Browsing by Subject "resilience"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    A case study from the southern Cape linefishery 2: Considering one’s options when the fish leave
    (2017) Gammage, Louise C; Mather, Charles
    Fishers in the small-scale, commercial linefishery in the southern Cape, South Africa, are exposed to variability and change in the marine social-ecological system of which they are a part. Faced with multi-scalar changes within this complex system, fishers employ a wide range of strategies in reaction to change. As part of a broader study of stressors that bring about change in these systems, this contribution examines the fishers’ responses to these changes and is based on a participant-led, semi-structured interview process of skippers/boat owners, crew, processors and spouses/partners, in six communities in the southern Cape region, and has been supplemented with appropriate secondary data. The results are discussed using a resilience framework. The data were initially considered thematically by stressor, but results identified that a place-based analysis was equally important. Three major groupings were identified: (1) fishers who adapt and show clear business-orientation, (2) fishers who cope, and (3) fishers who react and are thus caught in a poverty trap. In addition to place-specific history, local feedback loops and indirect effects need to be better accounted for to understand these responses to change at various scales. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the basis of scenario planning in the region.
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    Investigating strategies for addressing child and adolescent mental health following exposure to extreme weather events in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review
    (2022) Kadota, Molly Kaelin; Rother, Hanna-Andrea; Jagarnath, Meryl
    The inevitability of an increase in extreme weather events (EWE) due to climate change will likely influence every determinant of human health and wellbeing. Children and adolescents, defined as anyone under the age of 19, are among the most susceptible because of their unique vulnerabilities (i.e. physiologically, developmentally, biologically, and behaviourally) and lifespans. The effects on physical health are generally well documented, and many climate change adaptation strategies have begun to include them in their considerations. However, the implications of EWE exposure on mental health are less understood, particularly within low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Populations residing in LMICs are especially vulnerable because of pre-existing conditions like already extreme weather, lack of resources, poor economic conditions, weak health systems, high burden of disease, and poor governance. Therefore, children and adolescents in LMICs maintain a heightened vulnerability to experiencing adverse effects. In Part A, a preliminary literature review determined the breadth of information documenting child and adolescent mental health outcomes following exposure to EWE. Research, mainly from high-income countries (HICs) or international organisations, demonstrating an association between mental health impacts and climate change, focused primarily on adult populations, has increased substantially over the last few years. Experiencing an EWE in childhood or adolescence likely leads to direct (e.g. anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, behavioural disorders, and suicidal ideations), indirect (e.g. displacement, loss of sense of place, violence, malnutrition, developmental delays, and disruption of education), and overarching (e.g. general climate anxiety about impending threats) mental health impacts, presenting in both the short- and long-term. The goals of adaptation and mitigation strategies were also presented in the protocol to determine the potential for specific mental health strategies. In Part B, then, a scoping review was conducted to provide a narrative of where adaptation, resilience, and mitigation strategies in LMICs address, and where they do not, child and adolescent mental health impacts following exposures to EWE. A search conducted in June-August 2021 of 12 online databases from the Pubmed, EBSCOhost, and Scopus platforms and grey literature sites like Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, and NGO pages identified 5,073 relevant records. Search results were limited to documents written in English and filtered by a 2000-2021 date range. In the current LMICs climate change strategies, the review highlighted a general lack of consideration for child and adolescent mental health and resilience. Therefore, eight main themes recurring in the literature were identified as integral components for including child and adolescent mental health in future national strategies and policymaking discussions. The themes provide general guidance, but their addition necessitates country-specific conceptualisation to determine technical considerations (e.g. funding and responsibility) and relevance. This review, therefore, emphasised the necessity for LMICs to begin including child and adolescent mental health in climate change strategies, highlighted key recommendations that were applicable in the LMICs context, and illuminated still existing gaps in the literature and potential areas for future research.
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    Sociodemographic and work-related factors associated with psychological resilience in South African healthcare workers
    (2024) Mcizana, Thandokazi; Ntatamala, Itumeleng; Adams, Shahieda
    Background: Psychological resilience facilitates adaptation in stressful environments and is an important personal characteristic that enables healthcare workers to navigate the challenges encountered in their occupation. To date, there is not much information available on factors associated with psychological resilience in South African healthcare workers. Objectives: To determine the prevalence, sociodemographic and work-related factors associated with psychological resilience in a group of South African medical doctors and ambulance personnel. Materials and Methods: This analytical cross-sectional study used secondary data obtained from two cross-sectional studies conducted in healthcare workers. This study investigated the factors associated with resilience as measured by the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10. Inferential analysis was computed to assess the association between independent variables and resilience. Results: A total of 647 healthcare workers were included in the study, consisting of 259 doctors and 388 ambulance personnel. The healthcare workers had low resilience scores (27.6 ± 6.6) overall, with ambulance personnel having a higher average resilience score (28.0 ±6.9) compared to doctors (27.1 ± 6.0) (p = 0.006). Significantly higher resilience scores were observed for doctors: in males (p < 0.001), higher income earners (p = 0.020), current smokers (p = 0.012); for ambulance personnel: previous users of alcohol (p = 0.002). Significantly lower resilience scores were observed in participants with a mental health condition (doctors: p = 0.037; ambulance personnel: p = 0.010), being on treatment for a mental health condition (ambulance personnel: p = 0.029) and feeling the need to drink alcohol to manage work-related stress (doctors: p = 0.034; ambulance personnel: p= 0.048). Multivariable analysis confirmed that current smoker status (β: 3.52, 95%CI: 0.89 – 6.16, p = 0.009) and higher salary in doctors (β: 5.11, 95%CI: 1.46 – 8.177, p = 0.006), and previous alcohol use in ambulance personnel (β: 3.22, 95%CI: 1.10 - 5.34, p = 0.003) were protective against low resilience. Female sex (β: -1.77, 95%CI: -3.39 - -0.15, p = 0.032) and over-time work in doctors (β: -5.11, 95%CI: -9.42 - -0.80, p = 0.006) increased the likelihood of low resilience. Conclusions: Resilience was relatively low in this group of South African healthcare workers. The strong association between low resilience and individual and workplace factors such as female gender, lower income, high over-time worked, mental health status and substance use provide avenues for early intervention and provision of greater support to healthcare workers in low-and middle-income settings.
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    TEDI 2 Week 1 - Promoting Resilience in Deaf Children
    (2019-06-01) Kelly, Jane
    In this video, Jane Kelly defines resilience and focuses how to use resilience as a framework within the landscape of deaf education. She unpacks the concept of resilience, linking it to the social model of disability, and looks at how it can it can be applied in the context of teaching deaf children holistically. She underscores the relationship between teachers’ and learners’ resilience, drawing attention to the environmental/contextual factors that can promote well-being. This is video lecture 5/7 of week 1 of the course: Educating Deaf Children: Becoming an Empowered Teacher.
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    Understanding protected area resilience: a multi-scale, social-ecological approach
    (2015) Cumming, Graeme S; Allen, Craig R; Ban, Natalie C; Biggs, Duan; Biggs, Harry C; Cumming, David H M; De Vos, Alta; Epstein, Graham; Etienne, Michel; Maciejewski, Kristine; Mathevet, Raphaël; Moore, Christine; Nenadovic, Mateja; Schoon, Michael
    Protected areas (PAs) remain central to the conservation of biodiversity. Classical PAs were conceived as areas that would be set aside to maintain a natural state with minimal human influence. However, global environmental change and growing cross-scale anthropogenic influences mean that PAs can no longer be thought of as ecological islands that function independently of the broader social-ecological system in which they are located. For PAs to be resilient (and to contribute to broader social-ecological resilience), they must be able to adapt to changing social and ecological conditions over time in a way that supports the long-term persistence of populations, communities, and ecosystems of conservation concern. We extend Ostrom's social-ecological systems framework to consider the long-term persistence of PAs, as a form of land use embedded in social-ecological systems, with important cross-scale feedbacks. Most notably, we highlight the cross-scale influences and feedbacks on PAs that exist from the local to the global scale, contextualizing PAs within multi-scale social-ecological functional landscapes. Such functional landscapes are integral to understand and manage individual PAs for long-term sustainability. We illustrate our conceptual contribution with three case studies that highlight cross-scale feedbacks and social-ecological interactions in the functioning of PAs and in relation to regional resilience. Our analysis suggests that while ecologi