This study evaluates the impacts of a locally based health impact assessment (HIA) on community participation, inter-sectoral and inter-agency partnership in local decision and policy-making processes. The methods comprised a series of semi-structured interviews with key informants followed by thematic analysis of transcribed responses. The study revealed a number of positive impacts among both community and service providers. A particularly advantageous impact was the facilitation of community learning through a local action group formed as a recommendation of the HIA that provided community development and HIA training. During the HIA process all participants increased their knowledge of health determinants and recognized a broader range of evidence sources for local decision-making. Participants also developed a greater understanding of each other's roles and perspectives. Additionally, the study revealed a number of barriers to HIA. Differing views on the role of HIA were evident whereby community members tended to regard HIA as an advocacy tool for local issues impacting on health in their locality, while service providers perceived its role more in terms of networking and collaboration. A key area remaining to be tackled in terms of partnership working is the approach of service agencies to enabling meaningful community participation in local decision-making processes. In this respect, attention to the cultural dimension of inter-sectoral working, and the need for training for both service agency staff and community members prior to or at the initial stages of HIA are required. Such changes could facilitate more meaningful community inclusion and help to address the current power imbalance between these two sectors.

There is an increased interest in the promotion of volunteering within nonprofit organisations. In this paper organisational supports for recruiting and managing volunteering amongst older adults are explored. The paper describes an intervention comprising an intergenerational reading programme delivered by volunteers in eight schools in the Republic of Ireland. The research draws on qualitative data from a mixed methods research project (2009-2011) which evaluated outcome and process aspects of the reading programme. The qualitative data was collected from a group of older volunteers aged 55+ years. This present study frames the empirical findings within a volunteering framework which involved deductively analysing the data using attributes associated with 'volunteerability' and 'recruitability'. Through this analytical framework a number of features were identified as contributing to greater knowledge of marketing strategies to recruit and retain volunteers within nonprofit organsiations. The paper concludes with a set of core practice messages for organisations which rely on volunteers in the delivery of their service.

a b s t r a c tThis paper presents a critical analysis of health impact assessment (HIA) in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) in the context of institutional policy and practice. It begins with a brief background to the origins and aims of HIA. Core developments in health and environmental sectors pertaining to HIA in the ROI are then considered. A series of significant developments have taken place in these sectors over the past decade that are positively associated with the promotion of HIA in the ROI. However, it is argued that in spite of various institutional facilitators, the practice of implementing HIAs in the ROI is significantly underdeveloped, and it continues to lag behind several of its European Union counterparts. It is contended that a paradigm change is required in order to address the current policy-action gap. An organisation theory framework is used to assess the implementation problem and a number of suggestions are highlighted as potential facilitators of this process.

This paper is based on a randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluation of a reading programme delivered by older adult volunteers for at-risk early readers. Wizards of Words (WoW) was targeted at socially disadvantaged children in first and second grade experiencing delays in reading but who were not eligible for formal literacy supports. The programme was effective for phonemic awareness, word recognition, phonic knowledge and children's self-beliefs, but was not effective for reading comprehension, vocabulary, spelling or reading accuracy. The programme was most effective for those children starting with 'below average' reading levels and for boys. Programme intensity, school attendance and the child's experience of the programme all predicted response to intervention. Gains in phonemic awareness and phonic knowledge may be explained by the priority given in volunteer training and in programme delivery to the phonics component, and gains in word recognition may be explained by its close association with phonemic awareness and phonic knowledge, as hypothesized by the Simple View of Reading. The findings show that a reading programme delivered by older adult volunteers can have a significant impact on reading skills and self-beliefs of at-risk readers who are not eligible for other formal literacy supports.Wizards of Words (WoW) is a one-to-one reading programme delivered by older adult volunteers for socially disadvantaged children in first and second grade at-risk of reading failure. Volunteers are aged 55 and over, and receive training and ongoing support from two project leaders with professional backgrounds in early education. Although inspired by Experience Corps in the US (Morrow-Howell et al., 2009b;Lee et al., 2011) WoW is an innovative programme designed and delivered by Barnardos in two cities in Ireland. WoW adopts a balanced literacy approach, combining both whole language and phonics strategies, and the WoW logic model posits that socially disadvantaged children at-risk of reading failure should benefit from one-toone support from older adult volunteers who are trained in reading instruction and who also can serve as role models (Barnardos, 2008a).At-risk readers are children having problems with literacy acquisition in first or second grade (i.e., aged 6-to 8-years-old) and who are as a result more likely to experience academic failure, with problems experienced at this stage leading to less frequent reading and further reading delays (Stanovich, 1986). The most efficient and effective methods to address the difficulties of at-risk readers begin with early prevention and intervention (Pullen et al., 2004) and as Elbaum et al.'s (2000)

Background: This paper addresses one threat to the internal validity of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), selection bias. Many authors argue that random allocation is used to ensure baseline equality between study conditions in a given study and that statistically significant differences at pretest mean that randomisation has failed.   Purpose: The purpose of this study was to clarify the role of random allocation in an RCT study. Is the role of random allocation to protect against selection bias? And does it have a further role, namely to ensure baseline equality and the absence of statistically significant differences between study conditions at pretest?   Setting: The participants for this study were 229 children in 1st and 2nd grade and data were collected as part of an RCT evaluation of a volunteer reading programme piloted in Ireland, Wizards of Words (WoW).   Intervention: Not applicable.   Research design: The allocation procedure adopted in this study was stratified and blocked random allocation.   Data collection and analysis: Data were collected using standardised and criterion-referenced tests of reading ability. Data were collected by qualified Speech and Language Therapists. Independent-samples t-tests were used to analyse pretest data.   Findings: The role of random allocation is to protect against selection bias, and statistically significant baseline differences can result even when random allocation has been successful. Whether or not random allocation has been successful is determined by the generation of the random allocation sequence and the steps taken to ensure its concealment. The size of differences between study conditions at pretest can be important for the analysis of posttest data but does not by itself determine whether random allocation was successful. In addition, there are serious concerns about the appropriateness of tests of significance when comparing two study conditions at pretest. Keywords: baseline equality; baseline imbalance; random allocation; selection bias; test of statistical significance