Mapping the uninsured using secondary data: an environmental justice application in Dallas

Over the last 5 years, environmental justice (EJ) researchers have been calling for incorporation of health outcomes more directly into spatial studies of socio-demographics and environmental hazards. To date, researchers have not incorporated insurance status (an access to health care variable) in their models although access to care likely has an important association with the probability of health effects due to environmental exposures. As such, insurance status represents an important variable within spatial EJ studies focused on health, and the lack of spatially explicit access to care data is a critical limitation in the field. As a solution, we offer a method of using uninsured appendicitis cases, acquired secondarily from state hospital admissions data, to estimate rates of uninsurance at the zip-code level. We apply the technique to explore relationships between cancer risk from hazardous air pollutants and estimated rates of uninsurance, a previously unexplored phenomenon. Then, we compare the uninsurance findings to those related to poverty to illustrate how uninsurance, as a variable, compares to a more traditional socio-economic predictor used in EJ studies. The relationship between cancer risk from hazardous air pollutants and uninsurance is weaker than the relationship between risk and poverty, but both are statistically significant. As such, we conclude with a discussion of the importance of considering insurance status in spatial studies of EJ focused on health.     

Organizational perspectives on digital labor market intermediaries

Dramatic changes in organizational forms and employee-employer relationships have coincided with a proliferation of labor market intermediaries. Often digital and internet-based, these new hiring technologies assist organizations in recruiting and screening potential job candidates. We identify three types of digital labor market intermediaries (dLMIs): connectors, curators, and comminglers. We examine the use of dLMIs through the lens of organizational theory, focusing on implications for organizational efficiency, power, and equity. dLMI use is patterned but variable across different organizations and has unintended outcomes that defy efficiency expectations. It poses new constraints for job seekers while allowing organizations and intra-organizational groups to negotiate institutional pressures and power imbalances. Finally, dLMI use appears to reproduce pre-existing inequalities among different types of employees.     

Social Media(tion) and the Reshaping of Public/Private Boundaries in Employment Relations

Tensions surrounding social media in the employment relationship are increasingly evident in the media, public rhetoric, and courts and employment tribunals. Yet the underlying causes and dimensions of these tensions have remained largely unexplored. This article firstly reviews the available literature addressing social media and employment, outlining three primary sources of contestation: profiling, disparaging posts and blogs, and private use of social media during work time. In each area, the key dynamics and underlying concerns of the central actors involved are identified. The article then seeks to canvas explanations for these forms of contestation associated with social media at work. It is argued that the architecture of social media disrupts traditional relations in organisational life by driving employer and employee actions that (re)shape and (re)constitute the boundaries between public and private spheres. Although employers and employees are using the same social technologies, their respective concerns about and points of entry to these technologies, in contrast to traditional manifestations of conflict and resistance, are asymmetric. The article concludes with a representational summary of the relative legitimacy of concerns for organisational actors and outlines areas for future research.     

Welfare programs and the state economy

Welfare policy has been controversial and support is often drawn along political affiliation lines, the economic return of investment in welfare programs is frequently cited as a justification for new and expanded policies. To investigate the direct and indirect effects of welfare programs on economic performance, the authors develop a multilink approach, through employment and investment. The relationship is then tested with data from each of the United States from 1976 to 2006. Findings show welfare programs have no direct effect on a state's economy. Indirectly, welfare has a negative effect through investment, though the effect on employment is minimal.     

The Role of Non‐profit Organizations in the Mixed Economy of Welfare‐to‐Work in the UK and Australia

This article charts the development of welfare‐to‐work policies and compares and contrasts the traditions of delivery in the UK and Australia. We find that in the UK, employment services and social security benefit administration have been dominated by the central state, traditionally affording a key role to civil servants as direct delivery agents. However, in federal Australia, mixed economies of welfare‐to‐work operate in the different states, there is a far greater role for social services and non‐profit organizations are firmly established as key providers of frontline employment services. Since the late 1990s, UK welfare reforms have been gradually following the Australian lead in contracting non‐state actors as delivery agents. As this trend seems set to continue and intensify, we examine the Australian experience in order to reflect on the role of non‐profits in policy reform.     

Production Teams and Producing Racial Diversity in Workplace Relationships

Production teams have become a dominant form of work organization as labor markets have become increasingly diverse. This transition likely affects coworker networks—possibly undermining entrenched patterns of workplace segregation. Contact theory suggests that teams can foster network diversity when workers cooperate and share values emphasizing mutual respect. Yet variants of conflict theory, including the critical teams literature, contend that the benefits of teamwork may be eroded by associated factors, including peer discipline, work intensification, and job insecurity. This study uses 2006 General Social Survey data to assess whether and how teamwork affects the racial diversity of worker acquaintance networks, contrasting worker‐ and manager‐directed teams. We find a positive relationship between teams and diversity, but only when teams are worker directed. Despite countervailing tendencies highlighted in the literature, teams foster greater cooperation between workers, which in turn promotes cross‐racial friendships. African Americans tend to receive the greatest diversity payoffs from teams. These findings suggest that teamwork can undermine segregation, though only with certain implementations and with variation across groups.     

Developing a Research Agenda on Resident-to-Resident Aggression: Recommendations From a Consensus Conference

This article provides an overview of the development of a research agenda on resident-to-resident aggression (RRA) in long-term care facilities by an expert panel of researchers and practitioners. A 1-day consensus-building workshop using a modified Delphi approach was held to gain consensus on nomenclature and an operational definition for RRA, to identify RRA research priorities, and to develop a roadmap for future research on these priorities. Among the six identified terms in the literature, RRA was selected. The top five priorities were: (a) developing/assessing RRA environmental interventions; (b) identification of the environmental factors triggering RRA; (c) incidence/prevalence of RRA; (d) developing/assessing staff RRA education interventions; and (e) identification of RRA perpetrator and victim characteristics. Given the significant harm RRA poses for long-term care residents, this meeting is an important milestone, as it is the first organized effort to mobilize knowledge on this under-studied topic at the research, clinical, and policy levels.     

Staffing-Related Deficiency Citations in Nursing Homes

There is evidence that staffing characteristics influence quality of care in nursing homes. Federal and state surveyors conduct inspections of homes to assess their compliance with regulatory standards, including requirements related to staffing. Deficiency citations are issued when these standards are not met. This article examines the relationship between operational, facility, and market characteristics and organizational performance measured as staffing-related deficiency citations. Online Survey Certification of Automated Records (OSCAR) data from 2000 through 2007 were used with multinomial logistic regression analyses to identify factors associated with deficiency citations for staffing. Chain members and facilities with poor quality of care were more likely to receive deficiency citations for staffing. Greater bed count and competition between nursing homes were associated with a decreased likelihood of deficiency citations for staffing. Staffing-related deficiencies within nursing homes vary according to various operational, facility, and market characteristics.     

Conforming to and Resisting Dominant Gender Norms: How Male and Female Nursing Students Do and Undo Gender

Much existing research has shown that men are able to construct and enact masculine identities in female‐dominated occupational contexts. However, few studies have examined the experiences of both men and women in these occupations. Furthermore, few studies attend to how men and women in these occupations both conform to and resist gender norms. In this study, I draw on the undoing gender frameworks developed by Deutsch and Butler to address the limitations mentioned above. Most notably, this study attends to the ways in which male and female nursing students do gender by conforming to dominant gender norms, as well as undo gender by resisting these norms. The main contribution of this study is thus to show the multiple ways through which gender can be done and undone in the professional training of both male and female nurses. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of attending to both women and men in research on female‐dominated occupations and of examining both similarities and differences in the gender performances of men and women.     

Thinking Critically

This study evaluated a ten-week course designed for social work field instructors interested in developing a critically reflective approach to field instruction. The course trained participants to think critically about their role in preparing professional social workers. A pretest-posttest nonequivalent comparison group design was utilized. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal was used as the measurement instrument. Using t-tests, the findings indicate that the participants significantly increased their overall ability to think critically when compared to the control group. The implications for practicum instruction are addressed.