Life in the shadow of the media

Media images pervading everyday life often reproduce inequitable social relations that adversely affect the lives of vulnerable people. This article explores the influence of media representations of homelessness as a source of characterizations that are used by homeless people when representing themselves. To do this, it draws on life narrative interviews, photographic exercises and phogo-based discussions with 12 single rough sleepers from London. It documents how participants both reproduce common media storylines foregrounding their differences from housed people and emphasizes aspects of their lives that do not feature in media portrayals, but which invoke their `normality'

The making of health: a reflection on the first 10 years in the life of a journal

This introduction to the Tenth Anniversary Issue surveys articles that have been published in health: since its launch. Reviewing the original aims of the journal, the editors discuss some of the main issues that authors have raised, both about health and illness. Focusing upon articles that have been published in this particular journal, we discuss the way that new medical technologies - particularly global ones - have shaped ideas about disease and its treatment, and in consequence about what 'good health' should be. Related to the growth in medical and other technology - not least the rise of the Internet during the life of this journal - is the number of articles that discuss the rights of patients and the establishment of what might be termed an 'illness culture'. We conclude that there continues to be more to health than it being the background to illness or disease, and ask the question: should the ‘taken for grantedness’ of health be taken for granted any longer

Review Essay: Emplacement and everyday use of medications in domestic dwellings

To extend knowledge of relationships between people and domestic settings in the context of medication use, we conducted fieldwork in twenty households in New Zealand. These households contained a range of ‘medicative’ forms, including prescription drugs, traditional remedies, dietary supplements and enhanced foods. The location and use of these substances within domestic dwellings speaks to processes of emplacement and identity in the creation of spaces for care. Our analysis contributes to current understandings of the ways in which objects from ‘outside’ the home come to be woven into relationships, identities and meanings ‘inside’ the home. We demonstrate that, as well as being pharmacological objects, medications are complex, socially embedded objects with histories and memories that are ingrained within contemporary relationships of care and home-making practices

Homeless lives in New Zealand: The case of central Auckland

Homelessness is a pressing and increasingly visible concern in New Zealand. Many people sleeping rough are male and of Maori or Pacific descent. This research focuses on understanding the nature of resilience through the lived experiences of homeless people. To gain insights into cultures of homelessness, a qualitative case study research design was used to engage six homeless people who took part in a series of interviews and photoproduction exercises. Participants are of Maori, Pacific Island, and Pakeha ethnic backgrounds. It therefore may become important to document how homeless people see themselves in relation to their communities of origin and the wider public

Development of the Trout Trail of the Virginias

Abstract Despite the competitive advantage of trophy trout fishing venues in Virginia and West Virginia, there has historically been little cooperation between vendors. Our West Virginia University team worked with fishing-related tourism providers in the two states to gauge interest in developing a marketing cooperative for the industry. Over 30 tourism providers attended an initial exploratory meeting at Douthat State Park in Virginia and showed overwhelming support for developing a marketing cooperative to increase business and protect their investments in fish and fishing streams. This allied group included trophy trout fishing venues, guide services, lodges, and trout producers. Eight of the meeting participants, five from Virginia and three from West Virginia, agreed to start a cooperative marketing organization. Via electronic surveys (designed and administered using the Delphi process), the core members reached consensus on a name (Trout Trail of the Virginias or TTV), slogan, website address, membership benefits, and organizational structure

Negotiating Closed Doors and Constraining Deadlines: The Potential of Visual Ethnography to Effectually Explore Private and Public Spaces of Motherhood and Parenting

Pregnancy and motherhood are increasingly subjected to surveillance, by medical professionals, the media and the general public; and discourses of ideal parenting are propagated alongside an admonishment of the perceived ‘failing’ maternal subject. However, despite this scrutiny, the mundane activities of parenting are often impervious to ethnographic forms of inquiry. Challenges for ethnographic researchers include the restrictions of becoming immersed in the private space of the home where parenting occurs, and an institutional structure that discourages exploratory and long-term fieldwork. This paper draws on four studies, involving 34 participants, which explored their journeys into the space of parenthood and their everyday experiences. The studies all employed forms of visual ethnography including artefacts, photo-elicitation, timelines, collage and sandboxing. The paper argues that visual methodologies can enable access to unseen aspects of parenting, and engender forms of temporal extension, which can help researchers to disrupt the restrictions of tightly time bounded projects

Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume I

New observations and new research have increased our understanding of past, current, and future climate change since the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA3) was published in May 2014. This Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) is designed to capture that new information and build on the existing body of science in order to summarize the current state of knowledge and provide the scientific foundation for the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4)

Evaluating the population impact of hepatitis C direct acting antiviral treatment as prevention for people who inject drugs (EPIToPe) – a natural experiment (protocol)

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the second largest contributor to liver disease in the UK, with injecting drug use as the main risk factor among the estimated 200 000 people currently infected. Despite effective prevention interventions, chronic HCV prevalence remains around 40% among people who inject drugs (PWID). New direct-acting antiviral (DAA) HCV therapies comine high cure rates (>90%) and short treatment duration (8 to 12 weeks). Theoretical mathematical modelling evidence suggests HCV treatment scale-up can prevent transmission and substantially reduce HCV prevalence/incidence among PWID. Our primary aim is to generate empirical evidence on the effectiveness of HCV ‘Treatment as Prevention’ (TasP) in PWID

Development and pilot evaluation of a home-based palliative care training and support package for young children in southern Africa

Background The leading cause of death among young children in southern Africa is complications due to HIV infection and, in South Africa, over a third of all deaths of children younger than five are associated with HIV infection. There is a great and urgent need for children’s palliative care in Africa, whether HIV-related or not. It is often not possible for sick children and their carers to attend clinics and hospitals cannot accommodate children for long periods of time. As a result children are often cared for in their own homes where caregivers require support to provide informed and sensitive care to reduce children’s suffering. Home-care places a heavy burden on families, communities and home- and community-based care workers. Methods This project involved the development and pilot evaluation of a training and support package to guide home and community-based care workers to help caregivers of seriously ill young children at home in southern Africa. A number of research methods were used, including a cross-sectional survey of content experts using the Delphi technique, participatory action research with photo elicitation and qualitative thematic analysis. Results Because the palliative care needs of these children are complex, the package focuses on delivering 9 key messages essential to improving the quality of care provided for young children. Once the key messages were developed, culturally relevant stories were constructed to enhance the understanding, retention and enactment of the messages. The various research methods used, including literature reviews, the Delphi technique and photo-elicitation ensured that the content included in the package was medically sound and culturally relevant, acceptable, feasible, and comprehensive. The end product is a home-based paediatric palliative care training and support package in English designed to help train community workers who are in a position to support families to care for very sick young children at home as well as to support families in looking after a very sick child. Conclusion A pilot study to assess the training and support package found it to be useful in delivering the key messages to caregivers. The training component was found to be feasible. It is concluded that the package offers a practical means of integrating palliative care with home-based care. Further implementation and evaluation is needed to establish its utility and impact