Rosie Day

'Only old ladies would do that': age stigma and older people's strategies for dealing with winter cold.

Concerns over the welfare of older people in winter have led to interventions and advice campaigns meant to improve their ability to keep warm, but older people themselves are not always willing to follow these recommendations. In this paper we draw on an in-depth study that followed twenty one older person households in the UK over a cold winter and examined various aspects of their routine warmth-related practices at home and the rationales underpinning them. We find that although certain aspects of ageing did lead participants to feel they had changing warmth needs, their practices were also shaped by the problematic task of negotiating identities in the context of a wider stigmatisation of older age and an evident resistance to ageist discourses. After outlining the various ways in which this was manifest in our study, we conclude by drawing out the implications for future policy and research.

How older people relate to the private winter warmth practices of their peers and why we should be interested

There is good reason to be interested in how older people in ageing societies organise their winter warmth. Winter mortality rates are highest amongst this group. Several initiatives have accordingly sought to alleviate the fuel poverty some older people experience at this time. Yet many older people are also wealthier than ever. This leads to alternative anxieties about how their potentially extravagant home heating could exacerbate wider climate change. This paper pursues the contention that future policies relating to both issues stand to benefit from a fuller appreciation of how current older person households relate to the private winter warmth practices of their generational peers. Building on studies that explore the dynamics of domestic thermal convention and consider how to engender new sustainable energy norms at home, it presents findings from a serial interview project with a diverse sample of older people in the UK. We consider whether these respondents connected their actions to the idea of a wider generational mode of managing domestic winter warmth and the reasons why they seldom did. We end with the implications of this situation for further research on domestic energy norms and interventions aimed at the winter practices of this growing sector.

Inadvertent environmentalism and the action-value opportunity: reflections from studies at both ends of the generational spectrum

A recent turn towards a more contextually sensitive apprehension of the challenge of making everyday life less resource hungry has been partly underwritten by widespread evidence that the environmental values people commonly profess to hold do not often translate into correspondingly low impact actions. Yet sometimes the contexts of everyday life can also conspire to make people limit their consumption without ever explicitly connecting this to the environmental agenda. This paper considers this phenomenon with reference to UK studies from both ends of the generational spectrum. The first questioned how older people keep warm at home during winter and the second examined how young people get rid of no longer wanted possessions. Both found that, though the respondents involved were acting in certain ways that may be deemed comparatively low impact, they were hitherto relatively indifferent to the idea of characterising these actions as such. We outline three ways in which sustainability advocates might respond to the existence of such “inadvertent environmentalists” and consider how they might inspire studies that generate fresh intervention ideas instead of lingering on the dispiriting recognition that people do not often feel able to act for the environment.

Patients with prostate cancer are less likely to develop oesophageal adenocarcinoma: could androgens have a role in the aetiology of oesophageal adenocarcinoma?

Oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) is more common in men. Androgens may therefore contribute to the pathogenesis of OAC. Prostate cancer (PC), an androgen sensitive tumor with a long natural history, may allow insights into this putative association. West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit data from 1977 to 2004 were examined to identify patients with a first malignant primary of PC. Patients were followed until diagnosis of a second primary cancer, death or end of the time period. Age- and period-adjusted standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were calculated as an estimate of the relative risk of a second malignant primary of the oesophagus. Between 1977 and 2004, 44,819 men within the West Midlands developed PC as a first primary malignancy. After exclusion for lack of follow-up, 38,627 men were eligible, providing 143,526 person years at risk for analysis. 86 second primary oesophageal cancers were observed, compared with 110 expected, resulting in an SIR of 0.78 (95% CI 0.62–0.96). There was a reduced risk of OAC 0.7 (0.5–0.95) but not of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) 1.03 (0.69–1.47). The risk of developing OAC, but not OSCC, is lower than expected in patients with PC. A diagnosis of PC may be associated with aetiological factors that are negatively associated with OAC, or anti-androgen therapy may influence the development of OAC.

Parks, streets and “just empty space”: the local environmental experiences of children and young people in a Scottish study

This article is concerned with the nature and significance of inequality in the environmental experience of children and young people. We argue that research in this area needs to widen in perspective and address a complex set of environmental attributes that matter to children and young people, and to their development. Discussing a study conducted in three differing locations in Scotland, the paper examines the local places that were important to children and young people, and the factors that affected the benefits they derived from them. The results illustrate that unequal experiences arise partly through different material provision of environmental goods, but also issues of quality and maintenance, and that relational dynamics have a crucial role. An important concern is not just the quality of experiences in the present, but the effects that environmental experiences in early life have on skills and capacities taken forward into adulthood.

Environmental justice and older age: consideration of a qualitative neighbourhood-based study

Environmental justice discourses have engaged far less with age as a significant factor associated with injustice than with other sociodemographic signifiers such as race and class. In this paper I explore material from an empirical study conducted with older people in three neighbourhoods in Scotland, using a framework based on environmental and social justice theory. The analysis highlights various means by which older people can be excluded from and within urban environments and links these with justice narratives of distribution, procedural inclusion, and recognition. Consideration of age enriches environmental justice theory, but also highlights how it needs to connect more fully with wider social justice theory.

The influence of deprivation and ethnicity on the incidence of esophageal cancer in England

The incidence of esophageal cancer (EC), particularly esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), has been rising dramatically. In the USA, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is associated with deprivation and black ethnicity, while EAC is more common among whites. The influence of social deprivation and ethnicity has not been studied in England. West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit data were used to study the incidence of ESCC and EAC, and the influence of age, sex, socioeconomic status (Townsend quintiles by postcode) and ethnicity (to individual patients from Hospital Episode Statistics). From 1977 to 2004, a total of 15,138 EC were identified. Five-year directly age standardized incidence rates per 100,000 (95% CI) for men increased from 8.6 (8.0–9.1) in 1977–1981 to 13.7 (13.1–14.3) in 2000–2004 and for women from 5.0 (4.7–5.4) to 6.3 (5.9–6.6). ESCC incidence did not alter, but EAC incidence rose rapidly in males [2.1 (1.9–2.4) to 8.5 (8.1–9.0)] and in females [0.5 (0.4–0.6) to 1.7 (1.5–1.9)]. ESCC was strongly associated with the most socially deprived quintile. EAC was not associated with differences in socioeconomic status. EAC was significantly more common in white men 7.3 (6.9–7.7) and women 1.5 (1.3–1.6) when compared with black and Asian populations. In England the incidence of EAC has rapidly risen, particularly in men over the last three decades. ESCC was strongly associated with social deprivation. EAC was more common in white populations, but no association with the socioeconomic status was found.

The risk of oesophageal cancer is not affected by a diagnosis of breast cancer.

Oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) is less common and develops at a later age in women compared with men. Endogenous oestrogen may therefore protect against OAC development. A cohort of women with breast cancer, a tumour commonly treated with oestrogen antagonists, was examined to identify the subsequent risk of developing OAC. Earlier studies have implicated radiotherapy in increasing oesophageal cancer (OC) risk among women with breast cancer. West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit data recording cancer diagnosis and treatment information was examined to identify patients with a first malignant primary breast cancer during 1977–2004. Patients were followed until diagnosis of a second primary cancer, death or end of the time period examined. Age-adjusted and period-adjusted standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were calculated as an estimate of relative risk for a second primary OC. Seventy-three thousand six hundred and thirteen women were eligible for the study, providing 486 679 person years at risk for analysis. One hundred and thirty-two second primary OCs were observed, compared with 121 expected (SIR 1.09; 95% confidence interval: 0.91–1.29). Radiotherapy treatment in 37 888 women did not affect the risk of a second primary OC (SIR 1.07; 95% confidence interval: 0.79–1.41). No difference was identified when examined by OC morphology. There was no association between breast cancer and a second primary OC. Radiotherapy that avoids deep irradiation in the treatment of breast cancer, local nodes or recurrence was not associated with an increased risk of developing a second primary OC.

Assumptions about later life travel and their implications: pushing people around?

ABSTRACT Taking four assumptions in turn, this review article considers some of the lenses through which researchers might look at later-life leisure travel and the implications of adopting each of them. First, we consider the ‘active ageing’ agenda and what this means for how leisure travel may be thought about in academia and beyond. Second, we turn to studies underpinned by worries about the appetite for significant consumption thought to typify the ‘baby-boomer’ generation and question whether these studies could inadvertently be promoting the very future they hope to avoid. Third, we explore how research on the benefits of everyday ‘mobility’ in later life may have morphed into a more general belief about the value of travel in older age. Finally, we reflect on how relevant studies of tourism are often underpinned by an argument about the financial rewards that now await those ready to target the older traveller. Our overall contention is that, though for different reasons, all four could be serving to encourage more later-life travel. Whilst for some this prospect is not at all troubling, the spectre of adverse energy demand consequences leads us to explore a more critical view.

Demanding Energy: An Introduction

This edited collection starts from the question: what social processes constitute and make energy demand? That is, what is energy for? Pursuing this question requires stepping back from energy demand per se to investigate the social practices that contribute to its constitution, patterning and transformation. Drawing in part upon social theories of practice and bringing together empirical cases addressing transportation, institutional and domestic settings, chapters draw particularly upon socio-theoretical understandings of space, time and change in order to provide new and sophisticated contributions to discussions of energy demand. This introduction discusses key themes and outlines the book’s structure.