The WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health is an ambitious cross-country program currently operating in nine countries: Argentina, Bangladesh, Ghana, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Philippines, Ukraine and Zimbabwe. The goal of the program is to promote mental health system reform at the national level, shifting from an institutional care model to community-based care following a person-centered and rights-based approach. An initial planning phase of the program involved developing country-specific implementation plans through multi-stakeholder workshops, which resulted in national-level logical frameworks. Through the present study, a thematic analysis was carried out to explore the main commonalities across all countries’ plans. The results show that countries converge on a number of commonalities, including the broad-reaching, multifaceted and multi-sectoral nature of national reform strategies, a focus on person-centered and community-driven initiatives and recognition of the added value of institutional structures and expert advice on key issues such as monitoring and evaluation. The results of the present study can help guide future exercises of this kind in other countries.

A qualitative ranking method, Q methodology, was used to assess stakeholder priorities for socioecological services derived from coastal marshes and communities. The goal was to reveal strength of concerns for and tradeoffs among effects of coastal resilience strategies. Factor analysis identified three perspectives that formed a spectrum from high to low priorities on intangible services. Academic and government stakeholders were more likely than local residents to prioritize intangible services, but stakeholder views were diverse. A collaborative learning process promoted some alignment of views and academics showed the most movement – towards residents’ perspectives. Q-sort appeared effective at efficiently synthesizing broad concerns.

This paper focuses on the provision of adequate training in nutritioneducation to health and other community development workers fortheir improved performance and achievement. The difficultiesencountered and special care needed when dealing with low-income,chronically deprived communities are raised. A brief analysis ofpast and present trends in nutrition education is presented to showthe progress made from restricted, authoritative and not verysuccessful proposals to more comprehensive and participatoryapproaches. The need to train and update regional and field-levelpersonnel on the new approaches, theories and models offered bynutrition education is highlighted, but the scant availability ofresources for training activities may be a great limitation for thisundertaking. The contribution of educational, social, psychologicaland communication sciences, as well as marketing, in improving andbroadening the performance of health and nutrition education isrecognised. Some successful nutrition education projects,implemented in different regions, using various approaches, havemanaged to improve the nutrition situation of low-income groups andcould be used as good examples to be followed. Recommendations forimplementing nutrition education projects or activities need toconsider some prerequisites, such as good knowledge and analysis ofthe nutrition situation, careful selection of the strategies andmethods, careful planning and implementation, and clear definitionof the procedures and instruments for follow-up and evaluation.

Over the past half century, American agricultural productivity has increased while the number of full time farmers and rural populations have decreased. Although most people believe we have a safe, nutritious, and affordable food supply, the high level of productivity has had negative impacts on the environment and rural communities and has increased farmers' dependence on purchased inputs. As Americans become more concerned about food safety and the environment, a new paradigm for American agriculture is emerging. This new alternative agriculture takes an ecological approach to food production. The challenge facing the land-grant university system is how to answer questions about sustainable agricultural systems, maintain productivity and respond to the needs and concerns of their broadened clientele. Whole farm case studies, focus groups, farm improvement clubs, on-farm research, field-size research trials, and whole farm comparisons are new qualitative and quantitative methods for interdisciplinary research and education. These methods integrate biological and social strategies and bring community members into the research and education process. When these groups work together, questions critical to maintaining the long-term sustainability and productivity of agricultural systems can be answered.