Dataset Information

Active Aging: Social Entrepreneuring in Local Communities of Five European Countries.

ABSTRACT: Building on the active aging framework, the aim of this study, carried out between 2016 and 2018, is to analyze concrete experiences of older individuals acting as key players of social change in six local communities of five European countries (Bulgaria, Denmark, England, France, Spain). The 19 seniors involved in the study, according to social contexts, individual past experiences, knowledge, and motivations, acted as senior social entrepreneurs, trying to build a pathway towards social solutions for unmet social problems they detected in local communities. Data were collected via templates and questionnaires and analyzed using the thematic analysis. The results highlighted that the 16 local initiatives created by seniors concerned social problems such as food waste, social isolation, multicultural integration, etc. The social solutions implemented by seniors seemed to have the potential to produce social value and, to different degrees, encouraging results and impact. Since this "social experiment" provided evidence that senior social entrepreneuring could be a driver to solve societal problems, policy makers should sustain the spread of both social entrepreneurial mindset and practices at the European level, for catalyzing the active potential of older people for the benefit of European local communities.

SUBMITTER: Socci M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7177232 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Active Aging: Social Entrepreneuring in Local Communities of Five European Countries.

Socci Marco M Clarke David D Principi Andrea A

International journal of environmental research and public health 20200403 7

Building on the active aging framework, the aim of this study, carried out between 2016 and 2018, is to analyze concrete experiences of older individuals acting as key players of social change in six local communities of five European countries (Bulgaria, Denmark, England, France, Spain). The 19 seniors involved in the study, according to social contexts, individual past experiences, knowledge, and motivations, acted as senior social entrepreneurs, trying to build a pathway towards social soluti ...[more]

PMID: 32260209

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Project description:A growing body of literature acknowledges the association between negative stereotypes and individual components of active aging, but very few studies have tested this association, at both individual and population levels. The Stereotypes Content Model (SCM) states that the cultural aging stereotyping of higher warmth than competence (called paternalistic or ambivalent prejudice) is universal. Our aims in this study are to test the extent to which the universality of this stereotype is confirmed in European Countries as well as how far "positive", "negative" or "ambivalent" views towards older people, and other negative attitudes such as prejudice and behaviours such as discrimination, predict active aging assessed both at individual and population levels. We have analyzed data from the European Social Survey-2008 (ESS-2008), containing SCM stereotypical and other appraisal items (such as direct prejudice and perceived discrimination) about adults aged over-70 from 29 European countries. First, SCM cultural stereotypes about older adults ("friendly", "competent", and "ambivalent") were calculated; secondly, after developing a typology of countries based on their "negative", "ambivalent" and "positive" views about older adults, the universality of cultural stereotypes was tested; thirdly, taking into consideration ESS data of those older persons (over 70s) who self-reported indicators of active aging (health, happiness, satisfaction and social participation), multilevel analyses were performed, taking our inter-individual measure of active aging as dependent variable and our stereotypical classification (positive/negative/ambivalent), direct prejudice and perceived discrimination as predictors; finally, relationships between stereotypical and appraisal items on older adults were examined at population level with country data from Active Aging Indexes. Our results show cultural stereotypes about older people (more friendly than competent) are widespread in most European countries, and negative cultural views of older adults are negatively associated with active aging both at individual and population level, supporting that negative cultural views of older adults could be considered as a threat to active aging.

Project description:BackgroundDespite large-scale vaccination programmes, pertussis has remained endemic in all European countries and has been on the rise in many countries in the last decade. One of the reasons that have been discussed for the failure of vaccination to eliminate the disease is continued circulation of the pathogen Bordetella pertussis by mostly asymptomatic and mild infections in adolescents and adults. To understand the impact of asymptomatic and undiagnosed infection on the transmission dynamics of pertussis we analysed serological data from five European countries in combination with information about social contact patterns from five of those countries to estimate incidence and reproduction numbers.Methods and findingsWe compared two different methods for estimating incidence from individual data on IgG pertussis toxin (PT) titres. One method combines the cross-sectional surveys of titres with longitudinal information about the distribution of amplitude and decay rate of titres in a back-calculation approach. The second method uses age-dependent contact matrices and cross-sectional surveys of IgG PT titres to estimate a next generation matrix for pertussis transmission among age groups. The next generation approach allows for computation of basic reproduction numbers for five European countries. Our main findings are that the seroincidence of infections as estimated with the first method in all countries lies between 1% and 6% per annum with a peak in the adolescent age groups and a second lower peak in young adults. The incidence of infections as estimated by the second method lies slightly lower with ranges between 1% and 4% per annum. There is a remarkably good agreement of the results obtained with the two methods. The basic reproduction numbers are similar across countries at around 5.5.ConclusionsVaccination with currently used vaccines cannot prevent continued circulation and reinfection with pertussis, but has shifted the bulk of infections to adolescents and adults. If a vaccine conferring lifelong protection against clinical and subclinical infection were available pertussis could be eliminated. Currently, continuing circulation of the pathogen at a subclinical level provides a refuge for the pathogen in which it can evolve and adjust to infect vaccinated populations. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.

Project description:INTRODUCTION:Economic evaluations of tobacco control policies targeting adolescents are scarce. Few take into account real-world, large-scale implementation costs; few compare cost-effectiveness of different policies across different countries. We assessed the cost-effectiveness of five tobacco control policies (nonschool bans, including bans on sales to minors, bans on smoking in public places, bans on advertising at points-of-sale, school smoke-free bans, and school education programs), implemented in 2016 in Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Portugal. METHODS:Cost-effectiveness estimates were calculated per country and per policy, from the State perspective. Costs were collected by combining quantitative questionnaires with semi-structured interviews on how policies were implemented in each setting, in real practice. Short-term effectiveness was based on the literature, and long-term effectiveness was modeled using the DYNAMO-HIA tool. Discount rates of 3.5% were used for costs and effectiveness. Sensitivity analyses considered 1%-50% short-term effectiveness estimates, highest cost estimates, and undiscounted effectiveness. FINDINGS:Nonschool bans cost up to €253.23 per healthy life year, school smoking bans up to €91.87 per healthy life year, and school education programs up to €481.35 per healthy life year. Cost-effectiveness depended on the costs of implementation, short-term effectiveness, initial smoking rates, dimension of the target population, and weight of smoking in overall mortality and morbidity. CONCLUSIONS:All five policies were highly cost-effective in all countries according to the World Health Organization thresholds for public health interventions. Cost-effectiveness was preserved even when using the highest costs and most conservative effectiveness estimates. IMPLICATIONS:Economic evaluations using real-world data on tobacco control policies implemented at a large scale are scarce, especially considering nonschool bans targeting adolescents. We assessed the cost-effectiveness of five tobacco control policies implemented in 2016 in Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Portugal. This study shows that all five policies were highly cost-effective considering the World Health Organization threshold, even when considering the highest costs and most conservative effectiveness estimates.

Dataset Information

Active Aging: Social Entrepreneuring in Local Communities of Five European Countries.

Publications

Active Aging: Social Entrepreneuring in Local Communities of Five European Countries.

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