Good places for ageing in place : development of objective built environment measures for investigating links with older people's wellbeing

Background: There is renewed interest in the role of the built environment in public health. Relatively little research to date investigates its impact on healthy ageing. Ageing in place has been adopted as a key strategy for coping with the challenges of longevity. What is needed is a better understanding of how individual characteristics of older people’s residential environments (from front door to wider neighbourhood) contribute to their wellbeing, in order to provide the basis for evidence-based housing/urban design and development of interventions. This research aimed to develop a tool to objectively measure a large range of built environment characteristics, as the basis for a preliminary study of potential relationships with a number of ‘place-related’ functional, emotional and social wellbeing constructs. Methods: Through a review of urban design literature, design documents, and existing measures, a new tool, the NeDeCC (Neighbourhood Design Characteristics Checklist) was developed. It was piloted, refined, and its reliability validated through inter-rater tests. A range of place-related wellbeing constructs were identified and measured through interviews with 200 older people living in a wide variety of rural-urban environments and different types of housing in England. The NeDeCC was used to measure the residential environment of each participant, and significant bivariate relationships with wellbeing variables were identified. Results: The NeDeCC was found to have convincing face and construct validity and good inter-rater and test/ retest reliability, though it would benefit from use of digital data sources such as Google Earth to eliminate the need for on-site survey. The significant relationships found in the study suggest that there may be characteristics of residential environments of potential relevance for older people’s lives that have been overlooked in research to date, and that it may be worthwhile to question some of the assumptions about where and how older people want to live (e.g. villages seem to be positive). They also point to the importance of considering non-linear relationships. Conclusions: The NeDeCC provides the basis for generation of evidence-based design guidance if it is used in prospective controlled studies or ‘natural experiments’ in the future. Ultimately, this will facilitate the creation of better places for ageing in place

Institutions and social entrepreneurship:the role of institutional voids, institutional support, and institutional configurations

We develop the institutional configuration perspective to understand which national contexts facilitate social entrepreneurship (SE). We confirm joint effects on SE of formal regulatory (government activism), informal cognitive (postmaterialist cultural values), and informal normative (socially supportive cultural norms, or weak-tie social capital) institutions in a multilevel study of 106,484 individuals in 26 nations. We test opposing propositions from the institutional void and institutional support perspectives. Our results underscore the importance of resource support from both formal and informal institutions, and highlight motivational supply side influences on SE. They advocate greater consideration of institutional configurations in institutional theory and comparative entrepreneurship research

Leadership Behaviour and Upward Feedback: Findings from a Longitudinal Intervention

A sample of 48 managers and 308 staff members of a community health care organization took part in a study to investigate the influence of participating in an upward feedback program on leadership behaviour, both as indicated be self-ratings and subordinates’ ratings. The research design consisted of three measurement points within one year. The intervention included managers receiving upward feedback and a management skills workshop. The results showed a negative effect of the program on leadership behaviour as rated by the staff. Furthermore, managers reduced their self-ratings in the condition where they participated in both a feedback session and an management skills workshop

Laser-driven resonance of dye-doped oil-coated microbubbles: A theoretical and numerical study

Microbubbles are used to enhance the contrast in ultrasound imaging. When coated with an optically absorbing material, these bubbles can also provide contrast in photoacoustic imaging. This multimodal aspect is of pronounced interest to the field of medical imaging. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework to describe the physical phenomena underlying the photoacoustic response. This article presents a model for a spherical gas microbubble suspended in an aqueous environment and coated with an oil layer containing an optically absorbing dye. The model includes heat transfer between the gas core and the surrounding liquids. This framework is suitable for the investigation of both continuous wave and pulsed laser excitation. This work utilizes a combination of finite difference simulations and numerical integration to determine the dependancy on the physical properties, including composition and thickness of the oil layer on the microbubble response. A normalization scheme for a linearized version of the model was derived to facilitate comparison with experimental measurements. The results show that viscosity and thickness of the oil layer determine whether or not microbubble resonance can be excited. This work also examines the use of non-sinusoidal excitation to promote harmonic imaging techniques to further improve the imaging sensitivity

Bed of roses? The role of garden space in older people’s well-being

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of outdoor housing environment (OHE), including front and back gardens, yards, courtyards, patios and balconies, in older people’s well-being. Descriptions of their OHEs were collected from 2558 individuals living in 526 distinct housing developments using a postal questionnaire. A large range of background variables were measured, mainly through the questionnaire. Characteristics of respondents’ immediate neighbourhood environments were measured from digital maps and satellite/bird’s-eye images. Among the OHE variables, statistically significant predictors of well-being were having one’s own patio (as opposed to shared or none), and having a green view from one’s living area (a positive effect on well-being). The authors conclude that it would be beneficial for older people’s housing to include private patio space, where possible, as well as a large amount of greenery. The research supports the claim that older people benefit from green space as much by viewing it from inside as spending time in it. If older people have no or very little garden space, a green street environment is likely to increase their well-being, especially if it can be seen from their home

A longitudinal study of well-being, confidence and competence in junior doctors and the impact of emergency medicine placements.

OBJECTIVES: To measure levels of, and change in junior doctor well-being, confidence and self-reported competence over their second postgraduate training year and the impact of emergency department (ED) placements on these outcomes. DESIGN: A longitudinal study using an online survey administered at four time points (2010-2011). SETTING: 28 Acute Hospital Trusts, drawn from nine participating Postgraduate Deaneries in England. PARTICIPANTS: Junior doctors who had a placement in an ED as part of their second postgraduate training year. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Levels of anxiety, depression, motivation, job satisfaction, confidence and self-reported competence, collected at four time points spread over the period of the doctor's second training year (F2). RESULTS: 217 junior doctors were recruited to the study. Over the year there was a significant increase in their overall job satisfaction, confidence and self-reported competence. Junior doctors also reported significantly increased levels of motivation and anxiety, and significantly decreased levels of extrinsic job satisfaction when working in ED compared with other specialties. There were also significant increases in both junior doctor confidence and self-reported competence after their placement in ED relative to other specialties. CONCLUSIONS: While elements of junior doctor well-being worsened in their ED placement compared with their time spent in other specialties, the increased levels of anxiety and reduced extrinsic job satisfaction were within the normal range for other healthcare workers. These deficits were also balanced by greater improvements in motivation, confidence in managing common acute clinical conditions and perceived competence in performing acute procedures compared with benefits offered by placements in other specialties

Using the theory of planned behavior to explore environmental behavioral intentions in the workplace

This paper presents a study using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explore environmental behavioral intentions in a workplace setting. The first stage of the research process was the development of a questionnaire covering TPB constructs, their antecedent beliefs, and environmental behavioral intentions across three scenarios (switching off PCs every time employees left their desks for an hour or more; using video-conferencing for meetings that would otherwise require travel; and recycling as much waste as possible), using best practice guidelines to ensure that it was specific and precisely defined for the target population. This was then administered to N = 449 participants, with the resulting dataset used to test hypotheses relating antecedent beliefs to behavioral intentions via the potentially mediating effect of TPB constructs. TPB constructs were found to explain between 46% and 61% of the variance in employee intentions to engage in three environmental behaviors, and to mediate the effects of specific antecedent beliefs upon employee intentions to engage in these behaviors. The results form a basis upon which interventions could be developed within the host organization, and are discussed in relation to their implications, in terms of theory, practice and future research

Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction, Recovery State, and Recovery Timing

This study aimed to provide insight into recovery from work-related load effects by examining (1) whether basic psychological need satisfaction (BPN satisfaction) during non-work days facilitates recovery; (2) whether the effect of BPN satisfaction is stronger in case of an unfavorable initial recovery state; and (3) whether the association between BPN satisfaction and recovery is stronger on non-work weekend days compared to nonwork weekdays. Data were collected across seven consecutive days from 205 employees (39% shift workers). Fatigue and depressed mood were assessed as indicators of (failed) recovery. Multilevel analyses revealed that BPN satisfaction during non-work days was related to improved recovery state. This association was stronger if employees had experienced elevated fatigue on the preceding day, and on non-work weekend days compared to non-work weekdays

Divergent tree seedling communities indicate different trajectories of change among rainforest remnants

Aim: To examine plant community composition within rain forest remnants, and whether communities in different fragments follow similar trajectories of change in composition. We investigate whether plant communities in rain forest fragments either diverge from, or become more similar to, plant communities in other fragments, in order to understand the biodiversity value of forest fragments. Location: Rain forest fragments embedded within agricultural landscapes in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Methods: We examined 14 forest fragments (39–120,000 ha) and five sites in continuous forest, and compared pre-isolation (trees >5 cm dbh) and post-isolation (seedlings <1 cm dbh) plant community composition. We used Chao-Sørensen dissimilarity metric to compute beta diversity between all pairwise combinations of sites, and then used Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling to reduce 18 pairwise values per site to a single site value, which we used to test whether fragment area and/or isolation are associated with changes in plant communities. We compare analyses for trees and seedlings, and whether community changes arise from recruitment failure. Results: Seedlings in fragments have diverged most from other communities, and divergence was greatest between seedling communities in small fragments, which have not only diverged more from tree communities in the same fragment, but also from seedling communities at other sites. This finding is partly associated with recruitment failure: the number of genera represented by both trees and seedlings is positively associated with site area. Main conclusions: Seedling communities are diverging in forest remnants, associated primarily with reductions in fragment area, whilst tree communities have not diverged, possibly due to extinction debts. Divergence is likely to continue as seedling cohorts mature, resulting in communities in fragments following different trajectories of change. Individual plant communities in each fragment may become impoverished, but they can support different communities of plants and hence contribute to landscape-scale diversity