Flourishing,Substance Use,and Engagement in Students Entering College: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify the health topics students received information about, how students obtained health-related information, and perceived believability of those sources. Participants and Methods: Students (N = 1202) were surveyed using the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) of the American College Health Association. Results: Nearly half (46%) of the sample reported not receiving any information, whereas only 0.5% received information on all health topics. The Internet was the most common source of health-related information, but, conversely, was perceived as the least believable source. Health center medical staff and university health educators were perceived to be the most believable sources. Conclusions: Future practice at the university setting should focus on delivering health information through believable messengers utilizing the most commonly reported sources of information. This may have implications towards how students shape their health-related social cognitions and subsequent behaviors.     

Residential and Racial Mortality Differentials in the South by Cause of Death1

Abstract Mortality levels and differences by metropolitan-nonmetropolitan residence for blacks and whites are examined in the South using life-table techniques. Life tables are constructed for Southern subpopulations using U.S. vital statistics and census data for 1980, and differences in the life expectancies are decomposed by cause of death. Results suggest that life expectancy is higher for metropolitan and white populations. Racial mortality differences are slightly greater in metropolitan areas of the South when compared to the nonmetropolitan South. Residential mortality differences are attributable mainly to differences in the effects of heart disease and accidents. Most of the racial mortality difference is due to differences in effects of malignant neoplasms, cardiovascular disease, perinatal conditions, and homicide. Policy efforts aimed at specific causes of death in specific populations are suggested as a means of reducing racial or residential life expectancy differentials.     

Peer Group Acceptance and Academic Performance Among Adolescents Participating in a Dropout Prevention Program

This investigation examines the relationship between peer group acceptance and academic performance among adolescents participating in a dropout prevention program. Three variables assessing school-related attitudes and behavior are identified as potential links between peer group acceptance and academic performance and the results are examined in the context of the gender and racial/ethnic group identification of adolescent respondents. Peer group acceptance is found to have an indirect rather than a direct influence on academic achievement. The behavior variable, avoidance of problem behavior, provides the strongest path of connection between peer group acceptance and academic performance. Implications of the findings for social work practice in the school setting are discussed.     

Bayesian inference for pairwise interacting point processes

Pairwise interacting point processes are commonly used to model spatial point patterns. To perform inference, the established frequentist methods can produce good point estimates when the interaction in the data is moderate, but some methods may produce severely biased estimates when the interaction in strong. Furthermore, because the sampling distributions of the estimates are unclear, interval estimates are typically obtained by parametric bootstrap methods. In the current setting however, the behavior of such estimates is not well understood. In this article we propose Bayesian methods for obtaining inferences in pairwise interacting point processes. The requisite application of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques is complicated by an intractable function of the parameters in the likelihood. The acceptance probability in a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm involves the ratio of two likelihoods evaluated at differing parameter values. The intractable functions do not cancel, and hence an intractable ratio r must be estimated within each iteration of a Metropolis-Hastings sampler. We propose the use of importance sampling techniques within MCMC to address this problem. While r may be estimated by other methods, these, in general, are not readily applied in a Bayesian setting. We demonstrate the validity of our importance sampling approach with a small simulation study. Finally, we analyze the Swedish pine sapling dataset (Strand 1972) and contrast the results with those in the literature.     

Gender Bias in the Allocation of Curative Health Care in Minia,Egypt

Research indicates that girls' disadvantage in 1–4 mortality is unusually high inEgypt, yet the relevance of intra-family differences in power for the distributionof health resources is debated. This analysis compares effects of the involvementof various family members on choice of provider, place of care, and total expendituresfor curative care among 129 girls and boys with diarrhea in Minia, Egypt. Girlshave lower odds than boys of visiting doctors versus lay providers and privateversus informal facilities, and the involvement of fathers in prior discussionsabout care may be important to reduce this disparity. Median expenditures forcurative care also are lower for girls than boys, particularly when fathers arenever involved in choice of care. Future research should examine the extent towhich these disparities in care reflect differences in the quality of care received.     

Toward a scheduling congruity theory of family resource management

This article presents the elements of a theory to explain the dynamic construction and execution of production processes. The theory takes into account both the cognitive underpinnings and observable streams of purposive action necessary for managerial behavior. It attempts to explain both the consciously planned and executed action of individuals and the more routine, repetitive activities which dominate most resource allocation behavior. Further, it provides a framework within which goal directed actions of individuals may be translated into goal directed actions of groups of individuals.The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.Rosemary J. Avery is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Consumer Economics and Housing at Cornell University, 103 Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853. She received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1988. Her research areas include family management and time use, family decision making, and family formation via adoption.Kathryn Stafford is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Resource Management at The Ohio State University, Campbell Hall, Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210. Her research focuses upon management by families who generate income at home, and she has also done work in the areas of family time use and household production. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1978.     

The complexity of roles in community action projects: The example of the evaluation of ‘alternatives’

Evaluation of community interventions is a special form of evaluation involving many roles that are key to accomplishing both the intervention and the accompanying research. The present paper describes the roles involved in the evaluation of a community intervention (‘Alternatives’) aimed at safer use of alcohol and depressant medications by seniors.The three core roles were the community developer who provided leadership in the implementation of the project, the researcher/evaluator, and the community committee that sanctioned and facilitated the project. Other roles on the project included: the project coordinator, the nurse-interviewers who collected the survey data for the evaluation, volunteers from seniors groups, local health service providers, the media, the funders, and others on the project team who provided specific technical expertise.The paper describes the competing interests among these roles as well as conflicts that arose and how these conflicts were handled. Although specific roles are described, the types of roles and the potential for competing interests and conflict are generally relevant to community level evaluations.     

Resources,Family Organization,and Domestic Violence Against Married Women in Minya,Egypt

I evaluate the influence of household wealth, women's socioeconomic dependence, status inconsistency, and family organization on physical abuse in the prior year and attitudes about wife abuse and divorce among 2,522 married women in Minya, Egypt. Household wealth is negatively associated with physical abuse. Women who are dependent on marriage because they have sons and less schooling than their husbands are more likely to have experienced physical abuse and to report marginally more tolerance for such abuse. Women who are isolated from natal or biological kin and living with marital relatives are more likely to have experienced physical abuse. Findings underscore the role of women's dependence and social isolation in enabling physical abuse among women of all economic classes.     

Patterns of Childlessness among Catholic and Non-Catholic Women in the U.S.: A Log-Linear Analysis*

The principal objective of this paper is to conduct a log-linear analysis of patterns of childlessness among Catholic and non-Catholic women in the United States. We address this issue by examining white women between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four, ascertaining whether they are voluntarily, involuntarily, or temporarily childless or childed. Given the long-standing emphasis of the Catholic Church regarding the importance of children in marriage and the family, an emphasis which was not reversed during the Second Vatican Council, we suggest that even after controlling for religious activity and educational attainment, Catholic women should be less disposed than non-Catholic women to choose voluntarily to have no children. We review various aspects of Church doctrine leading to such an hypothesis. Our results do not suggest an “end” to Catholic-non-Catholic differentials in childlessness. Catholic women between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four in 1976 were very far apart from non-Catholic women with respect to the voluntary decision to have no children. And they are also very different from non-Catholic women regarding patterns of involuntary childlessness. These differential patterns of voluntary and involuntary childlessness are discussed and analyzed.