Communicating Geographical Risks in Crisis Management: The Need for Research

In any crisis, there is a great deal of uncertainty, often geographical uncertainty or, more precisely, spatiotemporal uncertainty. Examples include the spread of contamination from an industrial accident, drifting volcanic ash, and the path of a hurricane. Estimating spatiotemporal probabilities is usually a difficult task, but that is not our primary concern. Rather, we ask how analysts can communicate spatiotemporal uncertainty to those handling the crisis. We comment on the somewhat limited literature on the representation of spatial uncertainty on maps. We note that many cognitive issues arise and that the potential for confusion is high. We note that in the early stages of handling a crisis, the uncertainties involved may be deep, i.e., difficult or impossible to quantify in the time available. In such circumstance, we suggest the idea of presenting multiple scenarios.     

A Probabilistic Model of the Economic Risk to Britain's Railway Network from Bridge Scour During Floods

Scour (localized erosion by water) is an important risk to bridges, and hence many infrastructure networks, around the world. In Britain, scour has caused the failure of railway bridges crossing rivers in more than 50 flood events. These events have been investigated in detail, providing a data set with which we develop and test a model to quantify scour risk. The risk analysis is formulated in terms of a generic, transferrable infrastructure network risk model. For some bridge failures, the severity of the causative flood was recorded or can be reconstructed. These data are combined with the background failure rate, and records of bridges that have not failed, to construct fragility curves that quantify the failure probability conditional on the severity of a flood event. The fragility curves generated are to some extent sensitive to the way in which these data are incorporated into the statistical analysis. The new fragility analysis is tested using flood events simulated from a spatial joint probability model for extreme river flows for all river gauging sites in Britain. The combined models appear robust in comparison with historical observations of the expected number of bridge failures in a flood event. The analysis is used to estimate the probability of single or multiple bridge failures in Britain's rail network. Combined with a model for passenger journey disruption in the event of bridge failure, we calculate a system‐wide estimate for the risk of scour failures in terms of passenger journey disruptions and associated economic costs.     

Working children: the health and safety issue

Recent evidence has emerged that in Britain, like the US, many children below the official minimum school leaving age, are working. In many cases, the work is illegal. Research in the US suggests that many working children risk accidents and other hazards to health. Evidence from Britain on the health and safety aspects of child labour is of a more fragmentary nature, but enough exists to suggest a need for greater vigilance.     

The Experience and Practice of Approved Social Workers in Northern Ireland

Correspondence to Dr Roger Manktelow, School of Social and Community Sciences, University of Ulster Magee College, Derry, BT48 7JL, Northern Ireland. Summary This article reports on the first extensive survey of ApprovedSocial Worker (ASW) activity under the Mental Health (NorthernIreland) Order 1986. The integrated health and social servicesorganizational structure, the adverse effects on individualmental health of the legacy of thirty years of civil conflictand the move from hospital to community care are significantfeatures which have influenced the delivery of mental healthsocial work services locally. The practice and experience ofASWs was surveyed by postal questionnaire and user and carerexperience of compulsory hospital admission was investigatedby a series of focus groups. The study revealed that two-thirdsof ASWs had experience of acting as an applicant in compulsoryhospital admission during the past two years. Nearly half (42per cent) of these ASWs had reported experience of between oneand five admissions and one-tenth had completed over twentyadmissions in the two-year period. In only a small minorityof cases did joint face-to-face assessment with the GeneralPractitioner (doctor) take place; nearly half of ASWs reporteddifficulties in obtaining transport; and only one-fifth of ASWshad experience of acting as a second approved social worker.Half of ASWs reported experience of guardianship, either asapplicant or in making the recommendation. Both service usersand carers reported a lack of understanding about the role ofthe ASW and complained about the lack of alternative resourcesthat ASWs could use to prevent hospital admissions. These findingsare discussed and a number of recommendations are proposed forimprovements to approved social worker practice.     

Family Development Cycle,Social Class,and Inequality in Rwanda1

Abstract The relative importance of social class differences (social differentiation) and stages of the family development cycle (demographic differentiation) on income inequalities in rural Rwanda are discussed and compared using survey data from 1,019 households. Both forms of differentiation are conceptualized as dynamic processes that intersect through their mutual inclusion of landholding—land being fundamental to our understanding of social class in the Third World and likewise closely tied to the timing of the developmental stages of the family cycle. Findings demonstrate that both forms of differentiation are vitally important, in roughly equal proportions, to household income generation in Rwanda. Emphasis is placed on the direct effects of the social class variables and on the indirect effects of the demographic differentiation process. The importance of the impact of contextual variables, such as land scarcity and the absence of alternative nonfarm employment, on income inequality are assessed.     

Mood in Daily Contexts: Relationship With Risk in Early Adolescence

Disturbances in affect have been linked to problem behavior in adolescence and future psychopathology, but little is known about how such disturbances manifest themselves in everyday contexts. This study investigated daily mood in Dutch 7th graders, aged 11–14. Cluster analysis of problem measures distinguished high-risk (n=25) and low-risk (n=106) subgroups. Participants completed experience-sampling reports of mood, social context, and location nine times daily for 5 days. Multilevel regression analyses of four mood measures confirmed higher anxiety and depressed mood in the high-risk group. Moods varied by location and social context, with significant differences between groups in two specific social contexts. First, when with family, low-risk adolescents felt less depressed than when alone, whereas high-risk adolescents felt more depressed. Second, high-risk adolescents showed more pronounced anxiety in social situations outside the network of family and friends. These findings point to everyday social contexts in which young adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems appear to be particularly vulnerable.