The Caring Experience: Learning about Community Care through Spending 24 Hours with People Who Use Services and Family Carers

This paper describes a teaching and learning initiative developed in a UK social work programme that has involved carers, service users, academic social work staff and practitioners. Post‐graduate student social workers spend 24 hours in agreed periods with family carers or people who use social work services. The paper explains the origins of this initiative, rooted in a model of service user and carer involvement established over a number of years within the social work programme at the University of Dundee, Scotland. The development of this teaching and learning method is outlined and an account is given by a family carer describing their experience of being involved in the programme. Findings from the evaluation of this first year of operation are reported.     

Network centrality and performance of social enterprises: Government certified social enterprises in Seoul,South Korea

Social enterprises, which have been dramatically increasing all over the world for several decades, are facing the challenge of how best to develop strategies to improve performance and achieve sustainable growth. In South Korea, the government has supported active networking among social enterprises as a tactic for overcoming insufficient material and human resources. However, it is unclear whether active networking activities among social enterprises are associated with higher performance. In this study, a network survey of certified social enterprises (n = 78) in Seoul, South Korea was conducted. Multivariate regression models examined whether degree centrality, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality were associated with the economic and social performance of social enterprises after controlling for organizational factors. The results revealed that a social enterprise with higher degree centrality in the network of regular meetings achieved higher social and economic performance.     

Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Wildfire Exposure in Mediterranean Areas

We used simulation modeling to assess potential climate change impacts on wildfire exposure in Italy and Corsica (France). Weather data were obtained from a regional climate model for the period 1981–2070 using the IPCC A1B emissions scenario. Wildfire simulations were performed with the minimum travel time fire spread algorithm using predicted fuel moisture, wind speed, and wind direction to simulate expected changes in weather for three climatic periods (1981–2010, 2011–2040, and 2041–2070). Overall, the wildfire simulations showed very slight changes in flame length, while other outputs such as burn probability and fire size increased significantly in the second future period (2041–2070), especially in the southern portion of the study area. The projected changes fuel moisture could result in a lengthening of the fire season for the entire study area. This work represents the first application in Europe of a methodology based on high resolution (250 m) landscape wildfire modeling to assess potential impacts of climate changes on wildfire exposure at a national scale. The findings can provide information and support in wildfire management planning and fire risk mitigation activities.     

Self-concept and contraception: Pre-conception decision-making

This paper deals with the extent to which two dimensions of self-concept, perceived competence and attitudes toward the female role, are a factor in pre-conception decision-making on contraceptive usage among women who have unwanted conceptions. The study was done throughout Michigan in 1974–75. The sample was 1746 women with unwanted conceptions, selected by means of a two-stage stratified sampling design. A standardized questionnaire included items on demographics, birth control use, and pregnancy resolution, as well as a feminism scale and a scale to measure perceived competence. Several multiple regression analyses were carried out. A hypothesis that contraceptive usage would be positively associated with perceived competence and negatively associated with traditional attitudes toward the female role was strongly supported. In an analysis of various subgroups, differing in age, race, and marital status, self-concept variables were significant predictors only among unmarried adults, regardless of race. Other important predictors of contraceptive usage among the subgroups were father's educational level, number of children raised by respondent, having a regular physician, and frequency of church attendance. For this sample, self-concept variables generally were better predictors of the pre-conception decision-making than of the post-conception decision.This research was supported by Grant #HD07739, NICHD. The authors are affiliated with Wayne State University.     

IMMIGRANTS' GENES: GENETIC DIVERSITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

This paper examines the relationship between immigrants' genetic diversity and economic development in the United States during the late nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, a period commonly referred to as the age of mass migration from Europe to the New World. Our panel model estimates show that during this period, immigrants' genetic diversity is significantly positively correlated with measures of U.S. counties' economic development. There exists also a significant positive relationship between immigrants' genetic diversity in 1870 and contemporaneous measures of U.S. counties' average income. (JEL J11, O51, Z13)     

Coupling the Biophysical and Social Dimensions of Wildfire Risk to Improve Wildfire Mitigation Planning

We describe recent advances in biophysical and social aspects of risk and their potential combined contribution to improve mitigation planning on fire‐prone landscapes. The methods and tools provide an improved method for defining the spatial extent of wildfire risk to communities compared to current planning processes. They also propose an expanded role for social science to improve understanding of community‐wide risk perceptions and to predict property owners’ capacities and willingness to mitigate risk by treating hazardous fuels and reducing the susceptibility of dwellings. In particular, we identify spatial scale mismatches in wildfire mitigation planning and their potential adverse impact on risk mitigation goals. Studies in other fire‐prone regions suggest that these scale mismatches are widespread and contribute to continued wildfire dwelling losses. We discuss how risk perceptions and behavior contribute to scale mismatches and how they can be minimized through integrated analyses of landscape wildfire transmission and social factors that describe the potential for collaboration among landowners and land management agencies. These concepts are then used to outline an integrated socioecological planning framework to identify optimal strategies for local community risk mitigation and improve landscape‐scale prioritization of fuel management investments by government entities.     

Wildfire Exposure Analysis on the National Forests in the Pacific Northwest,USA

We analyzed wildfire exposure for key social and ecological features on the national forests in Oregon and Washington. The forests contain numerous urban interfaces, old growth forests, recreational sites, and habitat for rare and endangered species. Many of these resources are threatened by wildfire, especially in the east Cascade Mountains fire‐prone forests. The study illustrates the application of wildfire simulation for risk assessment where the major threat is from large and rare naturally ignited fires, versus many previous studies that have focused on risk driven by frequent and small fires from anthropogenic ignitions. Wildfire simulation modeling was used to characterize potential wildfire behavior in terms of annual burn probability and flame length. Spatial data on selected social and ecological features were obtained from Forest Service GIS databases and elsewhere. The potential wildfire behavior was then summarized for each spatial location of each resource. The analysis suggested strong spatial variation in both burn probability and conditional flame length for many of the features examined, including biodiversity, urban interfaces, and infrastructure. We propose that the spatial patterns in modeled wildfire behavior could be used to improve existing prioritization of fuel management and wildfire preparedness activities within the Pacific Northwest region.