Later life in rental housing

Historically, New Zealand has had relatively high rates of home ownership, with widely held aspirations for mortgage-free tenure in later life. As a consequence, examination of the small but growing numbers of older renters has been limited. This article draws together local research, commissioned policy development work and comparative evidence to identify the characteristics of older people in rental accommodation, current and projected issues and potential policy issues

Combining Work and Eldercare: A Neglected Work-Life Balance Issue

Discussions about "work-life balance" and "family-friendly workplaces" mainly focus on working parents with young children. Employees who care for and support older relatives receive much less attention. But this issue will grow in importance as the population ages and labour shortages encourage middle-aged people to be fully involved in the workforce. As life expectancy increases many working people have parents in their eighties and nineties, often in need of care and support. How do they balance work and eldercare? A research project on working carers involved the employees of Wellington and Christchurch City Councils and found that about one in ten had eldercare responsibilities. Questionnaires and focus groups provided information on the type and extent of eldercare and how it is managed alongside work commitments. Such responsibilities can add to workers· stress and have an impact on productivity. Suggestions for employers arose from the study, including the need to develop policies on eldercare responsibilities among their staff as an emerging priority

Combining Work and Eldercare: A Neglected Work-Life Balance Issue

Discussions about "work-life balance" and "family-friendly workplaces" mainly focus on working parents with young children. Employees who care for and support older relatives receive much less attention. But this issue will grow in importance as the population ages and labour shortages encourage middle-aged people to be fully involved in the workforce. As life expectancy increases many working people have parents in their eighties and nineties, often in need of care and support. How do they balance work and eldercare? A research project on working carers involved the employees of Wellington and Christchurch City Councils and found that about one in ten had eldercare responsibilities. Questionnaires and focus groups provided information on the type and extent of eldercare and how it is managed alongside work commitments. Such responsibilities can add to workers· stress and have an impact on productivity. Suggestions for employers arose from the study, including the need to develop policies on eldercare responsibilities among their staff as an emerging priority

Do household living arrangements explain gender and ethnicity differences in receipt of support services? Findings from LiLACS NZ Māori and non-Māori advanced age cohorts

Services providing practical support are a key component in the spectrum of social care assisting older people to age in place. Te Puāwaitanga o Ngā Tapuwae Kia Ora Tonu/Life and Living in Advanced Age: A Cohort Study in New Zealand (LiLACS NZ), a longitudinal study of Māori and non-Māori in advanced age, aims to determine predictors of successful ageing and to understand trajectories of health and wellbeing. This paper investigates whether household living arrangements (living alone or with others) might explain previously reported gender and ethnic differences in support service utilisation. We had shown that women and non-Māori received more services than men and Māori despite better health. The results of analyses in this paper show that, as expected, poorer physical function led to increased service use. After controlling for functional status, household living arrangements (living alone) were the next strongest driver of service use. In a fully adjusted model, previously observed differences around gender and ethnicity were no longer significant predictors of support service use. However, gender and ethnicity do shape living arrangements in advanced age. Women in advanced age are more likely to live alone, consequently needing more outside support, whereas men are more likely to have a spouse/partner able to provide care. Māori are more likely to live in multigenerational households, the care available at home meaning they are less likely to qualify for formal support. This study points to a need for understanding how gender and ethnicity interact with living arrangements and suggests that inequities may not be absent when the presence of others in a household renders an older person ineligible for formal care

Spatio-temporally Resolved Methane Fluxes From the Los Angeles Megacity

We combine sustained observations from a network of atmospheric monitoring stations with inverse modeling to uniquely obtain spatiotemporal (3‐km, 4‐day) estimates of methane emissions from the Los Angeles megacity and the broader South Coast Air Basin for 2015–2016. Our inversions use customized and validated high‐fidelity meteorological output from Weather Research Forecasting and Stochastic Time‐Inverted Lagrangian model for South Coast Air Basin and innovatively employ a model resolution matrix‐based metric to disentangle the spatiotemporal information content of observations as manifested through estimated fluxes. We partially track and constrain fluxes from the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak and detect closure of the Puente Hills landfill, with no prior information. Our annually aggregated fluxes and their uncertainty excluding the Aliso Canyon leak period lie within the uncertainty bounds of the fluxes reported by the previous studies. Spatially, major sources of CH_4 emissions in the basin were correlated with CH_4‐emitting infrastructure. Temporally, our findings show large seasonal variations in CH_4 fluxes with significantly higher fluxes in winter in comparison to summer months, which is consistent with natural gas demand and anticorrelated with air temperature. Overall, this is the first study that utilizes inversions to detect both enhancement (Aliso Canyon leak) and reduction (Puente Hills) in CH_4 fluxes due to the unintended events and policy decisions and thereby demonstrates the utility of inverse modeling for identifying variations in fluxes at fine spatiotemporal resolution

Spatio-temporally Resolved Methane Fluxes From the Los Angeles Megacity

We combine sustained observations from a network of atmospheric monitoring stations with inverse modeling to uniquely obtain spatiotemporal (3‐km, 4‐day) estimates of methane emissions from the Los Angeles megacity and the broader South Coast Air Basin for 2015–2016. Our inversions use customized and validated high‐fidelity meteorological output from Weather Research Forecasting and Stochastic Time‐Inverted Lagrangian model for South Coast Air Basin and innovatively employ a model resolution matrix‐based metric to disentangle the spatiotemporal information content of observations as manifested through estimated fluxes. We partially track and constrain fluxes from the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak and detect closure of the Puente Hills landfill, with no prior information. Our annually aggregated fluxes and their uncertainty excluding the Aliso Canyon leak period lie within the uncertainty bounds of the fluxes reported by the previous studies. Spatially, major sources of CH_4 emissions in the basin were correlated with CH_4‐emitting infrastructure. Temporally, our findings show large seasonal variations in CH_4 fluxes with significantly higher fluxes in winter in comparison to summer months, which is consistent with natural gas demand and anticorrelated with air temperature. Overall, this is the first study that utilizes inversions to detect both enhancement (Aliso Canyon leak) and reduction (Puente Hills) in CH_4 fluxes due to the unintended events and policy decisions and thereby demonstrates the utility of inverse modeling for identifying variations in fluxes at fine spatiotemporal resolution

Carbon dioxide and methane measurements from the Los Angeles Megacity Carbon Project – Part 1: calibration, urban enhancements, and uncertainty estimates

We report continuous surface observations of carbon dioxide (CO_2) and methane (CH_4) from the Los Angeles (LA) Megacity Carbon Project during 2015. We devised a calibration strategy, methods for selection of background air masses, calculation of urban enhancements, and a detailed algorithm for estimating uncertainties in urban-scale CO_2 and CH_4 measurements. These methods are essential for understanding carbon fluxes from the LA megacity and other complex urban environments globally. We estimate background mole fractions entering LA using observations from four extra-urban sites including two marine sites located south of LA in La Jolla (LJO) and offshore on San Clemente Island (SCI), one continental site located in Victorville (VIC), in the high desert northeast of LA, and one continental/mid-troposphere site located on Mount Wilson (MWO) in the San Gabriel Mountains. We find that a local marine background can be established to within  ∼  1 ppm CO_2 and  ∼  10 ppb CH_4 using these local measurement sites. Overall, atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane levels are highly variable across Los Angeles. Urban and suburban sites show moderate to large CO_2 and CH_4 enhancements relative to a marine background estimate. The USC (University of Southern California) site near downtown LA exhibits median hourly enhancements of  ∼  20 ppm CO_2 and  ∼  150 ppb CH_4 during 2015 as well as  ∼  15 ppm CO_2 and  ∼  80 ppb CH_4 during mid-afternoon hours (12:00–16:00 LT, local time), which is the typical period of focus for flux inversions. The estimated measurement uncertainty is typically better than 0.1 ppm CO_2 and 1 ppb CH_4 based on the repeated standard gas measurements from the LA sites during the last 2 years, similar to Andrews et al. (2014). The largest component of the measurement uncertainty is due to the single-point calibration method; however, the uncertainty in the background mole fraction is much larger than the measurement uncertainty. The background uncertainty for the marine background estimate is  ∼  10 and  ∼  15 % of the median mid-afternoon enhancement near downtown LA for CO_2 and CH_4, respectively. Overall, analytical and background uncertainties are small relative to the local CO_2 and CH_4 enhancements; however, our results suggest that reducing the uncertainty to less than 5 % of the median mid-afternoon enhancement will require detailed assessment of the impact of meteorology on background conditions

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy