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The post-Cold War period allowed the U.S. nuclear legacy of ecocide to be declassified and made public. The policy of nuclear secrecy, evident in Russia (see Mironova et al., this volume), was not merely an eastern practice. Western nuclear releases were kept equally under wraps. In England, for example, the Windscale disaster was not fully disclosed until 1987.¹ Likewise, releases from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, in Washington State, and other U.S. nuclear sites were kept undercover until the same period. The irony was that Americans learned of many of the nuclear skeletons in their closet around the time that Russians learned of theirs (see Mironova et al., this volume). It would appear that glasnost was contagious.

Building a culture of safety in transportation is not dissimilar from building a culture of safety in health. Public health is widely known for protecting the public from diseases through milk pasteurization and chlorination of drinking water, and from injuries by implementing environmental and occupational safeguards and fostering behavioral change. Lifestyle and environmental changes that have contributed to the reductions in smoking and heart disease can also help change driving, walking and cycling behaviors, and environments. Stimulating a culture of safety on the road means providing safe and accessible transportation for all. The vision for a culture of traffic safety is to change the public’s attitude about the unacceptable toll from traffic injuries and to implement a systems approach to traffic injury prevention as a means for improving public health and public safety. Framing the motor vehicle injury problem in this way provides an opportunity for partnerships between highway safety and public health to improve the culture of safety.

Research on the social determinants of health demonstrates that workers who feel insecure in their jobs suffer poorer health as a result. However, relatively few studies have examined the relationship between job insecurity and illegal substance use, which is closely related to health. In this study, we develop a theoretical model focusing on two intervening mechanisms: health and life satisfaction. Additionally, we examine differences in this relationship between women and men. We test this model using logistic regression models of substance use for women and men based on longitudinal data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States. The results indicate that job insecurity is associated with a significantly higher probability of illegal substance use among women but not men. We interpret this as further evidence of the gendering of precarious employment. This relationship is not channeled through health or life satisfaction, but there is evidence that job insecurity has a stronger association with illegal substance use for women with poorer overall health.

The contamination of groundwater by natural arsenic is currently a worldwide epidemic. Arsenic-contaminated groundwater has been reported in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, China, Hungary, West Bengal in India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Of these regions, Bangladesh and West Bengal are the most seriously affected in terms of the size of the population at risk and magnitude of health problems. Hence, chronic exposure to arsenic >50′′μg/L in drinking water can result in serious health problems. Common symptoms of arsenic-related ailments are skin, cardiovascular, renal, hematological, and respiratory disorders. Therefore, this chapter focuses on nature, origin, and extent of groundwater arsenic contamination, probable causes, and its impacts on food, drinking water, and social coverage. It further discloses mitigation approaches proposed and practiced by the different research groups to combat this problem and finally concludes.

Purpose – Using Foucault's concepts of biopolitics and governmentality along with sociological constructions of risk, this chapter asks, “What definitions and procedures have states used in their legislation about FAS to justify state intervention? What are the social and policy implications?”

Methodology/approach – Qualitative content analysis of state legislation enacted into law.

Findings – Against a backdrop of child abuse which justifies intervention, states use different techniques of biopolitics to secure governance over pregnant women and their developing fetuses, including (a) a social history of prenatal alcohol consumption; (b) a diagnosis of FAS in the child; and/or (c) a visible or measurable physiological characteristic of the newborn/child associated with FAS.

Social implications – This chapter extends the analysis of alcohol consumption by pregnant women to a policy level and examines central questions about the government's role in the biopolitical framing of prenatal alcohol use and the differential assignment of risk and responsibility.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter contributes to work on maternal–fetal conflict, risk, and governmentality in women's reproductive health.

Millions of people in Southwestern Bangladesh drink groundwater that has arsenic contamination levels above both Bangladeshi and WHO standards. Thus, arsenic, the king of poisons, presents significant social problems in the rural communities of Bangladesh. Lacking arsenic-free drinking water, the local populations are most adversely affected. Arsenic contamination of drinking water and food is the main pathway by which arsenic enters people’s lives, producing diseases such as melanosis, keratosis, skin lesions, skin cancers, and kidney failure. Therefore, to cope with and alleviate arsenic poisoning, whatever adaptation and mitigation strategy is adopted, it should, however, start with and be led by the local community wherever possible for it is local villagers who are often the real experts on arsenic contamination. Rather than implementing highly technical, expensive, and outsider-led interventions that are often untried in field conditions, priority should be given to using modified traditional coping and mitigation mechanisms developed in the communities in Bangladesh. Hence, this chapter highlights first the extent of arsenic poisoning in the Southwestern part; its adverse impact on livelihood, water sector, and social aspect; and then the focus shifts to community-level mitigation strategy led by the people along with the assistance of GO and nongovernmental organization (NGO); and finally there is the conclusion along with recommendations.

Purpose – The aim of this chapter is to share our thoughts and observations about some of the ethical issues that arise when researching sport-drinking cultures. In particular, the chapter focuses on what researchers should do when they witness potentially harmful and risky drinking behaviour.

Approach – The chapter is written mainly from an ethics disciplinary background. We use philosophical methods to analyse, evaluate and interrogate certain claims, assumptions and judgements about moral action and inaction in the research context. We employ ethical concepts in general and research ethics concepts in particular to make and defend value judgements about what is reasonable or unreasonable, right or wrong, and good or bad in relation to witnessing risky and harmful behaviour.

Findings – The chapter argues that in some situations there are good and perhaps compelling moral reasons for researchers to take action when they observe certain problematic drinking behaviour. Researchers who fail to notice and/or act may be morally blameworthy and culpable in other ways, e.g. in breach of contract or code of conduct.

The purpose of this study is to identify a psychological profile for public accounting firm partners who are likely to place the partnership and client shareholder at risk. Proprietary data from an executive counseling firm provided a unique opportunity to compare two groups of partners: those identified by their senior partners as placing the firm at risk (n=31) and those not so identified (n=64). The groups were compared using psychological measures, lifestyle measures, personal measures, and work history variables. Results found no significant measurable difference between the audit partners who were identified as posing a risk and those not so identified. This suggests that specific factors cannot lead a partner to engage in risky behaviors, but rather several, in combination, may be necessary. Implications for research include learning more about concepts such as resistance to temptation, motivation, and rationalization. Implications for practice are to focus on structuring business practices to provide early warning signs and minimize opportunities to engage in risky behavior. Continued and increased diligence in the client screening and client continuation and review process remain essential for best practices.

Purpose – To outline new research on the ways in which older athletes incorporate drinking practices into their social and sporting identities. Drawing on research with older Australian athletes, the chapter asks us to re-imagine the sport–alcohol nexus to include new sites and subjects that can shed light on wider articulations of the pleasurable and problematic relationships between sport, alcohol and social identity.

Design/methodology/approach – In the first part of the chapter, key themes in sport and ageing research are discussed. In the second, issues of alcohol, older age and sporting identities are considered, drawing on research at the 2017 Australian Masters Games. This sets the scene for a fuller discussion and analysis of some of the missed opportunities in alcohol and sport research, and their implications for sport and social policy, health promotion and social care more broadly.

Findings – The chapter reveals several under-developed opportunities in a broader research agenda on sport and alcohol, including the role alcohol plays in conferring membership and belonging to the sporting communities of older athletes. The chapter suggests that a recalibration of popular understandings of sport, ageing and alcohol – both as separate and as inter-related concerns – may provide an opportunity for addressing wider social concerns with ageing more broadly.

Research limitations/implications – Discussion of ageing and alcohol, through the lens of sport, has important implications for an analysis of drinking practices and in sport, and for sport and social policy, health promotion and social care.