The Imperative of Diakonia for the Church and Theological Education

This article begins by arguing that diakonia is an imperative for the church, be it at the local, national, regional, or global level. It goes on to describe how diakonia has been part of the identity of the World Council of Churches during its 70 years of existence, and highlights the struggle of diakonia and development within the fellowship and ecumenical partners. The article focuses on the document Called to Transformative Action: Ecumenical Diakonia as the most recent attempt to reflect on who we are and what we do as church. It identifies one important aspect of diakonia as reflected in the Pan‐African Women's Ecumenical Empowerment Network perspective on theological education. The article concludes by reflecting on the author's vision for a just community of women and men in prophetic diakonia.     

The World Council of Churches and Pentecostals

This article recalls the history of the relationships between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Pentecostal churches from the early years of the WCC until today. One of the greatest challenges currently facing the WCC is the shift in focus of Christianity to the South and the East, a phenomenon to which emerging Pentecostal and charismatic churches and communities are contributing. Alongside global cultural trends in the context of globalization, Pentecostal and charismatic piety and spirituality are increasingly affecting the older churches as well. While some see this negatively, many see it as an expression of adaptation to new challenges necessary for the survival of these churches. The article shows how the changing ecclesial context led to the WCC to explore new avenues for building relationships such as a Joint Consultative Group and the Global Christian Forum.     

Trauma Recovery in the Transgender and Gender Diverse Community: Extensions of the Minority Stress Model for Treatment Planning

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) populations, including those that do not identify with gender binary constructs (man or woman) are increasingly presenting for treatment of posttrauma sequelae. Providers who offer services for trauma survivors including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment should be knowledgeable about evidence-based care and have some cultural familiarity with TGD experiences. Indeed, the Minority Stress Model suggests that the combination of distal and proximal minority stressors can combine to produce increased mental health symptoms as compared with cisgender peers, though this model has yet to be fully tested. Clients often present with a complicated picture of experiences, which include a variety of minority stressors, microaggressions, discrimination, and traumatic events that can all be related to their identity. However, conceptualizations of trauma treatment in the context of extensive minority stress are lacking. This paper summarizes the existing literature and offers guidance to mental health providers who are well positioned to address stigma, discrimination, violence, and related symptoms that arise from micro-, mezzo- and macro-level spheres of TGD individuals’ experience.     

La santé à l’épreuve de la mobilité : les débuts de parcours de compagnons de l’aéronautique

In this article we relate a research, which has been carried out among workers in an aircraft-manufacturing site. The purpose of the research was to enlighten the links between health and professional mobility. Leaning on quantitative and qualitative analyzes of mobility inside a worksite, we put forward the complex network of itineraries of blue collars, at their beginning. These itineraries combine changes in workstations or in working conditions, and various individual, collective or organizational dimensions. The apprenticeship of mobility frameworks gets involved in wider series of professional norms, which might at the same time prevent from health disorders and make them less visible. Thus, the integration of these various temporal dimensions by blue collars themselves brings depending on organizational context, supports or damages for health.     

Santé fragilisée et construction d’un travail soutenable

The number of workers with weakened health is increasing and situations combining poor health and work/job search are multiplying due to a combination of factors: changes in work, therapeutic treatments, greater attention to mental disorders, a rise in the retirement age and the ageing of the “active” population. Understanding the relationship between health and work through infra-pathological disorders and chronic diseases leads to several decompartments: temporal, disciplinary, of actors and spaces. This dossier aims to give visibility to these renewed approaches from a multi-disciplinary, theoretical and practical perspective.     

Prévenir et agir sur les problèmes de santé au travail : les services de santé au travail à la croisée des chemins

This article presents an ongoing research regarding work-related health issues as they are perceived and identified by professionals practicing in occupational health services. The study is based on interviews with occupational doctors, nurses, technicians in prevention of occupational hazards and assistants, employed in two general services. The article starts with an overview of the recent changes in the workplace and in the practicing conditions of the professionals in the services. It then analyses the types of issues they identify among the employees they have in charge. Finally, the article examines the actions that can be done by the services, and the limitations of these actions. The professionals appear to be negotiating with various strains.     

Le travail pour tous : une recherche-action en collectivité territoriale

In the present French situation, there is an increase in inaptitudes and in the requests for occupational reclassifications. These are linked to the transformations that are affecting the world of work and have led to the undertaking of an action-research within a territorial community. The methodology is based on the analysis of the activity and the theoretical resources of the work clinical approach. The results enlight on one side, the « informal » reclassifications and their conditions, which is the sign of a relative plasticity of the work organisation, on the other one the reclassification as it is institutionalized. The action-research has allowed to discover unpredictable collective resources and to facilitate the work for all, whether healthy or unhealthy.     

La justice organisationnelle comme levier pour promouvoir la qualité de vie au travail

The goal of this study is to show the relevance of organizational justice principles in interventions to prevent psychosocial risks. Following an introduction identifying organizational justice as a predictor of health and quality of work life, we illustrate its application to a diagnosis and an intervention for hospital staff. The responses of 685 employees to a questionnaire identified a lack of support and justice by managers; thus, sensitivity to organizational justice was incorporated into a training program on management and psychosocial risks. A quasi-experiment in which hospital staff participated revealed a beneficial effect of the manager training on justice perceptions of the staff, confirming in part our hypotheses. The illustration in our study of the benefits of using justice principles in manager training offers new perspectives for promoting quality of life at work and reducing psychosocial risks.     

The Spanish validation of the Short Health Anxiety Inventory: Psychometric properties and clinical utility

Background/ObjectiveThe Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI) is a widely used self-report instrument to evaluate health anxiety. To assess the SHAI's factor structure, psychometric properties, and accuracy in differentiating Spanish non-clinical individuals from patients with severe health anxiety or hypochondriasis.MethodA total of 342 community participants (61.6% women; M_age = 34.60, SD = 14.91) and 31 hypochondriacal patients (51.6% women; M_age = 32.74, SD = 9.69) completed the SHAI and other self-reports assessing symptoms of hypochondriasis, depression, anxiety sensitivity, worry, and obsessive-compulsive.ResultsThe original two-factor structure was selected as the best structure, based on its parsimony and empirical support (Factor 1: Illness likelihood; Factor 2: Negative consequences of illness). Moreover, the Spanish version of the SHAI demonstrated good construct and concurrent and discriminant validity, and internal consistency. A cutoff of 40.5 (total score) accurately distinguished non-clinical individuals from patients with severe health anxiety or hypochondriasis.ConclusionsThe SHAI is an adequate screening instrument to measure health anxiety in Spanish-speaking community adults.     

Towards consensus in conceptualizing and operationalizing physical activity maintenance

Recognized challenges in promoting long-term physical activity maintenance may be due to inconsistencies in the conceptualization and operationalization of behavior maintenance terminology in physical activity research. The overall goal of this paper is to propose a framework and agenda for the development of a common set of terms, definitions, and measures for physical activity maintenance concepts that can be widely tested and evaluated. To initiate this effort, this paper (1) provides an overview of conceptual and operational definitions of physical activity maintenance used in the empirical literature, (2) evaluates whether behavior maintenance terms used in addiction science can be translated to physical activity, (3) recommends research directions for developing consensus definitions of physical activity maintenance, and (4) proposes a conceptual model of physical activity maintenance with inflection points that require operational definitions to be decided upon through consensus efforts in the field. Consensus over the conceptualization and operationalization of physical activity maintenance is needed to draw conclusions regarding which policies and programs are best able to promote long-term behavior change.