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This study aimed to examine (1) whether confidence in political and health authorities predicted intention to adopt recommended health-protective behaviours and (2) whether age, gender and education level moderated the relationship between confidence in political and health authorities and health protective-behaviours (download the COVIDSafe app, wear a face mask and stay at home).

This study assessed 1,206 Australians using an online survey. Participants answered questions regarding their confidence in political and health authorities and intention to adopt health-protective measures.

Confidence in health and political authorities predicted intention to stay home and intention to download the COVIDSafe app, but not to wear a face mask in public spaces. Age moderated the relationship between confidence in authorities and intention to stay home (i.e. among respondents with less than 54 years old, confidence in authorities was associated with higher intention to stay home). Further, age and education level moderated the relationship between confidence in authorities and intention to download the COVIDSafe app (i.e. among older respondents and those with a university degree or higher, confidence in authorities was more strongly associated with higher intention to download the COVIDSafe app). The interaction between confidence and education predicted adoption of mask-wearing (i.e. among participants with a university degree or higher, more confidence in authorities was associated with higher intention to wear a mask in public spaces).

Our findings can inform the development of targeted communications to increase health-protective behaviours at early stages of future pandemics.

This paper's aim is to analyse ethnic group differences in self reported limiting long term illness (LLTI) among middle‐aged men and women in England and Wales and compare patterns of variation in 1991 and 2001.

The methodology is a cross‐sectional analysis of two nationally representative cohorts aged 40‐59 in 1991 and 2001, respectively. Seven ethnic minority groups were selected from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales (White Irish, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Black African and Chinese). Logistic regression estimated the odds ratio for having a LLTI in each ethnic minority group compared to White British. The odds of having a LLTI in 2001 compared to 1991, by sex, were adjusted stepwise for differences in age, social class, car ownership, household overcrowding and tenure and length of residence.

All ethnic groups reported a higher prevalence of LLTI in 2001 than in 1991. The rise in LLTI was largest in White Irish, Bangladeshi and Pakistani and smallest in Black African and Chinese groups. Controlling for socioeconomic factors had a weak influence on the risk of limiting long term illness in men and women. Controlling for length of residence attenuated the risk of LLTI in 2001 in White Irish and Pakistani men, and Indian men and women.

Emerging ethnic differences highlight a growing need for differential health services to manage the increase in LLTI and demands for illness management.

The paper illustrates that ethnic differences in LLTI changed during the 1990s with some groups becoming more disadvantaged relative to the White British population and others less so.

Purpose: In recent decades, it has been a burgeoning trend in South Korea that older women are more actively engaged in grandparenting (i.e., caring for grandchildren) as they are living longer and healthier lives. The present study examines how grandparenting is associated with the mental health of grandmothers.

Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (2008–2012, N = 2,814), we used growth curve models to estimate the trajectories of grandmothers’ depressive symptoms by grandparenting type.

Findings: The results show that caregiving grandmothers in multigenerational households experience a decline in depressive symptoms with age, despite having a higher mean level of depressive symptoms than non-caregiving grandmothers at age 47; whereas the non-caregiving grandmothers experience an increase in depressive symptoms with age. Grandmothers who provide non-coresident grandparenting (i.e., babysitting) are not significantly different from non-caregiving grandmothers in the rate of increase in depressive symptoms.

Originality/value: Grandparenting in multigenerational households may have a beneficial effect on older women’s mental health over time in South Korea. This finding is robust after we control for socioeconomic status, health behaviors, and social support.

IN ANY TYPE OF LITERATURE it is easier in retrospect to pick out the notable writers of a period from the mass of lesser writers. With any type of current literature it is almost impossible to assess what will still be read or valued by later generations. This is as true of children's literature, and particularly of a more specific branch such as the family story, which tends to date rapidly. This is confirmed by the new book list for children, published by the Library Association: First Choice, which has been eagerly awaited. Praise should be generously lavished on the compilers, who have had to decide courageously which authors have to go overboard and have also had the arduous task of selecting a representative twenty‐one authors of family stories, approximately ten per cent of the list of fiction for older children.

This chapter explores the role that birdwatching plays in The Archers. It demonstrates some significant similarities between the way that birdwatching is portrayed in present-day Ambridge, and the way it was presented in both fictional and non-fictional literature of the 1940s. These similarities suggest that birdwatching in Ambridge is an activity that tends to perpetuate traditional class and gender divisions. Particularly in terms of gender, this is a surprising discovery, given the many strong female characters in the show, and suggests that cultural assumptions about gender and birdwatching run deep in UK society today. The chapter warns that a failure to recognise these assumptions not only hampers the progress of women who aspire to be taken seriously as ornithologists, but also risks reinforcing dualistic thinking about humans and nature at a time when the environmental crisis makes it more important than ever to recognise the ecological interconnectedness of human and nonhuman worlds. However, the recent development of Kirsty Miller’s storyline, in which she is rediscovering her earlier love of the natural world, not only offers hope of a shift away from this traditional bias but also opens a space for a more nuanced examination of the importance of birds in human–nature relations.

The primary purpose of this study is to determine if the main character is a shapeshifter and, if so, how does the tale contribute to shapeshifting lore.

The focus of the study is confined to a version of the tale that appears in Jane Yolen's Folktales From Around the World (1986) and on summaries of other versions of shapeshifting tales when needed. Support for the findings is provided by an examination of the observations and rhetorical techniques employed by what appears to be an unreliable narrator and selected knowledge and practices from a variety of academic disciplines.

The research findings neither confirm nor deny that the main character is or is not a shapeshifter.

Instead, the critical reading confirms the traditional characterization of folktales as coming from diverse folk roots and disappearing or changing as they circulate through geographical space and narrative time.

It also implies that the tale has outgrown its practical and social folk roots and now extends far beyond that of traditional shapeshifting or literary folktales.

By bringing to light the racial and gender fears, ignorance and emotional and physical violence that lurk just below the surface of the society from which serpent-woman emerges, the study creates a haunting vision of the embedded biases that lurk just below the surface of many societies.

To this author's knowledge, this is the first study of this tale to appear in publication. The findings need further investigation.

AT the close of the year we look back upon twelve very chequered months in the story of librarianship. In the field of libraries as a whole, it may be said that they held their own and indeed that some progress has been made. A few libraries have been opened, mostly branch libraries, but there have been extensions and re‐organisations of central libraries, which point to a universally developing regard for the library service. Even if this has not been dramatic in some places, it has nevertheless been real. Men who were middle‐aged before the war must, however, pass away before we get the right perspective for the conditions of to‐day; that is to say, with few exceptions. We are not speaking of librarians here, but of those who control libraries, but even librarians of the older school have sometimes found it difficult to envisage library service on the scale common in America, which, with adjustments to British circumstances, should be the scale for us throughout the Empire.