Growing Disability Rates — the Gender Issue: The Dutch Case in an International Perspective

In the Netherlands, with its remarkably high disability rates, a new phenomenon seems to be emerging. Growing disability rates in the past few years have been exclusively caused by the growing inflow of women into the disability schemes. Comparing the Dutch situation internationally shows that roughly the same problem seems to exist in those countries in which there is a more general problem of large inflow into disability. Women are overrepresented in these arrangements. The Dutch literature shows that there are many factors (both work- and non-work-related) that contribute to a larger push of women towards disability. We conclude that the benefit system can be seen as a sort of "filter". If the filter is weak, many persons will enter disability. If the pressure on women to enter is larger (or the forces to stop women from entering disability smaller), then inflow risks for women will be higher.     

Exploratory Study on Drug Users’ Perspectives on Quality of Life: More than Health-Related Quality of Life?

In drug treatment outcome literature, a focus on objective and socially desirable indicators of change (e.g. no drug use) has predominated, while outcome indicators that are important for drug users themselves (e.g. quality of life, satisfaction with treatment) have largely been neglected. Nonetheless, Quality of Life (QoL) has become an important concept to evaluate effectiveness of treatment in mental health care research and disability studies. Given the almost exclusive focus on Health-related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in substance abuse research and the neglect of clients’ perspectives in this field, we explore in this study the concept of QoL as perceived by drug users. Focus group discussions (n = 9) were organised in various treatment settings and community services for drug users in the region of Ghent, Belgium to identify important dimensions of QoL and their interpretation by drug users. Data were clustered and analysed based on the theoretical framework of Robert Schalock (Quality of life. Volume 1: Conceptualization and measurement, 1996). The domains ‘personal relationships’, ‘social inclusion’ and ‘self-determination’ were discussed most frequently by the participants. They stressed the importance of a supportive social network in particular. It can be concluded that QoL is not primarily associated by drug users with health and it involves much more than the aspects typically represented in measures of HRQOL.     

BANKS,DEBT AND RISK: ASSESSING THE SPILLOVERS OF CORPORATE TAXES

We find evidence of tax-driven strategic allocation of debt and asset risk across group entities of European banks. We evaluate the effects that establishing tax neutrality between debt and equity finance has on systemic risk, and show that the degree of coordination in implementing the hypothetical tax reform matters. In particular, a coordinated elimination of the tax advantage of debt would significantly reduce systemic losses in the event of a severe banking crisis. By contrast, uncoordinated tax reforms are not equally beneficial precisely because national tax policies generate spillovers through cross-border bank activities. (JEL G21, G28, H25)     

Interventions to prevent needle stick injuries among health care workers

Needle stick injuries (NSIs) are frequently reported as occupational injuries among health care workers. The health effects of a NSI can be significant when blood-to-blood contact occurs from patient to health care worker. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the number of NSIs decreased among health care workers at risk in one Dutch academic hospital after introduction of injection needles with safety devices in combination with an interactive workshop. In a cluster three-armed randomized controlled trial, 23 hospital divisions (n=796 health care workers) were randomly assigned to a group that was subjected to the use of a 'safety device plus workshop', to a group that was subjected to a 'workshop only' or to a control group with no intervention. The combined intervention of the introduction of needle safety devices and an interactive workshop led to the highest reduction in the number of self-reported NSIs compared to a workshop alone or no intervention. For practice, the use of relatively simple protective needle safety devices and interactive communication are effective measures for reducing NSI's.     

Restoring Meaning to Supervision Through a Peer Consultation Group in Rural Australia

The establishment of a cross-discipline peer consultation group in regional Australia is described. A research project, which explored the impact of the peer consultation on participants, using pre-group and post-group evaluation surveys along with data from an externally facilitated group evaluation session is discussed. Key findings reveal the value of access to varied modes of supervision; the importance of supervision not feeling like being subjected to surveillance; and the contribution that positive experiences of peer consultation have for our participants' well-being. The potential for improved connection and mutual benefits for practice and academia in sponsorship of professional peer consultation by regional universities also emerges from this research. The effectiveness of contemporary workplace counselling supervision arrangements, and of what, precisely, the enjoyment of engaging in case discussions in peer consultation groups is constituted are areas for more exploration.     

Improving Flood Risk Communication by Focusing on Prevention‐Focused Motivation

This article proposes an approach to flood risk communication that gives particular emphasis to the distinction between prevention and promotion motivation. According to E. Tory Higgins, the promotion system and the prevention system are assumed to coexist in every person, but one or the other may be temporarily or chronically more accessible. These insights have far‐reaching implications for our understanding of people's reasoning about risks. Flood risk communication framed in terms of prevention involves the notions of chance and harm, woven into a story about particular events that necessitate decisions to be more careful about safety issues and protect one's family and oneself from danger. The article describes how the insights worked out in practice, using a flood risk communication experiment among a sample from the general population in a highly populated river delta of the Netherlands. It had a posttest‐only control group design (n = 2,302). The results showed that risk communication had a large effect on the participants’ responses and that this effect was higher among chronic prevention‐focused people than among others. Any information that increased the fit between a prevention‐framed message and a person's chronic prevention motivation produced stronger situationally induced, prevention‐focused responses. This may significantly improve communication about risks. In contrast, the notion of water city projects, featuring waterside living, had more appeal to promotion‐focused people.     

Solving the Stochastic Growth Model by Parameterizing Expectations

This article describes a method for solving the one-good stochastic growth model by parameterizing the expectations part of the stochastic Euler equation. The conditional expectation is specified as a function of the state of the system, and the parameters of that function are estimated to solve the model. The article includes a discussion of how to find the parameters of the function and determine systematically the complexity of the functional form necessary to solve the model.     

Role of Negative Emotion in Communication about CO2 Risks

This article describes how the effectiveness of risk communication is determined by the interaction between emotional and informative elements. An experiment is described that examined the role of negative emotion in communication about CO₂ risks. This experiment was based on the elaboration likelihood model and the related heuristic systematic model of attitude formation. The results indicated that inducing fear of CO₂ risks leads to systematic processing of information about energy conservation as a risk-reducing strategy. In turn, this results in more favorable attitudes toward energy conservation if strong arguments are provided. Individual differences in concern seem to have similar effects.