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Grief interrupted-exploring British Muslim communities practices of burial and commemoration during Covid 19
Get PDFThis paper focuses on death, in particular it discusses experiences of burial, grief and commemoration for British Muslim communities during Covid 19. The paper considers the impact of Covid 19 on British Muslim communities through a phenomenological and socio-cultural lens and discusses ways in which religious and cultural practices inherent to the Muslim faith, including washing and shrouding of the deceased, were particularly affected by Covid 19. Drawing on ritual studies and the concept of liminality, the paper discusses the social and relational aspect of religious rituals as important in facilitating the processes of grief and bereavement. The empirical discussion in this paper is drawn from interviews with British Muslims working or volunteering with ethnic minority communities, including medical professionals, funeral directors and burial charities who had direct experience of both preparing Muslim bodies for burial and supporting bereaved families. The paper discusses ways in which rituals function in the social cohesiveness of communities, and ‘glue’ a community together particularly at a time when it is most threatened. In considering the disruptions to the collective and communal rituals related to death, burial and mourning the British Muslim community, the paper discusses ways in which these disruptions have contributed to a sense of lingering grief or grief ‘interrupted’
iKids study protocol: a longitudinal study to understand the impact of interactive electronic devices on the development and health of young children in England
Get PDFIntroduction There is evidence of both positive and negative impacts of interactive electronic devices (IEDs), such as tablets and smartphones, on young children’s development and health outcomes. Consultations with early years practitioners, parents and policy makers recognise IEDs as a valuable resource for early-year learning. However, concerns exist regarding their potential negative impacts on children’s self-regulation, parent-child interaction and physical activity.
The primary aim of this study is to understand the longitudinal impact of IED use, in particular duration (hours per day) and mode (educational vs non-educational; age-appropriate vs non-age-appropriate), on emerging abilities (ie, self-regulation, social development, executive function, language and numeracy) in 3-year-old to 5-year-old children. The secondary aims are to explore the impact of IEDs on health-related outcomes (ie, body mass index and motor skills), behavioural outcomes (ie, movement behaviour, parent-child interaction) and educational outcomes (ie, school readiness).
Methods and analysis We aim to recruit 1377 children from economically diverse areas in the Mid and North of England, UK. We will measure children’s exposure to IEDs using a mobile sensing application tool which records app usage, while the primary outcome, emerging abilities, will be measured through the Early Years Toolbox. The secondary outcome measures will include the following: accelerometry (24-hour movement behaviour), National Institute of Health (NIH) Toolbox (motor skills), STIM-Q preschool questionnaire (parent-child interaction) and early years foundation stage profile (school readiness). We will employ multilevel regression models to examine the association between IED duration and mode with emerging abilities. We hope this study will contribute to the development of guidelines for parents and educators regarding the use of IEDs.
Ethics and dissemination The study has received approval from Sheffield Hallam University (ID: ER69550320). Engagement with the public and stakeholders will guide the dissemination plan. The insights gained from this project will be shared through publications and will inform policy briefs distributed to health and educational organisations.
Trial registration number NCT06810570
Efficiency and equity of community-based falls prevention pathways: a model-based health economic evaluation
Get PDFBackground
Three pathways exist for community-based falls prevention: reactive (R), after a fall requiring medical attention; proactive (P), after professional referral of high-risk individuals; and self-referred (SR), voluntary intervention enrolment. The UK guidelines recommend scale-up of all three [‘recommended care’ (RC)], but scale-up of none [‘usual care’ (UC)], one (R, P, SR) or two (R+P, R+SR, P+SR) are potential options. This study aims to compare the options in terms of efficiency and equity.
Methods
Cost-utility analysis from the societal perspective over a 40-year horizon identified the optimal strategy based on efficiency alone. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis accounted for parameter uncertainty. Efficiency and equity were jointly evaluated by distributional cost-effectiveness analysis. Alternative scenarios assessed changes in frailty, cognitive impairment, intervention demand and GP access.
Results
Public sector cost-effectiveness threshold would need to exceed £30 000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained for RC to have the highest probability of being cost-effective. R and R+SR were cost-effective, with costs per QALY gained of £2365 (R versus UC) and £5516 (R+SR versus R). RC was cost-ineffective, incurring £34 258 per QALY gained versus R+SR. Other strategies were dominated. However, if decision-makers had the same relative health inequality aversion level as the English general public, RC was optimal in terms of efficiency and equity at threshold of £30 000 per QALY gained. Scenarios of worse geriatric health favoured RC.
Conclusions
Both efficiency and relative health inequality need to be considered for the UK guideline-recommended falls prevention to be optimal versus other permutations of community-based strategies
Victims of conspiracies? An examination of the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and dispositional individual victimhood
Get PDFConspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related covariates (e.g., mistrust). In a multinational sample from 15 countries (N = 14,978), VJS was positively associated with both general and specific conspiracy beliefs (about vaccines and climate change) within countries, though these associations varied across countries. However, economic, sociopolitical and cultural country-level factors that might explain the cross-country variability (e.g., GDP, Human Freedom Index, individualism–collectivism), including indices of collective exposure to direct violence, did not moderate the studied associations. Future research should investigate the relationship between victimhood and conspiracy beliefs, considering both intraindividual and intergroup perspectives
Crisis? What Crisis? Framing Legitimacy of a New Ecosystem During Geopolitical Turbulence
No full textThis study examines the leadership role of platform sponsors in framing ecosystem legitimacy amidst crises, focusing on the geopolitical turbulence between the US and China and Huawei’s Harmony OS development. We emphasize how crises, often seen as obstacles, can become catalysts through strategic framing. Analyzing Huawei's strategic communications, public engagements, and internal documentation, we identify three primary forms of framing: nascent ecosystem actualization, fraternization, and incentivization. These strategic actions help construct a shared understanding, establish collaborative mechanisms, and articulate platform sponsor commitments for ecosystem legitimation. Our findings reveal that strategic framing addresses cognitive and normative concerns of potential complementors while integrating performative actions to substantiate these frames. By strategically framing actions and imbuing them with meaning, leaders ensure mutual understanding and maintain trust, transforming external crises into support for legitimacy. This study contributes to the literature on ecosystem development and strategic leadership, showing how leaders accelerate legitimation and growth of nascent ecosystems during crises. Our model highlights the dynamic interplay between micro-level discursive and performative actions for legitimation in turbulent settings, offering theoretical insights and practical implications
Influential Factors when Making Decisions About Dementia Medications in Memory Assessment Services:a Focused Ethnography and Interview Study
Get PDFBackgroundDiscussing pharmaceutical treatment for dementia is challenging because of variation in disease progression, lack of curative treatments, and communication difficulties. Research in the context of dementia suggests shared decision making is limited, this study examined how dementia medications are discussed in practice.MethodsFocused video/audio ethnography of clinical appointments (n = 14), semi-structured interviews with patients/supporters (n = 23) and clinicians (n = 5) were employed to examine communication practices.ResultsTwo themes developed; Framing and understanding of information in the context of uncertainty explores how uncertainties around risks and benefits are understood. 'Not worth the risk' or 'nothing to lose' presents how patients/supporters and clinicians balance individuals' contexts/perceived risks/benefits. In the absence of certainty around potential benefits, risk often informed decision-making, particularly for frailer or more vulnerable patients.ConclusionsClinicians should be aware of their influence on decision-making and be cognisant of the way that they frame opinions, which are largely based on clinical experience. Prescribers would benefit from a standardised information source which enables them to describe the likelihood and magnitude of benefits and side effects in a universal way. Accessible information for patients and relatives about the same is also recommended. Patients and relatives make their decisions to take medications in the context of relative uncertainty about the likelihood of benefits, with risk playing a pivotal role in decision making for some
Mobilising climate action with moral appeals in a smartphone-based 8-week field experiment
Get PDFEffective climate change mitigation requires profound lifestyle changes and citizens’ support for transformational climate policies. We present a comprehensive, highly granular, field-experiment dataset of people’s self-reported, daily, real-life behaviours measured in CO2e across six domains, as well as their civic and political behaviour. The data (N = 156, 7615 repeated observations over 8 weeks) was collected via a bespoke smartphone app and is enriched by people’s daily reflections on their change trajectories and by data on political leaning, emotions, agency, socio-demographics, values, attitudes and social norms. The study shows that exposing people to moral appeals results in overall carbon footprint reduction (particularly from heating, food and consumption), and in greater civic and political climate action, including among people leaning politically to the centre and right. However, the treatment could lead to some backlash, i.e. increased carbon footprint (particularly from food and car journeys) in people who hold egoistic values
The window of opportunity: Linking climate history and storms
Get PDFHigh magnitude storms have impacted coastal maritime communities, instigating national government responses. Storm catastrophes can open a ‘window of opportunity’ that enables the implementation of new long-term disaster risk reduction measures. Analysis of historical storm events using written newspaper records identified the Royal Charter storm of 1859 as a catastrophe that opened a window of opportunity. The resulting actions prompted the first national (UK) storm early warning systems which continue today as the Meteorological Office forecasts. This historical case study demonstrates how the effective use of the window of opportunity can instigate beneficial long-term change that decreases vulnerability. However, policies emerging from such windows of opportunity must consider the diverse cause of catastrophe and avoid overreliance on top-down technocracy, instead promoting community engagement and autonomy for sustained success. Environmental history can contribute to improving the understanding of the limitations of technocracy and the importance of community agency in enhancing hazard understanding and effective early warning systems
Enhancing wave-particle duality
Get PDFTo enhance the consistency between the quantum descriptions of waves and particles, we quantise mechanical point particles in this paper in the same physically-motivated way as we previously quantised light in quantum electrodynamics (Bennett et al 2016 Eur. J. Phys. 37 014001). To identify the relevant Hilbert space, we notice that mechanical particles can occupy any position x while moving at any velocity v. Afterwards, we promote the classical states (x, v) to pairwise orthogonal quantum states
and demand that these evolve according to Newton’s equations of motion. The resulting quantum theory is mass-independent, when Newton’s equations of motion are mass-independent, as one would expect. The basic formulation of quantum mechanics emerges from quantum mechanics in configuration space as a semi-classical approximation when a fixed mass is imposed and several other adjustments are made
Continuous Glucose Monitoring Metrics and Pregnancy Outcomes in Women With Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Secondary Analysis of the DiGest Trial
No full textObjective
Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is increasingly used in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), but optimal metrics, ranges, and targets in this population are undefined. We assessed associations between CGM metrics and pregnancy outcomes in GDM.
Research Design and Methods
During the DiGest study, 425 women with GDM (diagnosed at median [IQR] 25.1 [18.3–27.7] weeks) and BMI ≥25 kg/m2 received a dietary intervention, with masked Dexcom G6 CGM at 29 (n = 361), 32 (n = 215), and 36 (n = 227) weeks’ gestation. For this secondary analysis, we used logistic regression, receiver operating characteristic curves, and the Youden index to assess associations and predictive ability of CGM metrics, including pregnancy-specific time in range (TIRp) (63–140 mg/dL [3.5–7.8 mmol/L]) and pregnancy outcomes.
Results
CGM metrics at 29 weeks were significantly associated with large for gestational age (LGA) and small for gestational age (SGA). Participants achieving mean glucose <110 mg/dL (6.1 mmol/L), TIRp ≥90%, or pregnancy-specific time above range (TARp) <10% at 29 weeks had a significantly lower risk of LGA (odds ratio [OR] 0.41 [95% CI 0.22, 0.77], 0.38 [0.20, 0.70], and 0.39 [0.20, 0.73], respectively) and SGA (0.26 [0.08, 0.79], 0.30 [0.10, 0.91], and 0.19 [0.06, 0.62], respectively). TARp <10% and mean nocturnal glucose <110 mg/dL (6.1 mmol/L) were associated with a reduced odds of preterm birth (OR 0.40 [0.17, 0.94] and 0.42 [0.19, 0.97], respectively). A stricter range (63–120 mg/dL [3.5–6.7 mmol/L]) had similar performance overall, but had no single statistically robust TIR/TAR target across all outcomes.
Conclusions
In women with GDM, CGM mean glucose <110 mg/dL (6.1 mmol/L), ≥90% TIRp, or <10% TARp using a range of 63–140 mg/dL (3.5–7.8 mmol/L) at 29 weeks’ gestation was associated with a low risk of suboptimal offspring outcomes
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