Alcohol use and strenuous physical activity in college students: A longitudinal test of 2 explanatory models of health behavior

Objective: To help clarify the effect of gender on the bidirectional relationship between alcohol use and strenuous physical activity in college students. Participants: Five hundred twenty-four (52% female) college students recruited in August 2008 and 2009 and followed up in April 2009 and April 2011, respectively. Methods: Participants reported their alcohol use and strenuous physical activity on 2 occasions (baseline and follow-up) spaced approximately 1 or 2 years apart. Results: For females, alcohol use quantity at baseline was associated with increased strenuous physical activity at 1- and 2-year follow-ups, and alcohol use frequency at baseline was associated with decreased strenuous physical activity at 2-year follow-up. For males, alcohol use frequency at baseline predicted decreased strenuous physical activity at 1-year follow-up. Conclusions: Gender differences may be explained from an eating disorders perspective such that women use physical activity as a compensatory strategy to combat potential weight gain from calories consumed during alcohol use.     

The Divide Between “Evidenced‐Based” Approaches and Practitioners of Traditional Theories of Family Therapy

Evidenced‐based approaches continue to grow in the field of family therapy. However, practicing family therapists do not always embrace these approaches. In this article, we explore factors contributing to practitioners' concerns with evidence‐based treatments and suggest a broader, more clinically palatable view of evidenced‐based treatment. We also suggest how family therapy researchers, practitioners, and educators might begin to close the researcher–clinician divide in the best interest of all concerned.     

Work–family conflict: The importance of differentiating between different facets of job characteristics

This review study clarifies the relationships between job characteristics and work–family conflict (WFC) by differentiating among three facets of job characteristics: latent, perceived, and enacted. To date, research linking job characteristics to WFC has not distinguished the facets of job demands and job resources in this way. Such distinctions are important as a means of understanding the affective, behavioural, and cognitive processes involved in determining how and when job characteristics relate to WFC. Our review of 115 studies showed that perceived job characteristics have been most commonly explored in relation to WFC, whereas latent and enacted job characteristics have been hardly examined. While these findings may not be surprising, our contribution lies in reviewing the literature through the lens of these categories. Based on the findings, and through highlighting examples in the extant literature, we argue that understanding job characteristics in terms of both how they are perceived and enacted by workers will provide a deeper insight into the mechanisms underlying the relationship between job characteristics and WFC. In order to inform evidence-based interventions, future research must uncover the dynamic mechanisms underpinning the connection between job characteristics and WFC through a focus on enacted job facets and the cognitive, affective, and behavioural processes involved.     

Conditional moving linear regression: Modeling the recruitment process for ALLHAT

Effective recruitment is a prerequisite for successful execution of a clinical trial. ALLHAT, a large hypertension treatment trial (N = 42,418), provided an opportunity to evaluate adaptive modeling of recruitment processes using conditional moving linear regression. Our statistical modeling of recruitment, comparing Brownian and fractional Brownian motion, indicates that fractional Brownian motion combined with moving linear regression is better than classic Brownian motion in terms of higher conditional probability of achieving a global recruitment goal in 4-week ahead projections. Further research is needed to evaluate how recruitment modeling can assist clinical trialists in planning and executing clinical trials.     

Double trouble: work–family conflict and well-being for second job holders

The purpose of this study was to provide an initial investigation into the work–family conflict (WFC) experiences of individuals who hold a second job. Specifically, we proposed two opposing theoretical arguments regarding the relationship between WFC and four measures of well-being: life satisfaction, physical health, emotional exhaustion, and exercise for individuals who hold two jobs. In a sample of individuals working two jobs, we tested whether the effects of WFC arising from the first job and from the second job exerted an additive or interactive effect on employee well-being. Our results indicated that for emotional exhaustion, physical symptoms, and life satisfaction, the effects of WFC from two jobs are interactive; but that for exercise, the effects of WFC from two jobs are additive. In both cases, the additional WFC experienced as a result of working a second job contributed to the prediction of employee well-being over and above WFC from the first job. Results are discussed within the context of relevant theory, and suggestions are made for future research.     

Resiling From “Resilience”

This is a sketch for a critique of “resilience” and “resiliency” as keywords of neoliberal newspeak (officialese, langue de bois) under the innocuous banner of which all manner of business is now being transacted. I register the rapid extension of resilience discourse, note the socioeconomic context of its rise to prominence, and identify its implicit political assumptions and its social and subjective effects and side effects.     

Designing a Programme to Support Smallholder Agriculture in Mexico: Lessons from PROCAMPO and Oportunidades

This article argues that there is a gap in current Mexican rural development policy that could be filled by a smallholder‐targeted programme. The gap exists because agricultural programmes tend to benefit better‐off farmers, while social programmes tend to focus on long‐term investment in human capital, specifically for the children of today's poor. Drawing on lessons from PROCAMPO and Oportunidades, it offers a specific design for such a programme at a time when the government is considering how to reform PROCAMPO, given that, after 15 years, it is due to come to an end.