Community In Stockholm Research Articles

Exploring nurses’ experiences of a tailored intervention to increase MMR vaccine acceptance in a Somali community in Stockholm, Sweden: a qualitative interview study

ObjectivesTo explore nurses’ experiences of a tailored intervention that supported them with knowledge and tools to use during encounters and dialogue with parents with low vaccine acceptance.DesignA qualitative study with...

Design and implementation of tailored intervention to increase vaccine acceptance in a Somali community in Stockholm, Sweden - based on the Tailoring Immunization Programmes approach

ObjectivesSweden has had a high and stable vaccination coverage for measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine (>96%) through the national immunization program (NIP), but coverage rates highlight local pockets of lower vaccination coverage. This project addressed low MMR vaccine acceptance among parents in a Somali community, in Stockholm. The objective of the intervention was to increase vaccine confidence and MMR-vaccine uptake and also to inform practices addressing vaccine acceptance. Study designThis paper describes the design and implementation of a multi-component intervention based on the Tailoring Immunization Programmes (TIP) approach, developed by the WHO European Regional Office. MethodsThe theoretical underpinning of TIP is the Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation Model (COM-B model) and Behaviour Change Wheel framework (BCW), adapted for vaccination. The COM-model was used to identify barriers and drivers to vaccination and intervention types. The TIP-phases described in this paper are: pre-TIP (planning), three succeeding TIP phases (situational analysis, formative research, intervention design) and the post-TIP phase (implementation). ResultsThe situation analysis and formative research revealed that parents feared the MMR vaccine due to autism or that their child would stop talking following vaccination, despite lack of scientific evidence for an association between autism and MMR vaccines. Barriers were linked to their associated COM-B factors and mapped to appropriate intervention types for two target groups: Somali parents and nurses at the Child Health Centres (CHC). Selected intervention types targeting parents were education, persuasion and modelling whereas education and training were selected for CHC nurses. The intervention activities included community engagement for parents, while the activities for nurses focused on improving encounters and dialogue with parents having low vaccine acceptance. Following the intervention design the activities were developed, pilot tested and implemented. ConclusionThis study confirm that the TIP approach is valuable for guiding a stepwise working process for a thorough understanding of barriers and drivers for MMR vaccination among parents in this Somali community. It facilitated the design of a theory and evidence-informed intervention targeting parents and nurses.

Staging the Jewish Bourgeois Home


 
 
 
 This article explores the relationship between the domestic position of Jewish bourgeois housewives and the larger Swedish, urban landscape at the beginning of the twentieth century. Examining the interior décor, shopping patterns, urban places, and the social, cultural and religious aspects of the domestic spheres of Irene Strauss and Jeannette Ettlinger, this article argues that they consciously used public spaces to establish their individual practices of Jewishness. By entering the gendered space of the Jewish home, accessible through private letters and receipts, this article portrays the bourgeois women as actors with social and economic power. They produced public spaces that communicated either cultural integration or orthodox distinctiveness, thereby constructing diverse strategies for Swedish belonging. These strategies demonstrate the growing religious, social and cultural diversity within the Jewish community in Stockholm during the three last decades before the Second World War.
 
 
 

Den Judiska Kvinnoklubben (JKK) och de judiska flyktingarna under 1930- och 1940-talen


 
 
 
 In a Swedish context, Jewish women’s experiences and actions have gone unrecorded and unrecognised; most narratives of Swedish Jewish history offer only a partial account of their past. Marginalised or ignored, or absorbed into universalised categories of ‘Jews’, ‘women’ or ‘survivors’, the experiences and histories of Jewish women are in general not represented in previous Swedish research on the history of the Jewish minority, the Swedish Jewish response to the Nazi terror and the Holocaust or the history of the women’s movement in general. Previous research on the Swedish Jewish response and assistance for the Jewish refugees and survivors of Nazi persecution has mainly dealt with the Jewish community in Stockholm and its relief committee, where the women were absent from leadership positions. The purpose of this study is to explore if and how the Jewish women’s club in Stockholm initiated or was involved in relief activities for and with the persecuted Jews of Europe. Specifically, this is investigated in the context of how the club was established and manifested in public by examining what questions the club raised and what activities it organised in the 1930s and 1940s.
 
 
 

Patient and Provider Dilemmas of Type 2 Diabetes Self-Management: A Qualitative Study in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Communities in Stockholm.

Studies comparing provider and patient views and experiences of self-management within primary healthcare are particularly scarce in disadvantaged settings. In this qualitative study, patient and provider perceptions of self-management were investigated in five socio-economically disadvantaged communities in Stockholm. Twelve individual interviews and four group interviews were conducted. Semi-structured interview guides included questions on perceptions of diabetes diagnosis, diabetes care services available at primary health care centers, patient and provider interactions, and self-management support. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Two overarching themes were identified: adopting and maintaining new routines through practical and appropriate lifestyle choices (patients), and balancing expectations and pre-conceptions of self-management (providers). The themes were characterized by inherent dilemmas representing confusions and conflicts that patients and providers experienced in their daily life or practice. Patients found it difficult to tailor information and lifestyle advice to fit their daily life. Healthcare providers recognized that patients needed support to change behavior, but saw themselves as inadequately equipped to deal with the different cultural and social aspects of self-management. This study highlights patient and provider dilemmas that influence the interaction and collaboration between patients and providers and hinder uptake of self-management advice.

The process of culture in implementation research: linking the clinic and the community in Stockholm

The process of culture in implementation research: linking the clinic and the community in Stockholm

Implications for Jewish Identity of Teenagers Attending an Integrated Jewish State School

'Det judiska högstadiet' at Vasa Real may be unique in the world. Its existence is important to ensure a dynamic, varied and tolerant Jewish community in Stockholm but also to show that we can integrate in a multicultural environment without losing our identity as Jews. This system started about twenty-five years ago as a trial project and has adapted to the changing demands of pupils' social and educational requirements throughout the years. The uniqueness is the fact that we have a unit within a state school structure. The Jewish classes study homogeneously most subjects; that is, secular subjects as well as Hebrew and Jewish Studies, but are integrated with non-Jewish pupils in mathematics, a third language and science. The concept of streaming in mathematics and integration in science classes was developed to create more natural areas of cooperation between pupils. The major challenge that we face is the governmental stance that religion cannot be enforced on pupils, while we endeavour to educate and provide strong Jewish identities. This article will focus on how much this stance affects the Jewish identity of the youth attending an integrated school environment as well as other factors that influence Jewish identities.

Til det beste for Sverige? Svenske myndigheter og den Mosaiska församlingen i Stockholm sin politikk overfor jødiske displace persons 1945 til 1950

In the last weeks of the Second World War and the following months Sweden played a crucial role in saving more than 30.000 non-Jewish and Jewish prisoners from German concentration camps, carrying them with the White Buses to Sweden. One of the mayor reasons for this action was to regain the positive relations to the Allied powers which had been seriously damaged during the first years of the war. The Jewish group counted 11-12.000 persons, mostly young women. An analysis of the treatment of these Jewish displaced persons by the Swedish authorities and the Jewish community in Stockholm from 1945 to 1950 shows that the authorities conducted their policy according to national interests and that the Jewish community was characterized by caution to keep the benevolence of the authorities. It was not considered a Swedish interest that they would stay, but after a few months the authorities, influenced among others by the Jewish Community, realized that forced repatriation was neither feasible out of humanitarian nor international political considerations. There were no restrictions for giving them medical help, but the treatment of these persons did not pay much attention to their psychic condition. One example is the use of their working power soon after their arrival in Sweden. Together with other displaced persons and refugees they became an important working power in building the Swedish welfare state, folkhemmet. Therefore, their inability to repatriate never became a problem for Sweden.

Routings: "Race," African Diasporas, and Swedish Belonging

This paper discusses the fissures and disjunctions in calls for African diasporic community in Stockholm, Sweden and shows how the "local" (which in this case is formulated as national) is tinged with a particular Swedish moral discourse in relationship to racism. A disjuncture expresses itself in stories of the national past and people. This is a past described as homogeneous and which strategically "routes" racism to specific transnational spaces and time periods that are outside of the Swedish community. Following the work of anthropologist Jacqueline Nassy Brown (1998,2000), I suggest that such "routings" push us to consider the specific manners in which "the global" is used to negotiate "local" power relations. The relevance of "routings" emerges in two manners in this paper: in how informants' narratives of the Swedish past are used strategically to comment upon and debate the historically tabooed topic of racism in Sweden, and in how a variety of African diasporic meanings get created and negotiated by Swedes of African ancestry when they discuss belonging and racism.

Local nets and social capital

This paper examines the relationship between local nets and social capital (networks, support and trust) in local communities. The relationship is examined through a review of literature on local nets and social capital and through an introduction to an ongoing study of a local net in Sweden. In the literature of social science it has been a common theme that changes in urban industrial society have undermined social capital in the community. The development of computer-based communication networks has added a new dimension to the argument, posing the question of whether local nets can (re-)create social capital in local communities. There is a division between those commentators who see local nets as a threat to existing forms of community and others who believe they provide new bases for social capital. In order to examine the impact of local nets on social capital a case study is being conducted of a local net project in a relatively marginalised community in Stockholm. The aim of the local net is to increase social capital in the community, especially with reference to disadvantaged groups. An evaluation of the project is taking place using mixed methodologies, including both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The paper describes the first study in the research project: a survey administrated to residents not yet connected to the local net. Initial analysis suggests that there is a relatively low level of social capital in the community. The respondents, however, have high expectations in relation to the potential of the local net for enhancing social capital. There are few differences in expectation between different groups in the population. This suggests that the local net may well be a way of including disadvantaged groups in the local community (as well as in the wider society). Whether the use of local nets can (re-)create social capital in the local community, only later phases in the research will show. The hypothesis of the research, though, is that the use of local nets will lead to an increase in association, support and trust that provide the foundation for collaboration, common identity and social capital in the community.

Clinical correlates of low blood pressure in very old people: the importance of cognitive impairment.

To identify the medical conditions associated with low blood pressure in very old people. A population-based, cross-sectional study. Two neighboring communities in Stockholm, Sweden. Participants were 319 male and 1070 female participants, with the mean age of 85.0 years (SD = 5.8). Blood pressure recording, pulse rate counting, and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were conducted by trained nurses. Information on illness condition and activities of daily living (ADL) status was self-reported or gathered from proxy respondents. The computerized inpatient register system was also used for collecting the data of illness condition. Systolic pressure less than 130 mm Hg and diastolic pressure less than 70 mm Hg were defined as low systolic and diastolic pressure, respectively. MMSE score less than 24 was considered to indicate cognitive impairment. In multiple logistic regression analyses, low systolic pressure was related to slower pulse rate (< or = 60 per minute), heart failure, ADL limitation, and cognitive impairment, and low diastolic pressure was related to increasing age, slower pulse rate, cardiac dysrhythmia, ADL limitation, and cognitive impairment. People with diabetes mellitus were less likely to be in the low systolic pressure group. 34.9% of the prevalence of low systolic pressure, and 17.9% of the prevalence of low diastolic pressure was associated with cognitive impairment. Low blood pressure in the very old may be associated with poor functional status, cardiac insufficiency and, more importantly, cognitive impairment. It would be expected that low blood pressure is associated with increased mortality in this age group.

Homage to a king and country. A bibliography of Swedish Jewish pamphlets

A little-known part of Swedish Jewish bibliography are the many small separate booklets and addresses of homage produced by the Jewish communities in Stockholm, Norrköping, Gothenburg and Karlskrona to honor King and Country. The Jews who settled in Sweden in the 18th century received royal letters of protection. They were very eager to express their appreciation to the king. This started in 1782 with the death of the Dowager Queen, the mother of King Gustaf III, and only a month later there was a new booklet on the birth of an heir to the King and Queen. It was Gustaf III who seven years earlier, in 1775, had allowed the first Jews, Aaron Isaac, to settle in Sweden without converting to Christianity. On such occasions a special service was usually held in the synagogue, with songs and prayers composed especially for the occasion. These were oriented in separate booklets, often presented to the king in a special presentation copy. All pamphlets and booklets listed here are found in the Royal Library of Stockholm or in the Library of Uppsala University.