Bob Heyman
Biographic Data
| ID | 263943 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bob Heyman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bob |
| FAMILY NAME | Heyman |
| SIGNATURE | HEYMAN B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Huddersfield |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 183 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 48 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Concealment, communication and stigma
This study explored the perspectives of Black men, originally from East Africa, living in the United Kingdom and their partners on what it means to live with diagnosed HIV. This article reports on concealment of HIV-positive status as a strategy adopted by the affected participants to manage the flow of information about their HIV-positive status. Analysis of the data, collected using in-depth interviews involving 23 participants, found widesprea…
The journey effect
The qualitative study presented in this paper explored the perspectives of service-users, family members and staff about the impact of travel issues on the lives of mental health in-patients and carers. This topic was chosen because it was prioritised by members of Xplore, a service-user and carer research group, and has received little research attention. Travel problems were a significant issue for many service-users and carers, bound-up with m…
Playing the game
In this article we examine how forensic mental health service users actively attempt to manage their risk status through playing the game of containing frustration and demonstrating compliance. The article draws on an observational study (2006 to 2009) which explored the practices of risk assessment and management within one inner city forensic mental health medium secure service in the UK. We used a grounded theory approach to explore service us…
Perspectives on ‘the lens of risk’ interview series
This article is the fourth and final of an interview series with a selection of significant contributors to the social science of risk. It provides quasi-verbatim interviews with Tom Horlick-Jones, Paul Slovic and Andy Alaszewski. Tom Horlick-Jones contributed to Chapter 6 of the Royal Society Risk monograph, on risk management. He offers further insights into the debates which underlay its production to those given by Nick Pidgeon in the first a…
‘The sooner you can change their life course the better’
In this article, we compare accounts given by young carers and specialist support workers about the riskiness of becoming a carer relatively early in life. We argue that since the mid-1990s, the policy response has problematised the comparatively early adoption of a caring role as a risk factor for future personal development. This temporal issue has become societally organised around concern about NEETs (young adults not in education, employment…
Assessing the probability of patients reoffending after discharge from low to medium secure forensic mental health services
Citizens of developed societies are troubled by those who commit ‘irrational' crimes against the person. Reoffending by ex-patients following their release from secure mental health services triggers particularly intense angst when amplified by media and political scrutiny. Forensic mental health service providers are expected to minimise the occurrence of such transgressions by releasing only those patients who are judged acceptably unlikely to …
Health care through the ‘lens of risk’
in 2012-2013 which marked the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Royal Society Risk report in 1992.In these Issues we showed how the objectivist definition of risk in this monograph as 'the probability that a particular adverse event occurs during a stated period of time, or results from a particular challenge' could be fruitfully reframed from an interpretivist standpoint.From this perspective, events are considered to derive variab…
Perspectives on the ‘lens of risk’ interview series
Drinking alcohol at home and in public places and the time framing of risks
The United Kingdom has witnessed a steady rise in per capita consumption of alcohol in the three decades leading up to 2004 since when there has been a decline. Much of this increase can be accounted for by increased drinking away from licensed premises. In this article, we analyse the ways in which people who drink in such settings think about the temporal dimension of risks which they associate with alcohol consumption. We present findings from…
‘I am not someone who gets skin cancer’
‘Delay’ has been used in the cancer literature since the 1930s to describe the period between self-detection of a concerning sign of possible disease and presentation to a health professional. This linguistic choice carries an implication of blame for apparent failure to manage a risk appropriately, drawing attention away from the contemporaneous perspectives of those who respond to suspicious indicators more or less quickly. We present findings …
Time-framing and health risks
This special issue is the last in a four-part series Health Care Through the ‘Lens of Risk’, which focuses on risk categorisation, valuing, expecting and time-framing, respectively, and has been published in 2012–2013. The present editorial introduces the issue of time-framing in relation to an interview-based article, a guest editorial and six articles reporting findings from empirical research. The central argument of the editorial concerns the…
Risk and Culture
Perspectives on the ‘lens of risk’ interview series
This article is the first in a series which will appear in 2012 in the special issue series Health Care Through the `Lens of Risk'. It provides a quasi-verbatim transcript of an interview with Nick Pidgeon, one of the main contributors to the social science component of The Royal Society Risk Report (1992). The interview contains a fascinating insider account of the debate about risk between engineers and social scientists who produced the report…
Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative? The variable value dynamics of non-suicidal self-hurting
Medical accounts mostly frame non-suicidal self-hurting as an adverse event, the frequency of which has supposedly increased to a current ‘epidemic’ level, and which can be predicted probabilistically in terms of risk factors. This set of presuppositions gives rise to the common stigmatisation of those who present to Accident and Emergency services as a result of self-hurting. It is now being challenged in a small but growing body of social scien…
The case of the lady who risked exploding
This paper explores the role of value judgements in personal risk management through an in-depth case study involving a woman's treatment for anal cancer. Julia (pseudonym) agreed to have her pre-treatment medical consultation recorded, and participated in two subsequent interviews. Delving into a single case makes it possible to understand why an individual makes decisions in relation to the overall nexus of risks and benefits which they identif…
Perspectives on the ‘lens of risk’ interview series
This article is the second of a set which will be published in 2012/2013 in the special issue series Health Care Through the ‘Lens of Risk’. The interviews explore the views of leading social scientists about the study of risk and its societal significance. This particular article shares responses from interviews with two highly influential European social scientists about their approaches to risk. These responses, from Joost van Loon and Ortwin …
The GM debate
The GM debate: risk, politics and public engagement, by Tom Horlick-Jones, John Walls, Gene Rowe, Nick Pidgeon, Wouter Poortinga, Graham Murdock and Tim O'Riordan, London, Routledge, 2009, 232 pp
A Randomised Controlled Trial of an Energy Efficiency Intervention for Families Living in Fuel Poverty
This paper discusses a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of a fuel poverty intervention undertaken in NE England over a four-year period, starting in 2000/2001. Home energy efficiency was measured through Standardised Assessment Procedure (SAP) ratings in each year of the trial. The trial group received an energy efficiency intervention package in year three, and the control group in year four. Year three room temperature data for a sub-sampl…
Health Care through the Lens of Risk Call for Papers for a four part special issue of Health, Risk & Society
Screening for health risks
Health screening promises to reduce risks to individuals via probabilistic sifting of populations for medical conditions. The categorisation and selection of ‘conditions’ such as cardiovascular events, dementia and depression for screening itself requires prior interpretive labour which usually remains unexamined. Screening systems can take diverse organisational forms and varying relationships to health status, as when purported disease precurso…
Devoted protection
This paper aims to explore the risk perceptions of parents caring for children who have severe learning disabilities and complex medical needs. The paper draws upon a qualitative study involving 20 parents, mostly mothers. The findings document the demanding care requirements which these parents had to meet. Parents viewed their role in terms of devoted vocation rather than meeting a burdensome obligation. This dedication interacted with heighten…
Risk and uncertainty
Reflecting on a meta-synthesis of qualitative papers concerned with pregnant women's decision-making about prenatal screening for Down syndrome
Multidisciplinary Teamwork in a UK Regional Secure Mental Health Unit a Matter for Negotiation
Evaluating community health services
The best way to evaluate community health services remains the subject of much argument and debate. This paper explores difficulties encountered in the management of a randomized controlled trial of physiotherapy in a primary health care setting, and discusses conflicts which arose when carrying out a time limited commissioned evaluation of a carer support scheme. Although randomized controlled trials are still regarded as the gold standard in me…
Women as moral pioneers? Experiences of first trimester antenatal screening
Keeping warm and staying well
This paper presents findings from the qualitative arm of the Warm Homes Project, a programme of research concerned with the nature of fuel poverty, its alleviation and its relationship to family health. Much of the research into fuel poverty, which results from various combinations of low income and fuel inefficiency, has drawn upon quantitative paradigms. Experiences of, and coping with, fuel poverty have not been well explored. Data for the pre…
Public Research, Private Concerns
This paper is an exploration of the ethical dilemmas in open-ended interview research with people with learning difficulties. We address the possibility that research which gives voice to the experience of abuse, from the viewpoint of the victim, can itself be abusive. Such research is justified in terms of empowering, illuminating and disseminating the meaning that participants give to their lives. Yet every stage of the process raises complex e…
On being at higher risk
Life History or ‘Case’ History
Case histories of people with learning difficulties tend to privilege information that is useful to professionals, such as IQ and medical diagnosis. Such information allows professionals to slot people with learning difficulties into categories which inform 'treatment' and aid prognosis. Case records, as they are currently constructed, appear to further silence an already oppressed group of people, and to objectify, pathologise and label them. Th…
What's in a Name? The Implications of Diagnosis for People with Learning Difficulties and their Family Carers
Diagnosis plays a significant role in the shaping of individual identities and the quality of life for people with learning difficulties and their family carers. Diagnostic labels are constitutive of peoples' lives, in that they bring forth pathology, create problem-saturated stories and construct careers as patients and cases. Disabled identities of people with learning difficulties remain largely 'embodied' and within the definitional control o…
Probabilities and health risks
A Randomised Controlled Trial of an Energy Efficiency Intervention for Families Living in Fuel Poverty
This paper discusses a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of a fuel poverty intervention undertaken in NE England over a four-year period, starting in 2000/2001. Home energy efficiency was measured through Standardised Assessment Procedure (SAP) ratings in each year of the trial. The trial group received an energy efficiency intervention package in year three, and the control group in year four. Year three room temperature data for a sub-sampl…
The problems of offenders with mental disorders
Alone in the crowd
Sexuality as a Perceived Hazard in the Lives of Adults with Learning Difficulties
Qualitative research by the present authors has suggested that the management of hazards is a central issue for adults with learning difficulties (adults) and informal carers. This paper focuses on adult sexual relationships as a perceived hazard. Informal carers viewed such relationships as unacceptably dangerous. Those from 'danger avoiding' families, who had low risk tolerance, prohibited situations which might lead to a sexual relationship, e…
Constructs of Relationship
Concealment, communication and stigma
This study explored the perspectives of Black men, originally from East Africa, living in the United Kingdom and their partners on what it means to live with diagnosed HIV. This article reports on concealment of HIV-positive status as a strategy adopted by the affected participants to manage the flow of information about their HIV-positive status. Analysis of the data, collected using in-depth interviews involving 23 participants, found widesprea…
Multidisciplinary Teamwork in a UK Regional Secure Mental Health Unit a Matter for Negotiation
Not worth the risk? Attitudes of adults with learning difficulties, and their informal and formal carers to the hazards of everyday life
Organisational simplification and secondary complexity in health services for adults with learning disabilities
The journey effect
The qualitative study presented in this paper explored the perspectives of service-users, family members and staff about the impact of travel issues on the lives of mental health in-patients and carers. This topic was chosen because it was prioritised by members of Xplore, a service-user and carer research group, and has received little research attention. Travel problems were a significant issue for many service-users and carers, bound-up with m…
Evaluating community health services
The best way to evaluate community health services remains the subject of much argument and debate. This paper explores difficulties encountered in the management of a randomized controlled trial of physiotherapy in a primary health care setting, and discusses conflicts which arose when carrying out a time limited commissioned evaluation of a carer support scheme. Although randomized controlled trials are still regarded as the gold standard in me…
Health risk escalators and the rehabilitation of offenders with learning disabilities
A Risk Management Dilemma
This paper describes a qualitative study which explored the views about challenging behaviour of staff in day centres for people with learning difficulties. Respondents' abstract definitions stressed the relativity of the concept. However, they readily cited concrete illustrate incidents of challenging behaviour which involved physical, sexual and verbal assault, noise, non-compliance, non-communication and exposure to danger. Staff explained spe…
Constructs of Relationship
An Outline of Psychology as Applied to Medicine/Psychological Factors in Health Care/Interpersonal Behaviour and Health Care (Book)
Social Class and the Prevalence of Handicapping Conditions
A series of hypotheses concerning relationships between age, sex, social class and the prevalence of handicapping conditions were developed and tested against the data from two large British cross-sectional surveys. The data showed that, as predicted, the prevalence of handicapping conditions was most strongly associated with indicators of social class among the middle-aged and that class related differences on physiological and lifestyle health …
Community Mental Health Care
A questionnaire assessment of mental health and of perceptions of formal care was conducted with a sample of clients before they received a voluntary agency mental health intervention in addition to normal community psychiatric and social services. The assessment was repeated three months later. A matched control group who received only the normal services were also assessed twice over a period of three months. Both groups improved significantly …
‘Normal’ Life in a Hazardous World
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 adults with moderate learning difficulties attending Adult Training Centres and with their informal carers. Interviews covered friendships, relationships with the opposite sex, leisure and independent living and were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Ways of dealing with hazards emerged as an important theme. Hazards could be seen as dangers to be avoided or as risks to be calculated and …
Not worth the risk? Attitudes of adults with learning difficulties, and their informal and formal carers to the hazards of everyday life
Sexuality as a Perceived Hazard in the Lives of Adults with Learning Difficulties
Qualitative research by the present authors has suggested that the management of hazards is a central issue for adults with learning difficulties (adults) and informal carers. This paper focuses on adult sexual relationships as a perceived hazard. Informal carers viewed such relationships as unacceptably dangerous. Those from 'danger avoiding' families, who had low risk tolerance, prohibited situations which might lead to a sexual relationship, e…
Life History or ‘Case’ History
Case histories of people with learning difficulties tend to privilege information that is useful to professionals, such as IQ and medical diagnosis. Such information allows professionals to slot people with learning difficulties into categories which inform 'treatment' and aid prognosis. Case records, as they are currently constructed, appear to further silence an already oppressed group of people, and to objectify, pathologise and label them. Th…
Alone in the crowd
Public Research, Private Concerns
This paper is an exploration of the ethical dilemmas in open-ended interview research with people with learning difficulties. We address the possibility that research which gives voice to the experience of abuse, from the viewpoint of the victim, can itself be abusive. Such research is justified in terms of empowering, illuminating and disseminating the meaning that participants give to their lives. Yet every stage of the process raises complex e…
A Risk Management Dilemma
This paper describes a qualitative study which explored the views about challenging behaviour of staff in day centres for people with learning difficulties. Respondents' abstract definitions stressed the relativity of the concept. However, they readily cited concrete illustrate incidents of challenging behaviour which involved physical, sexual and verbal assault, noise, non-compliance, non-communication and exposure to danger. Staff explained spe…
Probabilities and health risks
Risk Analysis and Health Practice
What's in a Name? The Implications of Diagnosis for People with Learning Difficulties and their Family Carers
Diagnosis plays a significant role in the shaping of individual identities and the quality of life for people with learning difficulties and their family carers. Diagnostic labels are constitutive of peoples' lives, in that they bring forth pathology, create problem-saturated stories and construct careers as patients and cases. Disabled identities of people with learning difficulties remain largely 'embodied' and within the definitional control o…
The research potential of practice nurses
Little is known about the research aspirations and experiences of practice nurses. The study discussed in the present paper had three main aims: (1) to assess the level of research interest among practice nurses working in Essex and East London, UK; (2) to identify practice nurses' research priorities; and (3) to explore factors which facilitate and impede the development of practice nursing research. All practice nurses (n = 1,054) in the above …
Health risk escalators and the rehabilitation of offenders with learning disabilities
Risk and mental health
This editorial reflects on an emerging body of mental health care research which draws on the social science of risk, and introduces a collection of papers presented in a special edition of the journal Health, Risk & Society on risk and mental health. The trend in research outputs concerned with risk and mental health is documented through a quantitative analysis of cited research literature for the period 1993–2004. It is argued that the underpi…
Forensic mental health services as a risk escalator
Medium/low secure units occupy a central role in forensic mental health care, bridging high secure and community services. Although outcomes, assessed in terms of readmission and identified reoffending, have been evaluated, little research exploring processes underlying attempted rehabilitation for offenders diagnosed as having mental health problems has been undertaken. The present qualitative study built upon previous research completed in a no…
Organisational simplification and secondary complexity in health services for adults with learning disabilities
Keeping warm and staying well
This paper presents findings from the qualitative arm of the Warm Homes Project, a programme of research concerned with the nature of fuel poverty, its alleviation and its relationship to family health. Much of the research into fuel poverty, which results from various combinations of low income and fuel inefficiency, has drawn upon quantitative paradigms. Experiences of, and coping with, fuel poverty have not been well explored. Data for the pre…
Women as moral pioneers? Experiences of first trimester antenatal screening
The problems of offenders with mental disorders
On being at higher risk
Multidisciplinary Teamwork in a UK Regional Secure Mental Health Unit a Matter for Negotiation
Evaluating community health services
The best way to evaluate community health services remains the subject of much argument and debate. This paper explores difficulties encountered in the management of a randomized controlled trial of physiotherapy in a primary health care setting, and discusses conflicts which arose when carrying out a time limited commissioned evaluation of a carer support scheme. Although randomized controlled trials are still regarded as the gold standard in me…
Psychology (40 works) · Sociology (32 works) · Medicine (21 works) · Political science (18 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Psychiatry (13 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Public relations (11 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Mental health (9 works)