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Mental disorders are common and associated with substantial levels of work disability. Relative to persons with most types of physical impairments, persons with mental disorders have lower employment rates and lower mean wages, and experience greater discrimination in the workplace (Baldwin, 1999, 2000; Baldwin & Johnson, 1995, 2000). Persons with mental disorders have lower socioeconomic status, on average, and greater risk of living in poverty, than persons with physical disorders (Dohrenwend et al., 1992). By 1999, mental disorders had supplanted back cases as the health condition most frequently cited in employment discrimination charges filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Moss et al., 1999).

The debate as to whether intellectual disability (ID) should be conceptualized as a health condition or as a disability has intensified as the revision of World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is being finalized. Defining ID as a health condition is central to retaining it in ICD, with significant implications for health policy and access to health services. The purpose of this paper is to include some reflections on the consensus document produced by the first WHO Working Group on the Classification of MR (WHO WG-MR) and on the process that was followed to realize it. The consensus report was the basis for the development of official recommendations sent to the WHO Advisory Group for ICD-11.

A mixed qualitative approach was followed in a series of meetings leading to the final consensus report submitted to the WHO Advisory group. These recommendations combined prior expert knowledge with available evidence; a nominal approach was followed throughout with face-to-face conferences.

The WG recommended a synonym set (“synset”) ontological approach to the conceptualisation of this health condition underlying a clinical rationale for its diagnosis. It proposed replacing MR with Intellectual Developmental Disorders (IDD) in ICD-11, defined as “a group of developmental conditions characterized by a significant impairment of cognitive functions, which are associated with limitations of learning, adaptive behaviour and skills”. The WG further advised that IDD be included under the parent category of neurodevelopmental disorders, that current distinctions (mild, moderate, severe and profound) be continued as severity qualifiers, and that problem behaviours removed from its core classification structure and instead described as associated features.

Within the ID/IDD synset two different names combine distinct aspects under a single construct that describes its clinical as well as social, educational and policy utilities. The single construct incorporates IDD as a clinical meta-syndrome, and ID as its functioning and disability counterpart. IDD and ID are not synonymous or mirror concepts as they have different scientific, social and policy applications. New diagnostic criteria for IDD should be based on a developmental approach, which accounts for the complex causal factors known to impact the acquisition of specific cognitive abilities and adaptive behaviours. The paper focuses on a new clinical framework for the diagnosis of IDD that also includes and complements the existing social, educational and policy components inherent in ID.

Mental illness, in its various forms, is common in the United States. Tens of millions of Americans are afflicted by an episode of mental illness every year. Estimates of the 12-month prevalence of mental disorders in the U.S. (including alcohol and substance abuse or dependence) indicate that 22–30 persons per 100 in the adult population are afflicted each year.¹ An episode of a psychiatric disorder, like a physical disorder, is debilitating – often disrupting the ability of the afflicted to carry on normal personal, social, and work activities. Mental illness also commonly results in large medical expenses. In addition, a number of recent papers have found that mental illness imposes large labor market losses on the ill, decreasing the likelihood of employment and limiting earnings for the employed.² In particular, research by two of the authors indicates that depressive disorders cause significant reductions in the labor force participation of women and the earnings of both men and women.³

The contribution of neighbourhood structure to residents’ perceptions towards built environment is becoming recognised. Although considerable theoretical evidence exists to support the idea that natural surveillance is related to perceptions of safety, the empirical literature on examining the effect of neighbourhood structure and residents’ attitude towards their neighbourhood on perceptions of safety is limited, especially in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationships between natural surveillance, perceived disorder, social cohesion and perception of safety in a gated community.

A total of 250 households from Babolsar, Iran, participated in this study. The structural equation modelling technique was employed to examine the research model.

The results indicate that natural surveillance is negatively related to disorder and is positively related to social cohesion and perception of safety. The model also shows no significant relationship between social cohesion and perception of safety in the study area. Residents perceived relatively high levels of social cohesion, but their perceptions of safety were moderate.

Findings emphasise the importance of neighbourhood structure and active roles of local communities in enhancing neighbourly relations and perceptions of safety.

The purpose of this paper is to study the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS), the largest community policing program in the USA.

The data for this research come from the 1993‐1994 Citizen Survey of the Longitudinal Evaluation of Chicago's Community Policing Program. Referred to as the CAPS Prototype Panel Survey, the data were obtained from the Inter‐university Consortium for Political and Social Science Research. Both ordinary least square and log linear regression were used to analyze the data.

The findings indicate that people living in the CAPS prototype districts had significantly higher levels of satisfaction with police fighting crime than people living in matched comparison areas who were not subject to the CAPS program. The findings also indicate that the residents of the CAPS prototype communities were only marginally more satisfied with police keeping order than those living in non‐CAPS communities.

The findings of this research have important implications for police‐community relations. The fact that citizens were more satisfied with police efforts against crime after the implementation of the CAPS initiative supports community policing programs that center on building strong community ties. The fact that citizens in the prototype districts were not significantly more satisfied with police order maintenance efforts bears further scrutiny.

The paper's findings confirm earlier research that informal (non‐enforcement) contacts with the police are important for improving satisfaction with police performance, that resident's perception of the level of disorder in their neighborhood is a significant factor shaping their opinion of the police, and that community policing is an effective way of improving police citizen interaction.

This paper analyzes 4,078 previously collected interviews.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and highlight the main elements of an autism spectrum disorder assessment in adults. It features significant challenges for the clinical teams responsible to undertake the assessment. This paper aims to explain the importance of the wider needs assessment in accordance to the Autism Act and Autism Strategy.

The paper describes the main symptom domains for an ASD diagnosis, according to the two basic diagnostic manuals. It provides compendious summary of the available diagnostic tools and the significant comorbidities people with ASD present with including other neurodevelopmental disorders, mental or physical health problems, challenging behaviour and risk issues.

The paper proposes that all National Health System professionals should be able to recognise possible signs of ASD and accordingly refer individuals for a comprehensive assessment to secondary services. It highlights the importance of a wider needs assessment as part of a broader approach to addressing the needs of those with suspected ASD.

The paper aims to improve the gaps which remain in the referral and diagnostic process of people affected by ASD.

Through a comprehensive assessment the paper aims to improve the educational, social and personal functioning of people with ASD as well as the quality of life of their parents and carers.

The paper assembles a wide range of relevant considerations in regards to potential ASD in one place, and can be used to inform a comprehensive understanding of the assessment/diagnosis process.

To identify intervening factors between perceptions of community policing and reduction of crime fear among citizen, which can provide a better understanding of the causal linkage between these two variables.

The present study employs the research data from the 1998 study “Criminal Victimization and Perception of Community Safety in 12 United States Cities,” which was conducted as a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). This study used only the personal data, which included information on respondents' demographic characteristics, personal crime and victimization experiences, perceptions of neighborhood crime, and experience and satisfaction with local police.

The finding reveals that while vulnerability variables (indirect victimization model) do not affect the relationship between community policing and fear of crime, the perception of incivilities (perceived disorder model) and the dissatisfaction with life‐quality (community concern model) in the neighborhood intervene between community policing and fear of crime.

Despite the abundant research in the area of community policing, less attention has been paid to the causal process between community policing activities and its presumed effect, reduction of crime fear in communities. This study helps us to understand how fear of crime is reduced by the implementation of community policing.

Construction work involves high-risk activities and requires intense focus and physical exertion. Accordingly, working conditions at construction sites contribute to physical fatigue and mental stress in workers, which is the primary cause of accidents. This study aims to examine the relation between construction accidents and physiological variables, indicative of physical fatigue and mental stress.

Four different real-time physiological values of the construction workers were measured including blood sugar level (BSL), electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate (HR) and skin temperature (ST). The data were collected from 21 different workers during the summer and winter seasons. Both seasonal and hourly correlation analyses were performed between the construction accidents and the four physiological variables gathered.

The analysis results demonstrate that BSL values of the workers are correlated inversely with construction accidents taking place before lunch break. In addition, except BSL a significant seasonal association between the physiological variables and construction accidents was found.

It is disclosed that variations in physiological risk factors at certain working periods pose a high risk for construction workers. Therefore, efficient work-cycle rests can be arranged to provide frequent but short breaks for workers to overcome such issues. Besides, an early warning system could be introduced to monitor the real-time physiological values of the workers.

As a method in sociology, urban ethnography is rather straightforward: it conducts participant observation in cities. In essence, urban ethnographers study place, and yet how place is portrayed is too often absent from ethnographic descriptions. Indeed, place is always present in the lives of people, but it becomes difficult to understand how place works in an ethnographic context. To reflect upon this puzzle, the following text offers a language for how we may make better sense of place as urban ethnographers and the role of place as a central actor in urban life. By revisiting classic and current ethnographies, we consider how place is constructed as an object of analysis, reflective of social phenomenon occurring within a city. Further, in identifying six tensions (in/out, order/disorder, public/private, past/present, gemeinschaft/gesellschaft, and discrete/diffuse), we demonstrate how descriptions of place are either present or absent in these ethnographies. To understand these tensions as they depict place, we maintain, it is to better understand how place is represented within ethnographies claiming to be urban. In conclusion, we present future directions for urban place-based ethnography that may offer more robust interpretations of place and the people who inhabit it.