RESUMO
Natural environments, such as parks, woodlands and lakes, have positive impacts on health and wellbeing. Urban Green and Blue Spaces (UGBS), and the activities that take place in them, can significantly influence the health outcomes of all communities, and reduce health inequalities. Improving access and quality of UGBS needs understanding of the range of systems (e.g. planning, transport, environment, community) in which UGBS are located. UGBS offers an ideal exemplar for testing systems innovations as it reflects place-based and whole society processes , with potential to reduce non-communicable disease (NCD) risk and associated social inequalities in health. UGBS can impact multiple behavioural and environmental aetiological pathways. However, the systems which desire, design, develop, and deliver UGBS are fragmented and siloed, with ineffective mechanisms for data generation, knowledge exchange and mobilisation. Further, UGBS need to be co-designed with and by those whose health could benefit most from them, so they are appropriate, accessible, valued and used well. This paper describes a major new prevention research programme and partnership, GroundsWell, which aims to transform UGBS-related systems by improving how we plan, design, evaluate and manage UGBS so that it benefits all communities, especially those who are in poorest health. We use a broad definition of health to include physical, mental, social wellbeing and quality of life. Our objectives are to transform systems so that UGBS are planned, developed, implemented, maintained and evaluated with our communities and data systems to enhance health and reduce inequalities. GroundsWell will use interdisciplinary, problem-solving approaches to accelerate and optimise community collaborations among citizens, users, implementers, policymakers and researchers to impact research, policy, practice and active citizenship. GroundsWell will be shaped and developed in three pioneer cities (Belfast, Edinburgh, Liverpool) and their regional contexts, with embedded translational mechanisms to ensure that outputs and impact have UK-wide and international application.
RESUMO
Although intergroup contact can reduce prejudice, opportunities to experience such contact are often constrained by systems of segregation. Work on this problem has focused on divisions entrenched within institutions of residence, education, and employment. Our research employed a complementary approach, which treated segregation as the outcome of individuals' movements over time within everyday life spaces. Taking as a case study Catholics' and Protestants' use of public environments in north Belfast, we used GPS tracking technology, combined with GIS analytics, to explore the time geography of residents' activity space use over a 2-week period (Study 1). We also conducted a field survey to explore how psychological factors shaped their willingness to use activity spaces beyond their own communities (Study 2). Analysis based on around 1,000 hr of raw movement data revealed that north Belfast is marked by high levels of segregation, expressed via residents' limited use of public spaces, facilities, and pathways located in outgroup areas. However, use of shared spaces is also common, with Catholics spending more time in such spaces than Protestants. Structural equation modeling suggested that residents' self-reported willingness to use activity spaces outside their own communities was associated with both negative and positive intergroup contact-relationships partially mediated by realistic threat, symbolic threat, and anxiety over interaction across sectarian lines. Both kinds of contact and realistic threat were also associated with the time residents actually spent in spaces beyond their own communities. Opportunities for integrating psychological and geographic research on contact and segregation are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Assuntos
Catolicismo , Medo , Processos Grupais , Preconceito , Protestantismo , Segregação Social , População Urbana , Adulto , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Irlanda do Norte , População Urbana/estatística & dados numéricosRESUMO
Institutional structures of segregation typically entrench social inequality and sustain wider patterns of intergroup conflict and discrimination. However, initiatives to dismantle such structures may provoke resistance. Executive proposals to dismantle Northern Ireland's peace walls by 2023 provide a compelling case study of the nature of such resistance and may thus provide important clues about how it might be overcome. Drawing on a field survey conducted in north Belfast (n = 488), this research explored the role of physical proximity, realistic and symbolic threat, and past experiences of positive and negative cross-community contact on Catholic and Protestant residents' support for removing the walls. Structural equation modelling suggested that both forms of contact and proximity were significantly related to such support and that these relationships were partially mediated by realistic threat. It also suggested that positive contact moderated the effects of proximity. That is, for residents who had more frequent positive interactions with members of the other community, proximity to a peace wall had a weaker relationship with resistance to their removal than residents who had less frequent contact.
Assuntos
Atitude , Diversidade Cultural , Processos Grupais , Interação Social , Adulto , Catolicismo , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Irlanda do Norte , ProtestantismoRESUMO
In a sample of young people in Northern Ireland (N = 819), we examine the relationships between the quality of experience with police officers and police legitimacy. We examine potential pathways through which experiences may either support or undermine the legitimacy of the police, and thus cooperation and compliance with them. We find evidence that perceptions of the police as having goals that align with those of wider society, and as being fair in general, mediate relations between the quality of encounters and legitimacy, which in turn mediates the relation with cooperation and compliance. Identification with wider society was not a reliable mediator, contrary to our predictions based on the Group Engagement Model. Moreover, our analysis of the structure of police fairness perceptions finds no support for the distinction between procedural and distributive police fairness as usually conceived. Implications for the social psychological understanding of legitimate authority are discussed.