scholarly journals Generational Portrait of Spanish Society in the Face of Climate Change. A Question to Consider for the Green Economy under the Well-Being Approach

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 807
Author(s):  
María-José Foncubierta-Rodríguez ◽  
Rafael Ravina-Ripoll ◽  
José Antonio López-Sánchez

Climate change is emerging as an issue of progressive attention, and therefore awareness, in societies. In this work, the problem is addressed from a generational perspective in Spanish society and is carried out from the approaches of awareness, human action, and self-responsibility. All this from the search of the subjective well-being and the citizens’ happiness, as one of the bases of sustainable development initiatives. With data from the European Social Survey R8, from EUROSTAT, we work in two phases: (1) descriptive and inferential on possible associations of the items with the variable Age, and (2) calculation of probabilities between groups through logistic regression. The results confirm a general awareness, but with apparent statistical differences between age groups. In general, the youngest are the most aware, blame human activity most intensely, are the most concerned, and are the most willing to act. And it is the older people who are less aware of all these issues. Based on this finding, and from the approach mentioned above, it is recommended that leaders, both in the macroeconomic and microeconomic sectors, develop initiatives that sensitize and encourage older age groups.

2021 ◽  
pp. 155982762110081
Author(s):  
Neha Pathak ◽  
Amanda McKinney

Global environmental degradation and climate change threaten the foundation of human health and well-being. In a confluence of crises, the accelerating pace of climate change and other environmental disruptions pose an additional, preventable danger to a global population that is both aging and carrying a growing burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Climate change and environmental disruption function as “threat multipliers,” especially for those with NCDs, worsening the potential health impacts on those with suboptimal health. At the same time, these environmental factors threaten the basic pillars of health and prevention, increasing the risk of developing chronic disease. In the face of these threats, the core competencies of lifestyle medicine (LM) present crucial opportunities to mitigate climate change and human health impacts while also allowing individuals and communities to build resilience. LM health professionals are uniquely positioned to coach patients toward climate-healthy behavior changes that heal both people and the planet.


2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix FitzRoy ◽  
Jennifer Franz-Vasdeki ◽  
Elissaios Papyrakis

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mwangi Githiru ◽  
Josephine Njambuya

Protected areas are considered the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation, but face multiple problems in delivering this core objective. The growing trend of framing biodiversity and protected area values in terms of ecosystem services and human well-being may not always lead to biodiversity conservation. Although globalization is often spoken about in terms of its adverse effects to the environment and biodiversity, it also heralds unprecedented and previously inaccessible opportunities linked to ecosystem services. Biodiversity and related ecosystem services are amongst the common goods hardest hit by globalization. Yet, interconnectedness between people, institutions, and governments offers a great chance for globalization to play a role in ameliorating some of the negative impacts. Employing a polycentric governance approach to overcome the free-rider problem of unsustainable use of common goods, we argue here that REDD+, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate change mitigation scheme, could be harnessed to boost biodiversity conservation in the face of increasing globalization, both within classic and novel protected areas. We believe this offers a timely example of how an increasingly globalized world connects hitherto isolated peoples, with the ability to channel feelings and forces for biodiversity conservation. Through the global voluntary carbon market, REDD+ can enable and empower, on the one hand, rural communities in developing countries contribute to mitigation of a global problem, and on the other, individuals or societies in the West to help save species they may never see, yet feel emotionally connected to.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (s1) ◽  
pp. 55-56
Author(s):  
Agnes Meave Otieno

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: This study considered how threat appraisal and religious social support associate with subjective well-being and subjective experience of pain. Appraisal in this study refers to the individual’s perception and interpretation of the significance of learning of his/her HIV status. The study incorporated the stress-buffering model to propose that the beneficial effects of religious social support will modify the association between threat appraisal and well-being for PLHIV in a palliative care setting. Well-being was assessed both as the participant’s subjective report of their well-being, and their subjective report of their experience with bodily pain. Participants’ subjective report of well-being was hypothesized to be inversely associated with threat appraisal, and positively associated with religious social support. Subjective experience with bodily pain was hypothesized to be directly associated with threat appraisal, and inversely associated with religious social support. It was further also hypothesized that religious social support modifies the impact of threat-appraisal on well-being such that higher levels of religious social support reduce the observed effect of threat appraisal. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This was a cross-sectional study using baseline data from a randomized clinical trial–the FACE palliative care study in Washington, DC (FACE: FAmily CEntered Advance Care Planning). Participants were PLHIV who received their HIV care from 5 Washington, DC hospital-based HIV-specialty clinics. The FACE 3000 study paired participants into dyads of patient and surrogate decision-maker. The patient is a PLHIV for whom the advanced care planning care study is geared. The surrogate decision-maker is considered the patient’s healthcare proxy who agrees to honor and advocate for the patient’s treatment preferences, if the patient were unable to communicate with the health care team directly. Some surrogates are HIV positive, however due to their role as the patient’s healthcare proxy, some of their surveys contain different content from those of the patient’s. Potentially eligible participants in the FACE study received a secondary screening to determine eligibility to ensure competency to participate in end-of-life decision making. For this analysis, only the patient data was used. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Subjective well-being showed significant associations with total threat appraisal, and four threat appraisal sub-constructs. Those with lower threat appraisals reported higher values of well-being compared to those with higher threat appraisals. Results from the regression analysis indicated that only one of the threat appraisal sub-constructs was significantly associated with a participant’s subjective experience of pain. Overall, religious social support did not seem to buffer the effect of threat appraisal on well-being or subjective experience of pain. Findings from this study suggest that subjective well-being is associated with cognitive threat appraisal and this finding could assist PLHIV and their caregivers in understanding the coping processes of HIV-infected people. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Due to stigmatization, an HIV diagnosis can influence a person’s physical, behavioral, psychological, and even spiritual health (McIntosh & Rosselli, 2012). As a stressor, it can compromise immune function to worsen the effects of the infection, while mentally depressing an individual and contributing to adverse coping mechanisms (e.g. alcohol consumption, drug use) (McIntosh & Rosselli, 2012). How someone copes with stress (threat appraisal) may contribute to health-promoting or health-damaging behaviors (Fife, Scott, Fineberg, & Zwickl, 2008). Hence, the quality of life of those managing HIV/AIDS remains a pressing concern. Findings from this study suggest that Lazarus and Folkman’s theoretical framework on the cognitive appraisal of threat could assist PLHIV and their caregivers in understanding the coping processes in PLHIV. For service providers, recognizing early threat appraisals and damaging coping mechanisms can be useful, especially for patients receiving an initial HIV diagnosis. For example, an understanding of the patient’s HIV appraisal can provide insight into the barriers to optimal care and adherence to ART and, potentially, help to reduce these barriers (Anderson, 1995). Furthermore, with the advancements of HIV medication, living with HIV has become a chronic condition, though as a stressor, it also poses long-term effects on the psychopathology of an individual living with HIV(McIntosh & Rosselli, 2012). Studies such as this study can help illuminate interventions aimed at reducing the psychological impact of HIV on a person’s life. For example, support groups have been developed and structured to provide social support and have been demonstrated to increase the perceived well-being among PLHIV (Hyde, Appleby, Weiss, Bailey, & Morgan, 2005). This has further expanded into the consideration of online-based support groups for PLHIV (Blackstock, Shah, Haughton, & Horvath, 2015). In another light, but still within psychosocial interventions for managing HIV infection, mindfulness meditation has been used pervasively in studies assessing its use as an intervention to reduce depression and perceived stress in people living with HIV in order to increase both physical and psychological health (Moskowitz etal., 2015). Interventions, such as mindful meditation, have risen as we understand more about appraisal pathways and coping strategies (such as seeking social support), and how they influence both physiological and psychological responses (Moskowitz etal., 2015) to affect the health of a person. Therefore, longitudinal research aimed toward management of the psychological and social consequences of HIV is central to promoting an accurate understanding of the quality of life for PLWH (Anderson, 1995).


2019 ◽  
Vol 148 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Glatz ◽  
Anja Eder

Abstract This paper offers elaborate analyses regarding the effects of social- as well as institutional trust as parts of social capital on subjective well-being (SWB) by using data from the European Social Survey, including 36 countries and eight time-points between 2002 and 2016. We analyze (1) The development of trust and SWB on the aggregate level; (2) The effect of trust on SWB on the individual cross-sectional level; and (3) The longitudinal and cross-sectional effect of trust on SWB on the aggregate level while considering control variables based on previous research. We observe a weak positive trend regarding social trust as well as SWB over time, but no significant change in institutional trust. However, trends are far from homogeneous across countries. In accordance to previous studies, we find a positive effect of social trust on SWB. This effect holds on the individual cross-sectional level for every participating country, but also on the longitudinal level. In view of institutional trust, we see a positive effect on SWB on the individual and aggregate cross-sectional level, but not over time. Thus, this study particularly sheds new light on this relation, indicating that it´s cross-sectional relation is due to confounding variables. Moreover, we observe no relation between economic growth and SWB after controlling for unemployment, but a positive effect of decreasing unemployment and inflation on SWB. Our data suggests that establishing an environment with high social trust across Europe would be rewarded with a happy society.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 645-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hadjar ◽  
Susanne Backes

Abstract Contributing to the debate on the integration of migrants in Europe, this study focuses on Subjective Well-Being (SWB) of people with migration backgrounds compared to people without a migration background – specifying SWB in terms of successful integration. The analyses employ a multilevel perspective (data base: European Social Survey). On the macro level, gross domestic product (GDP), welfare regime, xenophobia and the migrant integration policy index (MIPEX) are considered; on the micro level, social origin, education, unemployment, income deprivation, relationship status, health status and controls. Findings indicate a disadvantage in SWB of first-generation migrants that goes beyond deficits regarding well-studied SWB determinants. The SWB gap between migrants and non-migrants is larger in countries with a high GDP and smaller in countries with a high MIPEX score.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 560-582
Author(s):  
Nina Pavlović ◽  
Jasmina Petrović

The context of a pandemic caused by an infectious agent and the resulting health risk to a large number of people is a new type of risk contemporary humans are not quite familiar with. In addition to forcing citizens to rely on the effects of controlled medical and epidemiological measures, this kind of situation steers citizens towards cooperation and solidarity as well as towards personal capabilities of functioning during a crisis and it requires a certain degree of trust, not only in the institutions but also in other persons. The aim of this paper is to learn to what degree Serbian citizens trust others during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether this level of generalized trust differs among different sociodemographic groups, or more precisely, which groups were affected the most by the absence of generalized trust. The paper also analyzes a set of variables which are either a part of the concept of subjective well-being (feeling of happiness and life satisfaction) or are closely connected to it (the feeling of control over life, subjective health assessment, and assessments of solidarity and honesty of others). The analyzed data were obtained from a sample of 602 adult Serbian citizens who participated in an online survey in May 2020 by completing a questionnaire they received via e-mail and social networks from multiple access points. These data are compared to the newest available data on the given indicators in Serbia before the pandemic, collected within the European Values Study (EVS) in 2017 and the European Social Survey (ESS) in 2018. The results indicate a significant decrease in happiness and continuously low levels of the feeling of control over life and life satisfaction, but also an increase in the assessed honesty and solidarity of others. These findings are in accordance with the results of the previous studies, which revealed different dominant aspects in the analyzed concepts, leading to their different flexibility and (non)resilience to the changes in society.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anne-Marie Snider

<p>One of the major shifts in our social structure over the last 50 years has been a switch in the relative well-being positions of young and old. This is reflected in their suicide rates where, in contrast to the gradual decline in the propensity of older populations to take their own lives, that of the young has risen dramatically. Not confined to New Zealand, this ‘generational switch’ raises important questions about the changing relative distribution of incentives and rewards for living across the age domain. The purpose of my thesis is to document this change and explore its implications. I do so by analysing the current distribution of subjective well-being across contemporary age groups including differences between men and women and Māori and non-Māori. Of particular interest is the link between suicide, subjective well-being and social capital – the levels of social connectedness that prevail in the lives of the young adults relative to their parents’ generation. As a geographer I’m particularly concerned with the role of local capital (community connectedness and trust) in nurturing well-being, and hence the variation that well-being exhibits across places within a country. While thoroughly investigated between nations, relatively few studies document geographical variations in subjective well-being within countries, particularly in terms of how these statistics differ by age. I find that not only does dissatisfaction with life (unhappiness and other measures of subjective well-being) rise as teenagers approach adulthood, but that it peaks in the 30s and declines slowly thereafter in a pattern reflective of the prevailing pattern of suicide. Moreover I find that, in addition to partnership, income, employment status and housing tenure, satisfaction with life among young adults in particular also varies across local communities, and cities. As such, the young exhibit a heightened sensitivity to place in ways that raise important questions about the nature of communities in which children are raised. It is this new information which I bring to a discussion of current initiatives dealing with mental health and the prevailing strategies advocated in New Zealand.</p>


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