FHS Research Agenda 2024-2028

T1P1 – Trauma & Resilience | Child Protection Research Group

Prof. Vitor Teixeira

Child Protection and Care in Macao: Building a Resilient, Trauma-Informed Community; The Case of Children and Youth in Residential Homes. This research project aims to develop a trauma-informed care (TIC) culture in Macao. The region, with a population of 683,000, faces various challenges related to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as bullying, natural disasters, domestic violence, and substance abuse. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges, increasing the risk of trauma for children and adolescents. The project focuses on children and youth, particularly those in residential homes, aiming to build a resilient community by promoting trauma-informed policies, practices, and collaborations among professionals and organizations.

T1P2 – Trends of Depression

Prof. Augus Kuok

T1P3 – Assessing and Intervening in Personal Electronic Device Usage Across Age Groups in Macau

Prof. Cynthia Leong

This project aims to evaluate and intervene in personal electronic device (PED) usage among various age groups in Macau, including children, adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. It will assess usage patterns, analyze impacts on mental health and social engagement, and develop tailored intervention strategies to promote healthy habits. Using a mixed-methods approach, data will be collected through surveys and interviews. The findings will provide valuable insights for policymakers and health professionals, ultimately enhancing well-being and fostering healthier lifestyle choices across all demographics in Macau.

T1P4 – Studies on Counseling, Gambling and Addiction

Prof. Edward Kwan

T1P5 – Workplace Studies | Work-life Balance

Prof. Maria Rita Silva

Work-life balance refers to the balance between the time and energy that one uses at work, relative to other areas of life, such as family, social relationships, hobbies, etc., and is considered one of the indicators of well-being at work. This research investigates some of the predictors and outcomes of work-life balance in order to contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon in Macau. This is an ongoing project, and data has been collected by applying a quantitative methodology, using a cross-section design, through self-response questionnaires to 549 full time workers employed in a variety of industries in Macao. Different aspects of the data collected have been used for the elaboration of three Master dissertations. In the next stage of the project the data will be analysed and interpreted for the elaboration of a manuscript to be published in an academic journal.

T1P6 – Organizational Justice and Culture at Work

Prof. Maria Rita Silva

Organizational justice refers to the perceptions of employees about how fairly they are treated at their jobs. This study aims to explore the relationships between overall organizational justice perceptions, work empowerment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Additionally, I aim to investigate the role of cultural value orientations, namely collectivism, and power distance in those relationships. This is an ongoing project, and data has been collected by applying a quantitative methodology, using a cross-section design, through self-response questionnaires to 359 expatriate and local full-time workers employed in a variety of industries in Macao. So far, different aspects of the data collected have been used in two on-going Master dissertations. In the next stage of the project the data will be analyzed and interpreted for the elaboration of a manuscript to be published in an academic journal.

T1P7 – Workplace bullying and sexual harassment at work

Prof. Maria Rita Silva

Workplace bullying refers to the repeated practice of unreasonable and inappropriate negative treatment of a person by another or others in the workplace. Workplace bullying includes different types of negative behaviours, while sexual harassment at work refers to specific sex-based behaviours that are unwelcome and offensive to its recipient. While both can contribute to a hostile work environment, negatively affecting employees wellbeing and organisational effectiveness, little is known about their prevalence in different industries in Macao or what are the characteristics of their main perpetrators and targets. In this new research project, I and two Master students, aim to analyze these aspects by elaborating and distributing a self-response questionnaire to employees of different industries in Macao. Later the data collected will be used for the elaboration of the two Master dissertations, and the eventual publication of a manuscript to be published in an academic journal.

T1P7 – Support, Resilience, Work Engagement and Burnout among workers in the hospitality industry

Prof. Angus Kuok

T1P8 – Stress management of people from age 35-40

Prof. Jayson Lou

During the COVID pandemic, quite a lot of people were affected by mental health illnesses, nevertheless, still a lot of people can overcome the difficulties of that. Reviewing from the pandemic, the researcher hopes to learn about how the people keep their strength in facing challenges, and how the community social sectors can help in the resources provided to resolve the issues.

T2P1 – The Complexities and Interlinkage of physical health and mental well-being of Macau Youth

Prof. Jacky Ho, Prof. Leona Ng

This project would investigate from a public health perspective on factors associating with physical health and mental health related issues, its impacts on the health care delivery system; the effectiveness of our current practice and intervention programs; the appropriateness and competence of relevant professionals involved in alleviating the issues; long terms health and wellbeing status focused in the community setting. Predictive models will be employed to analyze its direct impacts from a short-term and long-term duration, both its mediating and moderating variables necessary to understand its interlinkage and complexities relationship, which could inform a different approach to our public health policy in Macau.

T2P2 – Chronic Sleep Disorders and Dietary Habits among adults (45+ MOVING FORWARD STUDY)

Prof. Jacky Ho

Poor sleep may contribute to cognitive decline and progression of Alzheimer’s Disease, and the timing of the meals and intake of high GI food could be associated with long term sleep effects and other metabolic syndromes. Yet, poor sleep, timing of meals and type of food are also considered to be associated with the socio-demographic and economic status. This study will employ various of mobile health technologies, questionnaires and individual bio-profiles. This project aims to be a longitudinal study with timed-interval follow-up procedures. We hypothesize that chronic poor sleep, irregular meal times and intake of high GI food could contribute to development of metabolic syndrome and poor cognitive performance which furthering the early signs of cognitive decline.

T2P3 – Community Lifestyle and well-being

Professor Francisco Botelho, Professor Stella O

Based on George Engel’s Biopsychosocial model, health is not solely based on medical conditions, but also can be affect by psychological and social factors. The following studies have the aim to understand the current health conditions of the Macau population and find effective ways to enhance it through lifestyle changes of the local community.

T2P4 – Research Project on Resilience and Optimism

Prof. Vitor Teixeira

The research project focuses on exploring resilience and optimism across different life stages and demographics in Macau. Resilience is generally defined as the capacity to adapt positively and recover from adversity, involving behavioral, emotional, and mental flexibility in response to both internal and external challenges (Herrman, etal, 2011). Optimism is characterized as hope and confidence about future outcomes, with optimistic individuals attributing positive events to internal, stable, and global factors while viewing negative events as temporary and external (Schueller and Seligman, 2008).

The project includes a diverse team of researchers and participants across different life stages:

T2P5 – Nature exposure and well-being

Prof. Maria Rita Silva

Exposure to nature, namely to the act of being in or interacting with natural environments, such as parks, forests, or gardens, has been shown to have a positive impact on mental health and well being. Taking into account that Macao is a highly urbanized city, with one of the highest population densities in the world, it presents an interesting context to test the relationship between nature exposure and well-being. Additionally, taking into account the diversity in access to nature, and the fact that there is a dearth of research on the topic in Asian cities, the cross-cultural comparison of these relationships could contribute to the better understanding of these relationships. Therefore, by applying a quantitative methodology with a cross-sectional design, self-response questionnaires were applied to 1161 people living in Macao, and other Asian territories, such as Hong Kong, and Malaysia, measuring nature exposure, positive and negative affect, resilience, and flourishing. Additionally, for participants that worked, nature exposure at work, namely the presence of greenery and sunlight in their workspace, as well as job satisfaction and creativity, were also measured. The goal of this research is to investigate the relationships between day-to day nature exposure and nature exposure at work, with these well-being indicators. So far, different aspects of the data collected in the project have been used in two Master dissertations and two capstone Bachelor projects. Later, this data is expected to be integrated in two manuscripts to be published in international journals.

T3P1 – People with Disabilities

Prof. Vitor Teixeira

Intervention with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (PhD Project)

T3P2 – Vulnerable Populations Track/Mental Health Track | Digital Use Divide, Parenting Strategy, and Cyberbullying in Youth

Prof. Helen Liu

The project contributes on how digital technology uses and activities of their children, their parental engagement, and the opportunities and challenges that digital technology brings to parenting strategy, parental involvement, and child development in Macau and the Greater Bay Area. The purpose of this project is to explore cyberbullying processes in youths from 12 to 24 years old and their parents’ perspectives in relation to their surrounding environmental systems or assemblages. This research project can enable us to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the possible mutual factors that lead to youth’s online behavior, focusing on family parenting styles, strategies, mental health, and the presentation of Internet use, from multiple perspectives. The methodology used a cross-sectional survey design in this current proposed study. Namely, we plan to: (1) collect quantitative self-response survey data from the child of the parents who are between 12 to 24 years old; (2) collect qualitative focus groups data from a smaller sample of teachers involved in cyberbullying situations. This can be done after the questionnaire data analysis to compliment further exploration of important aspects if necessary.

T3P4 – Correctional Education, Social Reintegration to Community

Prof. Helen Liu

The study of higher education programmes in prison is increasing in popularity amongst researchers all over the world, particularly in Europe and North America. However, it seems that few studies analyse the effectiveness of higher education in prison in Asia and specifically in Macau. Research related to the Outreach Program with the prison illustrates how inmates adapt to adverse life circumstances. It also broadly characterizes Macao inmates to establish if they face the same post-release challenges that research has identified as confronting prisoners in overseas jurisdictions. The outreach program is currently affecting the lives of inmates in Macao and offers the opportunity to investigate which strategies are helpful in overcoming such big challenges.

The limitation of the research was the relatively limited focus on the professional development of ex-offenders working in drug treatment institutions. The employment of ex-offenders in retirement homes, rehabilitation centers, or other professional fields can be examined in future research. Very limited public data was available on the professional experiences of ex-offenders in Macau. Therefore, the results of this study can be regarded as a starting point for further research into the career development process of ex-offenders. Finally, because this study was unable to include perspectives from prisons, the functions of these institutions may be a fruitful direction for future research.

T4P1 – Robotics/Digital technology in social welfare

Prof. Angus Kuok

The attitude of social workers towards the application of digital technology is very important. According to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989; Mishna et al., 2017), social workers’ acceptance and willingness to use new technology are determined by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. In Macau, the use of digital technology in social services is still in its infancy. Currently, social service organisations that use digital technology are not common. It is encouraging that some new services have started to be provided during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the inability to conduct face-to-face communication. Some organisations have started to use digital technology to maintain online communication with service users, while others have introduced online counselling and even remote work for employees. This current one would like to focus not only on social workers, but the management, the other frontline workers, and the clients.

T4P2 – Social Group Models in Parenting

Prof. Helen Liu

Parenting is a rewarding but challenging journey. All thoughtful parents strive to become experts in their child’s development. Giving birth to a child does not necessarily pair parents with mature parenting skills. Parents must recall their holistic development to enhance their parental growth. Innovative technology-operation parenting provides an 8-week long parenting training to parents of children with SEN, behaviour problems, curriculum-based, experiential, parenting-group model, focused on in-depth learning and skill building, to help parents cope with children’s behavioural issues. The eight progressive group phrases are as follows: (1) Collective gathering; (2) Family of origin; (3) Life disruption; (4) Behaviour modification; (5) Total understanding; (6) Super parent; (7) Mindful action; (8) Holistic parenting. For this review, supporting parent group is defined as community-based initiatives designed to promote the flow of resources and supports to parents that strengthen functioning and enhance the growth and development of children with behavioural problems. The social group model for Chinese and Spanish-speaking parents in collaboration with social service agencies has been implemented in NYC. This study aims to replicate the social group model in Macao and the Greater Bay area. An experimental design will be conducted in this study.