Search Results (83)

Global environmental change, biodiversity loss, emerging infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and widening social inequalities increasingly interact to create complex risks for human, animal, and ecosystem health. Although international One Health frameworks and funding mechanisms are essential, implementation at national and especially community levels often remains uneven, fragmented, and weakly evaluated. This Perspective presents a structured, reproducible networking model designed to strengthen community-level One Health implementation through voluntary global collaboration among civil society organisations. The model connects bottom-up community mobilisation with interdisciplinary scientific support, shared evaluation templates, and iterative learning cycles. It outlines a transparent process for identifying and engaging One Health-oriented organisations and for organising their collaboration through thematic Project Working Groups that support situation analysis, strategic planning, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. The framework translates community action into seven intervention fields: surveillance and early warning, animal health and welfare, water/sanitation/hygiene, food safety and food systems, community awareness and education, environmental risks and ecosystem health, and multisectoral governance. By linking local practice to comparative synthesis, joint publication, and policy dialogue, the network aims to transform isolated initiatives into a coordinated learning system while preserving community and organisational autonomy. As a conceptual framework, the model is ready for empirical testing in diverse settings to assess feasibility, participation, and evaluation quality. Full article

Low-noise pavements (LNPs) are increasingly important under Green Public Procurement policies, yet public administrations still lack clear guidance on selecting pavement types based on noise-related externalities. Although traffic noise generates substantial societal costs—affecting health, education, and property values—these external burdens are often overlooked or excluded from traditional pavement appraisal and investment decisions, leading to systematically underestimated life cycle costs (LCC). This study develops an integrated framework to monetise traffic-noise impacts within an LCC perspective by combining health effects (Disability-Adjusted Life Years, DALYs), property-value capitalisation (willingness to pay, WTP), and noise-induced educational losses. The system limit is intentionally restricted to noise-related externalities during pavement operations, while agency, user, and vehicle operating costs are excluded. A comprehensive review of existing monetisation approaches is provided, and a new unified method is proposed. The framework is applied to a case study from the LIFE SNEAK project on Via La Marmora (Florence, Italy), comparing existing, acoustically non-optimised, and acoustically optimised surfaces. The results showed that the LIFE SNEAK pavement significantly alleviated the burden of noise on public health and education costs, which were 34% and 33% lower than in the baseline scenario, respectively, with a welfare surplus of +€2.38 million over the ten-year period. In particular, it was noted that the most important economic contribution of LNPs stems from the WTP approach. This study provides clear evidence that noise externalities play a considerable role in long-term pavement cost estimates, thereby supporting the systematic inclusion of these costs in LCC analyses. The proposed method puts forward a practical approach to support the selection of noise-sensitive, sustainable, and socially responsible road pavements. Full article

The long-term resilience and sustainability of critical infrastructure depends not only on technical robustness but also on the capacity of populations to collectively interpret systemic threats and support continuity-preserving policies. Existing frameworks for emergency response and risk perception primarily address individual-level threat appraisal, leaving insufficiently explained how publics collectively interpret systemic threats under conditions of unfamiliar disruption. This study introduces Public Situation Awareness (PSA) as a sequential mechanism through which citizens perceive threat-relevant information, comprehend its implications for collective welfare, and project cascading consequences across essential societal systems, ultimately supporting system-preserving prioritization policies. The framework was tested using a survey administered in Israel in April 2024 during a period of acute uncertainty surrounding the threat of a large-scale attack on critical infrastructure. Serial mediation analyses using bootstrapping revealed that the full sequential pathway: perception, public-level comprehension, public-level projection, and policy support, was the only significant indirect effect, whereas pathways involving individual-level projection did not reach significance. These findings provide preliminary evidence that support for continuity-preserving governance may depend more strongly on collective than personal interpretation of systemic consequences, with implications for crisis communication strategies and the social foundations of infrastructure resilience aligned with SDG 9 and SDG 11. Full article

Social Innovation (SI) has emerged as a strategic paradigm for addressing systemic challenges in highly uncertain environments. However, its practice still reveals epistemological fragmentation that risks reducing SI to welfare-oriented approaches. This article presents a critical and constructive analysis aimed at mitigating the “methodological myopia” that persists in social impact assessment. Through a systematic literature review and a qualitative case study in the Antofagasta Region (Chile), the article argues that the scientific validity of SI depends on longitudinal, multidimensional, and territorially grounded evaluative frameworks. The study examines the relationship between SI and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a source of methodological rigor, improving traceability and auditability while supporting the scaling of interventions. In response to techno-utopian forms of determinism, the article proposes an ethical and participatory governance framework based on the Multi-Helix model, integrating academia, the public sector, private enterprise, and civil society in the co-creation of public value. The findings suggest that the institutionalization of SI through AI must move beyond procedural efficiency to foster structural transformation. In Antofagasta, this AI-supported certification architecture is already operational within the Regional Innovation Strategy (ERI) 2022–2028 through the executed FIC-R 2023 project on Social Innovation Certification. The Antofagasta experience is therefore presented as an illustrative case of territorial governance, offering transferable principles for other Global South contexts rather than a directly replicable model. Full article

In the context of the global urban transition towards stock-based regeneration (a shift from outward urban expansion to the redevelopment of existing built environments), the provision of public service facilities is facing a paradigm shift from mere physical spatial implementation to sustainable long-term operation. Traditional planning pathways heavily rely on static spatial allocation policies and upfront indicator compliance, yet systematically neglect the dynamic adaptability of facilities throughout their entire life cycles. Taking the megacity of Guangzhou, China, as a longitudinal case study, this paper reveals a typical compliance versus failure paradox—a situation where facilities strictly meet technical planning standards on paper but fail to deliver intended social welfare outcomes in practice. Using early comprehensive redevelopment projects like Liede Village as examples, the public service facilities strictly met the statutory allocation standard (5.7%) during the construction phase. However, after more than a decade of operation, these facilities have exhibited severe structural supply–demand mismatches and long-term operational dilemmas. To address this issue, this study proposes a four-dimensional governance framework—Value, Actor, Space, Institution (VASI)—that transcends traditional spatial perspectives. Through an in-depth analysis of the Guangzhou case using this framework, the research confirms that the root causes of the compliance failure lie in the absence of life-cycle costing (a method of assessing the total financial cost of facility ownership over its entire lifespan), the severe structural misalignment of rights and responsibilities between construction and operation actors, and the long-term void in post-occupancy evaluation feedback mechanisms. This paper argues that the planning of public service facilities in high-density megacities must achieve a theoretical leap from rigid upfront technical allocation to adaptive whole-life-cycle systemic governance, providing theoretical references and a practical guide for global cities facing similar stock-based regeneration challenges as they move towards equitable and socio-economically sustainable urban regeneration. Full article

In March 2018, seismic events associated with rock salt mining in Maceió, northeastern Brazil, led to the emergency relocation of families from risk areas, resulting in increased companion animal abandonment. This study assessed the association between systematic monitoring and environmental education and the reduction in abandonment during these relocation processes. Between March 2018 and September 2020, 567 animals were recorded in affected households, of which only 245 (43.2%) were relocated with their guardians. In response, the Integra Animal Project was implemented, integrating environmental education, continuous monitoring, sanitary management, and population control. By December 2024, 2559 households and 6673 animals had been monitored. A substantial reduction in abandonment and escape rates was observed over time, with abandonment decreasing from 56.8% to 5.45%. Cats showed significantly higher escape rates than dogs (chi-square test). These findings suggest that integrated strategies combining monitoring and environmental education are associated with improved animal retention during disaster-driven relocation, supporting their relevance for animal welfare, public health, and One Health approaches. Full article

Urban regeneration has traditionally focused on large-scale developments that aim at increasing the livability and vitality of disadvantaged areas. Alternative views of urban regeneration have emerged to challenge such a structural approach. These novel ideas reflect contextual changes in progressive and innovative Western countries that embrace the culture of experimentation, prefer sharing to ownership, and emphasize participation and inclusion as fundamental aspects of public governance. This article elaborates the idea of lean urban regeneration in the progressive welfare society context, with a special view of citizen and stakeholder involvement through inclusion, sharing, and co-creation. Empirical research utilizes mini cases of the largest cities in the growth triangle of Finland. This article identifies the manifestations of lean urban regeneration and discusses its preconditions and ability to tackle urban development challenges. The results emphasize the framing nature of inclusion, the underutilization of sharing, and the key role of co-creation in lean urban regeneration. A particular potential of lean interventions is based on co-creation as the core of multimodal or hybrid regenerative projects that are firmly anchored on economic inclusion. By utilizing the input of residents, entrepreneurs, and other local stakeholders, it is possible to open up a path to integrated high-leverage activities with a potential to alleviate structural urban problems. Full article

Despite increasing efforts by the scientific community to raise awareness of breed-related health problems through educational campaigns, public information initiatives, and veterinary outreach programmes, brachycephalic dog breeds remain highly popular. As the number of brachycephalic dogs increases, the prevalence of associated health problems rises accordingly. Ethical and animal welfare considerations appear to play a limited role in breed selection. In German-speaking regions, extensive educational efforts have been undertaken in recent years to address the issue of so-called torture breeding, defined as intentional selection for extreme phenotypic traits that impair health, reduce welfare, and cause chronic suffering, particularly in brachycephalic breeds. The aim of this study was to determine the underlying reasons for the decision to buy and keep a brachycephalic dog. Although the veterinary profession is already improving education and communication, this qualitative study intended to find new starting points for targeted education against animal suffering and to explore the sociological background of the ownership of such dogs. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews with people with brachycephalic dogs were conducted throughout Switzerland (n = 16). The focus was on the animal–human relationship. The interviews were defined by systematically applied guidelines for the design of the interview process, while still allowing maximum openness (all possibilities for expression). The transcribed interviews were coded and analysed according to the Kuckartz methodology, which allows us to set certain focal points of analysis and to structure them according to codes. The results of this study indicate that, although awareness of torture breeding is present within the broader population, owners of brachycephalic dogs frequently rely on individualised arguments and rationalisations. These typically involve emphasising the perceived health, functionality, or exceptional characteristics of their own animal (e.g., claims that their dog is “healthy” or not affected by breed-related problems), thereby distancing their personal ownership experience from the general welfare concerns associated with the breed. This psychological pattern can be interpreted as cognitive dissonance, in which contradictory beliefs are harmonised through selective perception or re-evaluation. The results also show that brachycephalic dogs offer a very strong projection surface: their owners assign them a variety of social roles that go beyond the classic animal–human relationship—for example, as a substitute for children, a romantic partner, or a best friend. This qualitative study provides differentiated insights into the attitudes and motivations of owners of brachycephalic dogs and illustrates that traditional awareness campaigns have not been sufficient to effectively change problematic breeding practices and ownership patterns. In order to develop long-term effective solutions, interdisciplinary cooperation is therefore needed—for example, between veterinary medicine, animal welfare, communication science, psychology and law. In addition to individual education, new, target-group-specific communication strategies and consistent legal regulations are needed to protect animal welfare in the long term. This study is intended to serve as a catalyst for a broader ethical and social debate on the keeping of torture breed dogs. Full article

“Sustainable Built Environments at the Climate–Health Nexus” refers to the planning and administration of metropolitan areas that tackle the interconnected problems of public health, climate change, and increasing heat hazards. By highlighting tactics that lessen urban heat islands, increase resilience, and advance equity, it establishes the built environment as a crucial link between environmental stresses and the welfare of multicultural urban communities. With an emphasis on how urban heat increases health risks and how design might act as a mediator between climate pressures and human well-being, this article explores the relationship between climate and health within the sustainable built environment. It criticizes the enduring “delusions of sustainable architecture”, regarded as metric substitution, which overlook fair health results in favour of sustainability being reduced to certification or spectacle. In this paper, “delusions” refer to two recurring patterns: (1) metric substitution, where carbon/energy performance is treated as a proxy for health protection, and (2) spectacle substitution, where iconic projects stand in for systemic heat-risk reduction. Through a critical examination of Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay and Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, the conversation highlights the benefits and drawbacks of landmark sustainability initiatives. These programs highlight the risks of selected resilience, elitism, and dependence on resource-intensive technologies, even as they show technological creativity in lowering thermal stress and establishing microclimatic comfort. The study makes the case for a shift in the sustainable built environment toward design that is systemic, equitable, and health-centred. Including public health outcomes in sustainability measurements, giving everyday resilience precedence over showcase projects, and including governance, equity, and cultural transformation in planning frameworks are all highlighted in the recommendations. The climate–health nexus is used here as an evaluative lens to test whether sustainable built-environment interventions measurably reduce heat exposure and health risk, particularly for vulnerable groups. In a moment of increasing climatic stress, the conclusion urges shedding illusions and making sustainability a lived condition of justice, dignity, and resilience. Full article

Fractures are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Thoroughbred racehorses, posing a significant threat to their welfare and careers. This study introduces a deep learning model specifically designed to facilitate fracture detection in equine athletes. By leveraging extensive training on human fracture data and refining the model with equine imaging, it highlights the transformative potential of transfer learning across species and medical contexts. This approach is not limited to equine fractures but could be adapted for use in detecting injuries or conditions in other veterinary species and even human healthcare applications. A comprehensive databank of radiographs, sourced from public archives and equine hospitals, was curated to encompass diverse conditions (fracture and non-fracture), ensuring robust pattern recognition. The architecture integrates a Vision Transformer for global context modelling with a ResNet backbone and loss function to optimize local feature extraction and cross-species adaptability. The pipeline achieved 96.7% accuracy for modality classification, 97.2% accuracy for projection recognition, and fracture localization intersection over union values of 0.71–0.84 across equine datasets. This work bridges advancements in human and veterinary medicine, opening pathways for AI-driven solutions that extend beyond fractures, fostering improved diagnostic precision and broader applications across species (felines, canines, etc.). By integrating advanced imaging techniques with AI, this study aims to set a foundation for more comprehensive and versatile health monitoring systems. Full article

Transdisciplinarity and the co-production of knowledge have become fundamental approaches to addressing complex social problems. However, the sustainability of collaborative partnerships remains underexplored from an empirical perspective. This article examines the mechanisms that shape the continuity of collaborative networks in social innovation projects in the field of social services, particularly those linked to community-based welfare systems in Andalusia (Spain). Drawing on a thematic qualitative analysis of 15 social innovation projects and 14 semi-structured interviews with project coordinators, the study explores how diverse actors (universities, public administrations, third-sector organisations, and citizens) mobilise different types of social capital within local social services. The findings reveal that collaboration success depends on a balance between relational enablers (trust and shared experiences) and structural barriers (bureaucracy, work overload, and lack of time). The analysis also shows that participatory methodologies and connections with pre-existing networks are essential for sustaining collaboration after project completion. The article concludes that the sustainability of transdisciplinary social innovation in social services requires moving beyond project management logics and investing in the care of invisible relational structures, with implications for public policies aimed at consolidating trust ecosystems and long-term collective learning. Full article

This article examines public preferences for a proposed West Coast submarine high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission network in South Korea, installed by trenching and burying the cables in the seabed, which is essential for facilitating renewable energy integration and ensuring a stable electricity supply to the Seoul Metropolitan Area. The purpose of this study is to estimate South Korean households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the proposed West Coast submarine HVDC network using contingent valuation (CV), thereby assessing its social acceptability amid renewable energy integration challenges. Employing a CV survey with a nationally representative sample of 1000 households conducted from late May to late June 2025, the research applies the one-and-one-half-bound spike model to address zero WTP responses and incorporates socio-demographic covariates to account for preference heterogeneity. The analysis estimates an average monthly WTP of KRW 1832 (USD 1.33) per household for the HVDC infrastructure. Results demonstrate statistically significant public support for the submarine HVDC project despite its high capital investment and potential electricity rate increases. These findings underscore notable consumer acceptance and provide valuable welfare insights for policymakers, reinforcing the prioritization of this project within South Korea’s energy transition framework. This paper contributes to the field of energy infrastructure valuation by advancing methodological approaches and offering policy-relevant recommendations for sustainable grid expansion. Full article

Despite its rich cultural heritage, the Yellow River Basin (YRB) faces challenges of ecological fragility and unbalanced development that constrain residents’ welfare improvement. Cultural–tourism integration (CTI)—aimed at creating employment, optimizing industrial structure, and improving public services—is increasingly promoted as a pathway to enhance people’s livelihood and well-being (PLW). Grounded in industrial integration theory and welfare economics, this study examined the impact effects, transmission mechanisms, and spatial spillovers of CTI on PLW. Panel data from 75 prefecture-level cities in the YRB, spanning 2011 to 2023, were utilized, and multi-dimensional indices were constructed for both CTI and PLW. Impact effects, mediating mechanisms, and spatial spillovers were examined through kernel density estimation, a dynamic system generalized-method-of-moments (SYS-GMM) model, mediation analysis, and a spatial Durbin model (SDM). The results showed that CTI and PLW both improved over time and displayed a spatial pattern of “midstream and downstream leading, upstream lagging”. CTI significantly promoted PLW, after controlling for dynamics and endogeneity (SYS-GMM coefficient = 0.130, p < 0.01). Industrial structure upgrading acted as a positive mediator, whereas digital infrastructure exhibited a short-term suppressing (negative mediating) effect, implying a phased mismatch between CTI investment priorities and digital input. Spatial estimates further indicated that CTI generated positive spillovers, improving PLW in neighboring cities, in addition to local gains. These findings suggest that basin-wide coordination and better alignment between CTI projects and digital infrastructure are essential for inclusive and sustainable well-being improvements, supporting regional progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Full article

Fiscal capacity is a core dimension of state capacity. Effective oversight of public expenditure is therefore essential for fiscal sustainability, a foundational element of sustainable development. As local government debt has steadily increased in China, participatory budgeting has emerged as an innovative mechanism for citizens to exercise such oversight and influence fiscal decisions. Our paper examines the effect of participatory budgeting on local government debt in China. Using a panel dataset covering 242 Chinese cities from 2013 to 2022, we examine the effect of participatory budgeting adoption on the scale of explicit government debt. Our results show that adopting participatory budgeting moderately reduces local government debt levels. Further mechanism analysis indicates that participatory budgeting operates through two channels. First, by enhancing budgetary transparency, it strengthens public scrutiny, which in turn disciplines government borrowing. Second, it redirects public spending toward welfare sectors like education and health, thereby crowding out large, debt-financed investment projects. Our findings contribute to the literature on participatory budgeting, fiscal democracy, and bottom-up accountability in public finance. The results suggest that participatory budgeting can be an effective policy tool for improving fiscal discipline and curbing government debt risks, ultimately fostering more sustainable and equitable local governance. Full article

South Asia’s worsening air pollution crisis represents one of the most urgent public health and environmental challenges of the 21st century. Nearly two billion people—over one-quarter of the global population—reside in this region, where air quality levels routinely exceed World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines by factors of 10 to 15. This has translated into an unprecedented health burden, with approximately two million premature deaths annually, widespread chronic respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and rising economic losses. According to recent World Bank estimates, welfare losses amount to over 5% of regional GDP, a figure far exceeding the projected costs of coordinated mitigation. Despite this, South Asia continues to lack a binding regional framework capable of addressing its shared airshed. Existing cooperative efforts—such as the Malé Declaration on Control and Prevention of Air Pollution (1998)—have provided a useful platform for dialog and pilot monitoring, but they remain voluntary, under-resourced, and insufficient to manage the transboundary nature of the crisis. National-level programs, including India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), Bangladesh’s National Air Quality Management Plan (NAQMP), and Nepal’s National Air Quality Management Action Plan (AQMAP), demonstrate domestic commitment but are constrained by fragmentation, limited financing, and lack of regional integration. This gap represents the central knowledge and governance challenge that prompted the present commentary. To address it, we propose a dual-track architecture designed to institutionalize binding regional cooperation. Track A would establish a United Nations-anchored South Asian Transboundary Air Pollution Protocol, under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). This protocol would codify legally enforceable emission standards, compliance committees, financial mechanisms, and harmonized monitoring. Track B would establish a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Prime Ministers’ Council on Air Quality (SPMCAQ) to provide political leadership, align domestic implementation, and authorize rapid responses to cross-border haze events. Lessons from the Indian Ocean Experiment, the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, and Europe’s Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution demonstrate that legally binding agreements combined with high-level political ownership can achieve durable reductions in pollution despite geopolitical tensions. By situating South Asia within these global precedents, the proposed framework provides a pragmatic, enforceable, and politically resilient pathway to protect health, reduce economic losses, and deliver cleaner air for nearly one-quarter of humanity. Full article