Relationships between Expenditure of Regional Governments and Suicide Mortalities Caused by Six Major Motives in Japan

Suicide mortality in Japan reduced in the period of 2009–2018. A number of studies identified the impact of financial governmental support for social welfare systems on suicide mortality; however, the detailed effects of specific regional policies, designed according to regional cultural, economic, education and welfare situations, on suicide mortality remain to be clarified. Therefore, the present study analyses the associations between the regional governmental expenditure of six major divisions, “public health”, “public works”, “police”, “ambulance/fire services”, “welfare” and “education”, and suicide mortalities caused by six major suicidal motives, related to “family”, “health”, “economy”, “employment”, “romance” and “school”, across the 47 prefectures in Japan during the period of 2009–2018, using fixed-effect analysis of hierarchal linear regression with robust standard error. The expenditure of “public works” displayed a positive relationship with suicide mortality of females caused by family-related motives but was not related to other suicide mortalities, whereas the expenditures in “public health”, “police”, “ambulance/fire services”, “welfare” and “education” contributed to a reduction in suicide mortality, at least in some statistical indicators. The expenditures of both “ambulance/fire” and “education” were predominantly effective among the six major divisions of regional governmental expenditure in reducing suicide mortalities. In the education subdivisions, the expenditure of “kindergarten” was related to a reduction in suicide mortalities caused by a wide spectrum of motives. The amount of expenditure of welfare indicated the limited possibility of facilitating a reduction in suicide mortalities caused by only motives associated with economy or employment. However, in the welfare subdivisions, the expenditure of “child welfare” and “social welfare” was effective in reducing suicide mortalities, but the expenditure of “elderly welfare” was unexpectedly related to an increase in suicide mortalities. These results suggest that most Japanese people are struggling to bring up children even in the situation of an increasing elderly population with a decreasing birth rate. Therefore, it is important to enhance the investment welfare policy for the future to improve the childcare environment. Although the issue of an increasing elderly population and a decreasing birth rate in Japan has not yet improved, the obtained results suggest that evidence-based welfare expenditure redistributions of prefectures and municipalities could improve Japanese society and welfare systems.

Analysing the Impacts of Financial Expenditure of Prefectures on Methods of Suicide Completion in Japan

Recently, several studies reported that the governmental financial expenditures play important roles in the prevention of increasing suicide mortalities; however, the specific regional policies, designed dependent on regional cultural, economic, education and welfare backgrounds, affect suicide mortality by a specific suicidal means. Therefore, the present study determined the impacts of the regional governmental expenditure of six major divisions, “public health”, “public works”, “police”, “ambulance/fire services”, “welfare” and “education” on suicide mortalities by five major suicidal means, “hanging”, “poisoning”, “charcoal burning”, “jumping” and “throwing”, across the 47 prefectures in Japan during 2009–2018 using fixed-effect analysis of hierarchal linear regression with robust standard error. The expenditures of “ambulance/fire services” and “education” indicated the negative relation to suicide mortalities by wide-spectrum suicidal means, whereas expenditures of “public works” did not affect suicide mortalities. In the education subdivisions, expenditure of “kindergarten” and “elementary school” indicated the impacts of reduction of suicide mortalities, whereas the expenditures of “special school” for individuals with disabilities unexpectedly contribute to increasing suicide mortalities by poisoning, charcoal burning and throwing of females. Regarding subdivisions of welfare, expenditure of “child welfare” and “social welfare” contributed to a reduction in suicide mortalities, but expenditure of “elderly welfare” surprisingly contributed to increasing suicide mortalities. Furthermore, expenditures of welfare subdivision abolished the negative impacts of the expenditures of educational subdivisions, kindergarten and elementary school, but the positive impact of expenditure of special school on female suicide mortalities was not affected. These results suggest that most Japanese people are struggling to care for children even in the situation of an increasing elderly population with a decreasing birthrate. Therefore, it is important to enhance the investment welfare policy for the future to improve the childcare environment. The results demonstrated by this study suggest that the scientifically evidence-based redistributions of welfare expenditure in regional government, at least partially, provide improvement of Japanese society and welfare systems, under the continuous severe Japanese social concerns associated with increasing elderly population with a decreasing birthrate.

THE EFFECT OF OSH PROGRAM AND WORK DISCIPLINE ON THE PERFORMANCE OF FIREFIGHTERS AT THE FIRE SERVICES OF BOGOR DISTRICT IN 2020

Background: Performance is very important in an agency to achieve goals. The implementation of the OSH program and work discipline is one of the important factors to improve employee performance. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze an influence OSH program and work discipline on improving performance in firefighters. Method: This research method is quantitative associative. The sample used was 165 firefighters and rescue workers taken through purposive sampling. Data was collected by filling out a questionnaire. In this study, hypothesis testing will be carried out which includes the F-test (simultaneous test), T-test (partial test), and multiple linear analysis. Result: The results showed that there was a significant effect of the OSH program and work discipline on performance where the value of Fcount = 200.571 > from Ftable = 3.06. The K3 and Work Discipline Program can affect the dependent variable of performance in fire officers at the Bogor Regency Fire Department by 71.2% while the remaining 28.8% is influenced by other variables not included in this study. Conclusion: It can be concluded that there is an influence between the OSH program and work discipline on the performance of firefighters. Therefore, firefighters must always improve their performance to achieve agency goals.

Exploring Spatiotemporal Accessibility of Urban Fire Services Using Real-Time Travel Time

The accessibility of urban fire services is a critical indicator in evaluating fire services and optimizing fire resource allocation. However, previous studies have mainly concentrated on measuring the spatial accessibility of fire services, and little, if any, consideration has been paid to exploring the spatiotemporal dynamics of the accessibility of urban fire services. Therefore, we used real-time travel time to extend an existing spatial accessibility method to measure the spatiotemporal accessibility of fire services in a case study of Nanjing, China. The results show that (1) the overall accessibility of fire incidents and fire stations in Nanjing, China, is uneven, with relatively high accessibility in the southwest and northeast of the city center; (2) the number of fire incidents with low-level accessibility apparently increases in rush hours (i.e., 07:00–09:00 and 17:00–19:00 hours) in the southeast and north of the city center, and the fire incidents with medium-level and high-level accessibility easily change to lower levels under the influence of traffic congestion, with fire incidents with medium-level accessibility being affected the most; (3) the accessibility of fire stations changes over time with an obvious W pattern, with lower accessibility during rush hours than at other times, and several fire stations in the city center present an asymmetric W pattern; (4) the accessibility decline ratio for fire stations in rush hours is greater in the city center than in urban suburbs, and the decline ratios are strongly related to the travel time increase and the percent increase in uncovered fire incidents during rush hours. The results and findings demonstrate that our method can be used to explore the spatiotemporal dynamics of the accessibility of fire services, and so can guide policymakers in improving fire services.

Labour-Management Relationships in Fire Services and Basic Labour Rights of Emergency Responders

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Labour-Management Relationships in Fire Services and Basic Labour Rights of Emergency Responders

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Evidence-based practices of effective fire safety education programming for children

School-based fire safety education programs are implemented by fire services organisations around the world to improve children’s fire safety knowledge and skills. Such education is considered the single most modifiable strategy that fire services organisations can implement to reduce the risk that children will misuse fire or be harmed by fire. Despite this, there are no overarching and evidence-based guidelines for the development of new programs or the evaluation and modification of existing ones. To fill this void, a rapid evidence assessment of existing literature was conducted. Results revealed 25 evidence-based practices that held true in a variety of contexts and methodologically diverse studies. These practices inform an empirical framework that can be used to guide fire safety education programs for children.