Suchergebnisse

This paper examines the attitudes and plans of Year 13 (final-year secondary school or 'upper sixth form') pupils towards studying at university abroad. Our main empirical base is a questionnaire survey of more than 1400 Year 13 pupils in a stratified sample of schools and sixth-form colleges, both state and independent sector, in two parts of England (Brighton and Sussex, and Leicester and Leicestershire). In addition, 15 face-to-face interviews were taken with teachers and HE advisers in the schools surveyed, and follow-up telephone interviews were made with 20 pupils from the questionnaire survey. The objectives of the research were, firstly, to discover the proportions of school-leavers who are applying to study at a non-UK university, or who had considered doing so but not actually gone ahead with the application, and which countries and universities they were attracted to. Against this orientation to (think about) studying abroad as the key dependent variable, the paper analyses several independent variables, based on quantitative data drawn from the questionnaire results and informed by insights from the qualitative interviews. These include pupils' academic profile, type of school, gender and ethnic heritage, parental socio-economic class, and family and personal links (prior residence abroad, travel experiences, friends or relatives who had studied abroad etc.). Results show that students applying abroad, or who considered this option, are academic high-achievers and high-aspirers, more likely to come from independent schools, have parents who are in the higher socio-occupational classes (managers, directors, professionals, teachers etc.) and who are themselves graduates, and have family links and extensive travel experience abroad. Females are slightly more likely to consider the study-abroad option. The relationship with ethnicity is not clear, except that foreign-domiciled non-UK nationals have a greater propensity to apply to non-UK universities, as do UK-nationals studying at international schools. ...

This is the author accepted manuscript. ; Uncertainty quantification is a formal paradigm of statistical estimation that aims to account for all uncertainties inherent in the modelling process of real-world complex systems. The methods are directly applicable to stochastic models in epidemiology, however they have thus far not been widely used in this context. In this paper, we provide a tutorial on uncertainty quantification of stochastic epidemic models, aiming to facilitate the use of the uncertainty quantification paradigm for practitioners with other complex stochastic simulators of applied systems. We provide a formal workflow including the important decisions and considerations that need to be taken, and illustrate the methods over a simple stochastic epidemic model of UK SARS-CoV-2 transmission and patient outcome. We also present new approaches to visualisation of outputs from sensitivity analyses and uncertainty quantification more generally in high input and/or output dimensions. ; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) ; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ; Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division ; French National Research Agency ; Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health France

Introduction: Child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect and exposure to domestic violence) is widely understood to be associated with multiple mental health disorders, physical health problems and health risk behaviours throughout life. However, Australia lacks fundamental evidence about the prevalence and characteristics of child maltreatment, its associations with mental disorders and physical health, and the associated burden of disease. These evidence gaps impede the development of public health strategies to better prevent and respond to child maltreatment. The aims of this research are to generate the first comprehensive population-based national data on the prevalence of child maltreatment in Australia, identify associations with mental disorders and physical health conditions and other adverse consequences, estimate attributable burden of disease and indicate targeted areas for future optimal public health prevention strategies. Methods and analysis: The Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) is a nationwide, cross-sectional study of Australia's population aged 16 years and over. A survey of approximately 10 000 Australians will capture retrospective self-reported data on the experience in childhood of all five types of maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect and exposure to domestic violence). A customised, multimodule survey instrument has been designed to obtain information including: the prevalence and characteristics of these experiences; diagnostic screening of common mental health disorders; physical health; health risk behaviours and health service utilisation. The survey will be administered in March-November 2021 to a random sample of the nationwide population, recruited through mobile phone numbers. Participants will be surveyed using computer-assisted telephone interviews, conducted by trained interviewers from the Social Research Centre, an agency with extensive experience in studies of health and adversity. Rigorous protocols protect the safety of both participants and interviewers, and comply with all ethical and legal requirements. Analysis will include descriptive statistics reporting the prevalence of individual and multitype child maltreatment, multiple logistic and linear regression analyses to determine associations with mental disorders and physical health problems. We will calculate the population attributable fractions of these putative outcomes to enable an estimation of the disease burden attributable to child maltreatment. Ethics and dissemination: The study has been approved by the Queensland University of Technology Human Research Ethics Committee (#1900000477, 16 August 2019). Results will be published to the scientific community in peer-reviewed journals, scientific meetings and through targeted networks. Findings and recommendations will be shared with government policymakers and community and organisational stakeholders through diverse engagement activities, a dedicated Advisory Board and a systematic knowledge translation strategy. Results will be communicated to the public through an organised media strategy and the ACMS website.