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This paper challenges current approaches to undertaking community-centred disaster recovery. Community-centred approaches are widely recognised as ‘the gold standard’ for effective recovery from disasters. Yet, they are rarely applied well enough in practice. Challenges include the ‘authority’ culture of command-and-control agencies, the emphasis on discrete recovery time frames, and the reluctance to relinquish centralised control. The paper focuses on people's experiences of community-centred recovery in New South Wales, Australia, which has experienced severe fires and floods since 2019. We undertook key informant interviews and an online survey to inquire into how community-centred recovery is enacted. Our work uncovered widespread dissatisfaction with current practices. The paper discusses key themes emerging from the research and ends with a call to change how community-centred recovery is framed and conducted by responding organisations, to include the underlying causes of vulnerability in recovery, to measure success differently, and to alter the narrative of who ‘owns’ disasters.

Community centred disaster risk reduction (DRR) is viewed as the gold standard, linking local networks, skills, capacities and knowledges together with government and nongovernment supports. However, despite the best of intentions young adults still experience exclusion due in part to adult centrism because initiatives are largely curated by adults. While research has sought to address this bias, outmigration by young adults at key life-stages creates an additional barrier. This paper identifies the need to pair life-stage with DRR objectives to improve understandings of what counts as ‘inclusion’ and ‘participation’. Interviews (N = 14) with young adults aged 18–30 in a bushfire affected area of Australia were conducted three years after disaster. Findings suggest participation is an essentially contested concept among adults and young adults, leading to tension and entrenched age-based exclusion. Further, young adult's geographic mobility, seen as a rite of passage, compounds exclusion, despite it developing their maturity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the conditions for creating age-inclusive DRR, including the need for social infrastructure catering to young adults and the importance of communities acknowledging young adults' diverse, age-specific interests.

Purpose: As environmental disasters become more common and severe due to climate change, there is a growing need for strategies to bolster recovery that are proactive, cost-effective, and which mobilise community resources. Aims: We propose that building social group connections is a particularly promising strategy for supporting mental health in communities affected by environmental disasters. Methods: We tested the social identity model of identity change in a disaster context among 627 people substantially affected by the 2019–2020 Australian fires. Results: We found high levels of post-traumatic stress, strongly related to severity of disaster exposure, but also evidence of psychological resilience. Distress and resilience were weakly positively correlated. Having stronger social group connections pre-disaster was associated with less distress and more resilience 12–18 months after the disaster, via three pathways: greater social identification with the disaster-affected community, greater continuity of social group ties, and greater formation of new social group ties. New group ties were a mixed blessing, positively predicting both resilience and distress. Conclusions: We conclude that investment in social resources is key to supporting mental health outcomes, not just reactively in the aftermath of disasters, but also proactively in communities most at risk.

Purpose: This paper aims to examine a situation in which individual action requires collective approval – solar power adoption in strata properties – and offers a motivation-opportunity-ability theory-based model with which such a situation may be approached. Design/methodology/approach: A Delphi methodology was undertaken for this study, with three iterative questionnaires administered online to a panel of strata property, renewable energy and sustainable housing experts. Findings: The Delphi panel’s insights have informed a new conceptual model, the Strata Solar Champion Roadmap (SSCR), outlining the variables affecting strata-based solar power adoption. Research limitations/implications: Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to test and enhance the model’s generalisability. Further case studies or quantitative analysis measuring the strength of the relationships identified in the SSCR model is particularly necessary. The SSCR could also be applied when examining other common strata governance disputes. Practical implications: Policymakers and social marketers are encouraged to apply the SSCR when planning interventions to facilitate strata scheme solar power adoption. Furthermore, the SSCR offers guidance to strata property owners and strata schemes seeking to adopt solar power, thus increasing renewable energy use in a major sector of the Australian energy market. Originality/value: Within this context, the SSCR’s conceptualisation of strata-based solar PV adoption provides new insights into individual behaviour change requiring collective approval.

For clinicians working in mental health services, 'aggression management' training is generally prioritised, and often mandated. Traditional 'aggression management' training has the potential to reinforce the perception that violence and aggression are inevitable, and thus defensive and coercive practices are needed. This paper outlines the principles and processes that underpinned the development of two training programs designed as recovery-oriented and trauma-informed alternatives to traditional 'aggression management' training. The focus of the paper is on exploring how 'aggression management' training can be aligned with best practice principles. The programs were developed in a metropolitan and rural mental health service and aimed to reduce the need for defensive and coercive practices by promoting therapeutic engagement. A key feature of both programs is an orientation towards safety rather than risk. By embedding the principles of recovery and trauma-informed care in their development and orienting training towards enhancing safety, clinicians are provided with a new way of conceptualising and responding to 'aggression'. Experiential methods in the delivery of the training, and the co-design and co-delivery with peer (consumer) educators were important in supporting attitudinal change. To promote safety, the language and content of training programs must reflect contemporary principles and approaches such as trauma-informed care and recovery. This paper illustrates that to be effective, these principles and approaches must not just be described, but modelled in the development, design, and delivery of the training.

Treatment with therapy targeting BRAF and MEK (BRAF/MEK) has revolutionized care in melanoma and other cancers; however, therapeutic resistance is common and innovative treatment strategies are needed1,2. Here we studied a group of patients with melanoma who were treated with neoadjuvant BRAF/MEK-targeted therapy (NCT02231775, n = 51) and observed significantly higher rates of major pathological response (MPR; ≤10% viable tumour at resection) and improved recurrence-free survival (RFS) in female versus male patients (MPR, 66% versus 14%, P = 0.001; RFS, 64% versus 32% at 2 years, P = 0.021). The findings were validated in several additional cohorts2–4 of patients with unresectable metastatic melanoma who were treated with BRAF- and/or MEK-targeted therapy (n = 664 patients in total), demonstrating improved progression-free survival and overall survival in female versus male patients in several of these studies. Studies in preclinical models demonstrated significantly impaired anti-tumour activity in male versus female mice after BRAF/MEK-targeted therapy (P = 0.006), with significantly higher expression of the androgen receptor in tumours of male and female BRAF/MEK-treated mice versus the control (P = 0.0006 and P = 0.0025). Pharmacological inhibition of androgen receptor signalling improved responses to BRAF/MEK-targeted therapy in male and female mice (P = 0.018 and P = 0.003), whereas induction of androgen receptor signalling (through testosterone administration) was associated with a significantly impaired response to BRAF/MEK-targeted therapy in male and female patients (P = 0.021 and P < 0.0001). Together, these results have important implications for therapy.

This article explores the politics of belonging in Iceland in the context of an ethico-political project focused around increased transparency following the country’s 2008 banking collapse. By employing literature on autochthony (i.e., a return to, and interpretation of, “the local”), it examines the tensions that are reignited within and between nation-states during economic crisis. Through ethnography with ordinary Icelanders and the members of two protest movements, this research shows how Icelanders are cultivating a public voice to navigate the political constraints of crisis and reshaping Icelanders’ international identity from below in the wake of the collapse. To this end, the article accounts for the role of populist politics in re-embedding Iceland into the European social imaginary as an economically responsible and egalitarian nation. It then turns to highlight the push for meaningful democratic reform through collaborative, legislative exchange between the government and the people that resulted in a new—if not actually implemented—constitution. By exploring protest culture in Iceland, the article highlights the importance of public witnessing and empathic solidarity in building intercultural relations in an era of globalized finance and politics.

Alterations in chromatin remodeling genes have been increasingly implicated in human oncogenesis. Specifically, the biallelic inactivation of the SWI/SNF subunit SMARCB1 results in the emergence of extremely aggressive pediatric malignancies. Here, we developed embryonic mosaic mouse models of malignant rhabdoid tumors (MRTs) that faithfully recapitulate the clinical-pathological features of the human disease. We demonstrated that SMARCB1-deficient malignancies exhibit dramatic activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR) and ER stress response via a genetically intact MYC-p19 ARF -p53 axis. As a consequence, these tumors display an exquisite sensitivity to agents inducing proteotoxic stress and inhibition of the autophagic machinery. In conclusion, our findings provide a rationale for drug repositioning trials investigating combinations of agents targeting the UPR and autophagy in SMARCB1-deficient MRTs.

Objectives To investigate everyday memory and related processes in patients with eating disorders and to consider how problems with these processes may impact upon their psychosocial functioning and ability to engage in cognitively demanding aspects of treatment programmes. Design Two case-control studies. Setting Regional Eating Disorders Service in the North East of England. Participants Patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Bulimia Nervosa (BN) and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) [DSM-IV, 1994] attending an Eating Disorder Unit, and healthy volunteers. Main Outcome Measures Self-report and objective measures of everyday memory and related processes; self-report and objective measures relating to state of illness; self-report measures of attendant anxiety and depression. Results Patients were found to be impaired on all measures of memory and related processes. Degree of impairment correlated variously with state of illness measures and depression/anxiety measures. Conclusions These data suggest that patients with eating disorders are impaired in their ability to engage in day-to-day and more directed activities that depend upon memory and related processes. Helping patients develop strategies to overcome these difficulties may be a useful nursing addition to existing treatment packages and may improve treatment efficacy.