Search

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed life in Europe and globally. The pandemic affects both individuals and the broader society across many domains, including physical and psychological health, the economy and general welfare. The measures taken to counteract the pandemic have significantly altered daily life and, along with the threat of contracting the coronavirus and uncertainties surrounding future developments, created a complex system of stressors with a negative impact on public mental health. This paper aims to outline the ESTSS strategy to address mental health issues related to COVID-19 and focuses on (1) trauma-informed policies, (2) capacity building, (3) collaborative research and (4) knowledge-exchange. To facilitate implementation of a trauma-informed approach and appropriate measures, ESTSS has developed a toolkit of recommendations on mental health and psychosocial assistance to be provided during the different phases of crisis and its aftermath. To promote capacity building, ESTSS offers a certification programme based on a curriculum in psychotraumatology and corresponding on-line training to the European community of mental health professionals. To assure evidence-based approaches and methods tailored to current circumstances, ESTSS has initiated a pan-European research project with international cooperation aimed at studying the mental health consequences of the pandemic, with a focus on psychological trauma and other stress-related reactions. To foster knowledge-exchange, the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT), the official journal of ESTSS, is publishing a special issue on COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe has experienced a major boom of new breweries over the last thirty years, with thousands of new breweries being set up, even in regions where brewing has no history. So far, however, this microbrewing wave has not been systematically mapped. This paper presents a unique database of European breweries from 1990–2020. Using a series of maps and statistical analyses, it shows how breweries have gradually spread across Europe. Initially, microbreweries were being established in countries that are in a declining stage of the beer life-cycle from industrial breweries. After 2005 (and particularly in the 2010s), breweries reached other regions through neighbouring and hierarchical spatial diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides insights into the mental health consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic from the Central, Eastern, Nordic, Southern, and Western subregions of Europe, represented by five member countries of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS). On the basis of the existing national research and experiences in these countries, we propose five lessons learned. (1) There is no evidence of a mental health pandemic so far in the countries in focus. No increase in severe mental disorders but some increase in the symptoms of common mental health disorders are observable. More high-quality longitudinal studies are needed to understand the mental health burden of the pandemic. (2) The pandemic affects countries (including the mental health situation) differently, depending on the level of the exposure, management policies, pre-pandemic structural characteristics, and healthcare resources. (3) The pandemic affects people differently: the exposure severity to pandemic-related stressors differs between individuals, as well as individual resources to cope with these stressors. There are winners and losers as well as identifiable at-risk groups that need particular attention. (4) Besides the negative consequences, the pandemic has had a positive impact. The rapidly applied innovations within the system of healthcare responses provide a window of opportunity for positive changes in mental healthcare policies, strategies, and practices. The increased focus on mental health during the pandemic may contribute to the prioritization of mental health issues at policy-making and organizational levels and may reduce stigma. (5) A stress- and trauma-informed response to COVID-19 is required. The European community of psychotraumatologists under the leadership of ESTSS plays an important role in promoting stress- and trauma-informed healthcare and policies of pandemic management. Based on the lessons learned, we propose a stepped-care public mental health model for the prevention of adverse mental health outcomes during pandemics. Population mental health is affected differently in the COVID-19 pandemic: there are winners and losers, as well as identifiable at-risk groups that need particular attention. A stress- and trauma-informed public mental health stepped-care model can address pandemic-related mental health burden in a systematic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earth is continually bombarded by high-energy cosmic ray particles, and the worldwide average exposure to cosmic rays represents about 13% of the total annual effective dose received by the population. Therefore, assessment of cosmic ray exposure at the ground level is of great interest to better understand population exposure to ionizing radiation. This paper presents and describes the European Annual Cosmic-Ray Dose Map at 1 km resolution (Main Map). TheMain Mapdisplays the annual effective dose that a person may receive from cosmic rays at the ground level, which ranges from 301 to 3955 μSv. Moreover, thanks to the availability of population data, the annual cosmic-ray collective dose has been evaluated and population-weighted average annual effective dose (per capita) due to cosmic ray has been estimated for each European country considered in this study. The accuracy of the present study has been confirmed by comparing our results with those obtained using other models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper outlines a personal account of the growth of the field of traumatic stress in Europe, especially with the history of major disasters in the 1980s, the first European Conference in Lincoln in 1988, the formation of European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and its subsequent development, for example, with a federal structure and its own journal, and most important of all the way that the field as a whole has matured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To advance understanding of hydroclimatological processes, this paper links spatiotemporal variability in gridded European precipitation and large-scale mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) time series (1957–2002) using monthly concurrent correlation. Strong negative (positive) correlation near Iceland and (the Azores) is apparent for precipitation in northwest Europe, confirming a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) association. An opposing pattern is found for southwest Europe, and the Mediterranean in winter. In the lee of mountains, MSLP correlation is lower reflecting reduced influence of westerlies on precipitation generation. Importantly, European precipitation is shown to be controlled by physically interpretable climate patterns that change in extent and position from month to month. In spring, MSLP–precipitation correlation patterns move and shrink, reaching a minimum in summer, before expanding in the autumn, and forming an NAO-like dipole in winter. These space–time shifts in correlation regions explain why fixed-point NAO indices have limited ability to resolve precipitation for some European locations and seasons. Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor A. Montanari Citation Lavers, D., Prudhomme, C., and Hannah, D.M., 2013. European precipitation connections with large-scale mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) fields. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 58 (2), 310–327. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper looks at two metrics of flood events: flood severity (related to flood frequency) and flood magnitude (related to flood severity, as above, but also to flood duration and affected area). A time series of flood information, over 25 years, collected by the Dartmouth Flood Observatory, is used to describe the spatio-temporal variability of large floods in Europe. Direct factors responsible for changes in flood severity and magnitude over time may be related to both climate and ground surface changes. Indirect links between flood severity/magnitude and socio-economic indices occur via flood risk reduction activities, land-use change and land-cover change. The present analysis shows an increasing trend during the 25-year period in the number of reported floods exceeding severity and magnitude thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I share some of my experience and observations, as an advocate for women's rights, of the last 20 years of struggles for sexual and reproductive health and rights, carried out in many key places where these issues have been debated and decided. I do not aspire to be comprehensive about the current status of human rights related to sexuality and reproduction. Given that my expertise is of a practical (rather than theoretical) nature, the complexity of the topic and contradictory events with regard to it, which take place almost everyday, I will highlight some selected achievements and setbacks in this area, particularly regarding abortion rights. I will provide examples of how human rights related to sexual and reproductive health have been addressed in UN policy-setting bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women and Commission on Population and Development, as well as in the UN human rights system such as Treaty Monitoring Bodies and Human Rights Council. Given my work with European institutions, I provide examples of important decisions by the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. Lastly, I discuss growing opposition to a progressive human rights agenda and the universality of human rights. Despite significant successes, sexual and reproductive rights will long remain controversial and contested. Hence, it is crucial to try to find new ways to engage and new partners to work with. Dans cet article, je partage certaines de mes expériences et observations de militante pour les droits des femmes recueillies au cours des 20 dernières années de combat pour la santé et les droits génésiques, livré dans beaucoup des lieux où ces questions ont été débattues et décidées. Je ne prétends pas brosser un tableau complet de la situation actuelle des droits fondamentaux relatifs à la sexualité et la procréation. Puisque mon expertise est de nature pratique (plutôt que théorique), et du fait de la complexité du thème et des événements contradictoires s'y rapportant, qui se produisent presque chaque jour, je mettrai en lumière certains progrès et reculs sélectionnés subjectivement dans ce domaine, en particulier pour le droit à l'avortement. J'illustrerai comment les droits relatifs à la santé génésique ont été traités par les institutions normatives de l'ONU, telles que la Commission de la situation des femmes et la Commission de la population et du développement, ainsi que par le système des droits de l'homme des Nations Unies, comme les organes de surveillance des traités et le Conseil des droits de l'homme. Grâce à mon travail avec les institutions européennes, je donne des exemples de décisions importantes du Conseil de l'Europe et de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme. Enfin, j'aborde l'opposition croissante à un programme progressif des droits de l'homme et à l'universalité des droits de l'homme. En dépit de succès importants, les droits génésiques demeureront longtemps controversés et contestés. Il est donc capital de tenter de trouver de nouveaux moyens d'agir et de nouveaux partenaires. En este artículo comparto algunas de mis experiencias y observaciones como defensora de los derechos de las mujeres en los últimos 20 años de luchas a favor de la salud y los derechos sexuales y reproductivos, realizadas en muchos lugares clave donde estos asuntos han sido debatidos y decididos. No aspiro a exponer una visión completa del estado actual de los derechos humanos con relación a la sexualidad y la reproducción. Debido al carácter práctico (y no teórico) de mi especialización, la complejidad del tema y los eventos contradictorios al respecto, que ocurren casi a diario, en esta área destacaré algunos logros y contratiempos seleccionados subjetivamente, en particular los referentes a los derechos de aborto. Daré ejemplos de la manera en que los derechos humanos relacionados con la salud sexual y reproductiva han sido tratados por los organismos de la ONU responsables de establecer políticas, como la Comisión de la Condición Jurídica y Social de la Mujer y la Comisión de Población y Desarrollo, así como los Comités de Monitoreo de Tratados y el Consejo de Derechos Humanos, los cuales forman parte del sistema de derechos humanos de la ONU. Dado mi trabajo con instituciones europeas, doy ejemplos de decisiones importantes tomadas por el Consejo de Europa y la Corte Europea de Derechos Humanos. Por último, abordo la creciente oposición a una agenda progresista de derechos humanos y la universalidad de los derechos humanos. Pese a importantes logros, los derechos sexuales y reproductivos continuarán siendo un tema polémico y refutado durante mucho tiempo más. Por lo tanto, es imperativo encontrar nuevas formas de tomar acción y forjar nuevas alianzas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1920 and 1940, fertility dropped below replacement level in many Western countries. In today's scholarly literature, the drop is usually explained as a temporary reaction to the exceptional conditions of the inter-war period. This paper confronts that interpretation with the interpretations offered by scholars writing between the wars. According to leading demographers of the time, low fertility was due not to war or economic crisis, but rather to processes that now tend to be associated with the Second Demographic Transition, including secularization, individualization, rising consumerism, and women's emancipation. Since these were seen as structural features of modernization, most inter-war scholars argued that subreplacement fertility would remain an obstinate feature of modern society for an extended period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations between European archaeologies and those elsewhere in the world are manifold and complex. They involve issues in archaeological research, in dealing with archaeological heritage resources, and in the archaeological profession, that are also influenced by the dominant use of English. This paper explores some of those issues that were also presented at a debate during the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the Upper Paleolithic is traditionally envisioned in terms of a clear rupture with the Middle Paleolithic. From this perspective, the Aurignacian is interpreted as the culture that would realize the systematization of numerous innovations and become the instrument of victory of Modern Humans over Neandertal populations. In this paper, I review current definitions of the early stages of the European Aurignacian and attempt to reformulate them in evolutionary terms. I hypothesize that one of the driving forces of the technological evolution of human groups between 45,000 and 30,000 bp could have been the search for technical solutions for the arming of projectiles. A greater temporal depth and a relative arrhythmia in the development of the constituent elements of the Upper Paleolithic are thus emphasized. The chronological and technological distinction of at least two major traditions - the Protoaurignacian and the Early Aurignacian - is considered, leading me to propose substantial modifications to the classic evolutionary models for the transition of the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries differ considerably in their marriage patterns. The study presented in this paper describes these differences for the 1990s and attempts to explain them from a macro-level perspective. We find that different indicators of marriage (i.e., marriage rate, age at marriage, divorce rate, and prevalence of unmarried cohabitation) cannot be seen as indicators of an underlying concept such as the 'strength of marriage'. Multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses are estimated with countries as units and panel regression models are estimated in which annual time series for multiple countries are pooled. Using these models, we find that popular explanations of trends in the indicators - explanations that focus on gender roles, secularization, unemployment, and educational expansion - are also important for understanding differences among countries. We also find evidence for the role of historical continuity and societal disintegration in understanding cross-national differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of the increasing questioning of multi-culturalism in popular debate, the focus of this paper is the ways in which cultural/national identities are constituted and renegotiated in everyday, banal bodily practices. Denmark is the case, but the processes experienced in this context are seen as part of a broader European development. We first discuss recent changes in the political semiotics of Europe in which former East/West boundaries are blurred and new ones constructed and renegotiated in many scales. Many studies, we argue, do in this context underestimate the degree to which this process is going on in banal, bodily and sensuous practices. An entrance to this discussion is to follow the idea of ‘banal nationalism’, but we want, by way of examples from the Danish case, to suggest that what we are dealing with is a practical orientalism, articulated through processes of ‘othering‘ developed in the concrete bodily encounters in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we conduct descriptive aggregate analyses to revisit the relationship of low and lowest-low period fertility to cohort fertility and key fertility-related behaviour such as leaving the parental home, marriage, and women's labour force participation. Our analyses show that the cross-country correlations in Europe between total fertility and the total first marriage rate, the proportion of extramarital births, and the labour force participation of women reversed during the period from 1975 to 1999. By the end of the 1990s there was also no longer evidence that divorce levels were negatively associated with fertility levels. We argue that lowest-low fertility has been particularly associated with a 'falling behind' of cohort fertility at higher birth orders and later ages. From these analyses we conclude that the emergence of lowest-low fertility during the 1990s was accompanied by a disruption or even a reversal of many well-known relationships that have been used to explain cross-country differences in fertility patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have argued that deliberate birth spacing may have played a role before and during the modern fertility transition. There are good historical and theoretical reasons for this view, but it has proved to be hard to demonstrate convincingly that birth intervals were in fact partly determined by attempts at deliberate fertility control. This paper suggests a method of securing evidence on the issue for married couples. The method is applied to three cohorts living in a Belgian town in the nineteenth century. The findings indicate that, even before the fertility transition, couples in the working class were controlling their fertility by deliberate spacing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]