Towards a critical epidemiology approach for applied sexual health research

Critical approaches may benefit epidemiological studies of sexual health. This article proposes a critical approach, reconcilable with social epidemiological enquiry. Key aims of critical epidemiology for sexual health are identified, from which three criticisms of practice emerge: (1) lack of attention to socio-cultural contexts, (2) construction of 'risk' as residing in the individual and (3) enactment of public health agendas which privilege and pathologise certain behaviours. These reflect and construct an apolitical understanding of population health. This article proposes features of a critical epidemiology that represent a morally driven re-envisioning of the focus, analysis and interpretation of epidemiological studies of sexual health

Mathematical images in advertising: constructing difference and shaping identity, in global consumer culture

Mathematics educators have long emphasised the importance of attitudes and feelings towards mathematics, as crucial in motivating (or not) its learning and use, and as influenced in turn by its social images. This paper is about images of mathematics. Our search for advertisements containing such images of in UK daily newspapers, during 2006-2008, found that 4.7% of editions included a ‘mathematical’ advert, compared with 1.7% in pilot work for 1994-2003. The incidence varied across type of newspaper, being correlated with class and gender profiles of the readership. Three-quarters of advertisements were classified as containing only very simple mathematics. ‘Semiotic-discursive’ analysis of selected advertisements suggests that they draw on mathematics not to inform, but to connote qualities like precision, certainty and authority. We discuss the discourse on mathematics in advertising as ‘quasi-pedagogic’ discourse, and argue that its oversimplified forms, being empty of mathematical content, become powerful means for regulating and ‘pedagogising’ today’s global consumers

Stabbing News: Articulating Crime Statistics in the Newsroom

There is a comprehensive body of scholarly work regarding the way media represent crime and how it is constructed in the media narrative as a news item. These works have often suggested that in many cases public anxieties in relation to crime levels are not justified by actual data. However, few works have examined the gathering and dissemination of crime statistics by non-specialist journalists and the way crime statistics are gathered and used in the newsroom. This article seeks to explore in a comparative manner how journalists in newsrooms access and interpret quantitative data when producing stories related to crime. In so doing, the article highlights the problems and limitations of journalists in dealing with crime statistics as a news source, while assessing statistics-related methodologies and skills used in the newsrooms across the United Kingdom when producing stories related to urban crime

Statistics and the media: A statistician’s view

How should statisticians interact with journalists? The author, an academic statistician, has worked with journalists in several ways over the years. The article explores the many-sided relationship between scientists, journalists and the public, from the point of view of the statisticians involved. One pessimistic view of the role of numbers in news is that they are there largely for rhetorical reasons, to increase the credibility and authority of a story. The author would not subscribe to that view, but it does point to a potential need to educate readers as well as journalists in dealing with numbers, and the article briefly discusses a checklist intended to help the consumers of media stories about risks to choose what to ignore. The article concludes by presenting some reasons for being optimistic about the position of statistics in journalism

Recruit & Retain - Making it Work. Den norske case-studien

Denne rapporten er skrevet som del av sluttrapporteringen av prosjektet Recruit & Retain – Making it Work. Prosjektet er støttet av EU-programmet The Northern Perifery and Arctic Program (http://www.interreg-npa.eu) og har gått over tre år fra februar 2016 til januar 2019. Hovedmålsettingen med prosjektet har vært å finne fram til modeller for å arbeide systematisk med rekruttering og stabilisering av nøkkelpersonell til velferdstjenester i distrikt. Det enkelte land har gjennomført sine egne delprosjekt. NSDM har i sitt delprosjekt jobbet med Meløy, Odda og Årdal, tre kommuner som over tid har hatt store rekrutterings- og stabiliseringsutfordringer i sin fastlegetjeneste, med mål om å bedre situasjonen. De øvrige partnerne i prosjektet har gjennomført liknende delprosjekt i sine land. Denne rapporten er skrevet med utgangspunkt i NSDMs perspektiv på prosjektet og gjennomføringen av det. Den norske case-studien i EU-prosjektet Recruit & Retain – Making it Work har hatt mål om å bidra til: 1) å forbedre rekruttering og stabilitet av fastleger i tre case-kommuner, 2) identifisere vellykkede strategier for rekruttering og stabilisering og 3) formidle disse strategiene til andre liknende kommuner