A reliable rainfall–runoff model for flood forecasting: review and application to a semi-urbanized watershed at high flood risk in Italy

Many rainfall–runoff (RR) models are available in the scientific literature. Selecting the best structure and parameterization for a model is not straightforward and depends on a broad number of factors, including climatic conditions, catchment characteristics, temporal/spatial resolution and model objectives. In this study, the RR model 'Modello Idrologico Semi-Distribuito in continuo' (MISDc), mainly developed for flood simulation in Mediterranean basins, was tested on the Seveso basin, which is stressed several times a year by flooding events mainly caused by excessive urbanization. The work summarizes a compendium of the MISDc applications over a wide range of catchments in European countries and then it analyses the performances over the Seveso basin. The results show a good fit behaviour during both the calibration and the validation periods with a Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient index larger than 0.9. Moreover, the median volume and peak discharge errors calculated on several flood events were less than 25%. In conclusion, we can be assured that the reliability and computational speed could make the MISDc model suitable for flood estimation in many catchments of different geographical contexts and land use characteristics. Moreover, MISDc will also be useful for future support of real-time decision-making for flood risk management in the Seveso basin

The story of the “now-women”: changing gender norms in rural West Africa

This article offers a qualitative investigation of how human rights education sessions, embedded in a multi-faceted intervention, helped members of a rural community in West Africa challenge inequitable gender norms that hindered women’s political participation. Results show a change in women’s political participation and community members’ descriptions of women’s potential. Three features of the intervention contributed to this change: (1) its pedagogical approach; (2) its substantive content; and (3) the engagement of men and women together. The article calls for interventions that facilitate sustained dialogue between men and women to achieve greater gender equity

Theory and practice of social norms interventions: eight common pitfalls.

BACKGROUND: Recently, Global Health practitioners, scholars, and donors have expressed increased interest in "changing social norms" as a strategy to promote health and well-being in low and mid-income countries (LMIC). Despite this burgeoning interest, the ability of practitioners to use social norm theory to inform health interventions varies widely. MAIN BODY: Here, we identify eight pitfalls that practitioners must avoid as they plan to integrate a social norms perspective in their interventions, as well as eight learnings. These learnings are: 1) Social norms and attitudes are different; 2) Social norms and attitudes can coincide; 3) Protective norms can offer important resources for achieving effective social improvement in people's health-related practices; 4) Harmful practices are sustained by a matrix of factors that need to be understood in their interactions; 5) The prevalence of a norm is not necessarily a sign of its strength; 6) Social norms can exert both direct and indirect influence; 7) Publicising the prevalence of a harmful practice can make things worse; 8) People-led social norm change is both the right and the smart thing to do. CONCLUSIONS: As the understanding of how norms evolve in LMIC advances, practitioners will develop greater understanding of what works to help people lead change in harmful norms within their contexts. Awareness of these pitfalls has helped several of them increase the effectiveness of their interventions addressing social norms in the field. We are confident that others will benefit from these reflections as well

Gender norms and family planning amongst pastoralists in Kenya: a qualitative study in Wajir and Mandera

There is growing recognition among global health practitioners of the importance of rights-based family planning (FP) programming that addresses inequities. Despite Kenya achieving its national FP target, inequities in access and use of modern FP remain, especially amongst marginalised nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralist communities. Few studies explore norms affecting FP practices amongst nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists and how these can influence social and behaviour change (SBC) interventions. We carried out 48 in-depth interviews and 16 focus group discussions with women and men from pastoralist communities in North Eastern Kenya in November 2018. Data were analysed thematically. Results from focus groups and interviews confirmed themes, while allowing differences between the qualitative approaches to emerge. We found that large family size was a descriptive and injunctive norm in both nomadic and semi-nomadic communities. The desire for around 10 children was sustained by religious beliefs and pastoralist ways of living. Despite a desire for large families, maintaining child spacing was encouraged and practised through breastfeeding and sexual abstinence. Most participants viewed modern FP negatively and as something used by “others”. However, it was acceptable in order to prevent severe negative health outcomes. Future FP research to inform interventions should continue to consider community fertility preferences and the rationale for these, including norms, religion and power dynamics. Targeted qualitative social norms research could inform multi-component SBC interventions in this context

Diagnosing Norms Surrounding Sexual Harassment at a Jordanian University

Sexual harassment (SH) is a form of gender-based violence (GBV) that negatively impacts women’s physical, mental, social, and financial well-being. Although SH is a global phenomenon, it also is a contextualized one, with local and institutional norms influencing the ways in which harassment behavior manifests. As more women attend institutions of higher education in Jordan, these women are at increased risk of experiencing SH in university settings, with potential implications for their health and future employment. Social norms theory, which examines the informal rules governing individual behavior within groups, has been a useful framework for understanding and developing interventions against GBV globally. We sought to apply a social-norms lens to the understanding and prevention of SH at a Jordanian university. To gain a comprehensive and nuanced picture of social norms surrounding SH, we collected qualitative data using three complementary methods: focus group discussions (n = 6) with male and female students (n = 33); key informant interviews with staff and faculty (n = 5); and a public, participatory event to elicit anonymous short responses from students (n = 317). Using this data, we created a codebook incorporating social-norms components and emergent themes. As perceived by participants, SH was unacceptable yet common, characterized as a weak norm primarily because negative sanctioning of harassers was unlikely. Distal norms related to gender and tribal affiliation served to weaken further norms against SH by blaming the victim, preventing reporting, discouraging bystander intervention, and/or protecting the perpetrator. The complexity of the normative environment surrounding SH perpetration will necessitate the use of targeted, parallel approaches to change harmful norms. Strengthening weak norms against SH will require increasing the likelihood of sanctions, by revising university policies and procedures to increase accountability, increasing the acceptability of bystander intervention and reporting, and fostering tribal investment in sanctioning members who harass women. Creating dialogue that emphasizes the harmful nature of SH behaviors and safe spaces to practice positive masculinity also may be an effective strategy to change how male students interact in the presence of peers. Any social norms change intervention will need to consider the various reference groups that dictate and enforce norms surrounding SH

Changes in Family-Level Attitudes and Norms and Association with Secondary School Completion and Child Marriage Among Adolescent Girls: Results from an Exploratory Study Nested Within a Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial in India.

We evaluated the impact of Samata, a 3-year multilayered intervention among scheduled caste/scheduled tribe (SC/ST) adolescent girls in rural northern Karnataka, on family-level (parents or guardian) attitudes and direct and indirect norms related to child marriage and girl's education. Endline data from 1840 family members were used to assess the effect of Samata on attitudes and norms related to schooling and child marriage, while data from 4097 family members (including 2257 family members at baseline) were used to understand the shifts in attitudes and norms over the period 2014-2017. Overall, we found that the programme had little impact on family-level attitudes and norms. However, there were shifts in some attitudes, norms and perceived sanctions between baseline (when girls were aged 13-14 years) and endline (when girls were aged 15-16 years), with some becoming more progressive (e.g. direct norms related to child marriage) and others more restrictive (e.g. norms around girls completing secondary education and norms related to child marriage and educational drop-out, blaming girls for eve teasing and limiting girls' mobility so as to protect family honour). Moreover, non-progressive norms related to marriage and education were strongly associated with child marriage and secondary school non-completion among adolescent girls in this rural setting. Norms hypothesised to be important for marriage and schooling outcomes were indeed associated with these outcomes, but the intervention was not able to significantly shift these norms. In part, this may have been due to the intervention focusing much of its initial efforts on working with girls alone rather than family members, the relevant reference group. Future interventions that seek to affect norms should conduct formative research to clarify the specific norms affecting the outcome(s) of interest; likewise, programme planners should ensure that all activities engage those most influential in enforcing the norm(s) from the beginning. ClinicalTrials.gov registration number: NCT01996241

A study protocol to evaluate the relationship between outdoor air pollution and pregnancy outcomes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The present study protocol is designed to assess the relationship between outdoor air pollution and low birth weight and preterm births outcomes performing a semi-ecological analysis. Semi-ecological design studies are widely used to assess effects of air pollution in humans. In this type of analysis, health outcomes and covariates are measured in individuals and exposure assignments are usually based on air quality monitor stations. Therefore, estimating individual exposures are one of the major challenges when investigating these relationships with a semi-ecologic design.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>Semi-ecologic study consisting of a retrospective cohort study with ecologic assignment of exposure is applied. Health outcomes and covariates are collected at Primary Health Care Center. Data from pregnant registry, clinical record and specific questionnaire administered orally to the mothers of children born in period 2007-2010 in Portuguese Alentejo Litoral region, are collected by the research team. Outdoor air pollution data are collected with a lichen diversity biomonitoring program, and individual pregnancy exposures are assessed with spatial geostatistical simulation, which provides the basis for uncertainty analysis of individual exposures. Awareness of outdoor air pollution uncertainty will improve validity of individual exposures assignments for further statistical analysis with multivariate regression models.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Exposure misclassification is an issue of concern in semi-ecological design. In this study, personal exposures are assigned to each pregnant using geocoded addresses data. A stochastic simulation method is applied to lichen diversity values index measured at biomonitoring survey locations, in order to assess spatial uncertainty of lichen diversity value index at each geocoded address. These methods assume a model for spatial autocorrelation of exposure and provide a distribution of exposures in each study location. We believe that variability of simulated exposure values at geocoded addresses will improve knowledge on variability of exposures, improving therefore validity of individual exposures to input in posterior statistical analysis.</p

Cancer mortality in a cohort of asbestos textile workers

A cohort of 889 men and 1077 women employed for at least 1 month between 1946 and 1984 by a former Italian leading asbestos (mainly textile) company, characterised by extremely heavy exposures often for short durations, was followed up to 1996, for a total of 53 024 person-years of observation. Employment data were obtained from factory personnel records, while vital status and causes of death were ascertained through municipality registers and local health units. We observed 222 cancer deaths compared with 116.4 expected (standardized mortality ratio, SMR=191). The highest ratios were found for pleural (SMR=4105), peritoneal (SMR=1817) and lung (SMR=282) cancers. We observed direct relationships with duration of employment for lung and peritoneal cancer, and with time since first employment for lung cancer and mesothelioma. Pleural cancer risk was independent from duration (SMR=3428 for employment <1 year, 7659 for 1–4 years, 2979 for 5–9 years and 2130 for ⩾10 years). Corresponding SMRs for lung cancer were 139, 251, 233 and 531. Nonsignificantly increased ratios were found for ovarian (SMR=261), laryngeal (SMR=238) and oro-pharyngeal (SMR=226) cancers. This study confirms and further quantifies the central role of latency in pleural mesothelioma and of cumulative exposure in lung cancer