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Cross-group friendship and collective action in community solidarity initiatives with displaced people and resident/nationals.Introduction: In Ireland, people seeking asylum (displaced people) receive accommodation in a system called "Direct Provision" (DP) while they wait for their applications for protection to be processed. The living conditions of DP have been described as illegal and inhumane by national and international human rights groups, and the system exacerbates the social exclusion of displaced people. Community responses to DP by displaced people and resident/nationals of Ireland include the creation of informal groups called community solidarity initiatives (CSI), through which cross-group friendships are forged by participation in shared cultural activities. We hypothesized that, compared to non-CSI participants, participants of CSI would report more cross-group friendships, and that more cross-group friendships would predict stronger collective action intentions to support the campaign to end DP, especially among resident/nationals. Methods: We recruited residents/nationals and displaced persons with and without CSI experience to complete a self-report questionnaire (n = 199), measuring cross-group friendship, collective action intentions, and intergroup attitudes. Data were collected between July 2020 and March 2021, using a combination of online and paper surveys. We conducted ANOVA and conditional process analyses on the data to test our hypotheses. Results: As predicted, CSI participants reported more contact with cross-group friends and stronger collective action intentions than non-participators. Conditional process analysis indicated that CSI participation facilitated resident/nationals' political solidarity with displaced people through cross-group friendship. Discussion: Findings identify the role of group membership in the relationship between contact and collective action for migrant justice, illustrating the potential of CSI to bolster intergroup solidarity and social cohesion through shared activities and cross-group friendship. As such, findings make an important contribution to the literature on intergroup contact, solidarity, and social cohesion, and will be relevant for community practitioners, civil society organisations, NGOs, and policy makers.
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Investigating the pathways from preconception care to preventing maternal, perinatal and child mortality: A scoping review and causal loop diagram.In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that developing preconception care provides an opportunity to significantly reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity. This involves targeting multiple risk factors through a large array of medical, behavioural and social interventions. In this study, we created a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) to describe several pathways by which a set of preconception interventions may lead to women's improved health and better pregnancy outcomes. The CLD was informed by a scoping review of meta-analyses. It summarises evidence on the outcomes and interventions related to eight preconception risk factors. The authors reviewed literature from two databases (PubMed and Embase) and used the framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley. The CLD includes 29 constructs categorised into five different levels (mortality, causes of death, preconception risk factors, intermediate factors, interventions or policies). The model indicates interconnections between five sub-systems and highlights the role of preventing early and rapidly repeated pregnancies, as well as optimising women's nutritional status in the preconception period. It also shows the prevention of preterm birth as a privileged route for lowering child mortality and morbidity. The CLD demonstrates the potential benefits of strategies that address multiple preconception risk factors simultaneously and can be used as a tool to promote the integration of preconception care into efforts to prevent maternal and child mortality. With further improvements, this model could serve as a basis for future research on the costs and benefits of preconception care.
