Older people's experiences of their kitchens: 2000 to 2010

Purpose – This paper aims to present the quantitative results based on a comparison and evaluation of older people's experiences, needs and wants from their current kitchens, combining and comparing the results obtained from two studies conducted in 2000 and 2010 to see what progress has been made. Design/methodology/approach – A study in 2010 investigated the life-long and contemporary experiences of kitchens of 48 people aged over 60 years of age. The research included detailed questionnaire interviews asking people about their experiences of living in their current kitchen. A previous study, conducted in 2000, asked many of the same questions of 22 people in the same age group. Findings – By combining and comparing the two sets of data it seems that only limited progress has been made in terms of kitchen design meeting the needs of older people between 2000 and 2010. Research limitations/implications – Owing to the small sizes of the samples it is not possible to compare the figures statistically or present them as fully representative of the British older population but while the two samples are limited both had similar characteristics of age and gender, so differences do show potential trends over time. Practical implications – The research refers to guidance and a computer based design tool and identifies a number of practical implications for design. Social implications – As people age their abilities and needs can change and their kitchen may no longer be as accessible or appropriate to their needs. Originality/value – This paper adds to the relevant guidance for designers, developers and managers of buildings where the continued personal use of a kitchen is important for continuing independence of older people

Review of state of knowledge regarding the safety, access and usability needs of children with disabilities

Within European countries and the European Union, there is wide recognition that special consideration must be given to the needs of both people with disabilities and to young people. In terms of ergonomics design, consideration needs to be given to access to public buildings, safety in the home, school buildings and educational services, ability to make use of public transport, etc. This research focused on children who also have disabilities, an area that is less well understood and where it is uncertain whether standards or legislation exist. Interviews and discussions with experts were conducted to locate knowledge about design for disabled children in different contexts. This document reports the results of the research sponsored by ANEC (www.anec.org). The study identified relevant standards, legislation or guidelines within Europe and outside which could potentially be employed by the standards bodies within the European Union and promulgated more widely. The report also showed that there are gaps in knowledge indicating a requirement for further research to be carried out to generate suitable guidelines for standards bodies to consider

The journey to work as a barrier to continued employment in later life

Various economic, social and demographic factors have combined over recent years to make the promotion of longer productive working lives for older people a desirable policy objective. Although disability increases with age, many older workers lead healthy, active lives. With the UK Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (2006), employers now have to consider requests to continue working beyond retirement age, so the number and needs of older workers are likely to increase. Difficulty with the journey to work is one of the barriers to employment for older workers. Whilst owning a car increases independence and improves quality of life, the compensatory techniques that may be used by older drivers when driving becomes difficult (avoiding bad weather, darkness, rush hours and complex junctions) may not be easily applied to the journey to work. Public transport is not always an option, with journey time, cost and availability all being potential issues. Whilst there are new technologies in both public and private transport that could help, they may not be designed with the requirements and limitations of older workers in mind, restricting their usefulness. In addition, many older people experience conflicts with family commitments and activities. People can find themselves simultaneously caring for their parents, partners and grandchildren. These add to the complexity of journey planning and affect travel choices and decisions. This work describes the results of two focus groups in which older workers and employee representatives explored the key influence travelling to work has on employment. The information, support and technology that would enable older workers to adapt their travel to accommodate changing needs are highlighted, and the relationship between travel decisions and organisational factors is described. This work forms part of the “Working Late” project, a collaborative research project funded under the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme

Employable knowledge: benchmarking education about standardization in the UK

For academics and students in the United Kingdom the main source of standards is via British Standards Institution (BSI). The research demonstrates that British, European and International Standards play a key role in many areas of education. In some disciplines their inclusion in the course is mandatory, e.g. in building construction and performing risk assessments of equipment. Where not a requirement, other courses successfully encourage students to understand and apply specific standards and principles from them, to their design and project work, in topic areas such as quality management and user-computer interface design. Assessment practice is a key part of learning and academics have indicated how this fitted into the learning activity, e.g. by expecting students to develop an understanding of standards and reference them in all assessed work. Likewise, students taking part in the survey also suggest that they were actively engaged with one or more standards and that their understanding was measured through an assessed activity. However, students also emphasised the importance of additional support, e.g. introduction to standards in the workplace or as part of work placements, by library staff as an information resource, and by presentations from BSI experts. Employers have also indicated the importance of students’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of relevant standards in the right context, emphasising their desire for standards to be included more widely in the curriculum. The draft recommendations from this study were subject to International review and comment, the results from this review served to strengthen the recommendations of this work. This research was commissioned by British Standards Institution (BSI). This research was produced in association with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as part of its ongoing programme of support for standardization. Grateful thanks are due to all those who filled in the questionnaire or who attended the workshops

Young families under stress: outcomes and costs of Home-Start support

Supporting parents is central to the current government’s approach to improving children’s lives. However, little is as yet known about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of family support services. This study evaluates one of these – Home-Start – which is currently one of the largest family support organisations in the UK. Established over thirty years ago, it offers volunteer home visiting support to families with children under five years of age.Comparing a study group of young families who received Home-Start support with a comparison group who did not, the study explores the mothers’ views and needs at the outset of the study. It reports their views one year later, and considers the outcomes at that stage. The economic situation of the families and their receipt of services over time are analysed, and the cost-effectiveness of Home-Start is addressed. The concluding chapter summarises the key findings of the study.The authors found that although the mothers who had received the support of a Home-Start volunteer obviously valued the service, there was no clear evidence that it had made a positive difference to them in terms of outcomes, relative to those of the families in the comparison group. They suggest that the results did not therefore point to a cost-effectiveness advantage for Home-Start. Given that the support was offered only on a low intensity basis (one home visit per week), the authors suggest that a longer term follow up would be advisable before reaching firm conclusions about the impact of the service

Culture and context: an empathic study of the needs of ethnic consumers in the UK

This paper describes a fresh approach to gathering rich data from ethnic minority consumers (EMCs) to better understand the affects of variations across subgroups upon consumers. The study investigated whether an EMC group in the UK face any barriers in the take-up of products or services. Subgroups in the study were defined as religion and generations to compare the differences and similarities of views and the effect of acculturalisation. An inductive, qualitative approach used family focus groups and some interviews with a questionnaire to set context. The research draws on previous cultural, marketing and design literature and current affairs and follows an inclusive design framework. The results successfully narrowed the research on a subgroup within the 1st generation and the usability of health services leading to a second study which is currently exploring the experiences of health services staff of providing care to EMCs to determine whether and how design may play a role in lowering barriers

Threat to future global food security from climate change and ozone air pollution

Future food production is highly vulnerable to both climate change and air pollution with implications for global food security. Climate change adaptation and ozone regulation have been identified as important strategies to safeguard food production, but little is known about how climate and ozone pollution interact to affect agriculture, nor the relative effectiveness of these two strategies for different crops and regions. Here we present an integrated analysis of the individual and combined effects of 2000–2050 climate change and ozone trends on the production of four major crops (wheat, rice, maize and soybean) worldwide based on historical observations and model projections, specifically accounting for ozone–temperature co-variation. The projections exclude the effect of rising CO₂, which has complex and potentially offsetting impacts on global food supply. We show that warming reduces global crop production by >10% by 2050 with a potential to substantially worsen global malnutrition in all scenarios considered. Ozone trends either exacerbate or offset a substantial fraction of climate impacts depending on the scenario, suggesting the importance of air quality management in agricultural planning. Furthermore, we find that depending on region some crops are primarily sensitive to either ozone (for example, wheat) or heat (for example, maize) alone, providing a measure of relative benefits of climate adaptation versus ozone regulation for food security in different regions.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AGS-1238109)United States. National Park Service (Grant H2370094000

Preliminary study of the cultural barriers which may affect universal access

Preliminary study of the cultural barriers which may affect universal acces

Addressing Positive Suicide Screens in the Emergency Department: The Importance of Post-Discharge Follow-up

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death and many of those who die by suicide have visited an emergency department (ED) in the months prior to their death. Thus, identification and treatment of suicidal ideation (SI) in the ED is essential to suicide prevention efforts. Although a recent effort to implement universal SI screening has identified more patients with suicide risk, there are still barriers to further risk assessment and intervention, including: patients being too ill, language differences, physician caseload, length of SI evaluation and intervention, staff availability and communication with emergency mental health (EMH) services, and stigma surrounding risk responsibility. To address these issues following the Zero Suicide Model, in November 2017 the pre-existing Behavioral Health Service (BHS) expanded their care to this population, improved communication with EMH to reduce patient burden, and implemented a follow-up call system to contact patients within 48 hours post-discharge. Since November, 61 patients were identified as not receiving further SI evaluation or resources while in the ED. Twenty-four (39.3%) of these patients were successfully contacted by phone, with 15 (62.5%) receiving resources and 9 (37.5%) declining resources due to existing services. All patients with available addresses (86.8%) were sent Caring Contact Cards with information on suicide hotlines and psychiatric emergency services. By attempting calls multiple times, mailing resources, and being brief, yet detailed when evaluating, more patients\u27 SI needs are being treated. The ultimate goal is to provide services to all patients who screen positive for suicide risk presenting to the ED

Land cover change impacts on atmospheric chemistry: simulating projected large-scale tree mortality in the United States

Land use and land cover changes impact climate and air quality by altering the exchange of trace gases between the Earth's surface and atmosphere. Large-scale tree mortality that is projected to occur across the United States as a result of insect and disease may therefore have unexplored consequences for tropospheric chemistry. We develop a land use module for the GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model to facilitate simulations involving changes to the land surface, and to improve consistency across land–atmosphere exchange processes. The model is used to test the impact of projected national-scale tree mortality risk through 2027 estimated by the 2012 USDA Forest Service National Insect and Disease Risk Assessment. Changes in biogenic emissions alone decrease monthly mean O₃ by up to 0.4 ppb, but reductions in deposition velocity compensate or exceed the effects of emissions yielding a net increase in O₃ of more than 1 ppb in some areas. The O₃ response to the projected change in emissions is affected by the ratio of baseline NO[subscript x]: VOC concentrations, suggesting that in addition to the degree of land cover change, tree mortality impacts depend on whether a region is NO[subscript x]-limited or NO[subscript x]-saturated. Consequently, air quality (as diagnosed by the number of days that 8 h average O₃ exceeds 70 ppb) improves in polluted environments where changes in emissions are more important than changes to dry deposition, but worsens in clean environments where changes to dry deposition are the more important term. The influence of changes in dry deposition demonstrated here underscores the need to evaluate treatments of this physical process in models. Biogenic secondary organic aerosol loadings are significantly affected across the US, decreasing by 5–10 % across many regions, and by more than 25 % locally. Tree mortality could therefore impact background aerosol loadings by between 0.5 and 2 µg m⁻³. Changes to reactive nitrogen oxide abundance and partitioning are also locally important. The regional effects simulated here are similar in magnitude to other scenarios that consider future biofuel cropping or natural succession, further demonstrating that biosphere–atmosphere exchange should be considered when predicting future air quality and climate. We point to important uncertainties and further development that should be addressed for a more robust understanding of land cover change feedbacks.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AGC-1238109