Recruitment of heterosexual couples in public health research: a study protocol

BACKGROUND: Public health research involving social or kin groups (such as sexual partners or family members), rather than samples of unrelated individuals, has become more widespread in response to social ecological approaches to disease treatment and prevention. This approach requires the development of innovative sampling, recruitment and screening methodologies tailored to the study of related individuals. METHODS: In this paper, we describe a set of sampling, recruitment and screening protocols developed to enlist urban, drug-using, heterosexual couples into a public health research study. This population is especially hard to reach because they are engaged in illegal and/or stigmatized behaviors. The protocols were designed to integrate adaptive sampling, street- and referral-based recruitment, and screening procedures to verify study eligibility and relationship status. DISCUSSION: Recruitment of heterosexual couples through one partner, preferably the female, can be an effective enlistment technique. Verification of relationship status is an important component of dyadic research. Comparison of parallel questionnaires administered to each member of a dyad can aid in the assessment of relationship status. However, multiple independent sources of information should be used to verify relationship status when available. Adaptive sampling techniques were effective in reaching drug-using heterosexual couples in an urban setting, and the application of these methods to other groups of related individuals in clinical and public health research may prove to be useful. However, care must be taken to consider potential sources of sampling bias when interpreting and generalizing study results

Scarier than another storm: values at risk in the mapping and insuring of US floodplains

How do people respond to the ways in which insurance mediates environmental risks? Socio-cultural risk research has characterized and analyzed the experiential dimension of risk, but has yet to focus on insurance, which is a key institution shaping how people understand and relate to risk. Insurance not only assesses and communicates risk; it also economizes it, making the problem on the ground not just one of risk, but also of value. This article addresses these issues with an investigation of the social life of the flood insurance rate map, the central technology of the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), as it grafts a new landscape of ‘value at risk’ onto the physical and social world of New York City in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Like other risk technologies, ubiquitous in modern societies as decision-making and planning tools, the map disseminates information about value and risk in order to tame uncertainty and enable prudent action oriented toward the future. However, drawing together interview, ethnographic, and documentary data, I find that for its users on the ground, the map does not simply measure ‘value at risk’ in ways that produce clear strategies for protecting property values from flooding. Instead, it puts values—beyond simply the financial worth of places—at risk, as well as implicates past, present, and future risks beyond simply flooding. By informing and enlarging the stakes of what needs protecting, and from what, I argue that plural and interacting ‘values at risk’ shape how people live with and respond to environmental risks that are mediated by insurance technologies

Common value: transferring development rights to make room for water

In 2019 floods made up 49 % of disasters and 43 % of disaster related deaths globally. Flooding is also the costliest natural disaster, with yearly estimated losses of $36.3 billion. In order to counter these challenges, the flood risk management (FRM) narrative is evolving towards integration of blue/green infrastructure (BGI), using projects that harness nature and mimic natural processes. However, there is very little research into how BGI-related innovations will be mainstreamed, nor, particularly, how they will be funded. In order to reflect upon this situation, this paper analyses current academic literature and international best practice in BGI and Land Value Capture (LVC) instruments - to form a novel conceptual framework that is designed to act as a staging post for new research into BGI and its practical delivery. Specifically, this analysis focuses on the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) instrument, which has enabled some planning authorities to successfully push forward their environmental agendas, through land conservation, including in flood prone areas. This gap in knowledge has multiple significance. Firstly, land management decisions related to BGI can have deep distributive-justice implications that need to be addressed. Secondly, there is an immediate need to pay for such FRM measures across the world. Thirdly, this financial imperative takes place against an international backdrop of reduced government funding in a time of deep structural change and Covid-19 pressure. Findings in this paper suggest that TDR has the potential to be a successful conduit for managing all three conditions. Yet, the success of TDR is closely linked to the specific legal, market and urban development contexts, which further research should explore within the framework of BGI implementation

Assessing the feasibility of integrating ecosystem-based with engineered water resource governance and management for water security in semi-arid landscapes: A case study in the Banas catchment, Rajasthan, India

Much of the developing world and areas of the developed world suffer water vulnerability. Engineering solutions enable technically efficient extraction and diversion of water towards areas of demand but, without rebalancing resource regeneration, can generate multiple adverse ecological and human consequences. The Banas River, Rajasthan (India), has been extensively developed for water diversion, particularly from the Bisalpur Dam from which water is appropriated by powerful urban constituencies dispossessing local people. Coincidentally, abandonment of traditional management, including groundwater recharge practices, is leading to increasingly receding and contaminated groundwater. This creates linked vulnerabilities for rural communities, irrigation schemes, urban users, dependent ecosystems and the multiple ecosystem services that they provide, compounded by climate change and population growth. This paper addresses vulnerabilities created by fragmented policy measures between rural development, urban and irrigation water supply and downstream consequences for people and wildlife. Perpetuating narrowly technocentric approaches to resource exploitation is likely only to compound emerging problems. Alternatively, restoration or innovation of groundwater recharge practices, particularly in the upper catchment, can represent a proven, ecosystem-based approach to resource regeneration with linked beneficial socio-ecological benefits. Hybridising an ecosystem-based approach with engineered methods can simultaneously increase the security of rural livelihoods, piped urban and irrigation supplies, and the vitality of river ecosystems and their services to beneficiaries. A renewed policy focus on local-scale water recharge practices balancing water extraction technologies is consistent with emerging Rajasthani policies, particularly Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan (‘water self-reliance mission’). Policy reform emphasising recharge can contribute to water security and yield socio-economic outcomes through a systemic understanding of how the water system functions, and by connecting goals and budgets across multiple, currently fragmented policy areas. The underpinning principles of this necessary paradigm shift are proven and have wider geographic relevance, though context-specific research is required to underpin robust policy and practical implementation