Inadequate Social Housing and Health: The Case of Oliver Bond House, The Liberties, Dublin.

Background: Inadequate housing is an important social justice issue that adversely affects health. Methods: Drawing on an extended ethnography case study, this paper presents the results of a resident-led survey to highlight the health consequences of inadequate social housing, as residents wait for a 'fair regeneration' of their social housing 'flats' estate within a gentrifying inner-city Dublin neighbourhood. Results: Four key concerns were identified by residents as part of this analysis: (1) substandard housing conditions which are physically harmful to health; (2) the emotional toll of an unsafe social environment; (3) lack of child friendly and community green spaces; and (4) constrained mobility due to inaccessible housing design. Conclusions: The results highlight the urgent need to place greater priority on the maintenance of the existing social housing stock and demonstrate the need for public housing policies that recognize the quality and quantity of adequate housing provision, where care is at the heart of housing policies. The paper also presents a novel 'City of Care' framework, following the need to develop an ethics of care within cities where public health, community wellbeing, solidarity, residents' empowerment, and social justice principles are at the forefront. Given that housing is an essential contributor to good health, it is now time for a joint public housing and public health agenda to create healthier homes by confronting the everyday impact of inadequate housing to tackle social inequalities more broadly.

Supported Home Ownership and Adult Independence in Milan: The Gilded Cage of Family Housing Gifts and Transfers.

This article analyses practices of intergenerational support for homeownership among different generations of families in Milan, Italy, highlighting the role of housing in family welfare relations and life-course transitions. It makes use of an original dataset of qualitative interviews investigating homeownership pathways and the negotiations of support that they pre-suppose. The article explores the meanings and moral reasoning behind the decision to accept (or not) support in context of contemporary discourses surrounding the liquidity and availability of housing and finance. It highlights the moral compromises and emotional negotiations inherent in the giving and receiving of support for housing, contributing to a body of literature concerned with the reproduction of home and family. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of homes and housing assets in mediating dependence and re-affirming family bonds within a family-oriented welfare context, despite conflict, resistance and frustrated aspirations.

Anti-anxiety self-medication in rats: oral consumption of chlordiazepoxide and ethanol after reward devaluation.

Rats increased preference for ethanol after sessions of appetitive extinction, but not after acquisition (reinforced) sessions (Manzo et al., 2014). Drinking was not influenced by appetitive extinction in control groups with postsession access to water, rather than ethanol. Because ethanol has anxiolytic properties in tasks involving reward loss, these results were interpreted as anti-anxiety self-medication. The present experiment tested the potential for self-medication with the prescription anxiolytic chlordiazepoxide, a benzodiazepine with an addictive profile used in the treatment of anxiety disorders. To test this hypothesis, Wistar rats exposed to a 32-to-4% sucrose devaluation received a two-bottle, 2-h preference test immediately after consummatory training. One bottle contained 1 mg/kg of chlordiazepoxide, 2% ethanol, or water for different groups (the second bottle contained water for all groups). Three additional groups received the same postsession preference tests, but were exposed to 4% sucrose during consummatory training. Rats showed suppression of consummatory behavior after reward devaluation relative to unshifted controls. This effect was accompanied by a selective increase in preference for chlordiazepoxide and ethanol. Downshifted animals with access to water or unshifted controls with access to the anxiolytics failed to exhibit postsession changes in preference. Similar results were observed in terms of absolute consumption and consumption relative to body weight. This study shows for the first time that a prescription anxiolytic supports enhanced voluntary consumption during periods of emotional distress triggered by reward loss. Such anti-anxiety self-medication provides insights into the early stages of addictive behavior.

Relationship between ethanol preference and sensation/novelty seeking.

High- and low-avoidance Roman inbred rat strains (RHA-I, RLA-I) were selected for extreme differences in two-way active avoidance. RHA-I rats also express less anxiety than RLA-I rats. This study compared male Roman rats in ethanol preference and sensation/novelty seeking. Rats were first exposed in counterbalanced order to the hole-board test (forced exposure to novelty) and the Y-maze and emergence tests (free choice between novel and familiar locations). Then, rats were tested in 24-h, two-bottle preference tests with water in one bottle and ethanol (2, 4, 6, 8, or 10% in successive days). Compared to RLA-I rats, RHA-I rats showed (1) higher frequency and time in head dipping, (2) higher activity, and (3) lower frequency of rearing and grooming in the hole-board test, and (4) remained in the novel arm longer in the Y-maze test. No strain differences were observed in the emergence test. RHA-I rats exhibited higher preference for and consumed more ethanol than RLA-I rats at all concentrations. However, both strains preferred ethanol over water for 2-4% concentrations, but water over ethanol for 6-10% concentrations. Factorial analysis with all the rats pooled identified a two-factor solution, one grouping preferred ethanol concentrations (2-4%) with head dipping and grooming in the hole board, and another factor grouping the nonpreferred ethanol concentrations (6-10%) with activity in the hole board and novel-arm time in the Y-maze test. These results show that preference for ethanol is associated with different aspects of behavior measured in sensation/novelty-seeking tests.

Anti-anxiety self-medication induced by incentive loss in rats.

Ethanol can be used to ameliorate negative emotion in anxiety-inducing situations. Two experiments tested whether rats would increase preference for ethanol immediately after anxiogenic sessions of appetitive extinction. It was predicted that preference for ethanol would be greater in inbred Roman low-avoidance rats (RLA-I) than in inbred Roman high-avoidance rats (RHA-I), given previous research demonstrating that the former strain exhibits greater sensitivity to incentive loss. Experiment 1 used a consummatory extinction task (22-to-0% sucrose downshift), whereas Experiment 2 used an instrumental extinction task (12-to-0 pellet downshift). In both experiments, postsession ethanol consumption was higher in RLA-I rats than in RHA-I rats. No strain differences in ethanol preference were found after acquisition sessions or in groups given postsession access to water. Because ethanol is an anti-anxiety drug, the present results suggest that rats are capable of changing their consummatory behavior to correct for an aversive emotional state induced by incentive loss.

Oral ethanol self-administration in inbred Roman high- and low-avoidance rats: gradual versus abrupt ethanol presentation.

Outbred Roman high-avoidance rats are known to consume more ethanol than inbred Roman low-avoidance rats. To determine whether ethanol consumption in inbred strains could be modulated by experiential factors, preference for a target 10% ethanol concentration was tested after either the gradual introduction of ethanol in increasing concentrations or the abrupt introduction of the target concentration. Whereas high-avoidance rats consumed more ethanol at lower concentrations, consumption and preference for ethanol over water were not differential across strains and administration procedure (gradual vs. abrupt). At the 4% concentration, ethanol was preferred over water by Roman high-avoidance rats, but water was preferred over ethanol by Roman low-avoidance rats. Ethanol consumption and preference for a 10% concentration appear to be immune to modification by either the gradual or abrupt ethanol presentation.