To understand experiences of stigma and discrimination among adults who are homeless across multiple care and support system contexts.

Cross-sectional survey embedded within an ethnographic case study.

South London, UK, 2024.

Convenience sample of 74 people experiencing homelessness, aged over 18 years.

Participants most commonly reported unfair treatment in public settings (85%), legal settings (72%), housing and homelessness services (68%) and health settings (65%). These experiences were attributed to a range of factors and identities, with homelessness the most commonly cited; people commonly linked unfair experiences to multiple identities. People with more comorbidities reported experiencing unfair treatment across more system settings, including and beyond health systems.

Unfair treatment was reported across multiple care and support systems with greater ill-health associated with more unfair treatment. Future larger-scale surveys should measure the extent of stigma and discrimination across the population.

Pain is an experience that is socially conditioned, like all human experiences. The scientific study of pain from a biopsychosocial perspective involves considering its complexity and multidimensionality. This means accounting for the anatomical and physiological elements of pain, as well as the psychological, social and cultural elements of pain. Despite the increasing acknowledgement of the biopsychosocial model, pain research still lacks standardised criteria for evaluating its social dimension. Moreover, the integration of social variables into empirical studies remains limited and fragmented. The aim of this review protocol is to analyse whether and how pain studies account for the social dimension, understood as the cultural, relational and contextual factors that shape the perception and experience of pain.

A systematic review will be conducted by consulting five international databases: PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, Scielo Citation Index, Scopus and CINAHL Complete. The review will include empirical or theoretical studies on pain that consider its social dimension, are written in Spanish or English, are applied to human beings and align with the review’s objectives. The studies will then be exported to the Zotero bibliographic manager for further processing. The selection of studies will be carried out in two phases. The initial stage of the review process will involve a title and abstract analysis of the identified studies, followed by a full-text review. Data will be extracted using a bespoke tool created for this research. The quality of the studies will be assessed using a tool developed by our research group. Data synthesis will be carried out through descriptive and narrative analyses.

This systematic review protocol did not require ethical approval; however, the project in which it is framed has been approved by the CSIC Ethics Committee (271/2023). These findings will be disseminated by publication in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and by presentation at relevant scientific conferences and academic congresses. The results will provide an overview of the integration of the social dimension of pain into the scientific literature, thereby contributing to the advancement of the field and informing future research, interventions and public policy.

CRD42024601863.

Social norms are often implicit informal rules that most people accept and abide by, and can influence how people behave, sometimes based on perceived rewards and/or sanctions. Social norms are propelled by some reference or population groups who exert a considerable amount of influence on behaviour because people value their approval or disapproval. Despite these observations, little research exists on the influence of social norms on diabetes risk-taking behaviours. We explored diet-related social norms and their influence on risk-taking behaviours for type 2 diabetes (T2D).

We conducted a multi-method qualitative study guided by the Social Norms Exploration Toolkit participatory tools. A total of 45 participants were interviewed for this study, including (10) T2D patients, (10) caregivers of T2D patients, (10) healthcare providers, (2) village health teams, (4) diabetes-free community members; (4) community influencers like cultural leaders and (5) family members. The study was conducted in eastern Uganda in the districts of Bugiri and Busia. Data were collected on health workers, caregivers, patients and community members using focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and non-participant observation. Data were manually analysed to identify emerging social norms and other information of interest following a thematic framework approach.

Most participants were aware that frequent consumption of fatty foods and sugary refined foods could increase one’s risk of getting T2D. The study highlights three themes: general awareness of T2D risk factors, common social norms influencing dietary behaviours and behavioural risk factors that are influenced by the social norms. The study highlights significant behavioural and social drivers of T2D, which include consumption of high-fat, high-sugar diets, limited exercise and stress. Gendered and cultural norms strongly influence dietary behaviours, with women preparing unhealthy foods to meet societal expectations, fearing sanctions like divorce or community stigma, while men’s dietary preferences were linked to respect and social status. Norms around staple food preferences and respect linked to weight further perpetuate T2D risk behaviours. Community influencers, family dynamics and cultural traditions reinforce these practices, underscoring the need for gender-transformative, culturally sensitive and community-centred interventions. However, healthcare providers and village health teams are critical for promoting healthier behaviours and reducing T2D prevalence.

Our deep-dive social norms diagnosis has revealed that even when people know the risk factors for T2D, they will still follow the social norm influence regarding lifestyles. Inclusive strategies that actively engage and reshape norms are therefore vital to reduce the prevalence of T2D.