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Care for neighbors and care on paper: Relationships, medical bureaucracies and conflicting time in community health work
No full textNear-source wastewater surveillance as a non-invasive tool for disease detection in prisons
Get PDFNear-source wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) offers a non-intrusive alternative to clinical testing of whole prison populations. Prisons sit at the centre of high transmission risk but experience limited health-care access and barriers to testing individual prisoners. However, the use of WBE for health protection in prison settings has been limited. To assess its merit during the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations were quantified in 680 composite wastewater samples collected from 14 prisons across England and Wales between January and June 2021. Viral RNA was detected in 48% of samples, and wastewater viral loads were found to closely mirror clinical case numbers Lead–lag analysis with adjacent municipal wastewater samples indicated a bidirectional flow between the prisons and their local community: seven prisons exhibited wastewater peaks ahead of their communities, while six lagged, highlighting heterogeneous epidemiological coupling. Marked differences between prisons were apparent in both physicochemical wastewater traits and clinical testing uptake, indicating each institution constitutes a distinct surveillance unit. Collectively, findings here indicate near-source WBE as a rapid, unbiased and scalable tool for disease outbreak detection and for mapping disease flow between prisons and their surrounding communities, advocating its integration into routine health-security frameworks for custodial and other high-density settings
The Quasar Feedback Survey: revealing the importance of sensitive radio imaging for AGN identification deeper into the radio-quiet regime
Get PDFWe present new sub-arcsecond (0.3–1 arcsec; 1–3 kpc) Very Large Array imaging at 1.4 and 6 GHz of 29 optically selected [O iii] luminous ( > 10 erg s) quasars drawn from the expanded Quasar Feedback Survey (QFeedS; with –10 W Hz). These 29 new objects occupy the low end of the radio-power distribution (=–10 W Hz) in the QFeedS sample and are nominally ‘radio quiet’. Despite this, we find widespread evidence of active galactic nucleus (AGN)-driven synchrotron activity. Nearly per cent exhibit resolved radio structures on 0.1–20 kpc scales consistent with compact jets or wind-driven outflows, and per cent display steep spectra () indicative of optically thin synchrotron emission. Combining morphology, spectral index, and brightness-temperature diagnostics, at least per cent of the sample show clear AGN signatures that cannot be explained by star formation alone. These constitute the first results from the expanded QFeedS (now 71 quasars spanning dex in radio power) and demonstrate that compact low-power jets and AGN shocks are common deep inside the radio-quiet regime. A thorough understanding of feedback processes from quasars, deep into the ‘radio-quiet’ regime, will be obtained by connecting these high-resolution radio observations with multiwavelength observations
Humanitarian frontiering: Competition, markets, and governance in refugee cash assistance programs
Get PDFSince 2014, humanitarian cash, vouchers, and digital transfers have grown from scattered pilot projects to a peak of 24% of all humanitarian aid distributed globally in 2022. Cash assistance programs require different and distinct relationships between aid and wider political economies than direct food aid: the removal of parallel markets for humanitarian food aid, imbrication of displaced people in local markets, negotiations and participation of financial service providers and central banks, and remote, app-based, and digitized transfer of aid. Based on digital ethnography and interviews with humanitarian organizations overseeing formal cash assistance programming and coordination 2021–2022, this article shows how market-oriented logics operate across different registers in humanitarian aid: evaluation of local markets as means for pricing basic needs and the distribution of the means of survival; a field of competition between organizations; the accumulation of expertise about cash assistance’s specific requirements; the development of digital platforms; and the negotiation of refugee-specific banking and legal frameworks. Drawing together recent work on carceral economies of refugee governance and frontier imaginaries and logics, we develop the concept of humanitarian frontiering to capture how market-based interventions like cash assistance create opportunities to reconfigure financial, governmental, and socio-political relationships in refugee contexts. In particular, we show how humanitarian logics “salvage” market practices to distribute aid and, in turn, bring banks, financial service providers, a range of aid organizations, and refugees into context-specific assemblages. We thereby contribute novel analysis of humanitarianism’s frontiering practices to research on extractive frontiers and refugee governance
The result-oriented due diligence obligation in the ITLOS Climate Change Advisory Opinion: developments and implications
No full textThis article examines the development of the due diligence obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It does so specifically in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea's (ITLOS) Advisory Opinion Submitted by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law. The article first provides a conceptual framework for what ITLOS developed as a result-oriented due diligence obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment, with a focus on the requirements due diligence now places on States. Since ITLOS refrained from assessing States' measures in concreto, the article then applies the result-oriented due diligence, substantiating States' obligations and responsibility in combating climate effects on the marine environment. It finds that the objectives and requirements of the result-oriented due diligence not only require States to set an ambitious target in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that reflects the objective the 1.5°C temperature goal, but also to implement their NDCs. Failure to do so would amount to not exercising due diligence and could trigger State responsibility enforceable through the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism under UNCLOS
How can global differences in nature connection inform new relationships with nature?
Get PDFThe deteriorating human–nature relationship is increasingly recognized as a root cause of climate change and biodiversity loss. Understanding similarity and differences at scale is critical when considering policy and this study investigates global differences in nature connectedness between the “Global North” and “Global South”, using data from 61 countries and a range of socio-economic and cultural indicators. Results show that nature connectedness is significantly higher in the Global South. While economic development has often been linked to environmental degradation, our findings suggest that cultural and spiritual values play a more substantial role in shaping the human–nature relationship. Specifically, indicators related to spirituality and the balance between science and faith were strongly associated with nature connectedness, whereas objective environmental and economic factors explained less variance. These results have implications for environmental policy as they highlight the importance of cultural worldviews in fostering nature connectedness and suggest that efforts to repair the human–nature relationship, particularly in the Global North, may benefit from integrating spiritual and relational perspectives. The study concludes that nature connectedness is embedded more deeply in cultural and value-driven contexts than in economic or environmental conditions. Recognising and learning from the cultural strengths of the Global South may inform transformative approaches to sustainability and resilience, including policy shifts that embrace nature-based spirituality and relational worldviews
Epidemiological Obfuscation Historical and Contemporary Case Studies
No full textEpidemiology ostensibly exists to reveal and ascribe features to burdens of disease at a population level. However, as the designated arbiter of visibility in public health, it is well-positioned to also obscure burdens of disease with significant implications for both social justice and disease control. This edited volume brings together empirical accounts of epidemiological obfuscation developed by public health researchers from diverse fields, including medicine, history, anthropology, sociology, epidemiology, and rhetoric. In reading across these rich accounts, we begin to characterise what epidemiological obfuscation is, the situations in which it occurs, and the practices underlying it. As such, the book serves not only as a catalogue of independently interesting and robustly developed accounts of important episodes in the history and contemporary practice of epidemiology but also as a foundational body of scholarship on this central but oft overlooked aspect of epidemiology, namely, its ability to obscure as well as elucidate
Rethinking socio-cultural resistance: Systemic factors behind successful and failed transitions to toilet-linked anaerobic digesters in Nepal and India
Get PDFToilet-linked anaerobic digesters (TLADs) are promoted as technologies that can simultaneously address household energy, sanitation, and agricultural needs, yet diffusion remains uneven, and project failures are frequently attributed to “socio-cultural resistance.” This paper challenges that narrative by examining why Nepal's domestic biogas programme achieved greater success in implementing TLADs than India's, despite broadly similar policies and rural socio-economic conditions. Using a sustainability transitions framework, we conduct a comparative case study of successful adoption in Nepal's Gandaki Province with non-adoption in Assam, India. The study draws on 57 household interviews, 15 expert-stakeholder interviews, and policy and programme documents. Findings indicate that while socio-cultural norms influence TLAD diffusion, they are not stand-alone determinants of household transitions. Instead, these norms interact with programme design, governance structures, institutional commitment, and wider policy environments, and are conditioned by local socio-technical contexts. These interactions shape how socio-cultural norms manifest in relation to technology adoption at the household level. We argue that failed transitions are too often attributed disproportionately to socio-cultural resistance—a framing that unfairly shifts responsibility onto households while obscuring systemic shortcomings such as inadequate targeting, weak institutional support, and misalignment between technologies and local contexts. A more balanced framing should acknowledge socio-cultural norms while situating them within broader socio-technical and policy environments. Such reframing could shift research and practice away from narratives of household blame and towards critical assessments of contextual fit, programme capacity, and policy coherence, supporting more equitable and context-appropriate transitions in sanitation and household energy systems such as TLADs
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