(Press-News.org) Living in a deprived area increases the risk of violence more sharply for girls than boys, according to a Cardiff University study of former industrial areas.
The new results suggest violence prevention strategies need to focus more on local inequalities, especially to protect vulnerable adolescent girls.
The survey was conducted by the Violence and Society Research Group at Cardiff University. The team studied nearly 700 young people, aged 11 to 17, who attended casualty departments in South Wales with injuries from violence. The researchers matched the patients against the levels of deprivation in their home neighbourhoods.
The team found that assault injury rates were uniformly higher in the most deprived areas. Overall, boys were more at risk of violence than girls. However, the team also found that the risk of injury increased more rapidly for girls than boys as material deprivation increased. In one deprived area, girls faced a risk of violence six times greater than in more affluent wards. Boys in the same area were twice as likely to be injured than in more affluent areas. This means that the risk to girls was three times more sensitive to deprivation.
Professor Jonathan Shepherd, Director of the Violence and Society Research Group, said: "The study clearly shows that poverty raises the risk of violence dramatically more for girls than boys. There's no reason to believe this will not apply to all former industrial areas in the UK.
"The facts linking deprived neighbourhoods to violence are complex and include social cohesion, substance abuse and family stress. It is not clear why the risk to girls should be so much more sensitive to deprivation but the reason may be linked to the different ways girls of different backgrounds resolve disputes.
"There is already concern about the violence risk to young women. Our findings show that adverse economic conditions could make the problem even worse. Injury prevention schemes need to be directed at children and adolescents in areas of highest deprivation to improve their life chances and well-being. Emergency department doctors responsible for treating the results of this violence have an important role to play in this, working with community safety partners and child protection agencies."
The study has just been published in Emergency Medical Journal. It is the latest work published by the Violence and Society Research Group, awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize earlier this year for its pioneering work in the understanding and prevention of community violence.
###
Notes to editors:
1. The study 'Gender inequality in the risk of violence: material deprivation is linked to higher risk for adolescent girls' is published in the Emergency Medical Journal for November 2010 and can be viewed online at http://emj.bmj.com/content/27/11/811.full . The authors are Dr Vaseekaran Sivarajasingam, Ines Nasr and Professor Jonathan Shepherd of the Violence and Society Research Group, Cardiff University and Dr Sarah Jones, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, School of Medicine, Cardiff University.
For Further Information, please contact
Professor Jonathan Shepherd
School of Dentistry
Cardiff University
Telephone 029 20744215 or 20742442
Mobile 07779 490022
Email: ShepherdJP@cardiff.ac.uk
Stephen Rouse
Public Relations Office,
Cardiff University
Telephone: 029 20875596,
Email: RouseS@cardiff.ac.uk
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is recognised in independent government assessments as one of Britain's leading teaching and research universities. Founded by Royal Charter in 1883, the University today combines impressive modern facilities and a dynamic approach to teaching and research. The University's breadth of expertise in research and research-led teaching encompasses: the humanities; the natural, physical, health, life and social sciences; engineering and technology; preparation for a wide range of professions; and a longstanding commitment to lifelong learning. Cardiff is a member of the Russell Group of Britain's leading research universities.
The University website is at: www.cardiff.ac.uk
The Violence and Society Research Group website is at www.cardiff.ac.uk/vrg
INDIANAPOLIS – A potent anti-tumor gene introduced into mice with metastatic melanoma has resulted in permanent immune reconfiguration and produced a complete remission of their cancer, according to an article to be published in the December 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The online version is now available.
Indiana University School of Medicine researchers used a modified lentivirus to introduce a potent anti-melanoma T cell receptor gene into the hematopoietic stem cells of mice. Hematopoietic stem cells are the bone marrow cells that produce all ...
Many studies support the assertion that moderate drinking is beneficial when it comes to cardiovascular health, and for the first time scientists have discovered that a well-known molecule, called Notch, may be behind alcohol's protective effects. Down the road, this finding could help scientists create a new treatment for heart disease that mimics the beneficial influence of modest alcohol consumption.
"Any understanding of a socially acceptable, modifiable activity that many people engage in, like drinking, is useful as we continue to search for new ways to improve ...
Scientists have simulated, for the first time, the merger of two black holes of vastly different sizes, with one mass 100 times larger than the other. This extreme mass ratio of 100:1 breaks a barrier in the fields of numerical relativity and gravitational wave astronomy.
Until now, the problem of simulating the merger of binary black holes with extreme size differences had remained an unexplored region of black-hole physics.
"Nature doesn't collide black holes of equal masses," says Carlos Lousto, associate professor of mathematical sciences at Rochester Institute ...
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon (19 November 2010) – A new study finds a lack of transparency and corruption are reducing the impact of an initiative in Cameroon that channels a portion of national timber levies to rural forest communities. The study highlights the challenges of using a climate change pact to do something similar in forested regions around the world.
In an article published in the peer-reviewed journal International Forestry Review, scientists at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) examined how revenues from a tax paid by logging companies in Cameroon, ...
Researchers from the Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), in collaboration with researchers from the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), have developed an identification system for oocytes and embryos in which each can be individually tagged using silicon barcodes. Researchers are now working to perfect the system and soon will test it with human oocytes and embryos.
The research, published online in Human Reproduction, represents a first step ...
Successfully treating and reversing the effects of multiple sclerosis, or MS, may one day be possible using a drug originally developed to treat chronic pain, according to Distinguished Professor Linda Watkins of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Watkins and her colleagues in CU-Boulder's department of psychology and neuroscience discovered that a single injection of a compound called ATL313 -- an anti-inflammatory drug being developed to treat chronic pain -- stopped the progression of MS-caused paralysis in rats for weeks at a time.
Lisa Loram, a senior research ...
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– In nature, it's a dog-eat-dog world, even in the realm of bacteria. Competing bacteria use "toxic darts" to disable each other, according to a new study by UC Santa Barbara biologists. Their research is published in the journal Nature.
"The discovery of toxic darts could eventually lead to new ways to control disease-causing pathogens," said Stephanie K. Aoki, first author and postdoctoral fellow in UCSB's Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB). "This is important because resistance to antibiotics is on the rise."
Second ...
Employee wellness programs have often been viewed as a nice extra, not a strategic imperative. But the data demonstrate otherwise, according to a team of researchers led by Leonard L. Berry of Texas A&M University, Ann M. Mirabito of Baylor University and William B. Baun of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Their research shows that the return on investment on comprehensive, well-run employee wellness programs is impressive — sometimes as high as six to one.
The findings are compiled in a comprehensive piece in the December issue of Harvard Business ...
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- On its recent trip by comet Hartley 2, the Deep Impact spacecraft took the first pictures of, and flew through, a storm of fluffy particles of water ice being spewed out by carbon dioxide jets coming from the rough ends of the comet. The resulting images and data shed new light on the nature and composition of comets, according to the University of Maryland-led EPOXI science team, which today announced its latest findings and released the first images of this comet created snowstorm. See images at: http://epoxi.umd.edu/index.shtml
"When we visited ...
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2010 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning podcast series, "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions," focuses on development and successful initial tests of an inexpensive new filtering technology that kills up to 98 percent of disease-causing bacteria in water in just seconds without clogging.
The technology could aid many of the almost one billion people lacking access to clean, safe drinking water. A report on the work appears in the American Chemical Society's monthly journal Nano Letters.
Most water purifiers ...
