The relation of violence exposure and ethnicity to intelligence and verbal-performance discrepancies in incarcerated male adolescents

Incarcerated populations have an estimated incidence of intellectual disabilities (IDs) far higher than national norms, ranging as high as 10%. In the present study, the relation between ID and violence exposure in 115 incarcerated adolescents was examined. Interpersonal violence exposure (IPV-E) predicted an average decrease in full scale IQ of 4.5 points, explaining approximately 5% of the difference in IQ. Child maltreatment increased the odds of having a verbal disability by three folds and explained 17% of the variance in verbal disability. Hierarchical regression was used to examine the relative contribution of ethnicity, poverty, and violence exposure to intellectual functioning. The literature on racial bias in incarceration and the implications for the present study are discussed.     

Attachment Behavior of Children Adopted Internationally at Six Months Post Adoption

The purpose of this pilot study was to describe attachment behavior in children adopted internationally at 6 months post adoption. Twenty-two children and their adoptive mothers were observed at home for completion of an attachment measure. Mothers also completed a questionnaire on their child's preadoption care. Comparisons of children low and high in attachment security suggested that low secure children showed predominantly ambivalent attachment behavior or that they were still in the process of forming an attachment. Children having foster versus orphanage care prior to adoption differed in quality of preadoption care and in certain attachment behaviors, but not in overall attachment security.     

Overcoming barriers to integrating economic analysis into risk assessment

Regulatory risk analysis is designed to provide decisionmakers with a clearer understanding of how policies are likely to affect risk. The systems that produce risk are biological, physical, and social and economic. As a result, risk analysis is an inherently interdisciplinary task. Yet in practice, risk analysis has been interdisciplinary in only limited ways. Risk analysis could provide more accurate assessments of risk if there were better integration of economics and other social sciences into risk assessment itself. This essay examines how discussions about risk analysis policy have influenced the roles of various disciplines in risk analysis. It explores ways in which integrated bio/physical-economic modeling could contribute to more accurate assessments of risk. It reviews examples of the kind of integrated economics-bio/physical modeling that could be used to enhance risk assessment. The essay ends with a discussion of institutional barriers to greater integration of economic modeling into risk assessment and provides suggestions on how these might be overcome.     

The Role of Social Support in Coping during the Anticipatory Stage of Organizational Change: A Test of an Integrative Model

Few researchers have explored how employees use social support to cope during organizational change. The current research proposed and tested a model that integrates moderation and mediation effects in order to understand how perceived available support influences employees' use of support mobilization to deal with change‐related stress. Survey data were collected from 476 health professionals working in a large public hospital undergoing large‐scale change and downsizing. Moderated path analyses revealed evidence to suggest that perceived available support plays a moderated mediation role during coping with change. Support mobilization mediated the indirect relationship between change‐related stress and job satisfaction, at both low and high levels of perceived available colleague support. Perceived available non‐work support moderated the relationship between support mobilization and job satisfaction, and perceived available supervisor support moderated the relationship between change‐related stress and support mobilization. The direction of simple effects was not always as expected and alternative explanations for these unexpected findings are offered, along with practical implications for supervisors managing organizational change.     

Exiting welfare in the 1990s: Did public policy influence recipients' behavior?

This paper evaluates the association between welfare policies implemented by states in the early to mid-1990s and the rate at which female household heads with children exit AFDC for work or for non-work reasons. The results show that waiver policies requiring work, such as the work requirement and the elimination of exemptions for mothers of very young children, are associated with more rapid exits through employment. Incentive policies that make work more attractive by allowing mothers to remain eligible as earnings rise extend the period of welfare receipt. Neither time limits, the family cap, nor sanctions were related to welfare exits during this early period of welfare reform. Results suggest that other policies implemented in the 1993-1996 period, such as the EITC, may have also influenced welfare exits. In addition, the economy played an important supportive role in facilitating recipient exits from public assistance. While relatively high unemployment rates did not deter recipients from working, state prosperity increased the positive impact of work requirements on work exits.     

The Well-Being of 12 - to 16-Year-Old Adolescents and their Parents: Results from 1999 to 2003 Spanish Samples

This study adopts satisfaction with life as a whole and satisfaction with specific life domains as indicators to analyse the relationships between the well-being of 12 to 16-year-old adolescents and some related constructs such as self-esteem, perceived control and perceived social support. Well-being indicators from a 2003 Spanish sample using an 11-point scale (N = 1,634) are compared with an equivalent 1999 Spanish sample using a 5-point scale (N = 1,618). The different results obtained from the 2003 sample with a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using a shorter and a longer list of life domains are also discussed. A sub-sample of the adolescents’ results from the 2003 sample are compared with their parents’ answers, using the same well-being indicators. Using a list of 8 life domains, and despite the change of scale used, overall results show no relevant changes in adolescents’ satisfaction with life domains between 1999 and 2003 in Spain and are in agreement with normative data expected from western societies [Cummins: 1998, Social Indicators Research 43, pp. 307–334; Cummins et al.: 2001, Australian Unity Well-being Index (Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University, Melbourne)]. Adolescents’ overall life satisfaction has been shown to correlate consistently with the other well-being related constructs. However, it clearly decreases with age over the period studied. The results also show that increasing the list of life domains has a major impact on the structure of the results obtained. When we compare results from parents with those from their own child, outstanding differences in well-being appear between generations: few domain satisfaction dimensions show significant correlation between parents and children and more than 20% of the population studied shows high discrepancies in the answers in four domains.     

Parity-Specific and two-sex utility models of reproductive intentions

This paper uses married couples’ anticipated consequences of having a (another) child to predict their reproductive intentions. Parity-specific models identify different variables as predictors of reproductive behavior at different parities but do not yield interpretable patterns of difference by parity. Parity-specific models are not significantly stronger predictors of reproductive behavior. Generally, wife-only models are distinctly superior to husband-only models. Two-sex models are usually better predictors than one-sex models but not enough better to justify the additional cost.     

Factors Associated with Advance Care Planning Among Older Women in Southwest Florida

ABSTRACT

As the nation's population continues to age, many older women will face care needs that can be anticipated in advance. However, little is known about the advance care plans of older women and the characteristics of those who plan. This study utilized a stratified random sampling design to survey older women (n = 124) in the state of Florida regarding their attitudes toward future care and planning behavior in social-environmental, health, and financial domains. Regression analyses were conducted to determine factors most predictive of attitudes toward future care and planning behavior by domain. Results suggest that advanced age predicts greater planning behavior, while living alone is associated with less advance care planning behavior. Other factors associated with less planning by domains of care needs include income status, chronic health conditions, educational attainment, and religious status. Nonaccepting attitudes toward planning were associated with a decreased likelihood to have advance care planning documents.