Drug use is a critical behavioral disorder or a delinquency behavior (in the judiciary system's words) that comes with a burden at multiple levels: individual, community, public, and global. These social structures apply different interventions to reduce this burden in their field. Given the society as a whole, these structures must be harmonious and synergistic to optimize these endeavors in terms of cost–benefit. In practice, however, reducing the burden of addiction is followed by conflicting approaches by different organizations, in terms such as “eradicating drugs,” “eliminating drug users,” “obliterating addiction,” and ultimately, drug use harm reduction. In the harm reduction philosophy, drug use is recognized as an inescapable fact in human societies, and tries to control its personal and public consequences in different dimensions . Therefore, this approach includes broad measures such as: changing the pattern of consumption (from high-risk substances to less dangerous substances) through modification of the laws and law enforcement measures, distributing disposable syringes to prevent HIV transmission, providing basic life needs such as shelter for street-based drug users to reduce the social consequences like homelessness, prescribing substitute agonists to reduce the committing crime to obtain the needed drugs, and even the drug court program, which prevents the exacerbation of complications in a person with a chronic and relapsing disorder, due to the imposition of inappropriate sentences (like incarceration in unacceptable conditions). It is contrary to the approaches that aim to reduce the drug supply rate and drug use incidence and prevalence to zero. As a result of the conflict of interests, goals discrepancies, and differences in organizational culture, these approaches may contrast with each other. We see this in the harm reduction between the health system and law enforcement. Different factors affect the harmony or conflict between these two structures. This article addresses the impact of ideology, social conditions, and bureaucratic administration on the relationship between the health system and the police in drug use harm reduction in Iran. In the last half-century, Iran has experienced five different areas of dealing with the addiction problem. About one decade before the 1979 revolution in Iran, when heroin use, like in many other parts of the world, had become a health and social problem .Decades ago in the 1930s), the regime, like the hijab and other traditional clothing, recognized narcotic use as an obstacle to authoritarian development. The regime forced drug users to cease, made women remove their hijab (unveiling) and men wear clothes according to Western fashion 0s, the r.With no harm reduction approach but to decrease smuggled drugs, the government in pre-revolutionary Iran started to locate opium rations for the elderly dependent users in 1956 . This meAlmost all anti-monarchist revolutionaries, regardless of their ideology and slogans, raised this policy as a sign of the regime's deliberate attempt to narcotize the masses and normalize Western-style liberalism. They saw the prevalence of drug use as one of the imperialist tricks to weaken independent societies and defeat the revolution's ideals. Hence, it was no surprise that shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, the new Islamic government cut opium quotas, criminalized drug use, and mandated addicts to quit drug use within six months .Afterward, the Revolutionary Courts became responsible for dealing with drug-related crimes . ProsecuCentral law enforcement of these courts was the Islamic Revolutionary Committees, one of the first institutions established after the revolution, to obtain security and discipline in the country to protect the achievements of the Islamic Revolution of Iran . In addiThe main idea at that time was to quickly and decisively eliminate all the problems and deprivations attributed to the former regime by using the revolutionary will in the direction of the revolution's ideals. In an endeavor to fight against drugs, the revolutionary courts and committees carried out this determination to “eradicate drugs” and “eliminate drug users” from society through two principal measures: The imposition of severe punishments, such as execution and long-term imprisonment for both drug dealing and trafficking; and, collecting drug users and keeping them in compulsory camps to the forced cessation of drug use . DespiteThe concept of addiction as a chronic, recurrent, and treatable disease; and the notion of substance use as a perverted, sinful, criminal, and counter-revolutionary conduct, which must be repented of or punished, are in contrast. Naturally, forming a harm reduction approach to substance use in such an environment was impossible. The law, which originated from a jurisprudential-revolutionary ideology, obliged drug users to quit drug use and law enforcement to purge society of addicts; then, dissidents could not raise other diverse approaches, such as harm reduction.This situation continued until the pragmatic government came to power after the devastating eight-year Iran–Iraq war (1980–1988). The effects of the war and the consequences of socioeconomic transformations changed the patterns of drug use, drug users, and the harms of addiction in Iran. The harm could not be controlled by gathering arrested addicts to force them to quit drug use in compulsory camps and forsaken islands of the Persian Gulf. Then, it allowed the government to raise reconsideration of counter-narcotics policies at the highest levels of authority, the Expediency Discernment Council.The new 1997 amendment still criminalized drug use and forced addicts to quit to avoid punishment. However, two decades after the revolution, drug users with no deadline were allowed to take addiction treatment and rehabilitation at medical centers licensed by the MOHME . NeverthWhat changed the scene was the prevalence of HIV infection among people who inject drugs (PWID), particularly in prisons . The danHealth care system technocrats, first in the field of infectious diseases, then mental health and addiction, turned this threat into an opportunity to build the foundations of addiction harm reduction programs in Iran. Their advocacy efforts were fantastic, and they could get the judiciary's support at the highest level. The health care system developed NSP, VCT, then MMT programs in prisons and high-risk areas , 14. DesAlthough in the beginning, even some judicial authorities persecuted harm reduction activists and even the IMOH officials on charges such as abetment in the crime of drug use, with the emergence of harm reduction benefits, their views on these programs changed.All of these took place in the context of socio-political changes in which reformism, tolerance, and civil society were the main keywords. That is everything necessary for the harm reduction movement in Iran. Under these circumstances, not only did the NGOs take a humane approach to modify strict policies in dealing with drug users, but also the police, who were trying to show a changed face in line with the new social atmosphere associated with this movement .The police carried out the orders of the judicial authorities regarding harm reduction activities and dealing with their clients. However, the Iran Drug Control Headquarters (DCHQ), the highest executive authority in this field, played an essential role in bringing together the government bodies with different opinions and interests, including the police and health system . At the The honeymoon was short for Iran's drug use harm reduction. With the entry of stimulants (in the mid-2000s) into the Iran drug market, a new pattern of consumers appeared with distinct demographic and socioeconomic characteristics from usual opioid users . This paReducing the risk of HIV transmission through injecting drugs has been the central goal of addiction harm reduction programs in Iran for two decades, and the health administration has focused on achieving this goal. Therefore, the "addiction harm reduction approach" in Iran has been reduced to interventions to "reduce the risk of HIV transmission through injecting drug use." For many reasons, including the training provided through harm reduction programs, the prevalence and incidence of injecting drug use are much lower today than in the past . HoweverThe burden of these social consequences on the judiciary and law enforcement increased even more. They directly faced considerable people committing crimes under the psychotic effects of drug use that the health system had no plan to manage. This unexpected situation made doubt the potential of harm reduction programs. Gradually, the police, who were at the forefront of dealing with new challenges, reduced their vital involvement with the health system for harm reduction programs.These changes coincided with the end of the work of the reformist government in 2005, which advocated harm reduction, and the emergence of a government with reactionary ideas and a revolutionary manner that sought to solve social, economic, and other problems by instant plans. The changes were not only at the political level but also altered the social and economic situation of the country, which directly or indirectly affected the quantity and quality of government health and support services and the participation of non-governmental sectors in providing them . SimilarThe dominant way of HIV transmission has now changed from injecting drug use to unprotected sex. However, Iran's AIDS-based harm reduction program ignores other public health harms such as declining mental health, accidents, poisoning, and overdose  deaths. Instead, other public problems, such as insecurity and the sense of public insecurity caused by the presence of street addicts, have become the main harms of addiction in the eyes of society. The problems which fall within the scope of police missions and their situation are known as the indicator of police performance evaluation. The police institution cannot fundamentally control drug users' petty crimes and offenses rooted in the deprivation of proper support, treatment, and harm reduction services for drug users. Hence, to maintain its credibility and reduce the burden of expectations, it inevitably “eliminates addicts” from the public space. As a result, we face a vicious cycle. Society reproduces street addicts constantly, and the forced cessation of drug use merely deepens the deprivation of in-camp incarcerated addicts from accessing the services they need. The outcome is an increase in the burden of addiction due to its various individual and public harms, including drug-related crimes. This means that the more police mission programs conflict with the harm reduction services, the more health problems and the more burden for the police.What can break this vicious cycle is changing society's attitudes at all levels toward the concept of security and sustainable ways of providing it. Suppose the security of a group in society, even if it is a minority, is distorted as a fundamental right. In that case, other social groups' rights (including security) will also be threatened. Society must realize that sustainable security is only achieved if all social groups, including those who may seem different from the majority or called "the others," are safe. Hence, when a citizen is confronted with a homeless citizen who uses drugs, instead of the police, s/he will call the social security service or a familiar supporting NGO. This sociocultural awareness is achieved through formal education and the media.When social demonstrations of addiction become the pretext of political competition, pressure mounts on the government, and a conservative government prefers to expel street addicts from public view by police forces to escape the reproaches of political opponents. These pressures can come directly to the police from political authorities or the media, and highly interpretable law allows law enforcement to exercise power over this voiceless population, people who need harm reduction services. This is what we saw between 2013 and 2017 when the centrist government was pitted against conservative political rivals in parliament and the judiciary.In recent decades, the over-criminalization of citizens' behaviors in Iran's criminal law , consumiSpending vast resources on the forced quit addiction of these people in the compulsory camps has had no effect other than temporarily preventing their delinquency during incarceration. This inefficient approach to a multidimensional problem has constantly increased the volume of this mass as a part of the criminal population and raised its social, economic, security, and health consequences at the individual and public levels.Iran is on the transit route of international opiate trafficking due to its proximity to Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium; it suffers a lot of human and financial losses to fight this global problem. Even in the most challenging international relations, other countries and international bodies have appreciated Iran's efforts in this struggle (UNODC Drug Reports). The criterion for countries' commitment to international conventions to reduce the global supply of narcotics is the volume of illicit drugs they seize. However, the benchmark for police success in combating drug supply is reduced access to drugs  nationwide . At the Iran may not be the only example, where its internal affairs and law enforcement officials see the presence of street addicts in public as a source of public doubt about the government's commitment to the fight against drugs. They consider the public gathering of drug users, even to receive harm reduction services in DICs, as a sign of the government's failure to “addiction eradication,” as an ideological goal that they more try to achieve, the more unattainable it becomes. So now that "addiction eradication" in general and drug dependence, in particular, is not possible, the government focuses on physically “eliminating drug users” from the public space to regain self-confidence and prestige. In the meantime, street addicts are receiving more attention due to their symbolic aspect as a sign of government disability. This issue has been so crucial to the police (and IRGC) that they directly keep some arrested addicted people in detention centers and former barracks under their supervision. The rest are held in prisons, rented private camps, and government compulsory residential centers.The above overview reveals that the three main components in Iran have affected the relationship between the law enforcement forces and the addiction phenomenon in general and harm reduction programs in particular.1. Ideology: Even before the 1979 Islamic revolution, the regimes’ ideological orientations influenced the addiction issue . The authoritarian development of the first Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925–1941), required the violent confrontation of the police with addiction as an obstacle to the progress of the country and addicts as the symbols of backwardness. The medicalization of addiction in the second Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza shah period (1941–1979) also originated from Western-style modernization, which sought to subjugate a culture-driven behavior with experimental tools. In a situation where the pattern of substance use was changing to heroin, allocating the opium quota for some addicted people could not, as a health intervention, have the harm reduction effect. Since it was thought that this action would reduce the opium smuggling from neighboring countries into Iran (and the outflow of the country's funds to buy it), the judicial system and the police supported this plan [ahlavi 195–1941, rThe ideological approach to drug use, drug users, and addiction became more pronounced after the 1979 revolution  to the eThe integration of law enforcement agencies into the police during the postwar reconstruction period (1991) was a pragmatic move that could have moderated the dealing with drug users. However, considering the aggravation of drug-induced harms as an inevitable but negligible complication of the development, the war on drugs and drug users prevailed over other approaches in that period. In wars, there is no place for peaceful measures such as harm reduction, and law enforcement is the guarantor of this irreconcilability.Ultimately, the opinions of the reformist movement were strengthened by the victory in the 1997 presidential election and made possible the harm reduction approach to addiction in Iran. The tolerance of the opposition had grown so strong in the community that it forced the police to show the necessary flexibility to carry out these interventions. Also, paying attention to civil society enabled the growth of the relevant NGOs active in harm reduction as the leading providers of these services under tolerance and even protection of the police. However, a decade and a half later, the weak theoretical underpinnings of harm reduction in Iran defeated it in the face of a conservative discourse that pursued the war on drugs and drug users by proxy of police in an institutional rather than ideological manner.This experience shows that harm reduction is not just a negative concept to confronting the criminalization of addiction but philosophical theorizing of the addiction phenomenon with an affirmative approach. Then, continuing evidence-based dialogue about various aspects of the phenomenon and scientific critics of harm reduction is vital .2. Society: If the policy of suppressing substance users is related to the pre-modern age and the treatment and rehabilitation approach to drug use disorders belongs to the modern era, then addiction harm reduction is a postmodern concept. Harm reduction is not an imported fashion that changes the public taste for a while and then gives way to another. Still, it is a product of society's insight and a sign of its tact in dealing with complex social issues. Harm reduction providers and law enforcement are both parts of this society, and what happens in the field between them is a result of the social condition of the day.Even in less democratic societies, whether the public demand is for street-based addicts to be collected by the police or supported by social institutions will be determinative in the government's drug policy. In democracies, the community's sense of responsibility and participation in the phenomenon of addiction reinforces the necessary empathy in law enforcement forces to accompany harm reduction interventions. However, the instability of a society in transition can sometimes be so distressing that the community will force to abandon empathy with others as a psycho-social need to obtain security as a basic need. Such a society cannot be sensitive to using unbridled force against the stigmatized harm reduction target group.The way out of this vicious cycle is broad and deep public awareness so that instead of demanding the police sweep the problem under the carpet, society responsibly requires the health, treatment, and social support authorities to optimally and humanely manage drug use harms. Also, it is necessary to train law enforcement continuously about the goals and techniques of addiction harm reduction and its benefits for society, including providing stable security.3. Administration: The medicalization of addiction before and after the 1979 revolution and the harm reduction interventions in Iran in the late 1990s and early 2000s were the initiatives of talented technocrats in the executive body of the government in the areas of social support, health, and drug control. Unlike their conservative predecessors and descendants, they approached the addiction problem from a new perspective. The harm reduction pioneers indeed turned the threat of HIV/AIDS into an opportunity to develop harm reduction programs. To this end, they acquired extensive advocacy from various parts of the system, especially the judiciary as a higher law enforcement body. They then obtained the collaboration of key persons in the police to implement the harm reduction program.Police commanders had the same desire for their organization's structural and functional development and to improve its image in society. Their previous and next counterparts' symbolic goal was to save even one addict in the sense of eternal purity from drug use at any cost. However, by cost–benefit calculation, they preferred the long-term benefits of the harm reduction approach in reducing the social burden of addiction, including drug-related crimes, to the temporary situation control of the crimes through the “social elimination of drug users.”After the leading creative technocrats in addiction harm reduction gave way to conservative managers, the advocacy necessary for the continued support of the judicial and law enforcement system for these programs was severely weakened, and the initiative was taken away from the health and social support system. This history reminds us of the importance of tireless advocacy for Harm Redaction.Although police in Iran are part of the armed forces, due to the nature of its missions, it has had a close relationship with the established governments. Thus, the dominant discourse of the incumbent government and its bureaucrats influences them. However, the pace of change in government institutions is faster than in law enforcers. Thus, when a conservative government, which does not attach much importance to avant-garde approaches such as harm reduction, replaces the transformational government, new authorities allocate less financial, human, political, and administrative resources to previous progressive programs.Governments change every four or eight years with the slogan of transformation in matters of public concern, while the missions of the judiciary and the police change less over time. Therefore, we can expect these institutions to be the starters of the fundamental changes needed for harm reduction programs or their foremost advocates; if harm reduction is so politically and socially institutionalized, ignoring it would be costly to shift to a new equilibrium point for all actors.This shows the importance of organizations outside the government and political parties to advocate harm reduction policy and demand it from the judicial and law enforcement system. Suppose the international institutions had encouraged Iran's police to participate in national harm reduction programs as much as they praise it for drug seizing. In that case, Iran's police could be a role model for other similar countries. One of them is Afghanistan, which is related to Iran not only in terms of drug consumption patterns but also in terms of language and culture. The promotion of harm reduction programs and, generally, demand reduction policies in Iran can directly and indirectly affect Afghanistan and lead to a significant reduction in drug supply from this largest narcotic proucer in the world.Harm reduction is not a tactic or even a strategy in the face of the problems caused by drug use but a conceptual approach to the complex phenomenon of addiction that direct methods cannot control the consequences of it. Because the burden of these consequences is multidimensional  and multilevel , the typical policies that address only one dimension or one level of harm, such as public health or social security, have limited success. Therefore, to reduce the burden of addiction, we need a package of comprehensive, continuous, and integrated interventions that include all the harms of substance abuse and addiction. The variety of harms makes multi/inter-sectoral cooperation inevitable. This cooperation requires a mutual understanding of sectors with different characteristics from the considerations of others.It is natural for diverse sectors such as the health system, the judiciary, and the police to have different priorities and concerns in dealing with addiction, to have conflicts of interest, and compete for more resources to address the consequences of drug use in their field. However, it would be disappointing if these conflicts and competitions increase the burden of addiction. Shared ideals, an informed society, and an intelligent administration can turn the threat posed by these differences into an opportunity to optimize harm reduction interventions to minimize the burden of addiction.


With the acceleration of the digitization process and the popularization of the internet, the recycling of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has become a potential and emerging recycling method. Stakeholders in the WEEE internet recycling industry have different roles which need to be clarified. The stakeholder structure and relationships, and stakeholder characteristics, lie at the core of recycling system governance. Therefore, it is necessary to identify stakeholders in the existing WEEE Internet recycling industry. This study selected 10 important stakeholders and classified them into key, potential, and marginal stakeholders using the Mitchell scale while analyzing their characteristics and interactions. The results showed that internet recycling companies, government, residents, and traditional recyclers are key stakeholders that are important for promoting the development of the industry. Based on the above analysis, policy advice is proposed to provide directions for the improvement of the WEEE industry. The production and consumption of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is increasing yearly, leading to increasing waste EEE (WEEE) . WEEE isWith the management of WEEE becoming an increasingly crucial concern, new models of Internet recycling have emerged in the field of WEEE recycling. Various scholars have researched WEEE management. For example, Liu et al.  studied In recent years, in China, the “Internet +” recycling model has continued to develop. In general, we can summarize it into three categories. The first mode is the recycling mode based on big data. This model is a recycling system based on big data constructed by WEEE recycling companies in order to improve operational efficiency and develop digital technologies. The second mode is the multi- stakeholder cooperative recycling mode. The WEEE recycling industry chain involves multiple stakeholders. Under the background of “Internet +” recycling, some companies have developed a multi-stakeholder cooperative recycling system through cooperation. The third mode is the recycling mode combined with garbage classification. This model combines Internet recycling and garbage classification, and adopts methods such as setting up smart recycling bins and making appointments to pick up items, and incorporates WEEE into the domestic waste classification network for recycling.In order to gain a deeper understanding of how the WEEE recycling industry in China works, we need to discuss further the stakeholders within the industry. In fact, with increasing WEEE management research, people are gradually realizing that each stakeholder has a different role in the WEEE recycling industry, and this influences the effect of the industry’s chain policy . AnalyziThe WEEE recycling industry requires essential stakeholders involved in implementing circular economy approaches to work together. However, although many previous studies have considered this from the perspective of stakeholders, they have different descriptions and definitions of the stakeholders in the WEEE recycling industry, and few studies have considered all stakeholders. This makes our work more subjective in finding research topics and identifying stakeholders, making it difficult to get a systematic and comprehensive view of the industry. Considering this, we aimed to comprehensively study the emerging industry of WEEE Internet recycling, by analyzing its existing stakeholders to further identify the ones that play a vital role in the industry. This can help us find the focus of research more easily in future work. Currently, the most widely used stakeholder classification methods are the multi-dimensional classification method and the Mitchell score method. The latter method divides the industry into three types of stakeholders, which can help us accurately distinguish the importance of stakeholders in the WEEE Internet recycling industry. Therefore, we hope to improve the Mitchell score method based on the characteristics of the WEEE Internet recycling industry. Through this approach, we divided the WEEE internet recycling industry into key, potential and marginal stakeholders. The characteristics and interaction among the stakeholders were investigated to promote the sustainable development of the WEEE recycling industry and provide a theoretical basis for the government to supervise and manage the industry and provide companies with operational decision-making references. Furthermore, it also contributes to environmental protection by promoting the construction of green supply chains.Several studies have investigated the WEEE recycling system, and researchers have differing definitions of stakeholders . We compBased on stakeholder theory, published literature, and analysis of the development status of the WEEE Internet recycling industry, we selected 15 stakeholders. These included residents, electronic product manufacturers, electronic retailers, Internet recycling companies, traditional recyclers, scavengers, disassembly and treatment companies, reusing companies, waste treatment companies, hazardous waste treatment companies, garbage treatment companies, individual repair stations, logistics companies, government and non-governmental organizations, and third party payment platforms. These were narrowed down through expert scoring to 10 stakeholders of the WEEE Internet recycling industry .(1)The initiative dimension refers to the immediacy of a stakeholder’s demand for the WEEE Internet recycling industry, that is, the stakeholder has a direct interest demand in WEEE Internet recycling. The initiative of the 10 listed stakeholders was assigned a score of 1–5. The higher the initiative value of a stakeholder, the higher the urgency for Internet recycling.(2)The importance dimension is derived from the power dimension in the Mitchell scoring method and refers to the degree to which the status, ability, and corresponding behavior of a related interest group have an impact on the WEEE Internet recycling industry. Moreover, it will also be directly affected by the trend of the WEEE Internet recycling industry. The importance of the 10 listed stakeholders was assigned a score of 1–5. The more importance a stakeholder is assigned, the more influence its status, capabilities, and corresponding behaviors will have in the industry.(3)The urgency dimension refers to whether the needs of a certain stakeholder group can immediately attract the attention of the WEEE Internet recycling industry. The absence of this stakeholder will lead to the normal operation of the whole industry. The urgency of the 10 listed stakeholders was assigned a score of 1–5. The higher the urgency assigned to a stakeholder, the more immediate attention will be paid to its needs.Various methods exist for classifying stakeholders, including generalized stakeholder taxonomy and multidimensional classifications. However, Mitchell and Wood proposed a clear and easy-to-implement scoring method to classify stakeholders . AccordiBased on the Mitchell classification method, existing research, and the results of our expert consultation questionnaire, stakeholders in WEEE Internet recycling were divided into three levels: key, potential, and marginal stakeholders. Key stakeholders reflect those stakeholders that scored > 4 points in two of the three dimensions; Potential stakeholders reflect those stakeholders that scored 3–4 points in at least two dimensions; Marginal stakeholders reflect those that scored < 3 points in at least two dimensions .According to the results of the questionnaire, the initiative scores are shown in The importance dimension analysis showed that the importance of Internet recycling companies, governments, residents, and traditional recyclers was relatively high, scoring > 4 points. The importance scores of electronic product manufacturers and disassembly and treatment companies were lower, scoring between 3 and 4 points. The importance of hazardous waste treatment companies and non-government organizations were the lowest, scoring < 3 points .The urgency dimension analysis showed that Internet recycling companies, governments, residents, and traditional recyclers had the same degree of urgency and importance, scoring > 4 points. Electronic product manufacturers and disassembly and treatment companies had a lower degree of urgency, scoring 3 to 4 points. Reusing companies, hazardous waste treatment companies, non-governmental organizations, and garbage treatment companies had the lowest degree of urgency, scoring < 3 points  with randomly selected representatives of Internet recycling companies, traditional recyclers, residents, and the government. The main contents of the interview survey are shown in Due to the large size of TV sets, refrigerators, and other household appliances, the proportion of residents who leave them at home or directly discard them is small. Therefore, the situation that residents do not participate in recycling is no longer considered, and only traditional recycling or Internet recycling is considered. Because the operating cost of Internet recycling companies is higher than that of traditional recycling companies, traditional recycling companies have a competitive advantage in the recycling price. To promote residents’ participation in Internet recycling, the government needs to provide incentives and guiding measures. In the recycling of household appliance waste, price competition exists between Internet recycling companies and traditional recycling companies. The recycling price is an important factor for residents to consider when choosing to participate in recycling. In consideration of the development of the WEEE Internet recycling industry, the government will need to enhance residents’ participation in Internet recycling, so residents should be encouraged or guided to participate therein.For the recycling of waste electronic products, residents are more concerned about information security. Compared with traditional recyclers, Internet recycling companies are more disorganized; hence, the government cannot effectively supervise them, and information security cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, the government, Internet recycling companies, and residents are regarded as stakeholders in the recycling of electronic product waste. The relationship between stakeholders in the recycling of electronic product waste is shown in Due to the particularity of WEEE, although the recycling price is relatively high, residents opt for idle disposal over recycling for fear that their information security cannot be guaranteed. When recycling electronic products, internet recycling companies promise to crush residents’ information to ensure that the information will not be leaked. However, more technical costs need to be invested to protect information security. If this cost will make it difficult for companies to make profits, their commitment to information security protection may not be realized. Therefore, government supervision plays an important role. Under the strict supervision of the government, whether Internet recycling companies really protect information security will be disclosed, and the information will be more transparent. Residents’ fear of information leakage will be reduced, and residents’ participation in Internet recycling will be enhanced.Through the identification and division of stakeholders, this study identifies the government, residents, Internet recycling companies, and traditional recyclers as key stakeholders in the WEEE Internet recycling industry. In the management of WEEE, the key stakeholders all play a vital role in the development of the industry and form the core part of the industry stakeholders. In the evolutionary game analysis of WEEE recycling stakeholders by Wang et al. , the govIn addition, we found that Internet recycling companies are also key stakeholders in the industry, ranking first in terms of initiative and importance, and second in terms of urgency. The role played by Internet recycling companies in the industry deserves our attention. Moreover, the current Internet recycling industry has not been fully developed, and Internet recycling will play a greater role in the near future. Some studies have begun to focus on the field of Internet recycling and have demonstrated its effectiveness ,27. HoweIn the research, we found some marginal stakeholders. They are passively affected by the development of Internet recycling and have the lowest impacts on the development of Internet recycling. Therefore, it is easier to ignore them in our management. But these stakeholders are actually very important and cannot be ignored. Hazardous waste treatment companies are one example. Due to the polluting nature of WEEE, if the industry lacks this stakeholder, an adverse impact of WEEE on the environment will be unavoidable. They are classified as marginal stakeholders, which only means that they contribute less to the development of the industry, not that they can be ignored. Instead, we should also pay attention to them.Finally, during our interviews, we discovered a phenomenon worth exploring. An important reason for the high idle rate of waste electronic products is the information security of consumers. Consumers often change their recycling behavior because they fear information leakage. This was confirmed in a study by Zhang et al. ., who foOverall, the most important contribution of this work to other research is to identify stakeholders within the WEEE Internet recycling industry and compare their importance to find key stakeholders. This can help relevant studies to select research objects and design research directions when conducting stakeholder analysis, at the same time as finding gaps in research.The Mitchell scoring method was used to identify the key stakeholders of WEEE Internet recycling and to analyze their behavioral characteristics and relationships. The results show that the government, Internet recycling companies, traditional recyclers, and residents are the key stakeholders of WEEE Internet recycling. The behaviors of different key stakeholders interacted with each other, thus affecting the development of WEEE Internet recycling. Finally, the interrelationship between key stakeholders was different in the field of electrical appliance waste recycling and electronic product waste recycling. In the recycling of waste electronic products, residents choose whether to participate based on comprehensive recovery income and information security. Internet recycling companies need to invest in the protection of residents’ information security. To encourage residents to participate in recycling, the government needs to supervise Internet recycling companies.In the management of the WEEE recycling industry, we should vigorously develop the emerging recycling mode  and provide Internet companies with more convenient conditions, perfect systems, and reasonable and fair standards, which can further enhance the important role they play in the industry. To improve the efficiency and convenience of WEEE recycling, China’s WEEE recycling industry needs a more advanced recycling system.Improving residents’ awareness of environmental protection and establishing good environmental protection habits can greatly improve the recycling efficiency of WEEE, and improve the garbage sorting and recycling mechanisms, to further leverage the stakeholders who are restricted by the environment and cannot play a role, such as garbage treatment companies.One of the serious problems that lead to the idleness of WEEE is that information security is difficult to guarantee. Improving the management of information security is not only an important problem to be solved urgently in building an Internet recycling network, but also an important method for encouraging consumers to participate in the recycling industry with peace of mind. Hence, these aspects should be focused on to manage WEEE in a safe and efficient manner.


Young African American women have higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, than those of young women of other racial and ethnic groups. Gender-, culture-, and age-specific interventions are needed to end the HIV epidemic. The Women’s CoOp (WC) is an HIV risk–reduction intervention that is proven to be efficacious in various face-to-face formats.This study aims to adapt the delivery method of an evidence-based intervention, the WC, from an in-person format to a self-guided mobile health  format while ensuring that core elements are maintained for intervention comparability and fidelity.Several adaptation phases were conducted by using the Personal Health Informatics and Intervention Toolkit (PHIT) as a guiding point to create the mobile app version of the WC. Throughout 5 phases, we established the implementation groundwork for the app; conducted formative research activities to test the initial draft of the app and obtain feedback; applied the PHIT toolkit programming structure to produce the mHealth version of the WC intervention; conducted usability testing and pretesting with interested parties, followed by in-house testing by WC interventionists and PHIT developers; and deployed the app to tablets and distributed it to study participants. The app underwent regular maintenance updates during the study.cue card presentations of the materials delivered by the intervention staff were presented within the app but with voice-over narration and in a self-guided format rather than being led by a staff member. Other aspects of the intervention did not lend themselves to such straightforward adaptation, such as hands-on condom proficiency practice and one-on-one goal-setting activities. In these cases, the subject matter experts and app developers worked together to find comparable analogs to be used within the app. Once developed, tested, and finalized, the mHealth WC app was deployed into local health departments as part of a randomized trial.The team converted the seven elements of the WC as accurately as possible for comparability to determine efficacy in a mobile app format while changing little about the basic delivery methods. For instance, This systematic adaptation process created an accurate mHealth equivalent of an existing, in-person behavioral health intervention. Although participants’ reception of the app during the formative developmental phase was overall positive, maintaining fidelity to the in-person delivery compromised the natural capabilities of a mobile app, such as further gamification, different types of interactivity, and integrated notifications and messaging, which could be helpful for participants’ adherence to the intervention schedule. Given the development and implementation of the app, the next step is to examine the impact of the app and its efficacy in HIV and substance use risk-reduction. African American women have experienced an unparalleled burden of HIV since the start of the epidemic and currently account for 55% of new HIV cases among women in the United States, despite representing 13% of women in the US population . The disSexually transmitted infections (STIs) further place women at an increased risk for HIV, with African American women experiencing similar disparities in STI rates. Adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 24 years represent approximately half of the estimated 19 million new STI cases that occur each year in the United States, with young African American women experiencing approximately 4.5 times the rate of chlamydia, 5.2 times the rate of syphilis, and 9.3 times the rate of gonorrhea compared with young White women in the same age group ..28].Monitor Goals. Participants are encouraged to come back frequently to review or revise their goals or choose new goals when the previous goals have been met.Participants are instructed to review the goals presented to them and choose 3 goals to work toward from each topic domain . Once they have selected their goals, they review them on a confirmation screen and tap a button to confirm their goals. Once their goals are confirmed for the session’s categories, a new menu option appears on the home screen—As part of the face-to-face WC, participants are called in advance of their next session to remind them to attend. Similarly, for the mobile app, periodic reminders were programmed to pop up in the form of notifications on the tablet; the participant is able to set the frequency of these notifications during their mHealth introduction appointment. As these notices could potentially be seen by anyone looking at the tablet without the need to log into the app, they were developed to be generic to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the participant. An example notification was, “Don’t forget to visit the app!”The disparity in HIV and other STI rates among young African American women in the US South, when compared with other groups, continues to be a public health concern. Targeted behavioral health interventions such as the WC have been shown to be helpful but are costly to conduct in person, and the time and resources required to participate can sometimes be prohibitive for those in the intended populations.Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, health resources are even more strained, which makes a new application more feasible and acceptable. The increased adoption of mobile devices has opened a potential avenue for reaching a greater number of young women at risk for HIV and other STIs. Public health practitioners have the opportunity to adapt evidence-based interventions to an mHealth format and possibly reach more individuals than ever at a lower cost. However, it is still largely unknown how these adaptations are received by the intended populations. Will the decreased in-person interaction be detrimental? Or perhaps the innovative and efficient media format of an mHealth app will be of more interest to younger age groups.For future studies, it may not always be possible to provide participants with an electronic device  to complete the intervention. However, in this study, it was not a confounding factor, as participants were not excluded because of a lack of access to a tablet.In the case of the WC to mWC adaptation process, the development team wanted to mirror the in-person intervention as closely as possible for fidelity and provide a true comparison of the two formats. Future research could adapt this approach further, such as by potentially using more interactive gamification components, including rewards and points for completing intervention activities, to encourage engagement and retention in intervention content. This first adaptation of the mWC app showed promise for participant engagement with a mobile app modality and may pave the way for future participant recruitment and retention strategies, more accessible knowledge dissemination, and practicable participant behavior change via mobile gamified behavioral intervention activities.


The purpose of the study was to assess the requirements for approval of the importation of unregistered medicines for use in the public sector in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.The study reviewed the legal provisions and requirements to be fulfilled when importing unregistered medicines for the public sector in SADC countries relative to two comparators drawn from countries with stringent regulatory systems through extant document analysis. The relative implementation index score was calculated and used to measure the level of implementing legal provisions and requirements to be fulfilled. Analysis was performed using the STATA software package.Approximately 13 out of 16 SADC countries had a relative implementation index below 50%. The aggregated implementation index across all SADC countries was 44%, ranging from 4 to 54%, while the two comparators had a relative implementation index of 81% and 85%, respectively.Implementing the minimum requirements for importing unregistered medicines for the public sector was deficient compared to the jurisdictions with stringent regulatory systems, and wide implementation gaps also existed within the SADC region. The use of medical products such as pharmaceuticals, biologicals including vaccines, blood products, and medical devices, including in vitro diagnostics, is essential in the healthcare provision system , 2. EverMedical products are allowed for use after the respective NRAs approve them. The requirements to obtain such approval differ among NRAs based on their regulatory capacity , 10. TheAccording to World Health Organization (WHO), Africa has 54 NRAs with varying capacities, but most cannot perform the critical regulatory functions . A WHO rIneffective delivery of quality healthcare services has led to shortages of medicines worldwide, including the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region –25. MediTo objectively assess each NRA and create an opportunity for strengthening regulatory systems, WHO developed a Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT) . The GBTTo our knowledge, the legal provisions and requirements set by each NRAs in the SADC region when approving the importation and distribution of unregistered medicines, similarities, differences, robustness, and challenges remain unknown as the processes are not usually published; hence no opportunity for knowledge sharing and or transfer. The objectives of this study were to review and determine the level of implementing the legal provisions and requirements for the importation of medicines across the SADC NRAs. The study provides baseline data for creating a regional guideline for good practices when importing unregistered medicines to protect public health. The identified gaps can be included in the institutional development plans for each NRA to enhance the regulatory systems strengthening within the region.SADC has 16 Member States. The legislative instruments and guidelines from 15 SADC countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, were included in the analysis. No response or data was obtained from Mauritius.The study reviewed the legislative provisions and the requirements for the approval of importation and distribution of unregistered medicines by 15 SADC NRAs, and two comparators Canada and UK, drawn from developed settings. Convenient selection of the two comparators was applied in this study. These two reference-NRAs are also listed as WHO-listed authorities, i.e., considered stringent regulatory authorities (SRAs) by WHO . Data onThe Relative Implementation Index (RII) is a derivative of the Relative Importance Index –33 was uThe level of implementation of the recommended standards is approximately 73% for importing unregistered medicines, 58% for receiving donations, and 54% for the use of standard operating procedures and guidelines.Implementing the requirements for verifying that the manufacturing site has Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) approval was estimated to be 53%, 23% for carrying out pre-distribution analysis, 36% for requesting and verifying batch specific data such as certificate of analysis, and 33% for pre-distribution inspection of received consignments across the NRAs.The level of verification for registration in the country of origin or recognized jurisdictions was estimated to be 33% across the NRAs, 54% for implementing post-market surveillance activities and 14% had implemented the special requirements for specific dosage forms and product-specific data. The level of implementing the requirement to request and review product brochures containing chemical, pharmaceutical, pre-clinical pharmacological and toxicological data and, where applicable, human, or animal pharmacological and clinical data with the medicine concerned was estimated to be 28% across the NRAs. Similarly, a 24% implementation level was noted across NRAs for reviewing supply history.Assessing if a registered alternative or the registered option has not been imported in the past six months occurs in 48% of the NRAs, and 16% require a dossier to be submitted or commitment as part of approval process for importation. Only 12% implementation level was observed on the requirement for only importing medicines in the Essential Medicines List (EML), and 27% had implemented the requirement for applicants to provide justification for importing an unregistered medicine. The level of implementing the requirement for restriction to use unregistered medicines in emergencies, disease outbreaks, neglected disease and shortages was estimated to be 22% across the NRAs.The overall level of implementation of the legal provisions for the importation of medicines across all the NRAs in SADC was estimated to be approximately 44%, ranging from 4% to 55%, while that for the comparators Canada and the United Kingdom was estimated to be approximately 81% and 85%, respectively (Fig. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the regulations and requirements for the importation of unregistered medicines and receiving donations in the SADC region. The RII was used as a measure of the level of implementation for regulation of the importation of medicine. It is important to note that a single RII alone may not be useful as a reference for measuring adequacy, but useful in evaluating the differences in the levels of implementation by themes and or overall themes of the countries. Furthermore, in this study, we analysed review responses from the principal investigator combined with that of a reviewer from the country’s respective NRA, hence the few numbers of responses available for this study could not support by theme analysis, thus the reason the study concentrated more on the per country analysis. The analysis of the RII by theme and then overall by country needs to be considered for studies that obtain a considerable number of various reviewers’ responses. Our results are not correlated with the maturity level status of the NRA because there is insufficient data available on the maturity level of countries included in the study. Only one country, Tanzania, was assessed and the results are publicly available. It would be worth investigating the correlation of the results in the GBT relating to the handling of unregistered medicines and specific indicators used in our research if more of the NRA assessment data are publicly available. WHO is finalizing the performance evaluation as part of future NRA assessments. Further research with GBT plus performance evaluation may be needed to verify the correlation of RII and maturity levels.Thirteen out of the 15 SADC NRAs were estimated to be below 50% implementation level compared to above 80% for the two reference NRAs. All the SADC NRAs had a score of less than 60%. The wide-ranging implementation index scores also confirm the varying regulatory capacities within the region. Our results show that the SADC countries have not fully implemented most of the expected risk-based requirements for approving requests for importing unregistered medicines. The review conducted in this study shows that the SADC countries have lower levels with regards to implementation of WHO set legislation and guidelines regarding to import procedures for medical products compared to comparators drawn from developed set-ups on import procedures for medical products , 35.Our study focused on the regulation of unregistered medicines, an area often neglected and not fully addressed in ongoing efforts to strengthen regulatory systems. Nonetheless, the results are consistent with previous reports; for example, the estimates that only 30% of NRAs among SADC Member States can effectively and efficiently regulate medical products in their countries .The resuSADC is a region with diverse countries across several dimensions, ranging population sizes, geographical sizes, the size of the pharmaceutical market, economic levels, and regulatory capacities. The study, therefore, encompassed many different factors, and results can be generalized to countries in Africa or similar settings. The GBT is considered a well-established tool through a robust process and applied globally. Therefore, the indicators used in the study are considered validated. The basis for requirements used in the study was the requirements in WHO guidelines on import procedures of medical products, requirements for obtaining marketing authorization, and those set out by ML4 NRAs.Given that unregistered medicines should be imported under exceptional circumstances and in some cases during emergencies, it may not always be feasible to implement all the requirements for granting marketing authorizations. Nonetheless, even in those circumstances, there remains a need to assess the medicines' quality, efficacy, and safety to protect public health based on a risk-based approach. Therefore, the results are based on comprehensive parameters that were considered sufficient to reflect the implementation of the regulatory function for exemptions.Analysis of legislation and guidelines is robust and objective; however, interpretation of the results should contextualize the different legislative systems across the countries and implications at the operational level when implementing the legislation provision in practice. Therefore, further studies analysing data on the importation of unregistered medicines and practices among the regulators are required. In other words, the implementation index values alone may not directly indicate public health risk for individual countries. Other factors should be considered, for example, the extent to which unregistered medicines are supplied in the public sector, the supply chain of such unregistered products, and the quality assurance mechanisms implemented by the procurement agencies. For instance, United Nations Agencies and other international organizations largely procure WHO-prequalified products or products approved by SRAs. Therefore, while these products may be unregistered in the SADC NRAs, their quality, safety, and efficacy are known and established , 29.Implementing the standard guidelines for importing unregistered medicines in SADC is still very low, with an overall implementing index of 44% compared to the reference NRAs with index values above 80%. The region is heterogeneous, with a wide range among the NRAs. The low implementation levels of recommended standards for unregistered medicines increase the risk of potentially exposing the population in the region to unsafe medical products of variable quality and effectiveness. Inconclusion, the SADC countries should harmonise and share experiences to implement reliance models when regulating unregistered medicine. However, the impact of harmonisation on this regulatory function will need to be investigated in future studies.


In this paper, we exploit a unique weekly longitudinal survey of adults in the UK purposefully collected to study consumption choices with respect to cultural content types during the first Covid-19 national lockdown (the “Great Lockdown”). We look for changes in the probability of consuming different cultural and creative types of content , as well as changes in the overall variety of consumption. We find that changes in consumption depend on the type of content. In particular, other things being equal, the likelihood of listening to Music and playing Games went up and the likelihood of reading Books went down. We find little statistically significant evidence of changes in the probability of consumption of the other types of content. We find that, while on average individuals increased the variety of their consumption, the statistical significance of this increase varied depending on the socio-demographic and economic characteristic of interest. In particular, we find evidence of an increase in the variety of consumption for those at the bottom of the distribution of socio-economic status, which speaks to the importance of access to culture and creativity during lockdown for this specific social class. The Covid-19 pandemic is the largest peacetime health and economic shock in a generation. As governments around the world implemented Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), such as social distancing and Shelter in Place (SiP) orders, to slow the spreading of the disease, entire parts of the economy had to be shut down. Public intervention had to step up to keep the economy afloat.2On the production side, while some parts of the sector have been heavily damaged, the CCIs have also shown great flexibility and resilience, albeit with unprecedentedly large support packages from the Government. The forced lack of “in-person” consumption has also accelerated the trends in digitisation across all forms of cultural and creative content types (CCCs) that were already present pre-pandemic.On the consumption side, the pandemic-induced recession has caused a large fall in income and employment in the overall economy, which, as noted above, would have been even larger without the intervention of governments around the globe. However, the shock, and the mitigating measures, may have not been felt identically by all consumers. For example, those working from home have been able to make economies in commuting time; workers in job retention schemes have seen a reduction in income but also a large increase in time available for non-work-related purposes, and working families with children have had to juggle between home-working and parental care. At the same time, heterogeneity in the technologies of consumption may have meant that these shocks to income and time may have played out differently in different cultural and creative activities. Hence, while the pandemic has represented a common massive shock, it may well have affected different consumers and types of CCC differently, conceivably in line with pre-existing inequalities across socio-economic status, occupation, gender and age. In this respect, this paper also links with the agent-based theoretical framework developed in Biondo et al. , who expAssessing whether shifts in consumption occurred and, if so, across which cohorts of consumers, is important for several reasons. First, from a simple welfare standpoint, it is critical to gauge whether and how the pandemic has affected people.In the UK, the pandemic has triggered several studies on its effects on the cultural and creative industries, including many data collection exercises.Together with Feder et al. , to the Hence, with the above in mind, in this paper we focus on the effects of the pandemic on the consumption side of the CCIs. The objective is to study whether and how consumers have changed their consumption with CCCs during the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically during the first national lockdown in the Spring of 2020. We refer to this as the “Great Lockdown” as this was the period when the strictest social distancing measures were in place throughout the UK.13To this end, we exploit a unique nationally representative survey, conducted by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre in collaboration with the UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office and the research agency AudienceNet, to investigate consumers’ decisions with respect to home and online consumption of Music, Movies, TV, Games, Books, Magazines and Audiobooks and see how these changed over six consecutive weeks of lockdown.Specifically, we look at how consumption changed during lockdown compared with the period prior to introduction of SiP measures for each of the seven above-mentioned types of content and for the variety of content types consumed. While the first part of the analysis tells us how patterns of consumption shifted for each different category of CCCs, the second allows inference on how cultural consumption as a whole changed and also whether consumers responded to being home-bound by seeking access to a greater variety of CCCs or, on the contrary, restricted their cultural consumption basket. Indeed, greater variety of choice tends to be associated with higher well-being in consumer research , we show that the likelihood of changes in consumption depended on the type of CCC in question. In particular, we find that the probability of consuming Music and Games increased, and the probability of consuming Books decreased. We also find that the variety of CCCs engaged with went up. The association between consumption decisions and the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, irrespective of SiP measures, is also content specific.We also find that shifts in consumption during lockdown compared with the pre-lockdown period varied significantly across the above-mentioned individual characteristics. In terms of employment status, for example, statistically significant changes were observed for the Employed and the Retired, who increased their access to Music and Games and reduced their consumption of Books. Perhaps surprisingly—given they are the oldest—the Retired displayed the largest increase in Games consumption. Among the other occupational categories, the only other significant shifts pertained to the Unemployed for whom other things being equal, the likelihood of playing Games doubled in lockdown.In contrast to Games, we find that the increase in Music consumption was more pronounced among the younger cohort . The overall decrease in the probability of Books consumption is accounted for by those individuals living with others, e.g. those living with a partner or parents, older cohorts and by those above the bottom quartile of the socio-economic status distribution  or online purchasing of physical media like books, CDs and DVDs.Crucial to our purposes, in the first wave of fieldwork, individuals were also asked about their consumption of each of the above CCCs over the previous three months, the period from January to March 2020. This allows us to derive binary indicators denoting access to each of the seven types of content considered, for the period spanning January–March 2020 (the “Pre”) and the period corresponding to the fieldwork (the “Post”). Our empirical assessment on the changes in cultural consumption relies on differences taking place between these two periods due to the “exogenous” introduction of the lockdown. We are unfortunately unable to account for changes that may happened in the short period between the introduction of the national restrictions and the reporting period. However, in the (likely) case that changes occurred in this short unreported period go in the same direction of the changes in the reporting period, our estimated changes attributed to the lockdown would, in the worst-case scenario, be “conservative”.k of the k, as:k. For example, in the case of Music, We construct binary indicators of the reported consumption decisions with respect to each content We also aggregate the content-level indicators defined above to derive an overall measure of consumption with CCCs, which we interpret as a simple measure of “variety” in consumption. Since variety is often associated with greater welfare and well-being, it is interesting to investigate whether consumers have responded to the pandemic by narrowing or diversifying their consumption choices. Variety is formally measured by the count of the different categories of content consumed by individuals in a specific period of time, again, irrespective of the mode of access:mentclass2pt{minimComparison of the “Pre” and “Post” periods shows an overall increase for Music, Movies, TV programmes, Games and Magazines and a  reduction for Books and Audiobooks. We complement this picture by contrasting the “Pre” and “Post” variety in consumption with CCCs—as defined in Eq. . Figure Post period, which is what we will do later in the empirical analysis.Table The survey data contain information regarding several socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the respondents. Here, we focus, in particular, on socio-economic status (SES), living arrangements, occupational status and demographics such as age and gender. The choice of these variables is broadly in line with what is considered in the literature reviewed earlier.Household SES, in particular, is typically considered in the literature as a determinant of cultural consumption, especially in terms of the different consumption of highbrow and lowbrow activities. In relation to the effects of the pandemic, the aforementioned ONS reports indicate that the pandemic has hit harder households with lower SES. Hence, it is particularly interesting to look at how household SES is related to shifts during lockdown.Since SES is not a uni-dimensional concept, in order to capture differences in SES across respondents, we construct a synthetic indicator via a Principal Components Analysis of the responses to two questions from the survey. The first replicates one of the questions in the National Readership Survey (NRS) on social grade, in particular the one related to the occupation of the main income earner in the household, and the second asks the income of the main household earner.Living arrangements capture whether respondents live alone or live with others. As mentioned earlier, since Becker, , the ecoCritical to understanding changes in cultural consumption is also the occupational status of respondents. For instance, individuals in employment face a leisure-work choice, unlike the Unemployed and the Retired . In order to account for occupation-related differences, we consider binary indicators for the following categories: Employed, Unemployed, Retired and Students. However, while the data allow us to take into account of both individuals’ occupation and household SES, the survey does not ask individuals about their educational attainment. Finally, we consider age quartiles to capture different age cohorts and a gender dummy.22Table 23Questions regarding the aforementioned characteristics are either asked in the first wave only or in all six waves. Table 24k, as defined in Eq. (1k following the introduction of SiP measures (the “Post”); the parameter vector k—after controlling for the described observable characteristics.In this section, we turn our attention to investigating what is behind the evidence in Fig. mentclass2pt{minimIn the first seven columns of Table Conditional on the observables, the results show a positive shift in consumption for Music and Games following the implementation of SiP measures. For both forms of content, the odds of consuming in the Post period were, on average, more than double those of the Pre period. In contrast, the corresponding estimated parameter for Books  pointed to a decrease in the probability of consumption. The absence of statistically significant changes in consumption of Movies, TV programmes and other Publishing content (Magazines and Audiobooks) adds to the picture of content-specific changes. It also reflects the fact that, despite the shock, consumers seem to have maintained their consumption of creative and creative goods, which attests to their structural importance in the consumption basket.Although the estimated s in Eq.  can be tmentclass2pt{minimTurning our attention to the individual socio-demographic and economic characteristics of respondents, we can highlight, in particular, the statistically significant differences in consumption patterns related to age and gender. Respondents in the older cohorts in particular were less likely to consume Music, Movies, TV and Games than those in the younger cohort (the baseline category), and are more likely to read Books  and Magazines. No statistically significant age-related differences in consumption were found for Books or Audiobooks.In terms of gender-related differences, female individuals were around 50% less likely to consume Music and Games and 50% more likely to consume Books. As discussed earlier, previous evidence mostly focuses on live attendance events and, as such, it may not be directly comparable with our results. However, the existing evidence for Music is mixed and also depends on the specific musical niche considered, as argued by Favaro and Frateschi . RegardiTurning our focus to the other SDEs, we find only small differences in consumption based on occupational status. Students were far more likely to consume Books and TV , compared with the baseline category of the Retired. The Unemployed were less likely to read Magazines and more likely to listen to Audiobooks .By contrast, we can highlight some more substantive content-specific differences across household SES and living arrangements. In particular, the results are suggestive of a split in the likelihood of watching Movies and reading Books based on the household’s SES. Respondents who were part of a household in the third and top quartile of the distribution were between 1.7 and 2.3 times more likely to consume these forms of content than those in households at the other end of the distribution. Individuals from households in the top quartile of the SES distribution were also more likely to watch TV , and those in the 3rd quartile are less likely to play Games. Among the possible factors driving the results, access to capital goods may actually affect individuals’ consumption, hence making it easier—all else equal—for households in better economic circumstances.Individuals with children were nearly twice as likely to watch Movies compared with those living alone, who are treated as the baseline category. Furthermore, this result is to be interpreted conditional on any living arrangement characterizing individuals with children .These results are robust to the inclusion of other factors that are typically investigated in the literature. For instance, unobserved consumption habits (whether framed in terms of addictive behaviour or learning by consumption) may affect the propensity to consume CCCs. We have tried to control for these effects by including the overall number of types of content consumed by individuals, as defined in Eq. . Also, gThe final column of Table It is not possible, however, from the above results, to gauge how shifts in consumption choices  are associated with the list of SDE considered. We assess the latter in the next section.We now look for statistically significant shifts in consumption of each of the CCCs considered in relation to the set of SDEs of interest.z in what follows) with the Post indicator variable:k are reported in Table k, the estimated coefficient (vector) Pre–Post changes in the average likelihood of consumption that are specific to the SDE considered in turn, separately for each category each SDE consists of.We model shifts in consumption decisions by augmenting the specification in Eq.  with intentclass1pt{minimaTo gauge differences attributable to SiP measures, we test for statistically significant differences in the odds-ratio coefficients of Table We find moderately significant statistical evidence of changes associated with living arrangements. Namely, we can flag a smaller probability of consuming Books for those living alone and those living with a partner or their parents. Individuals living alone almost doubled their odds of consuming Games compared with the pre-lockdown period.Interestingly, we do not uncover any significant differences in consumption for individuals living with children, either compared with the period preceding the introduction of SiP measures or in comparison with individuals in other living arrangements. However, this specific living arrangement could be compatible also with other living arrangements. Furthermore, it should be taken into consideration that in our sample the great majority of individuals living with children (about 80%) also live with a partner. We further investigate possible differences in consumption for these groups, restricting the analysis to the sub-sample of individuals living with a partner. Even in this case, we do not uncover any differences following the implementation of national restrictions.Worthy of mention are also the differences due to household socio-economic standing (block C), where we see some interesting results. For example, we observe a generalised increase in the likelihood of consuming Music over the SES distribution (with the exception of the second quartile). We find evidence of significantly increased consumption of Games across all household SES but the top quartile. The opposite occurs in terms of the observed slowdown in Books consumption, where individuals that are part of households in the bottom SES quartile are the only ones not recording a statistically significant reduction compared with the Pre-lockdown period. Books are in fact the only category where we can detect some asymmetry in consumption during lockdown compared with the Pre period: the estimated odds of consuming more during lockdown for individuals at the bottom of the SES distribution turn out to be statistically different from those at the top. Apart from this particular finding, the empirical evidence suggests, by and large, the absence of asymmetries in the likelihood of consuming CCCs during lockdown based on SES, i.e. pre-existing differences in consumption due to socio-economic inequality persisted also following the implementation of SiP orders.29Turning our attention to gender differences, the observed average changes in consumption seen in the “Post” coefficients of Table 30Finally, we can flag differences in the odds of consuming across age cohorts in relation to Music and Games (increase), as well as Books (decrease). While respondents across all age groups increased their odds of listening to Music compared with the preceding period, we find that the youngest were significantly more likely to consume this specific content than all other groups. Games consumption shows a somewhat opposite pattern, with higher odds of playing games for the older cohorts. This result is consistent with the earlier evidence on the increased average consumption of Games for the Retired. Also, testing for within-lockdown differences in consumption highlights asymmetries between groups at the extremes of the age distribution, a pattern which holds more strongly for Books, where we find that individuals at the high end of the age distribution are significantly less likely to consume compared with the pre-lockdown period and compared with the younger cohorts (during lockdown).Overall, these results highlight a good deal of heterogeneity in the observed shifts in relation to specific SDEs and with respect to the observed changes in consumption of Music, Games and Books, except for differences in living arrangements. But even these effects are not even. When we investigate the extent of within-lockdown asymmetries in consumption across SDEs, we uncover that these exist primarily in relation to age, and secondarily in relation to the occupational category and living arrangements.We have seen from Fig. entclass1pt{minimaThe first column reports, for comparison, the Post coefficient from the last column of Table Focusing on within-lockdown changes, we also find that individuals living with their parents experienced a lower variety in consumption of CCCs compared with other living arrangement categories. In assessing this result, it is worth considering that this group of individuals mostly consists of those in the younger cohort.It is also noteworthy that individuals from households at the top end of the SES distribution did not experience any increase in variety following the implementation of SiP measures. Furthermore, when testing for within-lockdown differences, we find statistically significant evidence of an increase in the variety of CCCs consumed for individuals in the bottom household SES quartile, as opposed to those at the other end of the distribution. Such evidence further contrasts with that suggesting that inequality of access to culture for individuals from poorer backgrounds became more pronounced in the pandemic. If anything, the evidence we gather—at least in the Great Lockdown—suggests the opposite.In this paper, we use a unique longitudinal survey of UK adults designed to investigate consumption of cultural and creative forms of content during the implementation of national restrictions in Spring 2020, the “Great Lockdown”. We look, in particular, at remote or online consumption of cultural and creative types of content like Music, Movies, TV, Games, Books, Magazines and Audiobooks. Compared to past literature, then, we look at both a variety of content types that have not been previously considered and a different mode of consumption that traditional live-in-person.We investigate the decisions of individuals to consume different types of content and also the overall variety of CCCs they consume, and test whether these changed in the Post SiP (during lockdown) compared with the Pre SiP period (before lockdown). Also, we look at the role of a number of socio-demographic and economic variables of interest, typically considered in the literature on cultural consumption, in determining cultural and creative consumption, irrespective of differences in this role before and after SiP measures. Then, we investigate the extent to which the observed shifts in remote and online cultural and creative consumption are specific to each of the socio-economic and demographic factors of interest.First, our evidence points toward shifts in consumption decisions that are content-specific. In particular, within the set of CCCs we analyse, we find statistically significant evidence of an increase in the likelihood of consuming Music and Games and a reduction in the likelihood of consuming Books. We also find evidence of an increase in the variety of consumption.In terms of the socio-demographic and economic characteristics of consumers, irrespective of difference between pre and post lockdown, we find that “popular” forms of content, like Games, Movies, Music, and TV were more common in the consumption baskets of the younger cohort of respondents and males. In contrast, content types related to Publishing were more likely to be associated with females (Books) and the older cohort of respondents (Magazines). We find little evidence of different living arrangements being associated with different CCCs consumption patterns in general, with the exceptions of those having children in the household being more likely and those living with a partner being less likely to consume Movies. Also, people in the higher quartile of the SES distribution are more likely to consume Movies and Books. While reading may arguably be viewed as a highbrow activity, watching movies may arguably be regarded along the same lines only for some types of film that might be considered highbrow. In comparison with the existing evidence on traditional access to culture, i.e. live attendances, it would be tempting to think of home “remote” consumption as more “horizontal” (what is sometimes referred to as a “democratising effect” of digitisation). It is also true, however, that access to Movies nowadays requires subscription services which can be expensive.In order to assess the effects of the introduction of SiP measures in relation to the SDEs, we carry out a “Pre–Post” comparison exercise. We find some evidence of shifts in consumption of CCC for the majority of SDE groups, with little evidence for living arrangements, which perhaps suggests that the lockdown did not trigger changes in bargaining situation within the household. Possibly an exception is Books, where those living alone, those with a partner or parents displayed lower odds of consumption, which could suggest a shift away from less sociable activities in a period with forced social distancing.We do not find evidence that enforced consumption from home increased pre-existing inequalities related to socio-economic status. The likelihood of consuming Music increased across individuals irrespective of their socio-economic standing, and there were no changes in the likelihood of consuming with other content types related to this characteristic, with the exception of Books and Games. With regard to the former, those at the top of the distribution were more likely to reduce the consumption of this type of content compared with those at the lower end of the distribution—a finding that is interesting if reading books is considered a highbrow activity. For the latter, a higher likelihood of consuming in the Post period is associated with lower socio-economic status.We find more evidence of changes in consumption with specific types of content during SiP orders depending on the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. Other things equal, those in the older cohorts, and the Retired, were more likely to reduce Books consumption and to increase it with Games (compared with the younger cohorts).When we consider shifts in the variety of consuming CCCs, we also find an increase in consumption in the Post period. This increase again varies with several socio-demographic and economic characteristics, with the notable—and surprising—exception of living arrangements. Among the other SDEs, the younger and the older seem to have increased the variety of their consumption, as well as females, those in higher SES status (with the exception of the highest group) and all occupational statuses with the exception of Students.In assessing the scope of these results, it is important to bear in mind the limitations and drawbacks of the analysis. First, in estimating consumption decisions, we may be missing shifts in the intensity of consumption (e.g. the amount of time spent on CCCs). Second, obvious caveats apply to establishing causation from the estimated effects, as the objective to investigate the (time invariant) SDE drivers comes at the cost of overlooking individual unobserved heterogeneity, just to mention one obvious possible source of bias due to omitted factors.In spite of these limitations, this work has the merit of contributing to the literature in a number of ways. It provides novel evidence on home and “remote” consumption of a wide range of cultural and creative types of content that has received less attention so far in the economics literature compared with live-in-person events. More importantly, since the implementation of shelter-in-place and social distancing due to the pandemic has forced individuals to spend more time at home and change their habits, this paper allows us to shed light on the shifts in behaviour during this period and how such shifts are related to personal characteristics. Our findings should be of interest to all readers concerned with understanding the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the future of cultural consumption in the new normal.