Survey methodologists seek techniques that make the mail they send more likely to be opened, completed, and returned than missed, ignored, or thrown away. Traditional design wisdom recommends against using color and logos, which can make the delivery envelope look like marketing, fundraising, and other "junk mail." Yet there have been few experimental tests of this assertion. Theoretically, a distinctive graphic representing a recognizable and beloved sponsor, combined with a prominent motivational message should serve dual roles of a) distinguishing surveys from marketing, advertising, fundraising, and b) encourage the respondent to participate. In this experiment, a random half of envelopes had a sponsor logo on the outside and a motivational insert affixed to the cover letter. The response task was a one-page screener form asking for basic household information and a telephone number for a subsequent telephone survey. The experiment used a random sample of addresses from the USPS Delivery Sequence File (DSF) in two California communities with hard-to-survey characteristics. The logo envelope received about a 1.3 percentage point lower return rate in the first mailing in which it was used, but not in the second mailing. Further, that difference was only significant in one of the two communities (a 2.8 point difference in that community v. 0.7 points in the other). Traditional advice about avoiding logos in mail surveys seems sound, but effects are not universal. Comparing experimental and control conditions at their first use, forms returned from logo/insert packets were less likely to report adults age 41 years old and over (70.8% v. 78.2% in non-logo/non-insert mailings). In their second use, logo/insert packets were more likely to reporting at least one adult 18-40 in the household (76.8% v. 66.9% for non-logo/non-insert mailings). Suggestions for future research are discussed.

Background The purpose of this study was to develop and administer surveys that assess patient and caregiver experience with care transitions and examine the psychometric properties of the surveys. The surveys were designed to include the transitional care services or components of care, provided in the hospital and at home, that matter most to patients and their family caregivers, as well as their assessments of the overall quality of the transitional care they received. Methods Patients were recruited prior to discharge from 43 U.S. hospitals. The analysis dataset included responses from 9,282 patients, 1,245 Time 1 caregivers (who helped the patient in the hospital), and 1,749 Time 2 caregivers (who helped the patient at home). The psychometric properties of the survey items and composite measures were examined for each of the three surveys, including (1) item response variability and missing data, (2) exploratory factor analysis, (3) internal consistency and site-level reliability, and (4) correlations among the outcome composite measures and with other survey items. Items that performed poorly across multiple analyses were dropped from the final instruments. Results Overall, the final patient and caregiver surveys had acceptable psychometric properties, with a few exceptions. Exploratory factor analyses supported the composite measures, which had acceptable internal consistency reliability—Overall Quality of Transitional Care (patient and caregiver surveys), Patient Overall Health (patient survey) and Caregiver Effort/Stress (caregiver surveys). All surveys had acceptable site-level reliability except when the sample sizes needed to achieve 0.70 site-level reliability were higher than the actual sample sizes in the dataset. In all surveys, the Overall Quality of Transitional Care composite measure was significantly correlated with other composite measures and most of the survey items. Conclusions The final patient, T1 caregiver, and T2 caregiver surveys are psychometrically sounds and can be used by health systems, hospitals, and researchers to assess patient and caregiver experience with care transitions. Results from these surveys can be used as the basis for making improvements to transitional care delivery that are centered on what matters most to patients and their family caregivers.

A lot of (visual, auditory, social, emotional, psycho-motoric, intellectual and cognitive) competences are needed for safe traffic participation. Traffic competences develop during childhood and youth and there is a close relationship to brain maturity. Based on extensive literature analysis a comprehensive tabulation of empirically based developmental milestones was developed by gathering knowledge from different disciplines (Schützhofer, Rauch, Knessl & Uhr, 2015, Schützhofer, 2017). These milestones of traffic competences, forming the core of this paper, are now extended and updated to answer the question of how children can be aware of the traffic environment at a certain age and what this implies for their safe traffic participation. This article forms the framework for the tabulation and focuses on the development of visual competences and hazard perception. Based on the results of the literature review, it will be discussed if there are implications for infrastructure planning as well as for traffic education. Main objective of this research is the development of recommendations for age dependent safe traffic participation that do not under-or overstrain children and give them the chance to have their own active traffic experiences within adequate and safe borders. This traffic psychological and developmental psychological knowledge is essential in various fields. The results address policymakers, traffic managers, transport planners and technicians and help them to appreciate that children are not small adults and adaptions of the existing traffic environment are needed. They can also be a starting point for the development of traffic safety workshops for pedagogues, parents and police officers as in Austria.

Background The purpose of this study was to develop and administer surveys that assess patient and family caregiver experiences with care transitions and examine the psychometric properties of the surveys. The surveys were designed to ask about 1) the transitional care services that matter most to patients and their caregivers and 2) care outcomes, including the overall quality of transitional care they received, patient self-reported health, and caregiver effort/stress. Methods Survey items were developed based on a review of the literature, existing surveys, focus groups, site visits, stakeholder and expert input, and patient and caregiver cognitive interviews. We administered mail surveys with telephone follow up to patients recently discharged from 43 U.S. hospitals. Patients identified the caregivers who helped them during their hospital stay (Time 1 caregiver) and when they were home (Time 2 caregiver). Time 1 and Time 2 caregivers were surveyed by telephone only. The psychometric properties of the survey items and outcome composite measures were examined for each of the three surveys. Items that performed poorly across multiple analyses, including those with low variability and/or a high missing data, were dropped except when they were conceptually important. Results The analysis datasets included responses from 9282 patients, 1245 Time 1 caregivers and 1749 Time 2 caregivers. The construct validity of the three proposed outcome composite measures—Overall Quality of Transitional Care (patient and caregiver surveys), Patient Overall Health (patient survey) and Caregiver Effort/Stress (caregiver surveys) —was supported by acceptable exploratory factor analysis results and acceptable internal consistency reliability. Site-level reliability was acceptable for the two patient outcome composite measures, but was low for Caregiver Effort/Stress (< 0.70). In all surveys, the Overall Quality of Transitional Care outcome composite measure was significantly correlated with other outcome composite measures and most of the single-item measures. Conclusions Overall, the final patient and caregiver surveys are psychometrically sound and can be used by health systems, hospitals, and researchers to assess the quality of care transitions and related outcomes. Results from these surveys can be used to improve care transitions, focusing on what matters most to patients and their family caregivers.

The environmental regulatory community continues to clean up our waterways by requiring ever smaller communities to construct and operate wastewater collection and treatment systems. Many of these systems serve less than 100 homes, making affordability and management very difficult. In Ohio, the regulatory agency, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA), has realized this and has contracted with the Ohio Rural Community Assistance Program (Ohio RCAP) to provide training to the leaders (decision makers) of small communities and systems on how to properly manage and operate their systems for efficiency and long term stability. The specific training Ohio RCAP provides in Ohio, coupled with RCAP's more indepth and on-site technical assistance to communities will be detailed in this session and RCAP's role as a coach to small communities will be explained.