Regional development has often been described in economic terms, using economic indicators such as growth in GDP or demographic indicators such as net migration or employment. Some researchers argued that regional development should be understood broader, by including for example social indicators and living environment indicators . Recently, researchers have shown that policies directed towards regional development have broadened as well , but are also still evaluated within specific narratives or frameworks that often constitute the goals of the policy, for example the Keynesian framework favours increasing demand and favours the evaluation of policies aimed at exactly this. This self-constituting practice of an amalgam of related policies has also been referred to by Hall as a policy paradigm. Because policies are often evaluated within these policy paradigms it becomes difficult to decontextualise them, disentangle them and compare policies with each other.In this paper we propose to use a different, more quantitative and comparative method. By applying the above mentioned work from Andy Pike on numerous data sources from EUROSTAT and OECD, researchers from the PREMIUM_EU project developed a new framework that is measuring Regional Development (dubbed “R”) using economic, social and living environment indicators.MethodBy regarding this “R” (and individual indicators) as an outcome of public policies on the local, regional, national and international level and by analysing regional development policies on different levels from 2010 and onwards we believe it is possible to understand the impact of these policies in a more evidenced based sense, regardless of the above mentioned different types of narratives or frameworks.We started our research with an analysis from the OECD on the different types of regional development policies and the relations between different levels of government within countries. Based on this and literature research, we developed a framework with relevant topics for regional development policies and different levels of government.Based on the work of Moritz Schütz presented during the ERSA 2024 conference, we developed and employed a webcrawler to automatically download and summarise policies from municipalities, regional and national authorities and analyse the results of this exercise.Findings/resultsThe webcrawling and -mining exercise in combination with the new set of indicators will offer a much broader and more comprehensive view of the use and necessity of regional development policies. The findings will be discussed in dedicated policy labs with policymakers and researchers from the respective regions.Discussion/conclusionsBoth the new set of indicators and the analysis of the policies are not only innovative, but will also be viewed as speculative. Although we believe that a direct causal relationship between policies and the regional development will be hard to uncover, we do believe that this research will move the field of policy analysis forward, because it is more focused on evidence-based indicators and is based on larger sets of policies.
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Maintaining exercise behavior is crucial for cancer survivors, yet adherence to exercise recommendations remains low. This study explores the experiences and perspectives of community-working physical therapists and survivors of cancer regarding barriers and facilitators that support the maintenance of exercise behavior post-treatment.
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Multiple organizations around the world have issued evidence-based exercise guidance for patients with cancer and cancer survivors. Recently, the American College of Sports Medicine has updated its exercise guidance for cancer prevention as well as for the prevention and treatment of a variety of cancer health-related outcomes (eg, fatigue, anxiety, depression, function, and quality of life). Despite these guidelines, the majority of people living with and beyond cancer are not regularly physically active. Among the reasons for this is a lack of clarity on the part of those who work in oncology clinical settings of their role in assessing, advising, and referring patients to exercise. The authors propose using the American College of Sports Medicine's Exercise Is Medicine initiative to address this practice gap. The simple proposal is for clinicians to assess, advise, and refer patients to either home-based or community-based exercise or for further evaluation and intervention in outpatient rehabilitation. To do this will require care coordination with appropriate professionals as well as change in the behaviors of clinicians, patients, and those who deliver the rehabilitation and exercise programming. Behavior change is one of many challenges to enacting the proposed practice changes. Other implementation challenges include capacity for triage and referral, the need for a program registry, costs and compensation, and workforce development. In conclusion, there is a call to action for key stakeholders to create the infrastructure and cultural adaptations needed so that all people living with and beyond cancer can be as active as is possible for them.
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