Oral health among student veterans: Effects on mental and physical health

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore differences in oral health among students by military service status in postsecondary settings. Participants: Secondary data were obtained from the American College Health Association’s 2011–2014 National College Health Assessment II. Method: Demographic characteristics of the study sample were explored by calculating frequencies and percentages by military service status. Research questions were explored with maximum likelihood multiple logistic regression. Results: Service member and veteran students are at greater risk for neglecting health behaviors associated with positive oral health, including that they were less likely to get dental exams and that those who deployed in the past were the least likely to be practicing good oral health. Conclusions: The results suggest that improving oral health will contribute to improving health and mental health outcomes in this population, and provide important information for health specialists working with service members and veterans on college campuses.     

Truth® ads,receptivity, and motivation to use or quit tobacco among college students

Abstract

Objective: Examine receptivity and motivation to use/quit tobacco among college students after viewing Truth ads. Participants: Random sample of 10,000 college students invited to complete online survey February 2016 (8.5% response rate). Methods: Quasi-experimental. Participants (N?=?854) watched four ads and answered survey items for each ad. Results: Students rated ad receptivity and decreased motivation to use tobacco higher for the Catmageddon ad than the others. Regardless of ad, men and current cigarette smokers reported lower receptivity. Younger age was associated with lower motivation to use tobacco for all ads. Tobacco users reported greater motivation to quit with the Catmageddon ad. Conclusions: College students were receptive to the Truth ads, and many indicated lower motivation to use tobacco. Men, older college students, and current cigarette smokers were less receptive to the ads, reinforcing the need to develop tailored campaigns to reach these subgroups.     

Longitudinal Mediators of Relations Between Family Violence and Adolescent Dating Aggression Perpetration

Few longitudinal studies have examined the pathways through which family violence leads to dating aggression. In the current study the authors used 3 waves of data obtained from 8th‐ and 9th‐grade adolescents (N = 1,965) to examine the hypotheses that the prospective relationship between witnessing family violence and directly experiencing violence and physical dating aggression perpetration is mediated by 3 constructs: (a) normative beliefs about dating aggression (norms), (b) anger dysregulation, and (c) depression. Results from cross‐lagged regression models suggest that the relationship between having been hit by an adult and dating aggression is mediated by changes in norms and anger dysregulation, but not depression. No evidence of indirect effects from witnessing family violence to dating aggression was found through any of the proposed mediators. Taken together, the findings suggest that anger dysregulation and normative beliefs are potential targets for dating abuse prevention efforts aimed at youth who have directly experienced violence.     

Revisiting the Role of Impulsivity and Compulsivity in Problematic Sexual Behaviors

Impulsivity and compulsivity are transdiagnostic features associated with clinically relevant aspects of psychiatric disorders, including addictions. However, little research has investigated how impulsivity and compulsivity relate to hypersexuality and problematic pornography use. Thus, the aims of the present study were to investigate (a) self-reported impulsivity and compulsivity with respect to hypersexuality and problematic pornography use and (b) the similarities and possible differences between hypersexuality and problematic pornography use in these domains. Utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) in a large community sample (N = 13,778 participants; female = 4,151, 30.1%), results indicated that impulsivity (β = .28, β = .26) and compulsivity (β = .23, β = .14) were weakly related to problematic pornography use among men and women, respectively. Impulsivity had a stronger relationship (β = .41, β = .42) with hypersexuality than did compulsivity (β = .21, β = .16) among men and women, respectively. Consequently, impulsivity and compulsivity may not contribute as substantially to problematic pornography use as some scholars have proposed. On the other hand, impulsivity might have a more prominent role in hypersexuality than in problematic pornography use. Future research should examine further social and situational factors associated with problematic pornography use.     

Decolonial Hip Hop: Indigenous Hip Hop and the disruption of settler colonialism

ABSTRACT

Contemporary Detroit has gone through many changes – or so it appears. From streets lined with vehicles made by Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors and driven by the nearly 2 million people who called the city home in 1950 to certain parts of the city looking like ghost towns; from a population that dwindled to 670,000 to the revival of downtown. Yet, what has been remarkably consistent is the invisibility of the Motor City’s Indigenous population. Indeed, Indigenous erasure, combined with rhetoric and policies that continue to marginalize and subjugate African Americans in Detroit, create a place rooted in multiple colonialisms. This essay examines how Detroit’s Indigenous Hip Hop artists resist settler colonialism through art, creativity, and culture as well as the practices of Detroit 2.0, a rhetoric and policy used by Detroit elites to reimagine it as a place of opportunity. By making visible the connections between blackness and indigeneity, as well as by linking the struggle of colonized peoples in Detroit to those in Palestine, Indigenous artists are not only asserting their humanity and challenging the longstanding idea of their erasure, but also constructing pathways for artists and activists to disrupt the effects of multiple colonialisms that continue to marginalize people of colour in urban areas. Detroit’s Indigenous Hip Hop artists make socially conscious music and also participate as activists in the city of Detroit. They serve as a window onto contemporary Indigenous identity, represent an exemplar of the urban Indigenous experience, and combine activism with art in a variety of ways.     

Constructions of ‘the ageless’ asylum seekers: An analysis of how age is understood among professionals working within the norwegian immigration authorities

This article explores how professionals within the Norwegian immigration authorities conceptualise age when doing non-medical age assessments. By using social constructivism, which challenges an ethnocentric quantifying understanding of age, we delve into how socially constructed perceptions of childhood and adulthood manifest in assessment practices and the implications of these. By examining how applicants’ physical appearance, body language and life experience are used as an assessment basis, we argue that the ways age is conceptualised relate to Western ideas and ideals while overlooking other social and cultural backgrounds in which age is embedded.     

Inclusive education policy provision in South African research universities

The 4-A Framework suggests that all inclusive education systems must be available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. South Africa is committed to establishing an inclusive education system that does not exclude students with disabilities. South African university disability policies translate the imperatives of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into institutional mandates that govern the implementation of inclusive education. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent disability policies at South African research-intensive universities addressed the markers contained in the 4-A Framework. The framework was reworked and operationalised for the higher education context, and expanded to include a fifth marker, namely affordability. A deductive thematic analysis, using a protocol based on the five markers, was used to analyse these policies. Results indicate that, of the five markers, affordability was not sufficiently addressed. Various disclaimers also limit policy provisions related to other markers.