Staff information and training needs for offering support to mid-life and older women who are experiencing homelessness and problem substance use: a survey.

Introduction: Current research in the UK has yet to investigate the health care needs and treatment preferences of mid-life and older women (aged 40+) who are experiencing homelessness as well as challenges related to substance use (drugs and alcohol). This briefing paper reports on an online survey undertaken with staff working with women using homelessness services. The survey's aim was to help inform third sector organisations of the views and knowledge of staff working with women experiencing homelessness in terms of healthcare provision, as well as the training needs they require when supporting these women

Older women managing relationships and navigating health in drugs recovery: A qualitative study

The proportion of older people using illicit drugs in the UK has increased significantly over the last decade. Despite this, there are relatively few UK studies that explore the lived experiences of older people who use illicit drugs and fewer still that seek to understand the experiences of older women. The aim of this thesis therefore is to contribute a number of important insights into this neglected area of older women’s experiences of drug use and recovery. It does this by exploring the lived experiences of 19 women from Scotland and North East England ranging in age from 36 to 60, who made the move from illicit drug use to recovery, focusing specifically on their social relationships, health and bodies, and the therapeutic landscape available to them as mid-life and older women. Grounded in symbolic interactionism and methodologically feminist, this study is qualitative in design and approach. Seeking to explore the women’s experiences from their particular standpoints, the semi-structured interviews included the use of meaningful objects. Including objects in the interviews provided a collaborative opportunity to explore the memories, images and meanings women gave to their possessions. Data analysis was inductive and followed Braun and Clarke’s six phases of thematic analysis, including an open and selective coding strategy. The data analysis raised important insights into the relatively unexplored area of family dynamics among older women in recovery. This demonstrated how recovery was for many a work in progress in which interactions with others, participation in social activities, belonging to social networks and engaging in everyday routines encouraged them to set boundaries and assume more control over their relationships. Thus they developed a sense of self far removed from their former identities as women who used drugs. Recovery as it was felt by the women was a complex bodily process in which the absence of drugs brought forward new pains and bodily sensations which they had to learn to manage and understand as ageing, recovering, drug-free bodies. The findings further highlighted how menstruation and the menopause were events that could interrupt and disrupt the women’s bodies and where symptoms needed to be reinterpreted as natural bodily processes. This thesis contributes to the wider literature on people who use drugs and crucially adds women’s voices to the neglected but important area of older people’s experiences of recovery from illicit drug use. The women’s stories weave a rich tapestry of experiences that go beyond the usual tropes of pregnancy, motherhood and intimate relationships. They reveal how relationships with significant others are just one thread in their recovery. Disentangling the threads in the women’s narratives, a picture emerges of women’s everyday interactions and relationships with objects, significant others, treatment others, and their own ageing and recovering bodies

Staff information and training needs for offering support to mid-life and older women who are experiencing homelessness and problem substance use: a survey.

Introduction: Current research in the UK has yet to investigate the health care needs and treatment preferences of mid-life and older women (aged 40+) who are experiencing homelessness as well as challenges related to substance use (drugs and alcohol). This briefing paper reports on an online survey undertaken with staff working with women using homelessness services. The survey's aim was to help inform third sector organisations of the views and knowledge of staff working with women experiencing homelessness in terms of healthcare provision, as well as the training needs they require when supporting these women

Disappearing Injustices: The Invisibility of Gender and Racial Injustice In Thomas Pogge’s Analysis of Severe Poverty and Human Rights

Thomas Pogge’s argument that the global economic order is harming the poor by causing severe poverty problematically ignores gender and race. I argue that it is only on the surface that his work is gender and race neutral and that a deeper examination reveals a covert gender and race bias that erases the gender and racial injustices committed by global economic institutions. I first argue that the feminization of poverty should be a conceptual starting point for assessing severe poverty. I use SAPs and microcredit to show that women are being disproportionately harmed by the economic policies of transnational economic institutions. Similarly, Pogge misses the salience of race to the structure of current transnational economic institutions, which are shaped by past racism and colonization. Rather than emphasize national inequalities, as Pogge does, it is necessary to look at how such inequalities are racially structured in order to grasp the nature of the moral ills producing severe poverty. Here, I draw upon Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract. I then assess Pogge’s institutional theory of human rights, arguing that there is a gender bias in his theory, which ignores the systematic nature of gender violence, especially domestic violence. I suggest that his theory can be modified and that reflection on the nature of gender violence points the way to a gender inclusive institutional account of human rights. Finally, I argue that Pogge’s theory is blind to institutional racism as a feature of the current global economic order. Institutional racism constitutes a serious human rights violation by perpetuating severe poverty and violating individuals’ rights to be free from racial discrimination. I build upon Gertrude Ezorsky’s definition of institutional racism to support my claim. My project is to uncover gender and race bias in order show the moral salience of race and gender to severe poverty and human rights

Paying attention to women's ageing bodies in recovery from substance use

Background: Health-related research on women who use drugs tends to focus on reproductive and sexual health and treatment. Missing from the picture is an exploration of mid-life and older women’s bodily experiences of transitioning from long-term substance use into recovery. While there are a growing number of studies that explore the intersection of drug use and ageing, the gaps in analysis lie in the intersections between drug use, recovery, ageing, gender, and the body. Methods: In-depth qualitative interviews were undertaken with 19 women in the UK who self-identified as ‘in recovery’ from illicit drug use. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis techniques. The study received ethical approval from the University of Glasgow. Results: Key findings from the interviews relate to the women’s personal sense of power in relation to current and future health status, the challenges they endured in terms of ageing in recovery and transitioning through the reproductive life cycle, and the somatic effects of trauma on women’s recovery. The findings demonstrate that health in recovery involves more than abstinence from drugs. Discussion: Moving from the body in active drug use to the body in recovery is not without its challenges for mid-life and older women. New sensations and feelings - physical and mental - must be re-interpreted in light of their ageing and drug-free bodies. This study reveals some of the substantive sex-based differences that older women in active drug use and recovery experience. This has important implications for healthcare and treatment for women in drug services and women with histories of drug use more generally

Gene expression profiling of human whole blood samples with the Illumina WG-DASL assay

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Microarray-based gene expression analysis of peripheral whole blood is a common strategy in the development of clinically relevant biomarker panels for a variety of human diseases. However, the results of such an analysis are often plagued by decreased sensitivity and reliability due to the effects of relatively high levels of globin mRNA in whole blood. Globin reduction assays have been shown to overcome such effects, but they require large amounts of total RNA and may induce distinct gene expression profiles. The Illumina whole genome DASL assay can detect gene expression levels using partially degraded RNA samples and has the potential to detect rare transcripts present in highly heterogeneous whole blood samples without the need for globin reduction. We assessed the utility of the whole genome DASL assay in an analysis of peripheral whole blood gene expression profiles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We find that gene expression detection is significantly increased with the use of whole genome DASL compared to the standard IVT-based direct hybridization. Additionally, globin-probe negative whole genome DASL did not exhibit significant improvements over globin-probe positive whole genome DASL. Globin reduction further increases the detection sensitivity and reliability of both whole genome DASL and IVT-based direct hybridization with little effect on raw intensity correlations. Raw intensity correlations between total RNA and globin reduced RNA were 0.955 for IVT-based direct hybridization and 0.979 for whole genome DASL.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Overall, the detection sensitivity of the whole genome DASL assay is higher than the IVT-based direct hybridization assay, with or without globin reduction, and should be considered in conjunction with globin reduction methods for future blood-based gene expression studies.</p

Do Mothers and Fathers Hold Similar Views About Their Child's Arthritis?

Objective Evaluations of the well-being of children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) typically rely on parents as proxy respondents. An assumption of several studies appears to be that mothers' and fathers' ratings are interchangeable, as reports do not always specify which parent completed the assessments nor, in repeated measures, whether they were completed by the same parent. The aim of this study was to examine the level of agreement between mothers' and fathers' ratings of their child's quality of life (QOL) and to identify possible predictors of disagreement. Methods Mothers and fathers (n = 82) of children with JIA completed ratings of their child's symptoms, QOL, and measures of their mood and beliefs about their child's illness and treatment. The number of active and limited joints and the physician's global assessment were also recorded. Results Intraclass correlation coefficients between mothers' and fathers' ratings of physical and psychosocial QOL were high (0.824 and 0.755, respectively). However, calculation of difference scores revealed that 70.6% and 65.9%, respectively, were classified as discordant. Where parents differed, the direction of difference was not systematic. Discordance in parents' mood states and in their illness and treatment beliefs explained a small amount of the variance in discordance in QOL. Conclusion It should not be assumed that proxy ratings of a child's well-being can be generalized from one parent to the other. Studies that take repeated assessments should ensure that the same parent completes assessments at all time points. Other factors that may explain discordance between parents' ratings need to be explored