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Young people drinking to extreme drunkenness is a source of concern for policy makers and health promoters. There are a variety of community groups who appear to respond to the alcohol-related problems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the working practices and relationships among local community groups as part of the pre-intervention context-assessment process.

Drawing on the narratives of nine community workers and ten venue managers the authors examine the community level approach to inform the choice of interventions to reduce risky drinking practices and community wide alcohol-related harm.

There was considerable agreement across the community workers and venue managers about the nature of risk for young people in the night time economy (NTE). Two central themes of “perceived risk” and “management of risk” emerged from the data. Further, the community workers and venue managers identified different high-risk locations and strategies to improve their ability meet the needs of young people experiencing risk in the NTE. The local authorities, community organisations and night time operators adopted a broad proactive and connected approach to develop a coherent strategy to achieve new measures of safety in the NTE.

Applying the social ecological model to provide a framework for the understanding of the social, environmental and political factors that influence alcohol use in young people.

School-going young people in South Africa engage in HIV risk behaviour despite high levels of HIV knowledge and a variety of interventions focusing on HIV prevention. The lack of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of current interventions leaves programme implementers with little consensus about how best to prevent HIV infection among young people. This research was done to explore factors underlying HIV risk of young people with the aim of developing HIV prevention in the third decade of the epidemic. Focus group discussions were conducted with young people, educators and parents in eight schools in four provinces of the country. A thematic analysis revealed risk factors especially on the interpersonal and community level. Peer pressure, gender norms and culture, poverty and financial gain and a culture of alcohol use were prominent themes. Negative family relationships, lack of role models and lack of sexual education from home contributed to risk behaviour. Community processes such as exposure to media, lack of recreational facilities, and an erosion of supportive culture and community structures created an environment which did not support healthy behaviour. Factors that prevented risk behaviour were identified as self-respect, open communication with parents, implementation of school programmes, positive peer pressure and a focus on young people's future. Prevention programmes should therefore not only focus on individual factors but should be multi-layered interventions involving various community structures aimed at changing the social ecology in communities to support an alternative lifestyle for young people.

There is a gap linking organisational risk profiles to real people. Yet people are core to all risk/reward decisions, both at an organisational and a personal level. If an organisation is the aggregate of the decisions made by its people, how can aggregation be carried out sensibly; how can concordance between the organisational risk/reward profile and its people’s be ensured; what tools might help? The paper concludes with suggestions for areas of potentially fruitful research into how personal risk/reward profiles can be assessed and analysed to inform organisational risk/reward decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to review evidence related to the factors that influence people's understanding of health information and how miscommunication of health information can jeopardize people's health.

A literature review was conducted of English language articles, cited in major literature databases from the last 40 years, which describe factors related to comprehension of health information. A total of 93 articles were included.

The paper finds that health communication should take into consideration the role of the following factors on the processing and interpretation of health information: health literacy, format presentation of information, and human cognitive biases and affective/personal influences.

Health communication is a major component of health care. Every health care encounter involves exchange of information, which is intended to enhance people's knowledge in order to assist them to make an informed decision about their health care. However, the mere act of providing information does not guarantee comprehension. People's comprehension of information depends on several factors, including health literacy and numeracy skills, the format presentation of health information and human cognitive biases in the information processing and interpretation. Ineffective health communication can result in a wide range of direct and indirect health consequences including failure to understand and comply with treatment, poorer health status, increased risk of injuries, increased hospitalization, and decreased use of preventive services.

This paper provides health professionals and educators with an overview of important issues related to health communication and highlights strategies that facilitate effective communication to help people to make informed decisions about their health care.

The purpose of this paper is to share findings from the evaluation of dementia adventure (DA) holidays provided in 2016 and drawing on these data, to share reflections on positive risk-taking, which are inherent in outdoor activities, and consider the implications for research and practice with people with dementia.

Data are drawn from the 2016 internal evaluation report, using mixed methods design, of DA holidays independently reviewed by Dr Ruth Bartlett at the University of Southampton.

DA holidays are leading to a range of social, emotional and physical well-being outcomes, as well as wider benefits for the community of people with dementia, their family and carers.

Drawing on what positive risk-taking means for individuals, families and organisations, top ten considerations for positive risk taking outdoor activities are presented.

The number of organisations providing adventure experiences and holidays for people with dementia in the UK remains very low with just a handful of organisations. The impact and evaluation of these holidays is just emerging and whilst compelling needs replication, with larger sample sizes supported by clinical and scientific expertise to deepen our understanding of the impact of positive risk-taking outdoor activities. Additionally, there is a need for thinking and acting differently summarised by the phrase “THINK OUTSIDE” in developing a wide range of nature based positive risk-taking activities with people with dementia.

Commissioned as part of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation scoping programme, this consultation aims to explore the views of disabled people and service users about risk.

The consultation reached nine individuals and one focus group, reaching a total of 17 disabled people and service users. Their views were supplemented by the literature.

The landscape of risk and rights is highly complex. Disabled people and service users have quite different concerns about risk to those of the professionals and the regulatory bodies acting on their behalf. Many people talked of the fear of losing their independence, of asserting their rights and the fear of powerlessness in the face of bureaucracy and (sometimes) uncaring staff.

The profile of rights needs to be raised in an accessible and acceptable way: it is necessary to make the language of rights more commonplace. There is a particular need to reach into mental health and residential care services to find ways of enabling people to have their rights realised. The report has implications for risk assessment and risk management as well as for the regulatory bodies responsible in adult social care. Raising awareness among professionals and policy makers about the risks that service users themselves fear and experience should demonstrate just how important it is that the people whose risk is under consideration are involved in the process.

This paper highlights the views of users of adult social care about risk; their views have rarely been documented.

This chapter explores courage as an emotionally involved form of action. The notion of courage is challenging as we have physical, psychological, moral and existential forms of courage but also because what engenders courageous actions is still somewhat of a puzzle within social science. Firstly, I introduce the main forms and explanations of courage. Secondly, dating is discussed to illustrate how courage is an important analytical category to understand people's actions. In dating persons often overcome their fear of being rejected. During the COVID-19 crisis, new insecurities and fears were added to the practice of dating which now could imply both fear of being infected and fear of moral condemnation by others who would consider dating a morally irresponsible behaviour. Thirdly, I discuss theoretical and methodological implications of a mini analysis of a story about active and direct dating interactions during the first lockdown period in Denmark during the COVID-19 crisis. Often courage is thought of as so extraordinary that it is not part of people's ordinary social life. But it is not. People do experience situations that call forth courage, which implies overcoming fear and insecurity in striving to realise goals more important than avoiding feeling such uncomfortable emotions – situations in which they cannot merely rely on routine and/or self-confidence and others' trust. Consequently, this chapter explains how and why courage is an important analytical category for the sociological enterprise. Finally, the conclusion offers some reflections concerning courage and dating in future neo-COVID predicaments and how courage can be studied methodologically speaking.

The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of time delay on the perception of environmental risks beyond time discounting, and thus provide a reference for effective communication related to environment and environmental risks.

Ten risk scenarios across four time delay conditions were designed. Computer program randomly presented different risk scenarios to student subjects. Risk perception was measured through equivalent certain loss elicited by bi-section method. In all, 50 students from Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School participated in the experiment.

Time delay makes the subjects optimistic toward environmental risk with the exclusion of time discounting. The more distant in time the occurrence of an environmental risk, the less in intensity subjects will perceive it as a severe threat. Also, there is a noticeable difference in environmental risk perception between males and females.

This tentative research focusses on exploring the existence of time delay effect on environmental risk perception. Only student subjects are recruited for this research. Future studies are needed to extend the population to people of different backgrounds in order to generalize the finding.

Current ethical appeal of zero social discount rate is unlikely to be effective. Time delay effect in people's environmental risk perception should be acknowledged. Such an acknowledgement is the basis of trust in risk communication. Communication effort needs to address this time delay effect to make people alert to long-term environmental risks, and eventually change their environmental behaviors.

The explorative research represents the first attempt to investigate the effect of time delay on environmental risk perception when time discounting is excluded. It suggests a new direction to understand public optimism toward delayed environmental risks, and reluctance to take proactive actions, and thus offers a new insight into related communication efforts.

People with a borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis can require support from mental health services for managing risk behaviour. Current routine inpatient and community treatment can be unhelpful for this group. Positive risk taking has been developed to help community teams manage risk with people with a BPD. This study aims to explore experiences of risk management in an NHS Trust where positive risk taking is being implemented with people with a BPD.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis is the methodology of transcripts from semi-structured interviews. Nine adults with a diagnosis of BPD and current or previous experiences of risk management approaches were sampled from one NHS Trust.

Limited resources and interpersonal barriers had a negative impact on experiences of Positive risk taking. Participants experienced one-off risk assessments and short-term interventions such as medication which they described as “meaningless”. Traumatic experiences could make it difficult to establish therapeutic relationships and elicit unhelpful responses from professionals. Participants could only feel “taken seriously” when in crisis which contributed towards an increase in risky behaviour. Positive risk taking was contingent upon collaborative and consistent professional relationships which created a “safety net”, enabling open communication and responsibility taking which challenged recovery-relapse patterns of service use.

Positive risk taking approaches to risk management may benefit people with a BPD. Findings complement those from other studies emphasising the importance of compassion and empathy when working with personality disorder. Training and increased resources are required to implement effective risk management with this group.

Findings expand upon the sparse existing research in the area of risk management using the Positive risk taking approach with people with a BPD diagnosis, and provide idiographic understanding which is clinically meaningful. Participants’ experiences suggest Positive risk taking may provide a framework for improving quality of life and decreasing service use for people diagnosed with BPD engaging in risk management with Community Mental Health Teams, which facilitates recovery and other benefits.

This paper aims to discuss the sensible management of risk for disabled people, which can turn into disproportionate steps to attempt to completely eliminate risk, leading to diminished opportunities across life. Instincts to protect are heightened in the context of disabled people as potential victims of targeted violence and hostility. Individual‐, organisational‐ and systemic‐level responses can often be orientated towards protection and/or the minimisation of risk rather than towards providing access to justice and effective redress.

This paper draws on evidence generated through a literature review, interviews with disabled people and interviews with representatives from a number of key organisations.

For many disabled people, incidents can be persistent and ongoing. Common responses by disabled victims include avoidance and/or acceptance strategies. They are also advised by those around them and by agency staff they come in contact with to ignore perpetrators or to avoid putting themselves at risk. Criminal justice agencies may be more concerned about a victim's disability than about taking action to provide access to justice and effective redress. The protectionistic approach underpinning much of policy, legislation and guidance can be at odds with the positive promotion of disability equality.

The paper examines the need to move away from a protectionist paradigm to a rights‐based paradigm. It calls for a more inclusive approach where disabled people are involved meaningfully in the process of risk management and in other decisions around combating targeted violence and hostility against them.