Pathways to permanence in England and Norway: A critical analysis of documents and data

The English language term ‘permanence’ is increasingly used in high income countries as a ‘short-hand’ translation for a complex set of aims around providing stability and family membership for children who need child welfare services and out-of-home care. From a scrutiny of legislative provisions, court judgments, government documents and a public opinion survey on child placement options, the paper draws out similarities and differences in understandings of the place of ‘permanence’ within the child welfare discourse in Norway and England. The main differences are that in England the components of permanence are explicitly set out in legislation, statutory guidance and advisory documents whilst in Norway the terms ‘stability’ and ‘continuity’ are used in a more limited number of policy documents in the context of a wide array of services available for children and families. The paper then draws on these sources, and on administrative data on children in care, to tease out possible explanations for the similarities and differences identified. We hypothesise that both long-standing policies and recent changes can be explained by differences in public and political understandings of child welfare and the balance between universal services and those targeted on parents and children identified as vulnerable and in need of specialist services

School-based targeted prevention compared to specialist mental health treatment for youth anxiety

Background The ‘FRIENDS for life’ program (FRIENDS) is a 10-session cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program used for prevention and treatment of youth anxiety. There is discussion about whether FRIENDS is best applied as prevention or as treatment. Methods We compared FRIENDS delivered in schools as targeted prevention to a previous specialist mental health clinic trial. The targeted prevention sample (N = 82; Mage = 11.6 years, SD = 2.1; 75.0% girls) was identified and recruited by school nurses in collaboration with a community psychologist. The clinical sample (N = 88, Mage = 11.7 years, SD = 2.1; 54.5% girls) was recruited for a randomized controlled trial from community child- and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics and was diagnosed with anxiety disorders. Results Both samples showed significantly reduced anxiety symptoms from baseline to postintervention, with medium mean effect sizes across raters (youths and parents) and timepoints (post; 12-months follow-up). Baseline youth-reported anxiety symptom levels were similar between the samples, whereas parent-reported youth anxiety was higher in the clinical sample. Conclusions The study suggests that self-reported anxiety levels may not differ between youth recruited in schools and in clinic settings. The results indicate promising results of the FRIENDS program when delivered in schools by less specialized health personnel from the school health services, as well as when delivered in clinics by trained mental health professionals.publishedVersio

Canary in the coalmine: Norwegian attitudes towards climate change and extreme long-haul air travel to Aotearoa/New Zealand

Accelerating global climate change poses considerable challenges to all societies and economies. The European Union now targets a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. Indeed, the Labour-led Norwegian government is committed to carbon neutrality across all sectors of the economy by 2030. Aviation has been identified as a rapidly growing contributor to CO2 emissions. This article reports on a research project that explored Norwegian attitudes towards climate change, particularly as they relate to extreme long-haul air travel to Aotearoa/New Zealand. It reveals that the 'dream trip' to New Zealand for Norwegians is still largely intact. It also finds evidence of 'air travel with a carbon conscience' arising from growing concern for high frequency discretionary air travel. Evidence of denial of the climate impact of air travel that recent studies have revealed was largely absent. Interviewees expressed a greater concern for short-haul air travel emissions than for the climate impact of long-haul travel. However, intentions to adapt long-haul travel behaviours were expressed, highlighting the need to monitor consumer attitudes towards the impact of air travel on climate change. We conclude that Norway is a vanguard European tourism market in terms of climate sensitivity

Isn’t it good, Norwegian wood? Lifestyle and adventure sports participation among Norwegian youth

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Leisure Studies on 19/08/2014, available online: doi: 10.1080/02614367.2014.938771Based primarily on quantitative data from the Norwegian Statistisk Sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway) study of Mosjon, Friluftsliv og Kulturaktiviteter (Vaage, 2009) supplemented by a little qualitative data, this paper explores Norwegian youngsters’ (and, to a lesser extent, adults’) engagement with conventional and lifestyle sports via an examination of recent trends. Norway boasts particularly high levels of sports participation as well as sports club membership among young people and young Norwegians are the quintessential sporting omnivores. Nevertheless, among the age group where regular participation peaks in Norway (16-19-year-olds) the popularity of games declined over the decade 1997-2007 while participation in lifestyle sports continued to increase (Vaage, 2009). It seems that the particular mix of conventional and lifestyle sports that Norwegian youngsters favour has shifted within a generation, with lifestyle activities more prominent in 2007 than they had been even a decade earlier. The changes in participation in a particular area of sporting participation strongly associated with Norwegian culture – friluftsliv (outdoor life) – may well represent a shift among Norwegian youth towards sports and physical activities that offer alternative forms, as well as types, of participation to conventional sports. They may also represent alternative motivations to those traditionally associated with sport and, for that matter, friluftsliv. The paper draws upon these findings in order to tentatively hypothesize developments in youth leisure-sport in Norway

The potential savings of using thiazides as the first choice antihypertensive drug: cost-minimisation analysis

BACKGROUND: All clinical practice guidelines recommend thiazides as a first-choice drug for the management of uncomplicated hypertension. Thiazides are also the lowest priced antihypertensive drugs. Despite this, the use of thiazides is much lower than that of other drug-classes. We wanted to estimate the potential for savings if thiazides were used as the first choice drug for the management of uncomplicated hypertension. METHODS: For six countries (Canada, France, Germany, Norway, the UK and the US) we estimated the number of people that are being treated for hypertension, and the proportion of them that are suitable candidates for thiazide-therapy. By comparing this estimate with thiazide prescribing, we calculated the number of people that could switch from more expensive medication to thiazides. This enabled us to estimate the potential drug-cost savings. The analysis was based on findings from epidemiological studies and drug trials, and data on sales and prescribing provided by IMS for the year 2000. RESULTS: For Canada, France, Germany, Norway, the UK and the US the estimated potential annual savings were US$13.8 million, US$37.4 million, US$72.2 million, US$10.7 million, US$119.7 million and US$433.6 million, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Millions of dollars could be saved each year if thiazides were prescribed for hypertension in place of more expensive drugs. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions. The potential for savings is likely considerably higher and may be more than US$1 billion per year in the US

The association of grip strength from midlife onwards with all-cause and cause-specific mortality over 17\hspace0.25emyears of follow-up in the Tromso Study.

Background Grip strength has consistently been found to predict all-cause mortality rates. However, few studies have examined cause-specific mortality or tested age differences in these associations. Methods In 1994, grip strength was measured in the population-based Tromsø Study, covering the ages 50–80 years (N=6850). Grip strength was categorised into fifths, and as z-scores. In this cohort study, models with all-cause mortality and deaths from specific causes as the outcome were performed, stratified by sex and age using Cox regression, adjusting for lifestyle-related and health-related factors. Results During 17 years of follow-up, 2338 participants died. A 1 SD reduction in grip strength was associated with HR=1.17 (95% CI 1.12 to 1.22) for allcause mortality in a model adjusted for age, gender and body size. This association was similar across all age groups, in men and women, and robust to adjustment for a range of lifestyle-related and health-related factors. Results for deaths due to cardiovascular disease (CVD), respiratory diseases and external causes resembled those for all-cause mortality, while for cancer, the association was much weaker and not significant after adjustment for lifestyle-related and health-related factors. Conclusions Weaker grip strength was associated with increased all-cause mortality rates, with similar effects on deaths due to CVD, respiratory disease and external causes, while a much weaker association was observed for cancer-related deaths. These associations were similar in both genders and across age groups, which supports the hypothesis that grip strength might be a biomarker of ageing over the lifespan