Translating cross-lagged effects into incidence rates and risk ratios: The case of psychosocial safety climate and depression

Longitudinal studies are the gold standard of empirical work and stress research whenever experiments are not plausible. Frequently, scales are used to assess risk factors and their consequences, and cross-lagged effects are estimated to determine possible risks. Methods to translate cross-lagged effects into risk ratios to facilitate risk assessment do not yet exist, which creates a divide between psychological and epidemiological work stress research. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate how cross-lagged effects can be used to assess the risk ratio of different levels of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) in organisations, an important psychosocial risk for the development of depression. We used available longitudinal evidence from the Australian Workplace Barometer (N?=?1905) to estimate cross-lagged effects of PSC on depression. We applied continuous time modelling to obtain time-scalable cross effects. These were further investigated in a 4-year Monte Carlo simulation, which translated them into 4-year incident rates. Incident rates were determined by relying on clinically relevant 2-year periods of depression. We suggest a critical value of PSC?=?26 (corresponding to ?1.4 SD), which is indicative of more than 100% increased incidents of persistent depressive disorder in 4-year periods compared to average levels of PSC across 4 years.     

制度风险的法律维度: 突破非物质文化遗产保护的瓶颈

以风险理论审视非物质文化遗产的现行法律制度,根据风险产生根源不同,非物质文化遗产保护的制度风险会表现为制度运转失灵风险、制度功能偏差风险和公平性缺失风险。化解制度风险,形成制度风险的维度,不可基于同一个标准,而是需要在大的框架之下论及制度风险的法律管控,需要有针对性地创构"建立私权,善用公权"的多元法律控制体系,并在体系内引入技术规制,创设"非物质文化遗产权",推动民间习惯法与法律制度、公法与私法的互动式发展。     

Understanding Cumulative Risk Perception from Judgments and Choices: An Application to Flood Risks

Catastrophic events, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis, are rare, yet the cumulative risk of each event occurring at least once over an extended time period can be substantial. In this work, we assess the perception of cumulative flood risks, how those perceptions affect the choice of insurance, and whether perceptions and choices are influenced by cumulative risk information. We find that participants' cumulative risk judgments are well represented by a bimodal distribution, with a group that severely underestimates the risk and a group that moderately overestimates it. Individuals who underestimate cumulative risks make more risk‐seeking choices compared to those who overestimate cumulative risks. Providing explicit cumulative risk information for relevant time periods, as opposed to annual probabilities, is an inexpensive and effective way to improve both the perception of cumulative risk and the choices people make to protect against that risk.     

A New Methodology for Before–After Safety Assessment Using Survival Analysis and Longitudinal Data

The widely used empirical Bayes (EB) and full Bayes (FB) methods for before–after safety assessment are sometimes limited because of the extensive data needs from additional reference sites. To address this issue, this study proposes a novel before–after safety evaluation methodology based on survival analysis and longitudinal data as an alternative to the EB/FB method. A Bayesian survival analysis (SARE) model with a random effect term to address the unobserved heterogeneity across sites is developed. The proposed survival analysis method is validated through a simulation study before its application. Subsequently, the SARE model is developed in a case study to evaluate the safety effectiveness of a recent red‐light‐running photo enforcement program in New Jersey. As demonstrated in the simulation and the case study, the survival analysis can provide valid estimates using only data from treated sites, and thus its results will not be affected by the selection of defective or insufficient reference sites. In addition, the proposed approach can take into account the censored data generated due to the transition from the before period to the after period, which has not been previously explored in the literature. Using individual crashes as units of analysis, survival analysis can incorporate longitudinal covariates such as the traffic volume and weather variation, and thus can explicitly account for the potential temporal heterogeneity.     

Comprehensive neighbourhood mapping: developing a powerful tool for child protection

This paper proposes ‘comprehensive neighbourhood mapping’ as a schema for gathering and interpreting information within a given geographical area which is informed by imaginative thinking about the safety of children and young people from sexual crime. It would build upon current forms of profiling by local authorities, health authorities and central Government. CNM would actively involve local people, in partnership with agencies, in ‘mapping’ danger points and support points. Eight components are discussed, including environmental issues, locations of sex offenders, sites where teenagers meet and share information, supportive individuals and organizations. Some issues for pilot projects are discussed, including the need to set up planning and implementation groups and to integrate CNM into wider child protection and community safety strategies. CNM is grounded in an ecological perspective which sees partnership approaches as essential and believes an overarching view of neighbourhood needs, based on detailed local information and understanding of how different forms of harm interconnect, is crucial in developing child protection strategies. At times of acute official anxiety about community ‘lynch‐mob’ reactions to known paedophiles, CNM aims to build communities which instead are informed and thoughtful about child protection. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Politics and Scientific Expertise: Scientists, Risk Perception, and Nuclear Waste Policy

To study the homogeneity and influences on scientists'perspectives of environmental risks, we have examined similarities and differences in risk perceptions, particularly regarding nuclear wastes, and policy preferences among 1011 scientists and engineers. We found significant differences ( p 0.05)in the patterns of beliefs among scientists from different fields of research. In contrast to physicists, chemists, and engineers, life scientists tend to: (a)perceive the greatest risks from nuclear energy and nuclear waste management; (b)perceive higher levels of overall environmental risk; (c)strongly oppose imposing risks on unconsenting individuals; and (d)prefer stronger requirements for environmental management. On some issues related to priorities among public problems and calls for government action, there are significant variations among life scientists or physical scientists. We also found that–independently of field of research–perceptions of risk and its correlates are significantly associated with the type of institution in which the scientist is employed. Scientists in universities or state and local governments tend to see the risks of nuclear energy and wastes as greater than scientists who work as business consultants, for federal organizations, or for private research laboratories. Significant differences also are found in priority given to environmental risks, the perceived proximity of environmental disaster, willingness to impose risks on an unconsenting population, and the necessity of accepting risks and sacrifices.     

更高层次的迈进——企业相对社会责任的实现

相对社会责任的承担与实现,对企业自身和社会都具有重大意义,但由于缺乏机制的制约和策略的应用,其实现是困难的。正确处理企业利益与社会责任的关系,促使更多企业从履行绝对社会责任,上升到追求更高层次社会责任的实现,一方面需要外在环境的保障,另一方面要求企业在履行社会责任时,注意策略选择。     

Estimation of Hazard, Density and Survivor Functions for Randomly Censored Data

Maximum likelihood estimation and goodness-of-fit techniques are used within a competing risks framework to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of hazard, density, and survivor functions for randomly right-censored variables. Goodness-of- fit techniques are used to fit distributions to the crude lifetimes, which are used to obtain an estimate of the hazard function, which, in turn, is used to construct the survivor and density functions of the net lifetime of the variable of interest. If only one of the crude lifetimes can be adequately characterized by a parametric model, then semi-parametric estimates may be obtained using a maximum likelihood estimate of one crude lifetime and the empirical distribution function of the other. Simulation studies show that the survivor function estimates from crude lifetimes compare favourably with those given by the product-limit estimator when crude lifetimes are chosen correctly. Other advantages are discussed.     

城市公众安全文化教育的方法与思路——兼议北京2008“安全奥运文化”普及问题

通过对安全文化发展演变历史的简单回眸,探讨了适用于城市安全减灾的安全文化教育的模式及方法,尤其从文化建设层面上研究了应用安全文化建设方法的特点。作为最现实的应用,还就2008年北京“安全奥运”的系统化建设提出了“安全奥运文化”普及教育的思路。     

网上购物风险来源、类型及其影响因素研究

从风险来源的角度深入地研究了网上购物感知风险类型与其相对强度,对于企业从风险来源上降低和管理网上风险具有重要的指导意义.文章发现消费者在网上购物时,风险主要来源于产品本身、远距离交易、互联网这种交易模式和网站这四个方面.研究结果揭示了,当消费者在网上购物的时候,所感受到最强烈的三个风险分别是,来自于产品本身的产品绩效风险、来自于远距离交易的服务风险和来自于网站的来源风险.最后,研究还发现,消费者网上购物感知风险的强弱与消费者的年龄、网络购物频率之间存在较强的相关性,年龄越大,感知风险越强;网上购物频率越高,感知风险越低.