Urbanisation and incidence of psychosis and depression. Follow-up study of 4.4 million women and men in Sweden † + Author Affiliations Dr Kristina Sundquist, Family Medicine Stockholm, Karolinska Institutet, Alfred Nobels allé 12, SE-141 83 Huddinge, Sweden.Tel: +46 8 524 887 08; fax: +46 8 524 887 06; e-mail: Kristina.Sundquist@klinvet.ki.se Declaration of interest None. Funding detailed in Acknowledgements. ↵† See editorial, pp. 287–288, this issue. Abstract Background Previous studies of differences in mental health between urban and rural populations are inconsistent. Aims To examine whether a high level of urbanisation is associated with increased incidence rates of psychosis and depression, after adjustment for age, marital status, education and immigrant status. Method Follow-up study of the total Swedish population aged 25–64 years with respect to first hospital admission for psychosis or depression.
Results With increasing levels of urbanisation the incidence rates of psychosis and depression rose. Outcome variable Table 1 Table 2. Urbanisation and incidence of psychosis and depression. Social sustainability: the "how" of human experience. How do you “do” social sustainability? It’s a complex task, and there is no single policy level or responsible authority that independently delivers socially sustainable outcomes.
It requires an integrated approach and the coordination of many contributors, among which the profession of architecture offers a unique skill set. Wellbeing and social sustainability are emerging areas of focus in determining public policy around the world. For the profession of architecture, a better understanding of what social sustainability is, and a clear articulation of how the discipline contributes to it, are vital as we navigate a changing marketplace and advocate for the value our profession offers to the task of achieving socially sustainable communities. In essence, social infrastructure can be both hard and soft, and architects and built environment professionals contribute to the creation of both.
What does this have to do with the design of cities? Social sustainability: the "how" of human experience. Margaret J. Wheatley: Using Emergence to Take Social Innovations to Scale. In spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what's possible. This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change. But networks aren't the whole story. As networks grow and transform into active, working communities of practice, we discover how Life truly changes, which is through emergence.
Emergence has a life-cycle. Researchers and social activists are beginning to discover the power of networks and networking. Why do networks form? What is Emergence? Stage One: Networks. The Next System Question and the New Economy Movement. The Next System Question and the New Economy Movement Slowly, quietly, people concerned with achieving a sustainable and equitable society are beginning to get serious about two new challenges.
The first involves what is best understood as the next system question. The second has come to be called the new economy movement. Movement forward in both cases is likely to intensify as social, economic, and ecological difficulties worsen. “For the most part, we have worked within this current system of political economy,” former presidential adviser James Gustave Speth observes, “but working within the system will not succeed in the end when what is needed is transformative change in the system itself.” Defining the challenge as systemic only begins to open the door to clarifying what a serious answer might entail. Such general efforts suggest we are approaching the time when a multifaceted effort to confront the systemic design challenge head-on is necessary.
Social Sustainability and Sustainable Communities: Introducing Our Next #citytalk. This post is also available in: Chinese (Traditional), Spanish, French If sustainability was a family, social sustainability would be the black sheep. Environmental and economic sustainability are both enormous concepts with many different contributing elements, but social sustainability trumps them both with its complexity, subjectivity, and difficult-to-put-your-finger-on-it…ity. Many a thesis has tried and failed to define social sustainability (speaking from experience, here), looking for quantifiable and qualitative elements that could help create a framework to measure the human side of sustainability.
That’s why we were intrigued when the Berkeley Group got in touch to let us know that they had been working with Social Life and Tim Dixon, Professional Chair in Sustainable Futures in the Built Environment at the University of Reading, on a report containing a structured framework for measuring social sustainability. Definition of Social Sustainability. The general definition of social sustainability is the ability of a social system, such as a country, to function at a defined level of social well being indefinitely. That level should be defined in relation to the goal of Homo sapiens, which is (or should be) to optimize quality of life for those living and their descendents.
After that there is universal disagreement on what quality of life goals should be. Not only do nations disagree. So do their political parties, their religions, their cultures, their classes, their activists organizations, and so on. Therefore we will not attempt to define what quality of life goals should be, even in the broadest sense. A possible direction for agreement on what the tangible goals of social sustainability should be is may be found in Bhutan's national goal of optimizing gross national happiness. The clip art of tiny people in the social sustainability icon is from Clip Art Mountain. Well-being. A successful society is one where economic activity delivers high levels of sustainable wellbeing for all its citizens.
NEF has been researching wellbeing – how people experience their lives and flourish - for over a decade. Our work seeks to understand, measure and positively influence wellbeing, develop ways of integrating it into policy, and promoting it as an alternative measure of progress. Key Facts Since 1970, the UK's GDP has doubled, but people's satisfaction with life has hardly changed. 81% of Britons believe that the Government should prioritise creating the greatest happiness, not the greatest wealth.
Featured Work Blog post // October 8, 2015 We need to start talking about inequalities in wellbeing Average wellbeing continues to rise, but for who? Publication // March 26, 2014 Wellbeing at work A review of the literature More Publication // June 14, 2012 Happy Planet Index: 2012 Report A global index of sustainable wellbeing More Publication // October 21, 2008 More.