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Network projects

Network projects. Sources of resilience to adverse social environments Prof Stephen Stansfeld (QMUL) Prof Sarah Curtis (QMUL) How do welfare policies and practices build resilience Prof Margaret Whitehead (Liverpool) Prof Chris Jones (Liverpool)

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Network projects

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  1. Networkprojects Sources of resilience to adverse social environments Prof Stephen Stansfeld (QMUL) Prof Sarah Curtis (QMUL) How do welfare policies and practices build resilience Prof Margaret Whitehead (Liverpool) Prof Chris Jones (Liverpool) Stability and persistence of resilience in early and mid-adult life Dr Amanda Sacker (UCL) Prof Ingrid Schoon Prof Dieter Wolke Positive adjustment within the family context Prof Ingrid Schoon (City) Dr Amanda Sacker (UCL) Resilience and quality of life in early old age Prof David Blane (Imperial) Prof Dick Wiggins (City) Dr Scott Montgomery (Karolinska) Resilient populations: a geographical perspective Dr Richard Mitchell (Edinburgh) Prof Danny Dorling (Sheffield) Prof Stephen Platt (Edinburgh)

  2. Aim of the Network To contribute to policy by improving the scientific understanding of the socio-economic, biological and psychological circumstances that contribute to human capability and resilience over the life course

  3. Resilience • Is showing positive adjustment despite being exposed to adversity • Positive adjustment involves a variety of capabilities: cognitive, behavioural, health-related, motivations, temperamental …. • Adversity can be due to psychological, biological, social and economic influences • Definition and assessment dependent on the type of adversity and the capabilities in focus

  4. Capability • Based on the work of Amartya Sen: • “Freedoms and functionings” • A property of the social and economic environment, not of the individual • Examples: equal access to education by all genders and ethnic groups • This was found to improve health indices dramatically in the state of Kerala

  5. Contextual model of resilience and capability

  6. Scientific Objectives • How are human capability and resilience developed and fostered by relationships within families and households? (Projects 1 and 2) • What are the contributions of neighbourhood and locality characteristics and participation in the community? (Projects 1, 2 , 3 and 5) • How are capability and resilience influenced by education, training and relationships at work? (Projects 3, 5 and 6) • How do earlier life relationships and experiences contribute to resilience in the face of illness, ageing and social adversity at later phases of the life course? (Projects 1, 2, 3 and 4) • How can public services contribute to maintaining and increasing human capability and resilience? (Especially projects 2, 5 and 6)

  7. Resilience • Resilience came to light as the by-product of identifying harm done to children and the best possible ways to help them develop beyond adverse risks. These studies prompted researchers to wonder what it was that, in turn, enabled those who successfully managed their lives in spite of the difficulties they encountered (Werner & Smith, 1982; Garmezy, 1985).

  8. Theories of resilience • The bulk of research on resilience has been rooted in a psychopathological framework (Grothberg 2003). • A new wave of research using a developmental, ‘lifespan’ or life course framework has steadily grown (Staudinger, Marsiske & Baltes 1993) out of these original investigations. • The concept of resilience as a discernible entity comes ultimately, not from theorists, but from the observation of the lived experiences of ‘survivors’

  9. Preliminary general approach • Social, economic environments may promote capability • Capabilities cannot necessary be inferred from ‘commodities’ or income • Model = malaria, bilharzia, schistosomiasis • BUT passing through a ‘capability-promoting’ environment may give lasting resilience

  10. Positive adjustment within thefamily contextProf Ingrid Schoon (City)Dr Amanda Sacker (UCL) Studying lifecourse and current sources of resilience in 1958, 1970 and Millenium Cohorts

  11. Economic adversity and early child development • Family financial circumstances and child temperament data collected for babies born in the Millennium • 27% of babies grow up in households with less than £10401 net family income • These babies show greater risk of adjustment problems than more privileged peers

  12. Can risk be reduced ? • Possible sources of resilience include: • relatively favourable material conditions in family household, • positive socio-emotional interactions between parent and child

  13. Sources of resilience to low household income: measures • Socio-emotional factors: breastfeeding, attachment, parental beliefs, malaise, self-esteem, social support, grandparents, hours of child care, • Material factors: area quality, benefits, housing quality, overcrowding, damp, car access, temperature in baby’s room, no central heating, subjective perception of financial difficulty

  14. Disadvantaged social class: sources of resilience • Can relationships at home and work constitute a source of resilience against psychological consequences of disadvantaged social class?

  15. Sources of resilience • Personal life: • Partnership, length of relationship, happiness, parenthood • Working life: • Having a job, hours of work, job satisfaction

  16. Resilience over the life course • Quality of life through early old age • Imperial College London research team: • Zoë Hildon • David Blane (Principal investigator) • Gopal Netuveli • Scott Montgomery - Karolinska Institute, Stockholm • Richard Wiggins- City University, London

  17. Research on aging discovers widespread resilience • Aging satisfaction appears to be hardly influenced by age-associated physical and socioeconomic changes. • It has been theorised therefore that faced with age-related increases in somatic and socioeconomic risk, the aging self possesses ‘reserve capacities’ which help avert significant changes in aging satisfaction(Staudinger, Marsiske & Baltes 1995) (Staudinger, Freund, Linden & Maas 1999).

  18. Is ageing necessarily accompanied by economic adversity? • Loss of the ‘work role’ • Decrease in income • BUT – effort reward imbalance may improve • Income relative to others’ and to efforts expended may be more important than absolute income

  19. Resilient social locations • states like Kerala, Sri Lanka and Costa Rica achieve life expectancies comparable with Europe, despite levels of income which are a fraction of those in Europe. • Characteristics of these resilient social locations include land reform, female education and long-standing public health programmes. • What are the equivalents to these in modern industrial societies?

  20. Factors fostering resilience? • Land reform is about living standards; presumably its equivalents could be pensions and welfare benefits. • Female education is about economic and social participation; so its equivalents might be post-retirement employment opportunities, life-long learning and a Third Age approach to life.

  21. Policies promoting capability in the labour market: comparing UK and Sweden • Whitehead and colleagues researched the relationship of long term illness to employment in UK and Sweden • In UK, men with long term illness mostly remain in employment if they are in a more advantaged social class • Working class men are forced out of the labour market by long term illness • This different increased during the 1980s

  22. Evolution of relationship of health to labour force participation 1973-93 • Manual occupations were hit far worse than non-manual by the 1980s recession • Most men with long term illness did remain employed • In classes I and II illness did not have an enormous effect on employment status • Illness was far more likely to be associated with non-employment inmanual groups

  23. Trends in employment by socio-economic group: Great Britain, men, 1975-93

  24. Sources of resilience to adverse social environments Prof. Stephen Stansfeld, Prof. Sarah Curtis, Queen Mary University of London Health and educational attainment outcomes for children and young people in adverse environments (defined in terms of socio-economic conditions and low levels of educational attainment in the areas where they live). Data sets: The Health Survey for England (HSE) which in 2002 includes a special booster sample of children and the RELACHS survey of 2790 children in schools in East London in 2001. This will enable us to test whether mental and physical health outcomes for individual children are related to the educational attainment levels and employment conditions in their areas of residence, independently of other socio-economic factors. Educational attainment will also be examined as an outcome of individual and neighbourhood socio-economic conditions and educational environment.

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