There are two main objectives of this thesis. First, to review the social science evidence on the extent to which different police practices have been proven to reduce crime, or not reduce crime, as well as those cases where the evidence is not clear. This thesis synthesizes crime reduction strategies to short-list those practices that are proven to reduce crime. Second, it uses the evidence collected to facilitate an exploratory case study with three key informants from the Ottawa Police Service (OPS). The case study examines the current use and perceived future role of the police in evidence-based crime prevention efforts. Overall, the research study seeks to answer the following four research questions: 1. What sources of literature provide well-researched and reliable data on effectiveness of policing in crime reduction? 2. In this literature, what policing strategies/practices are shown to reduce crime, not reduce crime or are promising in reducing crime? 3. To what extent is the OPS using evidence-based knowledge to guide their policing strategy/practices? 4. To what extent is the OPS open to using evidence-based knowledge to guide their policing strategy/practices in the future?

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

Thesis (Ph. D., Education)--University of Idaho, May 2008. / Major professor: Sharon K. Stoll. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-156). Also available online (PDF file) by subscription or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.Ost.)--Unitec New Zealand, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-62).

There are two main objectives of this thesis. First, to review the social science evidence on the extent to which different police practices have been proven to reduce crime, or not reduce crime, as well as those cases where the evidence is not clear. This thesis synthesizes crime reduction strategies to short-list those practices that are proven to reduce crime. Second, it uses the evidence collected to facilitate an exploratory case study with three key informants from the Ottawa Police Service (OPS). The case study examines the current use and perceived future role of the police in evidence-based crime prevention efforts. Overall, the research study seeks to answer the following four research questions: 1. What sources of literature provide well-researched and reliable data on effectiveness of policing in crime reduction? 2. In this literature, what policing strategies/practices are shown to reduce crime, not reduce crime or are promising in reducing crime? 3. To what extent is the OPS using evidence-based knowledge to guide their policing strategy/practices? 4. To what extent is the OPS open to using evidence-based knowledge to guide their policing strategy/practices in the future?

Meta-analysis is an important statistical tool for systematic reviews and evidence-based medicine. Extracting the observed effect sizes, assessing the magnitude of heterogeneity, choosing the suitable statistical model, and interpreting the summary effect size are four key steps in meta-analysis. It is known that each of the above steps has its own unique characteristics and may require some specific attention. As an example, the observed effect sizes from individual studies may not be reported in the same scale and hence cannot be combined directly. Another example is on selecting a model for meta-analysis from the common-effect model and the random-effects model. When a meta-analysis contains only few studies, the common-effect model and the random-effects model will often lead to misleading or unreliable results. In the first part of the thesis, we give a brief introduction on evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews and meta-analysis. We will also show their practical importance, display their relationships, and present a motivating example for conducting a meta-analysis. In Chapter 2, we first review the common effect sizes in meta-analysis for both continuous data and binary data. How to combine different categories of effect sizes is a critical issue after extracting the observed effect sizes from the clinical studies in the literature. For continuous data, researchers have recently proposed methods that transform the five number summary to the sample mean and standard deviation (Hozo et al., 2005; Wan et al., 2014; Luo et al., 2018). For binary data, the transformation from the odds ratio (OR) to the relative risk (RR) in the cohort study was proposed by Zhang and Yu (1998). To the best of our knowledge, however, there is little work in the literature that converts OR to RR in the case-control study. In view of this, we establish a new formula for this transformation to fulfill the gap. The performance of the new method will be examined through simulations and real data analysis. Our method and formulas can not only handle meta-analyses with different effect sizes, but also offer some insights for medical researchers to further understand the meaning of OR and RR in both cohort and case-control studies. In Chapter 3, we first give a brief introduction on the three available models in meta-analysis: the common-effect model, the random-effects model, and the fixed-effects model. When a meta-analysis contains only few studies, the common-effect model and the random-effects model will often lead to misleading or unreliable results. In contrast, the fixed-effects model is capable to provide a good compromise between the existing two models. In this chapter, we propose to further improve the estimation accuracy of the average effect in the fixed-effects model by assigning different weight for each study as well as fully utilizing the information in the within-study variances. Through theory and simulation, we demonstrate that the fixed-effects model can serve as the most convincing model for meta-analysis with few studies. And most importantly, with a total of three models, we expect that meta-analysis can be conducted more flexibly, more meaningfully, and more accurately. In Chapter 4, we first give a brief introduction on the heterogeneity in meta-analysis. We then review the methods for quantifying heterogeneity in three directions as follows: the tests for heterogeneity, the estimates of the between-study variance, and the measures of the impact of heterogeneity. Note that most existing methods were derived under the assumption of known within-study variances. In practice, however, a direct use of the reported within-study variance estimates may largely reduce the power of the tests and also lower the accuracy of the estimates, especially when the sample sizes in some studies are not sufficiently large. To overcome this problem, we propose a family of shrinkage estimators for the within-study variances that are able to borrow information across the studies, and derive the optimal shrinkage parameters under the Stein loss function. We then apply the new estimates of the within-study variances to some well-known methods for measuring heterogeneity. Simulation studies and real data examples show that our shrinkage estimators can dramatically reduce the estimation bias and hence improve the exiting literature. Keywords: Common-effect model, Effect size, Fixed-effects model, Heterogeneity, Meta-analysis, Odds ratio, Random-effects model, Relative risk, Risk ratio

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Denna kvalitativa studie genomfördes för att undersöka vilken roll utvärdering av belöningssystem har i företag verksamma i Sverige. Studien utgår från teorin Evidence- Based Practice och dess underkategorier som specifikt behandlar belöningssystem. Dessa teorier applicerades på data inhämtad från intervjuer med personer ansvariga för belöningssystem på olika företag. I studien framkom, i likhet med de få tidigare studier som genomförts inom området, att utvärdering av belöningssystem inte har någon central roll hos de undersökta företagen. Anledningen till denna undanskymda roll anses dock inte vara en misstro mot behovet av det. Istället framkom att en starkt bidragande orsak till det restriktiva utförandet av utvärdering är att området anses komplext med stora problem relaterade till att identifiera lämpliga metoder för det praktiska utförandet.

Provision of a high standard of care in addiction treatment and prevention services is dependent upon knowledge of evidence-based practice (EBP) principles, and the skills needed to apply those principles, among the substance abuse workforce (SAW). Competency profiles for Canada’s SAW define the need for skill and knowledge of EBP. Within Canada’s SAW, persons within the Occupational Cluster Senior Management are ultimately responsible for decisions and therefore must possess a high level of proficiency in EBP. This proficiency has not been assessed in this group; the objective of this study was to conduct such an assessment on Senior Management from Nova Scotia’s Addiction Services. Eighteen Senior Managers completed semi-structured qualitative interviews. Interviews were analyzed using content analysis, five main themes emerged. It appears that Senior Management possess an understanding of the principles of EBP, but that their knowledge and use of the skills required for their application requires further development.

Doctor of Philosophy / Similar to their colleagues throughout the world, nurses and midwives in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, welcome evidencebased practice (EBP) as a means to improve patient or client outcomes. This thesis explores the way nurses and midwives understand evidence for EBP and aims to determine whether members of these professions currently have the knowledge and skills necessary to implement evidence‐based care. Three separate studies were conducted to explore NSW nurses’ readiness for EBP. Attitudes, knowledge and skill were investigated using an EBP questionnaire returned by 383 nurses. The views of 23 nursing opinion leaders were elicited during qualitative in‐depth interviews, and their ideas on maximising the potential for future nurses to confidently engage in EBP were explored. Current approaches to teaching EBP in undergraduate nursing programs were investigated by examining documents issued by NSW nursing education providers. The results demonstrate many differences between the ways NSW nurses currently understand evidence for EBP, and a range of approaches to teaching EBP in undergraduate nursing programs. Under current conditions, nurses graduating from universities in NSW commence practice with varying levels of preparation for EBP and enter into a professional arena that is itself struggling to cope with the concepts and language of this approach to improving healthcare. v Evidence for the effectiveness of EBP is slowly accumulating and despite some small positive signs, the collective results of this thesis suggest that current educational approaches are not capable of producing the kind of results that are both necessary and desirable for the promotion of evidence‐based nursing practice in NSW. Articulating a commitment to EBP, using a common language and a consistent approach are among the recommendations made for the future promotion of EBP in nursing education.