Does Allostatic Load in 50-89-Year-Olds Predict the Development of Frailty? Evidence From a National Longitudinal Study Over 12 Years.

Frailty is characterised by a loss of function across several domains but is not an inevitable aspect of ageing and can be reversed with intervention. Determining those who are more likely to become frail before physical deficits become manifest will allow earlier intervention. One promising indicator of the potential for frailty is allostatic load, a physiological status associated with prolonged stress that is, characterised by multisystem dysfunction.

In it together?: Exploring solidarity with frontline workers in the United Kingdom and Ireland during COVID-19.

The phrase 'in it together' has been used liberally since the outbreak of COVID-19, but the extent that frontline workers felt 'in it together' is not well understood. Here, we consider the factors that built (or eroded) solidarity while working through the pandemic, and how frontline workers navigated their lives through periods of disconnection. Semi-structured interviews with 21 frontline workers, across all sectors, were conducted in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Solidarity appraisal, meaning, and markers of welfare in frontline workers in the UK and Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, frontline workers have carried out essential roles to keep society going, while the public have been called to minimise the infection rate to limit the burden on frontline workers. In this sense, navigating Covid-19 has necessitated interdependence between frontline workers and key stakeholder groups (such as their colleagues, organisations, their government, and the public). Reports suggest that frontline workers have perceived varying degrees of solidarity with others throughout the pandemic, yet the influence of perceived solidarity on psychological welfare has received limited empirical or theoretical attention.

"We shouldn't waste a good crisis": the lived experience of working on the frontline through the first surge (and beyond) of COVID-19 in the UK and Ireland.

Objective: Frontline workers have shown extraordinary resilience and sustained efforts since the outbreak of COVID-19. The present study used semi-structured interviews with 38 frontline workers in the UK and Ireland to explore the psychological impact of working through COVID-19.

Design: The qualitative data were analysed systematically using thematic analysis.

"It's Like a Kick in the Teeth": The Emergence of Novel Predictors of Burnout in Frontline Workers During Covid-19.

The context of Covid-19 has offered an unusual cultural landscape for examining how workers view their own position relative to others, and how individuals respond to prolonged exposure to workplace stress across different sectors and cultures. Through our recent work tracking the well-being of frontline workers in the UK and Ireland (the CV19 Heroes project), we have uncovered additional psychological factors that have not been accounted for in previous models of occupational stress or burnout. In recent months, frontline workers have worked to protect the community from the threat of SARS-CoV-2 and, simultaneously, have evaluated their perceptions of collective efforts of others as either congruent or incongruent with collective goals (e.

High ideals: the misappropriation and reappropriation of the heroic label in the midst of a global pandemic.

The purpose of this article is to offer an alternative, more nuanced analysis of the labelling of frontline workers as heroes than originally proposed. Here, we argue that the hero narrative in itself need not be problematic, but highlight a number of wider factors that have led to the initial rise (and subsequent fall) in support for labelling frontline workers as heroes. Through our related work, we have gathered similar stories from frontline workers where they feel betrayed, let down or otherwise short-changed by the hero label, and we have sought to make sense of this through understanding more about how the hero label is used rather than what it means.

Grace Under Pressure: Resilience, Burnout, and Wellbeing in Frontline Workers in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated extraordinary human resilience in order to preserve and prolong life and social order. Risks to health and even life are being confronted by workers in health and social care, as well as those in roles previously never defined as "frontline," such as individuals working in community supply chain sectors. The strategy adopted by the United Kingdom (UK) government in facing the challenges of the pandemic was markedly different from other countries.

Unemployment, employment precarity, and inflammation.

Unemployment has been associated with poorer health, but few studies have examined the biological mechanisms that confer these health decrements. Further, no studies to date have examined differences across employment groups to consider whether employment (in whatever means) is preferential in terms of health. The present study utilised secondary data from Understanding Society: The Household Longitudinal Survey during the aftermath of the recent global recession.

'Light in dark places': exploring qualitative data from a longitudinal study using creative arts as a form of social prescribing.

: This paper draws on a longitudinal study exploring the outcomes of an arts referral programme in General Practice in the South West of England since 2009. It focuses on the qualitative responses of the patient cohort : Using qualitative methods and thematic analysis, this paper explores and considers the responses from  = 1297 participants who provided feedback from an open-ended questionnaire on self-reported benefits of the arts referral programme. : Participant reactions demonstrate that the programme provided a range of personal and social benefits rarely considered or explored in comparative studies.

Factors associated with attendance, engagement and wellbeing change in an arts on prescription intervention.

Background: Arts on prescription interventions have grown in number in recent years with a corresponding evidence base in support. Despite the growth and presence of these interventions, there have been no evaluations to date as to what factors predict patient success within these referral schemes.

Methods: Using the largest cohort of patient data to date in the field (N = 1297), we set out to understand those factors that are associated with attendance, programme engagement and wellbeing change of patients.

'Artlift' arts-on-referral intervention in UK primary care: updated findings from an ongoing observational study.

Background: Arts for health interventions are an accepted option for medical management of mental wellbeing in health care. Updated findings are presented from a prospective longitudinal follow-up (observational) design study of an arts on referral programme in UK general practice, over a 7-year period (2009-2016).

Methods: Primary care process and mental wellbeing outcomes were investigated, including progress through the intervention, changes in mental wellbeing, and factors associated with those outcomes.

Unemployment as a chronic stressor: A systematic review of cortisol studies.

Objective: Unemployment is a type of chronic stressor that impacts human health. The reasons for how the stress of unemployment affect health is still a matter of discussion. One of the pathways from chronic stress to ill health is mediated by cortisol, and so we set out to compile extant data on how its secretion is affected by unemployment.

Unemployment is associated with lower cortisol awakening and blunted dehydroepiandrosterone responses.

Previous research has investigated the endocrinological consequences of unemployment as a likely pathway behind chronic stress and negative health outcomes. Despite these early attempts at delineating the neuroendocrine consequences of the chronic stress experienced by the unemployed, identifying a consistent and stable effect has remained elusive. Here we sought to strengthen existing knowledge into the effect of the stress of employment status on cortisol by improving on the methodological weaknesses of earlier studies and extend this line of enquiry by measuring the steroid hormone Dehydroepiandrosterone-Sulfate (DHEAS).

Prospective relationship between hemispheric lateralisation and CD4+ T cells in human immunodeficiency virus type 1.

Objectives: Neuromodulation of the immune system has been proposed to be influenced by hemispheric lateralisation (HL). The present study tested whether HL predicted CD4+ levels, statistically controlling for confounders.

Methods: Employing two assessments of HL, 68 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1+ patients were followed prospectively.

Hemispheric lateralisation and immune function: a systematic review of human research.

Past studies examined relationships between hemispheric lateralisation (HL) and immune system functioning. However, there has been no up-dated systematic review of this research area. This article reviews relevant published studies, evaluates study quality and effect sizes.