An Age-Period-Cohort Approach to Analyse Late-Life Depression Prevalence in Six European Countries, 2004–2016

European Journal of Population - Late-life depression is a condition that affects an ever-growing share of the population in ageing societies. While depression prevalence varies across countries...     

Insights into the appropriate level of disaggregation for efficient time series model forecasting

This paper provides a potentially valuable insight on how to assess if the forecasts from an autoregressive moving average model based on aggregated data could be substantially improved through disaggregation. It is argued that, theoretically, the absence of moving average (MA) terms indicates that no forecasting efficiency improvements can be achieved through disaggregation. In practice, it is found that there is a strong correlation between the statistical significance of the MA component in the aggregate model and the magnitude of the forecast mean square error (MSE) decreases that can be achieved through disaggregation. That is, if a model includes significant MA terms, the forecast MSE improvements that may be gained from disaggregation could be substantial. Otherwise, they are more likely to be relatively small or non-existent.     

Mortality analysis of persons with disabilities in Argentina by age,sex and duration of benefit, 2015–16

This article describes the differential mortality of Argentina’s disability pension beneficiaries during the 2015–16 period, based on National Social Security Administration (Administración Nacional de la Seguridad Social – ANSES) payment records. It compares data for those with an assessed disability with overall population data, as well as with available international data (from Canada, Chile, Mexico, and the United States of America). In addition to breaking down mortality rates for people with disabilities by age and sex, it also factors in duration of benefit, establishing an inverse correlation between benefit duration and mortality.     

Window strikes: bird collisions in a Neotropical green city

Urban Ecosystems - Window strikes are among the most worrisome causes of bird mortality. Being responsible for billions of avian deaths, bird-window collisions have been widely studied in the US...     

The professionalization of Spanish social work: moving closer to Europe or away from its roots?

This article will review the processes of professionalization of social work in Spain. With the advent of democratic Spain, many professions began a process of transformation. Those rooted in the relationship between the citizens, their rights and obligations, and the state, were among the first to be challenged. Social work was one of them. Soon thereafter, the European Union (EU), which Spain joined in 1986, brought forth greater challenges and incentives to change. In 1999, Spain and 29 other countries signed the Bologna Declaration, which committed the country to the development of a shared domain (often referred to as ‘espacio común’) with European higher education. This article reviews the historical process of insertion of social work, heavily influenced by the Catholic tradition of caring, into the universities. The paper examines the model of social work education in Spain, before and during Franco's era, and the professionalization (sometimes referred to as ‘tecnificación’) of care-giving and training-paradigms that followed the advent of democracy. Current models and efforts to bring Spanish social work into EU compliance have narrowed the gap with the Anglo-Saxon world; but have they distanced social work in Spain from its roots?     

Estimation and use of the inverse hyperbolic sine transformation to model non-normal correlated random variables

During the past .20 years, there has been growing recognition of the consequences of the randomness of crop yields and prices for farm management and agricultural policy decisions. Concomitantly, researchers have recognized the possibility and implications of the non-normality of yields and prices. This study demonstrates a method for estimating multivariate non-normality in crop yields and prices over time, using the inverse hyperbolic sine transformation of corn, soya bean and wheat yields. The resulting estimates are used to simulate a multivariate distribution of crop yields.     

Social determinants of police corruption: toward public policies for the prevention of police corruption

Strategies for the prevention of police corruption, for example, bribery, commonly neglects its social dimension in spite of the fact that police corruption has societal causes and undertaking a reform of the police requires, to some extent, reforming society. In this paper, we built a decision tree from socioeconomic profiles of 103 countries classified according to their level of police corruption using data from the United Nations Statistics Division and Transparency International. From the rules of the resultant decision tree, we identified and analyzed social determinants of police corruption to assist policy-makers in designing societal level strategies to control police corruption by improving socioeconomic conditions. We found that school life expectancy, involvement of women in society, economic development, and work-related indicators are relevant to police corruption. Moreover, empirical results indicate that countries should gradually improve social indicators to reduce police corruption.     

Professional Perceptions of Intervention with Families in a Crisis Context

The family institution is a key aspect of the welfare regimes of southern Europe, a crisis-affected situation in which social workers play an important role. This paper analyzes the statements of social workers regarding professional intervention and the families with whom they work within the Spanish context, which involves a strong economic crisis and the reduction of public policies. A relational and qualitative study was conducted of 15 professional perceptions of cutbacks, family demands, the profiles of the user families, and the privatization of social services. In addition, proposals for improvement and challenges are analyzed. The main results involve the relationships among dwindling resources, increasing family demands and family dependence on the system, the disadvantages of privatization, excessive bureaucratization, and adverse labor conditions. The main conclusions include the inadequacy of public policies to meet the needs of at-risk families in a crisis context. About future, the research on professional decision making and professional intervention models will be studied in greater depth.     

Good Intercultural Practices in Social Services Projects

ABSTRACT

This article reflects part of the results obtained from a wider research project aimed at the elaboration of a “Map of Good Intercultural Practices” in several areas of social intervention in Andalusia, Spain. It also reports the results obtained from the analysis portion related to the participating projects within the social services. Intercultural assessment was conducted at the level of institutional intervention through a 32-item questionnaire that was sent to 139 intercultural project-leading institutions measuring intercultural sensitivity. A definition of the fundamental concepts of “interculturality” and “good practice” is given to support the foundations of “good intercultural practice” (GIP). Such definitions help in the design and validation of a GIP Scale that was used in the analysis of 60 social services projects with an intercultural component. The results obtained underline the relevance of aspects such as intercultural empathy and show significant differences between the social services and other intervention sectors. Future research is proposed that studies GIP scale in other intervention sectors such as the private and public sector. Also, the transferability of the instruments and methodology used makes it possible that the research presented in this article is conducted in other geographical areas.     

When Knowledge Is Not Enough: Elements to Strengthen Intercultural Sensitivity Among Professionals of Social Services in Andalusia (Spain)

ABSTRACT.

This study examines social services delivery in Andalusia, Spain, to determine the degree of cultural adaptation of its workers, given the important migratory flows taking place in the region during recent years. This study investigates the main characteristics of those workers with a high level of intercultural sensitivity (IS) and their cultural competences. The survey included 298 professionals with a validated IS scale along with questions related to the degree of intercultural contact and competence. A series of scales for the IS levels was created, and correlation analyses were carried out depending on the variables used. Results revealed high levels of self-attributed cultural competence and training as well as low levels of awareness and motivation for intercultural encounters. Theoretical knowledge appeared to be the only aspect in correlation with all dimensions of IS. Important deficits have been also observed when examining the type and intensity of contact among professionals and people of foreign origin. This highlights the need to transform knowledge in culturally adapted responses. Future research is necessary to deepen knowledge on how these aspects affect professional interventions.