The Family Costs of Looking After Handicapped Elderly Relatives

1984 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muriel Nissel

ABSTRACTThis article is principally concerned with the measurement and evaluation of the cost of the time which families devote to the care of handicapped elderly relatives living with them. One way of measuring the contribution is by means of time diaries which document the amount of time given to caring activities throughout the 24 hours of the day. How this was done in a small pilot study, carried out in Oxfordshire, England, is described. It is preceded by a brief general discussion of some of the factors which determine time use and by a description of the empirical findings from a few of the existing surveys. Some broad estimates of the indirect financial costs involved are offered, including an estimate using a different approach based on the loss of opportunity suffered by women who are prevented from undertaking paid work.

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (24) ◽  
pp. 6183-6188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Vagni ◽  
Benjamin Cornwell

Social-scientific theory and research give rise to conflicting expectations regarding the extent to which individuals’ everyday lives in modern society follow predictable patterns of behavior. Much previous research has addressed this issue implicitly by documenting widespread trends in patterns of “time use” or “time allocation,” including trends in time devoted to paid work, unpaid work, and leisure. This study expands on this research by examining common patterns with respect to not how much time individuals spend on certain everyday activities (e.g., leisure), but rather how those activities are sequenced throughout the day. Using sequence methods and cluster analysis, we analyze a large collection of harmonized time diaries from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS), including diaries from 23 countries and dating back to 1961. Our analysis of these diaries reveals eight common everyday sequence patterns—including different paid work, unpaid work, and leisure clusters. This same set of patterns reappears in a generally similar distribution across the different countries and time periods that are included in the MTUS sequence data. This study has implications for how analysts study time diary data and raises important questions about the causes and consequences of individuals’ experiences with particular behavioral sequences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-365
Author(s):  
Mattia Zeni ◽  
Ivano Bison ◽  
Fernando Reis ◽  
Britta Gauckler ◽  
Fausto Giunchiglia

Abstract This article assesses the experience with i-Log at the European Big Data Hackathon 2019, a satellite event of the New Techniques and Technologies for Statistics (NTTS) conference, organised by Eurostat. i-Log is a system that enables capturing personal big data from smartphones’ internal sensors to be used for time use measurement. It allows the collection of heterogeneous types of data, enabling new possibilities for sociological urban field studies. Sensor data such as those related to the location or the movements of the user can be used to investigate and gain insights into the time diaries’ answers and assess their overall quality. The key idea is that the users’ answers are used to train machine-learning algorithms, allowing the system to learn from the user’s habits and to generate new time diaries’ answers. In turn, these new labels can be used to assess the quality of existing ones, or to fill the gaps when the user does not provide an answer. The aim of this paper is to introduce the pilot study, the i-Log system and the methodological evidence that emerged during the survey.


1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 381-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Upton

The European waste water industry will need to develop denitrification processes to remove nitrogen as pressures increase to reduce nutrient levels discharged in effluents. In the USA deep bed filter technology has been used extensively to provide denitrification to levels less than 5 mg/l TN. This paper describes this technology and the full scale performance at some waste water plants in Florida, USA. This paper also describes a pilot study in the United Kingdom at Severn Trent Water. The results of the pilot plant study indicate that denitrification in deep bed sand filters is a sound robust technology using methanol addition. Nitrogen removals greater than the 70% required in the EC Directive 1991 are possible at winter sewage temperatures. The process is most suitable for achieving nitrogen removal at trickling filter plants. The cost of methanol addition is calculated to be ₤10/1000m3.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nestoras Mathioudakis ◽  
Estelle Everett ◽  
Noora Al-Hajri ◽  
Mohammed Abusamaan ◽  
Clare Lee ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND About one-third of American adults have prediabetes and are at increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Mobile health (mHealth) technologies provide a scalable approach to diabetes prevention by encouraging physical activity (PA), weight loss, and adherence to a healthy diet in large numbers of patients. OBJECTIVE To identify factors associated with improvements in PA and glycated hemoglobin (A1c) measures among prediabetic adults who received a mobile intervention program (smartphone app in combination with a digital body weight scale) in a previously completed pilot study. METHODS We conducted a post hoc analysis of a 3-month prospective, single-arm, observational study using the Sweetch™ mHealth intervention among adults with prediabetes. Change in A1C was calculated as the difference between the 3-month and baseline A1C measurements and was categorized as decrease vs. no decrease. PA was evaluated using the total minutes and metabolic equivalent of task (MET)-hours per week. Change in MET-hours/week was categorized as increase vs. no increase. Age, sex, race, education, employment status, area deprivation, smartphone usage attitudes, and PA stage of change were compared between groups by outcomes of change in A1C and change in MET-hour/week. RESULTS A total of 37 adults received the final Sweetch mobile intervention and were included in the analysis. 62% were female and 81% were white, with average age of 57 years. The median [IQR] baseline A1C was 6.0% [5.8, 6.2]. A1C measure at 3-month was decreased in 24 (65%) participants when compared to baseline A1C. There was an inverse association between average MET-hours per week and change in A1C. Among participants whose A1C decreased vs. did not decrease, the MET-hours per week in last 2 weeks of study was 18.7 (8.4) and 15.0 (7.1), respectively (P=0.19), and the change in MET-hours per week was 2.1 (7.1) and 4.1(6.1), respectively (P=0.41). There were otherwise no statistically significant differences in participant factors by A1C and PA outcomes. CONCLUSIONS In this small pilot study, Sweetch mHealth intervention achieved comparable A1C response prediabetic adults with different individual, sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics. CLINICALTRIAL ClincialTrials.gov NCT02896010; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02896010 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6xJYxrgse)


Author(s):  
Samuel Crompton ◽  
Fabrizio Messina ◽  
Gillian Klafkowski ◽  
Christine Hall ◽  
Amaka C. Offiah

Abstract Background Recent studies have analysed birth-related clavicular fractures to propose time frames for healing that could be applied to dating of all fractures in cases of suspected child abuse. Objective To assess differences in healing rates between femoral fractures and birth-related clavicular fractures in infants and young children. Materials and methods A retrospective 5-year pilot study of femoral fractures in children younger than 3 years of age was performed. Anonymised radiographs were independently scored by two radiologists for stages of fracture healing. In cases of reader disagreement, radiographs were independently scored by a third radiologist. Results In total, 74 radiographs (30 children) met the inclusion criteria. Fracture healing evolved over time with subperiosteal new bone formation (SPNBF) appearing first, followed by callus then remodelling. A power calculation for a single proportion, with a level of confidence of 95% and a margin of error of 5%, showed that in a definitive study, 359 radiographs would be required. Conclusion Although the overall pattern of healing is similar, in this small pilot study, the earliest times for SPNBF and callus formation in femoral fractures appeared to lag behind healing of birth-related clavicular fractures. Remodelling appeared earlier than remodelling of clavicular fractures. A power calculation has determined numbers of femoral radiographs (359) required for a definitive study.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089124322110012
Author(s):  
Meir Yaish ◽  
Hadas Mandel ◽  
Tali Kristal

The economic shutdown and national lockdown following the outbreak of COVID-19 have increased demand for unpaid work at home, particularly among families with children, and reduced demand for paid work. Concurrently, the share of the workforce that has relocated its workplace to home has also increased. In this article, we examine the consequences of these processes for the allocation of time among paid work, housework, and care work for men and women in Israel. Using data on 2,027 Israeli adults whom we followed since the first week of March (before the spread of COVID-19), we focus on the effect of the second lockdown in Israel (in September) on the gender division of both paid and unpaid work. We find that as demand for housework caused by the lockdown increases, women—especially with children—increase their housework much more than men do, particularly when they work from home. The consequences of work from home and other flexible work arrangements for gender inequality within the family are discussed.


Author(s):  
Henrik Scander ◽  
Maria Lennernäs Wiklund ◽  
Agneta Yngve

Commensal meals seem to be related to a better nutritional and metabolic health as well as an improved quality of life. The aim of this paper was to examine to what extent research was performed using the search term commensality related to assessment of timing of meals. A scoping review was performed, where 10 papers were identified as specifically addressing the assessment of timing of commensality of meals. Time use studies, questionnaires, and telephone- and person-to-person interviews were used for assessing meal times in relation to commensality. Four of the studies used a method of time use registration, and six papers used interviews or questionnaires. Common meals with family members were the most common, and dinners late at night were often preferred for commensal activities among the working population. In conclusion, the family meal seemed to be the most important commensal meal. It is clear from the collected papers and from previous systematic reviews that more studies of commensal meals in general and about timing aspects in particular and in relation to nutritional health are essential to provide a solid background of knowledge regarding the importance of timing in relation to commensal meals.


1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Sile O’Modhrain

Abstract In this paper, we present the results of a pilot study that examines whether restricting how people can explore objects haptically effects the object attributes they notice and the efficiency with which they can perform a simple sorting task. 25 observers were each randomly assigned to one of five exploration conditions: two hands (the control), one hand, thumb/forefinger, one finger, or probe. All observers performed a series of two-bin sorts. Stimuli were eight multi-propertied cubes which could be divided into two equal bins according to three properties: size, texture, and compliance. Preliminary results indicate that the restrictions on manual exploration we imposed affected both the exploratory procedures observers chose to use and the efficiency with which they could perform the task. Haptic interface designs inevitably restrict the exploratory procedures available to the user. This study attempts to determine the cost of these restrictions on the efficiency with which a user can explore multi-propertied objects in a virtual or telepresence environment.


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