Survey Of Scotland Research Articles

The International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health Framework (ICF): a new approach to enhance sport and physical activity participation among people with disabilities in Scotland.

This research provides a pilot study of the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health Framework (ICF) involving persons with disabilities (PWD) with and without lived experience of sport participation in Scotland. National surveys in Scotland provide limited information on the nature of individual disability restricting the understanding of the relationship between disability and sport and physical activity participation. The ICF is a framework that aims to describe and classify functioning and thus can be used as a tool to provide a more detailed description of impairment for PWDs beyond their clinical condition. This knowledge has the potential to enhance the development of policies to increase the participation levels in this group. The ICF has also been used to inform the current IPC classification system at a competitive and elite level. As part of a larger study, 450 participants aged between 12 and 70 years completed an online questionnaire examining attitudes to, and participation in, sport and physical activity as well as completing the structural and functional components of the ICF. Subsequently, 18 people participated in focus groups aged between 13 and 61 years. The focus groups examined four meta-theme areas: physical, social, psychological, and sport-specific factors. The results confirm that the ICF provided a more detailed indicator of the key impairments that could have an impact on sport and physical activity participation. There was a clear lack of awareness of the links between the ICF and the classification system for competitive parasport. We concluded that a modified ICF-based assessment tool, incorporating social and environmental factors, has the potential to predict the likelihood of participation and offers a more comprehensive picture of both individual and national disability characteristics. This allows for the development of targeted policies and strategies to assist those with a disability to participate in sport. The overall framework presents a shift in thinking, in policy terms, for those in public health and in sport governance and delivery. The significance of this work is especially concerned with public health and wellbeing and sport development policy as pathways from recreational sport user to elite athlete parasport classification and performance.

Liaison psychiatry services in Scotland, 2022: online survey of NHS health boards.

Liaison psychiatry services have seen significant developments the UK. Regular surveys of liaison psychiatry in England have contributed to this, but it has not attracted the same interest in Scotland, with only a mention and no commitments in the Scottish Government's Mental Health Strategy. There have been no comprehensive surveys in Scotland and this study was an attempt to explore provisioning of services. A questionnaire was sent to liaison psychiatry services in the mainland Scottish National Health Service (NHS) health boards. Responses obtained from all 11 boards revealed considerable variation in service provisioning. Services provided through acute rather than mental health directorates seem significantly better resourced. Liaison psychiatry services can improve care for patients but require adequate resources to do so. There are limited quality standards for Scottish liaison services, unlike other devolved nations, leading to variation in provision. This survey will assist in designing quality standards for liaison psychiatry in Scotland.

What makes local energy projects acceptable? Probing the connection between ownership structures and community acceptance

Community ownership of wind energy has been found to increase acceptance, but the reasons for this are poorly understood. Here, we compare different communities’ attitudes towards local onshore wind energy projects in order to gain a deeper understanding of the characteristics of ownership which are conducive to community acceptance. Using a postal survey in Scotland (n = 318), we compared three communities with varying degrees of ownership regarding their (1) support for the local wind project; (2) perceptions of energy justice; (3) perceived impacts; and (4) ownership and benefit preferences. One-way ANOVAs and the Potential for Conflict Index2 identified that residents in the two communities with a degree of ownership were more associated with greater acceptance, processes, and outcomes (i.e. more just and inclusive development processes and more fairly distributed benefits and impacts), than residents living near the privately-owned development. Additionally, we provide evidence that a co-operative can achieve similar acceptance and energy justice as a fully community-owned project. Overall, the results indicate that policymakers should take seriously the connection between the tenets of energy justice and ownership models in their policy and planning efforts.

An analysis of the role of residential location on the relationships between time spent online and non-mandatory activity-travel time use over time

Although the associations between the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) and individuals' daily travel and activity patterns have been extensively investigated for several decades, few studies have examined the amount of time spent using ICT, its implications on activity-travel behavior, and how such ICT-travel relationships may vary over time and according to residential location. This study takes a quasi-longitudinal perspective to explore how the amount of time individuals spend on the Internet for personal or non-work purposes correlates to their activity-travel for non-mandatory maintenance and leisure purposes, as well as how such associations evolve over a decade. More importantly, it examines how the role of people's residential locations in determining the associations between time spent on the Internet and travel has changed over time. Our approach utilizes two datasets from two major cross-sectional surveys in Scotland: the 2005/06 Scottish Household Survey (SHS) and the 2015 Integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) Survey, which were similarly structured and developed. To accommodate the multiple discreteness characterizing activity-travel choice and duration, the multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model was employed to capture the Internet–travel relationships for the full sample and the urban, town, and rural sub-samples in both 2005/06 and 2015. Our findings suggest that use of the Internet for personal purposes increasingly tends to discourage rather than facilitate physical activity and travel for non-mandatory purposes over time, especially for those who spend high levels of time on the Internet (over ten hours per week). However, such Internet–travel relationships are generally weaker among people living in remote areas than those living in urban areas. While the relationships regarding maintenance activity purposes are significant for almost all levels of Internet users among the urbanites in both years, they were not significantly found at all among rural residents in either 2005/06 or 2015.

The long road to secondary school: background, home learning environment, and transition difficulties in Scotland

ABSTRACT This paper explores the association between children’s difficulty in moving to secondary school and their family background. School transition difficulty is associated with a range of poor outcomes in young people, but studies have rarely taken a fully longitudinal perspective or looked in detail at inequalities in transition processes. This perspective can unpack the long-term processes behind any inequalities in such difficulties. We use longitudinal data from the Growing Up in Scotland survey to model school transition difficulty at age 12 using ordinary least squares regression models. We adopt a multidimensional approach to social background, taking account of social class, parental education, and household income. All three dimensions, especially income, are associated with school transition difficulty. This social gradient is not explained by differences in the home learning environment, school engagement at primary level or cognitive development in early to middle childhood. Results show the limits of agency-based measures, like school engagement and home learning, in explaining inequality and children’s disadvantage in school. Results also show the importance of adopting a multidimensional approach to family background when analysing inequality in education, regardless of the outcome.

Higher education and school history in Scotland in the second half of the twentieth century

The relationship between students’ entry to higher education and the history or status of the secondary school which they attended is examined using school leavers’ surveys in Scotland stretching from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. The surveys are unique in the length of this period, their details of the higher-education institutions and schools which students attended, and their information on school attainment and on socio-economic status and sex. Universities, colleges and schools were classified in terms of their history in order to understand the role of educational institutions during three periods of reform – the ending of selection to secondary school between the mid-1960s and the late-1970s, and the two waves of expansion of higher education, in the 1960s and in the 1990s. The conclusion is that the distinctive characteristics of particular categories of institution – their institutional habitus – can modify inequality.

Linking ecosystem changes to their social outcomes: Lost in translation

Ecosystem degradation represents one of today’s major global challenges, threatening human well-being and livelihoods worldwide. To reverse continuing degradation, we need to understand its socio-economic consequences so that these can be incorporated into ecosystem management decisions. This requires links to be made between our understanding of how ecosystems function and change, with socially meaningful representations of those changes. While increasing attempts are being made at such integration, the interface or translation between those two strands remains largely undiscussed. This carries the risk that key aspects of the socio-ecological interactions become ‘lost in translation’. In this paper, we document and discuss how models of ecosystem change may be combined with socially meaningful outcomes exposing and discussing the translation process itself (i.e. the ‘translation key’). For this, we use an exemplar based on peatland condition. We employ a process-based model, DigiBog, to simulate the effects of land use on blanket peatlands, which we relate to estimates of changes to the public’s well-being derived from peatland degradation and restoration, obtained as monetary values from a choice experiment survey in Scotland (UK). By quantifying linkages between environmental conditions and social values, we make the translation between these system components transparent and allow value estimates to be recalculated under different ecological scenarios, or as new evidence emerges. This enhances the replicability of the research and can better inform decision-making. By using peatlands as the exemplar ecosystem, this paper also contributes to a limited body of evidence on the socio-economic impacts of changes to the most space-effective carbon store in the terrestrial biosphere.

James Croll and 1876: an exceptional year for a ‘singularly modest man’

ABSTRACTJames Croll left school at the age of 13 years, yet while a janitor in Glasgow he published a landmark paper on astronomically-related climate change, claimed as ‘the most important discovery in paleoclimatology’, and which brought him to the attention of Charles Darwin, William Thomson and John Tyndall, amongst others. By 1867 he was persuaded to become Secretary and Accountant of the newly established Geological Survey of Scotland in Edinburgh, and a year after the appearance of his keynote volume Climate and time in 1875, he was lauded with an honorary doctorate from Scotland's oldest university, Fellowship of the Royal Society of London and Honorary Membership of the New York Academy of Sciences. Using a range of archival and published sources, this paper explores aspects of his ‘journey’ and the background to the award of these major accolades. It also discusses why he never became a Fellow of his national academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In the world of 19th-Century science, Croll was not unusual in being both an autodidact and of humble origins, nor was he lacking in support for his endeavours. It is possible that a combination of Croll's modesty and innovative genius fostered advancement, though this did not hinder a willingness to engage in vigorous argument.

Sociodemographic and Psychological Risk Factors for Anxiety and Depression: Findings from the Covid-19 Health and Adherence Research in Scotland on Mental Health (CHARIS-MH) Cross-sectional Survey

BackgroundInvestigations about mental health report prevalence rates with fewer studies investigating psychological and social factors influencing mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic. Study aims: (1) identify sociodemographic groups of the adult population at risk of anxiety and depression and (2) determine if the following social and psychological risk factors for poor mental health moderated these direct sociodemographic effects: loneliness, social support, threat perception, illness representations.MethodsCross-sectional nationally representative telephone survey in Scotland in June 2020. If available, validated instruments were used, for example, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4) to measure anxiety and depression. Simple linear regressions followed by examination of moderation effect.ResultsA total of 1006 participants; median age 53 years, 61.4% female, from all levels of area deprivation (i.e., 3.8% in the most deprived decile and 15.6% in the most affluent decile). Analyses show associations of anxiety and depression with sociodemographic (age, gender, deprivation), social (social support, loneliness) and psychological factors (perceived threat and illness representations). Mental health was poorer in younger adults, women and people living in the most deprived areas. Age effects were exacerbated by loneliness and illness representations, gender effects by loneliness and illness representations and deprivation effects by loneliness, social support, illness representations and perceived threat. In each case, the moderating variables amplified the detrimental effects of the sociodemographic factors.ConclusionsThese findings confirm the results of pre-Covid-19 pandemic studies about associations between sociodemographics and mental health. Loneliness, lack of social support and thoughts about Covid-19 exacerbated these effects and offer pointers for pre-emptive action.

Unions of the mind: the UK as a subjective state

Those seeking to understand attitudes to decentralization focus on attitudes to constitutional change or to the ideal level of government to control particular areas of jurisdiction. Within this is a wider approach to understanding subjective dimensions of multi-level states and the different communities of interest or polities that exist within them. Drawing on data from successive rounds of the Future of England (including parallel surveys in Scotland and Wales), this article develops a conceptual framework through which to understand political unions as well as a multi-dimensional measure through which to evaluate the location of unions from a scale that runs from subjective unionism to subjective autonomism. It outlines the various unions of the mind, including an identity union, a union of economic solidarity, of social solidarity and of fairness (or legitimacy) and then proceeds to map these within the UK. It then evaluates what impact each of these has on attitudes to the wider state, including attitudes to its continued survival. The article draws primarily on individual-level survey data collected by the authors but refers also to campaigns for constitutional change in unions and relates this to what we know about how individuals conceive of the states in which they live.

Investigating the temporal changes in the relationships between time spent on the internet and non-mandatory activity-travel time use

The amount of time we spend online has been increasing dramatically, influencing our daily travel and activity patterns. However, empirical studies on changes in the extent to which the amount of time spent online are related to changes in our activity and travel patterns are scarce, mainly due to a lack of available longitudinal or quasi-longitudinal data. This paper explores how the relationships between the time spent using the Internet, and the time spent on non-mandatory maintenance and leisure activities, have evolved over a decade. Maintenance activities include out-of-home activities such as shopping, banking, and doctor visits, while leisure activities include entertainment activities, visiting friends, sporting activities, and so forth. Our approach uses two datasets from two major cross-sectional surveys in Scotland, i.e. the 2005/06 Scottish Household Survey (SHS) and the 2015 Integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) Survey, which were similarly structured and formed. The multiple discrete–continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model and difference-in-differences (DD) estimation are applied and integrated to examine how the relationships between the time spent on the Internet and travel have changed over time and the direction and magnitude of the changes. Our findings suggest that the complementary associations between Internet use and individuals’ non-mandatory activity-travel time use are diminishing over time, whereas their substitutive associations are increasing. We additionally find that such temporal changes are significant in the case of those who spent moderate to high levels of time on the Internet (5 h or more online) per week.

Heterogeneity in Farmers\u2019 Social Preferences and the Design of Green Payment Schemes

We examine how social preferences affect the workings of voluntary green payment schemes and show that a regulator could use facilitation services along with a social reward to generate better ecological outcome at less cost by exploiting a farmer’s social preferences to gain a green social-image/reputation. To motivate our model, we first present the results of an incentivized elicitation survey in Scotland which shows that there is a social norm of biodiversity protection on private land among farmers. Moreover, the results of a discrete choice experiment reveal that farmers are willing to give up economic rents for more publicity of their conservation activities; this confirms the relevance of reputational gain in the context of green payment schemes. Our model assumes two types of farmers, green and brown, with a green farmer taking more biodiversity protection actions than a brown farmer. We design a menu of contracts that offers both monetary incentives and non-monetary incentives (a facilitation service with social reward) to induce both type of farmers to join the scheme and to exert first-best levels (i.e., symmetric information levels) of action. Results show that under asymmetric information the regulator can implement the symmetric information equilibrium levels of biodiversity protection actions with only non-monetary incentives for the green farmer and only monetary incentives for the brown farmer. This implies that a regulator can ensure better environmental outcomes, at a lower cost, by exploiting farmers’ social preferences and by offering non-monetary incentives.

Dialect variation in Scottish Gaelic nominal morphology: A quantitative study

This paper presents a dialectometric analysis of Scottish Gaelic morphology, with a focus on the noun phrase, using previously unpublished data from the Linguistic Survey of Scotland. Fifty-five morphological features were extracted across 201 survey points, and the data subjected to a variety of analyses, including cluster analysis, regression, and correlation analysis. We establish that the Gaelic noun system shows robust diatopic (i.e. geographical) variation; this challenges previous assertions in the literature, which describe Gaelic morphosyntax as geographically uniform. In addition, we argue that our dialectometric results provide an insight into the grammatical structure of the language that is not easily achievable through the analysis of individual varieties. In particular, we argue that the results highlight a dissociation between morphological categories such as case and gender and their morphophonological exponents, which are particularly complex in Scottish Gaelic. The paper thus serves as a proof of concept for the use of dialectometric findings in a theoretical context.

The experience of school in Scotland, 1970s to 1990s

Reforms to secondary schooling in the 20th century are most commonly discussed in relation to structures—the extension of secondary education to all students in the first half of the century, and the ending of selection into different kinds of school after the 1960s. Yet reformers also sought to give students a more satisfactory experience of school. Understanding statistically the changing experience which students had of secondary school following the reforms of the 1960s requires a lengthy time series of survey data collected contemporaneously and the capacity to link that information to evidence on attainment and on demographic factors such as sex and socio‐economic status. Data from a unique series of such surveys in Scotland is used to investigate whether secondary schools became more humane in this period, whether students were more engaged with their schooling, and whether they thought that schools prepared them for life after they left. The conclusions are that the long‐term aspirations of reformers to make schooling more satisfactory for students were broadly achieved. There were indeed improvements of experience and sentiment of these kinds, and they extended to students at all levels of attainment, to both sexes, and to all levels of socio‐economic status.

The British E. coli O157 in cattle study (BECS): factors associated with the occurrence of E. coli O157 from contemporaneous cross-sectional surveys

BackgroundEscherichia coli O157 is a bacterial pathogen associated with severe disease in humans for which cattle are an important reservoir of infection. The identification of possible risk factors for infection in cattle could facilitate the development of control strategies and interventions to mitigate the risk to human health. The purpose of this study was to utilize data collected in 2014–2015 during the two contemporaneous cross-sectional surveys of the British E. coli O157 in Cattle Study (BECS) to investigate potential risk factors for E. coli O157 status in cattle destined for the food chain.ResultsIn the England & Wales survey only one variable, herd size, was associated with the outcome farm-level E. coli O157 positive status. The odds increased for each additional animal in the herd. In the Scotland survey, as well as a measure of herd size (the number of cattle aged 12–30 months), having brought breeding females on to the farm in the last year also increased the odds, whereas farms sampled in spring were less likely to be positive compared to those sampled in autumn.On the positive farms, in both surveys, an increase in the proportion of pats positive for E. coli O157 was associated with animals being housed at the time of sampling. However, the effect of housing on pat-level prevalence within positive groups was lower on farms from England & Wales than from Scotland (OR 0.45 (95% C.I. 0.24–0.86)).ConclusionFor the first time, factors associated with farm-level E. coli O157 status have been investigated in two contemporaneous surveys with comparable study design. Although factors associated with farm-level E. coli O157 status differed between the two surveys, one consistent factor was an association with a measure of herd size. Factors associated with the proportion of E. coli O157 positive pats within a positive farm were similar in both surveys but differed from those associated with farm-level status. These findings raise the hypothesis that measures to protect public health by reducing the risk from cattle may need to be tailored, rather than by assuming that a GB-wide protocol is the best approach.

The use of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation as an indicator to evaluate the impact of policy on widening access to higher education

Policy on widening access to higher education in Scotland is defined mainly in terms of students who live in deprived areas as defined by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Although area measures can be informative, and are convenient because they require only a postcode to classify any person into a deprivation category, they are crude. We use data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the Growing Up in Scotland Survey and the Scottish Household Survey to analyse the extent to which neighbourhood measures can be used as the basis of valid indicators of widening access. We conclude that they are flawed, although not wholly useless, and ought to be supplemented by more valid measures of students' social circumstances.

Evaluating the population impact of hepatitis C direct acting antiviral treatment as prevention for people who inject drugs (EPIToPe) – a natural experiment (protocol)

IntroductionHepatitis C virus (HCV) is the second largest contributor to liver disease in the UK, with injecting drug use as the main risk factor among the estimated 200 000 people...

Differences in boys' and girls' attachment to pets in early-mid adolescence

The precise nature of attachment to pets and differences between girls' and boys' relationships at age 11, 13 and 15 years are investigated in this paper. Data from the 2010 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey in Scotland were used to examine various qualities of adolescents' attachments to their pet dogs, cats and small mammals. Survey participants (N = 2472) answered pet ownership questions and completed the ‘Short Attachment to Pets Scale’ (SAPS). Multivariate analysis revealed main effects of age, sex and pet type, but no interaction effects. There is a pattern of weakening attachment to pets with increasing age, with emotional support qualities of attachment receiving higher ratings from girls, and stronger attachments evident with dogs. These findings enhance understanding of the role played by pets in the broader relational context of adolescents' lives, and help to identify how we might intervene to support adolescents experiencing socio-emotional difficulties or life disruptions.

Geikie and the development of petrography, particularly in Scotland

Abstract The British Geological Survey (BGS) petrology collections contain almost 1500 Scottish rock samples (with thin sections) deposited by Archibald Geikie, including BGSS1, an analcime gabbro from Salisbury Crags, Edinburgh. High-quality thin section images are now available from the BGS's Britrocks online database. The geospatial distribution of these samples is analysed. They reflect the development of geological mapping and igneous petrology in Scotland from the 1850s to the 1890s. Geikie had the opportunity to study Nicol's original thin sections in 1851 and he met both Sorby and Zirkel, early pioneers of petrography. Lacking management support, he cut many of his own thin sections while mapping the Clyde Plateau lavas during the 1860s, leading to publications on Carboniferous and Tertiary volcanism. When appointed Director of the newly formed Geological Survey of Scotland in 1867, he was able to establish a petrological laboratory in Edinburgh. Time pressures resulting from his subsequent promotion to Director-General, and increasing quantities of metamorphic rocks, then necessitated the appointment of Hatch and Teall as petrographers for the Survey. Teall's work was particularly important in the detailed petrography of the gneisses and mylonites associated with the Highlands Controversy.

Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above by Caren Kaplan

Reviewed by: Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above by Caren Kaplan Grace Aldridge Foster (bio) Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above by Caren Kaplan. Duke University Press. 2018. $99.95 hardcover; $27.95 paperback; also available in e-book. 312 pages. Drones lurk at the periphery of Caren Kaplan's new book on the history of aerial imagery; their presence is felt rather than seen. The structure of the book reinforces this feeling, as the introduction situates us in the present by diving into aerial photographs of 9/11, and the afterword discusses the questions the book raises about aerial views in modernity in the context of unmanned aerial vehicles (known as UAVs), or drones. The author even professes that the "entire project of this book is a prologue to considering the observational and sensing capacities of machines like drones."1 But what one realizes after reading Aerial Aftermaths is that even if Kaplan never mentioned drones, a contemporary reader would weave them into the book's narrative anyway. I, the reader, am always already created by and of wartime aftermaths, the author less argues than points out. In other words, targeted killings, drone imagery, and perpetual war are indelibly familiar to me; as a recipient of the twenty-first-century military media I cannot unsee the videos of drone strikes that pervade contemporary visual culture or the aerial views I have seen on television—and from plane windows—my whole life. To ask better questions about modern-day aerial imaging and surveillance, Kaplan looks back to the beginning of aerial imagery: the First Military Survey of Scotland, conducted between the years 1747 and 1755. In chapter 1, the author deftly dispels the myth that aerial views of geography—or even geography itself—are "empirically knowable, objectively real."2 She argues eloquently that we must consider "not only the ways in which aerial views are deeply entangled in the formation of modern geographical knowledge as a quantifiable [End Page 190] science but also the ways in which that knowledge is repeatedly limited or undone by affective forces."3 What are those affective forces? The violence, trauma, and grief of wartime aftermath, says Kaplan. Although the Military Survey is often lauded for its systematic and scientific approach to mapping from a distance, one must not forget that "the surveyors traversed a terrain marked by warfare: burned villages, sites of executions, new prisons and garrisons under construction, and a population undergoing deprivation and displacement."4 The surveyors rendered their map in an allegedly objective format that appeared as though it were a view from above, but they relied on sensory information from their walks through the Scottish Highlands to do so. In addition to the gruesome sights they saw and the resentment they likely encountered, the surveyors were also affected by the embodied experience of wandering across difficult terrain for a long time. Their physical experience, as well as the "unruly intensities"—a term Kaplan borrows from what Kathleen Stewart calls "rogue intensities"—produced by wartime, were thus embodied in the Military Survey itself. "The map they created," the author writes, "vibrated with conflicting affective forces and intensities even as it was intentionally formatted to produce a more universal, scientific standard."5 The survey was conducted by the British, the victors, in their recently conquered land. It was a wartime project, intended to map a relatively unknown locale and enable the British to occupy it more wholly and effectively, but it also became a scientific one by creating a new, more comprehensive, more accurate standard for mapmaking. The two projects were inextricably intertwined; the one affected the other. Although it seems clear that this type of surveying was an imperfect science, one that was likely subject to the emotions of wartime aftermaths and the physical conditions of the people surveying the ground, I was left wondering, how exactly did these emotions manifest themselves in the map? How do we differentiate between the emotions and "unruly intensities" of the people doing the surveying and the people ordering the survey? How much agency did they have, and how can we attempt to prove it? The survey "disseminate[d] an emotional disposition through the production of definitive...