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Despite increasing scholarly and media attention on sexual violence in public spaces, including those associated with the night-time economy and licensed venues, music festivals have been largely absent from research and policy. This paper presents the findings from the first UK study of sexual violence at music festivals, drawing on data from interviews with 13 women who have experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault at a festival. Analysis reveals that sexual violence at festivals occurs on a continuum and represents an extension of rape culture through which sexual violence is culturally condoned and normalized, enabled through a number of environmental and culture features that are unique to festivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiating the relationships influenced by a combination of identity markers during fieldwork is an important aspect of qualitative data co-creation. Based on ethnographic research with the canal boating and enthusiast communities in the UK, this paper focuses on the mundane power dynamics and hierarchies in research situations. The paper discusses the role of humour in negotiating the interpersonal dynamics and argues for the consideration of power (im)balances in the field beyond assumptions of the researcher as definitely the advantaged side. Joking plays an important role and is used by both research participants and researchers to level the researcher–participant hierarchies as well as to reproduce and reaffirm them. This takes place on a conceptual continuum: first, in terms of their relative rigidity, whereby certain norms, opinions or value systems are reinforced; and secondly, flexibility, whereby the notions about norms and preconceived ideas might shift during the research encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the heightened risk that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses to the health and lives of people with obesity, in 2020 the U.K. government launched a new package of policies intended to stimulate weight loss among the country's population. In this article, I present a critical discourse analysis of the policy paper which announced these new measures. I identify the discourses that are used to represent things, people, and processes in this policy text. These discourses are interpreted in terms of broadly neoliberal ideologies of public health management. Taken together, the discourses identified contribute to a broadly neoliberal ideology of public health management. It is argued that the policy paper represents an instance of "lifestyle drift," as it initially appears to engage with social and economic determinants of health but ultimately neglects these in favor of focusing on individual lifestyle factors, particularly in the shape of individuals' "choices." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demands and costs of health care resulting from increasingly ageing populations have become a major public health issue in the United Kingdom and other industrially developed nations. Concern with cost containment and shortage of resources has prompted a progressive shift in responsibility from state provision of care to individual patients and their families, and from the institutional setting of the hospital to the domestic home. Under the guise of choice and patient centredness, end-of-life care is framed within a discourse of the ‘good death’: free from distress and discomfort and accompanied by significant others in the preferred place, usually assumed to be home. The promotion of the ‘good death’ as a technical accomplishment enabled by pre-emptive discussion and advance care planning has sidelined recognition of the nature and significance of the pain and suffering involved in the experience of dying. There has been little research into the disparity between policy and professional assumptions and the lived reality of end of life. In this paper, we present findings from a qualitative study of how terminally ill patients, bereaved family members, and members of the public understand, anticipate, and experience death and dying. These findings contribute to an important and timely critique of the normative idealisation of death and dying in health policy and practice, and the need to attend closely to the real-world experiences of patients and the public as a prerequisite for identifying and remedying widespread shortcomings in end-of-life care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Access to affordable, appropriate housing is one of the key social determinants of health, affecting well-being across the lifecourse. However, beyond a recognition that housing quality is linked to place of death, little is known about the ways in which housing status impacts social, emotional, and practical aspects of dying and bereavement. Method: The Checking Out project is a qualitative study aiming to explore the ways in which socio-economic status impacts people's experiences of, and attitudes towards, death, dying, and bereavement in the United Kingdom. Qualitative interviews were carried out with 14 bereaved individuals with experience of poverty at end of life or in bereavement, and 15 professionals supporting individuals in low-income communities. Interviews were conducted via phone/video call, and data include experiences of end of life and bereavement both before and during the pandemic. Transcripts were examined using thematic analysis. Results: Housing emerged as an important factor affecting people's experiences, with 7 of the 14 bereaved individuals and all except 1 of the professionals discussing housing-related issues. Participants described ways in which unsuitable housing and housing insecurity impacted practical aspects of dying but also emotional and social well-being at end of life. Housing-related issues affected both patients and their families, though families found it difficult to air these concerns when their relative was dying. Conclusion: The paper demonstrates how trusted professionals are able to advocate or address the issues faced by bereaved individuals and suggests implications for policy and practice. A greater awareness of the potential impact of housing status across public services, including healthcare practitioners, welfare support, and housing providers, could better support patients and practitioners to address these issues proactively. Housing providers and policy-makers should be included as key partners in collaborative public health approaches to palliative care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper reports the experiences of adults in receipt of social care when relocating to new local authorities, and of family carers. While many matters need to be considered when moving, the study focused specifically on the 'portability' of social care. The study draws on data from semi-structured interviews conducted between July and November 2013 with 12 adults who had relocated between English local authorities. Data were collected prior to the implementation of the Care Act 2014; the potential impact of the Act in respect of relocation is considered. Findings: Although some positive experiences were identified, participants primarily reported challenges when moving with social care support. Five themes were identified, these related to the amount of organisation, planning and activity required; the need for a timely approach and the risk of delays and interruptions to care delivery; differences between the practices of local authorities; a lack of control and involvement; a negative impact on emotional and physical well-being. As a result of such difficulties, some experienced delays or interruptions to their care and support; lost all or some of their care package; experienced stress, anxiety and worry. Applications: The paper documents the experiences of people relocating with social care support, which have been little explored to date within the UK or internationally, and contributes to the evidence base in respect of relocation and portability of care. It highlights the importance of smooth transitions for those relocating between local authorities, and the potential for social workers to assist by addressing potential problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Access to affordable, appropriate housing is one of the key social determinants of health, affecting well-being across the lifecourse. However, beyond a recognition that housing quality is linked to place of death, little is known about the ways in which housing status impacts social, emotional, and practical aspects of dying and bereavement. Method: The Checking Out project is a qualitative study aiming to explore the ways in which socio-economic status impacts people’s experiences of, and attitudes towards, death, dying, and bereavement in the United Kingdom. Qualitative interviews were carried out with 14 bereaved individuals with experience of poverty at end of life or in bereavement, and 15 professionals supporting individuals in low-income communities. Interviews were conducted via phone/video call, and data include experiences of end of life and bereavement both before and during the pandemic. Transcripts were examined using thematic analysis. Results: Housing emerged as an important factor affecting people’s experiences, with 7 of the 14 bereaved individuals and all except 1 of the professionals discussing housing-related issues. Participants described ways in which unsuitable housing and housing insecurity impacted practical aspects of dying but also emotional and social well-being at end of life. Housing-related issues affected both patients and their families, though families found it difficult to air these concerns when their relative was dying. Conclusion: The paper demonstrates how trusted professionals are able to advocate or address the issues faced by bereaved individuals and suggests implications for policy and practice. A greater awareness of the potential impact of housing status across public services, including healthcare practitioners, welfare support, and housing providers, could better support patients and practitioners to address these issues proactively. Housing providers and policy-makers should be included as key partners in collaborative public health approaches to palliative care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The United Kingdom has the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe. It is known that women in prison are a vulnerable female population who are at risk of mental ill-health due to disadvantaged and chaotic life experiences. Accurate numbers of pregnant women held in UK prisons are not recorded, yet it is estimated that 6%–7% of the female prison population are at varying stages of pregnancy and around 100 babies are born to incarcerated women each year. There are limited published papers that document the departure of the researcher following closure of fieldwork with women in prison. This article identifies the dilemmas and challenges associated with the closure of prison fieldwork through the interwoven reflections of the researcher. Departure scenarios are presented which illuminate moments of closure talk with five women, supported by participant reflections regarding abandonment and loss, making pledges for the future, self-affirmation, incidental add-ons at the end of an interview and red flags, alerting the researcher to potential participant harm through ill health or self-injury. Objectives: The primary intention of the study was to observe the pregnant woman's experience with the English prison system through interviews with pregnant women and field observations of the environment. Research design: Ethnographic design enabled the researcher, a practising midwife, to engage with the prisoners' pregnancy experiences in three English prisons, which took place over 10 months during 2015–2016. Data collection involved semi-structured, audio-recorded interviews with 28 female prisoners in England who were pregnant or had recently given birth while imprisoned, 10 members of staff and a period of non-participant observation. Follow-up interviews with 5 women were undertaken as their pregnancies progressed. Computerised qualitative data analysis software was used to generate and analyse pregnancy-related themes. Ethical considerations: Favourable ethical opinion was granted by National Offender Management Services through the Health Research Authority Integrated Research Application System and permission to proceed was granted by the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Findings: Thematic analysis enabled the identification of themes associated with the experience of prison pregnancy illuminating how prison life continues with little consideration for their unique physical needs, coping tactics adopted and the way women negotiate entitlements. On researcher departure from the field, the complex feelings of loss and sadness were experienced by both participants and researcher. Discussion: To leave the participant with a sense of abandonment following closure of fieldwork, due to the very nature of the closed environment, risks re-enactment of previous emotional pain of separation. Although not an ethical requirement, the researcher sought out psychotherapeutic supervision during the fieldwork phase with 'Janet', a forensic psychotherapist, which helped to highlight the need for careful closure of research/participant relationships with a vulnerable population. This article brings to the consciousness of prison researchers the need to minimise potential harm by carefully negotiating how to exit the field. Reflections of the researcher are interlinked with utterances from some participants to illustrate the types of departure behaviours. Conclusion: Closure of fieldwork and subsequent researcher departure involving pregnant women in prison requires careful handling to uphold the ethical research principle 'do no harm'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite a fast-paced environment, the emergency clinician has a duty to meet the palliative patient's needs. Despite suggested models and interventions, this remains challenging in practice. Aim: To raise awareness of these challenges by exploring the experience of palliative care patients and their families and informal carers attending the emergency department, and of the clinicians caring for them. Design: Qualitative systematic literature review and thematic synthesis. Search terms related to the population (palliative care patients, family carers, clinicians), exposure (the emergency department) and outcome (experience). The search was international but restricted to English and used a qualitative filter. Title, abstracts and, where retrieved, full texts were reviewed independently by two reviewers against predefined inclusion criteria arbitrated by a third reviewer. Studies were appraised for quality but not excluded on that basis. Data sources: MEDLINE [1946-], Embase[1947-], CINAHL [1981-] and PsycINFO [1987-] with a bibliography search. Results: 19 papers of 16 studies were included from Australia (n = 5), the United Kingdom (n = 5), and United States (n = 9) representing 482 clinical staff involved in the emergency department (doctors, nurses, paramedics, social workers, technicians), 61 patients and 36 carers. Nine descriptive themes formed three analytic themes: 'Environment and Purpose', 'Systems of Care and Interdisciplinary Working' and 'Education and Training'. Conclusion: In the included studies, provision of emergency palliative care is a necessary purpose of the emergency department. Failure to recognise this, gain the necessary skills or change to systems better suited to its delivery perpetuates poor implementation of palliative care in this environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This article reports research that aimed to identify and evaluate potential resilience benefits of visual arts interventions for young people with complex needs. The study involved a review of the ‘arts for resilience’ literature and a case study of 10 weekly resilience-building arts workshops for 10 young people experiencing mental health complexities and/or learning difficulties. Findings We found a significant existing evidence-base linking visual arts practice to individual and community resilience, across disciplinary fields including art therapy, social work, community health, visual arts practice and geographies of health. Visual art activities were utilised to both educate young people about resilience and enhance young people’s overall resilience. Qualitative research material developed from the case study shows that even short-term visual arts interventions can impact on young people’s resilience – crucially, participation was extremely beneficial to young people’s sense of belonging and ability to cope with difficult feelings (topics which arose repeatedly during interview, focus group discussion and observation). Applications Our review and findings from this small case study provide some initial insights into the resilience benefits of participation in visual arts activities. This, combined with the resilience-based practice framework presented here, could aid the effective targeting of interventions for social workers and others working with young people with complex needs. Alongside this research paper, an arts for resilience practice guide has been produced by the project team (including young people). It contains instructions on how to conduct a range of practical visual arts activities that we identified as being resilience-promoting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turner's (1960) sponsored and contest mobility framework has been much utilized in analyzing mobility in England and the United States. This paper focuses on Turner's more central concern with how folk norms influence educational practices and the efforts to reform them. To test Turner's proposition that reformers and reform debates are bound by the logic of folk norms, I investigated efforts to reform the General Certificate of Education examinations in English secondary education between 1966 and 1976. Qualitative analysis of focused interviews and documentary data suggests that English educators and reformers alike were by and large actuated and constrained by sponsorship beliefs. But the paper moves beyond Turner. It reveals how sponsorship folk norms and functions are inscribed in the ideology and interests of particular educational constituencies who effectively institutionalized and perpetuated sponsorship principles in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper consists of a discussion of data sonification--a procedure in which information gathered from systems such as bodies or environmental processes is analyzed and reprocessed into audio models, so aspects of the process generating the data (for example, emotional or tidal ebb and flow) can be apprehended by human senses. This serves various purposes relevant to geography. Firstly, it sets out the principles of sonification as a method, defining its basic principles and relating it to both qualitative and quantitative data. Secondly, it offers potential to geographic interests in process, times, rhythm, landscape, place, and more besides-- 'representing' various aspects of processes that are beyond normal human apprehension, perhaps through register, duration, pitch, and so on. Thirdly, in the illustrating examples, which comprise sonifications of tides and other processes in the Severn Estuary, UK, it highlights possibilities of engaging local communities and stakeholders with the dynamics of landscapes such as tidal processes, which have significant implications for culture, economy, and ecology, as do other tidal and other process geographies elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the possibility of safely and lawfully employing a sustainable reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy in the management of waste within healthcare settings. Climate change presents significant threats to our wellbeing on a global scale and provides a new challenge for healthcare organisations. As the United Kingdom’s biggest public sector employer, the National Health Service has enormous power to mitigate the impact of climate change by implementing sustainable practices. One area in which sustainable practices could be employed is within healthcare waste management. The investigation used a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 20 participants responsible for the safe management of healthcare waste in an English county.Interviews indicated that topics such as knowledge, the environment, finance and legislation influence attitudes and behaviour in healthcare waste management. Participants were clear that from financial and environmental perspectives an aim to reduce, reuse and recycle waste in health care was desirable. Attempts to implement sustainable healthcare waste management practices, informed by a sustainable waste management philosophy are desirable both financially and environmentally. Research is needed to explore behaviour, attitudes, learning, knowledge and the role of the environment in healthcare waste management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this study was to synthesize qualitative data on men's experiences of coronary heart disease (CHD). The authors searched for qualitative papers published before January 2007 in MEDLINE, EMBASE, British Nursing Index, CINAHL, PsychINFO and Web of Knowledge and used thematic analysis to synthesize findings. They found 136 studies that collected data on men's experiences of CHD. Only 27 studies took a gendered approach and only two aimed to investigate men's gendered experiences of CHD. Many men drew on discourses associated with hegemonic masculinity (e.g. demonstrating stoicism through delaying seeking professional help) when talking about the implications of the disease for their identity, relationships and paid work. However, some accounts challenged this dominant discourse. The authors argue that a more nuanced understanding of hegemonic masculinity should take account of the production of gendered narratives in the interview context, given that men 'do' gender when they give the impression of 'not doing' health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research exploring patients' care and treatment preferences at the end of life (EOL) suggests they prefer comfort more than life-extension, wish to participate in decision-making, and wish to die at home. Despite these preferences, the place of death for many patients is the acute hospital, where EOL interventions are reported to be inappropriately invasive and aggressive. Aim: This paper discusses the challenges to appropriate EOL care in acute hospitals in the UK, highlighting how this setting contributes to the patients' and families' care and treatment requirements being excluded from decision-making. Methods: Twenty-nine cancer nurse specialists from five hospitals participated in a grounded theory study, using observation and semi-structured interviews. Data were collected and analysed concurrently using the constant comparative method. Results: EOL interventions in the acute setting were driven by a preoccupation with treatment, routine practice and negative perceptions of palliative care. All these factors shaped clinical decision-making and prevented patients and their families from fully participating in clinical decision-making at the EOL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]