educational level were predictive of post-treatment recovery.
Conclusions:
The results supported the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of LiCBT for depression and anxiety at a Hong Kong community mental health centre. The effect sizes and the recovery and reliable improvement rates achieved were comparable to those reported from countries such as the UK and Australia.
To evaluate the effect of a sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax implemented in Oakland, California, in July 2017, on prices of beverages sold in fast-food restaurants 2-years post-tax.
Design:
Using a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, we analyzed beverage price data collected from fast-food restaurants 1-month pre-tax and 2-years post-tax in Oakland (intervention site) and Sacramento, California (comparison site). Separate linear regression models were used to estimate the impact of the tax on prices of bottled regular soda, bottled diet soda, bottled unsweetened beverages, and fountain drinks.
Setting:
Oakland and Sacramento, California, United States.
Participants:
Chain and non-chain fast-food restaurants (n 85).
Results:
DID estimates indicate that in fast-food restaurants, on average, the price of bottled regular soda increased by 1.44 cents/oz (95% CI 0.50, 2.73) (tax pass-through rate of 144%) and the price of bottled diet soda increased by 1.17 cents/oz (95% CI 0.07, 2.13). No statistically significant differences were found between bottled regular and diet soda price increases. Price effects for unsweetened beverages and fountain drinks were not statistically significant. Further, the estimated price change for fountain drinks was nearly zero.
Conclusions:
Findings suggest that the effectiveness of SSB taxes in discouraging SSB consumption may be limited in fast-food restaurants in Oakland, California because there were similar price increases in taxed and untaxed bottled soda and no changes in fountain drink prices.
The relationship between immigration and terrorism is an important public policy concern. Using bilateral migration data for 174 countries from 1995 to 2015, we estimate the relationship between levels of immigration and terrorism using an instrumental variables (IV) strategy based on the initial distribution of immigrants in destination countries. We specifically investigate rates of immigration from Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries and countries engaged in conflicts. We find little evidence of a relationship between stocks of immigrants and terrorist attacks in destination countries.
This chapter outlines the nature of the “Franco-Chadian state” and its early postcolonial political evolution. It highlights the deep embeddedness of French influence in the Chadian economy and security services. It also provides an overview of the broader context of postcolonial Franco-African relations and French strategic aims in its former empire. The chapter then examines the outbreak of civil war in the country. In 1965, communities in central Chad rebelled against abusive governmental taxation. Quickly the revolt spread throughout the country and gradually its disparate factions became more organized under the loose banner of the Front de Liberation Nationale du Tchad (Frolinat). By early 1969, Frolinat elements threatened Fort-Lamy, Chad’s capital. This chapter examines the nature of this rebellion and French President Charles de Gaulle’s decision, in the final weeks of his presidency, to launch a sizeable military intervention on behalf of Tombalbaye’s regime. This intervention included an important statebuilding component, the Mission pour la réforme administrative (MRA). It aimed to address the administrative failures that French policymakers saw as a root cause of the rebellion. The chapter concludes with a description of the MRA’s mission and an analysis of its ultimate failure.
After several months of fighting, it became clear to outside observers that Habré’s forces had gained the upper hand. Goukouni then asked Gaddafi to formalize and escalate the support he had received over the past several months. This culminated in a friendship treaty and a meticulously organized Libyan ground invasion of Chad in December 1980. This forced Habré to disengage from N’Djamena, and flee the country. Most of his forces managed to regroup and withdrawal into neighboring Sudan, from which Habré soon began conducting guerilla operations. In early 1981, Gaddafi and Goukouni announced the “merger” of Chad and Libya. This chapter narrates these events, and questions how French policy failed to prevent the kind of nightmare scenario which had haunted French officials over the previous three years. It also discusses the origins of a growing American role in support of Habré. The chapter further introduces the early approach of Mitterrand's presidency towards Chad and assesses the gradual shift in French policy which helped to encourage Goukouni to expel Libyan forces from Chad.
This chapter examines French policy toward's Chad following Libya's withdrawal in November 1981. It focuses on French efforts to facilitate the deployment of an OAU peacekeeping force, and its renewed engagement with the government in N'Djamena. It also examines the role of regional powers and the United States in the OAU deployment and Habré's consquent loss of foreign support. The chapter analyzes the OAU's failure to stabilize the Chadian political scene, and growing French indifference to the outcome of the war between Habré and the N'Djamena government. It concludes with Habré's seizure of power and his initial efforts to consolidate his rule.
We searched for the institutional negative externality posited by the new economic case for immigration restrictions in a variety of ways in this book. We did not find it. In fact, instead we have often found that immigration creates a positive externality that improves institutions related to productivity. There are limitations to all of the methods we have employed in this book. Thus, there is no QED here. We cannot rule out that, in some cases, in some places, from some particular immigrant flows, that a negative externality that undermines formal and informal institutions or norms related to productivity does exist. However, in general, our findings should make scholars skeptical of how widely relevant the new case for immigration restrictions is. Thus, our findings also bolster the standard economic case for free immigration by increasing our confidence that most of the global economic gains that would stem from free immigration do, in fact, exist.
This chapter examines how immigration has impacted US institutions related to economic freedom throughout the country's history. We find that immigration was generally associated with smaller government and growth in government. Immigrants weakend the strength of unions during the period of free immigration prior to the 1920s and unions were often a source of agitation for socialism and bigger government. Government spending and taxation tends to be negatively correlated with immigration. During the period of the US's most restrictive immigration policy, 1920 to 1965, government growth was largest.
Saddam Hussein’s unexpected 1990 invasion of Kuwait forced 300, 000 Kuwaitis of Palestinian descent to flee into Jordan. By 1991, this large exogenous population shock increased Jordan’s population by about 10 percent. Jordanian law allowed these refugees to work, live, and vote in Jordan immediately upon entry. The refugees did not bring social capital that eroded Jordan’s institutions. On the contrary, we find that Jordan’s economic institutions substantially improved in the decade after the refugees arrived. Our empirical methodology employs difference‐in‐ differences and the synthetic control method, both of which indicate that the significant improvement in Jordanian economic institutions would not have happened to the same extent without the influx of refugees. Our case study indicates that the refugee surge was the main mechanism by which Jordan’s economic institutions improved over this time.