The high prevalence and burden of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) is largely attributable to unhealthy lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity and unhealthy food habits. Prevention of CVD, through the promotion of healthy lifestyles, appears to be a Sisyphean task for healthcare professionals, as the root causes of an unhealthy lifestyle lie largely outside their scope. Since most lifestyle choices are habitual and a response to environmental cues, rather than rational and deliberate choices, nationwide policies targeting the context in which lifestyle behaviours occur may be highly effective in the prevention of CVD. In this point-of-view article, we emphasise the need for government policies beyond those mentioned in the National Prevention Agreement in the Netherlands to effectively reduce the CVD risk, and we address the commonly raised concerns regarding ‘paternalism’.
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In 'Ecodemocracy in the Wild: If existing democracies were to operationalize ecocentrism and animal ethics in policy-making, what would rewilding look like?' Helen Kopnina, Simon Leadbeater, Paul Cryer, Anja Heister, and Tamara Lewis present a democratic approach to considering the interests of entities and the correlation of rights of nature within it. According to the authors , ecodemocracy's overarching potential is to establish the baseline principles that dethrone single species domination and elevate multiple living beings as stakeholders in all decision-making. They provide insights on how ecodemocracy could become manifest and what it takes to achieve mult-species justice. A unique contribution in this chapter is the notion of ecodemocracy in rewilding , exemplified bij the controversial Dutch rewilding experiment in Oostvaardersplassen. The authors discuss the complexities of decision-making in the interest of different species and the challenges that arise when implementing such politics.
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Over the last years a large growth in Electric Vehicles (EV) and charging infrastructure (CI) development has been observed. Particularly in metropolitan areas this growth has led to a system in which multitudes of interactions between EV users take place. While many researchers have focused on EV user charging behavior and deployment strategies for CI, little attention has been paid to conceptualizing the problem domain. This research provides a brief overview of complex systems theory, and derives six characterizing elements of complex systems that may be applicable for CI. The paper investigates both theoretically but also empirically how these characterizing elements apply for CI and provides implications for the further roll-out of CI for both policy makers and researchers. We illustrate our findings with preliminary results form ongoing research. Recommendations include the further development of simulation tools that are capable of exploring effects of e.g. non-linear behavior, feedback loops and emergence of new patterns on CI performance. In the end this paper aims to provide directions to enable policy makers to be better prepared for the anticipated exponential growth of EVs and CI.
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