Predictors of young people's anti-vaccine attitudes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The objective of this research was to explore how attitudes to science and scientists may be related to anti-vax positions and whether the psychological trait known as Need for Closure may influence the relationship between any or all of these attitudes. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1128 young people aged 18-25 living in Italy during the COVID-19 health crisis. Based on the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which allowed the extraction of a three-factor solution (scepticism about science, unrealistic expectations about science and anti-vax postures), we tested our hypotheses by means of a structural equation model. We found that anti-vax positions are strongly correlated with sceptical views of science, while unrealistic expectations about science affect attitudes to vaccination only indirectly. Either way, Need for Closure emerged as a key variable in our model, as it significantly moderates the effect of both factors on anti-vax positions.

Mobility, Nonstationary Density, and Robbery Distribution in the Tourist Metropolis.

This study looks at the spatial distribution of robbery against residents as a function of nonstationary density and mobility patterns in the most densely populated city in Spain, Barcelona. Based on the geographical coordinates of mobile devices, we computed two measures of density of the ambient population and the tourist presence, for work days, weekends, and holidays in 2019. Negative binomial regressions are then estimated to analyse whether these measures are correlated with the risk of robbery, controlling for land use and the characteristics of the social environment. The model reveals that residents' chances of being exposed to robbery in Barcelona depend on the social relevance and tourism attractiveness of certain places at particular times of the year. Our results disclose two sources of social disorganization as stronger predictors of the occurrence of robbery in Barcelona, respectively linked to structural processes of residential instability and daily and seasonal mobility patterns. On the one hand, we found that the effect of the density of international tourists on the outcome variable is mediated by residential volatility, which is assumed to be associated with housing shortages in neighbourhoods where short-term vacation rentals are widespread. On the other hand, the ability to exert effective social control is significantly undermined in urban areas, where the ambient population and the volume of tourists outnumber the resident population, thus increasing incidents of robbery victimization. The implications of these findings for urban policy and crime prevention in the Catalan capital are discussed.

Feeling unsafe as a source of psychological distress in early adolescence.

RATIONALE: Symptoms of psychological distress at an early age have proved to undermine adolescents' academic achievements, as well as their personal and social well-being. The literature acknowledges a wide range of risk factors that cause psychological distress, while at the same time emphasizing the role of social support as a protective factor. On the other hand, feelings of unsafety as a possible source of psychological distress have been so far largely overlooked in the literature. OBJECTIVE: The present study explores the consequences of a specific stressor (feeling unsafe) and asks whether social support can act as a moderator in the association between subjective unsafety and psychological distress. METHODS: A multi-group structural equation model was run with a sample of 2876 young adolescents aged 10-12 enrolled in educational centers in the city of Barcelona, Spain. RESULTS: The results show that direct exposure to sibling violence at home and bullying at school are significant predictors of psychological distress, regardless of biological sex. The hypothesis of a negative correlation of subjective perceptions of unsafety on psychological distress is also supported, although neighborhood-based risk factors emerge as a greater source of distress for females than for males. The involvement of supportive adults is associated with lower levels of perceptions of unsafety and distress in both groups, but girls seem capable of drawing more effectively on alternative sources of support, specifically their peers, to enhance their safety at school and in the neighborhood. CONCLUSION: Overall, gender differences in our model overlap with socio-environmental inequalities (low income, exposure to violence and conflictual public spaces), thus suggesting that an intervention into the root causes of these inequalities could contribute to lowering psychological distress in early adolescence.

Ontological insecurity and subjective feelings of unsafety: Analysing socially constructed fears in Italy.

Perception of insecurity arises as a complex social phenomenon affected by factors that go beyond actual crime rates. Previous contributions to the field of fear of crime studies have shown, for instance, that the perception of social and physical disorder may generate insecurity among residents even in contexts where crime is comparatively low. Meanwhile, sociological approaches have led to a conceptualization of insecurity as an umbrella sentiment grounded in a wider feeling of unease. Building further on this assumption, data gathered in a large-scale survey in Italy (n = 15,428) were analysed by implementing exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with the objective of assessing the validity of a model of "ontological insecurity". The results of our analysis support a conceptualization of insecurity where socially constructed anxieties (due to health and financial precariousness), as well as ethnic, sexual and religious-based stigmatization, play a prominent role in determining an individual's feeling of insecurity.