ABSTRACT
Although there has been a recent surge in research on drivers of poor farmer wellbeing and mental health, there is still a limited understanding of the state of wellbeing in farming communities around the world and how it can be best supported. This special issue seeks to extend our knowledge of how a combination of different stressors can challenge the wellbeing of farmers, farming families and farm workers, as well as how negative impacts can be unevenly distributed between different individuals. We advance the state of the art in research on farmer wellbeing, illustrating how social, economic and environmental policy drivers combine to create multiple points of stress, which are experienced differently by different individuals (e.g., age, gender). We move beyond an exploration of stressors towards a consideration of how landscapes of support for farmer wellbeing, and packages of support interventions, can improve the social resilience of farming communities. To be effective, these landscapes of support need to be accessible, well-funded, joined-up, and adaptable to evolving crises. This special issue explores farmer wellbeing in the context of global agricultural transitions, which are demanding new ways of farming (e.g., digitalisation, net zero, economic restructuring), and in light of shock events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, in four countries—Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US. In exploring the impacts of future shock events and agricultural transitions on wellbeing, the issue concludes with a call to move beyond broad compilations of stressors and interventions and towards nuanced investigations of why and how poor farmer wellbeing occurs and how it can be best supported in specific contexts. The research from these four countries has wide relevance across European countries (similarity in farming systems, noting some differences), but a key message from the issue is that stressors on farmer wellbeing can be highly context-dependent according to place-based social, environmental, economic and political issues. © 2023 The Authors. Sociologia Ruralis published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Society for Rural Sociology.
ABSTRACT
P218 Table 1The types of support people 1a) received or 1b) self-sought, 2) felt were essential, and 3) felt were desirable from the surveys, interviews, and focus groupsType of support* Examples Data source(I & FG: interviews and focus groups;S: survey) 1. a) Support people received Referred for or recommended by healthcare professionals: • ‘Your Covid recovery’ and ‘Living with’ app: https://www.yourcovidrecovery.nhs.uk/https://www.livingwith.health/products/covid-recovery/ I & FG;S • Steps to wellbeing service https://www.steps2wellbeing.co.uk/ S • Local authority helpline S • Mental health (virtual/telephone/app) programmes and/or counselling (virtual and face-to-face) (iTalk;Talking Change;Talking Therapies;private counselling [unknown providers] and psychotherapy [including Physiotherapy mental health unit and Primary Care Mental Health team]) I & FG;S • Medical reviews (general practitioner;respiratory;cardiology;neurological [private and NHS];gastroenterology;rheumatology [private];dermatology;chronic fatigue) I & FG;S • Non-medical professional reviews (physiotherapy;occupational therapy;social services [including reablement];dietetics;speech and language therapy) I & FG;S • Specialist Long COVID service referrals (Hobbs Rehabilitation Clinic [private] and NHS) I & FG • Sleepio app (insomnia) https://www.sleepio.com/#howSleepioWorks I & FG • Fatigue management advice (pacing;boom-bust cycle) I & FG • Co-morbid condition support groups (stroke – unnamed group) I & FG • Occupational health services I & FG;S • Human Resources support (e.g., keeping workplace updated and workplace rehabilitation support) S • Research projects: Portsmouth Long COVID Study Coverscan research project including webinars: https://perspectum.com/news/perspectum-launches-the-first-covid-19-recovery-study S 1. b) Support people self-sought Self-sought and available: • Personal training/physiotherapy/exercising (unnamed sources) I & FG;S • Restorative yoga (unnamed sources) I & FG • Walking groups (unnamed sources) I & FG • Walking App (unnamed) S • Swimming/aqua aerobics (unnamed sources) I & FG • Chiropody (unnamed source) S • Massage S • Counselling (private) I & FG;S • Social media support groups and advice forums (e.g., Facebook Long COVID Support Forum;Facebook group for doctors with Long COVID [unnamed];Long COVID Instagram pages [unnamed])‘AbSent’: https://www.facebook.com/AbScent.org/https://www.facebook.com/groups/longcovid/ I & FG;S • ShutEye app (sleep quality monitoring)https://www.shuteye.ai/ I & FG • ZOE COVID app (symptom monitoring)https://covid.joinzoe.com/about I & FG;S • Gupta programmehttps://www.guptaprogram.com/ I & FG;S • YouTube and other online Long COVID bloggers and podcasters (some unnamed sources)GezMedinger: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCln_SCEd4JiGkHIUZd1VlXw I & FG;S • TV documentaries (unnamed source) S • Online/virtual exercise and stretching programmes (unnamed sources) I & FG • Support groups (for both the person living with Long COVID and their direct family members)https://www.vosuk.org/about-us/ I & FG • Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia information and advice (for both the person living with fatigue/post-exertional malaise and their family and friends) I & FG • Spiritual guidance S • Relaxation techniques (e.g., Yoga, Tai Chi, Mindfulness) S • Breathing classes S • Long Covid and ME/CFS Holistic Healing Summit 2021 S • Complementary therapies and remedies (herbal teas;oral tablets;vitamins;B12 injections;reflexology;acupuncture) I & FG;S • Voluntary servicesSolent MS therapy centre: https://solentmstc.org.uk/ Just About You Home Help (Age UK, Isle of Wight): https://www.ageuk.org.uk/isleofwight/our-services/just-about-you-home-help/ S 2) Support people felt were essential • Peer-support I & FG • Feedback from symptom diaries to better self-manage/understand triggers I & FG • Periodic follow-up with Long COVID specialists I & FG • Long COVID specific educati n/advice for: ▪ Reduced ability to conduct activities of daily living ▪ Exercise/physical activity/post-exertional malaise ▪ Fatigue management (including work activities/tasks) ▪ Navigating and applying for financial support available (inc. disability badges) ▪ Non-Long COVID specialist healthcare professionals ▪ Employers and colleagues ▪ Family and friends ▪ Stress management (and to deal with underlying stressors) ▪ Guilt management (and to deal with the underlying reasons for guilt) ▪ Grief management (and to deal with underlying reasons for grief) ▪ PTSD/fear management (and to deal with underlying reasons for PTSD) I & FG • Dealing with loneliness/social isolation I & FG • Wider connections with voluntary sector (e.g., Mind) I &FG;S 3) Support people felt were desirable • Education/resources for community managers and admins for online or social media peer support groups I & FG • Identifying/lobbying for ongoing local financial support like a Furlough scheme, but for those with Long COVID I & FG *This table reports the types of support reported by all participants, even if only reported by one participant, therefore this table is a representation of the collective experiences and may not be reflective of each individual participants experiences;this table is not in order of perceived level of importance for participants or in chronological order according to number of times reported;this table merges support offering and does not specifically distinguish support according formal NHS healthcare services, private healthcare, Human Resource services and voluntary sector support offerings, although this is included when known.ConclusionsThese findings corroborated recently published NICE recommendations for managing Long COVID and therefore provide further justification for rapid uptake of the NICE recommendations. These findings may also offer an adaptable model to effectively operationalise NICE recommendations going forward.
ABSTRACT
Background: Transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CM) is important comorbidity associated with severe aortic stenosis (AS). Multiple studies have shown that ATTR-CM was present in 10-15% of all cases with severe AS. The purpose of this quality improvement project is to raise awareness of ATTR-CM in patients who underwent transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) for severe AS amongst the healthcare providers and patients. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed all TAVR cases performed at our institution in 2019 (Total cases 87). We screened for the presence of predefined high-risk features for ATTR-CM based on prior literature (Presence of diastolic dysfunction, left ventricular hypertrophy on echocardiogram, low voltage-mass ratio, low limb lead voltage on EKG, arrhythmia/bundle branch block, or systemic symptoms of amyloidosis). We subsequently contacted the patients to discuss our clinical suspicion of ATTR-CM and offered clinical referral to a cardiac amyloid specialist. Results: Of the total of 87 patients who underwent TAVR in 2019, 12 patients were deceased at chart review. We have identified 50 patients (66.7%) who had high-risk features of ATTR-CM. A total of 17 patients (34% of 50 patients) agreed to be referred to cardiac amyloid specialist. Six patients (12%) were tested with 99m Technetium Pyrophosphate imaging, and all were negative for ATTR-CM. Eleven patients (22%) are still pending testing. Six patients did not wish for referral due to personal reasons. We were not able to reach 15 patients via phone (30%). In addition, we have found additional 12 patients who were deceased (Total mortality count of 24, 27.5%) in two years. Conclusion: Our project has increased awareness within structural cardiologists as we have implemented a prospective screening process within our institution. While we expected to diagnose ATTR-CM in 10% of severe AS who underwent TAVR, we had multiple difficulties contacting them, coordinating referrals due to the COVID-19 pandemic and higher 2-year mortality. We are hypothesizing whether the higher 2-year mortality is secondary to undetected ATTR-CM. We are planning for screening and timely referral for patients who underwent TAVR more recently.
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This study is part of a larger project investigating whether Zoom is a viable data collection method for sociophonetic research, examining whether Zoom recordings yield different acoustic measurements than in-person recordings for the exact same speech for 18 speakers. In this article we analyze five spectral measures of sibilants (peak, center of gravity, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis) which have been shown to be conditioned by dimensions of identity like speaker gender and sexual orientation in much previous sociolinguistic research. We find that, overall, Zoom recordings yield significantly lower peak, center of gravity, and standard deviation measurements and significantly higher skewness and kurtosis values than in-person recordings for the same speech, likely due to a lower sampling rate on Zoom recordings. However, a preliminary analysis controlling for sampling rate across recording methods reveals the opposite patterns for nearly all measures, suggesting that Zoom stretches the spectral space when compared with the in-person recorder. Because the values of these measurements can lead analysts to draw social interpretations relating to a speaker's performance of gender and sexual identity, we caution against comparing across Zoom and in-person recordings, as differences in measurements may result from the recording method used to collect the data.
ABSTRACT
In this study, we explore whether Zoom is a viable method for collecting data for sociophonetic research, focusing on vocalic analysis. We investigate whether recordings collected through Zoom yield different acoustic measurements than recordings collected through in-person recording equipment, for the exact same speech. We analyze vowel formant data from 18 speakers who recorded Zoom conversations at the same time as they recorded themselves with portable recording equipment. We find that, overall, Zoom recordings yield lower raw F1 values and higher F2 values than recording equipment. We also tested whether normalization affects discrepancies between recording methods and found that while discrepancies still appear after normalizing with the Watt and Fabricius modified method, Lobanov normalization largely minimizes discrepancies between recording methods. Discrepancies are also mitigated with a Zoom recording setup that involves the speaker wearing headphones and recording with an external microphone.
ABSTRACT
The effects of the Covid pandemic have been, similar to the population at-large, unequal on academicians - some groups have been more susceptible than others. Traditional CVs are inadequate to highlight these imbalances. CovidCV is a framework for academicians that allows them to document their life in a holistic way during the pandemic. It creates a color-coded CV from the user's data entries documenting the work and home life and categorizing corresponding events as good or bad. It, thus, provides a visual representation of an academician's life during the current pandemic. The user can mark any event as major or minor indicating the impact of the event on their life. The CovidCV prototypical system is developed using a three tier architecture. The first tier, the front-end, is a user interface layer that is a web application. This prototype has a back-end layer consisting of two tiers which are responsible for handling the business logic and the data management respectively. The CovidCV system design is described in this paper. A preliminary experimentation with the prototype highlights the usefulness of CovidCV.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought sweeping changes for economies and societies, with the most devastating consequences for individuals and groups with pre-existing vulnerabilities. As attention shifts from addressing urgent humanitarian needs to long-term response, it is time to think about the role of social protection as part of a longer-term solution to living with Covid-19, as well as supporting efforts to build back better. This article considers how social protection can offer support and be supported in short-, medium-, and long-term responses, under different scenarios for how the pandemic might unfold. Based on a secondary literature review, we argue that planning must anticipate the possibility of an enduring pandemic and that the expansion of social protection should not be limited to a short-term response. Rather, Covid-19 presents a necessity and opportunity to establish firm foundations for more comprehensive social protection systems for years to come, including leveraging greater domestic expenditure and international assistance. © 2021 The Authors. IDS Bulletin and Institute of Development Studies.