Adolescent Secretive Behavior: African American and Hmong Adolescents' Strategies and Justifications for Managing Parents' Knowledge About Peers

Drawing upon the expectancy violation‐realignment theory of autonomy development, this qualitative study examined African American and Hmong adolescent autonomy‐seeking behaviors and parent–child communication about activities and relationships with peers. Twenty‐two African American and 11 Hmong adolescents in grades 6–12 and 14 African American and 8 Hmong primary caregivers were interviewed. Participants discussed their perspectives on adolescent information management regarding activities with friends. Four categories of information management strategies and four primary types of adolescent justifications were identified. Adolescents were pragmatic in their decisions about secretive behaviors but also considered the impact of their behaviors on their relationships with parents. Adolescent strategies were consistent across ethnic groups, whereas justifications for secretive behaviors were embedded within cultural and family experiences.     

Modeling Receptor-Mediated Processes with Dioxin: Implications for Pharmacokinetics and Risk Assessment

Dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo- p -dioxin; TCDD), a widespread polychlorinated aromatic hydrocarbon, caused tumors in the liver and other sites when administered chronically to rats at doses as low as 0.01 μg/kg/day. It functions in combination with a cellular protein, the Ah receptor, to alter gene regulation, and this resulting modulation of gene expression is believed to be obligatory for both dioxin toxicity and carcinogenicity. The U.S. EPA is reevaluating its dioxin risk assessment and, as part of this process, will be developing risk assessment approaches for chemicals, such as dioxin, whose toxicity is receptor-mediated. This paper describes a receptor-mediated physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PB-PK) model for the tissue distribution and enzyme-inducing properties of dioxin and discusses the potential role of these models in a biologically motivated risk assessment. In this model, ternary interactions among the Ah receptor, dioxin, and DNA binding sites lead to enhanced production of specific hepatic proteins. The model was used to examine the tissue disposition of dioxin and the induction of both a dioxin-binding protein (presumably, cytochrome P4501A2), and cytochrome P4501A1. Tumor promotion correlated more closely with predicted induction of P4501A1 than with induction of hepatic binding proteins. Although increased induction of these proteins is not expected to be causally related to tumor formation, these physiological dosimetry and gene-induction response models will be important for biologically motivated dioxin risk assessments in determining both target tissue dose of dioxin and gene products and in examining the relationship between these gene products and the cellular events more directly involved in tumor promotion.     

Tilting at Twindmills: rethinking sociological responses to behavioral genetics

While we commend Horwitz et al. (2003) for speaking to core issues in behavioral genetics, we disagree with many particulars of their article. We are skeptical of their claims regarding the particular contribution offered by both their methods and data. We believe also that the findings they present as challenging the equal environments assumption are, upon closer examination, not persuasive. Most fundamentally, we worry that the way in which Horwitz et al. conceptualize the relationship between genes and environments is not the best means of doing so for sociologists interested in engaging behavioral genetics.     

In-home family therapy: indicators of success

In this study, we explore how specific individual, family, and family-within-community characteristics, as well as aspects of in-home family therapy, relate to responses to treatment. The Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale scores and Global Assessment of Functioning scores were used as outcome measures. Results revealed significant differences between pre- and post-scores for clients receiving in-home family therapy services, providing an initial indicator of treatment success. In addition, primary family caregiver social support, role performance in school/work, and self-harmful behavior were indicative of successful outcomes. Clients with higher problem levels had the greatest rates of change, and clients receiving more hours of services fared better in therapy.     

Family risk and resiliency factors, substance use, and the drug resistance process in adolescence

Recent approaches to drug prevention have emphasized risk and resiliency factors. Two models have been developed to explain these factors, one which posits that separate elements make up each set and the other which posits that a single factor can be either a risk or a resiliency factor depending on, for example, if it is present (resiliency) or absent (risk). This study tested these models and attempted to compare the effects of risk and resiliency across gender and ethnicity. Results support the model in which risk and resiliency are discrete sets of factors and demonstrate that overall resiliency factors play a larger role than risk factors in substance use and drug resistance processes. However, gender proved to be an important moderator of these effects. For adolescent males, resiliency has an indirect effect on overall substance use through age of first use, while risk has a direct effect on overall substance use. For adolescent females, resiliency has a direct effect on overall substance use and risk has an indirect effect through age of first use. This indicates that while early interventions are important for both genders, resiliency factors must be dealt with before initiation of substance use for males. Findings did not differ substantially across ethnicity, although the small African-American sample size may have limited power to detect differences.     

Interpersonal trust and voluntary associations: examining three approaches

The relationship between interpersonal trust and membership in voluntary associations is a persistent research finding in sociology. What is more, the notion of trust has become a central issue in current social science theorizing covering such diverse approaches as transaction costs economics or cognitive sociology. In different ways and for different purposes, these approaches address the role of voluntary organizations, although, as this paper argues, much of this thinking remains sketchy and underdeveloped. Against an empirical portrait of this relationship, the purpose of this paper is to assess such theorizing. We first set out to explicate major approaches to trust in economics, sociology and political science, using the non-profit or voluntary organization as a focal point. We then examine the various approaches in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and, finally, identify key areas for theoretical development. In particular, we point to the social movement literature, the social psychology of trust, and recent thinking about civil society.     

Occupational-psychosocial perceptions influencing return to work and functional performance of injured workers

Much has been done to identify psychosocial factors influencing risk of vocational injury and prolonged disability. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the ability of injured workers to return to their prior worker role through the identification of the influencing psychosocial perceptions. Psychosocial perceptions may assist in the identification of negative or counterproductive factors that hinder the rehabilitative process. Identifying perceptions are individual centered and focused on the views of injured workers as they proceed through the transition in life following injury. Occupational therapists play a key role in the rehabilitative process of injured workers through enhancing the person-job-environment fit [4].     

A marginal regression model for multivariate failure time data with a surviving fraction

A marginal regression approach for correlated censored survival data has become a widely used statistical method. Examples of this approach in survival analysis include from the early work by Wei et al. (J Am Stat Assoc 84:1065–1073, 1989) to more recent work by Spiekerman and Lin (J Am Stat Assoc 93:1164–1175, 1998). This approach is particularly useful if a covariate’s population average effect is of primary interest and the correlation structure is not of interest or cannot be appropriately specified due to lack of sufficient information. In this paper, we consider a semiparametric marginal proportional hazard mixture cure model for clustered survival data with a surviving or “cure” fraction. Unlike the clustered data in previous work, the latent binary cure statuses of patients in one cluster tend to be correlated in addition to the possible correlated failure times among the patients in the cluster who are not cured. The complexity of specifying appropriate correlation structures for the data becomes even worse if the potential correlation between cure statuses and the failure times in the cluster has to be considered, and thus a marginal regression approach is particularly attractive. We formulate a semiparametric marginal proportional hazards mixture cure model. Estimates are obtained using an EM algorithm and expressions for the variance–covariance are derived using sandwich estimators. Simulation studies are conducted to assess finite sample properties of the proposed model. The marginal model is applied to a multi-institutional study of local recurrences of tonsil cancer patients who received radiation therapy. It reveals new findings that are not available from previous analyses of this study that ignored the potential correlation between patients within the same institution.     

Disconnected Geography: A Spatial Analysis of Disconnected Youth in the United States

Since the Great Recession, US policy and advocacy groups have sought to better understand its effect on a group of especially vulnerable young adults who are not enrolled in school or training programs and not participating in the labor market, so called ‘disconnected youth.’ This article distinguishes between disconnected youth and unemployed youth and examines the spatial clustering of these two groups across counties in the US. The focus is to ascertain whether there are differences in underlying contextual factors among groups of counties that are mutually exclusive and spatially disparate (non-adjacent), comprising two types of spatial clusters – high rates of disconnected youth and high rates of unemployed youth. Using restricted, household-level census data inside the Census Research Data Center (RDC) under special permission by the US Census Bureau, we were able to define these two groups using detailed household questionnaires that are not available to researchers outside the RDC. The geospatial patterns in the two types of clusters suggest that places with high concentrations of disconnected youth are distinctly different in terms of underlying characteristics from places with high concentrations of unemployed youth. These differences include, among other things, arrests for synthetic drug production, enclaves of poor in rural areas, persistent poverty in areas, educational attainment in the populace, children in poverty, persons without health insurance, the social capital index, and elders who receive disability benefits. This article provides some preliminary evidence regarding the social forces underlying the two types of observed geospatial clusters and discusses how they differ.