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Delay Discounting and Temporal Focus in British and Finnish Populations, 2024
No full textGeneral population survey data collected as part of the ESRC project "Politicians' temporal focus". The surveys covered individuals in the United Kingdom (two waves) and Finland (one wave). Individuals were given a delay discounting task asking whether they wished their constituency or area to receive a "smaller, sooner" grant or a "larger, later" grant. Individuals were also asked to complete Shipp's Temporal Focus scale.
The delay discounting task is based on Kirby and Maraković, except that the amounts were increased to make the amounts for each area more realistic. The size of the grants was determined first in pounds sterling, and then converted to approximately similar amounts in euros for the Finnish survey.
The purpose of this data collection was to benchmark levels of temporal discounting in the general population in order to compare it to levels of temporal discounting amongst MPs, as measured in a separate survey not part of this deposit.Some of us dwell on the past. Others live in the present. Others still look towards the future. The degree to which our thoughts are directed to the past, present or future is called our *temporal focus*. Psychologists have studied people's temporal focus, and have found that future-focused individuals are more likely to engage in pro-social behaviours and perform well in their studies and in their careers.
This project is about politicians' temporal focus. Politicians are often accused of having a particular temporal focus-of focusing too much on the present, or of being "short-termist". This focus (runs the argument) prevents politicians from tackling long-term challenges such as climate change or caring for different generations. Tackling these challenges can involve making sacrifices now in order to gain advantages later. Politicians (and the voters who elect them) may discount these future benefits.
The problem is that we don't know whether politicians are short-termist in this way. Indirect evidence is just that-indirect. Politicians who neglect climate change might do so because of short-termism, but might also do so because they don't believe in climate change, or believe that costs of tackling climate change outweigh the benefits. Direct evidence is better, but harder to collect. It is difficult to convince MPs to answer survey questions about their attitudes, and impossible to do so for historical politicians.
This project solves this problem by developing an unobtrusive measure of politicians' temporal focus by looking at the language they use. Computational linguists have shown how to extract different features-parts of speech, dates, and abstract references to the future or past-from large bodies of text in an automated fashion. Psychologists have shown how these features of a person's language use can be used to predict their temporal focus. These studies have been carried out on short texts (typically social media posts) by young adults or students.
We extend these techniques to cover politicians' speech, and produce measures of politicians' temporal focus for politicians in 3 national parliaments (the UK Parliament, the Australian Senate, and the Finnish Eduskunta). We test whether these measures make sense by comparing them to questionnaire responses from a small group of politicians in the UK Parliament, surveyed in collaboration with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Future Generations. We then go on to show how politicians' temporal focus varies according to age and different political and life events, and compare temporal focus in politicians to temporal focus in the general population.
Knowing about politicians' temporal focus is valuable for its own sake, but it is also valuable because it allows us to answer questions about how we design our political institutions. Our project looks at three different institutional choices: the choice to elect or appoint politicians, the choice to have longer or shorter parliamentary terms, and the choice to have specialised institutions which focus on the future. By careful within-country
comparisons, we test whether particular institutional choices change politicians' temporal focus beyond what we would expect as a result of ageing and chance events.
Our project has concrete benefits for countries considering institutional reforms. In the UK, numerous groups have called for "more long term thinking in UK policy". In New Zealand, party leaders have expressed willingness to lengthen parliamentary terms to avoid short-termism. If we want to avoid short-termism, and promote a different temporal focus in our politicians, we need to be able to measure temporal focus, and relate temporal focus to different institutional choices. This research will do just that.</p
Impact of the Implementation of a National AI Technology Programme on Cardiovascular Outcomes and the Health System, 2021-2024
No full textIn 2018, NHS England introduced a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) decision support technology into the health system in order to improve the diagnostic pathway of patients who were being investigated for suspected coronary artery disease.
The primary aim of the FISH and CHIPS study was to assess the impact of this health intervention by determining the differences in health-related events of a stable chest pain population undergoing Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography (CCTA) and Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR-CT), compared to a previous ‘standard of care’ diagnostic chest pain pathway of CCTA and non-invasive functional testing.
This is a multi-centre, retrospective, observational analytic cohort study design. The study utilised the electronic health record (EHR) data already collected by NHS England on all patients that underwent a CCTA for the assessment of coronary artery disease over a 3-year period (April 2017-April 2020). All patients were treated in accordance with the latest NICE clinical guidance (CG 95 2016). Healthcare data was used to determine clinical outcomes (heart attacks, death, cardiac death), procedures performed (invasive angiography, percutaneous stenting and surgical bypass grafting) and heart diagnostic tests up to 24 months following the index CCTA. Costs are determined from the NHS national tariff system.Chest pain may be a symptom that is related to a narrowing of the heart blood vessels (coronary artery disease [CAD]). This chest pain, known as angina, can result in a reduced quality of life and, if not diagnosed and managed appropriately, could result in a heart attack. Coronary disease remains the largest cause of death in the United Kingdom today, with one death every 4 minutes. Guidelines recommend the use of tests to help diagnose and manage chest pain 'angina' patients. Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is a test that takes images of the heart blood vessels. It is the main test for patients presenting with angina, as it is excellent at saying when the heart blood vessels are normal, and can be reassuring for patients. However, when narrowing's are present CCTA lacks the ability to tell whether they are causing the patient's symptoms.
A new technology, CT-derived fractional flow reserve (FFRCT) uses the CCTA images to make a 3D model of the heart blood vessels that shows whether there is a limitation in the blood flow to the heart which is causing the symptoms. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends the use of FFRCT in a chest pain pathway. However, use of this new technology remains limited due to funding restrictions and uncertainty as to its benefit in the NHS.
This study aims to determine the extent to which the new FFRCT technology is safe and reliable, provides a quicker time to diagnosis for the patient, reduces the need for further tests and thus represents good value to the NHS.</p
Intergenerationality and Anticipation at Older Age in the UK Among 68-83 Year Olds, 2021
No full textThis qualitative data was collected as part of an engaged phenomenological PhD project in 10 conversational interviews with participants aged 68-83 (seven women, three men). Interviews took place over Zoom or over the phone.
Participants were asked about their important relationships, when they thought about their age, whether age mattered to them, feeling part of a generation, relating to people of different ages, how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected life, and how caring for others had affected their outlook on ageing.
Themes in these interviews include COVID-19, gratitude and privilege, parenthood and grandparenthood, intergenerational judgement, retrospection, perceptions of the life course, risk and caution, priorities, care, generations, temporality, and technology. All names are pseudonyms, either chosen by the participant or selected by the researcher.In this thesis, I complement insights from age studies with philosophical phenomenology to develop an account of ‘older age’ by heeding insights offered by older participants in qualitative interviews. In particular, I focus on the topics of intergenerationality and anticipation. I explore how participants experienced tensions between ‘keeping an open mind’ at older age, intergenerational shifts in cultural norms, and social separation between generations—interpreting this as a rupture in the intergenerational habitus. I also argue that public health anticipations pertaining to older age can be understood as co-constitutive of older people’s outlook on their future, and that the participants’ perspectives show just how difficult—or indeed impossible—it can be to know in advance what the best approach to successful ageing is. These investigations intertwine concepts from both age studies and phenomenology, including the notion of the ‘decline narrative,’ the ‘successful ageing’ framework, the ‘third vs. fourth age’ distinction, and phenomenology of embodiment, habit, and habitus-formation.
This thesis is informed by principles of engaged research, and its content and development has been shaped in dialogue with a number of older people. The fundamental phenomenological research is led by this engagement. The thesis also sets out an original methodological perspective for future engaged phenomenological projects—drawing from critical and generative phenomenology, as well as literature on engaged and participatory practices. This approach to research, which I call engaged phenomenology, explores (1) how the social, political, and institutional context of a research project frames its operative concepts and concerns, and (2) how best to meaningfully work together with communities whose experiences are foregrounded in a study. I argue that adopting these approaches can enable phenomenologists to more effectively realise the critical and generative potential of phenomenological methodology more broadly.</p
Domestic Abuse Service Providers and Their Stories, 2023-2024
No full textThis dataset contains transcripts from focus group sessions and individual interviews from the project 'Domestic Abuse Service Providers and their Stories'. Participants were drawn from four domestic abuse service providers across Leeds, West Yorkshire and York. The focus group sessions were conducted first, with all participants from each of the respective organisations, followed by the individual interviews. Data was collected through audio-recorded sessions/interviews, either held online or conducted in person.
The project aimed to investigate the power and persistence of dominant narratives in relation to domestic abuse, as witnessed by service providers who support both victims and perpetrators. A key ambition of this project was not only to identify and analyse these narratives, but to consider how we might improve future policy and practice to change them. The key aims were to:
- Identify potential strategies for practically changing the narrative of domestic abuse.
- Apply a methodology using narrative theory to investigate the stories of service providers’ experiences with domestic abuse victims and perpetrators.
- Assess current practitioners’ perceptions of the dominant narratives around domestic abuse and identify what kinds of narratives persist in preventing change.
The project utilised a narrative inquiry framework throughout both data collection and analysis. This is a qualitative research method focused on understanding experience and which uses stories as the unit of analysis
Consistent themes emerged across all the storytellers, however, each teller combined different events, characters and elements of narrative to tell their tale. This revealed that, although there were similar themes, each storyteller had different points to make and there were important differences in the themes’ meanings for different participants. Participants identified consistent themes revealing that there is not one singular dominant narrative of domestic abuse, but rather it is multi-faceted and made up of many inter-related issues. This continued lack of understanding of domestic abuse among all areas of the field was clear, with many citing the impact of this as significant: it created barriers to support – for both victims and perpetrators – and continued to impact service provision. When it came to a resolution to the story, and a resolution to the issues faced in dismantling dominant narratives of domestic abuse, training and education were identified as key.
This research has shown that if we want to change our response to domestic abuse and ‘re-write’ the harmful dominant narratives about domestic abuse, then we need to reframe the question we are asking and, instead, ask how all professional services, police, schools and the wider public are conceptualising, articulating and reproducing these narratives.This research project investigated current practitioners’ perceptions of the dominant narratives of domestic abuse. Dr Shaw worked in collaboration with four service providers in West Yorkshire who deal with both victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse. Focus group sessions and individual interviews were held with all the participants, with the aim to identify what kind of narratives persist in preventing change and identify gaps in understanding how the system responds to the needs of both perpetrators and victims.</p
Health Survey Northern Ireland, 2015-2016
No full textAbstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Health Survey Northern Ireland (HSNI) was commissioned by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland and the Central Survey Unit (CSU) of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) carried out the survey on their behalf. This survey series has been running on a continuous basis since April 2010 with separate modules for different policy areas included in different financial years. It covers a range of health topics that are important to the lives of people in Northern Ireland. The HSNI replaces the previous Northern Ireland Health and Social Wellbeing Survey (available under SNs 4589, 4590 and 5710).Adult BMI, height and weight measurements, accompanying demographic and derived variables, geography, and a BMI weighting variable, are available in separate datasets for each survey year.
Further information is available from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and the Department of Health (Northern Ireland) survey webpages.
The Health Survey Northern Ireland, 2015-2016 provides a source of information on a wide range of health issues relevant to Northern Ireland. The information collected is pursuing the development of policies aimed at improving the health and well-being of the Northern Ireland population.
Main Topics:Topics covered included: general health, long-term conditions, smoking, e-cigarettes, alcohol consumption, physical activity, mental health (including GHQ12), wellbeing, carers, fire safety, blind cords, health literacy and five-a-day (fruit and vegetable consumption).</p
Survey of Personal Incomes, 2022-2023: Public Use Tape
No full textAbstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) is based on information held by HM Revenue and Customs tax offices on individuals who could be liable to UK income tax. It is carried out annually by HMRC and covers income assessable to tax for each tax year. Not all of them are taxpayers because the operation of personal reliefs and allowances may remove them from liability. Where income exceeds the threshold for operation of Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE), the survey provides the most comprehensive and accurate official source of data on personal incomes. The SPI is compiled to provide a quantified evidence base from which to cost proposed changes to tax rates, personal allowances and other tax reliefs for Treasury Ministers. It is used to inform policy decisions within HMRC and the Treasury, as well as for tax modelling and forecasting purposes. In addition, it is used to provide summary information for the National Accounts that are prepared by the Office for National Statistics. Finally, it is used to provide information to Members of Parliament, other Government Departments, companies, organisation and individuals. The UK Data Archive currently holds the Public Use Tape (PUT) data for 1985-86 and 1995-96 onwards (data for 2008-09 is currently unavailable). For further details of sampling and coverage criteria, see documentation. Further information about the SPI, including income tax and personal incomes statistics, is available on the GOV.UK Statistics about personal incomes webpage.
Main Topics:The Public Use Tape (PUT) dataset is an anonymised dataset and is based on the SPI. It allows users to produce their own analysis. The dataset contains a range of variables about personal incomes arising from employment, self employment, pension, benefits, property, savings, investments and other income sources. The dataset also contains variables about allowances, deductions and reliefs, which people might be due. There is also a regional code variable on the dataset and a trade code for cases which are self-employed. A list of data items on the Public Use Tape is provided in Annex A of the documentation
Harmonised Fertility Histories in the National Child Development Study, 1970 British Cohort Study and Next Steps, 1981-2024
No full textAbstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Harmonised Data in Five National Longitudinal Cohort Studies project, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), brings together data from five British cohort studies: the 1946 National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD), the 1958 National Child Development Survey (NCDS), the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), Next Steps (formerly the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England), and the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). NCDS, BCS70, Next Steps, and MCS receive core funding from the ESRC and are hosted by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at UCL. NSHD is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and is hosted by the Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL.The Fertility Harmonisation project aimed to enhance data in these four British cohort studies (NSHD, NCDS, Next Steps and BCS70) through retrospective harmonisation of fertility information. This retrospective harmonisation serves two primary purposes: improving the measurement of fertility (as an outcome, predictor, or control variable) within cohort analyses, and facilitating cross-cohort research on fertility using these rich datasets.Separate longitudinal datasets were created for each cohort, covering survey sweeps from early adulthood to the early fifties, marking the end of the reproductive window for most cohort members. Derived variables provide a summary of fertility (live births) at each survey sweep, including whether the cohort member had children, the number of children, the age of the eldest and youngest child, and the number of boys and girls. The focus was exclusively on live births, excluding pregnancies that were terminated, miscarriages, or stillbirths.Harmonised fertility data for the MRC National Survey of Health and Development are available under Special Licence from SN 9419.Main Topics:The following three data files are included:harmonised_fertility_histories_ncds: the dataset contains fertility variables derived in the NCDS at age 23, 33, 42, 46 and 50.harmonised_fertility_histories_bcs: the dataset contains fertility variables derived in the BCS70 at age 26, 30, 38, 42, 46 and 51.harmonised_fertility_histories_nextsteps: the dataset contains fertility variables derived in Next Steps at age 25 and 32.Individual identifiers are included to enable the harmonised data to be merged with the main cohort study data.</div
Quantifying Carbon Reduction from Existing Buildings: Classification of 1,050 Abstracts of Global Peer Reviewed Journal Articles, 2017-2024
No full textRetrofitting buildings to reduce energy use and carbon emissions is critical for climate change mitigation. This dataset provides the underlying data of a meta-survey of the global academic literature on retrofit and energy and carbon reduction from 2017-2024. The paper that accompanies this dataset identifies research priorities and knowledge gaps.
Rigorous thematic and bibliographic network analysis of 1,050 abstracts identified a range of significant research gaps. Categorisations include countries and types of buildings and retrofits studied, methods used and subjects and lifecycle stages covered. Short summaries and clarification of papers on 96 countries published in 187 journals is included in the dataset.
The data will be useful for researchers wishing to investigate different aspects of the academic literature quantifying carbon reduction from existing buildings.This fellowship will contribute to developing socio-technical approaches to reducing carbon emissions from heritage buildings, while retaining the values that make them special. The fellowship will include a range of activities which will consolidate and extend the fellow's PhD research and enhance its wider impact and
usability. It will also provide the skills, experience and professional networks to help research career development.
Energy use in buildings is responsible for 27% of global emissions. Retrofitting existing buildings to reduce their energy demand and associated carbon emissions is critical to mitigate devastating climate
change. However, standard retrofit approaches often focus exclusively on technical and financial aspects, failing to consider residents’ preferences and behaviours.
The fellow's previous research has highlighted the need to take a holistic socio-technical approach to carbon reduction. This approach should foreground building users' complex practices and needs, alongside the technical aspects of energy and buildings, to achieve real and lasting change, meet critical climate goals and create a better, healthier, sustainable and resilient built environment.
Research will be undertaken on: modelling the impact of future climate scenarios on building retrofit; Considering residents' behaviours and comfort perceptions; and examining the micro-economic implications of retrofit. The global literature on retrofit and carbon reduction will also be reviewed to identify gaps and tends.</p
Preferences for Sexual Health Services Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in the United Kingdom, 2023
No full textSexual health is integral to overall well-being, yet the needs and desires of middle-aged and older adults are often overlooked. This study aimed to understand the sexual health service preferences of adults aged 45 and older to enhance service accessibility in the UK. We conducted a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) in three stages: concept elicitation, refinement, and implementation. Attributes and levels were determined through 22 semi-structured interviews, followed by pilot testing. The DCE survey was implemented using Qualtrics XM with conjoint project features. We employed a random parameters logit model to estimate attribute importance and level preferences, and a latent class model to identify groups with similar preferences. The analysis included 200 responses (62.5% female, 35.5% disabled, 26.0% sexual minority; median age was 53). Service utilisation preferences were primarily influenced by delivery mode (Relative Importance (RI): 32%), location (RI: 18%), and cost (RI: 16%). Participants preferred face-to-face interactions at sexual health clinics and showed a willingness to pay for private services. Extra support and consultation style had minor impacts. No preference differences were found among disabled people, while sexual minorities preferred conventional messaging. Middle-aged and older adults prioritise face-to-face consultations at sexual health clinics over cost considerations. Aligning service delivery with these preferences could significantly improve the accessibility and uptake of sexual health services for adults aged 45 and older in the UK.People who lived beyond the age of fifty years were uncommon in the mid-1800s. Remarkable advances in medicine have created substantial demographic changes, resulting in larger numbers of older adults, defined in this application as 50 years and older. This greying of the world's population has important implications for sexual health. An increasing number of older population sustain vibrant sexual lives and intimate relationships for a long period, needing support and medical advice on optimizing their sexual health. At the same time, a range of related frailties and disabilities alongside power imbalances may increase the risk of unprotected sex and HIV/sexually transmitted infections among some older adults. Sexual health is an increasingly important topic among elderly individuals across the world, but our conventional disciplinary approaches shy away from the topic. Much of the sexual health research has focused on youth, ignoring the tremendous demographic changes underway and incorrectly assuming that "age is a condom." Our UK-China joint team has a rich experience in behavioural science, sociology, anthropology, medicine, and public health. The common greying of the population in the UK and China demands innovative solutions to identify needs and barriers relevant to sexual health and gaps in sexual health services and ensure that they are inclusive, empowering, and reliable. Leveraging our multi-disciplinary team, we propose the following specific aims:
Aim 1: Using an epidemiological study to understand sexual health and wellbeing among older adults in China, in comparison to existing data from National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL 3) in the UK.
Aim 2: Determine preferences for sexual health services among diverse older adults, using discrete choice experiments (DCEs).
Aim 3: Identify high-quality messages to promote uptake of inclusive sexual health services among older adults in China and the UK through two parallel crowdsourcing contests.
Aim 4: Create policy recommendations about how to make sexual health services more adaptive to older adults' needs and preferences in diverse settings.
DCEs are a survey-based method that quantifies participants' preferences for health care delivery, evaluating which attributes are most important to participants by observing how participants trade-off between various attributes. A crowdsourcing contest allows a group to solve a problem and then shares solutions with the wider public. Crowdsourcing interventions have successfully engaged marginalized groups in HIV testing program development, improved HIV test and condom use.</p
Trans Men’s Body Image and Quality of Life: Interview Data, 2024
No full textThis dataset contains semi-structured interviews with 18 trans men from eight countries, including the United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany, Canada, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Conducted as part of a broader research programme, these interviews delve into the intricate relationships between body image, quality of life, gender congruence, and societal influences.
Despite growing research with trans and gender-diverse populations, trans men remain underrepresented in research. Little is known about how they navigate body image concerns, societal expectations, and the unique challenges of aligning their physical and social identities. This qualitative study builds on a preceding quantitative phase (see OSF) by providing rich, contextualised insights into trans men’s lived realities across diverse cultural contexts.
The interviews explore how trans men experience and perceive body image and its influence on quality of life, spanning physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains. They also shed light on the intersections of gender congruence and societal norms, capturing narratives of resilience and identity affirmation in the face of barriers.
Participants were recruited via Prolific, and their interviews were pseudonymised to ensure confidentiality. This dataset is an invaluable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who want to better understand the needs and experiences of trans men. It can potentially inform affirming care practices and inclusive policies prioritising their well-being