The importance of oral health for the systemic well being of an ageing population

The proportion of adults over the age of 60 years is expanding rapidly across European Union countries, including the Republic of Ireland. As the older population has grown faster than the total population, the proportion of older persons relative to the rest of the population has increased considerably (Figure 1). This trend mirrors the arrival of the “baby boomer� generation into early old age and will have wide ranging effects on social, political and economic spheres as well as presenting significant challenges for healthcare delivery and public healthcare policy.

Effects of orally administered Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus on the well-being and Salmonella colonization of young chicks

Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is a bacterium which preys upon and kills Gram-negative bacteria, including the zoonotic pathogens Escherichia coli and Salmonella. Bdellovibrio has potential as a biocontrol agent, but no reports of it being tested in living animals have been published, and no data on whether Bdellovibrio might spread between animals are available. In this study, we tried to fill this knowledge gap, using B. bacteriovorus HD100 doses in poultry with a normal gut microbiota or predosed with a colonizing Salmonella strain. In both cases, Bdellovibrio was dosed orally along with antacids. After dosing non-Salmonella-infected birds with Bdellovibrio, we measured the health and well-being of the birds and any changes in their gut pathology and culturable microbiota, finding that although a Bdellovibrio dose at 2 days of age altered the overall diversity of the natural gut microbiota in 28-day-old birds, there were no adverse effects on their growth and well-being. Drinking water and fecal matter from the pens in which the birds were housed as groups showed no contamination by Bdellovibrio after dosing. Predatory Bdellovibrio orally administered to birds that had been predosed with a gut-colonizing Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis phage type 4 strain (an important zoonotic pathogen) significantly reduced Salmonella numbers in bird gut cecal contents and reduced abnormal cecal morphology, indicating reduced cecal inflammation, compared to the ceca of the untreated controls or a nonpredatory ΔpilA strain, suggesting that these effects were due to predatory action. This work is a first step to applying Bdellovibrio therapeutically for other animal, and possibly human, infections.

Promoting Harmonious Relations and Equitable Well-Being: Peace Psychology and “Intractable” Conflicts

The chapter explores Bar-Tal’s legacy in relation to key concepts, perspectives, and findings that comprise the growing field of peace psychology, specifically the promotion of sustainable peace through the indivisible constructs of harmonious relations and equitable wellbeing. Analyzed through a peace psychology lens, Bar-Tal’s work highlights both the barriers to and bridges for achieving sustainable peace. Central concepts from his work, such as fear, insecurity, and an ethos of conflict, demonstrate key obstacles to fostering harmonious intergroup relations based on social justice. Bar-Tal’s work also identifies processes that can overcome these barriers, which is consistent with peace psychology’s emphasis on the development of constructive responses to violence and conflict. For example, the chapter outlines how confidence-building mechanisms, mutually respectful identities, and reconciliation processes, may help foster an ethos of peace that can be embedded in the structure of societies through peace education. The chapter concludes with implications and suggestions for future research, with a focus on the role of young people in settings of prolonged intergroup division and generational approaches to peacebuilding, as conceptualized through a peace psychology lens.

Individual factors and perceived community characteristics in relation to mental health and mental well-being

Background
It has been argued that though correlated with mental health, mental well-being is a distinct entity. Despite the wealth of literature on mental health, less is known about mental well-being. Mental health is something experienced by individuals, whereas mental well-being can be assessed at the population level. Accordingly it is important to differentiate the individual and population level factors (environmental and social) that could be associated with mental health and well-being, and as people living in deprived areas have a higher prevalence of poor mental health, these relationships should be compared across different levels of neighbourhood deprivation.

Methods
A cross-sectional representative random sample of 1,209 adults from 62 Super Output Areas (SOAs) in Belfast, Northern Ireland (Feb 2010 – Jan 2011) were recruited in the PARC Study. Interview-administered questionnaires recorded data on socio-demographic characteristics, health-related behaviours, individual social capital, self-rated health, mental health (SF-8) and mental well-being (WEMWBS). Multi-variable linear regression analyses, with inclusion of clustering by SOAs, were used to explore the associations between individual and perceived community characteristics and mental health and mental well-being, and to investigate how these associations differed by the level of neighbourhood deprivation.

Results
Thirty-eight and 30 % of variability in the measures of mental well-being and mental health, respectively, could be explained by individual factors and the perceived community characteristics. In the total sample and stratified by neighbourhood deprivation, age, marital status and self-rated health were associated with both mental health and well-being, with the ‘social connections’ and local area satisfaction elements of social capital also emerging as explanatory variables. An increase of +1 in EQ-5D-3 L was associated with +1SD of the population mean in both mental health and well-being. Similarly, a change from ‘very dissatisfied’ to ‘very satisfied’ for local area satisfaction would result in +8.75 for mental well-being, but only in the more affluent of areas.

Conclusions
Self-rated health was associated with both mental health and mental well-being. Of the individual social capital explanatory variables, ‘social connections’ was more important for mental well-being. Although similarities in the explanatory variables of mental health and mental well-being exist, socio-ecological interventions designed to improve them may not have equivalent impacts in rich and poor neighbourhoods.