Sports Involvement as Protection against Depressed Mood

Working within a risk and protection framework, this research brief examines the protective inà uence of team sports involvement on adolescent depressed mood. The objective was to understand whether sports involvement positively contributes to mental health independent of the effects of other known protective factors (parental and peer support); and whether it moderates the depressive effects of family, peer, and school‐based risk factors. Analyses focused on 1,036 high school‐aged youth interviewed at two time points. Regression analysis results indicated a signià cant association between team sports involvement and depressed mood among both males and females, which was reduced to insignià cance after controlling for the other protective factors. One interaction effect was observed: for females, but not males, team sports involvement was shown to protect against depressed mood associated with poor school performance (low grade point average). Thus, the role of sports involvement as a positive instrumental activity for females is discussed.     

Role rehearsal and efficacy: two 15-month evaluations of a ninth-grade alcohol education program.

A ninth-grade alcohol education program aimed at reducing drinking, drinking and driving, and riding with a drinking driver was developed on the basis of problem behavior theory, social cognitive theory and role theory. In Year 1 the program was taught by Social Studies teachers to half of the eighty-four ninth-grade classes in all nine junior high schools in a single school system; the other half served as controls. In Year 2 the program was taught to the ninth-grade students of the same school system by English teachers. Students' knowledge, skills and practices were measured before and four-six weeks and one year after the program. Results indicated significant increases in knowledge and perceived ability to resist pressures to drink among experimental students. No significant differences were noted for the drinking or the drinking and driving practices of either group. One year after the program, significantly fewer students in the experimental classes reported riding with a driver who had been drinking. Results suggested that English teachers were more effective than Social Studies teachers in teaching this program.     

The Lichtenberg Financial Decision Screening Scale (LFDSS): A new tool for assessing financial decision making and preventing financial exploitation

ABSTRACT

One of the challenges in preventing the financial exploitation of older adults is that neither criminal justice nor noncriminal justice professionals are equipped to detect capacity deficits. Because decision-making capacity is a cornerstone assessment in cases of financial exploitation, effective instruments for measuring this capacity are essential. We introduce a new screening scale for financial decision making that can be administered to older adults. To explore the scale’s implementation and assess construct validity, we conducted a pilot study of 29 older adults seen by APS (Adult Protective Services) workers and 79 seen by other professionals. Case examples are included.     

The Demand for Lotto: The Role of Conscious Selection

This article presents estimates of the elasticity of demand for lottery tickets using time series data in which there is variation in the expected value of a lottery ticket induced by rollovers. An important feature of our data is that there are far more rollovers than expected given the lottery design. We find strong evidence that individuals do not choose their lottery numbers uniformly from a uniform distribution—that is, conscious selection. We use our estimates to derive the inverse supply function for the industry, and this enables us to identify the demand elasticity. We find the price elasticity to be close to unity, which implies that the operator is revenue maximizing—which is the regulator's objective.     

A value of information framework for assessing the trade-offs associated with uncertainty,duration, and cost of chemical toxicity testing

A number of investigators have explored the use of value of information (VOI) analysis to evaluate alternative information collection procedures in diverse decision-making contexts. This paper presents an analytic framework for determining the value of toxicity information used in risk-based decision making. The framework is specifically designed to explore the trade-offs between cost, timeliness, and uncertainty reduction associated with different toxicity-testing methodologies. The use of the proposed framework is demonstrated by two illustrative applications which, although based on simplified assumptions, show the insights that can be obtained through the use of VOI analysis. Specifically, these results suggest that timeliness of information collection has a significant impact on estimates of the VOI of chemical toxicity tests, even in the presence of smaller reductions in uncertainty. The framework introduces the concept of the expected value of delayed sample information, as an extension to the usual expected value of sample information, to accommodate the reductions in value resulting from delayed decision making. Our analysis also suggests that lower cost and higher throughput testing also may be beneficial in terms of public health benefits by increasing the number of substances that can be evaluated within a given budget. When the relative value is expressed in terms of return-on-investment per testing strategy, the differences can be substantial.     

Relations between youths' community violence exposure and their physical aggression: The protective role of adults

The purpose of this study was to examine whether adults moderated the relations between youths' community violence exposure and subsequent physical aggression. Participants were 2575 middle school students (M_age = 12.3, SD = 1.00; 52% female) in the southeastern U.S. who completed surveys collected in the fall, winter, spring, and summer. The sample was predominantly African American (72%). High adult support was associated with weaker relations between exposure to violence in the fall and aggression in the winter among male adolescents. High adult support was related to weaker relations between victimization in the fall and aggression in the winter among female adolescents. Strategies promoting supportive adult relationships may benefit male adolescents by buffering the adverse impact of community violence exposure.