Eight years after – a follow‐up study of mothers and children at psychosocial risk who received early treatment: does early intervention leave its mark?

One‐hundred forty‐five mothers at psychosocial risk who, with their babies, had been given treatment at a parent–baby clinic during a 2‐year period starting in 1999, treatment designed to strengthen the mother–child relationship, were followed up 8 years later. Both the mothers who had agreed to take part in the treatment programme (n= 73) and those who had declined (n= 72) were searched for in the records of the Social Welfare office to determine if the treated mothers had been focused on to a lesser degree in the following 8 years than those who had declined treatment, a hypothesis that was initially put forward. The behaviour of the children whose mothers had undergone treatment (n= 46) was studied. The initial hypothesis had to be rejected; support and intervention from the social authorities had been equally common in both groups. However, the children of treated mothers had fewer externalizing behaviour than children of untreated mothers at psychosocial risk.     

The SAM Framework: Modeling the Effects of Management Factors on Human Behavior in Risk Analysis

Complex engineered systems, such as nuclear reactors and chemical plants, have the potential for catastrophic failure with disastrous consequences. In recent years, human and management factors have been recognized as frequent root causes of major failures in such systems. However, classical probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) techniques do not account for the underlying causes of these errors because they focus on the physical system and do not explicitly address the link between components' performance and organizational factors. This paper describes a general approach for addressing the human and management causes of system failure, called the SAM (System-Action-Management) framework. Beginning with a quantitative risk model of the physical system, SAM expands the scope of analysis to incorporate first the decisions and actions of individuals that affect the physical system. SAM then links management factors (incentives, training, policies and procedures, selection criteria, etc.) to those decisions and actions. The focus of this paper is on four quantitative models of action that describe this last relationship. These models address the formation of intentions for action and their execution as a function of the organizational environment. Intention formation is described by three alternative models: a rational model, a bounded rationality model, and a rule-based model. The execution of intentions is then modeled separately. These four models are designed to assess the probabilities of individual actions from the perspective of management, thus reflecting the uncertainties inherent to human behavior. The SAM framework is illustrated for a hypothetical case of hazardous materials transportation. This framework can be used as a tool to increase the safety and reliability of complex technical systems by modifying the organization, rather than, or in addition to, re-designing the physical system.     

Risk Assessment Based on Financial Data: Market Response to Airline Accidents

The risk of catastrophic failures, for example in the aviation and aerospace industries, can be approached from different angles (e.g., statistics when they exist, or a detailed probabilistic analysis of the system). Each new accident carries information that has already been included in the experience base or constitutes new evidence that can be used to update a previous assessment of the risk. In this paper, we take a different approach and consider the risk and the updating from the investor's point of view. Based on the market response to past airplane accidents, we examine which ones have created a surprise response and which ones are considered part of the risk of the airline business as previously assessed. To do so, we quantify the magnitude and the timing of the observed market response to catastrophic accidents, and we compare it to an estimate of the response that would be expected based on the true actual cost of the accident including direct and indirect costs (full-cost information response). First, we develop a method based on stock market data to measure the actual market response to an accident and we construct an estimate of the full-cost information response to such an event. We then compare the two figures for the immediate and the long-term response of the market for the affected firm, as well as for the whole industry group to which the firm belongs. As an illustration, we analyze a sample of ten fatal accidents experienced by major US domestic airlines during the last seven years. In four cases, we observed an abnormal market response. In these instances, it seems that the shareholders may have updated their estimates of the probability of a future accident in the affected airlines or more generally of the firm's future business prospects. This market reaction is not always easy to explain much less to anticipate, a fact which management should bear in mind when planning a firm's response to such an event.     

Vegetative characteristics of urban land covers in metropolitan Tucson

In this study we developed a methodology that associated land cover categories to aerial photographs. We selected 4, 42-mile (10 km2) study sites within metropolitan Tucson, Arizona for our pilot study. Land uses within these sites covered the range of landscapes found within Pima County, Arizona, although not necessarily in proportions representative of the metropolitan area. We designated land cover categories within the pilot sites based on recent (March, 1990) aerial photographs and developed a geographical information system (GIS) database of these land cover categories. We measured vegetation attributes on randomly selected samples within each land cover category and classified vegetation occurring on specific land cover categories according to the Brown et al. (1979) system. Our land cover classification system was nominal with a hierarchical structure, facilitating organization and providing flexibility for adding new categories.Our results showed that although neighborhood parks contained the greatest vegetated areas within our four study plots, very low density housing (4 acres/house), rivers whose banks were partially stabilized, naturally occurring washes (with no bank stabilization), and natural open space contained the highest percentage of native vegetation. Within our four study sites, low density housing (4 acres/house), rivers with partially stabilized banks, naturally occurring washes (no bank stabilization), and natural open space land cover categories contained the most area that was covered with vegetation providing escape cover.     

Gender Logic and (Un)doing Gender at Work

Doing gender is a popular concept in studies on work and organizations that is used to show how gender is constructed through interactions in organizations. Recently researchers have also started looking at how gender can be undone. This article elucidates two understandings of doing gender based on ethnomethodological and poststructural and discursive approaches and shows how these theoretical approaches lead to diverging ways of undoing gender. These two approaches are critically explored by drawing on qualitative research with information communication technology workers. The article thereby examines how gender might be undone within both ethnomethodological and poststructural and discursive traditions. It makes a contribution towards understanding (un)doing gender approaches at work by highlighting the implications for research on gender, work and organization.     

Residential Mobility Across Early Childhood and Children’s Kindergarten Readiness

Understanding residential mobility in early childhood is important for contextualizing family, school, and neighborhood influences on child well-being. We examined the consequences of residential mobility for socioemotional and cognitive kindergarten readiness using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, a nationally representative longitudinal survey that followed U.S. children born in 2001 from infancy to kindergarten. We described individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics associated with residential mobility for children aged 0–5. Our residential mobility indicators examined frequency of moves, nonlinearities in move frequency, quality of moves, comparisons between moving houses and moving neighborhoods, and heterogeneity in the consequences of residential mobility. Nearly three-quarters of children moved by kindergarten start. Mobility did not predict cognitive scores. More moves, particularly at relatively high frequencies, predicted lower kindergarten behavior scores. Moves from socioeconomically advantaged to disadvantaged neighborhoods were especially problematic, whereas moves within a ZIP code were not. The implications of moves were similar across socioeconomic status. The behavior findings largely support an instability perspective that highlights potential disruptions from frequent or problematic moves. Our study contributes to literature emphasizing the importance of contextualizing residential mobility. The high prevalence and distinct implications of early childhood moves support the need for further research.     

“Allah will decide my life and death”: Religion and spirituality among populations at risk for HIV in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

We examined the influence of religion and spirituality on HIV risk contexts through in-depth interviews with men who have sex with men (n = 10) and female commercial sex workers (n = 10) in Malaysia. Using a grounded theory approach, five themes emerged from the interviews: (a) religion encourages caring for health, (b) health is influenced by a higher power, (c) prayer is a conduit to health assistance, (d) stigma is compounded by religion but it does not limit one’s spirituality, and (e) religion is not but should be incorporated into HIV campaigns. Incorporation of spirituality in service provision and addressing stigma is warranted.     

Suicide intervention training for college staff: Program evaluation and intervention skill measurement

Objective: Suicide remains a pressing issue for college communities. Consequently, gatekeeper trainings are often provided for staff. This study examines the effect of one such program, Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). Participants: 51 college employees received ASIST in August of 2014 and were compared to 30 wait-list control participants. Methods: Repeated Measures ANOVA were used to analyze pre- and post-training: (a) skills at responding to students-at-risk; (b) attitudes toward suicide; (c) knowledge about suicide; and (d) comfort/competence/confidence at helping a student-at-risk. Results: Significant positive training effects were observed for ASIST on self-report measures and also for objectively assessed skill at responding, after adjusting for a potential scoring limitation of the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory, Revised (SIRI-2). Conclusions: ASIST improved the self-perception of college staff at working with students-at-risk of suicide and also their skills at performing an intervention. Further, analysis of SIRI-2 data provides support for a potential instrument revision.     

Does the sectoral composition of growth affect child stunting reductions?

This article uses a natural experiment based on random and exogenous variations in temperature to examine whether the sectoral composition of growth has an effect on child stunting reductions. Agricultural growth is central to food security strategies in developing countries, as it is often considered the most effective way to fight (child) undernutrition. The evidence base to support the putative superior role of agricultural growth is, however, relatively weak, possibly because studies have ignored growth faltering. Accounting for the latter, we find that while both agricultural and non‐agricultural growth decrease stunting, agricultural growth is significantly superior to non‐agricultural growth in this regard. The estimated impacts are large, in that a 10% increase in agricultural GDP per capita reduces child stunting by 9.6% (as opposed to 8.4% for non‐agricultural).