A Conceptual Model of Impacts of Environmental Change on Human Well-Being

Human well-being is dependent on goods and services provided by well-functioning ecosystems. Changes in ecosystem status and integrity can therefore impact directly and indirectly on human well-being. However, neither current measures of ecosystem health nor methods to value ecosystem services incorporate methods to assess impacts of changes in ecosystem health on human well-being. Assessment of these impacts is potentially useful in improving the sustainability of coastal management decision making. This paper presents a conceptual model developed to identify the potential links between ecosystem condition and human well-being. Based on existing literature, it is hypothesised that changes in coastal ecosystem condition may affect aspects of social and community relations through affecting people's sense of place, degree of involvement in the community and the extent to which they undertake recreation in the coastal environment. Changes in these aspects of social relations can have flow-on impacts on social capital, social networks, levels of trust and physical and mental health. Changes in ecosystem condition may also have more direct impacts on human health, through bacterial contamination of recreational waters, the presence of toxicants in seafood, or through the presence of toxic algal blooms in recreational waters. Regional economic production is also affected by changes in coastal ecosystems, through changes in the production of fishing, aquaculture and tourism industries. The conceptual model provides a basis for the development of a dynamic systems model to assess the impacts of changes in ecosystem health on human well-being. This information is necessary to ensure that decisions regarding the use of natural ecosystems are well-informed and therefore appropriate

Effects of Coastal Recreation on Social Aspects of Human Well-being

Coastal ecosystems are under increasing pressures from a wide variety of human impacts. As the coastal zone provides many goods and services essential to the well-being of people, there is potential for changes in the condition of coastal ecosystems to have reciprocal impacts on the human population. Based on existing literature, it was hypothesised that changes in coastal ecosystem condition could affect aspects of social and community relations through affecting residents' coastal recreational activities, sense of place, social interactions and networks, health and overall quality of life. These relationships were investigated in the Pumicestone catchment in south-east Queensland with the aim of identifying the interactions between coastal condition and human well-being. Information on key variables was collected by surveying catchment residents, and data were analysed using path analysis. The results indicate that the recreation in coastal areas can impact on the well-being of coastal residents. Understanding the positive relationship between ecosystems and human well-being can potentially reduce the apparent conflict between environmental improvement and human interests, thus improving management of local ecosystems

Assessing the Social and Economic Impacts of Changes in Coastal Systems

Humans have wide ranging impacts on many of the world's ecosystems. Understanding the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being is an important part of improving management of these systems. Current methods to value ecosystems rely on economic techniques that do not adequately reflect contributions of ecosystems to all aspects of human well-being and do not incorporate objectives such as ecological sustainability or fairness. It is proposed therefore that a dynamic model demonstrating the contributions of ecosystems to specific aspects of well-being, such as health, economic production, employment, recreation and social interaction, would be a useful tool in informing and improving environmental management and decision making. This model would be valuable as it could include multiple objectives, be used to make quantitative predictions of impacts, and could be used in parallel with existing valuation and decision making techniques. The need for this type of model, and an outline of the model proposed are presented in this paper

Metalanguage in L1 English-speaking 12-year-olds: which aspects of writing do they talk about?

Traditional psycholinguistic approaches to metalinguistic awareness in L1 learners elicit responses containing metalanguage that demonstrates metalinguistic awareness of pre-determined aspects of language knowledge. This paper, which takes a more ethnographic approach, demonstrates how pupils are able to engage their own focus of metalanguage when reflecting on their everyday learning activities involving written language. What is equally significant is what their metalanguage choices reveal about their understanding and application of written language concepts

Aboriginal women yarning about experiences as undergraduate nursing students in Western Australian universities

The inequities and poor health outcomes experience by Aboriginal people in Western Australia are well documented. It has been suggested that such issues could be better addressed if more Aboriginal nurses are employed, as there appears to be a link between improved health outcomes and the inclusion of Aboriginal health professionals in practice. In recent years the number Aboriginal nursing students undertaking tertiary studies has increased, but their completion rates could be improved. Aboriginal nursing students continue to struggle to achieve success. The aim of this study was to investigate factors that enabled (supported) or inhibited (prevented) the progress of Aboriginal women through their undergraduate nursing program in Western Australian universities. In order to provide a view of their experiences, it was appropriate for this qualitative study to use a narrative inquiry approach and an Aboriginal framework. This study used a purposeful sample of Aboriginal nursing students in their final year and new graduates from an undergraduate-nursing program undertaken in Western Australia. The data was collected through the use of yarning, which is a form of data collection that is a culturally appropriate way to build trust and learn about Aboriginal peoples stories. Yarning is considered culturally safe and is recognised as a way for Aboriginal people to interact (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010). Yarning with the participants was done by using the telephone or through face-to-face contact. Narrative analysis using an Aboriginal framework was undertaken, with simultaneous attention being paid to temporality, sociality and place, in the context of the story. In addition a journal was kept during the collection and analysis of data with entries being scrutinised for pattern identification and emerging trends. The stories of the participants revealed that there were commonalties between stories including: the importance of support particularly in the first year of study; a sense of belonging and community on campus; a meeting place on campus for Aboriginal students including ‘a go to person’; the importance of self-motivation; resilience and role models at university and in the participants’ personal life. This study is significant in that it has the potential to inform universities and policy makers of ways to increase the retention of Aboriginal students

“I Need That Week Off!”: An Experiential Exercise on Conflict and Negotiation

This article presents an experiential exercise designed to provide students with an opportunity to develop their knowledge of ways in which conflict may be managed (using the framework proposed by Thomas, 1976) and types of negotiation. Students form pairs and are presented with a scenario in which they have both requested the same week of vacation to attend events. Unfortunately, they are informed that they are unable to take the time off simultaneously. Participants are asked to discuss among themselves, using assigned modes of managing conflict, to determine how the time will be allocated. The target audience is composed of undergraduate students, who may be enrolled in any number of classes related to organizational behavior. To examine perceptions of the exercise, data were collected from a sample of 140 participants. Among the findings, 92.9% of respondents reported that they would recommend that instructors use the exercise in a similar course

Development of the Malocclusion Impact Questionnaire (MIQ) to measure the oral health-related quality of life of young people with malocclusion: part 1 - qualitative inquiry

OBJECTIVES: To seek the views of adolescents with malocclusion about how the appearance and arrangement of their teeth affects their everyday life and to incorporate these views into a new Malocclusion Impact Questionnaire (MIQ). METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with a purposive sample of 30 young people (10-16 years) referred for orthodontic treatment to two dental teaching hospitals. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using framework analysis. Several themes and sub themes were identified and these were used to identify items to include in the new measure. RESULTS: Three themes emerged which were: concerns about the appearance of their teeth, effect on social interactions and oral health/function. Participants expressed the view that their teeth did not look normal, causing them embarrassment and a lack of confidence, particularly when they were with their peers or having their photograph taken. Concerns regarding the potential effect of a malocclusion on oral health, in terms of food becoming stuck between crooked teeth, interferences when chewing and increased risk of damaging the teeth were also identified. The themes were used to generate individual items for inclusion in the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: Common themes relating to the impact of malocclusion on the lives of young people were identified and generated items for the new MIQ to measure the oral health-related quality of life of young people with malocclusion. Part 2 outlines the further development and testing of the MIQ

Ozone loss derived from balloon-borne tracer measurements and the SLIMCAT CTM

Balloon-borne measurements of CFC-11 (on flights of the DIRAC in situ gas chromatograph and the DESCARTES grab sampler), ClO and O3 were made during the 1999/2000 winter as part of the SOLVE-THESEO 2000 campaign. Here we present the CFC-11 data from nine flights and compare them first with data from other instruments which flew during the campaign and then with the vertical distributions calculated by the SLIMCAT 3-D CTM. We calculate ozone loss inside the Arctic vortex between late January and early March using the relation between CFC-11 and O3 measured on the flights, the peak ozone loss (1200 ppbv) occurs in the 440–470 K region in early March in reasonable agreement with other published empirical estimates. There is also a good agreement between ozone losses derived from three independent balloon tracer data sets used here. The magnitude and vertical distribution of the loss derived from the measurements is in good agreement with the loss calculated from SLIMCAT over Kiruna for the same days