scholarly journals ‘You really do become invisible’: examining older adults’ right to the city in the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Deborah Menezes ◽  
Ryan Woolrych ◽  
Judith Sixsmith ◽  
Meiko Makita ◽  
Harry Smith ◽  
...  

Abstract A global ageing population presents opportunities and challenges to designing urban environments that support ageing in place. The World Health Organization's Global Age-Friendly Cities movement has identified the need to develop communities that optimise health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age. Ensuring that age-friendly urban environments create the conditions for active ageing requires cities and communities to support older adults’ rights to access and move around the city (‘appropriation’) and for them to be actively involved in the transformation (‘making and remaking’) of the city. These opportunities raise important questions: What are older adults’ everyday experiences in exercising their rights to the city? What are the challenges and opportunities in supporting a rights to the city approach? How can the delivery of age-friendly cities support rights to the city for older adults? This paper aims to respond to these questions by examining the lived experiences of older adults across three cities and nine neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom. Drawing on 104 semi-structured interviews with older adults between the ages of 51 and 94, the discussion centres on the themes of: right to use urban space; respect and visibility; and the right to participate in planning and decision-making. These themes are illustrated as areas in which older adults’ rights to access and shape urban environments need to be addressed, along with recommendations for age-friendly cities that support a rights-based approach.

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Woolrych ◽  
Judith Sixsmith ◽  
Jenny Fisher ◽  
Meiko Makita ◽  
Rebecca Lawthom ◽  
...  

Abstract The age-friendly cities and communities movement has focused on how to better support older adults to age well within urban environments. Central to ‘ageing well’ and ‘active ageing’ agendas is ensuring that older adults can participate in meaningful forms of social participation. The benefits of social participation in old age have been well documented, and research amongst community-dwelling older adults has explored some of the neighbourhood qualities that facilitate or impede such forms of engagement. However, understandings of how older adults construct and negotiate social participation within everyday urban environments have been largely unexplored. To address this gap, we present results from 104 interviews conducted with older adults living in three cities and nine neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom (UK). The findings explore three themes generated from the research: ‘constructing meaningful social participation in old age’, ‘negotiating access to social participation’ and ‘navigating home and community’. Across these themes, the paper describes how experiences of social participation in old age involve a number of inter-connected physical, psychological and social processes experienced by individuals across a range of environmental settings including the home, outdoor spaces and community facilities. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for practice, specifically in the delivery of age-friendly communities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-223
Author(s):  
Ryan Woolrych ◽  
Jamuna Duvurru ◽  
Adriana Portella ◽  
Judith Sixsmith ◽  
Deborah Menezes ◽  
...  

The ageing in place agenda emphasises the importance of supporting older adults to age in their communities surrounded by the personal resources to age well. In exploring the relationship between older people and their environment, the concept of place insideness is seen as central to constructing feelings of identity, belonging and attachment in old age. Yet there has been little research exploring how older adults experience place insideness across different urban, social and cultural contexts which is an impediment to identifying effective interventions for age-friendly cities and communities. This article explores how place insideness is experienced amongst older adults across India, Brazil and the United Kingdom. The article presents qualitative findings from 294 semi-structured interviews collected across 9 cities and 27 neighbourhoods. The findings reveal that older adults cultivate their sense of place insideness in old age through dimensions of physical insideness (i.e., environmental competence in navigating and engaging in the community), social insideness (i.e., knowing others) and autobiographical insideness (i.e., shared place histories). In drawing on older people’s understanding of their communities, this article explores the opportunities and challenges in developing a sense of place insideness to support ageing well. We identify implications for policy and practice in terms of how we can better design urban environments as age-friendly communities which support a greater sense of place for older people.


EBioMedicine ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 103420
Author(s):  
Pauline Versteegen ◽  
Marta Valente Pinto ◽  
Alex M. Barkoff ◽  
Pieter G.M. van Gageldonk ◽  
Jan van de Kassteele ◽  
...  

1976 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 28-43
Author(s):  
J. J. Wilkes

The nineteen stones described below form a small collection of Latin inscriptions now housed in the City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. They have been acquired since the Second World War from older collections assembled at various places in the United Kingdom. With the exception of two, all are recorded as found in Rome and sixteen have been published in volume VI of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). The findspot of one (no. 6) is not recorded, while that of another (no. 13), although not attested, was almost certainly Rome. The publications in CIL were based in most cases on manuscript copies made between the fifteenth and ninetenth centuries; in the case of eight stones this republication (nos. 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 12, 17 and 18) provides corrections or amendments to the relevant entries in CIL. All measurements are metric.


Author(s):  
Jacob Kreutzfeldt

Street cries, though rarely heard in Northern European cities today, testify to ways in which audible practices shape and structure urban spaces. Paradigmatic for what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari call ‘the refrain’, the ritualised and stylised practice of street cries may point at the dynamics of space-making, through which the social and territorial construction of urban space is performed. The article draws on historical material, documenting and describing street cries, particularly in Copenhagen in the years 1929 to 1935. Most notably, the composer Vang Holmboe and the architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen have investigated Danish street cries as a musical and a spatial phenomenon, respectably. Such studies – from their individual perspectives – can be said to explore the aesthetics of urban environments, since street calls are developed and heard specifically in the context of the city. Investigating the different methods employed in the two studies and presenting Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the refrain as a framework for further studies in the field, this article seeks to outline a fertile area of study for sound studies: the investigation of everyday refrains and the environmental relations they express and perform. Today changed sensibilities and technologies have rendered street crying obsolete in Northern Europe, but new urban ritornells may have taken their place.


Author(s):  
Hélène Bricout ◽  
Rigoine de Fougerolles Thierry ◽  
Joan Puig-Barbera ◽  
Georges Kassianos ◽  
Philippe Vanhems ◽  
...  

Background: In response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak that unfolded across Europe in 2020, the World Health Organisation called for repurposing existing influenza surveillance systems to monitor COVID-19. This analysis aimed to compare descriptively the extent to which influenza surveillance systems were adapted and enhanced, and how COVID-19 surveillance could ultimately benefit or disrupt routine influenza surveillance. Methods: We used a previously developed framework in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom to describe COVID-19 surveillance and its impact on influenza surveillance. The framework divides surveillance systems into 7 sub-systems and 20 comparable outcomes of interest, and uses 5 evaluation criteria based on WHO guidance. Information on influenza and COVID-19 surveillance systems were collected from publicly available resources shared by European and national public health agencies. Results: Overall, non-medically attended, virological, primary care and mortality surveillance were adapted in most countries to monitor COVID-19, whilst community, outbreak, and hospital surveillance were reinforced in all countries. Data granularity improved, with more detailed demographic and medical information recorded. A shift to systematic notification for cases and deaths enhanced both geographic and population representativeness whilst the sampling strategy benefited from the roll out of widespread molecular testing. Data communication was greatly enhanced, contributing to improved public awareness. Conclusions: Well-established influenza surveillance systems are a key component of pandemic preparedness and their upgrade allowed European countries to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, uncertainties remain on how both influenza and COVID-19 surveillance can be jointly and durably implemented.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Wang ◽  
Peiwen He ◽  
Congcong Yuan ◽  
Shunyi Wang

Due to a rapidly growing ageing population, China is experiencing a rapid urbanisation, resulting in the uneven construction of public facilities. Therefore, the elderly have disproportionate access to public facilities and services. These problems are much more serious in old cities because of a fierce contradiction between society and land use. However, elderly populations are significant to the old city because they are the soul of the old city. Importantly, the old city is a container of memories of their lives as well as an environment they are acquainted with and unwilling to leave. Therefore, whether the urban space in the old city is ageing-friendly and whether the elderly are isolated or integrated in the current urban environment are questions addressed by this study. Based on the World Health Organization’s concept of an elderly-friendly city, this study constructed an elderly-friendly urban space evaluation system based on accessibility, social inclusiveness and equity and analysed four types of ageing facilities in 25 blocks of Old Beijing City. The results showed that the ageing resources in Old Beijing City are insufficient and uneven, and revealed that the development of the old city has a positive impact on the construction of an elderly-friendly community.


Author(s):  
David M. Levy ◽  
Ieva Saule

General anaesthesia (GA) is most often indicated for category 1 (immediate threat to life of mother or baby) caesarean delivery (CD) or when neuraxial anaesthesia has failed or is contraindicated. Secure intravenous access is essential. Jugular venous cannulation (with ultrasound guidance) is required if peripheral access is inadequate. A World Health Organization surgical safety checklist must be used. The shoulders and upper back should be ramped. Left lateral table tilt or other means of uterine displacement are essential to minimize aortocaval compression, and a head-up position is recommended to improve the efficiency of preoxygenation and reduce the likelihood of gastric contents reaching the oropharynx. Cricoid pressure is controversial. In the United Kingdom, thiopental remains the induction agent of choice, although there is scant evidence upon which to avoid propofol. In pre-eclampsia, it is essential to obtund the pressor response to laryngoscopy with remifentanil or alfentanil. Rocuronium is an acceptable alternative to succinylcholine for neuromuscular blockade. Sugammadex offers the possibility of swifter reversal of rocuronium than spontaneous recovery from succinylcholine. Management of difficult tracheal intubation is focused on ‘oxygenation without aspiration’ and prevention of airway trauma. The Classic™ laryngeal mask airway is the most commonly used rescue airway in the United Kingdom. There is a large set of data from fasted women of low body mass index who have undergone elective CD safely with a Proseal™ or Supreme™ laryngeal mask airway. Sevoflurane is the most popular volatile agent for maintenance of GA. The role of electroencephalography-based depth of anaesthesia monitors at CD remains to be established. Intraoperative end-tidal carbon dioxide tension should be maintained below 4.0 kPa.


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