Housing Accommodation Research Articles

Social predictors of non-attendance in an urban mammographic screening programme: A multilevel analysis

Rate of non-attendance following invitation for breast cancer screening is related to several socioeconomic conditions. To what extent this reflects differences with regard to individual and environmental circumstances, respectively, has received little attention. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of individual socioeconomic and area-level determinants on variations in non-attendance among geographic areas in an urban mammographic service screening programme. The study population consisted of 32,119 women invited for mammographic screening in 1990-93, residing in 97 neighbourhoods in the city of Malmö in Sweden. The influence of the individual factors age, marital status, education, housing accommodation, household income, and area-level circumstances, e.g. rate of migration and rate of being gainfully employed, on the rate of non-attendance was assessed by multilevel analysis. Area rates of nonattendance ranged from 18% to 63%. Of the total variability in non-attendance, 4.3% was between neighbourhoods. This effect was significantly reduced when adjusting for the individual factors. The area-level factors, migration, and rate of being gainfully employed reduced and almost erased the neighbourhood variance in non-attendance. In addition to individual socioeconomic factors, area-level factors seem to be important determinants of neighbourhood rates of non-attendance in an urban mammographic screening programme. In a public health perspective neighbourhoods may be targeted in order to affect the problem of non-attendance in mammographic screening.

The nutrition knowledge of older adults living in sheltered housing accommodation

Nutrition knowledge enables informed dietary choices. This paper reports on the nutrition knowledge of older adults residing in sheltered housing accommodation in socially deprived areas of north-east England. As part of a cluster randomized dietary intervention trial, a validated questionnaire measured the knowledge of current dietary recommendations, nutrient sources, ability to select healthy meal options and knowledge of associations between diet and diseases of older adults aged 60 years and over residing in sheltered accommodation. Completed questionnaires were obtained from 177 (59%) subjects (147 female, 30 male), of whom 76% were overweight/obese and 2% underweight. The mean (SD) age was 76.4 (8.0) years. Of a possible score of 47, the mean score was 23.2, indicating that approximately 50% of questions were answered incorrectly. Knowledge of associations between diet and diseases was particularly poor; 90% of subjects being unaware of the benefits of high fruit and vegetable consumption. Respondents in the highest 10% of the nutrition knowledge score had a significantly higher intake of fruit and vegetables compared with those in the lowest 10%. A high proportion of older adults had little basic nutrition knowledge; this presents a barrier to healthier eating that should be addressed.

Fifty Years in Kwahu-Tafo: Memories and Reflections of an Anthropologist

GHANA STUDIES / Volume 10 ISSN 1536-5514 / E-ISSN 2333-7168© 2007 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 65 FIFTY YEARS IN KWAHU-TAFO Memories and Reflections of an Anthropologist SJAAK VAN DER GEEST Introduction Near my village in The Netherlands is a house with a Latin inscription, a famous line from the African philosopher St. Augustine: Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis (Time changes and we change with it). I sometimes pass by on my bicycle and the words keep turning in my head while my feet continue turning the pedals: What were the most prominent changes of my time and how was I drawn into them? One event that deeply affected my life was my visit to the rural town of Kwahu-Tafo in Ghana forty years ago and the many visits that followed, up to today. In contrast with most of my colleagues, I have largely stuck to one place for fieldwork throughout my anthropological career. How did life in Kwahu-Tafo change over all those years? And how did I change with it as an anthropologist, or for that matter, as a person? Much has been written about subjectivity as a requisite for (not an obstacle to) anthropological fieldwork. The importance of related personal experience for raising questions, observing people and understanding words and actions is now a standard topic in methodological instructions for anthropologists. Without subjectivity, there is no intersubjectivity and— therefore—no communication. Introspection or reflection, searching oneself to understand the other, is commonly discussed in those instructions and is widely practised in anthropological publications. Much less has been written about how the fieldwork experience affects the personal life of the researcher. Paraphrasing Geertz, Eriksen (2004: 11) writes that all humans are born with the potential to live thousands of different lives, yet we end up having lived only one. One of the central tasks of 66 Ghana Studies • volume 10 • 2007 anthropology consists of giving accounts of some of the other lives we could have led. Writing about people’s lives in Kwahu-Tafo, I have always been aware that their life could have been mine. That awareness created closeness and distance at the same time. What changed in Kwahu-Tafo over the last fifty years immediately raises the question of what changed in me during that period. Déjà Vu I arrived in Kwahu-Tafo around Easter time in 1969, twelve years after Ghana’s independence, and three years after the coup that ended Nkrumah ’s hopeful beginning. The purpose of my stay was to learn Twi. I was given accommodation in the Catholic mission house with an American priest. The first night I hardly slept. There was an enormous noise on the other side of the road, with people shouting for hours. The next morning I learned that a man had died and that the man’s family had decided to expel the widow and her children from the house, because she belonged to another family. “This is a matrilineal society,” the priest commented, “it happens all the time.” Twenty-five years later I met Anthony Obeng Boamah, a man about my own age, who was an amateur writer and an interesting person. We became friends and worked together in doing research. He told me about the books and stories he had written. His first novel, he said, was in Twi, and was based on some personal experiences in his family, 25 years ago around Easter. It told the story of what happened to a mother and her children after her husband had died. I asked if I could read the book. It was not possible because he did not have a copy. He had brought the manuscript to the Bureau of Ghana Languages that occupied itself with the publication of literature in local languages. They had read the book and promised to edit and publish it. It was never published. Staff members at the Bureau changed over the years, some died, and every time Boamah went to look for his manuscript, he met another person with another story and the same van der Geest • Fifty Years in Kwahu-Tafo 67 promises. “Maybe, I should...

Neighborhood Effects, Public Housing and Unemployment in France

This paper is aimed to examine how individual unemployment is influenced both by location in a deprived neighborhood and public housing. Our identification strategy is twofold. First, because we estimate a simultaneous probit model of public housing accommodation, type of neighborhood, and unemployment, the formal identification of the model relies on non-linearities. Second, we take advantage of the location of the public housing sector in France, which allows us to use public housing accommodation as a powerful determinant of neighborhood choices. Our results show that public housing does not have any direct effect on unemployment. However, living within the 35% more deprived neighborhoods does increase the unemployment probability significantly. As expected, the effect of neighborhood substantially decreases when dealing with the endogeneity of neighborhood and when using public housing as a determinant of neighborhood choice.

Accommodating the Malaysian elderly: The cultural precursors

This paper discusses the cultural characteristics of aged persons that facilitate planning of their future accommodation. It involves the identification of cultural values of the individual elderly, the rural/urban location, and the identification of loadings on those values. The key operative variables of the accommodation system are preserving face, a desire for harmony, with compliance a third factor. These values have been shown to influence the decisions on housing accommodation, particularly in determining change in accommodation and barrier free spatial forms in the housing environment, and shaping free flowing interaction with the community and choice in housing options.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Being Heard on Sexual Orientation

In 2001, Maryland became the twelfth state to pass legislation that prohibits discrimination against gays, lesbians, and bi-sexuals in employment, housing, and public accommodations. As part of a ten-year effort to pass such protections, the Governor of Maryland established a Commission to Study Sexual Orientation Discrimination. The Commission held five public hearings throughout the state in 2000 and used the testimonies to prepare a report which helped pave the way for the passage of the legislation. This article is an analysis of 113 oral testimonies, both for and against the legislation. Such information may be helpful in other states where anti-discrimination efforts are on-going.

Organizing to Amend Antidiscrimination Statutes in Maryland

SUMMARY Federal law and statutes in most of the 50 states prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations on the basis of race, creed, sex, and national origin. However, only 12 states and the District of Columbia have statutes which include prohibitions of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Maryland became the twelfth state with such a provision when the State Legislature passed the Antidiscrimination Act of 2001. The road to passage of this legislation was long and winding, beginning in 1976. This article describes one of the organizations involved in the effort, Free State Justice, and the strategies that led to eventual legislative success; the article also discusses how the dynamics and processes involved in initiating such efforts can be generalized to other settings.

Public housing accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

The federal Housing Act of 1962 as amended and the subsequent laws of accommodations insure that all groups within American society, including those with disabilities, have access to housing opportunities. In spite of the clear provisions of various laws of accommodations enacted after 1962, it is questionable whether disabled individuals are adequately served by resident programs operated by Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) because rates of poverty, unemployment, domestic violence, and suicide are much higher among people with disabilities than in the nondisabled population. There are approximately 5 million residents living in 2.5 public housing units nationwide. New York, Puerto Rico, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore have the five largest PHAs in the country. In combination, they rent 320,000 of the 1,300,495 inventory of rental properties owned by the country's 3,400 PHAs. Elderly and disabled residents without children account for 43% of all public housing families in the country.

The systems of care for frail elderly persons: the case of Sweden.

Sweden has a well-developed welfare system following the Nordic model and it maintains - even though there have been some reductions in the last decade - good economic security and comprehensive services for the elderly. The national policy for the elderly aims at enabling older persons to live independently with a high quality of life. A great majority of the elderly in Sweden live in ordinary homes - very few live with their grown-up children. The municipalities are responsible for providing long-term social services and care for the frail elderly in the form of home help services for those that live in ordinary housing, and special housing accommodation for those with extensive needs. The county councils are responsible for health care and provide home nursing care and rehabilitation. Sweden used to have the oldest population in the world. The proportion of 80+ years old in the population increased from 3% to over 5% between 1980 and 2000. Due to financial restrictions as a result of the economic recession in the last decade, the health and social services for the elderly have not been able to keep up with the population development. The previous generous allocation of care has been replaced by a more restrictive approach. This has mainly affected persons with lesser needs for help, younger elderly, and married persons. The number of elderly persons is expected to increase rapidly in the coming decades. However, due to improved health among the elderly, this will lead to a relatively limited increase of needs. Depending on assumptions concerning the health development, the required increase in volume of health and social services is expected to fall somewhere between 10-30% during the coming 30-year period.

The effects of confinement on periparturient behaviour and circulating prolactin, prostaglandin F 2α and oxytocin in gilts with access to a variety of nest materials

In a 2×2 factorial experiment, the effects of gestation and farrowing housing on (1) periparturient behaviour and circulating prolactin, prostaglandin F 2α (PGF 2α) and oxytocin in gilts with access to peat, straw and branches, and (2) correlational relationships between the periparturient behaviour and hormones were studied. The treatments consisted of housing in stalls or pens from mating to day 110 of gestation followed by farrowing crates or pens until after parturition. Landrace×Yorkshire gilts were observed from video recordings ( n=25) from 20 h prepartum and blood sampled via jugular catheters ( n=16) from 24 h prepartum until 2 h after the birth of the first piglet. There was an interaction between gestation and farrowing housing affecting the start of nest-building ( P=0.03). Gilts that experienced a change in type of housing accommodation commenced nest-building closer to parturition than gilts that were penned both during gestation and at farrowing (both P<0.05). There were no effects of the housing environment on the timing of termination of nest-building, behaviour during parturition, or the course of parturition. However, relative to base level, crated gilts sat more from 16 to 6 h prepartum, whereas this was the case for penned gilts only from 9 to 7 h prepartum. Crated gilts also tended to change posture more often ( P=0.07) and lie more in sternal recumbency ( P=0.095). This suggests that familiarity with the environment in combination with space to move about and/or availability of materials is important in the timing of nest-building. Confinement during farrowing did not appear to impair feed-back from the materials and the nest, although increased number of postural changes may reflect the motivation but inability to nest-build, or general discomfort in the crate. There was a development over time in postural and nest-building behaviours as well as in plasma concentrations of prolactin, PGF 2α (measured by the metabolite PGFM) and oxytocin, but there were only few effects of housing treatments on hormones or associations between behaviour and hormones. The results suggest that nest-building occurs independently of a prepartum rise in prolactin, but that oxytocin may be associated with the termination of nest-building as there was a negative correlational relationship with nosing ( P<0.01) and arranging nest-building materials ( P<0.001). Farrowing crate housing appeared to have fewer effects on periparturient behaviour and course of parturition than reported in previous studies where effects of confinement and provision of nest-building materials may have been confounded. Thus, provision of nest-building materials to crated sows may have beneficial effects on sow behaviour and welfare.

Thomas Cecil, the Compleat Islandman? In fond memory of Thomas Cecil, Rathlin Island, 1946–1996

Late in the 1970s, it was agreed that I should undertake fieldwork on Rathlin Island on behalf of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, with a view to recording oral narrative and history of the island extant at that time. As there was then no guest house or similar accommodation on the island, when I set off from Ballycastle in mid-May 1979 I was equipped with a tent as well as a tape recorder. Using a tried and tested technique for finding new contacts in remoter regions, I called in at the shop, where I struck up a conversation with a young woman who soon invited me to visit her home and meet her husband. It was in this way that, on 16 May 1979, I set up my first interview with a very remarkable man. Thomas Cecil was born on Rathlin Island in 1946, in time to see many aspects of traditional life in change and apparent decline.

Historical Representation and the Nation-State in Romantic Belgium (1830-1850)

The transformation oftheAncien Regime society of estates into the modem state system as it exists in Europe today was concluded during the long nineteenth century. This process of transformation came about in two waves. In a first wave-during the decades preceding and following the French Revolution, roughly the years 1780-1848-the framework for the nation-state was created. It was mainly the liberal bourgeoisie which stood at the forefront. After the Congress of Vienna, where the ante bellum situation had been restored, it led more or less successful national revolutions in Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Poland. In a second wave, starting with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and ending with the First World War, the framework of the nationstate was filled in. In those years a growing number of social groups found accommodation in the liberal house, which they also managed thoroughly to rebuild. This period can be described as the phase of integrated nationalism. Together with the nation-state came the rise of modem national historiography. The most well-known exponents of this typically nineteenth-century genre were the monumental outlines of national pasts which started appearing from 1890 onward. Karl Lamprecht in Germany (Deutsche Geschichte, 18901909), Pieter Jan Blok in the Netherlands (Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk, 1892-1908), Henri Pirenne in Belgium (Histoire de Belgique, 1900-1932), and Ernest Lavisse and his collaborators in France (Histoire de France, 190111) all gave their respective countries' pasts an impressive, scholarly design. The first phase of the emergence of the nation-state, however, was also accompanied by a stream of national histories. Johannes von Miiller in Switzerland (Geschichten Schweizerischer Eidgenossenschaft, 1786-1808), Simonde de

New Zealand's Housing Reforms and Accommodation Supplement Experience

This paper sets out details of New Zealand's recent housing reforms and examines some of the criticisms levelled at the changes that have occurred. It is argued that the introduction of an Accommodation Supplement has the potential to promote fiscal ‘blowout’ in government expenditure, may contribute to housing affordability problems and, combined with the changes in the management of public housing, increase socio-spatial polarisation within urban areas.

The nutrient intake of elderly men living alone and their attitudes towards nutrition education

Aims: A cross‐sectional study was undertaken among elderly men living alone in Sunderland to (1) assess their dietary intake and food habits, (2) to identify factors which influence their food choice, and (3) to investigate perceived needs regarding nutrition education activities.Methods: A random sample of 66 men, aged 70 years and over was drawn from members of luncheon clubs (n=33) and residents of sheltered housing accommodation (n=33). Dietary intake was assessed using a validated semi‐quantified food frequency questionnaire (FFQ).Results: Intake of all nutrients, with the exception of energy, vitamin D and fibre was adequate. Almost half of the subjects (47%) had energy intakes below the EAR, and the majority tended towards underweight, as indicated by the age‐adjusted reference standards for BMI. Taste and enjoyment were the factors which most influenced food choice. The main identified source of nutrition information was the media, followed by relatives and friends. Only half of the subjects perceived that they would benefit from nutrition education and 58% reported a willingness to participate in such activities if they were available.Conclusion: The findings suggest that although most subjects were aware of the role of dietary factors in the maintenance of an optimal health status, this age group is not a receptive audience for nutrition education activities. The targeting of elderly men living alone presents a challenge to nutrition educators.

Letting the job get to you:

It is commonplace to say that pet owners become like their pets. We also assume that professional people become affected by what they do. Surgeons become more incisive, philosophers more thoughtful, lawyers more pedantic, and so on. What happens to psychiatrists? I recently spent a month as Lundbeck visiting professor from the Royal College of Psychiatrists at the Indian National Institute of Mental Health Sciences in Bangalore. My hosts, Srinivasa Murthy and Mohan Isaacs, had prepared an extensive and demanding schedule in their renowned community mental health services so I readily accepted accommodation in the guest house on the institute campus rather than commute from a hotel. I arrived exhausted at Bangalore after a stressful flight via Bombay …

Risk Assessment Of Factors Related To Fire Protection In Dwellings

A Monte Carlo simulation (CRISP) of entire fire scenarios has been developed for use in risk assessment. CRISP'S basic structure is a two layer multi-room zone model, with extra features, most notably people, included. The model has been used to perform a fire risk assessment of a domestic house. If a house has more than two storeys (which may also be the case if an attic or roof space has been converted for use as living accommodation in a two-storey house), the Approved Document of the Building regulations for England and Wales recommends protecting the staircases with fire-resisting construction. The purpose of the CRISP study was to investigate whether the provision of smoke alarms would remove the need for staircase protection. It was found that smoke alarms did provide an acceptable level of risk for the occupants, which was comparable to that provided by passive fire protection

Housing accommodation preferences of people with psychiatric disabilities.

The study sought to identify the types of housing preferred by people with psychiatric disabilities seeking accommodations through a community mental health service in Sydney, Australia. Housing options available in the mental health service's catchment area were identified, and the extent of demands on residents' behavior that was associated with each option was assessed using an established measure. Clients examined descriptions of each housing option and rank-ordered the options based on their preferences. Clients' current levels of functioning and symptoms were also assessed. Clients most preferred environments that ensured living alone in settings of low behavioral demand. Living in one's own home was the most preferred option, followed by living in government-subsidized housing, For-profit boarding houses were preferred over psychiatric group homes, and homelessness, long-term hospitalization, and crisis accommodations were least preferred. Shelter, privacy, food, and safety were highly valued housing attributes. Demographic characteristics, level of functioning, and severity of psychiatric symptoms did not predict accommodation preferences. Consumers' resistance to psychiatric group housing with high levels of behavioral demand is unrelated to consumer characteristics and should be considered in planning suitable accommodations for persons with psychiatric disabilities.

J.E. Thornton and D.J. MacDougall. Law and Legal Services for an Aging Population. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, Committee on Gerontology, Faculty of Graduate Studies, 1990, pp. 180.

ABSTRACTLaw and Legal Services for an Aging Population is a report in three parts. The first part deals with substantive law in areas such as access to legal services, discrimination on the basis of age, and protection of the elderly person. That first part contains a good review of some legal aspects of protection against elder abuse. Other aspects which are becoming very important such as powers of attorney in medical decisions are only touched in passing, while others such as housing accommodations and the rights of elderly persons in nursing homes are simply ignored. The second part presents the results of a survey carried in Greater Vancouver purporting to assess existing and future demands for legal services and obstacles thereto. The results are interesting mainly because so little research has been undertaken in this area. There is no conclusion and no specific recommendations result from this survey. The Third part presents a good annotated bibliography of legal cases and scholarship on selective law issues affecting elderly persons.

The restrictive character of single-family housing as socio-housing for chronic psychiatric patients

After the Second World War the standard single-family house became the most popular form of housing for families in the Netherlands. Most recent singlefamily houses can be characterized as three-storey houses with a front and back garden, streetwise arranged in rows of two or more houses, mostly built on housing estates with many dwellings of the same type. It was an attractive idea to use this relatively cheap large-scale supply of housing close to psychiatric hospitals for the first so-called socio-houses for chronic psychiatric patients and the mentally retarded. In spite of some initial success (Delimon, 1980), after a while more than half of the residents had to be readmitted to the psychiatric hospital. Explanations for this have largely been sought in terms of the characteristics of the residents (Van Eynde, 1984). Experience with socially-integrated more individualized housing accommodation for chronic psychiatric patients, however, has shown a low percentage of residents returning, and in some cases it has not been necessary for residents to return to the hospital at all (Keizer, 1990). In such cases neither the characteristics of the residents nor the care and support policy seemed to differ essentially. The standard single-family house was originally designed to provide accommodation for four to five residents, of whom only two would be adults, the others being children. It seems obvious then that living in a single-family house with four adults could, in itself, have led to problems. In 1987 a survey was conducted into the influence of the standard singlefamily house on the behaviour of the adult chronic psychiatric residents of the socio-houses of the Delta Hospital in Poortugaal and Rhoon (Figure 1). This article presents a summary of the survey report (Keizer, 1988b).