Conventional wisdom would expect government to react to disaster or crisis in order to prevent recurrence. Atrophy of vigilance theory contends that disasters in hazardous systems necessarily lead to such corrective policy. Yet policy change theory recognizes that even disaster or crisis spurs policy change only when there is a conducive political climate. When is disaster or crisis insufficient to produce a political climate favoring change aimed at preventing recurrence? What is the durability of policy change in the long term? This article uses three Israeli and two parallel American case studies to further understanding of policy reactions to disaster and crisis in environments dominated by production results pressures. Patterns of reaction do not conform completely with either atrophy of vigilance or policy change theories. Christopher Hood (1991) identifies three broad categories of administrative values: sigma values of economic and purposeful government, which we call production results values; theta values of honesty and fairness, which we call rectitude; and lambda values of security and resilience, which we call, in short, resilience. Managerialism promotes production results values and encourages entrepreneurial management to obtain desired results in innovative ways. At the heart of managerialism is the idea that managers are free to manage in accordance with their professional judgment largely unshackled by hierarchic and legal process stipulations. It has been suggested that environments in which production results values predominate are likely to be less capable of preventing breaches in values of honesty and fairness (i.e., organizational misconduct) and in values of security and resilience (i.e., accident and disaster) (Hood 1991). Considerable theoretical attention has been paid in public administration literature to the potentially negative consequences of the production results focus of managerialism on rectitude values (

Healthy People 2010 made it a priority to eliminate health disparities. We used a rapid assessment response and evaluation (RARE) to launch a program of participatory action research focused on health disparities in an urban, disadvantaged Black community serviced by a major south Florida health center. We formed partnerships with community members, identified local health disparities, and guided interventions targeting health disparities. We describe the RARE structure used to triangulate data sources and guide intervention plans as well as findings and conclusions drawn from scientific literature and epidemiological, historic, planning, clinical, and ethnographic data. Disenfranchisement and socioeconomic deprivation emerged as the principal determinants of local health disparities and the most appropriate targets for intervention.

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Increasing physical activity is currently considered to be a possible prevention strategy for cancer, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, either alone or in combination with dietary changes. This paper presents results of a randomized trial of moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise in middle aged, sedentary women; specifically, we report changes in and correlates of quality of life and functional status of this exercise intervention program for both the short (three months) and longer term (12 months). The intervention group showed a significant increase in Mental Health score from baseline to 3 months (p < .01), significantly greater than the change in the control group at 3 months (p < .01). A similar trend among exercisers was observed for the General Health score (p < .01), and this finding was significantly greater than the change in control group at 3 months (p = .01). Change in Social Support -Affection were predictors of the changes in quality of life variables. This study documented improvements in quality of life and general functioning that occurred as a result of participating in an exercise intervention in sedentary middle-aged women.