Extending pension and savings scheme coverage to the informal sector: Kenya's Mbao Pension Plan

The Mbao Pension Plan is a voluntary individual account savings plan to which all workers in Kenya may contribute without regard to income or age. It is designed to provide a programme that is suitable for the unique nature of the informal sector and to encourage a savings culture for those workers. The key innovation is that low‐income workers can easily make small contributions at relatively low cost, considering the small contributions and small account balances. Participants can conveniently make contributions anytime and anywhere using their cell phones. This savings innovation is made possible by technological innovations that have reduced the costs of cell phones and airtime, and by the entrepreneurial innovation of mobile money. The plan is provided through private‐sector businesses.     

Improving Catastrophe Modeling for Business Interruption Insurance Needs

While catastrophe (CAT) modeling of property damage is well developed, modeling of business interruption (BI) lags far behind. One reason is the crude nature of functional relationships in CAT models that translate property damage into BI. Another is that estimating BI losses is more complicated because it depends greatly on public and private decisions during recovery with respect to resilience tactics that dampen losses by using remaining resources more efficiently to maintain business function and to recover more quickly. This article proposes a framework for improving hazard loss estimation for BI insurance needs. Improved data collection that allows for analysis at the level of individual facilities within a company can improve matching the facilities with the effectiveness of individual forms of resilience, such as accessing inventories, relocating operations, and accelerating repair, and can therefore improve estimation accuracy. We then illustrate the difference this can make in a case study example of losses from a hurricane.     

Basic Reading Through Dance program. The impact on first-grade students' basic reading skills

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an arts-based educational program, Basic Reading Through Dance. Basic Reading Through Dance is a 20-session, curriculum-based reading intervention for first-grade students developed by Whirlwind, a not-for-profit organization. There were a total of 721 first-grade students from Chicago public schools who participated in the study, with 328 students from 6 schools receiving the program and 393 students from 9 schools serving as controls. The program was designed to improve reading skills, as assessed by the PhonoGraphix Test, such as code knowledge (alphabet sounds) and phoneme segmentation (separating letter sounds within spoken words). Results suggest that the students who participated in the program improved significantly more than control students on all reading skills that were assessed.     

Survey of midwives’ perinatal mental health knowledge,confidence, attitudes and learning needs

Background

Midwives have a primary role in facilitating the first stage of perinatal mental health risk reduction through inquiring about perinatal mental health, identifying risk factors and current perinatal mental health problems, providing support or crisis intervention, referring for treatment and decreasing stigmatisation.

Explaining Cross-Country Differences in Attitudes Towards Immigration in the EU-15

In this paper, we use data from the first two rounds of the European Social Survey to analyze the extent to which differences in average attitudes towards immigration across the EU-15 countries may be explained by differences in socioeconomic characteristics and individually perceived consequences of immigration, using an extension of a decomposition technique developed by Fairlie (2005). We find that despite the significant effects of socioeconomic characteristics on attitudes, differences in the distributions of these characteristics can only explain a modest share of the cross-country variation in average attitudes. A larger part can be explained by differences in perceived consequences of immigration, but the main part is still left unexplained. Apart from providing useful input for policy makers working in the area of immigration policy, this raises a number of questions for further research for which the ESS data can be successfully applied.

Risk management project for work with precast concrete shells

This paper describes a project with the aim of reducing the risk of injury when using precast concrete shells in the Swedish construction industry by identifying injury risks, developing and implementing solutions. An interactive research approach was used. Three major injury risks were identified and a system consisting of three tools and a handbook was developed, evaluated, and implemented at one company and made available to the construction industry.     

The protective role of religious coping in adolescents' responses to poverty and sexual decision-making in rural Kenya

In this study, we explored how adolescents in rural Kenya apply religious coping in sexual decision-making in the context of high rates of poverty and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 34 adolescents. One-third (13) reported religious coping related to economic stress, HIV, or sexual decision-making; the majority (29) reported religious coping with these or other stressors. Adolescents reported praying for God to partner with them to engage in positive behaviors, praying for strength to resist unwanted behaviors, and passive strategies characterized by waiting for God to provide resources or protection from HIV. Adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa may benefit from HIV prevention interventions that integrate and build upon their use of religious coping.     

“Taking Back Our Country”: Tea Party Membership and Support for Punitive Crime Control Policies

The Tea Party Movement (TPM) emerged shortly after the 2008 election, with members rallying behind the call to “take back our country.” Many observers suggest that the movement represents, in part, a racialized backlash against the election of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, motivated by perceived threats to the racial hierarchy. Racial threat theory predicts that if the TPM is motivated by and reinforces racial concerns, racialized support for punitive crime policies that disproportionately impact blacks should be higher among Tea Partiers. Drawing on recent national survey data, this study tests this prediction. The results show that TPM membership is positively associated with punitiveness and that this relationship is mediated, in part, by Tea Partiers’ animus toward blacks. We discuss the import of these findings for competing accounts of the TPM, racial threat theory, and the argument that the United States has become a “post‐racial society.”     

‘Widening cross-disciplinary research for mental health’: what is missing from the Research Councils UK mental health agenda?

This current issues article is a brief critical examination of the recent Research Councils UK agenda and call for cross-disciplinary research in mental health. Our argument is based on the fact that patient and public involvement (PPI) is the only involvement and influencing strategy for service users and survivors in the agenda. Service user and survivor research as a discipline in itself remains unacknowledged. We conclude that service user and survivor research is distinct and is different to PPI, and should be recognised in any mental health research agenda.     

Veiling in Fear or in Faith? Meanings of the Hijab to Practicing Muslim Wives and Husbands in USA

This article examines the Muslim practice of wearing the hijab—the veiling and covering of a woman’s head and body. More specifically, this study aims to present insiders’ perspectives regarding the personal understandings of the hijab among 20 wives and 20 husbands (n?=?40) in religious Shia and Sunni Muslim families living in USA. Qualitative analysis yielded three emergent themes: (1) The hijab as a symbol of religious commitment; (2) the hijab as a tool of protection, rather than oppression, for women and families; and (3) two different views of Muslims’ reasoning behind the hijab. These data suggest that, as perceived by “insider” participants, the hijab has perceived benefits for religious Muslim families, although counterexamples and concerns are also expressed.