Does darkness increase the risk of certain types of crime? A registered report protocol.

Evidence about the relationship between lighting and crime is mixed. Although a review of evidence found that improved road / street lighting was associated with reductions in crime, these reductions occurred in daylight as well as after dark, suggesting any effect was not due only to changes in visual conditions. One limitation of previous studies is that crime data are reported in aggregate and thus previous analyses were required to make simplifications concerning types of crimes or locations. We will overcome that by working with a UK police force to access records of individual crimes. We will use these data to determine whether the risk of crime at a specific time of day is greater after dark than during daylight. If no difference is found, this would suggest improvements to visual conditions after dark through lighting would have no effect. If however the risk of crime occurring after dark was greater than during daylight, quantifying this effect would provide a measure to assess the potential effectiveness of lighting in reducing crime risk after dark. We will use a case and control approach to analyse ten years of crime data. We will compare counts of crimes in 'case' hours, that are in daylight and darkness at different times of the year, and 'control' hours, that are in daylight throughout the year. From these counts we will calculate odds ratios as a measure of the effect of darkness on risk of crime, using these to answer three questions: 1) Is the risk of overall crime occurring greater after dark than during daylight? 2) Does the risk of crime occurring after dark vary depending on the category of crime? 3) Does the risk of crime occurring after dark vary depending on the geographical area?

Zoos as Sentinels? A Meta-Analysis of Seroprevalence of Terrestrial Mammalian Viruses in Zoos.

The One Health framework links animal, human, and environmental health, and focuses on emerging zoonotic pathogens. Understanding the interface between wildlife and human activity is critical due to the unpredictable nature of spillover of zoonotic pathogens from animals to humans. Zoos are important partners in One Health because of their contributions to education, conservation, and animal health monitoring. In addition, the housing of wildlife in captive and semi-natural settings makes zoos, especially relevant for detecting animal-related pathogens. A first step to determine the utility of zoos in contributing to pathogen surveillance is to survey the peer-reviewed literature. We, therefore, retrieved data from the previous 20 years and performed a meta-analysis to determine global patterns of viral seroprevalence in mammals housed in zoo collections from peer-reviewed literature. We analysed 50 articles, representing a total of 11,300 terrestrial mammals. Increased prevalence was found in viruses strictly targeting specific host taxonomy, especially in viruses transmitted through direct contact. Potentially complex patterns with geography were also identified, despite uneven sampling. This research highlights the role zoos could play in public health and encourages future standardized epidemiological surveillance of zoological collections.

Supporting the Social-Emotional Well-Being of Elementary School Students Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: A Pilot Study.

PURPOSE: Children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH), their parents, Teachers of the Deaf, and other community stakeholders were involved in co-designing a web-based resource to support students' social-emotional well-being. The resource was designed to provide families and teachers with strategies to enhance the social and emotional well-being of Grade 4-6 students who are DHH. This study reports outcomes of a pilot study of the web-based resource intervention. METHOD: A pre-post pilot study was conducted to quantitatively examine reported anxiety, well-being, social relationships, school experience, student-teacher relationship, and parent and teacher self-efficacy. A total of 37 students, their parents (n = 37), and their classroom teachers (n = 40) participated in the intervention program and were provided access to the resource. RESULTS: In total, 19 students, 22 parents, and 17 teachers completed both pre- and postsurvey measures. Paired t tests revealed that there was a statistically significant increase in parents' self-efficacy scores from pre- to posttest. Multivariate analysis of covariance revealed a significant association between parent use of the website and student-reported improved peer support and reduced school loneliness. No other statistically significant differences were found. CONCLUSIONS: The use of a web-based resource codeveloped with students who are DHH, their parents, and teachers could potentially be beneficial for the well-being of students who are DHH as well as parents' self-efficacy. Further research is needed to confirm the benefits.