Individuals, Families and Neighbourhoods: Predictors of Domestic Abuse in Essex

The human and economic cost of domestic abuse is enormous. In the UK two women a week are dying as a result of their abuse and the cost to society and the economy is estimated to be in the region of £66 billion pounds a year. Having the ability to predict those most at risk is essential in identifying victims’ earlier, reducing harm and improving access to support and justice. Domestic abuse is also one of the most under-reported crimes, with the Crime Survey in England and Wales (CSEW) estimating that only 21 per cent of abuse is reported to the police. One of the implications of this is that current service responses are broadly designed around the needs of these known victims, even though they only account for one fifth of the likely total. This quantitative research adopts a multi-facated approach, using statistical analysis and geographical information systems, combined with social and geographical theory, to identify the risk factors and predictors of domestic abuse at the individual, family and neighbourhood level. The research finds that taking an intersectional approach to analysis at the individual and family level adds particular value, with the risk factors for repeat victimisation varying according to the gender, age and class of the victim and the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. At the neighbourhood level, this thesis makes a significant and unique contribution to theory and practice, discovering that the predictors of domestic abuse are not stationary over space. By combining the findings from each of the empirical chapters an overall causal pathway is proposed

The power of celebrity: Exploring the basis for Oprah's successful endorsement of Australia as a vacation destination

In December 2010, Tourism Australia and Tourism New South Wales (respectively, Australia’s national and Australia’s largest state tourism promotion agencies) entered into an agreement with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey (or Oprah) for Ms Winfrey to undertake a celebrity endorsement tourism marketing campaign for Australia. In executing this campaign, Oprah and 300 of what she called her ‘Ultimate Australia Adventure’ viewers visited iconic and less well-known tourism attractions around Australia. These visits were filmed and later broadcast as four episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show in the United States, Australia, and many other countries during January 2011. Longitudinal studies of subsequent visitation (especially from the United States) showed a delayed but significant surge in tourists, leading to Australian tourism authorities to mark the campaign a success. While celebrity endorsement has commonly been discussed in a marketing context, little attention has been given to celebrity endorsement in a tourism context ( Glover (2009) Celebrity endorsement in tourism advertising: effects on destination image. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 61(1): 16–23). This article investigates this issue, in particular, focussing on a close analysis of the content of the broadcasts to explore why the approach chosen for the campaign was successful. Results indicated that Oprah’s celebrity endorsement of Australia positioned the Australian brand effectively. Oprah’s ‘brand image’ had significant value as a celebrity endorser and that Oprah had strong appeal in these roles to the Tourism Australia target market. </jats:p

Behavioral Phenotyping of Juvenile Long-Evans and Sprague-Dawley Rats: Implications for Preclinical Models of Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The laboratory rat is emerging as an attractive preclinical animal model of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), allowing investigators to explore genetic, environmental and pharmacological manipulations in a species exhibiting complex, reciprocal social behavior. The present study was carried out to compare two commonly used strains of laboratory rats, Sprague-Dawley (SD) and Long-Evans (LE), between the ages of postnatal day (PND) 26-56 using high-throughput behavioral phenotyping tools commonly used in mouse models of ASD that we have adapted for use in rats. We detected few differences between young SD and LE strains on standard assays of exploration, sensorimotor gating, anxiety, repetitive behaviors, and learning. Both SD and LE strains also demonstrated sociability in the 3-chamber social approach test as indexed by spending more time in the social chamber with a constrained age/strain/sex matched novel partner than in an identical chamber without a partner. Pronounced differences between the two strains were, however, detected when the rats were allowed to freely interact with a novel partner in the social dyad paradigm. The SD rats in this particular testing paradigm engaged in play more frequently and for longer durations than the LE rats at both juvenile and young adult developmental time points. Results from this study that are particularly relevant for developing preclinical ASD models in rats are threefold: (i) commonly utilized strains exhibit unique patterns of social interactions, including strain-specific play behaviors, (ii) the testing environment may profoundly influence the expression of strain-specific social behavior and (iii) simple, automated measures of sociability may not capture the complexities of rat social interactions

Colchester Borough Homes - Community plan analysis

This report was commissioned by Colchester Borough Homes (CBH) and the University of Essex (UoE) HEFCE funded Catalyst Project to assist with the development of the CBH Community Plan. The Community Plan sets out to empower members of the community and CBH staff to recognise domestic abuse and to report suspicions to CBH. Having this information will not only enable early intervention but improve the capacity within the community. This report aims to provide a baseline from which CBH can plan their interventions and target their resources. A link has been identified between reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB) and domestic abuse, with 40 per cent of tenants who have suffered Domestic Abuse having had complaints made against them for Anti-Social Behaviour (CIH, 2018). With other research finding that people experience abuse for an average of three years before engaging with support services (Safelives, 2015), housing providers have found that they are ideally placed to identify domestic abuse and act as a first point of contact. Key to pushing this work forward has been the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance’s (DAHA), which was set up as a partnership between three agencies (Gentoo, Peabody and Standing Together) aimed at improving the housing sectors response to domestic abuse (DAHA, 2018). CBH are keen to take a proactive approach in identifying victims earlier, which will enable them to provide support and help victims to escape their abuse. The Young Colchester: Life Chances, Assets and Anti-Social Behaviour report, another Catalyst Project funded collaboration between Colchester Borough Council and the University of Essex, found that police reported ASB and CBH ASB cases had quite different geographic distributions. This report expands upon this work and offers CBH a baseline from which they can target future services and interventions

Safe and Well Evaluation Report

In August 2018 Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS) introduced Safe and Well visits to replace the previous home safety visits. The Safe and Well Visits were similar to the previous intervention, with key differences that officers could now offer assistive technology, home security advice and referrals to other support and guidance. The University of Essex have been assisting ECFRS to evaluate the new Safe and Well Visits. This report analyses feedback collected regarding the new visits, the process of evaluation and the impact on the number of Accidental Dwelling Fires (ADFs). Analysis of the first five months of Safe and Well was carried out in February 2019. From January 2019 onwards, a new recording method was introduced, whereby feedback forms were entered directly onto monthly downloads from CRM. This report therefore analyses all of the feedback that has been returned since this new recording scheme was introduced. The report aims to: • Measure the impact of the Safe and Well visits by analysing feedback from those receiving a visit; • Identify any limitations in the current feedback process; • Analyse the impact of Safe and Well visits on the number of Accidental Dwelling Fires (ADFs); • Make recommendations on how to streamline the evaluation process in the future

Understanding Domestic Abuse Perpetrators: using unsupervised machine learning to analyse a longitudinal dataset of domestic abuse incidents from Essex Police. A Home-Office funded project. 2022

This project set out to address the following question: Are there any common profiles of domestic abuse perpetrators in Essex, and do they present different risks and opportunities for targeted interventions? To answer this question we conducted a mixed-methods study, analysing a large, longitudinal database of domestic abuse incidents and suspect data -relating to 16,491 suspects and 40,488 observations between 2016-2020- provided by Essex Police. Our findings, presented in this executive summary, reveal at least 4 distinct clusters of domestic abuse suspects in Essex. We explore the implications of these for interventions, training, and commissioning, and make recommendations for further research

Preliminary evidence of neuropathology in nonhuman primates prenatally exposed to maternal immune activation

Maternal infection during pregnancy increases the risk for neurodevelopmental disorders in offspring. Rodent models have played a critical role in establishing maternal immune activation (MIA) as a causal factor for altered brain and behavioral development in offspring. We recently extended these findings to a species more closely related to humans by demonstrating that rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) prenatally exposed to MIA also develop abnormal behaviors. Here, for the first time, we present initial evidence of underlying brain pathology in this novel nonhuman primate MIA model. Pregnant rhesus monkeys were injected with a modified form of the viral mimic polyI:C (poly ICLC) or saline at the end of the first trimester. Brain tissue was collected from the offspring at 3.5 years and blocks of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA46) were used to analyze neuronal dendritic morphology and spine density using the Golgi-Cox impregnation method. For each case, 10 layer III pyramidal cells were traced in their entirety, including all apical, oblique and basal dendrites, and their spines. We further analyzed somal size and apical dendrite trunk morphology in 30 cells per case over a 30 μm section located 100 ± 10 μm from the soma. Compared to controls, apical dendrites of MIA-treated offspring were smaller in diameter and exhibited a greater number of oblique dendrites. These data provide the first evidence that prenatal exposure to MIA alters dendritic morphology in a nonhuman primate MIA model, which may have profound implications for revealing the underlying neuropathology of neurodevelopmental disorders related to maternal infection

Improving Patient Flow by Increasing Early Discharges on a Mother & Baby Unit

Discharging patients early in the day has many advantages amongst which is increased bed availability. However, the experience in a large academic tertiary medical center demonstrated that most discharges occurred early to mid afternoon. A care team on a mother /baby unit established a quality improvement project to increase the number of discharges by 11AM and streamline key discharge planning activities. A root cause analysis identified multiple barriers to attaining he established goals. To address these barriers, a multi prong approach was instituted to include a discharge education KPI for all unit staff. Data collection post countermeasure implementation demonstrated some early improvements morning discharges. Next steps include regular review of KPI goals and progress and their impact on project goals