Situational leadership and persons with disabilities

Does situational leadership style impact workers with disabilities? Situational leadership as a model and style of organizational management is defined. With a concentration on workers with disabilities, employer and employee perceptions of the workplace environment are analyzed as a contributing factor to the choice of leadership styles. Leadership style and its potential impact on workers with disabilities are included. Advantages of situational leadership style as an organizational model for managers that matches the intricate needs of workers with disabilities are argued. Methods for increasing awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities in the workplace and improving leadership models are discussed. Implications and potential outcomes for workers with disabilities based on the use of situational leadership by managers are discussed.     

Urge to Gamble in Problem Gamblers Exposed to a Casino Environment

Cue-reactivity has received increased attention in addiction research, though not for gambling in particular. We examined cue reactivity in 18 problem gamblers by accompanying them to a gaming casino and measuring their subjective urge to gamble over a 1-h period. Half of the sample was additionally exposed to a gambling-specific negative mood induction (NMI) manipulation via guided imagery. Overall, about two-thirds of the sample reported moderate to high-gambling urges during the casino exposure. Additionally, the NMI reduced cue-reactivity. Finally, gambling urges in both groups decreased over the course of the exposure sessions. These findings suggest that a majority of problem gamblers experience the urge to gamble when exposed to gambling cues and that the intensity of these urges decrease with time, especially in the presence of a gambling-relevant NMI. Cue exposure should be studied further as a potential tool in the treatment of problem gambling.     

Hospital-to-community transitions. A bridge program for adolescent mental health patients

Making the transition from the hospital to a community setting can be extremely challenging for patients with acute mental health conditions. Transitional services have been created to help patients overcome difficulties associated with this transition. Nurses frequently play an integral role in the success of these services. By providing patients with individualized support during such transitions, nurses act as clinical liaisons and directly contribute to an increase in positive patient and system-level outcomes. This article describes a transitional service called the Bridge Program, designed to help adolescents make a successful transition from the hospital to the community. An overview of the Bridge Program is provided, and the results of an evaluation of this program are presented. Results suggest that the Bridge Program contributes to a decrease in the length of hospital stays and improves continuity of care for patients and their families.     

Colourism and African–american wealth: evidence from the nineteenth-century south

Black is not always black. Subtle distinctions in skin tone translate into significant differences in outcomes. Data on more than 15,000 households interviewed during the 1860 US federal census exhibit sharp differences in wealth holdings between white, mulatto, and black households in the urban South. We document these differences, investigate relationships between wealth and recorded household characteristics, and decompose the wealth gaps to examine the returns to racial characteristics. The analysis reveals a distinct racial hierarchy. Black wealth was only 20% of white wealth, but mulattoes held nearly 50% of whites’ wealth. This advantage is consistent with colourism, the favouritism shown to those of lighter complexion.

The Prevalence of Uncorrected Refractive Errors in Adolescents Incarcerated in a Youth Detention Center

The purpose of this study was to determine the number of residents requiring corrective lenses in a youth detention center for juveniles from 12 to 18 years old over a 2-year period. A greater number of adolescents incarcerated for criminal activity in a detention center had uncorrected refractive errors (34.87 %) as compared to a comparable population in the public school system (22 %). The prevalence of significant refractive errors among incarcerated adolescents in this study is significantly higher than has been reported previously. The current study found a refractive error rate of almost 35 %. This difference can be explained by a number of factors in their social environments and identifies an area for potential intervention to reduce antisocial behavior in this population.     

The FARSEEING real-world fall repository: a large-scale collaborative database to collect and share sensor signals from real-world falls

Background

Real-world fall events objectively measured by body-worn sensors can improve the understanding of fall events in older people. However, these events are rare and hence challenging to capture. Therefore, the FARSEEING (FAll Repository for the design of Smart and sElf-adaptive Environments prolonging Independent livinG) consortium and associated partners started to build up a meta-database of real-world falls.

Results

Between January 2012 and December 2015 more than 300 real-world fall events have been recorded. This is currently the largest collection of real-world fall data recorded with inertial sensors. A signal processing and fall verification procedure has been developed and applied to the data. Since the end of 2015, 208 verified real-world fall events are available for analyses. The fall events have been recorded within several studies, with different methods, and in different populations. All sensor signals include at least accelerometer measurements and 58 % additionally include gyroscope and magnetometer measurements. The collection of data is ongoing and open to further partners contributing with fall signals. The FARSEEING consortium also aims to share the collected real-world falls data with other researchers on request.

Conclusions

The FARSEEING meta-database will help to improve the understanding of falls and enable new approaches in fall risk assessment, fall prevention, and fall detection in both aging and disease.

     

Evaluating social investment in disability policy

Disability policy in European countries is displaying a shift towards social investment: increasing human capital and access to the labour market. The reasoning that underlies this transition is that disabled persons would benefit from mainstream employment, but are impeded in traditional policy by deficiencies in labour supply and demand. However, the shift towards more activating policies in many countries is accompanied by a decline in social protection. It is unclear whether social investment may effectively promote the employment chances of disabled persons within this context. The present research examines this question through a quantitative, cross-sectional, multilevel analysis on microdata from 22 EU countries. Our findings suggest greater activation to predict lower employment chances, while reducing passive support shows mixed effects. Conversely, measures for facilitation in daily life predict greater employment chances, as do measures for sheltered work. These findings raise questions over the value of social investment for disabled persons—and underline the need to overcome broader barriers in the labour market and in society.