Political Stressors Research Articles

The role of marine aquaculture in contributing to the diversity and stability of U.S. seafood production

Seafood systems are likely to face increasing environmental, economic, and political stressors, leading to disruptions to marine ecosystems and to the communities that depend on harvest of marine resources. Drawing from portfolio theory, we suggest that a more diverse industry might be more stable and resilient in the face of these stressors; and one important source of diversification could be from increasing and broadening marine aquaculture production. This is one argument for encouraging development of marine aquaculture within the United States, where the industry currently accounts for < 10% of domestic seafood value. Using regional production data, we explore the evidence that marine aquaculture development helps diversify the seafood system in the United States and make it less vulnerable to outside stressors, while also highlighting data limitations that hinder a more rigorous analysis. Our results suggest that a seafood strategy that focuses on diversity – both within marine aquaculture and by increasing the sector’s contribution to U.S. seafood production – may help achieve a more stable and resilient national seafood industry.

The mental health impact of multiple deprivations under protracted conflict: A multi-level study in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Building on the literatures examining the impacts of deprivation and war and conflict on mental health, in this study, we investigate the impact of different forms of deprivation on mental health within a context of prolonged conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory(oPt). We expand the operationalization go deprivation while accounting for more acute exposures to conflict and political violence and spatial variations. We use multilevel modelling of data from the Socio-Economic & Food Security Survey 2014 conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, which included a sample size of 7827 households in the West Bank(WB) and Gaza Strip(GS). We conduct the analysis for the combined sample, as for the WB and GS separately. We use a General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ12) score as our main outcome measure of poor health. We used various measures of deprivation including subjective deprivation, material deprivation, food deprivation, and political deprivation. In addition to the different measures of deprivation, we included acute political, health, and economic shocks in our analysis along with background socio-demographic characteristics. The results indicate significant variance at the locality level. We find a significant association between poor mental health and subjective, economic, political, and food deprivation; health, economic, and political stressors; age, and being a woman. Post-secondary education and wealth have a significant inverse association with poor mental health. Subjective deprivation is the strongest predictor of GHQ12 score in the models whereby people who feel very deprived have GHQ12 scores that are almost 4-points higher than people who do not feel deprived. Economic conditions, particularly subjective measures, are significant predictors of mental health status. Our findings confirm that political and social factors are determinants of health. Feeling deprived is an important determinant of mental health. The community effect suggests that spatial characteristics are influencing mental health, and warrant further investigation.

Social-Ecological Change on the Mongolian Steppe:\xa0Herder Perceptions of Causes, Impacts, and Adaptive Strategies

Pastoral people in rangelands worldwide are experiencing uncertainty due to a combination of climatic, economic, and political stressors. Our study seeks to create a full view of the drivers, impacts, and adaptations to change for livestock herders in rural Mongolia, making use of herder traditional knowledge and select instrumental data. Interview respondents described undesirable trends in livestock herds, pasture, wildlife, and their livelihoods in three sites in northern, central, and eastern Mongolia from 1995 to 2015, including decreased lake levels. There was more agreement for precipitation trends than for temperature. We developed a systems model based on herder descriptions of the sequence and prominence of interacting drivers of change. Finally, we describe measures herders are taking to adapt to these changes, such as more frequent livestock movement. We present a transdisciplinary view of social-ecological change and applications for more regionally focused governance in an era of climate uncertainty.

Monitoring the dynamic vulnerability of an Arctic subsistence food system to climate change: The case of Ulukhaktok, NT.

Vulnerability to climate change is highly dynamic, varying between and within communities over different timescales. This paper draws upon complex adaptive systems thinking to develop an approach for capturing, understanding, and monitoring climate vulnerability in a case study from northern Canada, focusing on Inuit food systems. In the community of Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, we followed 10 hunters over a 2-year period, asking them to document their harvesting activities and discuss their lived experience of harvesting under changing environmental and societal conditions. GPS monitoring and participatory mapping sessions were used to document 23,996km of trails (n = 409), with conversational bi-weekly semi-structured interviews and secondary instrumental weather data used to contextualise climate change within a nexus of other socioeconomic, cultural, and political stressors that also affect harvesting. Our results demonstrate that climate change has considerable potential to affect harvesting activities, particularly when its impacts manifest as anomalous/extreme events. However, climate change impacts are not necessarily the most salient issues affecting harvesting on a day-to-day basis. Instead, factors relating to economics (particularly financial capital and the wage-based economy), social networks, and institutions are found to have a greater influence, either as standalone factors with cascading effects or when acting synchronously to augment the impacts of environmental change.

Self-Care and Storytelling for Radiologists: A Feasibility Study

Rationale and ObjectivesPhysician wellness and burnout mitigation strategies have become priority practices in recent years. Despite these efforts, however, physicians living with the psychological effects of the current COVID-19 global pandemic, political stressors, and social injustices, face ever increasing threats to their personal and professional well-being. This manuscript investigates the process of storytelling as a self-care practice for radiologists. Materials and MethodsThe AUR Well Being Ad-Hoc Committee introduced and approved Storytelling Geek Week, a virtual workshop held by The Moth, a Peabody award-winning storytelling nonprofit group. Nineteen AUR members applied and were selected for participation in the workshop which occurred over 5 days in November 2020. Anonymous electronic surveys were sent to participants before and after the workshop to gather feedback on their experience. ResultsOf the 19 AUR member participants, 12 (63%) completed the pre-workshop survey and 8 (42%) completed the post-workshop survey. Participant current state of well-being was found to be increased between the pre- and post-course surveys, with a statistically significant adjusted P-value of 0.017. All 8 post-workshop respondents reported that they would recommend the workshop to others. With regard to how participation in the workshop impacted their wellbeing, representative free text responses include, “helped with processing emotions,” and “felt more connected to strangers.” Regarding shifts in perspective as a result of workshop participation, representative free text responses include, “more empathetic” and “started focusing on hope and gratitude rather than sadness and anxiety.” ConclusionParticipants in a storytelling workshop reported a positive impact on their perceived sense of well-being. Respondents also reports shifts in their sense of empathy and connectedness to others. This type of intervention may help to mitigate burnout and build community during challenging times.

The psychological impact of deprivation in regions affected by conflict: a multilevel analysis of a cross-sectional survey in the occupied Palestinian territory

BackgroundDeprivation is an important determinant of poor health. Locality can be key in understanding variation in deprivation across a population. This study aimed to analyse how different forms of deprivation affect mental health among Palestinians, and how they account for locality effects in the occupied Palestinian territory. MethodsWe used multilevel modelling to analyse data from the Socio-Economic & Food Security Survey 2014 conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, which had a sample size of 7827 adults representing the same number of households. The main outcome is a General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) score, in which a higher score signifies worse mental health. Deprivation variables include subjective deprivation, material deprivation, food deprivation, and political deprivation (which was measured by use of the human insecurity scale). For the analysis, we included data on experience of different stressors (economic, political, health-related, and weather-related stress) reported at the household level in the 6 months preceding the survey, and we controlled for demographic characteristics, including age, gender, education, wealth, and region. We also conducted a two-level random effects multilevel regression, with locality as a proxy for neighbourhood. FindingsThe model indicates significant variance at the locality (neighbourhood) level. There is a significant association between poor mental health and subjective, economic, political, and food deprivation; health, economic, and political stressors; age, and being a woman. Education beyond secondary school level and wealth have a significant inverse association with poor mental health. Individuals who indicated that they felt somewhat or very deprived have significantly higher GHQ scores than individuals who indicated that they did not feel deprived (β=1·73 and 4·33 for those who felt deprived and who did not feel deprived, respectively, p<0·0001). Food consumption was inversely associated with GHQ score (β=−0·01, p<0·0001) and food insecurity was positively associated with GHQ score (β=0·19, p<0·0001). Political deprivation, and health-related, political, and economic stressors were significantly positively associated with GHQ scores (β=0·043, 0·23, 0·35, and 0·19 respectively, p<0·0001). Age (β=0·079, p<0·0001) and being a woman were positively associated with GHQ score (β=0·26, p=0·0040), whereas education beyond secondary school level was inversely associated with GHQ score (β=−0·54, p<0·0001). InterpretationThe findings that the mental health of Palestinians is associated with various forms of deprivation and stressors, provide further evidence that political and social factors are determinants of health. Correlated factors include both subjective and objective measures, and suggest that although material conditions are important, people's subjective experiences are also important. Feeling deprived is an important correlate of mental health. The community effect suggests that services (or lack thereof), checkpoints and blockades, political situations, and other factors that vary across localities, may influence mental health issues at the neighbourhood level. FundingThis project is part of the study “Re-conceptualising health in wars and conflicts: a new focus on deprivation and suffering” funded by the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Food insecurity in the context of conflict: analysis of survey data in the occupied Palestinian territory

BackgroundConflict impacts food security and decreases household dietary diversity. However, few studies have explored the routes by which prolonged conflict and social stressors affect food insecurity experience and food diversity. This study examines the influence of political, economic, and agricultural stressors on food insecurity and food diversity, and evaluates variations in food insecurity and food diversity with location of residence for households in the occupied Palestinian territory. MethodsA secondary data analysis with structural equation modelling was carried out on data from the Socio-Economic & Food Security Survey 2014 of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The survey was completed by a representative sample of the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territory at governorate and locality levels, and consisted of 4215 households in the West Bank and 2916 households in the Gaza Strip. The primary outcomes were food diversity (measured with a food consumption score) and food insecurity (assessed with a composite experience-based measure of food security). We used structural equation models to examine the relationships between location of residence (in the West Bank, living in Area C versus not Area C; in the Gaza Strip, proximity of residence to the buffer zone), the number of political stressors, economic stressors, and agricultural stressors (eg, restricted access to land), and the primary outcomes. We controlled for demographic characteristics, including education, governorate, and wealth. FindingsIn the West Bank, there was no statistically significant direct association between living in Area C and food insecurity. Living in Area C is associated with a higher number of agricultural stressors than not Area C (p=0·032), and a higher number of agricultural stressors is in turn associated with lower food diversity (p=0·0080) and higher food insecurity (p=0·040). In the Gaza Strip, proximity to the buffer zone is directly associated with higher food insecurity (p=0.041) and lower food diversity (p=0·019) and a higher number of political stressors (p=0·057). A higher number of political stressors is associated with a higher number of economic stressors (p=0·026) and higher food insecurity (p=0·034). InterpretationThe findings suggest that political, economic, and agricultural factors contribute to food insecurity and food diversity, and that their interactions are complex. Conflict and occupation affect food availability through both direct and indirect channels. In the Gaza Strip, living in close proximity to the buffer zone is associated with lower food diversity and higher food insecurity. In the West Bank, although residing in Area C may not directly increase food insecurity, the hardship generated by the conditions in Area C contributes to higher food insecurity. FundingThe Emirates Foundation.

Adolescent access to health services in fragile and conflict-affected contexts: The case of the Gaza Strip

BackgroundEnjoyment of physical and mental health is not only recognized as a human right but also as an integral part of development, as reflected in Sustainable Development Goal 3 – to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. The rapid physical and psychosocial changes that take place during adolescence have a strong influence on the rest of a person’s life course, so investments in adolescent health services constitute a unique opportunity to reap inter-generational dividends. Yet the evidence base on adolescents’ access to health services, particularly in conflict-affected contexts, remains thin. This article explores adolescents’ access to health services in the Gaza Strip, and their experiences and perceptions of those services.MethodsThe article draws on mixed methods research in the Gaza Strip conducted in 2016 and 2017 as part of the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence research programme. Data were collected from 240 male and female adolescents combining in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and a tablet-based survey. This study also draws on a participatory action pilot project engaging 12 boys and 23 adolescent girls aged 15–19 years old.ResultsThe findings underscore that gender norms—especially those pertaining to adolescent girls’ sexual purity––shape adolescent health in multiple ways. Girls face increasing restrictions on their mobility, leaving them with limited opportunities for leisure or exercise, socializing with peers or seeking health services and information. Adolescent boys in Gaza do not face the same restrictions, but given the multiple political, economic and familial stressors, they are at high risk of substance abuse including smoking and involvement in peer violence. Moreover, our findings suggest that a range of socioeconomic, cultural and structural barriers prevent adolescents in Gaza from accessing quality and appropriate health care. Study participants cited the main challenges being an absence of preventive adolescent health initiatives and limited information on sexual and reproductive health, as well as drug shortages, high treatment costs, and inappropriate interactions with service providers.ConclusionsThe article highlights the importance of designing and implementing conflict-sensitive and age- and gender-appropriate adolescent services and information and promoting preventive services targeted at adolescents.

Outsourcing governance in Peru’s integrated water resources management

Participatory water governance has become highly influential around the world as a means for managing water resources. Scholars and practitioners advocate for the inclusion of previously marginalized communities in water resources management through the devolution of power, responsibility, and participation. Where community institutions are weak or missing, experts recommend strengthening or re-building them to enable inclusive decision-making over water resources. Our study looks at devolution in a government-initiated integrated water resources management approach in the Caylloma Province, located in the department of Arequipa, Peru. We used process tracing to analyze 97 qualitative interview transcripts with crop farmers and pastoralists managing water for irrigation, interview transcripts with personnel in water management agencies, and field notes from participant observation in water-related meetings. We found that farmers had limited ability to participate in local institutions for water management due to market integration and labor migration, among other socioeconomic and political stressors. For this reason, transferring more water management responsibilities and decision-making power to community-level institutions without considering the factors that limit their sustainability over time is not necessarily feasible or even desirable by local communities. Instead, strengthening and streamlining intermediary and government institutions at regional scales may be more effective at addressing local needs in watershed management.

Perceived Climate Variability and Compounding Stressors: Implications for Risks to Livelihoods of Smallholder Indian Farmers.

Micro-scale perspectives are seldom included in planned climate change adaptations, yet farmers' perceptions can provide useful insights into livelihood impacts from interactions between climatic and other stressors. This research aims to understand how climate variability and other stressors are impacting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Azamgarh district, eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. Data from 84 smallholder farmers were collected using mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches, including interview and participatory methods, informed by multiple stressor and sustainable livelihood frameworks. Results revealed that farmers are increasingly facing problems caused by the reduced duration and number of rainy days, and erratic rainfall. Anomalies in seasonal cycles (longer summers, shorter winters) seem to have altered the local climate. Farmers reported that repeated drought impacts, even in years of moderate rainfall, are adversely affecting the rice crop, challenging the formal definition of drought. Climate variability, identified as the foremost stressor, often acts as a risk multiplier for ecological (e.g., soil sodicity), socio-economic (e.g., rising costs of cultivation) and political (e.g., mismatching policies and poor extension systems) stressors. In addition to climate stresses, resource-poor marginal groups in particular experienced higher risks resulting from changes in resource management regimes. This study provides an important cue to revisit the formal definitions of normal rainfall and drought, accommodating farmers' perceptions that evenly distributed rainfall, and not total rainfall is a key determinant of crop yields. Though India has developed adaptive measures for climate change and variability, integration of farmers' perceptions of climate and other stressors into such policies can improve the resilience of smallholder farmers, who have hitherto depended largely on autonomous adaptation strategies.

Values, environmental vulnerabilities, and implications on adaptation: Evidence from an indigenous Raika community in Rajasthan, India

Global environmental change has exacerbated the vulnerabilities of pastoral communities in India, who have already been sidelined in the current development and modernization discourse. The Raikas are one of the largest groups of indigenous nomadic pastoralists residing in the semi-arid regions of Northwest India. They are facing the brunt of shrinking grazing areas, social marginalization, and economic pressures. The past two decades have witnessed additional challenges, such as water scarcity and rainfall variability, which have pushed them beyond their adaptive threshold. These churnings have led to a radical shift in their values and climate adaptation strategies. However, the role and importance of social values in shaping their response to environmental change are not well understood. This study conducted life history interviews and focus group discussions with community members to examine social values and their linkages with climate adaptation decision-making in Raikas. The findings demonstrate that the community’s livelihood, health, and social cohesion are severely affected by environmental change, entwined with social, economic, and political stressors. There is a parallel change taking place in their social values. Their values related to esteem, self-actualization, safety, and belongingness have witnessed shifts, leading them away from pastoralism. This has ramifications on their adaptation decision-making. Their time-tested and preferred choice of adaptation in the face of drought and water scarcity – seasonal livestock migration – is no longer desirable. New adaptation options, such as urban migration, have emerged, while traditional measures have declined in popularity. There is an urgent need to understand and engage with a broader set of methodologies and literature to facilitate the integration of social values in vulnerability and adaptation assessments. The inclusion of social values presents an opportunity to understand the subjective limits of adaptation better as well as to expand adaptation pathways.

Recent Canadian efforts to develop population-level pregnancy intervention studies to mitigate effects of natural disasters and other tragedies.

The preconception, pregnancy and immediate postpartum and newborn periods are times for mothers and their offspring when they are especially vulnerable to major stressors - those that are sudden and unexpected and those that are chronic. Their adverse effects can transcend generations. Stressors can include natural disasters or political stressors such as conflict and/or migration. Considerable evidence has accumulated demonstrating the adverse effects of natural disasters on pregnancy outcomes and developmental trajectories. However, beyond tracking outcomes, the time has arrived for gathering more information related to identifying mechanisms, predicting risk and developing stress-reducing and resilience-building interventions to improve outcomes. Further, we need to learn how to encapsulate both the quantitative and qualitative information available and share it with communities and authorities to mitigate the adverse developmental effects of future disasters, conflicts and migrations. This article briefly reviews prenatal maternal stress and identifies three contemporary situations (wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada; hurricane Harvey in Houston, USA and transgenerational and migrant stress in Pforzheim, Germany) where current studies are being established by Canadian investigators to test an intervention. The experiences from these efforts are related along with attempts to involve communities in the studies and share the new knowledge to plan for future disasters or tragedies.

Injustice Turned Inward? Continuous Traumatic Stress and Social Polarization in Egypt

Based on 40 life-story testimonies with young Cairene activists, this article argues that post-revolutionary Egypt was marked by Continuous Traumatic Stress (CTS). CTS is a phenomenological term that accounts for the structurally traumatic nature of political repression. It emphasizes the continuing temporality of such pervasive traumatizaton and the structural political stressors that underpin it. CTS thus entails a specifically political conception of trauma, according to which traumatic stress is in fact constituted by a violent, corrupt, unaccountable political and judicial system. This article argues that the traumatic experiences of activists in pre-and post-revolutionary Egypt are best perceived through the lens of CTS. It also insists that such traumatic stress—particularly the lack of justice and formal recourse—provided a fertile breeding ground for revenge and social polarization, which was directly incited by counter-revolutionary actors (such as the military and Muslim Brotherhood leadership), thereby sadly further contributing to the (seemingly endless) continuous cycle of continued traumatic stress.

Королевство кривых зеркал: эволюция рынков нерегистрируемого алкоголя в России в 1980–2010-е годы

Вадим Валерьевич Радаев – доктор экономических наук, профессор, руководитель, Лаборатория экономико-социологических исследований, Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики»; первый проректор, Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики». Адрес: 101000, Москва, ул. Мясницкая, д. 20. E-mail: radaev@hse.ru&#x0D; Цитирование: Радаев В.В. (2018) Королевство кривых зеркал: эволюция рынков нерегистрируемого алкоголя в России в 1980–2010-е годы // Мир России. Т. 27. № 3. С. 28–60. DOI: 10.17323/1811-038X-2018-27-3-28-60&#x0D; &#x0D; В работе анализируется эволюция разнородных рынков нерегистрируемого алкоголя в России с периода позднего социализма до наших дней. Особое внимание уделяется рынку домашнего алкоголя, рынку поддельной и фальсифицированной алкогольной продукции и рынку неучтенного алкоголя промышленного производства. Нелегальность этих рынков имеет разную подоснову, включая несоблюдение запретов на реализацию определенной продукции, нарушение прав на использование объектов интеллектуальной собственности или уклонение от уплаты налогов. На основе статистических, опросных и экспертных данных описываются разнородные рынки нерегистрируемого алкоголя и показывается, как меняется их комбинация по мере прохождения через четыре исторических этапа. Они включают (1) этап позднего социализма и жесткой антиалкогольной кампании (1980–1991 гг.), (2) этап либеральных реформ и резкого экономического спада (1992–1999 гг.), (3) этап консолидации государства и экономического роста (2000–2007 гг.), (4) этап экономической рецессии и новой алкогольной политики (с 2008 г. до настоящего времени). На каждом этапе на фоне меняющихся сложных констелляций политических, законодательных и экономических условий один из рынков активно развивался, в то время как другие оставались в неразвитом состоянии или отходили на второй план. Сначала доминировало потребление домашнего алкоголя (самогона); затем произошел всплеск контрафактного и фальсифицированного алкоголя; наконец, наблюдается экспансия рынка неучтенного алкоголя промышленного производства.&#x0D; Полученные данные свидетельствуют о том, что рынки нерегистрируемого алкоголя имеют тенденцию к расширению во времена экзогенных политических и экономических шоков. В периоды же относительной экономической стабильности и роста они сокращаются или, по крайней мере, остаются на прежнем уровне. В некоторые периоды рынки регистрируемого и нерегистрируемого алкоголя движутся в противоположных направлениях, в то время как в другие, более короткие, периоды они развиваются параллельно. Изменения в структуре рынков нерегистрируемого алкоголя сопровождаются периодическими переквалификациями продуктов, организаций и транзакций, когда оспариваются и смещаются границы между легальным и нелегальным. При этом отдельные нелегальные виды деятельности сохраняют в той или иной степени свою легитимность в силу двух дополняющих друг друга причин: неосведомленности или толерантности конечных потребителей и представителей госорганов, призванных осуществлять правоприменение. Границы между легитимным и нелегитимным, как правило, более неопределенные и меняются гораздо медленнее.

Politically-focused intrusive thoughts and associated ritualistic behaviors in a community sample

A significant proportion of the U.S. population report increased stress attributed to the political climate following the controversial 2016 United States (U.S.) Presidential election. The political stressors paired with the growth in news consumption and social media-use could be a potential trigger for obsessive-compulsive-like symptoms specific to politics in some individuals. This study aimed to elucidate the rate of Politically-focused Intrusive Thoughts and associated Ritualistic Behaviors (PITRB), their demographic and clinical correlates, and the degree of association with political ideology. Survey data were collected using the crowdsourcing platform Mechanical Turk. A total of N = 484 individuals completed the survey. Measures of politically-focused intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors, general obsessive-compulsive symptoms, depression, anxiety, anxiety control, worry, and disability were administered, as well as a measure of social and economic conservative affiliation. Results showed that a quarter of the sample (25.2%) had at least one PITRB more than once a day. PITRB was associated with all measures of psychopathology and disability. Finally, anxiety control moderated the relationship between PITRB and both anxiety and depression. No differences in psychopathology were found between major party affiliations. The findings suggest that politically-focused intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors are associated with psychopathology domains in a manner comparable to general obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Community-Based Monitoring as the practice of Indigenous governance: A case study of Indigenous-led water quality monitoring in the Yukon River Basin

Indigenous peoples are increasingly developing Community-Based Monitoring programs to protect the waters and lands within their territories in response to multiple ecological and political stressors. Furthermore, CBM tends to focus on Indigenous peoples’ role as ‘knowledge holders.’ This paper explores CBM through a governance lens by understanding CBM as a strategy for the assertion of Indigenous sovereignty and jurisdiction. Research findings revealed that CBM is understood as both a method for generating data useful for decision-making and an expression of governance itself, rooted in understandings of stewardship, kinship and responsibility. Our findings also suggest that data quality and credibility, trust and legitimacy and relevance to decision contexts are key to mobilizing CBM data in relevant decision-making processes. We provide three recommendations to improve linkages between CBM programs and Indigenous governance: Indigenous governments must take a leading role in CBM programs; networked capacity between Indigenous governments can be built using a bridging organization; and CBM programs should be closely coupled with Indigenous environmental governance strategies. All research herein is collaborative and is based on our engagement with the Indigenous Observation Network – an Indigenous-led community-based water quality monitoring network involving Yukon and BC First Nations as well as Alaska Native Tribes. It is considered the largest Indigenous water quality network in the world and is coordinated by the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council and the United States Geological Survey. Results are derived from interviews with twenty samplers and ten other stakeholders with attention to ways to better inform internal and external decision-making processes.

Midwifery in the 21st century: Are students prepared for the challenge?

The role of the midwife is emotionally and physically challenging: birth rates are increasing, there are staff shortages and increasingly more complex cases for which to coordinate care ( Royal College of Midwives (RCM), 2015 ). There are also professional and policy requirements to be met, all in the context of practising in line with our core value of being ‘with woman’ and providing her with individualised, high-quality, evidence-based care. Such demands drive some midwives to leave the profession, citing stress, burnout, compassion fatigue and emotional exhaustion as causes ( Curtis et al, 2006 ). Others develop strategies to cope with the complex and varied stressors of the role; they demonstrate resilience. The future of maternity services in the UK is dependent on the retention of resilient midwives, so it is important that the characteristics are explored to ascertain whether resilience is a personal trait or one that can be learned. In 2013, the RCM funded the first research project in the UK to investigate resilience in midwifery ( Hunter and Warren, 2013 ). This article will provide an overview of the clinical, professional and political stressors qualified midwives have to deal with on a daily basis in order to understand the environment student midwives are exposed to when working under the tutelage of their midwife mentor. It will consider the relevance of Hunter and Warren's (2013) findings in the context of midwifery pre-registration education, as the future of midwifery practice in the UK depends on the recruitment, retention and successful qualification of student midwives who are adequately prepared to cope with the complex emotional and physical demands of the profession.

Creating Scrutiny Indicators: A Change Point Exploration of Congressional Scrutiny of the US Federal Reserve

We investigate trends in Congressional scrutiny of the US Federal Reserve from the late 1990s through 2012. Though independent, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) is accountable to legislative principals. Our aim is to develop indicators of latent scrutiny from congresspersons’ behavior in committee hearings. These can be used to study the political stressors the Fed is under and how it responds. We use change point analysis to estimate periods of high and low legislative scrutiny from both the US House of Representatives and Senate. Surprisingly, though the Senate has the power to approve Fed appointments, their scrutiny of the Fed does not seem to noticeably change over our observation period. The House Committee on Financial Services did noticeably increase its scrutiny of the Fed during the recent financial crisis. The paper also introduces political scientists to new multivariate change point methods that can estimate latent legislative scrutiny states. These indicators could be used in future research to better understand legislative-bureaucratic relationships.

Can appraisals of common political life events impact subjective well-being?

This study examined the psychological impact of global subjective appraisals of influence exerted on people's lives by common political events. A list of 24 political events was administered to a random sample of 400 adults in Poland. Political self-efficacy, interest in politics, perceived political social support, and political collective efficacy were also assessed as potential moderators of the link between political stress appraisals and subjective well-being (satisfaction with life, sense on anomie, positive affect). Perceptions of the negative influence of political stressors on one's life and the life of the country were associated with concomitant variations in subjective well-being. Among psychosocial resources, political self-efficacy consistently moderated the influence of appraisals of political stressors on satisfaction with life and positive affect.

The Role of Political Skill and Workplace Stressors on Psychological and Physiological Strain

The proposed symposium focuses on the role of workplace stressors and political skill on both psychological and physiological strain. The first three papers are empirical examinations and the final...