ABSTRACT
The pandemic caused people to teach classes virtually that they never imagined could be taught virtually. Hands-on classes are among the most challenging to move from in-person to virtual. In this paper, we focus on how prototyping in engineering classes was handled when those classes were taught virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four engineering educators from a diverse set of four schools were engaged on this topic through written reflections and two focus groups. Learning from this experience has implications for these classes as they remain virtual and shift to hybrid and back to in-person. The four educators each found ways to make prototyping work in virtual classes. Shifting closed-ended prototyping from in-person to virtual classes was found to require less change than shifting open-ended prototyping. Within open-ended prototyping, the instructors generally narrowed scopes and took on less ambitious projects, with students engaging in new ways that produced impressive prototypes that surprised some the educators. Access to materials and tools was handled through different approaches, with curated sets of materials that maintain design freedom being important for open-ended projects while a standard set of materials for all teams worked for closedended projects. Students expressed more interest in doing projects individually. For those that worked on teams, approaches included having the whole team produce one prototype and having each person produce a prototype. Having each person produce their own prototype opened up the possibility that students would not truly collaborate. Even though they were all virtual, teams of students who had to make a single prototype generally worked better than expected.
ABSTRACT
People with disability are an at-risk group in the COVID-19 pandemic for a range of clinical and socioeconomic reasons. In recognition of this, Australians with disability and those who work with them were prioritized in access to vaccination, but the vaccination targets were not met. In this paper, we analyze qualitative data generated from a survey with 368 disability support workers to identify drivers of COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and why the implementation of this policy may have experienced challenges. We identify a range of themes within these data but ultimately argue that a major driver of vaccine hesitancy in this group is a mistrust of government and an erosion of employment terms and conditions. Drawing on the policy capacity literature, we argue that the "Achilles' heel" for the Australian government in this case is the critical policy capacity of political legitimacy. This finding has important implications for where the government needs to increase/build policy capacity, strengthening its efforts and better relating to organizations that can be helpful in terms of developing public health messaging for disability support workers.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To assess the quality of the research about how employment conditions and psychosocial workplace exposures impact the mental health of young workers, and to summarize the available evidence. METHODS: We undertook a systematic search of three databases using a tiered search strategy. Studies were included if they: (a) assessed employment conditions such as working hours, precarious employment, contract type, insecurity, and flexible work, or psychosocial workplace exposures such as violence, harassment and bullying, social support, job demand and control, effort-reward imbalance, and organizational justice; (b) included a validated mental health measure; and (c) presented results specific to young people aged ≤ 30 years or were stratified by age group to provide an estimate for young people aged ≤ 30 years. The quality of included studies was assessed using the Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies of Exposures (ROBINS-E) tool. RESULTS: Nine studies were included in the review. Four were related to employment conditions, capturing contract type and working hours. Five studies captured concepts relevant to psychosocial workplace exposures including workplace sexual harassment, psychosocial job quality, work stressors, and job control. The quality of the included studies was generally low, with six of the nine at serious risk of bias. Three studies at moderate risk of bias were included in the qualitative synthesis, and results of these showed contemporaneous exposure to sexual harassment and poor psychosocial job quality was associated with poorer mental health outcomes among young workers. Longitudinal evidence showed that exposure to low job control was associated with incident depression diagnosis among young workers. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this review illustrate that even better studies are at moderate risk of bias. Addressing issues related to confounding, selection of participants, measurement of exposures and outcomes, and missing data will improve the quality of future research in this area and lead to a clearer understanding of how employment conditions and psychosocial workplace exposures impact the mental health of young people. Generating high-quality evidence is particularly critical given the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on young people's employment. In preparing for a post-pandemic world where poor-quality employment conditions and exposure to psychosocial workplace exposures may become more prevalent, rigorous research must exist to inform policy to protect the mental health of young workers.
Subject(s)
Employment , Mental Health , Workplace , Adult , Humans , Organizational Culture , Social Justice , Young AdultABSTRACT
We convened a multidisciplinary Working Party on behalf of the Association of Anaesthetists to update the 2011 guidance on the peri-operative management of people with hip fracture. Importantly, these guidelines describe the core aims and principles of peri-operative management, recommending greater standardisation of anaesthetic practice as a component of multidisciplinary care. Although much of the 2011 guidance remains applicable to contemporary practice, new evidence and consensus inform the additional recommendations made in this document. Specific changes to the 2011 guidance relate to analgesia, medicolegal practice, risk assessment, bone cement implantation syndrome and regional review networks. Areas of controversy remain, and we discuss these in further detail, relating to the mode of anaesthesia, surgical delay, blood management and transfusion thresholds, echocardiography, anticoagulant and antiplatelet management and postoperative discharge destination. Finally, these guidelines provide links to supplemental online material that can be used at readers' institutions, key references and UK national guidance about the peri-operative care of people with hip and periprosthetic fractures during the COVID-19 pandemic.