Promoting the Well-Being of Immigrant Youth

The well-being of immigrant youth — of the first or second generation — is intimately tied up with their socio-economic status and success; in turn, their success and how immigrant youth relate to the society around them are important elements of social cohesion and well-being for those societies. Institutional settings, in relation to immigrants and to Welfare State structures more broadly, as well as the policies adopted within those settings, vary greatly from one developed country to the next. This opens up the potential for studying key outcomes for immigrant youth in a comparative perspective, and learning about which settings and policies appear to be more versus less effective in promoting their well-being and capitalizing on their potential. This paper sets out a framework for such an analytical exercise, drawing on recent research and monitoring efforts in the related areas of multidimensional well-being, social inclusion/exclusion, and child well-being. It then seeks to place some key findings from the disparate social science research literature on immigration and youth (principally drawing on economics and sociology) within that framework. This serves to bring out both the potential and the difficulties associated with this approach to teasing out “what works” for immigrant youth. In conclusion, the paper points to the major gaps in knowledge and what is required to make progress in learning from disparate country experiences about how best to promote the well-being on immigrant youth.

Concealment, communication and stigma: The perspectives of HIV-positive immigrant Black African men and their partners living in the United Kingdom

This study explored the perspectives of Black men, originally from East Africa, living in the United Kingdom and their families on what it means to live with diagnosed HIV. This article reports on concealment of HIV-positive status as a strategy adopted by the affected participants to manage the flow of information about their HIV-positive status. Analysis of the data, collected using in-depth interviews involving 23 participants, found widespread selective concealment of HIV-positive status. However, a few respondents had ‘come out’ publicly about their condition. HIV prevention initiatives should recognise concealment as a vital strategy in managing communication about one’s HIV-positive status

Problem gambling: a suitable case for social work?

Problem gambling attracts little attention from health and social care agencies in the UK. Prevalence surveys suggest that 0.6% of the population are problem gamblers and it is suggested that for each of these individuals, 10–17 other people, including children and other family members, are affected. Problem gambling is linked to many individual and social problems including: depression, suicide, significant debt, bankruptcy, family conflict, domestic violence, neglect and maltreatment of children and offending. This makes the issue central to social work territory. Yet, the training of social workers in the UK has consistently neglected issues of addictive behaviour. Whilst some attention has been paid in recent years to substance abuse issues, there has remained a silence in relation to gambling problems. Social workers provide more help for problems relating to addictions than other helping professions. There is good evidence that treatment, and early intervention for gambling problems, including psycho-social and public health approaches, can be very effective. This paper argues that problem gambling should be moved onto the radar of the social work profession, via inclusion on qualifying and post-qualifying training programmes and via research and dissemination of good practice via institutions such as the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Keywords: problem gambling; addictive behaviour; socia

The impact of culture on information behaviour: A case study of the polio eradication campaigns in Nigeria

Human beings actively seek information to utilise it for various reasons, especially to increase their knowledge and understanding for effective decision making and during problem-solving. However, individuals and societies are likely to have their specific patterns of information behaviours (IB), which is widely determined by their specific values and cultures. Although, various studies have generated extensive literature differentiating IB based on individuals, professional group or culture group, most of the literature simply report the differences without pointing out the underlying factors causing these differences. By considering IB evolutionarily, and linking it to all the factors of culture, such as language, tradition and religion, this study focused on the way people in Nigeria relates with the polio eradication campaign. It was found that cultural orientation greatly impacted on the way people across Nigeria relates with the polio campaign as a consequence of IB of the people within the north and south of Nigeria. The findings revealed that information interpretations, as well as the understanding derived from information, are not completely based on cognition but in the current socio-cultural interpretation of that information

Healthcare rule-based expert system framework to help, educate and prepare users

Existe neste momento um grande problema com a abundância de informação relativa a saúde, a desinformação. Este problema tem causado que uma grande percentagem de pessoas faça visitas ao hospital desnecessariamente, ou pior. Como não foi possível encontrar uma aplicação móvel que disponibiliza um conjunto de informação cientificamente correta, disponível para todos, organizada e acessível, foi procurado neste documento resolver este problema. Para isto, um estudo foi conduzido para entender o estado da arte sobre aplicações móveis e sobre o ecossistema de aplicações para a saúde, desta forma endereçando diversos tópicos como acessibilidade, UX/UI e usabilidade. Para combater a desinformação, é importante ser capaz de disponibilizar aos utilizadores informação de confiança e para isso concluiu-se que a melhor e mais confiável informação teria que ser recolhida de especialistas os profissionais de saúde. Um protótipo foi construído que incorpora não só um sistema pericial que, baseado em regras criadas através da informação recolhida dos especialistas, podes disponibilizar um sistema de pesquisa de sintomas, mas também diversas funcionalidades de usabilidade e opções de acessibilidade. Este protótipo abre a possibilidade de desenvolver conjunto de novas funcionalidades e/ou melhorar aquelas já implementadas, como um algoritmo baseado em regras mais dinâmico ou testes de utilizadores mais extensos que permitem uma aplicação móvel mais completa em termos de acessibilidade e usabilidade.There is currently a major problem with the abundance of information regarding health, misinformation. This problem causes a large percentage of people that take unnecessary trips to the hospital or worse. As there is not a suitable mobile app that conveys a set of scientifically correct, easily available, and organized information that is accessible to everyone, in this document we sought to solve this issue. For this, a study was done to understand the state of the art of mobile applications and about the current ecosystem of healthcare apps, addressing several issues such as accessibility, UX/UI and usability. To tackle misinformation, it was important being able to provide reliable information to users, and therefore it was concluded that the best and most reliable information had to be gathered from experts, health professionals. A prototype was built that not only encompasses an expert-system that can, based on rules made with the information gathered from experts, provide a symptom search system, but also incorporates several usability features and accessibility options. This prototype opens the opportunity to develop a range of new features and/or enhance those already implemented, such as an improved and more dynamic rule-based algorithm or extensive user testing that allows for a full- fledged accessible and easy to use mobile application

Speech-Gesture Mapping and Engagement Evaluation in Human Robot Interaction

A robot needs contextual awareness, effective speech production and complementing non-verbal gestures for successful communication in society. In this paper, we present our end-to-end system that tries to enhance the effectiveness of non-verbal gestures. For achieving this, we identified prominently used gestures in performances by TED speakers and mapped them to their corresponding speech context and modulated speech based upon the attention of the listener. The proposed method utilized Convolutional Pose Machine [4] to detect the human gesture. Dominant gestures of TED speakers were used for learning the gesture-to-speech mapping. The speeches by them were used for training the model. We also evaluated the engagement of the robot with people by conducting a social survey. The effectiveness of the performance was monitored by the robot and it self-improvised its speech pattern on the basis of the attention level of the audience, which was calculated using visual feedback from the camera. The effectiveness of interaction as well as the decisions made during improvisation was further evaluated based on the head-pose detection and interaction survey.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, Under review in IRC 201

Gender differences in beliefs about health:A comparative qualitative study with Ghanaian and Indian migrants living in the United Kingdom

Background There is a well-established association between migration to high income countries and health status, with some groups reporting poorer health outcomes than the host population. However, processes that influence health behaviours and health outcomes across minority ethnic groups are complex and in addition, culture ascribes specific gender roles for men and women, which can further influence perspectives of health. The aim of this study was to undertake a comparative exploration of beliefs of health among male and female Ghanaian and Indian migrants and White British participants residing in an urban area within the UK. Methods Thirty-six participants (12 each Ghanaian, Indian and White British) were recruited through community settings and participated in a semi-structured interview focusing on participant’s daily life in the UK, perceptions of their own health and how they maintained their health. Interviews were analyzed using a Framework approach. Results Three super ordinate themes were identified and labelled (a) beliefs about health; (b) symptom interpretation and (c) self-management and help seeking. Gender differences in beliefs and health behaviour practices were apparent across participants. Conclusions This is the first study to undertake a comparative exploration of health beliefs among people who have migrated to the UK from Ghana and India and to compare with a local (White British) population. The results highlight a need to consider both cultural and gender-based diversity in guiding health behaviours, and such information will be useful in the development of interventions to support health outcomes among migrant populations