A comprehensive workplace intervention and its outcome with regard to lifestyle, health and sick leave: the AHA study

This study is a prospective multicentre cohort study entitled Work and Health in the Processing and Engineering Industries, the AHA Study (AHA is the Swedish abbreviation for the study). Four large workplaces in Sweden participated during the years from 2000 to 2003. The present report has two objectives: (1) to present a comprehensive occupational health intervention programme and (2) to evaluate this programme with a focus on lifestyle (smoking and exercise), health related quality of life (HRQoL) and sick leave. Interventions were provided on an individual and group level, including evidence-based methods for four health/focus areas (individual level) and a group intervention based on a survey-feedback methodology. The analyses in this report were exclusively employed at an organizational level. The proportion of smokers decreased at three companies and the course of the HRQoL was advantageous at two of the companies as compared to a gainfully employed reference group. A significant decrease in sick leave was revealed at one company, whereas a break in an ascending sick-leave trend appeared at a second company as compared to their respective corporate groups. This comprehensive workplace intervention programme appears to have had positive effects on smoking habits, HRQoL and sick leave.     

Risk Assessment Tools and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System

This paper addresses the possible consequences for racial and ethnic disparities of the growing reliance on risk assessment tools for sentencing in juvenile justice systems. These tools consider both legal factors (i.e. criminal history) and personal background factors (e.g. household composition, parents’ arrest history, the youth’s mental health, attitudes, school status, and current employment status) to predict the likelihood of recidivism, which then informs punishment decisions. Because they decontextualize race, the associations between race and risk factors linked to race could possibly create higher risk scores and harsher punishments for minority youth.     

Toward a Concept of a Migrant Personality

In this article we argue that individuals who want to emigrate possess a syndrome of personality characteristics that differentiates them from those who want to stay in their country of origin. Based on our own research, as well as other research findings, we show that those who want to resettle in another country tend to be more work-oriented and to have higher achievement and power motivation, but lower affiliation motivation and family centrality, than those who do not want to leave their country of origin. This migrant personality syndrome is seen as only one of the variety of factors that determine migratory behavior. We further discuss some of the possible implications of our findings for the receiving and the sending countries and possible psychological interventions that can ease the acculturation of immigrants.     

Evaluation case histories as a parallel to legal case histories: Accumulating knowledge and experience in the evaluation profession

Legal case histories are a basic and essential part of the law. It is proposed that evaluation case histories would be valuable to the evaluation profession in that they would serve both to accumulate knowledge and experience and as examples of how to do evaluations. Part I of the paper is a discussion of the nature, place and use of case histories in law. The format of a reported case, the use of cases by attorneys and how case decisions are reported and categorized are also discussed. Part II of the paper tries to envision the nature and use of evaluation case histories as a parallel to legal case histories. Matters discussed include the possible function and use of evaluation case histories, the difference between an evaluation report and an evaluation case history, information an evaluation case history could contain, and how case histories might be reported and categorized.     

Sensitizing nursing home staff to residents' psychosocial needs

Most of the direct care of nursing home residents is provided by nursing aides. Aides generally have had limited training and experience working with the frail elderly and may not be attuned to residents' psychosocial needs. This can result in aides working at cross purposes with the social worker, producing a system that is counterproductive. This paper describes a situation where inservice training was utilized to help aides gain a greater understanding of the residents in their care. Advantages of using in-service are discussed, potential pitfalls are considered, and illustrations of in-service training techniques are presented.     

Who Claims Dual Citizenship? The Limits of Postnationalism,the Possibilities of Transnationalism,and the Persistence of Traditional Citizenship1

The dynamics of globalization, especially international migration, challenge traditional frameworks of citizenship and prompted scholars to develop new models of membership: transnationalism and postnationalism. All three‐the traditional, transnational and postnational‐explicitly or implicitly address the controversial topic of dual citizenship, or multiple membership. Lack of statistical data, however, has made it difficult to adjudicate between these models or to undertake a broad empirical assessment of dual citizenship, either over time or between people from different countries and socioeconomic backgrounds. This article outlines the testable implications of traditional, transnational and post‐national frameworks and evaluates these hypotheses using a unique statistical data source that asked respondents to report multiple citizenship, the 1981, 1991 and 1996 20% Canadian census samples. The data offer little evidence that immigrants adopt a strict postnational view of citizenship, but they reveal the possibilities of transnationalism and the continued relevance of traditional frameworks. Over time, we observe a rapid increase in the aggreate level of reported dual citizenship from 1981 to 1996. We also find that those with higher human capital, rather than the economically marginalized, are more likely to embrace dual citizenship. After controlling for individual attributes, important contextual or group effects nonetheless remain: self‐reports of dual citizenship vary significantly by birthplace and are higher if an immigrant lives in Quebec. Since naturalization levels seem to rise in tandem with reports of dual citizenship, this research suggests a certain paradox: while multiple belonging