Examining the psychological wellbeing of refugee children and the role of friendship and bullying

BACKGROUND: Refugee children might have experienced violent and traumatic events before settling into a new country. In the United Kingdom, the number of refugee children is increasing; however, little is known about their psycho-social and physical well-being. AIM: This study aims to investigate the psychological well-being and behaviour of refugee children compared to British-born children on a number of psychological, social, behavioural, and health-related issues and to investigate the role of friendship as a protective factor. SAMPLES: This study utilized a sample of 149 refugee children recruited from two charities, 79 of which are children aged 6-10 years and 70 older refugee children aged 11-16 years. The study also included 120 non-refugee children recruited from primary schools aged 6-10 years. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study that investigates the psycho-social well-being of refugee children compared to non-refugee British-born children. The study explored symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, emotional and behavioural problems (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), self-esteem, friendships and popularity, bullying and victimization, physical health, and psychosomatic problems. RESULTS: Young refugee children reported more peer problems, functional impairment, physical health, and psychosomatic problems compared to the control children and older refugee children groups. On the other hand, older refugee children had lower self-esteem (academic and social self-peers) compared to the younger refugee children group. The differences between the groups were explained by friendship quality, number of friends, peer bullying/victimization, or sibling bullying/victimization except for physical health and psychosomatic problems. CONCLUSIONS: While refugee children were found to be at risk on various levels, the findings also point to the fact that social relationships including friendship quality and number of friends played an essential protective role. Conversely, bullying was a risk factor that explained many of the refugees' problems. These findings pave the way for future research to further probe into the well-being of refugee children in the United Kingdom while also targeting relevant intervention schemes specifically tailored to address their needs

Lifestyle Medicine and Economics: A Proposal for Research Priorities Informed by a Case Series of Disease Reversal

Chronic disease places an enormous economic burden on both individuals and the healthcare system, and existing fee-for-service models of healthcare prioritize symptom management, medications, and procedures over treating the root causes of disease through changing health behaviors. Value-based care is gaining traction, and there is a need for value-based care models that achieve the quadruple aim of (1) improved population health, (2) enhanced patient experience, (3) reduced healthcare costs, and (4) improved work life and decreased burnout of healthcare providers. Lifestyle medicine (LM) has the potential to achieve these four aims, including promoting health and wellness and reducing healthcare costs; however, the economic outcomes of LM approaches need to be better quantified in research. This paper demonstrates proof of concept by detailing four cases that utilized an intensive, therapeutic lifestyle intervention change (ITLC) to dramatically reverse disease and reduce healthcare costs. In addition, priorities for lifestyle medicine economic research related to the components of quadruple aim are proposed, including conducting rigorously designed research studies to adequately measure the effects of ITLC interventions, modeling the potential economic cost savings enabled by health improvements following lifestyle interventions as compared to usual disease progression and management, and examining the effects of lifestyle medicine implementation upon different payment models

Can cognitive psychological research on reasoning enhance the discussion around moral judgments?

In this article we will demonstrate how cognitive psychological research on reasoning and decision making could enhance discussions and theories of moral judgments. In the first part, we will present recent dual-process models of moral judgments and describe selected studies which support these approaches. However, we will also present data that contradict the model predictions, suggesting that approaches to moral judgment might be more complex. In the second part, we will show how cognitive psychological research on reasoning might be helpful in understanding moral judgments. Specifically, we will highlight approaches addressing the interaction between intuition and reflection. Our data suggest that a sequential model of engaging in deliberation might have to be revised. Therefore, we will present an approach based on Signal Detection Theory and on intuitive conflict detection. We predict that individuals arrive at the moral decisions by comparing potential action outcomes (e.g., harm caused and utilitarian gain) simultaneously. The response criterion can be influenced by intuitive processes, such as heuristic moral value processing, or considerations of harm caused

Nodular sillimanite rocks as field indicators to metamorphosed massive sulfide deposits

Nodular sillimanite rocks (NSR), some of which are spatially associated with massive sulfide deposits, consist of intergrowths of quartz, sillimanite (mainly fibrolite), and muscovite (up to 30 cm in length) that occur predominantly in Archean-Proterozoic metapelites, ortho- and para-gneisses, and metavolcanic rocks metamorphosed to the amphibolite/granulite facies. Such rocks are particularly abundant in central Colorado where they either enclose or occur stratigraphically above or below at least 10 metamorphosed Proterozoic Cu-Zn-(Pb-Au-Ag) deposits. A plot of NSR compositions in terms of SiO2/Al2O3 vs Na2O/K2O and a K2O-MgO-Na2O ternary diagram suggest that the protoliths of NSR spatially associated with sulfide occurrences in Colorado were predominantly shale, arenite, lithic arenite or greywacke. North American shale composite (NASC)-normalized rare earth element (REE) patterns of NSR associated with these deposits show compositions close to NASC values with flat patterns and slightly negative Eu anomalies, which also supports the concept of a sedimentary protolith. Such a protolith contrasts with NSR spatially associated with massive sulfide deposits elsewhere in the world that more commonly have volcanoclastic/igneous precursors. Mass-balance calculations of NSR from the Cotopaxi deposit (Colorado) show major and trace element mobility with mostly mass gains in K2O, MgO, Ba, Cu, Pb, and Zn, and depletions in CaO, and Na2O relative to their protolith (lithic arenite), an unaltered biotite-muscovite-feldspar gneiss. Although Al2O3 and SiO2 show both gains and losses, the mass gains are considerably larger for Al2O3. The gains in base metals (Cu, Pb and Zn), the enrichment of Cu and Zn (rather than Pb) that mimics the ore concentrations, the presence of gahnite (ZnAl2O4) in sillimanite nodules in some metallic deposits in Colorado, and the existence of chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite in NSR suggest the sedimentary protoliths were hydrothermally altered and that NSR, where spatially associated with sulfide deposits, represent zones of metamorphosed stratabound alteration zones. Nodular sillimanite rocks are easy to recognize in the field and constitute an exploration guide for massive sulfide deposits that were subjected to regional metamorphism at the amphibolite to granulite facies.This article is published as Spry, Paul G., Scott McFadden, Graham S. Teale, Brian Alers, John M. Shallow, and Justin M. Glenn. "Nodular sillimanite rocks as field indicators to metamorphosed massive sulfide deposits." Ore Geology Reviews 141 (2022): 104632. doi:10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104632. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license