The Value Base of Social Work

Values may be conceived along three basic dimensions which would account for the major value orientations shared by social workers and related to all aspects of their professional practice. These are: preferred conceptions of people, preferred outcomes for people, and preferred instrumentalities for dealing with people. Distinguished from “knowledge,” and adequately refined, these categories of values might constitute a guide for planning and action in social work practice and education. The predictability of professional behavior which might then result would also define the expectations of clients and society with respect to what the social work profession stands for and what it does.     

Attitudes of nursing students toward death and dying: A research note

Fear, denial, and the avoidance of death and dying appear to be products of life in modern society. While society insulates most people from contact with the death and dying of others, there are professions that come into repeated contact with dying individuals. The present study uses the Collett‐Lester Fear of Death Scale to analyze the Fear of Death and Dying for Self and Others (four subscales) among a sample of registered nurses (BA level). Over a 10‐year period, nurses’ fears concerning death and dying were measured at three points—before a course on death and dying (Pretest), after the course (Posttest), and at a point in their professional nursing practice (Retest). The results suggest that these nurses’ fears of death for self and others change at a statistically significant level over the Pretest and Posttest observations; however, the changes are temporary. The Fear of Dying for Self and Others tends to decline significantly over the Pretest and Retest observations. Age, religion, religiosity, and employment factors were also analyzed vis‐à‐vis the Fear of Death and Dying Subscales. Some directions for additional research into nurses’ fears about death and dying are given.     

Diagnostics for multivariate imputations

Summary.  We consider three sorts of diagnostics for random imputations: displays of the completed data, which are intended to reveal unusual patterns that might suggest problems with the imputations, comparisons of the distributions of observed and imputed data values and checks of the fit of observed data to the model that is used to create the imputations. We formulate these methods in terms of sequential regression multivariate imputation, which is an iterative procedure in which the missing values of each variable are randomly imputed conditionally on all the other variables in the completed data matrix. We also consider a recalibration procedure for sequential regression imputations. We apply these methods to the 2002 environmental sustainability index, which is a linear aggregation of 64 environmental variables on 142 countries.     

On the definition and varieties of attitude and wellbeing

In a paper published in Social Indicators Research in 1975, Levy and Guttman proved the proposition that wellbeing is a special case of attitude. They exploited this result for establishing a certain lawfulness for wellbeing behavior, and built on this for revealing more specialized features of the lawfulness. Five years later in this same journal, Andrews and McKennell published two papers on exactly the same proposition, but without proving it, without building on known relevant lawfulness of attitudinal behavior, and without mentioning (neither positively nor negatively) the Levy-Guttman work. The Andrews-McKennell papers are shown to be a retrogression rather than a scientific advance, being conceptually confused, using inappropriate data analysis, and dealing with arbitrary assumptions which are either untested, untestable or false.     

NASW’s Supervisory Leaders in Aging: An Acceptable and Feasible Model for Training and Supporting Social Work Supervisors

Social services are instrumental in addressing challenges associated with aging. Yet, practitioners report needing expanded gerontological knowledge and better supervision. The Supervisory Leaders in Aging (SLA) program of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) was designed to improve gerontological services by strengthening supervision of the social service workforce. With support from the John A. Hartford Foundation, the program was adopted between 2015 and 2017 in four regions, where NASW trained 134 MSW supervisors who support 1200 social service staff, potentially enhancing the well-being of 264,000 clients annually. The SLA curriculum and in-person educational approach constitute a model for supervisor professional development. Quality improvement evaluations suggested feasibility of program adoption and acceptability. Participants rated each of 10 workshops and 97% agreed that instructors were effective, that knowledge was expanded, and that content was relevant, appropriate, and likely to be used. Implications of this model for enhancing supervisory practice are discussed.     

Autocorrelation in real-time continuous monitoring of microenvironments

Interpretation of continuous measurements in microenvironmental studies and exposure assessments can be complicated by autocorrelation, the implications of which are often not fully addressed. We discuss some statistical issues that arose in the analysis of microenvironmental particulate matter concentration data collected in 1998 by the Harvard School of Public Health. We present a simulation study that suggests that Generalized Estimating Equations, a technique often used to adjust for autocorrelation, may produce inflated Type I errors when applied to microenvironmental studies of small or moderate sample size, and that Linear Mixed Effects models may be more appropriate in small-sample settings. Environmental scientists often appeal to longer averaging times to reduce autocorrelation. We explore the functional relationship between averaging time, autocorrelation, and standard errors of both mean and variance, showing that longer averaging times impair statistical inferences about main effects. We conclude that, given widely available techniques that adjust for autocorrelation, longer averaging times may be inappropriate in microenvironmental studies.     

A theory of happiness-wealth relationship with status-sensitive communication

Personal happiness might not solely depend on the individual's level of wealth but also on the individual's level of sincere social capital. This paper argues that if sincere interpersonal communication is sensitive to economic status disparities, the accumulation of personal wealth beyond the community's average erodes the individual's sincere social capital. A measure of sincere social capital that is based on such sensitivity is constructed. Its consideration leads to the depiction of the individual's happiness-wealth relationship as an inverted U-shaped curve that peaks at personal wealth that is greater than the community mean.     

Evaluating Efficiency-Equality Tradeoffs for Mobile Source Control Strategies in an Urban Area

In environmental risk management, there are often interests in maximizing public health benefits (efficiency) and addressing inequality in the distribution of health outcomes. However, both dimensions are not generally considered within a single analytical framework. In this study, we estimate both total population health benefits and changes in quantitative indicators of health inequality for a number of alternative spatial distributions of diesel particulate filter retrofits across half of an urban bus fleet in Boston, Massachusetts. We focus on the impact of emissions controls on primary fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) emissions, modeling the effect on PM_2.5 concentrations and premature mortality. Given spatial heterogeneity in baseline mortality rates, we apply the Atkinson index and other inequality indicators to quantify changes in the distribution of mortality risk. Across the different spatial distributions of control strategies, the public health benefits varied by more than a factor of two, related to factors such as mileage driven per day, population density near roadways, and baseline mortality rates in exposed populations. Changes in health inequality indicators varied across control strategies, with the subset of optimal strategies considering both efficiency and equality generally robust across different parametric assumptions and inequality indicators. Our analysis demonstrates the viability of formal analytical approaches to jointly address both efficiency and equality in risk assessment, providing a tool for decisionmakers who wish to consider both issues.