Wellbeing Space and Society最新文献

In the western world, the ageing population is becoming more ethnically diverse. Research has shown the importance of physical and social neighbourhood resources for the well-being realisation of older adults. However, the relative importance of neighbourhood resources for the well-being realisation of older Surinamese adults remains unknown. We conducted a Q-methodology study in April–July 2022 to capture the variety of viewpoints of older adults (age ≥ 65 years) with Surinamese backgrounds in the Netherlands on neighbourhood age-friendliness and well-being realisation. A purposive sample of 33 participants ranked 38 neighbourhood-related opinion statements according to their importance for their well-being and explained their rankings during follow-up interviews. By-person factor analysis of the data was conducted to identify common patterns in the statement rankings. Three distinct viewpoints in which various aspects were considered to be important were extracted: 1) a safe neighbourhood in which to stay socially active, 2) a supportive neighbourhood in which to stay independent and 3) a well-maintained neighbourhood with involved residents. These results suggest that not all older Surinamese adults in the Netherlands find the same neighbourhood resources to be important for the realisation of well-being.

Purpose

Rates of obesity are significantly higher for those living in a rural versus urban setting. High levels of stress and low levels of subjective well-being (SWB) have been linked to poor weight-related behaviors and outcomes, but it is unclear if these relationships differ as a function of rurality. This study investigated the extent to which living in a rural versus urban county ("rurality") moderated associations between stress / subjective wellbeing (predictors) and diet quality, dietary intake of added sugars, physical activity, and BMI (outcomes).

Methods

Participants were recruited from urban (n = 355) and rural (n = 347) counties in Washington State and self-reported psychological, demographic, and food frequency questionnaires while physical activity behavior was measured objectively.

Findings

After controlling for relevant covariates, levels of stress were positively associated with added sugar intake for those living in the urban county while this relationship was non-significant for those residing in the rural county. Similarly, SWB was negatively associated with added sugar intake, but only for urban residents. County of residence was also found to moderate the relationship between SWB and BMI. Higher SWB was inversely associated with BMI for those living in the urban county while no relationship was observed for rural county residents.

Conclusions

These findings support the hypothesis that the relationships between stress / SWB and weight function differentially based on the rurality of the residing county. This work adds to the growing body of literature highlighting the role stress and SWB play in the rural obesity disparity.

Migrants commonly maintain transnational ties with their home country including identities, attachments, and social, cultural, economic and service/care interactions. Significant gaps remain regarding care-providers’ perspectives on migrants’ transnational ties and whether and how these ties are addressed in the context of care. La Maison Bleue (LMB) is a community-based social perinatal care service with four sites in Montreal, Canada, providing health and social care to families in vulnerable contexts from pregnancy up until age five. We conducted a small, qualitative descriptive study and interviewed 7 care-providers (nursing, social work, family medicine, psycho-education) and 3 administrators/support personnel from LMB to gather data on their experiences and perspectives on “transnationalism” in care with vulnerable-status migrant women and their families. Transnational identity (language, culture, attachment to the home country), and ongoing connections with back home, including communication with children and extended family, remittent sending, and the receipt of child-rearing and health advice, commonly arise within care interactions. Fostering transnational relationships and cultural identity are strategies used by LMB care-providers to strengthen migrant families’ sense of belonging and to help them cope with losses, while addressing transnational tensions and stresses are used to promote families’ well-being and integration. This involves a combination of listening, humility, remaining open, providing information and delivering care that is respectful of culture and sensitive to families’ situations. Cultural negotiation, directly with migrant families or via local peers, is sometimes used to overcome transnational cultural barriers related to health decisions and child-rearing. At times, care-providers also engage directly with family back home to mediate cross-border stresses and cultural tensions and/or to draw on them as a source of information and support. Care-providers view transnational cultural ties and relationships as both positive and negative for the well-being of families and with respect to its impact on interventions with families. Although not always feasible, care-providers believe it's important to know about families’ transnational contexts, in order to provide responsive, supportive care.

It is well researched that people with lower education are more likely to become ill and die at an earlier age than those who are well educated. We, however know much less about the mechanisms which bring this about, especially the contextual factors. One way to obtain new information is to compare countries with similar features and focus on institutional factors such as the welfare state's organization. For health outcomes, the framework of the healthcare sector is highly relevant, but it has thus only been explored to a limited extent by comparative welfare state research. The present study places the main explanatory variable at the contextual level, particularly the institutional structure of the welfare state. The role of primary care quality for moderating the relationship between education and self-rated health will be empirically tested by comparing 24 affluent countries. Data from the European Social Survey (ESS) round 1 to 9, years 2002 to 2018, is pooled and matched with data on primary care quality from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The results lend support to the contention that primary care quality reduces the educational gradient in health and that the moderating effect of primary care depends on age. Respondents with low education were shown to benefit from improved primary care quality already as young adults, while for respondents with higher education, such an effect is found only amongst middle-aged and older adults.

Neighbourhood characteristics can facilitate or hinder the development of social ties, thereby influencing the loneliness of those who live in them. Most research to date has focused upon how either older adults (65+) or youth (under 19 years old) view and experience their neighbourhood, paying little attention to young adults (aged 16–24). Young adults are the loneliest age-group within the UK and other Western countries. Their loneliness is associated with living in deprived communities (e.g., areas experiencing social-economic inequalities), feeling a strong sense of disconnection from their neighbourhoods and having little trust in others within these spaces. Therefore, this study utilises social representations theory to explore how young adults (18–24 years old) from London's four most deprived boroughs view and experience their neighbourhood using a systematic, qualitative methodology. In particular, the concept of dialogical antimonies, known as themata are used. A purposive sample of forty-eight participants was asked to write and/or draw where they felt loneliest and where they felt most socially connected in their neighbourhoods. These associations were then explored via an open-ended, exploratory interview. This revealed that the experience of neighbourhood was structured around four themata: 1) having no one to talk to/being disconnected from others vs. being with family or friends, 2) feeling bored/having nothing to do vs. having shared interests, goals or activities, 3) being in an unfamiliar environment vs. seeing familiar faces/having a sense of community, 4) busy vs. peaceful environment. On this basis, suggestions and implications for the design of wellbeing-enhancing neighbourhoods are discussed.

Youth experiences in nature are changing. This paper presents results of a qualitative study that was conducted with 74 Canadian young people (ages 10–18). Our goal was to learn from Canadian youth about how they navigate, understand, and interpret their experiences in nature. Findings demonstrate that young people experience nature in multidimensional, unpredictable, complex, and sometimes contradictory, ways. This study generates insights about the responsibility of adults to facilitate opportunities for experiences in nature that are responsive to the changing landscapes of young people, and that are not burdened by outdated tropes and constraining gender socialization.

About 3.6 billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed sanitation service. To bridge service gaps, informal sanitation businesses have emerged as alternative service providers to meet the sanitation needs of unserved populations. Informal sanitation workers include persons who empty septic tanks, clean toilets, sewers, and manage public toilets. They provide a fundamental public service particularly in areas where access to municipal sanitation service is limited. Through qualitative methodologies, this paper explores the lived experiences and associated health risks of women working in the informal sanitation sector in urban Ghana and Kenya. Our findings show that female informal sanitation workers were exposed to injuries and infections, stigma and discrimination, emotional and psychological distress, sexual harassment, and unhealthy coping strategies. Distinctively, younger female participants were more likely to experience sexual harassment. Because of social stigma, many of the women developed unsafe work practices such as refusal to wear PPE and working at night. By paying close attention to the embodied effects of informal sanitation work, we can better comprehend the daily politics, lived experiences, and urban social infrastructure regimes that have a significant impact on the quality of life of informal sanitation workers. The results are also crucial for developing programs for women's empowerment and labour and social protection policies, especially in lowincome settings where gender norms interact with income disparities and other sociopolitical issues to affect women's participation in the labor market.

The presence of children in outdoor activities has been continuously declining in recent years, which negatively impacts their mental and physical health. Research has highlighted the positive effects of nature interactions on children's manual skills, socialization, and overall well-being. However, most studies have focused on regions with stable winter snow or warm regions without snow. In this study, drawing on affordance theory, both children and snow are considered as agents to examine child-snow interactions. Data were collected during the 2017/2018, 2018/2019, and 2019/2020 winter seasons, utilizing covert observation as the primary research method. The findings demonstrate that children's presence and interactions varied with the seasons, highlighting the influence of snow on public spaces and how its temporality attracts and motivates children to previously unoccupied areas.

There is strong evidence to suggest that children are negatively impacted by growing up in places where there are high levels of disadvantage present. However, these children can reap substantial developmental benefits (even more so than those who do not experience disadvantage) from access to and engagement with community and social services supporting health, education, and wellbeing. Yet, due to the complexity of service provision, access, and outcomes for children and families living in disadvantaged places, the service system in these contexts often is found to be ineffective in meeting the needs of the community. This study utilises a participatory approach, engaging service providers working with children and families in a disadvantaged place to identify key leverage points that have the potential to promote systems reform. Using participatory systems mapping, the findings illustrate aspirations (or the ideal state) of the service system that are characterised by early intervention, high levels of service coverage, and interconnected services, all of which enable wellbeing for children and families. User orientated and service orientated factors that act as barriers or enablers are also identified and key levers of service reform are discussed, particularly increasing accessibility of services and reducing vulnerability of service users.

This research explores the connections between therapeutic landscapes (TLs) and therapeutic networks (TNs) among women who work in domestic employment and experience severe space-time constraints in their everyday lives. Although these connections are often recognized, the links between TL and TN have not been widely investigated. Based on an online survey of 190 Indonesian female domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong, therapeutic landscape locations were identified. Open-ended quotes describing characteristics and benefits of TL were analyzed via MAXQDA and incorporated in qualitative mapping in ArcGIS Pro 2.6. Results showed four types of therapeutic landscape (green spaces, blue spaces, religious sites, and built environment) that were crucial in enhancing FDWs’ wellbeing on their rest day. FDWs’ relationships with health-promoting places and efforts in creating restorative experiences were tied to their social interactions, as TNs and TLs were created synergistically. For the understudied population of FDWs, our findings highlight the importance of both the mandated rest day and public spaces including parks, beaches, and buildings, for sustaining FDWs wellbeing despite their highly restricted daily lives.