Regional inequalities in benzene exposures across the European petrochemical industry : a Bayesian multilevel modelling approach

Background Pollutants released from the petrochemical industry are thought to increase the risk of mortality in fence-line communities, yet the results from previous studies are often inconsistent and lack a global perspective, hampered by the absence of cohesive cross-country research. Objectives To provide the first Pan-European analysis of benzene exposures from the petrochemical industry, connecting polluting practices to pollution episodes and disparities in regional mortality rates, identifying the measures of best environmental practice to mitigate adverse outcomes. Methods The activity, classification and location of onshore petrochemical facilities within EU-28 Member States were extracted from the ‘European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register’ (E-PRTR), which holds records on 31,753 industrial operations for the reporting period of 2007–15. Parent company records were collected from the Moody's Analytics Amadeus database of 487,338 active companies across Europe. The EUROSTAT census provided records of income, life expectancy, and the underlying demographics used to calculate standardised health outcomes based on 9,936 sub-populations within the NUTS2 regions. The European Environment Agency provided ambient concentrations of benzene from 579 air quality stations. Bayesian multilevel models were constructed to account for variability caused by spatial hierarchical structures, uncertainty in the estimates, and to incorporate both individual and group-level influences. Results Higher levels of benzene emissions from petrochemical operations, both overall and in terms of specific pollution events, were associated with increased mortality rates for nearby residential populations, particularly in areas with socioeconomic deprivation. We identify uneven patterns of polluting practices within the industry, and locations that require epidemiological studies. Conclusions While petrochemical facilities in all European Union regions are regulated to be compliant with the annual average benzene limit of 5 μg/m3, uneven exposures still present regional health inequalities. We recommend extending benzene regulations to an hourly or daily limit, alongside the strengthening of regulation for other toxic petrochemical releases

Young women’s reflections on attending a private girls’ school

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to debates on the merits, or otherwise, of single sex education through exploring the experience of attending a private girls’ school from the perspective of recent alumnae. In this study, 50 alumnae aged 23-28 years were surveyed, and 10 interviewed, reflecting on their experience of school and early career progression. The alumnae all progressed to higher education, entering elite institutions, broadly in line with the private sector as a whole, reflecting a ‘premium’ in terms of access to elite universities and professional careers. It is difficult to determine the extent to which their progress is attributable to their social background rather than the school. However, the alumnae reported high levels of confidence they believed to have developed through school and continuing through their early careers. They reported a high degree of engagement with school activities, suggesting identification with the school and making much of the opportunities available. They also reflected on the quality of friendships, the support from teachers, as well as difficulties with cliques. Finally, many reported the freedom to ‘be themselves’, and not conform to traditional gender stereotypes. These elements underpin the confidence the alumnae believe was developed in school. A sense of ‘fitting in’ at school is associated with school engagement and can enhance confidence. The quality of friendships and being part of a friendship group appears to be an important, and arguably unique, feature of girls’ schools. Confidence is enhanced through group membership; thus, friendships are important for the development of confidence. The experience of gender stereotyping can reduce girls’ confidence, whilst its reduction can help build confidence. Expectations of heteronormative femininity may be reduced, and girls have greater freedom to ‘be themselves’ and speak up. This study contributes to the wider literature by broadening our understanding of the sector and offers a particular perspective on the wider role of engendering confidence in education. The thesis concludes by discussing how some of the positive aspects of the school, reported by the alumnae might be incorporated into less socially and academically selective environments

Aircraft noise and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality near Heathrow Airport: A case-crossover study

Aircraft noise causes annoyance and sleep disturbance and there is some evidence of associations between long-term exposures and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We investigated short-term associations between previous day aircraft noise and cardiovascular events in a population of 6.3 million residing near Heathrow Airport using a case-crossover design and exposure data for different times of day and night. We included all recorded hospitalisations (n = 442,442) and deaths (n = 49,443) in 2014–2018 due to CVD. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the ORs and adjusted for NO2 concentration, temperature, and holidays. We estimated an increase in risk for 10 dB increment in noise during the previous evening (Leve OR = 1.007, 95% CI 0.999–1.015), particularly from 22:00–23:00 h (OR = 1.007, 95% CI 1.000–1.013), and the early morning hours 04:30–06:00 h (OR = 1.012, 95% CI 1.002–1.021) for all CVD admissions, but no significant associations with day-time noise. There was effect modification by age-sex, ethnicity, deprivation, and season, and some suggestion that high noise variability at night was associated with higher risks. Our findings are consistent with proposed mechanisms for short-term impacts of aircraft noise at night on CVD from experimental studies, including sleep disturbance, increases in blood pressure and stress hormone levels and impaired endothelial function

Aircraft noise and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality near Heathrow Airport: a case-crossover study

Aircraft noise causes annoyance and sleep disturbance and there is some evidence of associations between long-term exposures and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We investigated short-term associations between previous day aircraft noise and cardiovascular events in a population of 6.3 million residing near Heathrow Airport using a case-crossover design and exposure data for different times of day and night. We included all recorded hospitalisations (n=442,442) and deaths (n=49,443) in 2014-2018 due to CVD. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the ORs and adjusted for NO2 concentration, temperature, and holidays. We estimated an increase in risk for 10dB increment in noise during the previous evening (Leve OR = 1.007, 95% CI 0.999-1.015), particularly from 22:00-23:00h (OR= 1.007, 95% CI 1.000-1.013), and the early morning hours 04:30-06:00h (OR= 1.012, 95% CI 1.002-1.021) for all CVD admissions, but no significant associations with day-time noise. There was effect modification by age-sex, ethnicity, deprivation, and season, and some suggestion that high noise variability at night was associated with higher risks. Our findings are consistent with proposed mechanisms for short-term impacts of aircraft noise at night on CVD from experimental studies, including sleep disturbance, increases in blood pressure and stress hormone levels and impaired endothelial function

Learning from the early adopters: developing the digital practitioner

This paper explores how Sharpe and Beetham’s Digital Literacies Framework which was derived to model students’ digital literacies, can be applied to lecturers’ digital literacy practices. Data from a small-scale phenomenological study of higher education lecturers who used Web 2.0 in their teaching and learning practices are used to examine if this pyramid model represents their motivations for adopting technology-enhanced learning in their pedagogic practices. The paper argues that whilst Sharpe and Beetham’s model has utility in many regards, these lecturers were mainly motivated by the desire to achieve their pedagogic goals rather than by a desire to become a digital practitioner

Spatial assessment of the attributable burden of disease due to transportation noise in England.

BACKGROUND: Noise pollution from transportation is one of the leading contributors to the environmental disease burden in Europe. We provide a novel assessment of spatial variations of these health impacts within a country, using England as an example. METHODS: We estimated the burden of annoyance (highly annoyed), sleep disturbance (highly sleep disturbed), ischemic heart disease (IHD), stroke, and diabetes attributable to long-term transportation noise exposures in England for the adult population in 2018 down to local authority level (average adult population: 136,000). To derive estimates, we combined literature-informed exposure-response relationships, with population data on noise exposures, disease, and mortalities. Long-term average noise exposures from road, rail and aircraft were sourced from strategic noise mapping, with a lower exposure threshold of 50 dB (decibels) Lden and Lnight. RESULTS: 40 %, 4.5 % and 4.8 % of adults in England were exposed to road, rail, and aircraft noise exceeding 50 dB Lden. We estimated close to a hundred thousand (∼97,000) disability adjusted life years (DALY) lost due to road-traffic, ∼13,000 from railway, and ∼ 17,000 from aircraft noise. This excludes some noise-outcome pairs as there were too few studies available to provide robust exposure-response estimates. Annoyance and sleep disturbance accounted for the majority of the DALYs, followed by strokes, IHD, and diabetes. London, the South East, and North West regions had the greatest number of road-traffic DALYs lost, while 63 % of all aircraft noise DALYs were found in London. The strategic noise mapping did not include all roads, which may still have significant traffic flows. In sensitivity analyses using modelled noise from all roads in London, the DALYs were 1.1x to 2.2x higher. CONCLUSION: Transportation noise exposures contribute to a significant and unequal environmental disease burden in England. Omitting minor roads from the noise exposure modelling leads to underestimation of the disease burden

Surveillance, performativity and normalised practice: the use and impact of graded lesson observations in Further Education colleges

In little over a decade, the observation of teaching and learning (OTL) has become the cornerstone of Further Education (FE) colleges’ quality systems for assuring and improving the professional skills and knowledge base of tutors. Yet OTL remains an under-researched area of inquiry with little known about the impact of its use on the professional identity, learning and development of FE tutors. This paper examines the specific practice of graded OTL and in so doing discusses findings from a mixed-methods study conducted in 10 colleges situated across the West Midlands region of England. Data from a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews were analysed within a theoretical framework that drew largely on aspects of Foucauldian theory as well as the twin phenomena of new managerialism and performativity. This analysis revealed how OTL has become normalised as a performative tool of managerialist systems designed to assure and improve standards, performance and accountability in teaching and learning. It is argued that FE has now outgrown graded OTL and it is time for a moratorium on its use. Colleges and tutors need to be given greater professional autonomy with regard to OTL and be allowed to develop their own systems that place professional learning and development at the forefront, rather than the requirements of performance management systems

Geostatistical modelling of health inequalities associated with exposure to road-transport emissions

Road-transport accounts for a substantial proportion of the air quality objective pollutants experienced within the post-industrial cityscape. Traditionally, investigations have quantified the temporal health effects of such pollutants, yet the confined nature of European intraurban environments often determine spatial variations in traffic pollutant levels, which tend to be associated with a plethora of social disparities. Recently, elements of spatial heterogeneity have attracted the attention of governmental advisory committees, whom acknowledge a limited understanding of spatially inclusive practices in-spite of their potentially valuable applications (COMEAP 2006). Through considering spatial variations in children’s respiratory health, across the model British multicultural City of Leicester (Vidal-Hall 2003), this project aimed to address the inadequacies of temporal models in capturing Pearce et al’s (2010) wider ‘triple jeopardy’. The projects findings indicated significant global relationships to exist between children’s hospitalisations, social-economic-status, ethnic minorities, and PM10 road-transport emissions within Leicester. ‘Local Indicators of Spatial Association’ and ‘Geographically Weighted Regression’ identified important localised variations within the dataset, specifically relating to a ‘double-burden’ of residentially experienced road-transport emissions and deprivation effecting inner-city children’s respiratory health. Further examination of the spatial field’s, revealed critical distance-responses to exist between respiratory health fronts and select socio-environmental phenomenon, thus recognising the importance of exposure gradients found in the every-day environment. It was suggested that exposure to detrimental socio-environmental factors initiated upper respiratory episodes, with prolonged contact impeding recovery leaving the child vulnerable to infection, exacerbating previous complaints and potentially causing conditions of greater severity. These findings provide a preliminary link between extreme cases of ‘Catarrhal Child Syndrome’ and socio-environmental influences, a conclusion previously eluding medical practitioners. Interestingly, affluent intra-urban communities tended to contribute the highest levels of emission from private transport, whilst residentially experiencing few environmental burdens. Thus, indicating that environmental injustices prevail across the model British multicultural city of Leicester. To readdress such environmental imbalances, the project suggested and explored a selection of general and community tailored transport schemes. In conclusion, geostatistical approaches are viewed to be an effective set of tools for health and urban planners, in the management of localised issues, which have previously been ‘filtered’ out by temporal practices