Predictors of substance abuse treatment outcomes in Tennessee

In planning and implementing programs to treat substance abuse, it is important to understand which factors influence post-treatment abstinence.This article identifies and analyzes several variables important in predicting the likelihood of abstinence among substance abuse clients. The data used in this study was collected from 1,350 clients treated for alcohol or drug abuse in residential, halfway house, or outpatient facilities in Tennessee. We analyzed 22 variables as possible treatment outcome predictors by using two statistical procedures: stepwise logistic regression analysis and Quick, Unbiased, Efficient, Statistical Tree (QUEST) analysis, a tree-structured classification algorithm analysis. We found one pretreatment, five in-treatment, and three post-treatment variables to be significant predictors of treatment outcome: previous treatment history, perceived helpfulness of the treatment, simultaneous treatment for mental health, number of days in treatment,completion of treatment, special skills training during treatment, obtaining healthcare services for major physical health problem after treatment, living with someone using alcohol or drugs post treatment, and arrest record since treatment.     

Reliability of the Demand-Control Questionnaire for sewing machine operators

The Demand-Control Questionnaire (DCQ), a 20-item scale that measures psychological work demands, job control and workplace social support, has frequently been used to assess occupational stress. The purpose of this study was to determine the test-retest reliability and internal consistency of the DCQ with sewing machine operators. Forty-six sewing machine operators completed the DCQ on two occasions with an 11-week time interval. A repeated measures analysis of variance model and subsequent application of generalizability theory were used to calculate the test-retest reliability of the subjects' ratings on the DCQ. Cronbach's alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of the scale. The test-retest reliability was 0.33 (95% confidence interval = 0.05-0.61), indicating fair reliability. Good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.70) was found. The DCQ appears to be a reliable measure for assessing occupational stress in sewing machine operators. Workplaces need to place greater emphasis on the role of occupational stress in the prevention and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries among sewing machine operators.     

Neighborhood disadvantage, stress, and drug use among adults

This paper explores the relationships among neighborhood disadvantage, stress, and the likelihood of drug use in a sample of adults (N = 1,101). Using the 1995 Detroit Area Study in conjunction with tract-level data from the 1990 census, we find a positive relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and drug use, and this relationship remains statistically significant net of controls for individual-level socioeconomic status. Neighborhood disadvantage is moderately associated with drug related behaviors, indirectly through increased social stressors and higher levels of psychological distress among residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods. A residual effect of neighborhood disadvantage remains, net of a large number of socially relevant controls. Finally, results from interactive models suggest that the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and drug use is most pronounced among individuals with lower incomes.     

Aging with HIV: Historical and Intra-Community Differences in Experience of Aging with HIV

Gay men living with HIV/AIDS face a complex of health issues, including those associated with the aging process, long-term HIV infection (25 years or more), and side effects from Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART). If aging can increase marginalization, this is more likely for the aging HIV positive gay man, who is already marginalized for being queer and living with a stigmatizing disease. This article presents findings from a study of a long-running HIV support group. It locates the members, all gay men living with HIV, in a specific historical and political context to explore how feelings of loss and the struggle to sustain community affect long-term survivors and other older HIV+ gay men. We identify specific challenges presented by aging for men who contracted HIV early in the epidemic, contrasting them with those faced by men infected with the virus later in life. While both groups appear to struggle with a vision of what life could have been, had AIDS not forced loss and change, they also celebrate the community their shared plight has enabled.     

Symptoms of Mental Health Problems: Children’s and Adolescents’ Understandings and Implications for Gender Differences in Help Seeking

Amidst concerns that young people’s mental health is deteriorating, it is important to explore their understandings of symptoms of mental health problems and beliefs around help seeking. Drawing on focus group data from Scottish school pupils, we demonstrate how they understood symptoms of mental health problems and how their characterisations of these symptoms as ‘rare’ and ‘weird’ informed participants’ perceptions that peers, teachers and parents would respond to disclosure in stigmatising ways. Consequently, participants suggested that they would delay or avoid disclosing symptoms of mental health problems. We highlight subtle gender and age differences and outline implications for policy and practice.     

Knowledge, Consequences, and Experience: The Social Construction of Environmental Problems

Perhaps one of the most obvious yet difficult questions confronting sociologists concerned with large-scale environmental problems is an epistemological one: How do we know what we know about the state of the environment? This paper explores the realist and constructionist approaches to environmental-social problems and finds both inadequate as currently formulated. A case is made for a phenomenological constructionism that moves beyond relativism and simple definitional constructionism by exploring how we actually experience the world. This approach recognizes the existence of a natural world independent of our constructions, yet suggests that our knowledge of it is always mediated, indirect, and pragmatically motivated.     

Human Relations Training in Schools and Elsewhere

Human relations training in many forms, the best known of which are encounter groups, enjoys wide popularity in industry, government and education. Some ‘professional’ objections to the running of such groups are raised, and it is proposed that these objections may be partially answered if there is a non-profit-making national association of group leaders whose function would be to provide a code of ethics to members and information to the public. As well as these professional objections involving the areas of leadership, screening and casualties, there are also objections to the 'process' of groups itself; to these latter objections arising out of an individual's sensibility and subjective interpretations of events, no compelling reply can be given. Affirmation of the interactions in encounter groups is likewise a subjective matter.     

Light and Heavy Heterosexual Activities of Young Canadian Adolescents: Normative Patterns and Differential Predictors

The objectives of this research were to explore patterns of heterosexual activity in early adolescence and to examine the differential pathways to light and heavy heterosexuality. We utilized the National Longitudinal Survey of Canadian Children and Youth (NLSCY) in which heterosexual behaviors, as well as puberty, parenting processes, peer self‐concept, and problem behaviors were examined. The heterosexual activities of the majority of 12‐ and 13‐year‐old adolescents were largely confined to light activities of hugging, holding hands, and kissing. Heavy activities such as petting and sexual intercourse were reported less often. Using predictor variables from Cycle 1 of the NLSCY when participants were 10‐ and 11‐year‐olds, SEM analyses indicated that puberty and higher peer self‐concept shared significant direct pathways to both light and heavy heterosexuality. Heavy sexual activity, however, was uniquely associated with the risk factors of adolescent problem behaviors. Positive and hostile parenting styles were indirectly associated with light sexual activity through peer self‐concept. Positive and hostile parenting styles were also indirectly associated with heavy sexual activity through both peer‐oriented self‐concept and problem behaviors. Results support differential patterns and predictors of light and heavy sexuality in early adolescence.     

An integrative framework for studying sustainable practices and its adoption in the AEC industry: A case study

The diversity of priorities and differing awareness of sustainable practices among stakeholders in the architecture, engineering and construction industry is critically shaping the adoption of green technology, and the rate at which the industry is shifting towards more sustainable practices. In this paper, we develop an integrated framework that allows reorganization and integration of existing sustainability research in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, emphasizing the perspective of decision-makers and stakeholders. Further, an agent-based model is introduced that allows study of the decision-maker with the decision context, thus making them an integral part of the decision-making process rather than independent of it. The coupled system is adaptive and dynamically organizes itself to reflect complex bottom-up interactions between individual stakeholders, their contexts and the constraints driving their decisions even as they implement or respond to top-down decisions pertaining to the adoption of sustainable practices. The contention of this research is that an integrative systems approach to top-down decision-making and an understanding of bottom-up influences in stakeholder decisions is critical to the understanding sustainable practices and decisions that lead to their adoption in the AEC industry.