Who knows best? A Q methodology study to explore perspectives of professional stakeholders and community participants on health in low-income communities

Abstract Background Health inequalities in the UK have proved to be stubborn, and health gaps between best and worst-off are widening. While there is growing understanding of how the main causes of poor health are perceived among different stakeholders, similar insight is lacking regarding what solutions should be prioritised. Furthermore, we do not know the relationship between perceived causes and solutions to health inequalities, whether there is agreement between professional stakeholders and people living in low-income communities or agreement within these groups. Methods Q methodology was used to identify and describe the shared perspectives (‘subjectivities’) that exist on i) why health is worse in low-income communities (‘Causes’) and ii) the ways that health could be improved in these same communities (‘Solutions’). Purposively selected individuals (n = 53) from low-income communities (n = 25) and professional stakeholder groups (n = 28) ranked ordered sets of statements – 34 ‘Causes’ and 39 ‘Solutions’ – onto quasi-normal shaped grids according to their point of view. Factor analysis was used to identify shared points of view. ‘Causes’ and ‘Solutions’ were analysed independently, before examining correlations between perspectives on causes and perspectives on solutions. Results Analysis produced three factor solutions for both the ‘Causes’ and ‘Solutions’. Broadly summarised these accounts for ‘Causes’ are: i) ‘Unfair Society’, ii) ‘Dependent, workless and lazy’, iii) ‘Intergenerational hardships’ and for ‘Solutions’: i) ‘Empower communities’, ii) ‘Paternalism’, iii) ‘Redistribution’. No professionals defined (i.e. had a significant association with one factor only) the ‘Causes’ factor ‘Dependent, workless and lazy’ and the ‘Solutions’ factor ‘Paternalism’. No community participants defined the ‘Solutions’ factor ‘Redistribution’. The direction of correlations between the two sets of factor solutions – ‘Causes’ and ‘Solutions’ – appear to be intuitive, given the accounts identified. Conclusions Despite the plurality of views there was broad agreement across accounts about issues relating to money. This is important as it points a way forward for tackling health inequalities, highlighting areas for policy and future research to focus on

Risk-taking in disorders of natural and drug rewards: neural correlates and effects of probability, valence, and magnitude.

Pathological behaviors toward drugs and food rewards have underlying commonalities. Risk-taking has a fourfold pattern varying as a function of probability and valence leading to the nonlinearity of probability weighting with overweighting of small probabilities and underweighting of large probabilities. Here we assess these influences on risk-taking in patients with pathological behaviors toward drug and food rewards and examine structural neural correlates of nonlinearity of probability weighting in healthy volunteers. In the anticipation of rewards, subjects with binge eating disorder show greater risk-taking, similar to substance-use disorders. Methamphetamine-dependent subjects had greater nonlinearity of probability weighting along with impaired subjective discrimination of probability and reward magnitude. Ex-smokers also had lower risk-taking to rewards compared with non-smokers. In the anticipation of losses, obesity without binge eating had a similar pattern to other substance-use disorders. Obese subjects with binge eating also have impaired discrimination of subjective value similar to that of the methamphetamine-dependent subjects. Nonlinearity of probability weighting was associated with lower gray matter volume in dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex in healthy volunteers. Our findings support a distinct subtype of binge eating disorder in obesity with similarities in risk-taking in the reward domain to substance use disorders. The results dovetail with the current approach of defining mechanistically based dimensional approaches rather than categorical approaches to psychiatric disorders. The relationship to risk probability and valence may underlie the propensity toward pathological behaviors toward different types of rewards.This is the final version. It was first published by NPG at http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v40/n4/full/npp2014242a.htm

Connector Inversion Probe Technology: A Powerful One-Primer Multiplex DNA Amplification System for Numerous Scientific Applications

We combined components of a previous assay referred to as Molecular Inversion Probe (MIP) with a complete gap filling strategy, creating a versatile powerful one-primer multiplex amplification system. As a proof-of-concept, this novel method, which employs a Connector Inversion Probe (CIPer), was tested as a genetic tool for pathogen diagnosis, typing, and antibiotic resistance screening with two distinct systems: i) a conserved sequence primer system for genotyping Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a cancer-associated viral agent and ii) screening for antibiotic resistance mutations in the bacterial pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae. We also discuss future applications and advances of the CIPer technology such as integration with digital amplification and next-generation sequencing methods. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of two-dimension informational barcodes, i.e. “multiplex multiplexing padlocks” (MMPs). For the readers' convenience, we also provide an on-line tutorial with user-interface software application CIP creator 1.0.1, for custom probe generation from virtually any new or established primer-pairs

Variant PRC1 Complex-Dependent H2A Ubiquitylation Drives PRC2 Recruitment and Polycomb Domain Formation

Chromatin modifying activities inherent to polycomb repressive complexes PRC1 and PRC2 play an essential role in gene regulation, cellular differentiation, and development. However, the mechanisms by which these complexes recognize their target sites and function together to form repressive chromatin domains remain poorly understood. Recruitment of PRC1 to target sites has been proposed to occur through a hierarchical process, dependent on prior nucleation of PRC2 and placement of H3K27me3. Here, using a de novo targeting assay in mouse embryonic stem cells we unexpectedly discover that PRC1-dependent H2AK119ub1 leads to recruitment of PRC2 and H3K27me3 to effectively initiate a polycomb domain. This activity is restricted to variant PRC1 complexes, and genetic ablation experiments reveal that targeting of the variant PCGF1/PRC1 complex by KDM2B to CpG islands is required for normal polycomb domain formation and mouse development. These observations provide a surprising PRC1-dependent logic for PRC2 occupancy at target sites in vivo.This study was funded by the Wellcome Trust (WT0834922 and WT081385), CRUK (C28585/A10839), NIHR, EMBO, Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine, RIKEN, MEXT, and JST CRES

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

Psychosocial impact of undergoing prostate cancer screening for men with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations.

OBJECTIVES: To report the baseline results of a longitudinal psychosocial study that forms part of the IMPACT study, a multi-national investigation of targeted prostate cancer (PCa) screening among men with a known pathogenic germline mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. PARTICPANTS AND METHODS: Men enrolled in the IMPACT study were invited to complete a questionnaire at collaborating sites prior to each annual screening visit. The questionnaire included sociodemographic characteristics and the following measures: the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Impact of Event Scale (IES), 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36), Memorial Anxiety Scale for Prostate Cancer, Cancer Worry Scale-Revised, risk perception and knowledge. The results of the baseline questionnaire are presented. RESULTS: A total of 432 men completed questionnaires: 98 and 160 had mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, respectively, and 174 were controls (familial mutation negative). Participants' perception of PCa risk was influenced by genetic status. Knowledge levels were high and unrelated to genetic status. Mean scores for the HADS and SF-36 were within reported general population norms and mean IES scores were within normal range. IES mean intrusion and avoidance scores were significantly higher in BRCA1/BRCA2 carriers than in controls and were higher in men with increased PCa risk perception. At the multivariate level, risk perception contributed more significantly to variance in IES scores than genetic status. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to report the psychosocial profile of men with BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations undergoing PCa screening. No clinically concerning levels of general or cancer-specific distress or poor quality of life were detected in the cohort as a whole. A small subset of participants reported higher levels of distress, suggesting the need for healthcare professionals offering PCa screening to identify these risk factors and offer additional information and support to men seeking PCa screening