MEASURING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: PERSPECTIVES FROM LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Local government in Australia has become an important site for discussions about community development and community well being, as increasing numbers of community services are being devolved to this level. Pressures towards greater accountability and demonstration of competitiveness, stemming from the implementation of National Competition Policy have led to attempts to better measure community development activities. In this paper we report on research conducted among management, elected members and community workers at five Western Australian Local Government Authorities which explored the nature and appropriateness of community development measurement. We found workers at all levels of employment struggling, not simply with notions of measurement, but also with fundamental understandings of community development.     

Are Subsidies to be Blamed? A Reexamination of U.S. Countervailing Duty on Hog Imports From Canada

A dramatic increase in U.S. hog imports from Canada triggered a successful countervail action against Canada in 1985, and resulted in an import tariff. This paper finds Canadian subsidies were not a major factor explaining increased hog exports, rather, the depreciation of the Canadian dollar played a larger role. More importantly, we find that hog imports from Canada did not “injure” the U.S. industry. These results imply the U.S. hog countervail duty was the outcome of rent-seeking activities rather than due to economic factors.     

Two Graphical Techniques Useful in Detecting Correlation Structure in Repeated Measures Data

Analysis of repeated measures data using a mixed model includes specifying a form for the covariance matrix of the within-subject observations. This reduction in the number of estimated parameters from the unspecified structure may improve the efficiency of inferences made. An implementation of this technique has been incorporated in the MIXED procedure of the SAS® statistical package, and includes a wide range of options for the structure of the covariance matrix. It is demonstrated that draftman's display plots and/or plots in a coordinate system with parallel axes can aid in visualizing the dispersion structure.     

Nursing home performance on select publicly reported quality indicators and resident risk of hospitalization: grappling with policy implications

This study examines how resident risk of hospitalization varies in relation to facility performance on select quality indicators (QIs). Using a 15% sample, three years of Medicaid reimbursement data from over 525 nursing homes (NHs) were linked with four years of hospital claims data and facility-level data to investigate whether residents of NHs with worse (better) than expected performance on QIs experienced increased (decreased) risk of hospitalization. Logistic regression results indicate that variations in hospitalization risk among NH residents are explained in part by facility performance on QIs. Residents from NHs with more decubitus ulcers, with greater use of physical restraints, and with a higher than expected incidence of unexplained weight loss/gain experienced increased risk of hospitalization.     

The curious absence of love stories in women's talk

Sociological debate has dealt with love in a number of different ways. For some, love offers a unique opportunity; it is a path to salvation (Jackson, 1993; Langford, 1999). Others, however, take a more sceptical approach to love in modern society: for Beck and Beck‐Gernsheim (1995) love represents the path to extreme individualization, for Illouz (1997) it is ultimately underpinned by consumerism, and perhaps most extreme, for Bauman (2003) love has been destroyed. Giddens offers a slightly different (and more hopeful) perspective and suggests that with growing choice and freedom, love has become ‘confluent’ and temporary subject to individuals' needs (Giddens, 1992). When adult women were asked about love and how they have experienced love in their own lives, however, few of these themes emerged. Instead many women found it difficult to talk about their feelings generally and love in particular. There was an absence of falling in love stories and rather, women explained that they ‘drifted’ into relationships, or they ‘just happened’. The discourses and languages that these women used to explain love and their relationships will be explored in this paper. Love was simultaneously loudly absent and quietly present.     

Pregnancy risk among older youth transitioning out of foster care

Youth served in the foster care system have higher rates of pregnancy than general population youth; yet we have little information about risk and protective factors to target in order to prevent early pregnancy in this population. We assessed early pregnancy risk and protective factors known for general population adolescents for their relevance to youth in the foster care system. Using data from a longitudinal study of 325 older youth from the foster care system, we examined bivariate and multivariate relationships between these factors and pregnancy between ages 17 and 19 using logistic regression. Models examined the risk for early parenting separately by gender. The pregnancy rate increased by 300% between ages 17 and 19. At 19, 55% of females had been pregnant, while 23% of males had fathered a child. Although this study assessed multiple known factors, few were significant for this high risk group. Females who were not sexually active at age 17 were less likely to become pregnant, but those who reported using birth control were as likely to become pregnant as those who did not. Also, females with a history of arrest were more likely to have a pregnancy between 17 and 19. Males who left the foster care system before their 19th birthday were more likely to make someone pregnant. Youth from the foster care system are at exceptional risk of early pregnancy, regardless of their maltreatment history, religiosity, school connectedness, or academic achievement, particularly in the years between 17 and 19. This high risk group needs pregnancy prevention interventions and access to effective birth control.     

A Collaborative University Model for Employee Wellness

Abstract

Universities are taking a more active approach in understanding and monitoring employees’ modifiable health risk factors and chronic care conditions by developing strategies to encourage employees to start and sustain healthy behaviors. WellBama, the University of Alabama's signature health and wellness program, utilizes a collaborative model in partnership with select colleges and departments to implement strategies to improve employees’ health status. The program provides onsite health screenings and assessments, timely health advising sessions, assistance in setting and monitoring individual health goals to promote improved health, and preventive examination referrals.     

Older People’s Conceptualization of Abuse: A Systematic Review

The concept of elder abuse is a relatively recent one, and there is ongoing debate around its definition and interpretation. Policy in America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland has been criticized as being professionally driven and therefore paternalistic and disempowering. Little is known about older people’s understanding of the term “abuse” or the behaviors that they deem to be abusive. In this systematic review, eight databases were searched using agreed-upon criteria, and the results were assessed for relevance. Fifteen studies were included and are discussed under the themes of caregiving, domestic violence, society, abusive acts, and thresholds.     

Shared spaces,shared structures: Latino social formation and African American English in the U.S. south

This study examines the appropriation of grammatical structures of African American English (AAE) by adolescent Latinos attending a multi‐ethnic middle school in North Carolina. The study couples quantitative variationist analysis of four ‘core’ grammatical features of AAE (invariant be, copula deletion, past‐tense copula leveling, and third‐person singular –s absence) with the findings of an ethnographic study of Latino adolescent identity in order to better understand the social processes leading to the incorporation of AAE grammar into English varieties spoken by Latinos. Results show that Latino students from across social formations make use of AAE grammatical features, but differ significantly from African American students in terms of sociolinguistic patterning. Ethnographic data shed light on linguistic data in three domains: (1) differences in use of AAE structures between male and female Latino/a students; (2) the prolific use of AAE by one gang‐affiliated student; and (3) the racial complexities within the ethnic category ‘Latino.’     

Simultaneous Confidence Bands for Linear Regression with Covariates Constrained in Intervals

Abstract. The focus of this article is on simultaneous confidence bands over a rectangular covariate region for a linear regression model with k>1 covariates, for which only conservative or approximate confidence bands are available in the statistical literature stretching back to Working & Hotelling (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 24 , 1929; 73–85). Formulas of simultaneous confidence levels of the hyperbolic and constant width bands are provided. These involve only a k‐dimensional integral; it is unlikely that the simultaneous confidence levels can be expressed as an integral of less than k‐dimension. These formulas allow the construction for the first time of exact hyperbolic and constant width confidence bands for at least a small k(>1) by using numerical quadrature. Comparison between the hyperbolic and constant width bands is then addressed under both the average width and minimum volume confidence set criteria. It is observed that the constant width band can be drastically less efficient than the hyperbolic band when k>1. Finally it is pointed out how the methods given in this article can be applied to more general regression models such as fixed‐effect or random‐effect generalized linear regression models.