The word 'preoccupation' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to a state of being engrossed or obsessed with something, often to the exclusion of other activities. For example: John's preoccupation with work has left him little time for his family.
Mr Ahmadinejad's preoccupation is reported to have driven his government to allocate $17m £9.7mm) to Jamkaran's renovation.
"Both those writers know that [surveillance] is a deeply modern preoccupation, as it is now; you only have to walk down the street and think about how many cameras you have not actually seen … We are like the people on Gogglebox or reality TV, pretending that we cannot be seen".
Europe was his overriding preoccupation and he coupled it with a wariness of American policy and motives which made him the least pro-Washington postwar premier.
This preoccupation is all stronger because Cameron initially promised to hold his referendum in 2017, a difficult time for the French government because of presidential and parliamentary elections that year.
Education was such a preoccupation, a friend says, that his original plan was to "open a cut-price private school, with top-notch teaching but few frills".
But while my view is that the economy needs more demand and less preoccupation with lowering the ratio of the stock of public debt to GDP, at a time when interest rates are the lowest since the early 18th century, that alone is not enough for a sustained recovery.
Fianna Fáil's preoccupation with saving the Irish economy and in turn saving its own political skin has left the party with little time to ponder establishing a beach-head in the north.
Still, America's unexpected preoccupation with women's issues isn't merely about partisan competition or policy differences.
It's a decision she may well regret, given her storyline's preoccupation with freedom and slavery.
This preoccupation continues today and is there in the now-infamous performance by Miley Cyrus's at the recent VMA party.
Evidently, in the years since Woolf's male predecessor, Nick Anstee, exited the Mansion House in the manner of Dick Whittington, without honours, parity with Joan Collins has been ordained by a system whose overriding preoccupation, Woolf's promotion confirms, is the bestowal of establishment, not popular, approval.
