Fear,Defensive Strategies and Caring for Cognitively Impaired Family Members

One topic rarely addressed in the literature on older adults and interpersonal violence is the violence that can be experienced by family carers in relationship with a person living with cognitive impairment. This violence tends to remain hidden and is rarely framed as intimate partner violence. We examine how situations of intimidation and violence invoked fear in family carers and how they interpreted and reacted to these circum- stances. Interview and diary data were collected from family members who had previously or were currently experiencing some form of aggression in caring for someone with cognitive impairment or dementia. Drawing on discussions of fear and applying the analytic lens of defensive strategies, we explore how these carers responded to situations of intimidation and violence.     

Impact of an Overt Response System on Staff Performance and Maintenance of Computer-Based Instruction

Interactive Computer Based Instruction (CBI) systems involve teaching strategies to facilitate greater response opportunities during training in an effort to improve learner performance. The current study investigated the effect of online staff training videos with and without overt response requirements on posttest and maintenance test scores across six block-randomized instructional modules for four employees of a university located in the southeastern region of the United States. The overt response consisted of multiple-choice questions administered throughout select teaching modules using an alternating treatment design. Findings suggest that learning occurred as a result of the CBI training; however, the effectiveness of the overt response system varied across individuals, with no discernible differentiation between learning gains associated with response requirements. Other areas of research for expanding the efficacy of CBI and overt response systems are highlighted.     

Children's Physiological Regulation and Sibling Conflict as Correlates of Children's Conscience Development

Children's conscience, including the ability to experience guilt and engage in rule‐compatible behavior, develops across early childhood. The current study investigated whether within‐family variation in children's baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and sibling conflict behavior were associated with individual differences in children's guilt and internalized conduct. Between‐family differences across sibling dyad gender compositions were also examined. A within‐family design that included 70 families with two siblings between the ages of 2 and 5 was utilized. Children's baseline RSA was measured while sitting quietly with their family. Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires that assessed siblings’ conflict behavior, guilt, and internalized conduct. Older siblings had higher levels of guilt and internalized conduct than younger siblings. Results from actor‐partner interdependence models indicated that there were no direct effects of children's baseline RSA. The interaction effects approached significance (p's ≤ .08) suggesting that older siblings’ conflict moderated the association between older siblings’ baseline RSA and both older and younger siblings’ guilt. In contrast, older siblings’ conflict was positively associated with older and younger siblings’ internalized conduct. Guilt and internalized conduct also differed for older and younger siblings in different dyad gender compositions. The results underscore the need for greater clarity regarding the function that siblings serve in promoting children's moral development during early childhood.     

Polygynous Contexts,Family Structure,and Infant Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Contextual characteristics influence infant mortality above and beyond family-level factors. The widespread practice of polygyny is one feature of many sub-Saharan African contexts that may be relevant to understanding patterns of infant mortality. Building on evidence that the prevalence of polygyny reflects broader economic, social, and cultural features and that it has implications for how families engage in the practice, we investigate whether and how the prevalence of polygyny (1) spills over to elevate infant mortality for all families, and (2) conditions the survival disadvantage for children living in polygynous families (i.e., compared with monogamous families). We use data from Demographic and Health Surveys to estimate multilevel hazard models that identify associations between infant mortality and region-level prevalence of polygyny for 236,336 children in 260 subnational regions across 29 sub-Saharan African countries. We find little evidence that the prevalence of polygyny influences mortality for infants in nonpolygynous households net of region-level socioeconomic factors and gender inequality. However, the prevalence of polygyny significantly amplifies the survival disadvantage for infants in polygynous families. Our findings demonstrate that considering the broader marital context reveals important insights into the relationship between family structure and child well-being.     

Risk Assessment for Hospital-Acquired Diseases: A Risk-Theory Approach

We introduce a new approach to hospital-acquired disease risk assessment from public health databases. In a spirit similar to actuarial risk theory, we define an adjustment coefficient that can quantify the risk associated with a hospital department, allowing comparisons of similar departments. The adjustment coefficient characterizes the tail of the distribution of the total patient length of stay in a department before the first disease event occurs. We show that this coefficient is the solution of a Lundberg-like equation, and we provide a nonparametric estimation procedure for this measure, based on a Cramér-Lundberg approximation for the tail of the distribution. Using simulations, we provide evidence of the robustness of the approximation to various individual risk models. In addition, we illustrate the relevance of this approach by evaluating the risk associated with a standard patient safety indicator in 20 hospitals of southeastern France.     

Oppositional Girlhoods and the Challenge of Relational Politics

Over the last five years, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have problematized the discourse of “adolescent female exceptionalism” (Switzer in Fem Theory 14(3):345–360, 2013, p. 4) popularized by the NIKE Foundation’s Girl Effect. Arriving at similar conclusions, scholars point to the artificial neocolonial divisions between ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’ of the world animated by an ‘invest in girls’ logic. This paper endeavors to move beyond the “oppositional girlhoods” (Bent in Sociol Stud Child Youth 16(1):3–20, 2013a, p. 7) bind of girl effects discourse to propose that differentially positioned and experienced girlhoods might be better understood as transnational, relational cultural formations. Drawing from our empirical research with girls in North America and Sub-Saharan Africa, we consider the implications of girls’ increasing global visibility as the ‘saviors of humanity’ from different geopolitical contexts. We then go further to suggest the oppositional girlhoods frame assumes reductive, apolitical, and ahistorical claims of divergence between girlhoods in the Global North and Global South “with highly unequal effects” (Gonick et al. in Girlhood Stud 2(3):1–9, 2009, p. 3). By countering the normative construction of global girlhoods as mutually exclusive forms of personhood and historical experience, our project authorizes a new understanding of girlhoods as mutually constituted and relationally contingent. It is from within this relational framework that we propose new directions for thinking about girlhoods transnationally.     

Characteristics of children in residential treatment in New York State

This study addresses three questions about the population of children and families served in the highest level of care in the child welfare system in New York State residential treatment centers (RTCs): (1) How prevalent are emotional and behavioral problems in the youth entering RTCs? (2) Has the proportion of youth with such problems increased compared to 10 years ago? (3) Are there identifiable subgroups of youth entering RTCs? One-fourth of RTC admissions in fiscal year 2001 were randomly selected from a representative sample of 16 RTCs. The study completed a standardized data collection instrument based on a review of agency records, and included information that was known at the time each child was admitted. The results show significant increases compared to t10 years earlier in the proportion of youth with mental health problems and juvenile justice backgrounds. The findings suggest that youth who traditionally have been served by other systems of care are now being served in the child welfare system. The increased treatment needs of these youth and the heterogeneity of the RTC population have important implications for policies, programs, and practice.     

Environmental changes to increase physical activity: perceptions of older urban ethnic-minority women

Despite the numerous benefits of physical activity, older adults continue to be more sedentary than their younger counterparts, and sedentary behavior is more prevalent among older racial and ethnic minorities than among Whites. This study used the nominal group technique (NGT) to examine participants' perceptions of what neighborhood environmental changes would encourage greater physical activity for older African American and Hispanic women. Participants age 50-75 years were recruited from 2 urban community health clinics. Nine NGT sessions (45 participants) were conducted. The women were asked what changes in their neighborhood environment would encourage them to become more physically active. Responses to the research question were tabulated, and qualitative analysis was used to identify themes and categories. Major categories were physical environment changes, safety, and activities/social support. Although the physical environment received the greatest number of points, concerns for personal safety cut across categories. Participants indicated the need for more facilities in which to be active.