Search results

Before I Get Old and Wrinkly opens with the powerful story of a portrayal of one ordinary woman's life and how she learnt to find peace within herself amongst the incredible turbulence of a succession of traumas and heartbreak. Written to help anyone who is on the brink of questioning the quality of their own lives, Sheila Steptoe highlights key issues that facilitate this questioning process. She conveys especially the importance for us all to ensure that we truly understand the significance of getting to know our family and friends properly as people instead of merely taking their presence f

"From World War I through the 1960s, Houston was transformed into one of the most ethnically and racially diverse urban areas in the United States. Houston Bound draws on social and cultural history to show how, despite Anglo attempts to fix racial categories through Jim Crow laws, converging migrations--particularly those of Mexicans and Creoles--complicated ideas of blackness and whiteness and introduced different understandings about race. This migration history also traces the emergence of Houston's blues and jazz scenes in the 1920s as well as the hybrid forms of these genres--like zydeco and Tejano soul--that arose when migrants forged shared social space. Houston's location on the Gulf Coast, poised between the American South and the West, provides for a particularly rich examination of how the histories of colonization, slavery, and segregation produced divergent ways of thinking about race"--Provided by publisher

Abstract. We use high-resolution (4.4 km) numerical simulations of tropical
cyclones to produce exceedance probability estimates for extreme wind (gust) speeds over Bangladesh. For the first time, we estimate equivalent return periods up to and including a 1-in-200 year event, in a spatially coherent manner over all of Bangladesh, by using generalised additive models. We show that some northern provinces, up to 200 km inland, may experience conditions equal to or exceeding a very severe cyclonic storm event (maximum wind speeds in ≥64 kn) with a likelihood equal to coastal regions less than 50 km inland. For the most severe super cyclonic storm events (≥120 kn), event exceedance probabilities of 1-in-100 to 1-in-200 events remain limited to the coastlines of southern provinces only. We demonstrate how the Bayesian interpretation of the generalised additive model can facilitate a transparent decision-making framework for tropical cyclone warnings.

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Part I Introduction -- 1 Occupational Psychology and the Fire Service: An Introduction -- History of the Fire Service -- Our Approach -- Chapter Overview -- Part II Emotion -- 2 Emotions in the Fire Service: Decision-Making, Risk, and Coping -- Introduction -- Decision-Making -- Risk -- Coping -- The Current Study -- Method -- Findings -- Distress and Trauma -- PTSD -- Emotional Rewards -- Ability Emotional Intelligence and Affect-Related Personality -- Coping and Emotion Regulation -- Humour -- Training and Interventions -- It's Not Just Firefighters -- Wider Context -- Wider Conclusions -- Job Analysis -- Incorporating Emotions -- Concluding Thoughts -- References -- 3 When the Going Gets Tough: Adult Resilience Within an Occupational Setting -- Resilience as a Concept -- Resilience as a Trait or a Process? -- The Adult Resilience Definition -- Methodology/Research -- Thematic Analysis -- Key Findings -- Wider Considerations -- References -- 4 Taking an Intervention Approach to Assess Job Redesign in the UK Fire and Rescue Service: The Impact of Alternative Crewing Methods -- Introduction -- Alternative Crewing Arrangements (ACA) as an Intervention -- Theoretical Framework -- Consequences of Working Practices in the UK FRS -- The Research -- Methods -- Findings -- Understanding Work Conditions and Well-Being -- Understanding Work Conditions and Operational Effectiveness -- The Relationship Between Work-Related Well-Being and Operational Effectiveness in FRS -- Wider Considerations -- Job Redesign, Work Conditions, and Well-Being -- Application of ACA Within the FRS -- References -- Part III Risk and Safety -- 5 Can More Be Done to Reduce Firefighter Injury? -- Setting the Scene-Modernisation -- Setting the Scene-Budgets.

BACKGROUND: Governments have implemented a range of measures to tackle COVID-19, primarily focusing on changing citizens' behaviours in order to lower the transmission of the virus. Few studies have looked at the patterns of compliance with different measures within individuals: whether people comply with all measures or selectively choose some but not others. Such research is important for designing interventions to increase compliance. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data from 20 947 UK adults in the COVID-19 Social Study collected from 17 November to 23 December 2020. Self-report compliance was assessed with six behaviours: mask wearing, hand washing, indoor household mixing, outdoor household mixing, social distancing and compliance with other guidelines. Patterns of compliance behaviour were identified using latent class analysis, and multinomial logistic regression was used to assess demographic, socioeconomic and personality predictors of behaviour patterns. RESULTS: We selected a four-latent class solution. Most individuals reported similar levels of compliance across the six behaviour measures. High level of compliance was the modal response. Lower self-reported compliance was related to young age, high risk-taking behaviour, low confidence in government and low empathy, among other factors. Looking at individual behaviours, mask wearing had the highest level of compliance while compliance with social distancing was relatively low. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that individuals choose to comply with all guidelines, rather than some but not others. Strategies to increase compliance should focus on increasing general motivations to comply alongside specifically encouraging social distancing.

The current study is the first to explore the relationships between managerial humor and workplace facets using cluster analysis. Two-hundred and two employed adults rated their managers' humor and workplace facets online. K-means cluster analyses identified three managerial humor clusters, mostly replicating those found in the existing literature. A significant pattern of differences in stress, communication, creativity, perceptions of leader power, and job satisfaction were found between the clusters. Findings suggest negative humor use is most likely to be damaging to organizations when not used alongside positive humor types, and it is not merely the frequency with which a manager uses an individual humor type, but the holistic view of their humor, which is of importance in gauging valence of organizational facets. Using cluster analysis was beneficial in challenging assumptions from the existing literature, further contextualizing our understanding of humor and reinforcing the importance of humor use in the workplace.

BACKGROUND: Negative attitudes towards vaccines and an uncertainty or unwillingness to receive vaccinations are major barriers to managing the COVID-19 pandemic in the long-term. We estimate predictors of four domains of negative attitudes towards vaccines and identify groups most at risk of uncertainty and unwillingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in a large sample of UK adults. METHODS: Data were cross-sectional and from 32,361 adults in the UCL COVID-19 Social Study. Ordinary least squares regression analyses examined the impact of socio-demographic and COVID-19 related factors on four types of negative vaccine attitudes: mistrust of vaccine benefit, worries about unforeseen effects, concerns about commercial profiteering, and preference for natural immunity. Multinomial regression examined the impact of socio-demographic and COVID-19 related factors, negative vaccine attitudes, and prior vaccine behaviour on uncertainty and unwillingness to be vaccinated for COVID-19. FINDINGS: 16% of respondents displayed high levels of mistrust about vaccines across one or more domains. Distrustful attitudes towards vaccination were higher amongst individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, with lower levels of education, lower annual income, poor knowledge of COVID-19, and poor compliance with government COVID-19 guidelines. Overall, 14% of respondents reported unwillingness to receive a vaccine for COVID-19, whilst 23% were unsure. The largest predictors of both COVID-19 vaccine uncertainty and refusal were low-income groups (< £16,000, a year), having not received a flu vaccine last year, poor adherence to COVID-19 government guidelines, female gender, and living with children. Amongst vaccine attitudes, intermediate to high levels of mistrust of vaccine benefit and concerns about future unforeseen side effects were the most important determinants of both uncertainty and unwillingness to vaccinate against COVID-19. INTERPRETATION: Negative attitudes towards vaccines are a major public health concern in the UK. General mistrust in vaccines and concerns about future side effects in particular will be barriers to achieving population immunity to COVID-19 through vaccination. Public health messaging should be tailored to address these concerns and specifically to women, ethnic minorities, and people with lower levels of education and incomes.

The Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ), which measures the reported importance to a given individual of nine factors underlying food choice, and a food frequency questionnaire, were administered to 241 participants, who were also required to classify their diet as either 'standard', 'low in red meat' or 'vegetarian'. Respondents describing their diet as low in red meat attributed greater importance to health, natural content, weight control and ethical concern in their food choice than did those who described their diets as standard, whereas vegetarians differed significantly from those with a standard diet only on the score for ethical concern. Differences between men and women and between students and non-students in the frequency of consumption of a number of foods were shown to be mediated by differences in the importance attached to FCQ factors. Thus the generally healthier diets of women compared to men appeared to be accounted for by the greater importance attributed by women to weight control, natural content and ethical concerns.

There is strong evidence linking adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and poor outcomes in adulthood both in terms of mental and physical health. Gaps in both the evidence base and research priorities still exist. These include understanding how to identify and assess risk in children who have experienced ACEs, and also the development and, importantly, the evaluation of interventions. Outstanding gaps include whether there are sensitive periods during childhood, the role of resilience/protective factors, the causal relationships, biological mechanisms and relative risk of ACEs for particular negative outcomes. ACEs affect individual children differently and chronic exposure appears to increase the risk of poor outcomes in adulthood, meaning interventions should also be tailored to the individual children, families and communities. Generally, there needs to be better evaluation of interventions and dissemination of this information to ensure that their use is evidence based. More input from affected communities, clinicians, funding bodies and Government departments is required to identify research priorities and ensure gaps in the evidence base are addressed.