Navigating Intersectional Approaches,Methods, and Interdisciplinarity to Health Equity in LGBTQ+ Communities

Abstract

The broad spectrum of health services and wellness surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) communities operates within multiple layers of social inequities. Research using intersectionality features numerous research methods purposed specifically for clarity toward increasing health equity. Generated in the scope of various research methods (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods), utilizing intersectionality illustrates potential to explore complex phenomena and outcomes within LGBTQ+?communities. As intersectionality thrives on interdisciplinarity, this article focuses on three overarching purposes: (a) accentuate health equity and social justice across an interdisciplinary scope for LGBTQ+?communities, (b) highlight formative principles grounded in intersectionality, and (c) supplement recommendations for research targeting health equity.     

Faster,harder, longer,stronger – management at the threshold between work and private life: The case of work place health promotion

This paper studies Work Place Health Promotion at two international corporations as an example of an unobtrusive control that targets employees’ lifestyles. It uses Michel Foucault's concepts of neoliberal governmentality and post-disciplinary control to show how Work Place Health Promotion breaks with the disciplinary logic of control most commonly associated with studies of unobtrusive controls in organizations. While discipline is centripetal, correcting employees’ misconduct so that they freely keep within prescribed norms, Work Place Health Promotion is centrifugal, targeting employees’ lifestyles and promoting those existing faculties and inclinations that may increase their activity, performance and their health. It hereby emerges as less restrictive than organizational discipline, but also as more discriminating. For not only does it subject employees’ lifestyles to an economic logic of investment and disinvestment, it also contributes to an exclusion of employees that fail in this regard in the name of their lack of health.     

Exploring the Urban–Rural Incarceration Divide: Drivers of Local Jail Incarceration Rates in the United States

ABSTRACT

A large body of research has focused on understanding mass incarceration in the United States through the lens of federal and state prison growth. However, local jail systems, with 11 million admissions each year, have received less research attention despite their broad impact on communities. Preliminary analysis conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) uncovered geographical disparities in county jail incarceration rates. Contrary to assumptions that incarceration is an urban phenomenon, Vera discovered that, in recent decades, pretrial jail rates have declined or remained flat in many urban areas, whereas rates have grown in rural counties. In an effort to uncover factors contributing to continued jail growth in rural areas, Vera joined forces with Two Sigma’s Data Clinic, a volunteer-based program that leverages Two Sigma employees’ data science expertise. Determinants of local jail rates from 2000–2013 were examined using a generalized estimating equations (GEE) model to account for correlations within counties over time. Results revealed that county-level poverty, police expenditures, and spillover effects from other county and state authorities are significant predictors of local jail rates. Investigation of model residuals revealed clusters of counties where observed rates were much higher than expected conditioned upon county variables.     

Hedging and accounting-based RPE contracts for powerful CEOs

Several firms prohibit their CEOs from trading in the stock of peer firms. This is puzzling since hedging by the CEO through private trading in the capital market can reduce the CEO’s exposure to systematic compensation risk. When the CEO’s incentive contract comprises relative performance evaluation, we find that the firm might want to disallow private hedging even though there are no technological interdependencies or strategic interactions to peer firms. In the analysis, we highlight two frequently observed characteristics of incentive contracts. First, the use of accounting benchmarks is widespread in compensation contracts for CEOs. Second, empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that powerful CEOs have influence on the process of designing their own compensation. We find that in the presence of a powerful CEO, the firm can benefit from disallowing private hedging. In particular, the firm’s decision to allow or to disallow private hedging depends on the characteristics of the accounting benchmarks and the characteristics of the peer firms.     

Process matters—The relevance of the decision making process for divestiture outcomes

We apply strategic decision making and organizational change theory to corporate divestitures and argue that key characteristics of the divestiture decision making process can contribute to explaining the variation in divestiture outcomes. We test our hypotheses in an empirical multi-source quantitative study and find evidence that analytical comprehensiveness in the evaluation of divestiture effects on the corporate portfolio has a positive impact on the effectiveness of divestiture choices, but analytical comprehensiveness at the focal business unit (BU) level does not enhance decision effectiveness. Our results further indicate that involvement of the affected BU management has a varying impact during the decision making process, with negative effects during the early phase and positive effects in the later phase.     

Physical activity assessment and health outcomes in old age: how valid are dose–response relationships in epidemiologic studies?

In this systematic review the validity of the dose–response relationships between physical activity (PA) and energy expenditure (EE) on defined health outcomes (cardio- and cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality, cancer) for the elderly is questioned. Medline, Cochrane, and EMBASE databases were reviewed for epidemiological longitudinal studies in populations aged 60+ for the years 1985–2007. Although most of the 18 identified studies generally demonstrated an inverse dose–response relationship between PA and EE level with morbidity and mortality, the range of dose–responses was remarkably broad. The nature of the dose–response relationship remained unclear. PA questionnaires - even those constructed for the elderly - do not cover the extremely diverse aspects of age-specific PA behavior and modes of muscular activity. Only non-age-specific tables had been used to estimate the EE in the elderly. Direct measurements of EE were limited. The results have implications for the interpretation of the dose–response relationships between PA and EE on defined health outcomes in old age.     

Some comments on Latin squares and on Graeco-Latin squares,illustrated with postage stamps and old playing cards

We present some comments on Latin squares and on Graeco-Latin squares, with special emphasis on their use in statistics and in a historical context. We also comment on the Knut Vik square, the knight’s move design and the knight’s tour, as well as the Magic Card Puzzle. We consider the well-known 36 officers problem studied by Euler (Verhandelingen uitgegeven door het zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen te Vlissingen, vol. 9 (Middleburg 1782), pp. 85–239, 1779/1782), and give two examples of diagonal Latin squares of order 6 due, respectively, to Abbé François-Guillaume Poignard (Chez Guillaume Fricx, Imprimeur &; libraire ruë Bergestract, à l’enseigne des quatre Evangelistes, Bruxelles [4] 79 pp. (p. 71 folded), 1704) and József Dénes (J Lond Math Soc Ser 2, 6(4):679–689, 1970). We illustrate our comments with images of postage stamps and old playing cards. An extensive annotated bibliography ends the paper.     

Norwegian cohort emigration

This paper introduces a counterfactual technique to estimate net emigration from Norwegian birth cohorts from 1846 to 1900. A main finding is that despite strong fluctuations in annual emigration, the percentage reduction of each cohort due to emigration was surprisingly stable for all cohorts from 1846 to 1886, with net emigration of about 30% for males and about 20% for females. Estimating an econometric model of annual male gross emigration by single years of age 15–60 in the period 1870–1914, we find that previous net emigration from a cohort reduces later gross emigration from the same cohort. The estimations also give some justification for attributing this to selectivity of emigration, in the sense that only a certain proportion of each cohort were potential migrants. Received: 1 October 1997/Accepted: 23 March 2000     

On voters’ attitudes towards unemployment insurance subsidies across regions: a Canadian simulation

The Canadian unemployment insurance program is designed to reflect the varying risk of joblessness across regions. Regions that are considered low-risk areas subsidize higher-risk ones. A region’s risk is typically proxied by its relative unemployment rate. We use a dynamic, heterogeneous-agent model calibrated to Canada to analyze voters’ preferences between a uniformly generous unemployment insurance and the current system with asymmetric generosity. We find that Canada’s unusual unemployment insurance system is surprisingly close to what voters would choose in spite of the possibilities of shirking and self-insurance through asset buildup.