High consumption of animal-source foods, specifically meat, adversely affects human health and the environment. Dietary habits are shaped at younger ages and a reduction in meat consumption may be facilitated by the life course transitions in early adulthood, but studies are limited. This study among young Dutch adults aimed to describe their perceptions on the influence of life course transitions on meat consumption, barriers and enablers to reduce meat consumption, and strategies for reducing meat consumption. Barriers and enablers were grouped applying the COM-B model that includes capability, opportunity, and motivation. This quantitative cross-sectional study included a representative sample of 1806 young adults from two Dutch consumer panels who completed an online survey. Young adults frequently reported life course transitions, especially those related to moving house, to have decreased their meat consumption. Barriers and enablers to reduce meat consumption were identified for all three factors of the COM-B model. Important barriers included taste, perceived high prices of meat alternatives, and habits. In contrast, important enablers included care for the environment and animal welfare, enjoyment of smaller portions of meat and saving money. However, barriers and enablers largely differed by groups of meat consumption frequency. Self-perceived effective strategies for reducing meat consumption were price reduction of meat alternatives, recipes for vegetarian meals, and more attractive meat alternatives. The findings of this study are relevant for the development of targeted behaviour-change programmes including interventions in the physical and the social environment (like lowering prices and improving the offer of meat alternatives).
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Discussions on policy and management initiatives to facilitate individuals throughout working careers take place without sufficient insight into how career paths are changing, how these changes are related to a modernization of life course biographies, and whether this leads to increased labour market transitions. This paper asks how new, flexible labour market patterns can best be analyzed using an empirical, quantitative approach. The data used are from the career module of the Panel Study of Belgian Households (PSBH). This module, completed by almost 4500 respondents consists of retrospective questions tracing lengthy and even entire working life histories. To establish any changes in career patterns over such extended periods of time, we compare two evolving methodologies: Optimal Matching Analysis (OMA) and Latent Class Regression Analysis (LCA). The analyses demonstrate that both methods show promising potential in discerning working life typologies and analyzing sequence trajectories. However, particularities of the methods demonstrate that not all research questions are suitable for each method. The OMA methodology is appropriate when the analysis concentrates on the labour market statuses and is well equipped to make clear and interpretable differentiations if there is relative stability in career paths during the period of observation but not if careers become less stable. Latent Class has the strength of adopting covariates in the clustering allowing for more historically connected types than the other methodology. The clustering is denser and the technique allows for more detailed model fitting controls than OMA. However, when incorporating covariates in a typology, the possibilities of using the typology in later, causal, analyses is somewhat reduced.
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BackgroundSubstance use disorders (SUDs) are prevalent in the general population, tend to follow a chronic course, are associated with many individual and social problems, and often have their onset in adolescence. However, the knowledge base from prospective population surveys and treatment-outcome studies on the course of SUD in adolescents is limited at best. The present study aims to fill this gap and focuses on a subgroup that is particularly at risk for chronicity: adolescents in addiction treatment. We will investigate the rate of persistent SUD and its predictors longitudinally from adolescence to young adulthood among youth with DSM-5 SUD from the start of their addiction treatment to 2 and 4 years following treatment-entry. In addition to SUD, we will investigate the course of comorbid mental disorders, social functioning, and quality of life and their association with SUD over time.Methods/designIn a naturalistic, multi-center prospective cohort design, we will include youths (n = 420), who consecutively enter addiction treatment at ten participating organizations in the Netherlands. Inclusion is prestratified by treatment organization, to ensure a nationally representative sample. Eligible youths are 16 to 22 years old and seek help for a primary DSM-5 cannabis, alcohol, cocaine or amphetamine use disorder. Assessments focus on lifetime and current substance use and SUD, non-SUD mental disorders, family history, life events, social functioning, treatment history, quality of life, chronic stress indicators (hair cortisol) and neuropsychological tests (computerized executive function tasks) and are conducted at baseline, end of treatment, and 2 and 4 years post-baseline. Baseline data and treatment data (type, intensity, duration) will be used to predict outcome – persistence of or desistance from SUD.DiscussionThere are remarkably few prospective studies worldwide that investigated the course of SUD in adolescents in addiction treatment for longer than 1 year. We are confident that the Youth in Transition study will further our understanding of determinants and consequences of persistent SUD among high-risk adolescents during the critical transition from adolescence to young adulthood.Trial registrationThe Netherlands National Trial Register Trial NL7928. Date of registration January 17, 2019.
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Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has the ambition to activate learners to engage in societal issues by exploring shifting perspectives on ourselves and our complex world. Educators across University of Applied Sciences (UAS) in the Netherlands are working hard to bring this ambition to life by implementing innovative pedagogies that emphasise transformative learning and empower students to take action to ignite societal transitions. However, both literature and practise have yet to establish educational assessment practise suited to ESD ambitions. This Comenius Teaching Fellow project proposes an innovation in the practise of sustainability education by developing an assessment format crucial to the constructive alignment in ESD. Assessment formats will be prototyped within the transformative course Creating Impact at Breda University of Applied Sciences resulting in two main products: (1) innovative assessment format for Creating Impact, including Implementation Toolkit and (2) a generic Design Toolkit ESD Assessment. The products are directly developed for the outlined context, but contribute to the increased capacity of UAS educators more broadly to embed ESD in educational practise. Future educational forms addressing societal challenges must take into account all aspects of educational design, including assessment, to ensure constructive alignment. By focusing on assessment in ESD, the outcomes of this project are an essential contribution to bridging the gap between ESD theory and educational practice, so that, in the words of the Vereniging Hogescholen, we educate our students to become professionals who help build a new, sustainable society
