Design of a Protocol for Detecting Victims of Aporophobia—Violence against the Poor

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an excellent beginning to research in the development of a scale to determine potential or real victimisation in the homeless. However, to complete this the authors are recommended to do two things

1. Complete a systematic review of the literature in table 1

2. Develop a scale and collect data and go through reliability and validity of scale development [including factor analysis]

More comments：

1. This paper does not answer any question regarding the topic Aporophobia - it indicated that it would develop a protocol for detection but there is no protocol and there is no tool or assessment content - it fails to meet the aims it set itself

Recommendation - authors need to define and explain what a protocol is and then develop one

2. It is studying a new topic but given that only a very small number of professionals work with this client group, then the "phobia" is restricted to a small number of a small number of professionals

Recommendation - review the rates of agorophobia in professionals who work with the homeless - in reality this is much more common in the general public who avoid and develop of fear of homeless people in the community

3. Minimal - the only new component is a limited qualitative survey of professional who added a couple of new dimensions to the existing literature

Recommendation - complete more research and complete

a thorough in-depth review of literature；develop the protocol； create, develop a tool that allows the protocol to be followed； evaluate the tool using quantitative methodology

4. The authors consider the improvement：

Recommendation

A systematic review of the literature； Development of the protocol；Development of the assessment tool； Evaluation of the tool which then validates the protocol

5. The authors have overstated the conclusions that they have made - a small survey that supports [and adds to] existing literature does not develop a protocol

6. The references are appropriate

A little more work to be done on written expression - a significant number of sentences are unclear in terms of their meaning

Also, there are a significant number of single sentence paragraphs - better to combine sentences that cover a single theme into a bigger paragraph

Author Response

1. Complete a systematic review of the literature in Table 1.

The systematic review is complete, the article presents the results.

In order to select the variables, an exhaustive bibliographic review was carried out on victimisation of homeless people. For this purpose, different bibliographic databases such as EBSCOhost, Google Scholar, Dialnet Plus, ProQuest Central, Psicodoc, PsycArticles, PsycInfo, Scielo, Scopus and Social Science Database were examined. In order to filter the search results, the following keywords were entered: homelessness, social exclusion, residential exclusion, aporophobia, discrimination, victimisation, risk assessment, risk factors, vulnerability and homelessness. Similarly, in order to have a wider scope in the literature search, we chose to use different words in English: homelessness, homeless, victimization, violence, risk-factor, vulnerability, social exclusion and marginality. In addition, several authors, Muñoz and Navarro, specialised in the subject of Homelessness were contacted to request documentation. A total of 127 potential publications were selected, belonging to scientific journals, doctoral theses and book chapters (in English and Spanish) focused on research on victimisation of the homeless. As an exclusion criterion, all studies whose abstract did not include the review topics or make reference to related topics were discarded. In short, after the first literature search, duplicate or irrelevant studies were discarded, 56 abstracts were selected for reading, and finally, the texts of 28 studies that would form part of the systematic review were processed.

This whole procedure is part of another publication that is in press, the variables used are part of the results of the systematic review.

2. Develop a scale and collect data and go through the reliability and validity of scale development [including factor analysis]. The design of a protocol for implicit detection of aporophobia victimisation will be developed in different phases.

In this first research, we present the first phase of the evaluation and assessment (expert judgement - "consultation/panel" methodology) of the risk factors that the international literature considers to be key in aporophobic victimisation. The aim is to verify, from a professional and scientific point of view, these factors using the research carried out on homelessness as a basis.

 The Expert Panel is a qualitative and quantitative methodology for collecting verbalisations that aims to contrast the opinions and arguments of professionals in a given field. A panel of experts was made up of 26 professionals and specialists from different disciplines who answered a checklist designed by the authors after the systematic review. 

Continuing with the analysis of the suitability of the number of experts that should compose a consultation method or panel, research confirms that up to 30 the average group error is 0 (Herrera et al., 2022).

This document does not answer any questions in relation to the issue of Aporophobia - it indicated that it would develop a protocol for detection, but there is no protocol and there is no assessment tool or content - it does not meet the objectives it set itself.

The article presents the initial design of the protocol consisting of selection of dimensions or variables and expert verification. It consists of the methodology used in the expert judgement.

A checklist is presented for the reviewer to check how the expert panel has been conducted. 

4.-Recommendation - the authors should define and explain what a protocol is and then develop one.

The protocol has not been designed, the risk factors that the protocol will address have been selected and validation the next stage will be to apply it to the victims and triangulate the results from experts and victims.

5.- Recommendation - review the rates of aporophobia in professionals working with homeless people - it is actually much more common in the general public who avoid and develop fear of homeless people in the community.

This assessment is nothing more than an opinion that does not coincide with reality, as can be seen in the Ministry's data that led to the inclusion of hate crimes in Organic Law 1/2015, relating to behaviour motivated by prejudice towards a particular group of people and the approval of Organic Law 8/2021, which is included in the Spanish code as an aggravating circumstance in article 22.4, listing it in the catalogue of motivations and describing aporophobia as a discriminatory motive.
The article does not address homelessness or poverty but rather the discrimination and victimisation suffered by these people. There is still little scientific interest in this issue.

6.- The only new component is a limited qualitative survey of practitioners that added a couple of new dimensions to the existing literature.

The article brings together, firstly, the different types of risk factors linked to these victimisations by discrimination scattered in different national and international research.

Secondly, a consensus from the professional and academic experience of those that are most prevalent in our context. The great contribution of expert judgement, an assessment of whether the instrument that collects them is sufficient or whether their experience says that there is something left over or something missing to be taken into consideration.

 This type of procedure is currently very common in the design of protocols, see works by Loinaz, Andrés-Pueyo and/or Webster, Douglas, Eaves and Hart.

7.-Recommendation - complete further research and complete an in-depth literature review.

This has been done. The results are presented in this article. The major problem with this work is the scarcity of literature and the lack of detection protocols on the subject, hence the need to make use of expert judgement.

In order to select the variables, an exhaustive bibliographic review was carried out on victimisation of homeless people. For this purpose, different bibliographic databases such as EBSCOhost, Google Scholar, Dialnet Plus, ProQuest Central, Psicodoc, PsycArticles, PsycInfo, Scielo, Scopus and Social Science Database were examined. In order to filter the search results, the following keywords were entered: homelessness, social exclusion, residential exclusion, aporophobia, discrimination, victimisation, risk assessment, risk factors, vulnerability and homelessness. Similarly, in order to have a wider scope in the literature search, we chose to use different words in English: homelessness, homeless, victimization, violence, risk-factor, vulnerability, social exclusion and marginality. In addition, several authors, Muñoz and Navarro, specialised in the subject of Homelessness were contacted to request documentation. A total of 127 potential publications were selected, belonging to scientific journals, doctoral theses and book chapters (in English and Spanish) focused on research on victimisation of the homeless. As an exclusion criterion, all studies whose abstract did not include the review topics or make reference to related topics were discarded. In short, after the first literature search, duplicate or irrelevant studies were discarded, 56 abstracts were selected for reading, and finally, the texts of 28 studies that would form part of the systematic review were processed.

This whole procedure is part of another publication that is in press, the variables used are part of the results of the systematic review.

8. The authors have exaggerated the conclusions they have drawn - a small survey that supports [and adds to] the existing literature does not develop a protocol.

The methodology presented is not a survey, nor a questionnaire. It is a panel of experts consisting of consultation with people who are very knowledgeable about the environment in which the organisation operates. Reviewers can see in the following article what the methodology consists of:

Introduction to the classical structured expert judgement model: a brief account of the past and a recent application Oswaldo Morales Nápoles, Roger M. Cooke SCIENCE ergosum, Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal of Foresight 2009, 16(3)

The results are not exaggerated but are the results obtained after the procedure used. The research points out that up to 30 experts the error is 0. In this case, specific experts in the field have been used and the number of experts is very high.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article Design of a protocol for detecting victims of aporophobia ,violence against the poor deal with a relevant topic that is not always analysed and considered in the intervention with people experiencing poverty.

 

In the abstract the authors consider that the article aims at presenting the validation of a diagnostic tool for aporophobia in homeless people. It can be inferred that these people living on the streets can be considered poor, but there is a whole literature on these people that needs to be paid attention to, especially regarding the concept of poverty. For example, some of them are on the streets because they are addicts or have mental health problems, .... and not because they are poor (this is if we take into account that being poor can constitute income deprivation ....).

If the study was carried out with homeless people and with the evaluation of a diagnostic tool for aporophobia in this population then the title of the article must be in accordance with its objective.

In the introduction, the authors are more explicit and focus on the concept, stating that they intend to analyse the risk factors present in aporophobic situations and victimisation in homelessness.

Now this question must also be in the discussion about the concept of aporophobia in relation to people experiencing homelessness, that is, it important to relate homeless people to poverty and what kind of poverty we are talking about: economic poverty, poverty, relative poverty, culture of poverty ....

In the introduction, the author reviews the literature and identifies a number of articles dealing with indicators of social risk in homeless.

But perhaps it would be important to make a text where the authors could talk to each other and explain unequivocally what this factor has to do with poverty.

One suggestion might be to explain how the risk factors identified in the group of homeless people have to do with aporophobia/rejection of the poor. Eg mental health issues are common in all age groups, not just the poor, and physical health issues, or even addiction.

It should however be noted that these problems are not just the poor. That is to say, not all poor people are mentally ill, sick, addicts and criminals or are disconnected with their families (it is even dangerous to characterise them as such).

This issue needs to be unequivocally explained in the article.

The methodology seems clear and appropriate. It may explain the process of construction of the questionnaire. I ask whether in the validation of a scale there should be no participation of professionals in the construction of indicators. And which indicators were chosen and why. It would also be relevant to better explain how the data was processed, and how ethical issues were ensured.

It articulates a wide range of social phenomena that shape the interaction between the poor and the non-poor, such as aversion, antipathy, contempt, disgust, disregard, fear and hate. In the items that are presented in the questionnaires, these dimensions are not explored. So there is a problem here between what aporophobia is and the referential framework of homelessness and the results obtained.

The results of the questionnaire identify the social risk factors of homelessness as specific to that group rather than the concept of aporophobia.

It assumes in the conclusions that these indicators identified in homeless people assume contours of discrimination against the poor, not alluding to the process of rejection of the homeless, considered as poor.  For example, the literature also highlights that people are more tolerant towards a person living on the street, even giving him/her food through food banks, clothes, baths etc, than a person considered poor, who is even marginalised for not wanting to work, living on state subsidies, etc.

Overall the work is interesting, but it could possibly be more systematic and critical on some of these issues that came to me while reading the work.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The article Design of a protocol for the detection of victims of aporophobia, violence against the poor addresses a relevant issue that is not always analysed and considered in the intervention with people experiencing poverty.

In the abstract, the authors consider that the article aims to present the validation of a tool for diagnosing aporophobia in homeless people: We do not present a tool to be validated.   It can be deduced that these people living on the street can be considered as poor, but there is a whole literature on these people to which attention should be paid, especially with regard to the concept of poverty.

 

For example, some of them are on the street because they are addicts or have mental health problems, .... and not because they are poor (this if we take into account that being poor can constitute income deprivation ...).

Not applicable, the aim of the research is to analyse discrimination on grounds of poverty, not the situation of poverty itself or the causes that lead a person to find themselves in a situation of homelessness. As the object of the research indicates, we intend to design a tool to facilitate professionals in detecting situations of victimhood. This research is the first phase of the design of the protocol. The "panel of experts", a structured professional judgement, is used to develop the protocol.

See: Introduction to the classical model of structured expert judgement: a brief account of the past and a recent application Oswaldo Morales Nápoles, Roger M. Cooke SCIENCE ergosum, Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal of Foresight 2009, 16(3)

Or the tools used by the following authors: Loinaz, Andrés-Pueyo and/or Webster, Douglas, Eaves and Hart.

The results of the questionnaire identify the social risk factors of homelessness as specific to homelessness and not the concept of aporophobia.

The concept of aporophobia is not the subject of this research. The aim of this research is to design a tool to detect situations of aporophobia.

In order to do this, it is necessary to know the group, in this case the most serious situation, and to identify the risk situations and risk factors they suffer in these situations. We are not analysing poverty, but rather discrimination for being poor.

 

 

 

 

ergosum, Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal of Foresight 2009, 16(3)

Or the tools used by the following authors: Loinaz, Andrés-Pueyo and/or Webster, Douglas, Eaves and Hart.

The results of the questionnaire identify the social risk factors of homelessness as specific to homelessness and not the concept of aporophobia.

The concept of aporophobia is not the subject of this research. The aim of this research is to design a tool to detect situations of aporophobia.

In order to do this, it is necessary to know the group, in this case the most serious situation, and to identify the risk situations and risk factors they suffer in these situations. We are not analysing poverty, but rather discrimination for being poor.

 

The article Design of a protocol for the detection of victims of aporophobia, violence against the poor addresses a relevant issue that is not always analysed and considered in the intervention with people experiencing poverty.

In the abstract, the authors consider that the article aims to present the validation of a tool for diagnosing aporophobia in homeless people: We do not present a tool to be validated.   It can be deduced that these people living on the street can be considered as poor, but there is a whole literature on these people to which attention should be paid, especially with regard to the concept of poverty.

 

For example, some of them are on the street because they are addicts or have mental health problems, .... and not because they are poor (this if we take into account that being poor can constitute income deprivation ...).

Not applicable, the aim of the research is to analyse discrimination on grounds of poverty, not the situation of poverty itself or the causes that lead a person to find themselves in a situation of homelessness. As the object of the research indicates, we intend to design a tool to facilitate professionals in detecting situations of victimhood. This research is the first phase of the design of the protocol. The "panel of experts", a structured professional judgement, is used to develop the protocol.

See: Introduction to the classical model of structured expert judgement: a brief account of the past and a recent application Oswaldo Morales Nápoles, Roger M. Cooke SCIENCE ergosum, Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal of Foresight 2009, 16(3)

Or the tools used by the following authors: Loinaz, Andrés-Pueyo and/or Webster, Douglas, Eaves and Hart.

The results of the questionnaire identify the social risk factors of homelessness as specific to homelessness and not the concept of aporophobia.

The concept of aporophobia is not the subject of this research. The aim of this research is to design a tool to detect situations of aporophobia.

In order to do this, it is necessary to know the group, in this case the most serious situation, and to identify the risk situations and risk factors they suffer in these situations. We are not analysing poverty, but rather discrimination for being poor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Improve the abstract according to the object, method and results of the article.

Author Response

Abstract has been modified as requested

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf