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Divergent gender role attitudes among ethnic groups in Britain are thought to contribute to ethnic disparities in many socio-economic domains. Using nationally representative data (2010–2011), we investigate how ethnic minority gender role attitudes vary across generations and with neighborhood ethnic composition. The results show that while Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, and Black Africans have more traditional attitudes than Black Caribbeans, the attitudes of the former groups are more traditional in the first than in the second generation. We also find that the gender role attitudes of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Indians become more traditional as the local share of co-ethnic neighbors increases or the share of White British residents decreases. Importantly, these patterns are more pronounced for second-generation Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, whose gender role attitudes are more sensitive to variations in neighborhood ethnic composition than are those of the first generation. Taken together, these findings indicate that migration researchers must conceptualize and study how immigrants’ cultural values are heterogeneous, fluid, and dynamic characteristics that can vary spatially across host societies.

Background Arts engagement within communities is ubiquitous across cultures globally and previous research has suggested its benefits for mental health and wellbeing. However, it remains unclear whether these benefits are driven by arts engagement itself or by important confounders such as socio-economic status (SES), childhood arts engagement, previous mental health, personality, or self-selection bias. The aim of this study is to use fixed effects models that account for unidentified time-constant confounding measures to examine the longitudinal association between arts (frequency of both arts participation and cultural attendance), mental distress, mental health functioning and life satisfaction. Methods Data from 23,660 individuals (with a mean age of 47 years) included in the UK Understanding Society wave 2 (2010–2012) and wave 5 (2013–2015) were analyzed. Aside from controlling for all time-constant variables using fixed-effects models, we additionally adjusted for time-varying demographic factors (e.g. age and marital status), health behaviors and social support variables. Results After controlling for all time-constant variables and identified time-varying confounders, frequent arts participation and cultural attendance were associated with lower levels of mental distress and higher levels of life satisfaction, with arts participation additionally associated with better mental health functioning. Health-related and social time-varying factors were shown partly but not wholly to explain the observed associations. Conclusion Arts engagement amongst the population as a whole may help enhance positive mental health and life satisfaction, and protect against mental distress. These results are independent of a wide range of time-constant confounding factors.

ObjectivesTo compare the mental health and life satisfaction of those employed in the gig work and contingent work with those in full-time or part-time work and the unemployed in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. To explore the possible mechanisms of latent and manifest benefits of employment, such as financial precarity and loneliness.DesignCross-sectional survey.ParticipantsA representative sample of 17 722 employed and unemployed British adults, including 429 gig workers. People with disability, retirees and full-time students are not included in the sample.Main outcome measuresMental health (General Health Questionnaire-12 score) and life satisfaction (a direct question from UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS)) as outcomes. Self-reported loneliness (four widely used questions from UKHLS) and financial precarity (a direct question from UKHLS) as mediators.ResultsGig workers reported mental health and life satisfaction worse than those employed full time and part time, but better than the unemployed. Mediation analyses showed that gig workers’ worse mental health and life satisfaction than other workers were explained by their higher levels of loneliness and financial precarity, while gig workers’ better mental health and life satisfaction than the unemployed were explained by their less financial precarity.ConclusionsInformal and freelance economy provided manifest benefits of employment to gig workers compared with unemployment but lacked latent benefits of employment. Public policies should provide social support to freelance and contingent workers to reduce their loneliness and improve their psychological well-being, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has led many Ukrainians to fight for their country, either in the regular army or as civilian members of voluntary territorial defense forces. There is, however, a dearth of knowledge on the mental health of combatants in this conflict. Prior research on the mental health of combatants is unlikely to translate to the situation at hand because such research is focused on combatants fighting abroad and neglects civilian combatants. This study provides the first attempt to investigate the mental health of Ukrainian combatants in the regular army and voluntary territorial defense forces by analyzing the prevalence rates of common mental health issues, as well as their demographic and socioeconomic predictors. Between March 19 and 31, 2022, the initial period of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a sample of 178 Ukrainian combatants (104 in the regular army and 74 civilian combatants) participated in a survey on symptoms of anxiety (GAD-2), depression (PHQ-2), and insomnia (ISI). A sizable portion of Ukrainian combatants reached cut-off levels for clinical symptoms of anxiety (44·4%), depression (43·3%), and insomnia (12·4%). Importantly, the mental health of Ukrainian combatants varied between professional soldiers and civilian combatants, as well as by gender, marital status, by whether or not they were located in Russian-occupied/active-combat areas, and dependent on whether they were personally involved in combat. This study provides early evidence on the mental health of Ukrainian combatants, pointing to their urgent need for mental health assistance in the ongoing war.

Policymakers and researchers describe the COVID-19 epidemics by waves without a common vocabulary on what constitutes an epidemic wave, either in terms of a working definition or operationalization, causing inconsistencies and confusions. A working definition and operationalization can be helpful to characterize and communicate about epidemics. We propose a working definition of epidemic waves in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and an operationalization based on the public data of the effective reproduction number R. Our operationalization characterizes the numbers and durations of waves (upward and downward) in 179 countries. The proposed working definition of epidemic waves provides a common and consistent vocabulary that can enable healthcare organizations and policymakers to make better description and assessment of the COVID crisis to make more informed resource planning, mobilization, and allocation temporally in the continued COVID-19 pandemic.

Active Labour Market Programmes (ALMPs), which form important components of employment support policies around the world, have been found to improve mental health and wellbeing of participants. However, it remains unclear how these health effects compare with the effects of different types of employment for men and women. Using 1991–2019 panel data in the UK, we find that unemployed women derive similar mental health benefits from ALMPs compared with employment. Unemployed men also benefit from ALMPs but obtain significantly more health benefits from formal employment. Such benefits are particularly pronounced in full-time, permanent and upper/middle-status jobs. Further analyses reveal that programmes that deliver human capital training have larger mental health benefits than employment assistance ALMPs. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the mental health impacts of ALMPs compared with different types of employment, and highlight the need for a more gender-sensitive design in labour market interventions.

Purpose Although the family burden of mental health problems on patients’ close relatives was widely acknowledged, little was known about how mental health problems affected the quality of life of other types of social relationships of patients, through what mechanisms, and under what conditions. The study aims to explore the burden on all types of relationships of mental health patients and explain why and when the burden is unequal across different relationships. Methods The association between different types of relationships and the levels of burden was examined with dyadic data of 1178 patient-acquaintance relationships in the United States and random effects multilevel models. Frequency of contacts was tested as a mediator. The severity of mental health problems was tested as a moderator. Results All types of relationships of patients borne a significant burden. Close relatives including parents, spouses, children, and siblings suffered a greater burden than distant relatives and non-relatives. The unequal burden was partly explained by the frequency of contacts with patients. The burden of close relatives significantly increased when patients’ mental health problems were more severe. Conclusion Mental health patients put a burden on their frequent contacts outside core families, especially when their problems were more severe. Public health policies should attend to the quality of life of mental health patients’ all types of acquaintances in the wider society.

It is difficult to accurately estimate the incidence rate of intimate partner violence (IPV) using traditional social survey methods because IPV victims are often reluctant to disclose their experiences, leading to an underestimation of the incidence rate. To address this issue, we applied machine learning algorithms to predict the incidence rate of IPV in China based on data from the Third Wave Survey on the Social Status of Women in China (TWSSSCW 2010). Specifically, we examined five unbalanced sample-processing methods and six machine learning algorithms, choosing the random under-sampling ensemble method and the random forest algorithm to impute the missing data. Analysis of the complete data showed that the incidence rates of physical violence, verbal violence, and cold violence were 7.10%, 13.74%, and 21.35%, respectively, which were higher than the incidence rates in the original dataset (4.05%, 11.21%, and 17.95%, respectively). The robustness of our findings was further confirmed by analysis using different training sets. Overall, this study demonstrates that better tools need to be developed to accurately estimate the incidence rates of IPV. It also serves as a useful guide for future research that imputes missing data using machine learning.

Background Suicidal ideation is subject to serious underestimation among existing public health studies. While numerous factors have been recognized in affecting suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB), the associated environmental risks have been poorly understood. Foremost among the various environment risks were air pollution, in particular, the PM2.5. The present study attempted to examine the relationship between PM 2.5 level and local weekly index of suicidal ideation (ISI). Methods Using Internet search query volumes in Baidu (2017), the largest internet search engine in China, we constructed a prefectural panel data (278 prefectures, 52 weeks) and employed dynamic panel GMM system estimation to analyze the relationship between weekly concentration of PM2.5 (Mean = 87 μg·m − 3 ) and the index of suicidal ideation (Mean = 49.9). Results The results indicate that in the spring and winter, a 10 μg·m − 3 increase in the prior week’s PM 2.5 in a Chinese city is significantly associated with 0.020 increase in ISI in spring and a 0.007 increase in ISI in winter, after taking account other co-pollutants and meteorological conditions. Conclusion We innovatively proposed the measure of suicidal ideation and provided suggestive evidence of a positive association between suicidal ideation and PM 2.5 level.

Background Compared with conventional transradial access (TRA), distal radial access (DRA) is rarely used for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and may be beneficial to prevent radial artery occlusion (RAO). We aimed to evaluate the incidence of RAO between DRA and TRA 24 h after primary PCI in patients with STEMI. Methods This is a single-center, open-label, prospective, randomized controlled trial conducted at Beijing Luhe Hospital, China, between January 2022 and July 2023. Five hundred and twenty patients (mean age: 61.3 ± 13.0 years; 81% male) with STEMI were randomly assigned to the DRA ( n  = 260) or TRA ( n  = 260) group. Primary PCI was performed using the radial artery access assigned study group. The primary endpoint was the rate of RAO assessed using Doppler ultrasound 24 h after primary PCI. Secondary outcomes included time taken for sheath insertion, access success rate, hemostasis time, fluoroscopy time, radiation dosage, and access-related complications. Results The incidence of RAO was significantly lower in the DRA group than that in the TRA group (1.9% vs. 8.5%, P  = 0.001). Access was successful in 94.6% of patients, and the crossover rate was 5.4% in both groups. The median time taken for sheath insertion was significantly longer (133 s vs. 114 s, P  = 0.009), whereas the mean hemostasis time was shorter (209 ± 71 min vs. 372 ± 70 min, P  < 0.001) in the DRA group. The incidence of modified Early Discharge After Transradial Stenting of Coronary Arteries (mEASY) ≥ II hematoma was lower in the DRA group (0.8% vs. 3.5%, P  = 0.033). However, there was no significant difference in fluoroscopy time, radiation dosage, or access-related complications. Conclusions In patients with STEMI undergoing primary PCI, compared with TRA, DRA prevented RAO 24 h postoperatively and was associated with shorter hemostasis time and a lower incidence of mEASY ≥ II hematoma. Trial registration Clinical Trials.gov Identifier: NCT05461781.