Search results
1 – 10 of 38Miquel Àngel Pellicena, Ignasi Ivern, Climent Giné and Olga Múries
This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of organizational strategies, attitudes and supports that can help people with intellectual disabilities to access…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of organizational strategies, attitudes and supports that can help people with intellectual disabilities to access competitive jobs through supported employment.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study was carried out based on an intentional sampling involving the coworker mentors of six people with intellectual disabilities currently working in standardized environments. Semi-structured interviews were performed with the participants, and an inductive thematic analysis was used for data analysis.
Findings
The study identified five critical factors in the work of people with intellectual disabilities in standardized work environments, which potentially could act as facilitators or as obstacles, depending on how they were managed. The study also identified two key factors that acted mainly as facilitators and one as an obstacle.
Originality/value
The study reveals the existence of factors that sometimes act as facilitators and sometimes as obstacles, depending on how they are managed by the company leaders or the disabled worker himself.
Details
Keywords
Raymond Webrah Kazapoe, Emmanuel Arhin and Ebenezer Ebo Yahans Amuah
This paper aims to review the known and anticipated medical geology problems in Ghana, to highlight the impact of some trace elements on human health and to reveal some essential…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the known and anticipated medical geology problems in Ghana, to highlight the impact of some trace elements on human health and to reveal some essential aspects of medical geology on health.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature and empirical studies relating to medical geological issues in Ghana were reviewed. Secondary data were used in the present study such as case studies, reports, geological bulletins and published research studies.
Findings
High levels of heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium and mercury in gold extraction processes through artisanal small-scale mining have contributed to high concentrations of toxic elements in the environment. The distribution and availability of these elements in the environment are facilitated by the geological, chemical and local environmental activities that are irregularly spread exposing people mining areas to pollutions. Exposures to these elements in above and below baseline levels contributed to health implications including fluorosis, intellectual or developmental disability and death in some regions of Ghana. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases linked to mining activities were also presented in this study. Similarly, non-communicable diseases can affect many people if correct measures are not considered. Following the geometric increase in mining activities, it is anticipated that deleterious environmental and health impacts associated with mining may persist in mining areas in Ghana. Reported implications and continuous contamination of water bodies in mining areas could result in high pollution levels beyond treatment for human use or destroy aquatic habitats and aquatic lives through acid drainage. Above-threshold concentrations of heavy metals in soils could bio-accumulate in crops, and this could pose deleterious public health implications on consumers. Continuous effects posed on the environment and public health may prompt communities, regulatory institutions and government to reduce or ban mineral development.
Originality/value
This review has significantly revealed potential public health issues from the impact on the natural environment and recommends that medical geologists work together with medical workers to devise preventive and therapeutic techniques to address many geology-related-health issues in Ghana.
Details
Keywords
Jacopo Santambrogio, Michela Russo, Sergio Terrevazzi, Gianluca Peschi, Massimo Clerici and Marco O. Bertelli
Persons with intellectual disability and/or low-functioning autism spectrum didorder are with high support need (ID/ASD-HSN) are among the people who are most vulnerable to the…
Abstract
Purpose
Persons with intellectual disability and/or low-functioning autism spectrum didorder are with high support need (ID/ASD-HSN) are among the people who are most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. The specific vulnerability and the protective factors for persons with ID/LF-ASD attending residential and rehabilitative facilities have however received little attention. This paper aims to describe how two facilities located in the Italian COVID-19 red zone faced the risks associated with the spread of the pandemic and the results they have achieved so far.
Design/methodology/approach
Interventions to contrast the spread of the pandemic and preserve clients’ health conditions have been systematically monitored and recorded since the very beginning of the pandemic.
Findings
26/138 clients had to undergo clinical screening and laboratory tests for COVID-like symptomatology, but only one resulted affected by COVID-19 and survived. Considering that Lombardy had 89,595 cases and 16,262 deaths (January–May 2020), one COVID-19 case/138 clients is a good result. Temporarily limiting physical contacts with friends/family in favor of reducing the burden of risk and adopting a system of prevention/safety strategies directed for persons with ID/LF-ASD attending and their caregivers have been useful measures.
Research limitations/implications
Structured or semi-structured interviews (using professional caregivers as informant) to confirm behavioral and emotional changes in the clients could not be carried out because of lack of time and resources (which were captured by the management of the pandemic) and could be the next goal for our residential facilities to implement the management of epidemic acute phases in a research-oriented view.
Originality/value
This study is a service evaluation report about facing COVID-19 pandemic. Only few such studies are present in medical literature about ID/ASD.
Details
Keywords
Brian Nolan and Stefan Thewissen
This paper places what has happened to income inequality in rich countries over recent decades alongside trends in median and low incomes in real terms, taken as incomplete but…
Abstract
This paper places what has happened to income inequality in rich countries over recent decades alongside trends in median and low incomes in real terms, taken as incomplete but valuable indicators of the evolution of living standards for “ordinary working families” and the poor. The findings demonstrate first just how varied country experiences have been, with some much more successful than others in generating rising real incomes around the middle and toward the bottom of the distribution. This variation is seen to be only modestly related to the extent to which income inequality rose, which itself is more varied across the rich countries than is often appreciated. The extent to which economic growth is transmitted to the middle and lower parts of the distribution is seen to depend on a range of factors of which inequality is only one. Sources of real income growth around the middle have also varied across countries, though transfers are consistently key toward the bottom. The diversity of rich country experiences should serve as an important corrective to a now-common “grand narrative” about inequality and stagnation based on the experience of the USA.
Details
Keywords
Victor Chang, Stéphane Gagnon, Raul Valverde and Muthu Ramachandran