Multidimensional Well-Being and Inequality Across the European Regions with Alternative Interactions Between the Well-Being Dimensions

This paper uses recent multidimensional well-being measurements to examine multidimensional well-being and inequality across the European regions in 2000 and 2014 with the use of eleven well-being indicators from the OECD Better Life Index. We use generalized mean aggregation method with alternative parameters to allow different substitutability and complementarity levels between well-being dimensions, which range between perfect substitutability and some degree of complementarity between the dimensions, to examine well-being and inequality across the European regions. Accounting for the interactions between the well-being dimensions matters for the multidimensional well-being and inequality across the European regions. The results show that the multidimensional well-being across the European regions are relatively lower when the dimensions are more seen as complements compared to the case when they are considered to be perfect substitutes. Furthermore, there is also a higher degree of multidimensional inequality across the European regions when the dimensions are considered to have some complementarity. Changes in well-being dimensions between 2000 and 2014 indicates that multidimensional well-being improved and inequality decreased in the personal and community well-being categories, but remained unchanged in material well-being category across the European regions irrespective of interaction levels between well-being dimensions. Policy implications of these multidimensional well-being indices are also evaluated by using these indices to determine the eligible regions for the European Union structural funds where the number eligible regions shows some variation depending on whether the dimensions are perfect substitutes or more of complements

Bouncing back from extreme weather events: Some preliminary findings on resilience barriers facing small and medium-sized enterprises

Extreme weather events (EWEs) pose unprecedented threats to modern societies and represent a much-debated issue strongly interlinked with current development policies. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute a driving force of economic growth, employment and total value added, remain highly vulnerable to and ill prepared for such environmental perturbations. This study investigates barriers to SMEs’ resilience to EWEs in an attempt to shed light on enabling factors that can define effective organizational responses to non-linear environmental stimuli. Relying on structural equation modeling and data gathered from 109 SMEs that recently experienced EWE impacts, we link the general concept of SMEs’ resilience barriers to EWEs with a series of elements to determine specific internal and external factors that contribute the most to EWE resilience. In particular, external barriers of institutional conditions and mechanisms of support and guidance as well as internal barriers of resources and managerial perceptions are found to be the most critical ones in determining resilience. The assessment offers essential research evidence for practitioners on SME management and sets forth linkages with current mechanisms for policy interventions towards an appropriate resilience agenda for SMEs

Strategic risk appraisal. Comparing expert- and literature-informed consequence assessments for environmental policy risks receiving national attention

Strategic risk appraisal (SRA) has been applied to compare diverse policy level risks to and from the environment in England and Wales. Its application has relied on expert-informed assessments of the potential consequences from residual risks that attract policy attention at the national scale. Here we compare consequence assessments, across environmental, economic and social impact categories that draw on ‘expert’- and ‘literature-based’ analyses of the evidence for 12 public risks appraised by Government. For environmental consequences there is reasonable agreement between the two sources of assessment, with expert-informed assessments providing a narrower dispersion of impact severity and with median values similar in scale to those produced by an analysis of the literature. The situation is more complex for economic consequences, with a greater spread in the median values, less consistency between the two assessment types and a shift toward higher severity values across the risk portfolio. For social consequences, the spread of severity values is greater still, with no consistent trend between the severities of impact expressed by the two types of assessment. For the latter, the findings suggest the need for a fuller representation of socioeconomic expertise in SRA and the workshops that inform SRA output

Fatal injuries while under the influence of psychoactive drugs: a cross-sectional exploratory study in England

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.BACKGROUND: Studies of drug-related mortality rarely describe fatal injuries due to psychoactive drug intoxication (FIUI). The main aim of this study was to determine the nature, extent and pattern of FIUI. METHODS: This observational study covered the period January 1999 to December 2001. Data were provided by members of a study panel of coroners in England using a standard protocol. Sources of data for this study included autopsy protocols, death certificates, hospital records, police reports, toxicology reports and inquest transcripts. Inclusion criteria for this were (i) the mention of one or more psychoactive substances as contributing to fatality; and (ii) the presence of a Controlled Drug at post mortem. RESULTS: A total of 3,803 drug-related deaths of persons aged 16-64 years were reported by the study panel during the three-year period. The study panel accounted for 86% of drug-related deaths in England in this period. There were 147 FIUI cases (119 males, 28 females), giving a proportionate mortality ratio of approximately 4%. The majority of FIUI cases (84%) were aged 16-44 years, with a median age at death of 33 years (Quartile deviation = 7). Fifty-six percent of FIUI occurred in urban areas of England. The population of the study jurisdictions aged 16-64 years contributed 49,545,766 person-years (py) to the study, giving an annual crude rate of 3/1,000,000 person-years (py). Rates for male and females were 4.9 and 1.1/1,000,000 py respectively, giving a male/female rate ratio of 4.5 (95%CI = 2.9-6.8). The rates of intentional and unintentional FIUI were 2 and 1/1,000,000 py respectively. The leading mechanism for intentional FIUI was suffocation while the predominant mechanisms in unintentional FIUI were road traffic accidents and falls. There is a significant difference in the pattern of drug-specific risk between FIUI and fatal poisoning. Risks of intentional FIUI are elevated among Black and Minority Ethnic groups. CONCLUSION: There are differences in the nature, extent and pattern of intentional and unintentional FIUI that should necessitate targeted prevention strategies. Also, there is an opportunity for cross-discipline collaboration between injury prevention specialists and substance abuse/mental health specialists.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio