Social Policy, Feminism, and Research on Violence in Close Relationships

The history of research on intimate partner violence is reviewed, with a special focus on how my own work in this area has evolved. The role of researcher values in the research process is highlighted. Some of the issues emerging from this review are the need for better measures of intimate partner violence, reasons why women's violence has been ignored by many researchers, and a discussion of the conditions under which women display violence. Policy implications of this research are discussed .     

An explorative study of peer influence and response to adolescent self‐cutting behavior in Hong Kong∗

This paper reports on a qualitative study of peer responses to self‐cutting of secondary school adolescents in Hong Kong. Through semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with three adolescent self‐cutters, their family members, and their peers, the peers’ response to adolescents’ self‐cutting was explored. The findings showed that different peers had different types of influence, as well as different responses to self‐cutting. Close and supportive peers were usually the first to discover the self‐cutting. They were a source of help, communicating with parents, friends, teachers, and the adolescents themselves. In contrast, non‐supportive peers, especially boyfriends or girlfriends, created conflicts that seemed to provoke self‐cutting. The findings’ significance for social work intervention is also discussed.     

ACCOUNTING FOR NON-COMPLIANCE IN THE ANALYSIS OF RANDOMIZED RESPONSE DATA

The randomized response model is a misclassification design that is used to protect the privacy of respondents with respect to sensitive questions. Conditional misclassification probabilities are specified by the researcher and are therefore considered to be known. It is to be expected that some of the respondents do not comply with respect to the misclassification design. These respondents induce extra perturbation, which is not accounted for in the standard randomized response model. An extension of the randomized response model is presented that takes into account assumptions with respect to non-compliance under simple random sampling. The extended model is investigated using Bayesian inference. The research is motivated by randomized response data concerning violations of regulations for social benefit.     

One Year On: Perceptions of the Lasting Benefits of Involvement in a Parenting Support Programme

The availability of parenting support programmes has increased significantly within the UK over the last decade. Most evaluations of these programmes have focused on short‐term outcomes. The present study attempted to gain a longer term perspective by interviewing 20 carers more than 12 months after completing a group‐based programme. The results obtained using thematic analysis showed that the majority of participants felt the programme had had lasting effects on their ability to manage their children's behaviour and empowered them as adults. The key themes to emerge in the interviews were: the maintenance of parenting skills, the need for perseverance, strengthening of support networks and encouragement for further provision of programmes. It is argued that evaluation of support programmes should focus on more than parenting skills by assessing their impact on participants’ wider lives.     

Practical modeling strategies for unbalanced longitudinal data analysis

In practice, data are often measured repeatedly on the same individual at several points in time. Main interest often relies in characterizing the way the response changes in time, and the predictors of that change. Marginal, mixed and transition are frequently considered to be the main models for continuous longitudinal data analysis. These approaches are proposed primarily for balanced longitudinal design. However, in clinic studies, data are usually not balanced and some restrictions are necessary in order to use these models. This paper was motivated by a data set related to longitudinal height measurements in children of HIV-infected mothers that was recorded at the university hospital of the Federal University in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This data set is severely unbalanced. The goal of this paper is to assess the application of continuous longitudinal models for the analysis of unbalanced data set.     

Modeling delay in diagnosis of NF: under reportincg,incidence and prevalence estimates

In this paper, we analyze data from the Italian National Register of Rare Diseases (NRRD) focusing, in particular, on the geo-temporal distribution of patients affected by neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1, ICD9CM code 237.71). The aim is at deriving a corrected measure of incidence for the period 2007–2009 using a single source, and to provide NF1 prevalence estimates for the period 2001–2006 through the use of capture–recapture methods over two sources. In the first case, a reverse hazard estimator for the delay in diagnosis of NF1 is used to estimate the probability that a generic unit belonging to the population of interest has been registered by the archive of reference. For the second purpose, two-source capture–recapture methods have been used to estimate the number of NF1 prevalent units in Italy for the period 2001–2006, matching information provided by the NRRD and the national register of hospital discharge, Scheda di Dimissione Ospedaliera (in the following SDO), archives.     

Workplace Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms: A Study of Multi-Ethnic Hospital Employees

Workplace discrimination reports have recently increased in the U.S. Few studies have examined racial/ethnic differences and the mental health consequences of this exposure. We examined the association between self-reported workplace discrimination and depressive symptoms among a multi-ethnic sample of hospital employees. Data came from the prospective case–control Gradients of Occupational Health in Hospital Workers (GROW) study (N = 664). We used the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) to assess depressive symptoms and measured the occurrence, types, and frequency of workplace discrimination. African Americans were more likely than other racial/ethnic employees to report frequent and multiple types of discrimination exposure. Multivariate relationships were examined while controlling for socio-demographic factors, job strain, and general social stressors. After adjustment, workplace discrimination occurrence and frequency were positively associated with depressive symptoms. The positive association between workplace discrimination and depressive symptoms was similar across racial and ethnic groups. Reducing workplace discrimination may improve psychosocial functioning among racial/ethnic minority hospital employees at greatest risk of exposure.