Environmental Risk Exposure,Risk Perception,Political Ideology and Support for Climate Policy

The degree to which risk perceptions are socially constructed versus the result of actual exposure to risk is highly contested; how risk exposure and risk perception influence policy attitudes is also poorly understood. We examine how personal exposure to risk factors impacts risk perceptions and policy support related to air pollution and climate change. Our selection of risk exposure variables is informed by the “mental models” literature, and we employ an array of variables to capture subjective risk perceptions using novel survey data. We find that exposure to risk does little to predict risk perception and has a small influence on policy support. Overall, our findings lend support to a constructionist understanding of risk perception and support for policies related to environmental risks.     

Data for the Sustainable Development Goals: Metrics for Evaluating Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems Data Relevance and Production Capacity,Illustrations with Nigeria

Three issues impinging on the potential use of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) data for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are analysed in the paper. These include CRVS data relevance, content and data production capacity of CRVS systems. The paper adopts a ‘data type’ approach to relevance and capacity and proposes two metrics based on a graded qualitative evaluation (GQE) methodology. One is a data-relevance metric for evaluating the relevance of CRVS data types to the SDGs. The second is a National Statistical Systems (NSS) data type production capacity metric used for evaluating the data production capacity of CRVS systems. CRVS data instrument analysis and the CRVS data production capacity are exemplified with the Nigerian CRVS system. Relevance assessment results suggest that CRVS systems can provide data relevant to 25% of the SDGs. However the SDG data contribution of CRVS depends on the ‘data type’ capacity of National CRVS systems. As the capacity assessment shows, the Nigerian CRVS system has ‘nominal’ capacity to produce all CRVS data types (fertility, mortality, migration, nuptiality and socio-economic) and ‘active’ and ‘latent’ capacities to provide data for some 21 SDG targets. However, it currently lacks ‘effective’ capacity to produce any of the data types for the SDGs. The paper has implications for goal setting and prioritization in evolving strategies to enhance the development of CRVS/NSS systems’ data capacities, especially in developing countries.     

Trajectories of Unintended Fertility

Having an unintended birth is strongly associated with the likelihood of having later unintended births. We use detailed longitudinal data from the Add Health Study (N = 8300) to investigate whether a host of measured sociodemographic, personality, and psychosocial characteristics select women into this “trajectory” of unintended childbearing. While some measured characteristics and aspects of the unfolding life course are related to unintended childbearing, explicitly modeling these effects does not greatly attenuate the association of an unintended birth with a subsequent one. Next, we statistically control for unmeasured time-invariant covariates that affect all birth intervals, and again find that the association of an unintended birth with subsequent ones remains strong. This persistent, strong association may be the direct result of experiencing an earlier unintended birth. We propose several mechanisms that might explain this strong association.     

Feminine or feminist? Women’s media leadership

This paper presents a small-scale qualitative case study of five women’s experiences of leadership roles in Irish media industries. Relational Leadership Theory is used to examine whether there is a gendered dimension to women’s leadership and to explore why women’s participation in leadership has not resulted in significant feminist gains or changes to media organisations. The article finds that: the women saw their leadership as relational and simultaneously as socially constructed in a gendered manner. Moreover, the women led organisational change towards greater gender equality in the norms of media work. However, while the women’s leadership was relational and feminine, it was not necessarily feminist; it did not aim to generate systemic changes within the gendering of the media as an institution. The changes that the women wrought incorporated women into a system of production that remained nonetheless masculinist.     

Immigrant Latino Families Saving Against Great Odds: The Case of CSAs and the Prosperity Kids Program

Children’s savings account programs are interventions that seek to engage disadvantaged children and their families in early college saving, cultivate college-saver identities, and reduce disparities in educational and economic outcomes. Existing research has revealed positive effects of CSAs on children’s outcomes, but questions remain about how and for whom CSAs facilitate these outcomes. This study uses account data from 493 accountholders and findings from interviews with 50 participants to examine asset accumulation and savings experiences among mostly low income, Latino families in New Mexico’s Prosperity Kids CSA program. One-third of the families made a deposit into their child’s account designated as “savers” with a median total contribution of $123 and a median account balance, including initial seed deposit, of $345. Longer duration of program enrollment and fewer number of unexcused absences predicted savers status. Qualitative findings highlight emerging college-saver identities, viewed through the framework of identity-based motivation, understood to include salience, normalization of difficulty, and group congruence. Qualitative interview data further suggest that initial seed money, deposit incentives, and withdrawal restrictions were important influences on participants’ saving. These findings suggest CSA features that may encourage positive savings outcomes for economically disadvantaged households and, then, that may have implications for future CSA policy development.     

Assessing the contribution of fallen autumn leaves to airborne fungi in an urban environment

Urban Ecosystems - Many street trees in urban areas are deciduous and drop leaves during autumn. These leaves are a potential growing substrate for fungi, which when aerosolized and inhaled, can...     

The Relationship Between Problem Gambling and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Recent studies indicate that treatment-seeking problem gamblers display elevated rates of ADHD and that adolescents who screen positive for ADHD are more likely to engage in gambling, develop gambling problems, and experience a greater severity in gambling problems. This study aimed to (a) compare the prevalence of ADHD in treatment-seeking problem gamblers to the general population; (b) investigate the relationships between ADHD and problem gambling severity, cluster B personality disorders, motor impulsivity, alcohol use, substance use, gender, and age; and (c) investigate the degree to which these factors moderate the relationship between ADHD and problem gambling severity. Participants included 214 adults (154 males, 58 females, 2 unspecified) who sought treatment for their gambling problems at a specialist gambling agency in Melbourne, Australia. Almost one-quarter (24.9 %) of treatment-seeking problem gamblers screened positively for ADHD, which was significantly higher than the 14 % prevalence in a community sample. ADHD was significantly positively correlated with problem gambling severity, motor impulsivity, and cluster B personality disorders, but was not associated with alcohol and substance use, gender or age. None of the factors significantly moderated the relationship between ADHD and problem gambling severity. These findings suggest that a considerable proportion of treatment-seeking problem gamblers report ADHD and that their clinical profile is complicated by the presence of high impulsivity and cluster B personality disorders. They highlight the need for specialist gambling agencies to develop screening, assessment, and management protocols for co-occurring ADHD to enhance the effectiveness of treatment.     

Loss of Control as a Discriminating Factor Between Different Latent Classes of Disordered Gambling Severity

Analyses of disordered gambling assessment data have indicated that commonly used screens appear to measure latent categories. This stands in contrast to the oft-held assumption that problem gambling is at the extreme of a continuum. To explore this further, we report a series of latent class analyses of a number of prevalent problem gambling assessments (PGSI, SOGS, DSM-IV Pathological Gambling based assessments) in nationally representative British surveys between 1999 and 2012, analysing data from nearly fifty thousand individuals. The analyses converged on a three class model in which the classes differed by problem gambling severity. This identified an initial class of gamblers showing minimal problems, a additional class predominantly endorsing indicators of preoccupation and loss chasing, and a third endorsing a range of disordered gambling criteria. However, there was considerable evidence to suggest that classes of intermediate and high severity disordered gamblers differed systematically in their responses to items related to loss of control, and not simply on the most ‘difficult’ items. It appeared that these differences were similar between assessments. An important exception to this was one set of DSM-IV criteria based analyses using a specific cutoff, which was also used in an analysis that identified an increase in UK problem gambling prevalence between 2007 and 2010. The results suggest that disordered gambling has a mixed latent structure, and that present assessments of problem gambling appear to converge on a broadly similar construct.