news 2012

Improving water supplies in rural African villages may have negative knock-on effects and contribute to increased poverty, new research published today [14 November] has found. Rural development initiatives across the developing world are designed to improve community wellbeing and livelihoods but a study of Ethiopian villages by researchers at the Universities of Bristol and Addis Ababa in Africa has shown that this can lead to unforeseen consequences caused by an increase in the birth rate in the absence of family planning.

Since 2004, nearly 1.9 million East Europeans have come to the UK1 . New research, led by academics at the University of Bristol, has examined how current East European migration to the UK has been racialised in immigration policy and tabloid journalism, providing the first insights into how racism is affecting migrants' experiences of work and life in the UK.

Research at the University of Liverpool has found that more than 1,000 people committed suicide due to the 2008-2010 economic recession in the UK. Suicides began to rise in the UK in 2008 following 20 years of decline – figures rose 8% among men and 9% among women in 2008, compared to 2007. And even though suicides did begin to fall in 2010 figures were still above the 2007 averages.

Standard tools used to predict how likely an offender is to commit further offences are not sufficiently accurate to inform sentencing and release decisions on their own, an Oxford-led study suggests. Risk assessment tools are widely used in psychiatric hospitals and criminal justice systems around the world to help predict violent behaviour.

Women whose claims for asylum includes allegations that they have been raped need greater assurance their cases are being taken seriously, a study states. Researchers found that several of the problems that can hamper the fair treatment of women's rape allegations within the criminal justice system may also be present, and sometimes amplified, when made as part of women's asylum claims.

New research examining how armed groups formed in Libya to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi says the revolutionary brigades are still a cohesive military force. The study highlights the emergence of the National Shield, which it calls an 'army-in-waiting'. The research suggests there is a power struggle over the rebuilding of the Libyan National Army as revolutionary commanders still distrust much of the leadership of the Libyan National Army and the Ministry of Defence who ran the war against them.

Suicides by psychiatric in-patients have fallen to a new low, research published today (Thursday) has found. The study by the University of Manchester's National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, one of very few to look at trends over time, shows the rate of suicide among psychiatric in-patients fell by between 29% and 31% between 1997 and 2008, with nearly 100 fewer deaths per year.

There has been a major reduction in deaths involving the pain-relief drug co-proxamol since it was withdrawn in the UK in 2005, an Oxford University-led study has found. There have been no apparent increases in poisoning deaths involving other pain killers. The findings of the study by Professor Keith Hawton of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford and colleagues is published in the journal PLoS Medicine .

Older people who self-harm are at much greater risk of suicide than both the general population and younger adults who self-harm, a new study has found. Researchers from The University of Manchester studied 1,177 people over the age of 60 who presented to six general hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby after self-harming.

Research led by Oxford University refutes claims that assessment reports by independent social work experts have caused delays in care proceedings. Claims were made during the Family Justice Review that independent social work expert (ISW) reports delayed cases and added little or no value. This resulted in the Review recommending in their interim report that the use of such reports should be restricted.

Prisoners tend to be more generous than the general public because they could be looking for ways to atone for their crimes, research has shown. A ground-breaking study by academics at Plymouth University showed inmates are prepared to make greater financial sacrifices than members of the public. The research, published in the scientific journal Social Justice Research , was conducted by Michaela Gummerum and Yaniv Hanoch, both lecturers in the University's School of Psychology.

Research from the University of Warwick suggests suicide rates are much higher in protestant areas than catholic areas. Professor Sascha Becker from the University of Warwick's Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Society (CAGE) has published his latest paper Knocking on Heaven's Door? Protestantism and Suicide.

Far right supporters in the UK believe violent conflict between different religious, racial and ethnic groups is largely inevitable, according to a new survey on political extremism. From Voting to Violence? Far Right Extremism in Britain examines the beliefs of those identifying themselves as members of the British National Party, the English Defence League or the UK Independence Party.

Children involved in bullying - as both a victim and a bully - are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts by the time they reach 11 years old, according to research from the University of Warwick. In a paper published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the researchers found children who are both victims and bullies ('bully-victims'), are at highly increased risk of considering suicide, or have planned and engaged in suicidal or self-harming behaviour by 11-12 years of age.

A new study has revealed the widening gap in suicide rates between Scotland and England & Wales due to a large extent to the number of young Scottish men taking their lives. The research, carried out by the Universities of Manchester and Edinburgh and the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, examined suicide rates north and south of the border between 1960 and 2008.

Researchers at The University of Manchester have for the first time shown a positive link between improvements in mental health services and a reduction in suicide rates. Their research is published in The Lancet today (Thursday) in a study by the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, based at the University's Centre for Mental Health and Risk.

A new study has looked into how our psychology concerning war and conflict may have been shaped by our evolutionary past. Following a review of current academic literature by psychologists, biologists and anthropologists, the study concludes that men are biologically programmed to be warriors because of our deep ancestral history of inter-tribal war and conflict.