Domestic cooking and food behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis:A scoping review

This scoping review examined how the COVID-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis have influenced domestic cooking and food-related behaviours. Following PRISMA-ScR, a systematic search across five databases and grey literature sources identified 4955 records. After screening, 98 studies published between 2020 and 2024 were included. Most studies were conducted in the UK (22.4 %) and USA (18.4 %) and employed cross-sectional (94.9 %) and quantitative (73.5 %) methods. The review identified widespread increases in home cooking, with 50–78 % of participants reporting greater cooking frequency. Changes in food shopping were also prominent, including reduced in-person visits (reported by 40–74 % of participants) and increased online grocery use (25–61.8 %). Budgeting behaviours adapted to financial constraints, with many households reducing the quality and quantity of food purchased, substituting fresh with shelf-stable options. Improvements in hand hygiene were widely reported (74–90 %); however, unsafe practices such as consuming expired foods or mishandling leftovers, remained common. Only 4.1 % of studies received a positive quality rating, with frequent use of non-validated tools and self-reported measures. Future research should employ longitudinal designs to assess the sustainability of these behaviours. Structural policy actions are needed to ensure access to affordable, nutritious foods and support sustainable food practices during ongoing economic challenges.</p

Gendering the safety net:Social protection policy and the limits to Decent Work in Cambodia’s garment sector

The adoption of the Social Protection Floors Recommendation (SPFR) by the International Labour Conference in 2012 is widely recognised as an “historic” (Deacon 2013) and “radical” (Cichon 2013) reorientation of social protection, promising a new “universal and comprehensive” approach. Despite the SPFR’s bold ambitions, however, the implementation of social protection floors at global- and national-level has proven uneven. In practice, the social protection floors initiative has generally been “subordinate” (Seekings 2019) to the Decent Work agenda. Particularly in many lower-income settings in the global South, for instance, vertical expansion of benefits to waged workers through social insurance has taken precedence over the SPFR’s more radical promise to horizontally expand the frontiers of social assistance. In Cambodia, for example, entrenched norms of fiscal and social conservativism have focused policy attention on expanding benefits provided to the 700,000 workers in the country’s largest formal industry – the garment sector – rather than expanding the scope of social protection to include the yet more numerous informal or agricultural sector workforce. In this paper, we examine the consequences of this lopsided social protection strategy for its apparent beneficiaries: women working within the garment industry. We argue that the focus on extending support for formal workers, at the exclusion of informal workers is, in fact, detrimental to both groups. To illustrate these arguments, we draw on original data from the GCRF-funded ReFashion project, a longitudinal study tracing the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on a cohort of 200 garment workers in Cambodia over 24 months. We use this rich and grounded data to develop an emic perspective on social protection programming that shows how, in the absence of a robust social protection floor, gendered norms in Cambodia compel women to fill the gaps in social protection programming by the state. Women workers in the garment sector effectively fund a social safety net for family members through remittance transfers. However, garment sector salaries alone are insufficient for this task, leading to a “debtfare” (Soederberg 2014) model, in which workers finance these costs through increasing resort to personal debt. The result is a crisis of over-indebtedness among workers in the garment industry that undermines the achievement of Decent Work in the sector. We suggest that Covid-19 offers a moment for reflection, like that which followed the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and inspired the SPRF itself, to learn from the vulnerabilities exposed by the pandemic and recentre a radical vision of social protection that delivers for all

Safeguarding Democracy:The Role of Mixed Constitutions in Preventing Authoritarian Drift

We are witnessing an alarming rise in authoritarian tendencies. Even countries with longstanding traditions of liberal democracy, such as the UK and the US, are not immune to this phenomenon. However, little is new in this troubling trend: the political history of the world, from ancient Greece to the present, displays a perpetual fight against authoritarian drifts in the face of crisis and instability. A combination of factors, including the erosion of democratic norms, the concentration of power, political polarisation, corruption, incompetence, economic instability, and external threats, can threaten a Republic's slide into authoritarianism. So, how do we prevent a republican regime from sliding toward authoritarianism? I argue that part of the solution lies in the idea of mixed constitutions. Dating back to Aristotle's exploration of various forms of governance, this ancient concept has undergone numerous transformations, though its precise meaning remains somewhat elusive. However, the basic point of a mixed constitution is to disperse power, thwarting its dangerous concentration and preventing its abuse. <br/

Between Acceptance and Resistance:Conceptualising Migrant Platform Labour Agency in Chile

Digital labour platforms are transforming labour markets worldwide, and migrant workers are pivotal in this transformation. Drawing on a qualitative study in Chile, we uncover how Latin American and Caribbean migrants navigate and resist platform labour conditions, considering the algorithmically controlled and surveilled aspects of food delivery platforms, as well as the impact of migration status on their work. We contend that understanding migrant labour agency requires examining both the platforms' socio-technical structures and the host country's migration policies. These policies determine workers' migration status, shape their work experiences, and consequently impact their resistance to precarious labour conditions. We introduce the concept of migrant platform labour agency to illustrate the various forms of resistance migrants employ in navigating the platform labour market. This concept contributes to understanding the nuances in migrants' labour agencies, which range from acceptance to resistance, considering the interplay between the migration policy environment and platforms' socio-technical assemblage.</p

Advancing glaucoma research with multiphysics continuum mechanics modelling:Opportunities and open challenges

This review examines the emerging role of mechanistic mathematical models based on continuum mechanics to address current challenges in glaucoma research. At present, the advent of Artificial Intelligence and data-based models have resulted in significant progress in drug candidate screening, target identification and delivery optimization for glaucoma treatment. Physics-based models on the other hand offer mechanistic insight by modelling fundamental physical knowledge. Mechanistic models, and specifically those based on continuum mechanics, have the potential to contribute to a better understanding of glaucoma through the description of intraocular fluid dynamics, mass and heat transfer, and other basic physical phenomena. So far, these models have expanded our understanding of ocular fluid dynamics, including descriptions of fluid flow profiles, within the anterior chamber of the eye under glaucomatous conditions. With the ongoing development of multiphysics modelling frameworks, there is increasing potential to apply these tools to a wide range of current challenges within the field of glaucoma. These challenges include glaucoma drainage devices, minimally invasive surgical procedures, therapeutic contact lenses, laser-based interventions like peripheral iridotomy, and the design and optimization of biodegradable drug-releasing intracameral implants, which support patient-specific strategies for glaucoma diagnosis and treatment.</p

Domestic cooking and food behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis:A scoping review

This scoping review examined how the COVID-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis have influenced domestic cooking and food-related behaviours. Following PRISMA-ScR, a systematic search across five databases and grey literature sources identified 4955 records. After screening, 98 studies published between 2020 and 2024 were included. Most studies were conducted in the UK (22.4 %) and USA (18.4 %) and employed cross-sectional (94.9 %) and quantitative (73.5 %) methods. The review identified widespread increases in home cooking, with 50–78 % of participants reporting greater cooking frequency. Changes in food shopping were also prominent, including reduced in-person visits (reported by 40–74 % of participants) and increased online grocery use (25–61.8 %). Budgeting behaviours adapted to financial constraints, with many households reducing the quality and quantity of food purchased, substituting fresh with shelf-stable options. Improvements in hand hygiene were widely reported (74–90 %); however, unsafe practices such as consuming expired foods or mishandling leftovers, remained common. Only 4.1 % of studies received a positive quality rating, with frequent use of non-validated tools and self-reported measures. Future research should employ longitudinal designs to assess the sustainability of these behaviours. Structural policy actions are needed to ensure access to affordable, nutritious foods and support sustainable food practices during ongoing economic challenges.</p

Neural signatures of bipolar disorder subtypes:A comprehensive systematic review of neuroimaging studies

The neurobiological mechanisms differentiating bipolar disorder type I (BD-I) from type II (BD-II) remain poorly understood. A comprehensive synthesis systematically comparing neuroimaging findings between BD subtypes is lacking. We conducted a systematic review (PubMed, Scopus, up to March 2024), including structural MRI, functional MRI, and diffusion tensor imaging studies, to provide a comprehensive overview of the common and distinct candidate neural signatures that differentiate BD subtypes. Out of the initial 5334 references, 38 MRI studies (41 experiments) were included. Structural MRI studies showed mixed results regarding volumetric and cortical surface differences between BD subtypes. BD-I exhibited widespread gray matter (GM) volume reductions, larger lateral ventricles, and decreases in cortical thickness. Hippocampal and cerebellar volume reductions were observed in both BD subtypes but did not differentiate BD-I from BD-II. While white matter (WM) abnormalities across BD subtypes remain heterogeneous and lack consistent replication, BD-I showed a tendency toward more disrupted WM microstructure and higher WM hyperintensities rates than BD-II. Functional MRI studies revealed distinct differences in task-based and resting-state activity, suggesting differential neural patterns in reward processing and emotion regulation. BD-I displayed a greater disconnection in emotion regulation circuits. While both BD-I and BD-II share some neuroimaging characteristics, the findings suggest BD-I is characterized by more pronounced WM disruptions and emotion dysregulation. In contrast, BD-II shows more remarkable subcortical volume preservation but with distinct connectivity alterations. These results offer insights into the different and shared neurobiological mechanisms of BD subtypes, which may help refine their pathophysiology and inform tailored interventions.</p