Social Capital and Citizens’ Attitudes towards Migrant Workers

This study examines Qatari citizens’ attitudes toward migrant workers. While much research has been conducted on citizens’ attitudes toward the abolition, tightening, or loosening of the Kafāla system in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with regard to migrant workers’ residency rights, and on their contribution to the economic development of these countries, little is known about how citizens’ religiosity and social engagement impact their acceptance of migrant workers. In the present study, we address this question by examining the effects of religious and social capital on Qatari citizens’ preferences for having Arab and Western migrant workers as neighbours, drawing on data from two nationally representative surveys in Qatar. The results indicate that, even after controlling for a wide range of socio-demographic attributes, social capital in terms of trust and bridging social ties has a strong effect on the Qatari nationals’ preferences

From the "Fareej" to Metropolis" Qatar Social Capital Sirvey II

Qatar faces a social and economic transformation today linked to its unique demographic composition. Understanding social interactions within and across its diverse subgroups is critical for understanding and managing this transformation. In its second wave of "From Fareej to Metropolis: A Social Capital Survey of Qatar II", we set out to describe those interactions and to compare them to the findings from the 2011 first wave survey. To achieve this goal, we draw on the concept of social capital, which refers to the sum of correlation indicators between the members of the same community, whether at the level of family and personal relationships, between different groups in the community, or the trust in institutions and public services. 2 Numerous studies support the hypothesis that there is a link between the increase of social capital in a certain community and its prosperity, including the work by Robert Putnam3 on Italian south and north provinces, in which he makes a link between the prosperity of the north and the increase of social capital indicators therein. This executive report presents a comparison between selected findings from the 2011 and 2015 waves of "From Fareej to Metropolis: A Social Capital Survey of Qatar.” The report is organized according to the various social capital literatures into bridging, bonding, and institutional social capital. 4 Bonding indicators examine the relationship between members of the same group and family and personal relationships, while bridging social capital indicators explore the relationship and communication between various groups. Finally, the third section presents the results of the institutional social capital indicators, which examine the attitudes of Qataris and white-collar expats towards government services, media sources, and their participation in charity and volunteer work. The report concludes that social capital in Qatar is still high in terms of within-group bonding relationships. It also indicates a significant increase in the indicators of trust among Qataris and white-collar workers in particular, while the percentage remained stable for the blue-collar workers as compared to the previous wave of the study. Last section of the study notes a rise in confidence among Qataris and white-collar workers in government agencies and services, and in unofficial sources of information such as majlis, the internet, and friends. It is also noted that there is no significant increase in the percentage of people participating in civil society institutions between the two waves of the study

المسح السنوي الشامل : مسح عن الحياة في دولة قطر 2014

This Executive Summary presents the highlights of the 2014 Omnibus survey, the fourth in a series of Omnibus surveys since 2010. The surveys were carried out by the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) of Qatar University. Each Omnibus survey interviews a large and representative sample of Qatari citizens, resident expatriates and laborers. In these surveys, we asked a number of questions covering several topics of importance to Qatari society, including their attitudes and behaviors related to media; political values and attitudes; gender; charities and charitable donations; traffic; and laborers. The survey was designed and carried out in accordance with the highest scientific and ethical standards. Respondents were assured that their answers would be confidential and presented in an aggregate format. This project was fully funded by the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) at Qatar University. The findings made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.يقدم هذا التقرير الموجز أبرز ما في المسح الشامل لعام 2014 ،الرابع في سلسلة المسوح الشاملة منذ عام 2010 .تم تنفيذ البحوث من قبل معهد البحوث الاجتماعية والاقتصادية المسحية((SESRI بجامعة قطر. في كل مسح شامل تم استطلاع آراء عينة كبيرة تمثل المواطنين القطريين، والمقيمين والعمال. في هذه المسوح تم طرح عدد من الأسئلة تغطي العديد من المواضيع التي تهم المجتمع القطري، بما في ذلك المواقف والسلوكيات المتعلقة بوسائل الإعلام؛ والقيم والمواقف السياسية؛ دور الرجل والمرأة؛ المؤسسات والتبرعات الخيرية؛ وحركة المرور؛ والعمال الوافدين. صمم ونفذ هذا المسح وفقا لأعلى المعايير العلمية والأخلاقية. وتم التأكيد على المشاركين بأن إجابتهم سرية ومقدمة في شكل إجمالي. وقد تم تمويل هذا المشروع بالكامل من قِبل معهد البحوث الاجتماعية والاقتصادية المسحية بجامعة قطر. وإن الاستنتاجات الموجودة في هذا التقرير هي مسؤولية المؤلفين وحدهم

Home cancer care research: a bibliometric and visualization analysis (1990-2021)

Home cancer care research (HCCR) has accelerated, as considerable attention has been placed on reducing cancer-related health costs and enhancing cancer patients' quality of life. Understanding the current status of HCCR can help guide future research and support informed decision-making about new home cancer care (HCC) programs. However, most current studies mainly detail the research status of certain components, while failing to explore the knowledge domain of this research field as a whole, thereby limiting the overall understanding of home cancer care. We carried out bibliometric and visualization analyses of Scopus-indexed papers related to home cancer care published between 1990-2021, and used VOSviewer scientometric software to investigate the status and provide a structural overview of the knowledge domain of HCCR (social, intellectual, and conceptual structures). Our findings demonstrate that over the last three decades, the research on home cancer care has been increasing, with a constantly expanding stream of new papers built on a solid knowledge base and applied to a wide range of research themes

Assessing Bone Mineral Density in Sickle Cell Disease Patients and linking it to Admission Rates: A Prospective Uni-center Study

INTRODUCTION: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited autosomal recessive disorder with bone mineral density (BMD) as a common clinical manifestation of SCD. With a prevalence of 2.6%, Saudi Arabia is among the highest incidence of SCD worldwide. The purpose of this research was to examine how SCD evolves and how it affects bone density in Saudi patients from an Eastern Province tertiary hospital. METHODS: This was an observational prospective study conducted in the tertiary care hospital among 119 SCD patients. Patients were divided into two groups: Group A – severe SCD patients requiring hospital care ≥3/year; and Group B included patients with a smooth course of SCD who did not require frequent hospitalization (<3 hospitalizations per year), with a milder course of the disease. Analysis was based on the frequency of hospitalizations with pain crises and measuring BMD. RESULTS: Of 119 patients, 73.1% had low bone density. Compared to the femur (47.9%), the spine (62.2%) had a higher prevalence of low bone density. The prevalence of low BMD did not significantly differ between the two groups (64.8 vs. 79.9%, P = 0.081). Patients with more frequent hospital visits had significantly higher Mg concentrations (2.30 vs. 0.84, P = 0.001), higher gamma-glutamyl transferase (59.44 vs. 39.49, P = 0.030), and significantly lower 25-hydroxy Vitamin D (34.82 vs. 49.48, P = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with SCD had a generally higher prevalence of low BMD. Further research is needed to answer the proposed debate about the accuracy of DXA scanning in patients with SCD

Effects of a 6-month multi-strain probiotics supplementation in endotoxemic, inflammatory and cardiometabolic status of T2DM patients: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Objective The aim of this trial was to characterize the beneficial effects of probiotics on decreasing endotoxin levels and other cardiometabolic parameters in Arab patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods Saudi adults with naïve T2DM (n=61; 12 males and 18 females) were randomly allocated to receive twice daily placebo or 2.5×109cfu/gram of Ecologic®Barrier (multi-strain probiotics; 14 males and 17 females) in a double-blind manner over a 6 month period, respectively. Anthropometrics were measured and fasting blood samples were collected to analyze endotoxin, glycemic parameters [glucose, insulin, c-peptide and homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR)], lipids [triglycerides, total cholesterol, low and high-density lipoprotein (LDL and HDL, respectively) cholesterol and total/HDL-cholesterol ratio], inflammatory markers [tumor-necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP)] and adipocytokines [leptin, adiponectin and resistin] at baseline and after 3 and 6 months of intervention. Results Multi-strain probiotics supplementation for 6 months caused a significant decrease in circulating levels of endotoxin by almost 70% over 6 months, as well as glucose (38%), insulin (38%), HOMA-IR (64%), triglycerides (48%), total cholesterol (19%), total/HDL-cholesterol ratio (19%), TNF-α (67%), IL-6 (77%), CRP (53%), resistin (53%), and a significant increase in adiponectin (72%) as compared with baseline. Only HOMA-IR had a clinically significant reduction (-3.4, 64.2%) in the probiotics group as compared to placebo group at all time points. No other clinically significant changes were observed between the probiotic or placebo group at 3 and 6 months in other markers. Conclusion Multi-strain probiotic supplementation over 6 months as a monotherapy significantly decreased HOMA-IR in T2DM patients, with the probiotic treatment group highlighting reduced inflammation and improved cardiometabolic profile. As such, multi-strain probiotics is a promising adjuvant anti-diabetes therapy

Qatar’s first elections since 2017 reveal unexpected impact of GCC crisis

Turnout in the Qatari municipal election has declined, suggesting a Qatari citizenry that is slightly less engaged in the formal political process in the wake of the GCC crisis

Qatar's development cooperation and least developed countries (LDCs)

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the foreign aid behavior of new donors on humanitarian cooperation? The non–OECD-DAC donors, such as Qatar, try to adapt to the new environment of development and humanitarian aid under COVID-19 pandemic. Qatar has successfully used public diplomacy to deal with regional geopolitical challenges. In this sense, the current situation presents an opportunity to Qatar for opening up to new geographies. This research analyzes Qatar’s foreign aid, utilizing a novel dataset on Qatar’s foreign aid interactions before and during the pandemic. These interactions show Qatar’s main recipients of foreign aid, with which country, income group and geography it interacts more. This dataset is essential to demonstrate Qatar’s priorities in humanitarian diplomacy as well. The pandemic makes this dataset even more interesting because it is worthwhile to investigate how a global health shock might affect the aid behavior of a new donor. Our analysis shows that Qatar has increased its foreign aid interactions compared to the pre-pandemic period. Qatar’s foreign aid regime is evolving according to income group and geographical differentiation, new communications with different recipients, revealing the country’s aspirations to be a global donor. However, Qatar’s foreign aid also has many limitations that negatively affect its global status. These factors are related to Qatar’s insistence on providing aid to specific regions and countries. Although Qatar has increased its humanitarian aid interaction with underdeveloped countries and disadvantaged geographies, the country privileges certain countries and geographies. The income group diversification in Qatar’s foreign aid policy does not manifest a strong positive inclination toward LDCs