Psychometric Confirmation of the Sexual Health Survey as a Useful Tool for College Health Professionals

Abstract

Objective: To conduct a confirmatory factor analysis on the 17-item Sexual Health Survey (SHS), a comprehensive instrument designed to be used with college students. Participants: College students (N = 515) aged 18 to 26 years enrolled at a Midwest public university October 2009. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation was performed to test the stability of the constructs. Results: All factor loadings were significant (p < .001), ranging from .55 to .99 (standardized). The range of squared multiple correlations of items was .31 to .98, and the intercorrelations among the 5 factors were from ?.03 to .52. These small to moderate levels of intercorrelation support discriminant validity of 5 constructs. Conclusions: This study supports the 5-factor version of the 17-item SHS as a viable scale that can measure sexual health overall and 5 distinct areas. College health professionals should consider use of this scale for assessment purposes and evaluation of programmatic efforts.     

A Limited Repertoire of Emotion Regulation Strategies is Associated with Internalizing Problems in Adolescence

The present study was designed to test whether the beneficial effects of emotion regulation (ER) have less to do with the use of singular, ‘adaptive’ strategies and more to do with using a range of strategies. Using a community sample of adolescents (N = 177, M = 13.6 years), groups based on five measures of ER (reappraisal, suppression, concealing, emotional engagement, and adjusting) were created through latent profile analysis. A six‐group model was the best fit. As hypothesized, ER profiles with high scores on one or two indicators were associated with higher levels of internalizing problems, whereas profiles with average to high scores on several indicators and high scores on adjusting were associated with lower levels of internalizing problems (depression, general anxiety, and social anxiety). Results highlight the importance of having different ER strategies to use and that a limited ER repertoire in adolescence may be associated with internalizing problems.     

Identifying Attributes of Relationship Management in Nonprofit Policy Advocacy

Relationship management has been identified as an important activity for policy advocacy, but little is known about the strategies that human service administrators use to develop and maintain relationships with policymakers. This exploratory study aimed at identifying attributes of relationship management strategies that are associated with policy advocacy outcomes. Data were gathered from a sample of 333 nonprofit human service providers in Florida. Controlling for organizational size, the findings indicated that several established dimensions of relationship management were associated with policy advocacy success: networking, sharing of tasks, and assurances. Post hoc analyses found that the relationship between policy advocacy success and the domains of access and openness were respectively mediated by networking and sharing of tasks. Implications for nonprofit administrators and researchers are discussed.     

Safety and Solidarity After the Boston Marathon Bombing: A Comparison of Three Diverse Boston Neighborhoods

This article investigates the effect of the Boston Marathon Bombing on city residents— how the tragic incident changed, or did not change, how Bostonians live in and feel about their community and neighborhoods. Unlike prior research that began weeks or months after a terrorist attack and used retrospective reports, this study spans the focal event. An address‐based sample of residents from three neighborhoods, distinct in racial and economic makeup was surveyed by mail using a three‐contact protocol. About two‐thirds of respondents answered a survey of neighborhood sentiments, and health and well‐being in the days before the bombing (N = 581) and slightly over a third answered the survey after the bombing (N = 313). Assessments of safety, city and neighborhood satisfaction and solidarity, mental health, and other key measures vary greatly between the three neighborhoods, which are diverse in racial and economic composition, but also vary in proximity to the bomb site. Net of neighborhood differences, the bombing had a strong negative effect on neighborhood cohesion and reduced use of public transit. Strong interactions are also found between timing of survey completion (pre and post bombing) and neighborhood for assessments of neighborhood solidarity.     

What Your Future Doctor Should Know About Statistics: Must-Include Topics for Introductory Undergraduate Biostatistics

The increased emphasis on evidence-based medicine creates a greater need for educating future physicians in the general domain of quantitative reasoning, probability, and statistics. Reflecting this trend, more medical schools now require applicants to have taken an undergraduate course in introductory statistics. Given the breadth of statistical applications, we should cover in that course certain essential topics that may not be covered in the more general introductory statistics course. In selecting and presenting such topics, we should bear in mind that doctors also need to communicate probabilistic concepts of risks and benefits to patients who are increasingly expected to be active participants in their own health care choices despite having no training in medicine or statistics. It is also important that interesting and relevant examples accompany the presentation, because the examples (rather than the details) are what students tend to retain years later. Here, we present a list of topics we cover in the introductory biostatistics course that may not be covered in the general introductory course. We also provide some of our favorite examples for discussing these topics.     

The Many Facets of Statistics Education: 175 Years of Common Themes

The American Statistical Association's primary founder, Lemuel Shattuck, was driven by a passion for collecting and disseminating accurate information on vital statistics, public health, and other statistically related concerns. The 175th anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the education-related reasons ASA was founded and what it has done in education since its founding, especially in the past 25 years since the 150th anniversary. An examination of early and more recent issues of the ASA's journals reveals some common themes that have recurred over the past 175 years. We discuss what those themes are and what the ASA is doing to address them currently, and then conclude by discussing what ASA members can do to help.     

When do older adults become "disabled"? Social and health antecedents of perceived disability in a panel study of the oldest old

Disability carries negative social meaning, and little is known about when (or if), in the process of health decline, persons identify themselves as "disabled." We examine the social and health criteria that older adults use to subjectively rate their own disability status. Using a panel study of older adults (ages 72+), we estimate ordered probit and growth curve models of perceived disability over time. Total prevalent morbidity, functional limitations, and cognitive impairment are predictors of perceived disability. Cessation of driving and receipt of home health care also influence older adults 'perceptions of their own disability. A dense social network slowed the rate of labeling oneself disabled, while health anxiety accelerated the process over time, independent of health status. When considering perceived disability, the oldest old use multidimensional criteria capturing function, recent changes in health status and social networks, and anxiety about their health.     

The Politics of Partnership in Tropical Public Health: Researching Tuberculosis Control in India

In today's globalizing world the nature of relationships between the North and South is changing to account for the closing gap in capacity to carry out research of international standard. The development of a lexicon sophisticated enough to address adequately these changing relationships, however, lags behind and is not supported by the current recourse to the jargon of 'partnership'. In this paper we explore the difficulties of negotiating a productive path through the dynamics of power and control that characterize international research collaborations. We call attention to this issue through recounting the story of the development of two quite different, but related, international research relationships in which we have been involved. We suggest that there is an important difference between those aspects of the relationship that respond to institutional needs and agendas and those aspects that relate more directly to the human relationships upon which the work in the field actually depends. We set out this difference in a tentative framework, where the relationship between researchers is labelled 'partnership' and the institutional relationship 'collaboration'. It is hoped that, by its inclusion in a journal on social policy, this paper may also stimulate discussion on the extent to which these issues are particular to international relationships or are, indeed, generalizable to national-level partnerships and collaborations within the UK and Europe.