Online frauds have become a major problem in many countries with millions of victims from a wide diversity of scams committed in full or part online. This paper explores the extent and nature of this problem. Using data from depth interviews with 15 online fraud victims, 6 focus groups with a further 48 online fraud victims and interviews with 9 professional stakeholders involved in combating this problem. The paper explores why victims fall for online scams. It identifies a range of reasons including: the diversity of frauds, small amounts of money sought, authority and legitimacy displayed by scammers, visceral appeals, embarrassing frauds, pressure and coercion, grooming, fraud at a distance and multiple techniques.

In this paper the work of Martha Nussbaum (in which 10 ''essential'' functions required for human life are identified) is used as a framework for using ''moderate essentialism'' in the study of housing -or more specifically, to introduce moderate essentialism framed through the capabilities and critical realism, to a theoretical interpretation of what housing represents, as both an enabling and constraining force by which to attain these 10 essential functions. Data from a recent qualitative study of transitions through homelessness conducted in the UK is used to illustrate the resonance that these 10 functions may (or may not) have for individuals to live a ''well lived'' life. A fit is found; it is clear that housing is closely related, although this is a complex relationship with the capability to attain one function at times being at the expense of another. It is postulated that the intersection of these functions (and their ''essentialist'' nature) provides an approach for future consideration of the role housing has in enabling a ''well lived'' life.

Stop It Now! aims to prevent child sexual abuse using a free anonymous helpline. It provides information, advice, and guidance to anyone concerned about child sexual abuse. It targets people who have sexually abused children or who are worried that they might do so. This article presents findings from a pilot study on the operation and outcomes of the helplines in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The findings underline the strength of the public health approach to prevention efforts. More specifically, benefits reported by helpline users are shown to correspond with the aims of the helplines. A number of factors were reported by users that helped them modify their own or others' actions to minimize risk of abuse. However, a challenge that remains is ensuring that helplines are accessible to those most in need. Recommendations are included to further expand the effect of Stop It Now! in reducing CSA.

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to explore women's views of the design of a large pragmatic cost-effectiveness randomised controlled trial of the policy of offering a health professional-delivered intervention to promote early presentation with breast symptoms in older women and thereby improve survival, with a view to informing protocol development. The trial will recruit over 100,000 healthy women aged 67+, and outcome data will be collected on those who develop breast cancer. The scale of the trial and the need for long-term follow-up presented a number of design challenges in relation to obtaining consent, ascertaining and contacting participants who developed breast cancer, and collecting outcome data.MethodsQualitative study involving 69 women participating in 7 focus groups and 17 in-depth interviews. 15 women had a previous diagnosis of breast cancer and 54 did not.ResultsThe women held strong views and had a good understanding of the rationale of the design of clinical trials. The women recognised that in a very large trial with long-term follow-up it was necessary to incorporate design features to make the trial feasible and efficient. Most strikingly, they supported the idea of opt-out consent and identifying women with breast cancer using routine datasets.ConclusionsThis model of user involvement engaged women well with the design challenges of the trial and led to improvements to the protocol. The study strengthens the case for user involvement, in particular through focus groups and in-depth interviews, in the design of trials.

Academic accounts of the causation of homelessness consistently refer to social structural factors. There is no engagement in these accounts with the possibility that 'agency' (individually taken actions) also has a role. The transgressive nature of factors associated with homelessness-substance misuse, poor mental health, and so on-and a desire to avoid pathologising people experiencing homelessness, may explain this lack of engagement. Transgression refers to acts that challenge boundaries of normative social behaviour. Yet, it is demonstrated in this article that agency has to be 'written back in' if adequate theories of homelessness and causation are to develop. Contextualised rational action theory provides a critical realist conceptual framework from which to do so, without losing sight of the importance of social structures. Drawing on three case studies, it is demonstrated that what may be considered transgressive acts that lead to homelessness-refusal to engage with support services, alcohol misuse, street sex work-can be identified as having a 'thin' rationality, when the context they occur within is incorporated into the analysis. This approach therefore takes agency into proper account, whilst also acknowledging the importance of structural constraints in the generation of transgressive acts and homelessness. The intention here is not to apportion 'blame' or to 'pathologise', but to take people experiencing homelessness and their circumstances, motivations and actions seriously.Edgework, critical realism, case studies,