Gendered service delivery : a masculine and feminine perspective on staff gender

Despite acknowledgement that paid caregivers have a significant impact on the lives of people with intellectual disability, the subjective experience of staff gender is rarely considered in research. Qualitative data from a study on the sexual health needs of men and boys with intellectual disability is presented. We designed this study to determine what impact staff gender has on the sexual health needs of men and boys with intellectual disability. Findings suggest that although staff traverse the same geographies of care, they do it in uniquely gendered ways. Staff gender is an important consideration when dealing with sexual health matters and can enhance the type and quality of relationships between people with intellectual disability.

Information needs of young adults with type 2 diabetes : a literature review

Background Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is increasingly prevalent in young adults but there is very little information about what information they need to undertake diabetes self-management.

Aim To undertake a structured literature review to identify what information people with type 2 diabetes aged 25 to 45 years need to manage their diabetes and how they would like to receive it.

Methods A structured literature search was conducted. The MEDLINE, CINAHL, AMI, APAIS-Health databases were searched for articles published between 1980 and 2011. The reference list of journals and relevant websites were searched. Inclusion criteria were: literature about T2DM in young adults and literature about education and information needs of young adults with T2DM.

Results Only one article specifically focussed on the information needs of young people with T2DM and two reports included some information about T2DM and young adults. The limited data available suggested young adults with T2DM have specific information needs that are not sufficiently addressed in current resources, and have some needs different from young people with type 1 diabetes. Young people with T2DM want clear, consistent information from credible sources, delivered in a range of formats. They also want psychological support and counselling, age-specific education groups, after hours access to health professionals and education provided to family members and the community about T2DM in young people and about how to support people with T2DM.

Conclusion With the prevalence of T2DM in young adults continuing to increase, the need to address the specific information needs and learning styles of people with T2DM aged 25 to 45 is increasingly important.

Masculinity theory in applied research with men and boys with intellectual disability

Researchers in intellectual disability have had limited theoretical engagement with mainstream theories of masculinity. In this article, the authors consider what mainstream theories of masculinity may offer to applied research on, and hence to therapeutic interventions with, men and boys with intellectual disability. An example from one research project that explored male sexual health illustrates how using masculinity theory provided greater insight into gendered data. Finally, we discuss the following five topics to illustrate how researchers might use theories of masculinity: (a) fathering, (b) male physical expression, (c) sexual expression, (d) men's health, and (e) underweight and obesity. Theories of masculinity offer an additional framework to analyze and conceptualize gendered data; we challenge researchers to engage with this body of work.

Who uses new walking and cycling infrastructure and how? Longitudinal results from the UK iConnect study

Objective
To examine how adults use new local walking and cycling routes, and what characteristics predict use.

Methods
1849 adults completed questionnaires in 2010 and 2011, before and after the construction of walking and cycling infrastructure in three UK municipalities. 1510 adults completed questionnaires in 2010 and 2012. The 2010 questionnaire measured baseline characteristics; the follow-up questionnaires captured infrastructure use.

Results
32% of participants reported using the new infrastructure in 2011, and 38% in 2012. Walking for recreation was by far the most common use. In both follow-up waves, use was independently predicted by higher baseline walking and cycling (e.g. 2012 adjusted rate ratio 2.09 (95% CI 1.55, 2.81) for > 450 min/week vs. none). Moreover, there was strong specificity by mode and purpose, e.g. baseline walking for recreation specifically predicted walking for recreation on the infrastructure. Other independent predictors included living near the infrastructure, better general health and higher education or income.

Conclusions
The new infrastructure was well-used by local adults, and this was sustained over two years. Thus far, however, the infrastructure may primarily have attracted existing walkers and cyclists, and may have catered more to the socio-economically advantaged. This may limit its impacts on population health and health equity.

ICT Interventions for Schoolgirls Do Matter! Understanding the Factors Influencing ICT Career Intentions through Partial Least Squares Analysis.

Intervention programs aimed at promoting study and work opportunities in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) field to schoolgirls (Interventions) have been encouraged to combat a decline in the interest among girls to study ICT at school. The goal of our study is to investigate the influence of Interventions on schoolgirls’ intentions to choose a career in the ICT field by analysing the  comprehensive survey data (n = 3577), collected during four interventions in Australia, using the Partial Least Squares method. Our study is also aimed at identifying other factors influencing ICT career intentions. We found that the attitude towards interventions has an indirect influence on ICT career intentions by affecting interest in ICT. Our results also challenge several existing theoretical studies by showing that factors that had previously been suggested as influencers were found to have little or no impact in this study, these being same-sex education and computer usage.

From diminished men to conditionally masculine: sexuality and Australian men and adolescent boys with intellectual disability

Men and boys with intellectual disability represent a unique group who have hitherto been overlooked by researchers and theorists exploring men and masculinities. Qualitative data from an Australian ethnographic study focused on the sexual health needs of men and adolescent boys with moderate to profound intellectual disability. Findings suggest that masculinity for this group of men is more a biopsychosocial phenomenon than a social construct organised around heteronormative ideals. The conditional masculinity of the men participating in the study was based instead on a number of intrinsic and external factors, which are described in detail.

New rules, no rules, old rules or our rules : women designing mixed-orientation relationships with bisexual men

This chapter draws from an Australian semi-structured interview project with seventy-eight culturally, sexually and geographically diverse women, aged nineteen to sixty-five, who were in monogamous, open and polyamorous marital and de facto relationships with bisexual men, abbreviated as MOREs (mixed-orientation relationships).
For the purposes of this chapter, I will provide an overview of the shifting subjectivities, agency and resistance of those women and their male partners who stated that, without coercion or repression, they undertook processes of ‘designing’ their long-term MOREs.
I wiIl explore what every woman stated as being an essential component of consensually and creatively entering or being in a relationship with a bisexual man: designing, negotiating and maintaining some “ground rules” and “boundaries”.
There appear to be three overall groups of ‘rules’ within which specific ‘designs’ are created:
1. ‘Old Rules’: Monogamy is considered the only workable or desirable rule, and a partner’s inability to adhere to monogamy would mean the end of the relationship.
2. ‘New Rules’: A range of negotiations and design-specifications establish non-monogamous boundaries and operational strategies.
3. ‘Our Rules or His and Her Rules’: Decisions are made regarding to what extent the rules will be equitable to both, or there are separate regulations for each partner.

Access to social insurance in urban China: a comparative study of rural-urban and urban-urban migrants in Beijing

 Since 1958 the hukou (household registration) system has assigned Chinese citizens either a rural or urban status. Some studies argue that the rural-to-urban migrants in China who do not have urban hukou are not entitled to urban social insurance schemes, due to institutional discrimination, which applies differing treatment to urban and rural hukou (chengxiang fenge). Although rural-urban migrants participate less in the social insurance system than their counterparts with urban hukou, a closer examination of recent policy developments shows that migrants actually do have the legal right to access the system. This implies that discrimination between rural and urban workers has been declining, and distinctions based on household registration status are less able to explain China's current urban transition. This paper provides a new way of examining Chinese migrants' social insurance participation, by adopting a framework that includes both rural-to-urban migrants and urban-to-urban migrants, which are an important, but less studied, migrant group. Among our key findings are that urban migrants are more likely to sign a labour contract than rural migrants; urban migrants have higher participation rates in social insurance than rural migrants; having a labour contract has a greater impact than hukou status in determining whether Beijing's floating population accesses social insurance; and urban migrants who have signed a labour contract have higher participation rates in social insurance than either rural migrants or urban migrants without a labour contract. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Psychosocial moderators of associations between life events and changes in physical activity after leaving high school

To examine 1) associations between life events and changes in leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) in school leavers and 2) whether these associations are moderated by psychosocial factors.

Assessing outcomes for cost-utility analysis in depression : comparison of five multi-attribute utility instruments with two depression-specific outcome measures

Many mental health surveys and clinical studies do not include a multi-attribute utility instrument (MAUI) that produces quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). There is also some question about the sensitivity of the existing utility instruments to mental health.