Unit training to increase support for military personnel with mental health problems

The present study examined the effectiveness of training designed to increase support toward military personnel with mental health problems. Soldiers from two Battalions (N?=?349) were randomly assigned by squad to receive the training (n?=?179) or to a survey-only control group (n?=?170). Soldiers completed survey assessments at baseline and three months later. Soldiers also completed an implicit association test assessing attitudes toward mental health treatment at the three-month follow-up. Results revealed that soldiers in the training condition reported an increase in supportive behaviours toward soldiers with mental health problems three months following the training, whereas there was no increase in soldiers assigned to the control group. Soldiers in the training condition were also marginally more likely to increase their own treatment seeking in the three months following the training. Discussion focuses on the importance of unit member support for military personnel with mental health problems and the implications for employees in other occupations characterised by the expectation for resilience.     

Women's lives and rapid fertility decline: Some lessons from Bangladesh and Egypt

The recent experiences of Bangladesh and Egypt show thatfertility can sustain impressive declines even when women's lives remain severely constrained.Since the late 1970s, rural and urban areas in both countries have experienced steadydeclines in fertility, with recent declines in rural Bangladesh similar to those in ruralEgypt, despite lower levels of development and higher rates of poverty. This paperprovides an in-depth exploration of the demographic transition in these two societies andaddresses three basic questions: (1) have measurable improvements in economic opportunities forwomen been a factor in the fertility decline?; (2) can preexisting differences in gender systemsexplain the more rapid fertility decline in Bangladesh, despite the more modest economicachievements?; (3) can the development strategies adopted by the governments ofBangladesh and Egypt, be seen as additional factors in explaining the similar rural fertilitydeclines despite dissimilar economic circumstances? The paper concludes that neither gender systemsnor changes in women's opportunities appear to have contributed to declining fertility.Indeed, low levels of women's autonomy have posed no barrier to fertility decline in eithercountry. However, there is a case to be made that Bangladesh's distinct approach to development,with considerable emphasis on reaching the rural poor and women and a strong reliance onnongovernmental institutions, may have played a part in accelerating the transition in thatenvironment and in helping women to become more immediate beneficiaries of that process.

     

Healing from childhood sexual abuse: a theoretical model

Childhood sexual abuse is a prevalent social and health care problem. The processes by which individuals heal from childhood sexual abuse are not clearly understood. The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical model to describe how adults heal from childhood sexual abuse. Community recruitment for an ongoing broader project on sexual violence throughout the lifespan, referred to as the Sexual Violence Study, yielded a subsample of 48 women and 47 men who had experienced childhood sexual abuse. During semistructured, open-ended interviews, they were asked to describe their experiences with healing from childhood sexual abuse and other victimization throughout their lives. Constructivist grounded theory methods were used with these data to develop constructs and hypotheses about healing. For the Sexual Violence Study, frameworks were developed to describe the participants' life patterns, parenting experiences, disclosures about sexual violence, spirituality, and altruism. Several analytic techniques were used to synthesize the findings of these frameworks to develop an overarching theoretical model that describes healing from childhood sexual abuse. The model includes four stages of healing, five domains of functioning, and six enabling factors that facilitate movement from one stage to the next. The findings indicate that healing is a complex and dynamic trajectory. The model can be used to alert clinicians to a variety of processes and enabling factors that facilitate healing in several domains and to guide discussions on important issues related to healing from childhood sexual abuse.     

Difference,subjectivities and power: (de)colonizing practices in internationalizing the curriculum

This paper problematizes the discourse of internationalizing the curriculum using a critical framework of difference. The author draws on her transnational experiences as an international postgraduate researcher in an Australian university, an educator in Malaysia and her present experiences as an academic in an Australian university. The notions of difference, power and subjectivities are used to unpack the academic and pedagogical practices of internationalizing the curriculum. A politics of difference in internationalizing the curriculum entails interrogating the power dynamics in the privileging and marginalization of knowledge, skills and ways of being, knowing and doing. Transnational connectivity and reciprocal flows of individuals and knowledge are emphasized within such practices.     

Designing Risk Communications: Completing and Correcting Mental Models of Hazardous Processes, Part I

Many risk communications are intended to help the lay public make complex decisions about risk. To guide risk communicators with this objective, a mental models approach to the design and characterization of risk communications is proposed. Building on text comprehension and mental models research, this approach offers an integrated set of methods to help the risk communication designer choose and analyze risk communication content, structure, and organization. An applied example shows that two radon brochures designed with this approach present roughly the same expert facts as a radon brochure widely distributed by the U.S. EPA but meet higher standards on other content, structure, and organization criteria.     

Estimates of Lifetime-Absorbed Daily Doses from the Use of Personal-Care Products Containing Polyacrylamide: A Monte Carlo Analysis

Estimates of the lifetime-absorbed daily dose (LADD) of acrylamide resulting from use of representative personal-care products containing polyacrylamides have been developed. All of the parameters that determine the amount of acrylamide absorbed by an individual vary from one individual to another. Moreover, for some parameters there is uncertainty as to which is the correct or representative value from a range of values. Consequently, the parameters used in the estimation of the LADD of acrylamide from usage of a particular product type (e.g., deodorant, makeup, etc.) were represented by distributions evaluated using Monte Carlo analyses.((1-4)) From these data, distributions of values for key parameters, such as the amount of acrylamide in polyacrylamide, absorption fraction, etc., were defined and used to provide a distribution of LADDs for each personal-care product. The estimated total acrylamide LADD (across all products) for males and females at the median, mean, and 95th percentile of the distribution of individual LADD values were 4.7 x 10(-8), 2.3 x 10(-7), and 7.3 x 10(-7) mg/kg/day for females and 3.6 x 10(-8), 1.7 x 10(-7), and 5.4 x 10(-7) mg/kg/day for males. The ratio of the LADDs to risk-specific dose corresponding to a target risk level of 1 x 10(-5), the acceptable risk level for this investigation, derived using approaches typically used by the FDA, the USEPA, and proposed for use by the European Union (EU) were also calculated. All ratios were well below 1, indicating that all the extra lifetime cancer risk from the use of polyacrylamide-containing personal-care products, in the manner assumed in this assessment, are well below acceptable levels. Even if it were assumed that an individual used all of the products together, the estimated LADD would still provide a dose that was well below the acceptable risk levels.     

The Effect of Excessive Crying on the Development of Emotion Regulation

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of excessive crying in early infancy on the development of emotion self‐regulation. Cry diaries were used to categorize excessive criers and typical criers at 6 weeks of age. At 5 and 10 months of age, infants and mothers participated in procedures to elicit infant reactivity and regulation during a frustration task and maternal sensitivity and intrusiveness during a free‐play session. Last, maternal ratings of temperament were obtained. Results revealed excessive criers to show higher levels of negative reactivity than typical criers. Excessive criers also demonstrated lower regulation, but this finding was only significant for male infants. Boys in the excessive criers group exhibited the lowest level of emotion self‐regulation. Maternal behavior and ratings of temperament at 5 and 10 months failed to distinguish the 2 cry groups. The findings suggest that excessive crying may influence the developmental trajectory of the ability of boys to self‐regulate emotion. The hypothesized processes involved in this outcome are discussed.