Methods of quantifying consumer exposure to lead in drinking water are increasingly of interest worldwide, especially those that account for consumer drinking habits and the semirandom nature of water lead release from plumbing systems. A duplicate intake protocol was developed in which individuals took a sub-sample from each measured drink they consumed in the home over three days in both winter and summer. The protocol was applied in two different water company regional areas (WC1 and WC2), selected to represent high risk situations in England, with the presence or absence of lead service pipes or phosphate corrosion control. Consumer exposure to lead was highest in properties with lead service pipes, served by water without P dosing. The protocol indicated that a small number of individuals in the study, all from homes with lead service pipes, consumed lead at levels that exceeded current guidance from the European Food Standards Agency. Children's potential blood lead levels (BLLs) were estimated using the Internal Exposure Uptake Biokinetic model (IEUBK). The IEUBK model predicted that up to 46% of children aged 0-7 years old may have elevated BLLs (>5 µg/dL) when consuming the worst case drinking water quality (>99%ile). Estimating blood lead levels using the IEUBK model for more typical lead concentrations in drinking water identified in this study (between 0.1-7.1 µg/L), predicts that elevated BLLs may affect a small proportion of children between 0-7 years old.

Coping style plays an important role in children's wellbeing. This paper describes the patterns of associations between children's self-reported coping styles and symptoms of anxiety in order to determine whether particular dimensions are associated with better adjustment. Participants were 2566 children (1268 girls, 1298 boys) aged seven to eleven years attending 15 schools in the South East of England. Results showed that aspects of coping were differentially associated with children's self-reported anxiety.Patterns of association also varied by age and gender. Dimensions of coping were shown to form distinct adaptive and maladaptive coping styles which were also differentially associated with anxiety. Analysis of these styles indicated that it is the absence of maladaptive coping strategies, rather than the presence of adaptive strategies, that is significant in emotional wellbeing. These findings suggest that interventions designed to reduce or extinguish maladaptive coping styles may be of particular benefit in facilitating emotional wellbeing.

Coping plays a key role in psychological adjustment. However, while coping in adulthood has been extensively studied, coping in childhood remains relatively sparsely researched. This may be in part due to the fact that measures of coping have yet to be developed that are suitable for use with young children. This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of the Profile of Coping Dimensions in Children (PCDC), a new, theory-driven measure of coping suitable for use in middle childhood, designed to assess coping as a multidimensional construct across eleven dimensions linked with wellbeing. Patterns of coping across age and gender were also examined. Participants were 2566 children aged 7-11 years, attending 15 primary (elementary) schools in the South East of England. The measure was administered along with other questionnaires designed to measure anxiety, somatization and perceived stress and happiness. The measure was found to be easy to use, and suitable for use in this age group. Coping response styles assessed using the measure were found to vary by age and gender, and were differentially associated with measures of anxiety, somatization and perceived stress and happiness. Results provide preliminary support for the utility of the measure as a multidimensional assessment of coping in middle childhood. MEASURING COPING IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD 3 Development and Preliminary Validation of a Self-Report Coping Response Measure in a Community Sample of Children in Middle Childhood Coping skills, or, more precisely, the different ways in which we negotiate threat and respond to challenging or stressful circumstances, appear to play a key role in personality development, and shape an individual's adaptation and functioning across the life course (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980; Garmezy, 1987). Variations in coping can have significant implications for our psychological and physical health (Zeidner & Endler, 1996) and may be a powerful predictor of adaptation, or the ability to deal with new experiences and change (Braun-Lewensohn et al., 2009; Lengua & Long, 2002). Understanding coping is particularly relevant in terms of intervention: unlike less malleable variables, such as poverty or temperament, coping responses are potentially modifiable, and thus amenable to interventions (Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen, & Wadsworth, 2001). For example, Allen et al. (2016) have shown that an intervention designed to help children identify thoughts, feelings, and coping strategies related to psychological, behavioral, and interpersonal issues following trauma can enhance coping and increase feelings of hope. Others have demonstrated that interventions can enhance interpersonal problem-solving skills (Shure & Spivack, 1980), verbal coping responses (Kanfer, Karoly, & Newman, 1975), and emotion-(Pincus & Friedman, 2004) and problem-focused coping skills (Dubow, Schmidt, McBride, Edwards, & Merk, 1993). Despite this evidence, coping in childhood remains relatively sparsely researched in comparison with the adult lite...

No abstract

The rapid and unprecedented shift from face-to-face instruction to remote online learning as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on teaching and learning in Higher Education: students had to adapt to a new way of learning, away from typical campus settings and their peers, and to new forms of assessments. This study examined academic stress, learning strategies, motivation and ways of coping from a sample of 177 unique students from a large London university, collecting primary data via survey at three time points during the academic year 2020/21 when teaching was remote and online only.Our findings show how patterns in academic stress, learning strategies, motivation and coping vary over the course of the academic year giving novel insight into how student learning and adaptation to the situation changed over time.We also report on differences in these patterns according to year group and for those students who are the first-infamily to attend university and those who are not. Based on these findings we identify priority areas where higher education institutions should support undergraduate students