Senior Services that Support Housing First in Metro Vancouver

Housing First is a model and philosophy for housing homeless people in immediate and permanent housing. In order to implement and deliver Housing First, research is essential to understand the system of support services as they currently exist. Guided by principles of community-based participatory research, this paper presents the findings from a senior-focused deliberative dialogue workshop in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Participants (16 service providers and 1 service recipient) identified services and resources available to support seniors in maintaining housing and barriers and facilitators for accessing services. Broadly, data were organized into seven themes: (1) Housing; (2) Home support; (3) Transportation; (4) Information availability, accessibility, and navigation; (5) Cultural diversity; (6) Discrimination; and (7) Funding and financial support. Results found that affordable housing that adapts to changing health conditions, income supports, health services, homecare, transportation, and culturally appropriate and nondiscriminatory informational resources are among the supports most needed for persons as young as 50 years old to succeed under the Housing First model in Metro Vancouver. Barriers to Housing First service provision, including rigid eligibility criteria for chronically and episodically homeless, should be revised to better support the growing number of older adults who are newly entering homelessness in Metro Vancouver.     

Equivalence class formation in non-hearing impaired children and hearing impaired children

The relationship between verbal behavior and stimulus equivalence was examined using three sets of children differing in chronological age and verbal ability: (1) non-hearing impaired three and four year olds who had verbal skills generally consistent with their chronological ages; (2) partially hearing (severe to profoundly deaf) children who were rated with verbal ages of above 2 years; and (3) partially hearing children (also severely to profoundly deaf) who were rated with verbal ages of below 2 years. All children were taught a series of four conditional discriminations using unfamiliar stimuli. The children were then tested to determine whether classes of equivalent stimuli had formed. Although all the children were able to learn the conditional discriminations equally well and all the verbally-able children (normal and partially hearing) formed equivalence classes, only one of the verbally-impaired children reliably demonstrated stimulus equivalence formation. These results are consistent with the suggestion that stimulus equivalence and human verbal behavior are closely related.

     

DIVORCE TRANSITIONS: IDENTIFYING RISK AND PROMOTING RESILIENCE FOR CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTAL RELATIONSHIPS

This paper gives an account of qualitative research linked to clinical work relating to some of the short-term effects of divorce on children within a British perspective. The transitions that accompany divorce and family reordering are shown by many studies in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand as well as in the United Kingdom to have stressful effects for children that can lead to long-term negative outcomes. Other studies have focused on the differential social and family factors that may contribute to the "differences that make a difference" to whether divorce has harmful effects on children. This paper describes clinical intervention into family relationships in divorcing and postdivorce families and suggests some high-risk issues for children. The focus of the work is one promoting long-term connections between parents and children in reordered+ families. Some interactions that may promote resilience in children as well as in their parents are alluded to briefly.     

Health-related variables and academic performance among first-year college students: implications for sleep and other behaviors

The authors analyzed the effect of several health behaviors and health-related variables on grade point averages of a random sample of 200 students living in on-campus residence halls at a large private university. The set of variables included exercise, eating, and sleep habits; mood states; perceived stress; time management; social support; spiritual or religious habits; number of hours worked per week; gender; and age. Of all the variables considered, sleep habits, particularly wake-up times, accounted for the largest amount of variance in grade point averages. Later wake-up times were associated with lower average grades. Variables associated with the 1st-year students' higher grade point averages were strength training and study of spiritually oriented material. The number of paid or volunteer hours worked per week was associated with lower average grades.     

The role of mindfulness in romantic relationship satisfaction and responses to relationship stress

Two studies examined the role of mindfulness in romantic relationship satisfaction and in responses to relationship stress. Using a longitudinal design, Study 1 found that higher trait mindfulness predicted higher relationship satisfaction and greater capacities to respond constructively to relationship stress. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings. Mindfulness was again shown to relate to relationship satisfaction; then, using a conflict discussion paradigm, trait mindfulness was found to predict lower emotional stress responses and positive pre- and postconflict change in perception of the relationship. State mindfulness was related to better communication quality during the discussion. Both studies indicated that mindfulness may play an influential role in romantic relationship well-being. Discussion highlights future research directions for this new area of inquiry.     

Copula variation in Asturian Spanish and the multidimensionality of stancetaking in interaction

In this study, I analyze the relationship between stance, style and sociolinguistic variation in a situation of language contact between Asturian and Spanish in the urban areas of Asturias (Spain). Using different types of data, and a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods, I explore the interactional functions of Asturian ‘ye’ (‘he/she/it is’), a salient marker of Asturian identity, and how the stances indexed by this form – low epistemic commitment, lack of seriousness and social solidarity – are connected to more enduring social identities. In the analysis, I provide a possible operationalization of stances that takes into consideration the multidimensionality of the stancetaking process. I also show how examining stance can provide a tool to move beyond monolithic representations of social meaning, and dichotomous distinctions between standard and non‐standard variants.     

A continuous-time Markov model for estimating readmission risk for hospital inpatients

Research concerning hospital readmissions has mostly focused on statistical and machine learning models that attempt to predict this unfortunate outcome for individual patients. These models are useful in certain settings, but their performance in many cases is insufficient for implementation in practice, and the dynamics of how readmission risk changes over time is often ignored. Our objective is to develop a model for aggregated readmission risk over time – using a continuous-time Markov chain – beginning at the point of discharge. We derive point and interval estimators for readmission risk, and find the asymptotic distributions for these probabilities. Finally, we validate our derived estimators using simulation, and apply our methods to estimate readmission risk over time using discharge and readmission data for surgical patients.     

The impact of missing data and how it is handled on the rate of false-positive results in drug development

In drug development, a common choice for the primary analysis is to assess mean changes via analysis of (co)variance with missing data imputed by carrying the last or baseline observations forward (LOCF, BOCF). These approaches assume that data are missing completely at random (MCAR). Multiple imputation (MI) and likelihood-based repeated measures (MMRM) are less restrictive as they assume data are missing at random (MAR). Nevertheless, LOCF and BOCF remain popular, perhaps because it is thought that the bias in these methods lead to protection against falsely concluding that a drug is more effective than the control. We conducted a simulation study that compared the rate of false positive results or regulatory risk error (RRE) from BOCF, LOCF, MI, and MMRM in 32 scenarios that were generated from a 2(5) full factorial arrangement with data missing due to a missing not at random (MNAR) mechanism. Both BOCF and LOCF inflated RRE were compared to MI and MMRM. In 12 of the 32 scenarios, BOCF yielded inflated RRE compared with eight scenarios for LOCF, three scenarios for MI and four scenarios for MMRM. In no situation did BOCF or LOCF provide adequate control of RRE when MI and MMRM did not. Both MI and MMRM are better choices than either BOCF or LOCF for the primary analysis.