UCL open environmentPub Date : 2022-09-16eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000040
Jill Portnoy, AnaCristina Bedoya, Keri Ka-Yee Wong
{"title":"Child externalising and internalising behaviour and parental wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic.","authors":"Jill Portnoy, AnaCristina Bedoya, Keri Ka-Yee Wong","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000040","DOIUrl":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000040","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this study we surveyed families' experiences with parental depression, stress, relationship conflict and child behavioural issues during 6 months of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic through the Covid-19: Global Social Trust and Mental Health Study. The current analyses used data collected from online surveys completed by adults in 66 countries from 17 April 2020 to 13 July 2020 (Wave I), followed by surveys 6 months later at Wave II (17 October 2020-31 January 2021). Analyses were limited to 175 adult parents who reported living with at least one child under 18 years old at Wave I. Parents reported on children's level of externalising and internalising behaviour at Wave I. At Wave II, parents completed self-reported measures of stress, depression and inter-partner conflict. Child externalising behaviour at Wave I significantly predicted higher levels of parental stress at Wave II, controlling for covariates. Child internalising behaviour at Wave I did not predict parental stress or depression, controlling for covariates. Neither child externalising nor internalising behaviour predicted parental relationship conflict. The overall findings demonstrate that child behaviour likely influenced parental stress during the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings suggest that mental health interventions for children and parents may improve the family system during times of disaster.</p>","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e040"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208338/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9518306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UCL open environmentPub Date : 2022-09-15eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000043
Dan Osborn
{"title":"Environment and health: how do we close the gap to prevent ill-health, poor well-being, and environmental degradation?","authors":"Dan Osborn","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000043","DOIUrl":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000043","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e043"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208315/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9530284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"COVID-19 & informal settlements: is 'Stay Home' safe?","authors":"Emily Nix, Jacob Paulose, Monica Lakhanpaul, Pam Factor-Litvak, Priti Parikh, Hector Altamirano-Medina, Yasmin Bou Karim, Logan Manikam","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000038","DOIUrl":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000038","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The disproportional burden of coronavirus (COVID-19) and vulnerability to containment measures in informal settlements have been recognised; however, the role of poor housing conditions in propagating these remains neglected. Poor housing conditions makes it difficult to effectively implement social distancing measures. With increased time spent in cramped, dark and uncomfortable indoor environments, water and sanitation outside the home, and no outdoor space, higher exposure to existing health hazards and high levels of stress, with women and children being most vulnerable, are anticipated. Through this commentary paper, we reflect on these interconnections and recommend immediate measures and the long-term need for adequate housing for health and well-being.</p>","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e038"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208323/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9530289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Widening community participation in preparing for climate-related disasters in Japan.","authors":"Kaori Kitagawa, Subhajyoti Samaddar","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000053","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper discusses community participation drawing on ongoing disaster recovery and preparedness projects (RPP) in the communities affected by the Heavy Rain Event of 2018 in western Japan. Participatory approaches have become a mainstream methodology for community-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) as advocated in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. The majority of participation research addresses either 'success' factors for participation or the types of participation. The paper proposes a notion of 'widening participation' in addressing the challenge of attracting people to participate in preparedness initiatives. Originally widening participation was a higher education policy in the UK aiming to broaden the demographic composition of the student base. Even the RPP that are publicly recognised as 'good practices' struggle to recruit more people for the projects. Borrowing the notion of widening participation, the paper identifies how each project encourages non-participants to get involved in the project activities. The paper applies the EAST framework (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely) widely utilised in the policy making of widening participation and further public services. Rather than providing the public with information and guidance, 'easy', 'attractive', 'social' and 'timely' behavioural approaches tend to enable participation. Examining these four principles in the four cases of RPP, the paper suggests that the EAST framework is feasible in strengthening the strategies for widening participation in preparedness action. The paper, however, recognises a need to address the difference between top-down public policies and bottom-up community projects in the application of the framework.</p>","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e053"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208341/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9525080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decarbonising existing homes in Wales: a participatory behavioural systems mapping approach.","authors":"Joanna Hale, Christopher Jofeh, Paul Chadwick","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000047","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>To reduce carbon emissions, urgent change is needed to high-carbon human behaviours including home energy use. Previous policy failures point to insufficient integration of systemic and behavioural approaches which are too often seen as alternative and incompatible approaches to bring about change. A novel behavioural systems mapping approach was used to inform national policy recommendations for energy-saving retrofit of homes in Wales. Three participatory workshops were held with the independent Welsh residential decarbonisation advisory group ('the Advisory Group') to: (1) map relationships between actors, behaviours and influences on behaviour within the home retrofit system; (2) provide training in the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) framework and (3) use these to develop policy recommendations for interventions. Recommendations were analysed using the capability, opportunity and motivation (COM-B) model of behaviour to assess whether they addressed these factors. Two behavioural systems maps (BSMs) were produced, representing privately rented and owner-occupied housing tenures. The main causal pathways and feedback loops in each map are described. Necessary interventions to achieve national-scale retrofit included: government-led investment, campaigns and awareness-building, financial-sector funding mechanisms, enforcement of regulations and creating more streamlined and trusted supply chain services. Of 27 final policy recommendations, six addressed capability, 24 opportunity and 12 motivation. Participatory behavioural systems mapping can be used in conjunction with behaviour change frameworks to develop policy recommendations that address the behavioural determinants of complex environmental problems in a systemic way. Research is underway to refine and extend the approach through application to other sustainability challenges and methods of constructing systems maps.</p>","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e047"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208331/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9525085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Invited discussant comments during the UCL-Penn Global COVID Study webinar 'How Do We Trust (Again): Paranoia and Mental Health': part 2 of 2.","authors":"Mitch Cooke","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.100003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.100003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Loneliness has been reported by the UCL-Penn Global COVID Study participants throughout the pandemic year, not surprisingly, although this has been an issue that has been manifesting itself even before the pandemic. In identifying loneliness in communities, the built environment industry and professionals have been looking at how good and targeted design in the public realm and master planning can help to firstly design interventions and secondly orchestrate or manage these spaces in a way that helps create opportunities to address loneliness. Furthermore, how these spaces create opportunities for people to both interact with each other but also interact with the space can help connect people together and with nature/biodiversity. In doing so this also helps to create better health outcomes for mental health and wellbeing, as well as physical health and wellbeing. Coronavirus (Covid-19) and the associated lockdown periods have caused people to reconnect with local green spaces and has focused the attention to what these spaces provide in terms of opportunities and benefits for people. As a result, the value placed on these and the expectation of how they will provide value to communities is increasing and will continue to increase in the post-Covid-19 world. Better connected, activated and well-structured public realm and green spaces will be central to the development of projects and schemes for housing, and mixed used schemes in the forthcoming years.</p>","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e003"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208350/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9526470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Invited discussant comments during the UCL-Penn Global Covid Study webinar 'Family Life: Stress, Relationship Conflict and Child Adjustment'.","authors":"Yahayra Michel","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.100001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.100001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The main objective of this article is to comment on the findings presented during the UCL-Penn Global Covid Study webinar, 'Family Life: Stress, Relationship Conflict and Child Adjustment' by Portnoy and colleagues. The study examined the ways in which family stress conflict has been affected by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Informed by the transactional models of parent-child behaviour, the authors are specifically interested in exploring the effect of child adjustment on parental outcomes. The study, currently under consideration for publication, found that child emotional and conduct problems predicted changes in parental depression and stress during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Child hyperactivity predicted parental stress, but not depression. None of the child behaviour problems (emotional problems, conduct problems and hyperactivity) predicted parental relational conflict. This article discusses reasons why the study under consideration did not find a significant effect on relational conflict and posts questions that can be addressed in future studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e001"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208313/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9530288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UCL open environmentPub Date : 2022-01-01Epub Date: 2022-05-27DOI: 10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000035
Zachary E Goldman, John A Kaufman, J Danielle Sharpe, Amy F Wolkin, Matthew O Gribble
{"title":"Coping with oil spills: oil exposure and anxiety among residents of Gulf Coast states after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.","authors":"Zachary E Goldman, John A Kaufman, J Danielle Sharpe, Amy F Wolkin, Matthew O Gribble","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000035","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In April 2010, a fatal explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the largest marine oil spill in history. This research describes the association of oil exposure with anxiety after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and evaluates effect modification by self-mastery, emotional support and cleanup participation. To assess the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted the Gulf States Population Survey (GSPS), a random-digit-dial telephone cross-sectional survey completed between December 2010 and December 2011 with 38,361 responses in four different Gulf Coast states: Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Anxiety severity was measured using the Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) symptom inventory. We used Tobit regression to model underlying anxiety as a function of oil exposure and hypothesised effect modifiers, adjusting for socio-demographics. Latent anxiety was higher among those with direct contact with oil than among those who did not have direct contact with oil in confounder-adjusted models [β = 2.84, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.78, 4.91]. Among individuals with direct contact with oil, there was no significant interaction between participating in cleanup activities and emotional support for anxiety (<i>p</i> = 0.20). However, among those with direct contact with oil, in confounder-adjusted models, participation in oil spill cleanup activities was associated with lower latent anxiety (β = -3.55, 95% CI: -6.15, -0.95). Oil contact was associated with greater anxiety, but this association appeared to be mitigated by cleanup participation.</p>","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9491446/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"33478486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Water and the UN sustainable development goals.","authors":"Luiza C Campos, Daniel Olago, Dan Osborn","doi":"10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000029","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":75271,"journal":{"name":"UCL open environment","volume":"4 ","pages":"e029"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208314/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9530287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}