Professional quality of life of adult protective service workers

Adult Protective Services (APS) workers are exposed to substantial occupational hazards and job stress, but these stressors are underdocumented. Therefore, we sought to describe APS workers’ work environments and responses to occupational hazards and stressors, including compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. Survey data were gathered with closed-ended questionnaires administered to APS workers in an urban setting. Virtually all workers (97%) reported exposure to one or more environmental hazards in their work, and 80% reported hazard exposure in the past month. Workers also reported mixed responses to their work environment and to experiences with supervision. A sizable minority (22.7%) was at high risk for burnout, 24.6% were at risk for secondary traumatic stress, and 19.9% reported low compassion satisfaction. The results document multiple stressors in APS work. The APS partner is committed to ongoing efforts to better support its staff, and these findings can inform future efforts to enhance supervisor support and worker self-care, to minimize burnout and secondary traumatic stress.     

The Modern Mystique: Institutional Mediation of Hegemonic Motherhood

This study examines the means by which privileged mothers comply to the dominant expectations of intensive mothering. As women struggle with the complicated, and often contradictory, experience of meeting the demands of the dominant ideology, we examine the mediating role of an institution, in this case the most popular maternal support organization in the United States—Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS). Organizations such as MOPS create an ideal cultural site for reinforcing ideologies that promulgate unattainable standards of perfection. Data were collected from observations of two MOPS groups, in‐depth interviews, and ethnographic content analysis of organizational materials. This dominant organization supports mothers by discouraging them from questioning the expectations of intensive mothering or considering alternative methods of parenting, which reinforces intensive mothering as the gold standard of parenting.     

Process evaluation of an environmental walking and healthy eating pilot in small rural worksites

Small Steps are Easier Together (SS) was a pilot environmental intervention in small rural worksites in Upstate New York in collaboration with Extension educators. Worksite leaders teamed with co-workers to select and implement environmental changes to increase walking steps over individual baseline and to choose healthy eating options over 10 weeks. Participants were 226 primarily white, women employees in 5 sites. A mixed methods process evaluation, conducted to identify determinants of intervention effectiveness and to explain differences in outcomes across worksites, included surveys, self-reports of walking and eating, interviews, focus groups, and an intervention log. The evaluation assessed reach, characteristics of recruited participants, dose delivered, dose received, and context and compared sites on walking and eating outcomes. Emergent elements of participant-reported dose received included: active leadership, visible environmental changes, critical mass of participants, public display of accomplishments, accountability to co-workers, and group decision making. Participants at sites with high reach and dose were significantly more likely than sites with low reach and dose to achieve intervention goals. Although this small pilot needs replication, these findings describe how these evaluation methods can be applied and analyzed in an environmental intervention and provide information on trends in the data.     

Using the Constructs Multifinality,Work Hope,and Possible Selves With Urban Minority Youth

This article describes and highlights the potential contributions that the constructs multifinality, work hope, and possible selves make for designing career counseling interventions and for better understanding possible career‐related factors associated with academic engagement and achievement among urban minority youth. Multifinality may serve as a superordinate orientation because it conceptualizes development as discontinuous and relatively plastic, allowing for youth deemed at risk to follow more hopeful pathways. Work hope and possible selves emphasize the utility of providing urban minority youth with space to answer questions related to what they might achieve and do in the future and who they might become. Together, multifinality, work hope, and possible selves provide a hopeful conceptual framework for career researchers and practitioners.     

Mistreatment and self-reported emotional symptoms: results from the National Elder Mistreatment Study

Many community-residing older adults in the United States report past year mistreatment; however, little is known about mental health correlates of abuse. This study investigated whether a recent history of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse is associated with self-reported emotional symptoms (e.g., anxiety, depression) among a representative sample of older adults. Results demonstrated that each abuse type increased likelihood of reporting emotional symptoms; when other known correlates were controlled, only emotional abuse remained a significant predictor. Additional study of mistreatment-related correlates of depression and anxiety is needed, with a focus on the often overlooked category of emotional mistreatment.     

Predictors of Heterosexual Siblings’ Acceptance of Their Lesbian Sister or Gay Brother

Research has shown that lesbian and gay (LG) individuals are coming out not only to their parents, but also to their siblings. Eighty percent of individuals in the United States are raised with one or more siblings; however, researchers have frequently underestimated the importance of the sibling bond. This study examined potential correlates of heterosexual siblings’ acceptance of their LG sister or brother using an online survey format (N = 189). In addition, psychometric properties for the Acceptance of Sibling Sexual Orientation Scale are provided. Results revealed that greater sibling relationship quality in adulthood, more contact with LG individuals, greater knowledge of LG communities, more support for LG civil rights, and various demographics (being female, having higher educational levels, not having an orthodox/fundamentalist religious orientation, less church attendance, and more liberal political ideology) are related to heterosexual siblings’ acceptance of their LG sister or brother. However, when these variables were examined together in a regression model, only sibling relationship in adulthood, contact with LG individuals, support for LG civil rights, and religious attendance were significant unique predictors of acceptance.     

Identification of non-technical skills from the resilience engineering perspective: a case study of an electricity distributor

Training in non-technical skills (NTS) does not usually question the design of the work system, and thus focuses narrowly on workers as the unit of analysis. This study discusses how the identification of NTS, a major step for developing an NTS training program, might be re-interpreted from the perspective of resilience engineering (RE). This discussion is based on a case study of identifying NTS for electricians who perform emergency maintenance activities in an electricity distribution power line. The results of the case study point out that four data analysis procedures might operationalize the RE perspective: (a) identifying factors that make the work difficult and which could be integrated into NTS training scenarios; (b) identifying recommendations for re-designing the system, in order either to reduce or eliminate the need for NTS; (c) classifying the NTS into pragmatic categories, which are meaningful for workers; and (d) regarding the identification of NTS as an opportunity to give visibility to adaptations carried out by workers.     

Spatio-temporal patterns of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in relation to drinking water salinity at the district level in Bangladesh from 2016 to 2018

Population and Environment - This analysis examines whether salinity in drinking water is associated with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia (PE/E), a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality....     

Competing Priorities: Partner-Specific Relationship Characteristics and Motives for Condom Use Among At-Risk Young Adults

Condoms protect against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancy and are essential to sexual health efforts targeting young adults, who are disproportionately affected by both outcomes. Understanding condom use motives is critical to increasing condom use. Research in this area is limited, particularly regarding the roles of partners and relationship factors. Using a longitudinal sample of 441 young adults and 684 reported partnerships we examined associations between relationship factors and condom use motives (pregnancy prevention, disease prevention, or dual protection). Simultaneous multilevel models identified variables associated with motives; level-specific models identified the levels (individual, partnership, time) variables impacted motives. Participants reported choosing condoms for pregnancy prevention, disease prevention, and dual protection in 51%, 17%, and 33% of partnerships, respectively. Partner-specific factors varied, to a differing degree, across the three levels. Seven variables (duration, condom self-efficacy, commitment, sexual decision-making, power, and vulnerability to harm [HIV/STIs] and pregnancy) distinguished condom use motives. The level of this association varied but was most pronounced at the partner and individual levels. Researchers and practitioners should consider the impact of both individual- and partner-level factors on condom use motives, in both research and sexual health programs.