̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - online

Airbnb rentals linked to increased crime rates in London neighbourhoods

fpjl2 — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 08:24:17 +0000

Latest research has revealed a ‘positive association’ between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than 5 million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his ̽��ֱ�� of Pennsylvania co-author Professor David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto ‘Lower Layer Super Output Areas’, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for 6 categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data.

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

̽��ֱ��association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.

̽��ֱ��data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in ‘criminogenic variables’ such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

̽��ֱ��duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. ̽��ֱ��data models even incorporated the seasonal ‘ebb and flow’ of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends.

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting ‘collective efficacy’: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

̽��ֱ��study measured levels of collective efficacy across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

̽��ֱ��researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “ ̽��ֱ��fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends.

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation

Charles Lanfear

Karl Hendon/Getty

London townhouses in Greenwich

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Solidarity drives online virality in a nation under attack, study of Ukrainian social media reveals

fpjl2 — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 09:04:55 +0000

While divisive social media posts get more traction in countries such as the US, a new study shows that celebrating national unity is the way to go viral in Ukraine.

Search engine data reveals Russian discontent after invasion of Ukraine

fpjl2 — Wed, 17 May 2023 08:07:10 +0000

Russian military mobilisations saw huge spikes in anti-regime web searches, according to a study of search trends from Google and Yandex.

Researchers to track impact of lockdown on alcohol, gambling and pornography use

cjb250 — Mon, 11 May 2020 23:16:03 +0000

̽��ֱ��UK was first placed on lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic on 23 March. Only essential businesses were allowed to remain open and everyone was told to stay at home, only to venture out for exercise and shopping.

Almost overnight, people’s lives were up-ended, with some people working from home while others have lost their jobs or been furloughed. People who live by themselves have suddenly found themselves with no social contact other than virtual.

To find out what impact this has had on people’s behaviour, Dr Valerie Voon from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Prof Henrietta Bowden-Jones, Director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic, London, have launched an online survey, HabiT – Habit Tracker – asking about changes in habits during lockdown, specifically quantifying alcohol, smoking, and online use of gambling, gaming and pornography. ̽��ֱ��habit tracker survey is available online. All responses will be anonymous.

̽��ֱ��survey is short, only taking 10 minutes to complete. ̽��ֱ��researchers are keen to hear from both those people who do not consider themselves to be vulnerable or exhibit problem behaviours and those who have struggled in the past or are struggling now.

“We expect to see an increase in these behaviours across the UK in response to the unprecedented circumstances we find ourselves in,” says Dr Voon. “In many cases, these changes will be people’s strategies for coping with the anxiety and stress caused by the pandemic and lockdown and, we hope, won’t have a long term impact if the behaviour can be controlled.

“For some people who might already have been struggling with or have a history of addiction these increased habits could prove problematic. ̽��ֱ��same goes for those people who find themselves in difficult circumstances, for example having lost their job or facing financial difficulties, or are struggling to cope with the lockdown. These more vulnerable individuals may find their behaviour has a more marked longer lasting effect, triggering an alcohol relapse, for instance, or reigniting a gambling addiction.”

Survey respondents may also take part in CrusH, an alcohol avoidance online training game for smartphones being developed which can be accessed as part of the survey.

Five tips for coping during the lockdown

Keep active: exercise outdoors and take part in online exercise workouts
Keep in touch with people socially online – try FaceTime, Skype or Zoom so that you see people
Maintain some regular structure: sleep, wake, work
Don't spend too much time looking at news
Use this as an opportunity to try something new – try baking, learning a new language, writing that novel you always dreamed of writing

Is the lockdown leading us to drink more alcohol or spend more time gambling online or watching pornography? Researchers today launch a survey aimed at tracking how our habits have changed in response to our forced isolation.

We expect to see an increase in these behaviours across the UK in response to the unprecedented circumstances we find ourselves in... For some people who might already have been struggling with or have a history of addiction these increased habits could prove problematic

Valerie Voon

iAmMrRob

Man using internet

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Viral charity campaigns have a psychological 'recipe' and all-too-brief lifespan

fpjl2 — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 16:01:23 +0000

A ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researcher has identified a recipe for the new breed of wildly successful online charity campaigns such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge – a phenomenon he has labelled “viral altruism” – and what might make them stick in people’s minds.

However, he says the optimistic use of global digital networks to propel positive social change is balanced by the shallow, short-lived nature of engagement with anything viral.

Writing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, social psychologist Dr Sander van der Linden has outlined the key psychological levers he says underpin the new wave of viral altruism that is increasingly taking over our Facebook feeds.

These include the power of social norms, particularly the appeal of joining a social consensus and the desire to conform to prosocial behaviour (such as appearing charitable), having a clear moral incentive to act, and the appetite for a ‘warm glow’: the positive emotional benefit derived from feeling compassionate.

One of the most important ingredients – and the hardest to achieve – is ‘translational impact’: the conversion of online token support, or ‘clicktivism’, into sustained real world contributions, whether financial donations or a long-term commitment to an issue.

This, he says, involves a shift in motivation from the ‘extrinsic’ – incentives conditional on outside social pressures – to the ‘intrinsic’: an incentive that has been internalised to become a “new personal normal” for an individual.

Part of van der Linden’s initial research has been to pull together data such as Google and Wikipedia searches as well as donations to indicate the longevity and engagement levels of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge campaign.

̽��ֱ��Challenge reached unprecedented ‘virality’ during August 2014. ̽��ֱ��formula of videoing ice-cold water being poured over your head and posting it to social media while publicly nominating others to do the same in support of a motor neurone disease charity reached approximately 440 million people worldwide, with over 28 million joining in.

'Brightly but briefly'

Yet van der Linden found that the Challenge burned brightly but briefly: with online interest and donations reverting to pre-viral levels in mere weeks. ̽��ֱ��engagement was also superficial: estimates suggest that 1 in 4 participants did not mention the ALS charity in their videos and only 1 in 5 mentioned a donation.

And, while the 2014 campaign caused a significant spike in donations – some $115m – when the ALS charity attempted to reboot the Ice Bucket Challenge the following year it raised less than 1% of the previous summer.

Other examples of viral altruism considered to be successful also appear to have an equally brief “half-life”. ̽��ֱ��Facebook organ donor initiative elicited more than 60% of its total online registrations in the first two days before numbers rapidly dropped off. Save Darfur was one of the largest campaigns on Facebook; after joining, most members never donated money or recruited anyone else.

Van der Linden believes converting the brief social pressures of viral altruism into self-sustaining personal motivations is the key to leveraging new digital networks for long-term engagement with the big issues of our time, such as climate change.

However, he argues that it may be the very viral nature of ‘viral altruism’ that acts as a barrier to this.

“Society now has the ability to connect and mobilise over a billion Facebook users to action on specific social issues in a fast and low-cost manner, but it is becoming clear this entails viral phenomena which by their very nature are ephemeral and superficial,” says van der Linden, from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.

Hyper-viral paradox

“Just as a flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long, so a rapid social consensus spike reaches an equally rapid saturation point.

“Once the social tipping point of a campaign has passed, momentum can decay quickly and the purpose can get diluted. Once the ALS campaign had reached peak virality, many people were just pouring cold water over their heads without necessarily referencing the charity.

“Paradoxically, increasing meaningful engagement through viral altruism might actually require deliberately hindering the hyper-viral nature at some point with a stabilising force. Perhaps introducing aspects to a campaign that increasingly require more commitment – slowing growth and encouraging deeper engagement. If we want people to internalise a new normal, we need to give them a window big enough to do that.

“Deeper engagement seems especially vital. Something as simple as a single phrase connecting a campaign to its cause can make a difference. For example, those who mentioned the ALS charity in their Ice Bucket Challenge video were five times more likely to donate money than those who did not.”

SMART recipe

Van der Linden has set out his recipe for viral altruism using the acronym SMART: Social influences; Moral imperatives; Affective Reactions; Translational impact.

̽��ֱ��ALS campaign managed to exploit a two-pronged approach to 'social influences'. People were influenced by the example of those in their network, and wanted to join the burgeoning consensus. ̽��ֱ��nature of the campaign also meant that many were publicly challenged to participate by their social network, and risked the 'social sanction' of being seen to lack compassion if they then didn't.

Helping people with a debilitating disease was seen as a 'moral imperative'. Van der Linden says that having 'identifiable victims' such as scientist Prof Stephen Hawking allowed people to relate to the cause.

Campaigns that allow for the creation of a shared identity between the individual and the cause over time appear to be more successful in achieving translational impact.
Sander van der Linden

'Affective Reactions' is the response to strong emotional content. "Empathy is an emotional contagion," says van der Linden. "We are evolutionarily hard-wired to 'catch' other people's feelings. Responding with an altruistic act give us a 'warm glow' of positivity. Similarly, people often respond to social injustice, such as genocide, with strong moral outrage."

However, where almost all campaigns stumble is 'Translational impact', he says. "Extrinsic incentives, such as competitions or network pressure, can actually undermine people's intrinsic motivation to do good by eroding moral sentiment. Motivation to participate can get sourced from a desire to 'win' a challenge or appear virtuous rather than caring about the cause itself."

Climate change is an example of a major global issue that currently scores pretty much zero for the SMART recipe, says van der Linden.

"Climate change often fails to elicit strong emotional engagement, there is little to no societal pressure to act on climate change in our daily lives, most people do not view it as a fundamental moral issue, and the long-term nature of the problem requires more than a one-off donation."

He suggests that using the SMART recipe could be a way to reverse engineer more effective climate change campaigns that harness viral altruism, but the problem of translating impact remains.

One of the more impactful campaigns van der Linden highlights is 'Movember': the month-long growing of a moustache to raise awareness of men's health. Starting with just 30 people in 2003, the campaign didn't experience viral hypergrowth, but developed over years to reach about 5 million members by 2014 - by which time the charity reported 75% of participants were more aware of health issues facing men.

"Campaigns that allow for the creation of a shared identity between the individual and the cause over time appear to be more successful in achieving translational impact."

New work focusing on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge reveals very brief shelf life of such viral campaigns, and suggests the nature of ‘virality’ and social tipping points themselves may be a stumbling block to deeper engagement with social issues that campaigns aim to promote.

Increasing meaningful engagement through viral altruism might actually require deliberately hindering the hyper-viral nature at some point with a stabilising force

Sander van der Linden

Charlie Baker

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

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Combating cybercrime when there's plenty of phish in the sea

sc604 — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 07:51:23 +0000

We’ve all received the emails, hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Warnings that our bank account will be closed tomorrow, and we’ve only got to click a link and send credit card information to stop it from happening. Promises of untold riches, and it will only cost a tiny fee to access them. Stories of people in desperate circumstances, who only need some kind soul to go to the nearest Western Union and send a money transfer to save them.

Tricking people into handing over sensitive information such as credit card details – known as ‘phishing’ – is one of the ways criminals scam people online. Most of us think we’re smarter than these scams. Most of us think that we could probably con the con artist if we tried. But we would be wrong.

Across the world, cybercrime is booming. When the UK government included cybercrime in the national crime statistics for the first time in 2015, it doubled the crime rate overnight. Millions of people worldwide are victimised by online scams, whether it’s blocking access to a website, stealing personal or credit card information, or attempting to extort money by remotely holding the contents of a personal computer hostage.

“Since 2005, the police have largely ignored cybercrime,” says Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory. “Reported crime fell by as much as a half in some categories. Yet, now that online and electronic fraud are included, the number of reported crimes has more than doubled. Crime was not falling; it was just moving online.”

In 2015, computer scientists, criminologists and legal academics joined forces to form the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Their aim is to help governments, businesses and ordinary users to construct better defences.

To understand how the criminals operate, researchers use machine learning and other techniques to recognise bad websites, understand what kinds of brands tend to be attacked and how often, determine how many criminals are behind an attack by looking at the pattern of the creation of fake sites and how effective the various defence systems are at getting them taken down.

One way in which studying cybercrime differs from many other areas of research is that the datasets are difficult to come by. Most belong to private companies, and researchers need to work hard to negotiate access. This is generally done through nondisclosure agreements, even if the data is out of date. And once researchers complete their work, they cannot make the data public, since it would reduce the competitive advantage of corporate players, and it may also make it possible for criminals to reverse engineer what was detected (and what wasn’t) and stay one step ahead of law enforcement.

One of the goals of the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre is to make it easier for cybercrime researchers from around the world to get access to data and share their results with colleagues.

To open up cybercrime research to colleagues across the globe, the team will leverage their existing relationships to collect and store cybercrime datasets, and then any bona fide researcher can sign a licence with the Centre and get to work without all the complexity of identifying and approaching the data holders themselves.

“Right now, getting access to data in this area is incredibly complicated,” says Dr Richard Clayton of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, who is also Director of the Centre. “But we think the framework we’ve set up will create a step change in the amount of work in cybercrime that uses real data. More people will be able to do research, and by allowing others to work on the same datasets more people will be able to do reproducible research and compare techniques, which is done extremely rarely at the moment.”

One of the team helping to make this work is Dr Julia Powles, a legal researcher cross-appointed between the Computer Laboratory and Faculty of Law. “There are several hurdles to data sharing,” says Powles. “Part of my job is to identify which ones are legitimate – for example, when there are genuine data protection and privacy concerns, or risks to commercial interests – and to work out when we are just dealing with paper tigers. We are striving to be as clear, principled and creative as possible in ratcheting up research in this essential field.”

Better research will make for better defences for governments, businesses and ordinary users. Today, there are a lot more tools to help users defend themselves against cybercrime – browsers are getting better at recognising bad URLs, for example – but, at the same time, criminals are becoming ever more effective, and more and more people are getting caught in their traps.

“You don’t actually have to be as clever as people once thought in order to fool a user,” says Clayton when explaining how fake bank websites are used to ‘phish’ for user credentials. “It used to be that cybercriminals would register a new domain name, like Barclays with two Ls, for instance. But they generally don’t do that for phishing attacks anymore, as end users aren’t looking at the address bar, they’re looking at whether the page looks right, whether the logos look right.”

̽��ֱ��Centre is also looking at issues around what motivates someone to commit cybercrime, and what makes them stop.

According to Dr Alice Hutchings, a criminologist specialising in cybercrime, cybercriminals tend to fall into two main categories. ̽��ֱ��first category is the opportunistic offender, who may be motivated by a major strain in their lives, such as financial pressures or problems with gambling or addiction, and who uses cybercrime as a way to meet their goals. ̽��ֱ��second type of offender typically comes from a more stable background, and is gradually exposed to techniques for committing cybercrime through associations with others.

Both groups will usually keep offending as long as cybercrime meets their particular needs, whether it’s financial gratification, or supporting a drug habit, or giving them recognition within their community. What often makes offenders stop is the point at which the costs of continuing outweigh the benefits: for instance, when it takes a toll on their employment, other outside interests or personal relationships.

“Most offenders never get caught, so there’s no reason to think that they won’t go back to cybercrime,” says Hutchings. “They can always start again if circumstances in their lives change.

“There is so much cybercrime happening out there. You can educate potential victims, but there will always be other potential victims, and new ways that criminals can come up with to social engineer somebody’s details, for example. Proactive prevention against potential offenders is a good place to start.”

Criminologist Professor Lawrence Sherman believes the collaboration between security engineering and criminology is long overdue, both at Cambridge and globally: “Cybercrime is the crime of this century, a challenge we are just beginning to understand and challenge with science.”

“We’re extremely grateful to the people giving us this data, who are doing it because they think academic research will make a difference,” says Clayton. “Our key contribution is realising that there was a roadblock in terms of being able to distribute the data. It’s not that other people couldn’t get the data before, but it was very time-consuming, so only a limited number of people were doing research in this area – we want to change that.”

“Our Cybercrime Centre will not only provide detailed technical information about what’s going on, so that firms can construct better defences,” says Anderson. “It will also provide strategic information, as a basis for making better policy.”

As more and more crime moves online, computer scientists, criminologists and legal academics have joined forces in Cambridge to improve our understanding and responses to cybercrime, helping governments, businesses and ordinary users construct better defences.

You don’t actually have to be as clever as people once thought in order to fool a user

Richard Clayton

LastHuckleBerry

TeQi's Graffitti Phish

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Stroke survivors face ‘invisible impairments’ to return to work

cjb250 — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 18:30:53 +0000

Each year, 110,000 people in England alone suffer a stroke, a quarter of whom are of working age. ̽��ֱ��UK’s stroke strategy highlights the importance for people who have had a stroke of returning to work: being unemployed is associated with physical and mental health problems, while working has positive effects on the health of people with chronic conditions. A recent study estimated the cost of stroke care in the UK to be £9 billion a year, of which almost a third (30%) is due to loss of income and productivity.

To explore the experiences of people who have returned to work after a stroke, researchers analysed the archives of TalkStroke, a UK-based online forum hosted by the Stroke Association, across a seven year period (2004-2011). It is believed to be the first study to utilise data from such forums to study barriers to staying in work after stroke.

̽��ֱ��researchers searched more than 20,000 posts for the phrases “return to work” and “back at work” and identified 60 people who had posted about the issue during the seven year period. Almost all of those who managed to return to work still experienced a range of residual invisible impairments, including memory and concentration problems and fatigue.

On the online forums, some commenters described the problems with looking ‘normal’, but not feeling the same way and how this led to a lack understanding among co-workers, but also to their own sense of feeling a fraud.

Having a supportive employer helped people ease themselves back into work and enabled survivors to make adjustments, including a gradual return to work, reduced hours and working from home. But when employers were unsupportive, survivors found this particularly distressing and stressful; some posters even reported being bullied by colleagues.

Some commenters gave specific advice to others, such as recommending speaking to their GP, but awareness was low of what do and where to seek advice if stroke-related problems persisted long-term.

“Although a stroke survivor may look like they have recovered, they can be still be affected by invisible impairments that make work difficult,” says Dr Anna De Simoni, a lecturer in Primary Care Research at QMUL and visiting researcher at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

“Conversations in the internet forums suggest we need to raise awareness of the support available to individuals, but also more widely amongst primary care professionals and employers of how they can best accommodate and support their staff.”

Perhaps surprisingly, the forums also highlighted that GPs themselves did not always understand the impairments and could often do more to support their patients. One man, aged 61 at the time of his stroke, reported that his GP was unwilling to extend his sick leave as he said the man could sit at a desk and move all his limbs and so was fit to work, yet the man suffered impairments such as walking and communication problems, limb spasms and fatigue.

In a sister paper, also in BMJ Open, the authors report how TalkStroke proved to be a powerful tool for providing advice and support for survivors and their carers. ̽��ֱ��study found that 95% of information and support requests by patients with stroke and their families in the online forum were answered in replies.

̽��ֱ��main reasons for taking part in online discussions were requests and offers of information and support, and sharing own experiences of stroke. Most information needs were around physical impairments, understanding the cause of stroke and the potential for recovery.

Professor Jonathan Mant from the Cambridge Primary Care Unit says: “Almost all requests of information and support on the forums receive an answer. In a time when GP surgeries are full and patients are waiting weeks for community appointments, these online forums can provide a way for stroke survivors and their carers to receive helpful advice and support.”

̽��ֱ��researchers were funded by the National Institute for Health Research and the Evelyn Trust.

Kate Pieroudis, Manager of the Back to Work Project at the Stroke Association said: “Employers can have a vital part to play in helping stroke survivors get back into the workplace and on the road to recovery. Stroke is incredibly complex and affects every person differently. In some cases, the long-term effects of the condition, such as communication problems or memory loss, may only become apparent in a work environment.

“With the right support, many stroke survivors can and do go back to work successfully. Planning with employers is essential so they understand how a stroke has affected an individual, and can put necessary support and adjustments in place. ̽��ֱ��Stroke Association provides information and practical advice on work and stroke to both employers and stroke survivors.”

̽��ֱ��Stroke Association’s ‘Complete Guide to Stroke for Employers’ can be downloaded here.

Reference
Balasooriya-Smeekens, C et al. Barriers and facilitators to staying in work after stroke: insight from an online forum. BMJ Open; 6 April 2016; DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-009974

De Simoni, A. et al. Stroke survivors and their families receive information and support on an individual basis from an online forum: descriptive analysis of a population of 2,348 patients and qualitative study of a sample of participants. BMJ Open; 6 April 2016; DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010501

‘Invisible impairments’ can make it difficult for stroke survivors to maintain a job, according to a study from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Queen Mary ̽��ֱ�� of London (QMUL). ̽��ֱ��findings, published today in the journal BMJ Open, suggest that more needs to be done to make survivors, their GPs and employers aware of the difficulties that they may face.

Although a stroke survivor may look like they have recovered, they can be still be affected by invisible impairments that make work difficult

Anna De Simoni

Helloquence

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Online resource to support the work of biodiversity conservation organisations

lw355 — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 08:01:57 +0000

Capacityforconservation.org is a free online resource designed to act as a central hub where biodiversity conservation organisations can download tools, contribute their expertise, and learn from one another to strengthen their ability to address complex conservation challenges.

Knowing the best way for an organisation to develop to become a sustainable and resilient entity, or even understanding the questions the organisation needs to ask of itself in order to start this development, can be a daunting challenge.

̽��ֱ��new resource recognises that conservation organisations often ask similar questions as to how they can best address the challenges they are tackling – whether it’s a local organisation on the Kenyan coast seeking to improve the sustainable management of marine and coastal resources or a grassroots non-government organisation trying to tackle the trade in threatened species in Vietnam.

Capacityforconservation.org provides resources such as published reports, case studies and indicators that these types of organisations can use to help them answer their questions, as well as a global platform for organisations to share best practice with one another. Having a single source of information and a platform where organisations can share their experiences of undertaking their own development will be a significant benefit to these organisations, and, in turn, the conservation actions they are undertaking.

Christina Garcia, Director of the Ya’axché Conservation Trust, Belize, and a user of capacityforconservation.org said: “Accessing different tools on the Capacity for Conservation website allowed Ya’axché to realise the experiences we have are shared among organisations around the world.”

In addition to access to resources and examples of best practice, capacityforconservation.org also offers self-led organisational health checks for conservation organisations. ̽��ֱ��results of these health checks indicate areas where organisations could consider improving their capacity, along with recommendations for tools on the website that the organisation could use to do so. An organisation that needs to work on its financial management, for example, would be directed to over 25 resources, ranging from a guide to budgetary management to a document about risk analysis.

Professor Nigel Leader-Williams, Director of Conservation Leadership at the Department of Geography, is a member of the consortium who developed capacityforconservation.org. “ ̽��ֱ��site seeks to offer conservation organisations around the world the ability to self-check their capacity to meet the immense organisational challenges they face in saving biodiversity globally.

“Based around an easy to navigate and attractive interface, capacityforconservation.org has the potential to make a real difference to the ability of conservation organisations to implement conservation actions on the ground. Developed by a group of partners in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, the resource draws on the experience within CCI and its networks to offer a unique resource to conservation practitioners world-wide.”

Capacityforconservation.org has been developed by the Capacity for Conservation Collaboration, a joint initiative between the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s partners BirdLife International, Fauna & Flora International, the Tropical Biology Association and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Geography, with funds from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s Collaborative Fund for Conservation.

Capacityforconservation.org currently contains over 140 tools, resources and case studies gathered by leading conservation organisations. Resources are available in 18 languages, and work is under way to translate the site into Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.

A free online resource, launched today (1 October), will help conservation organisations share expertise and tools, aiding them in addressing some of the planet’s most challenging conservation issues.

Capacityforconservation.org has the potential to make a real difference to the ability of conservation organisations to implement conservation actions on the ground

Nigel Leader-Williams

Paul Haigh

Bee

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