Barriers to healthcare for American Indians experiencing homelessness

Members of American Indian (AI) communities face many barriers to receiving both mental and physical healthcare. These barriers can have a negative effect on overall health. Barriers are compounded for AIs who are also experiencing homelessness, and AI make up a disproportionate percentage of the homeless population nationwide. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 service providers and 16 homeless participants in a mid-size Midwestern city to identify barriers to care for homeless participants. Key barriers identified in this study for homeless participants were: transportation, phone accessibility, discrimination, and cold and bureaucratic cultures of healthcare systems. Major barriers identified by service providers were: access to care, discrimination and mistrust, and restrictive policies. Given generally higher disease prevalence within the homeless population and health disparities within the AI community, steps should be taken to reduce barriers to healthcare.     

Contexts of Reception Seen and Constituted from Below: The Production of Refugee Status Apathy

Qualitative Sociology - Refugee status is often imagined as a holy grail. Yet it can have radically different meanings for refugees, even under inclusive policy regimes replete with legal and...     

Refocusing the Focus Group: AIRing as a Basis for Effective Workplace Planning

Organizations commonly make use of focus groups for planning purposes while giving little thought to the dimensions on which those groups are formed. This paper argues that the dimensions of group formation have a significant effect on the ultimate success of any planning exercise. This is because in all organizations people necessarily self‐categorize as members of groups that shape the way they think and act at work. However, there is often a lack of fit between the way organizations categorize employees and the way those employees categorize themselves. To the extent that there is a lack of fit between imposed and self‐identified categories, we argue that organizations will fail to effectively harness group resources. Any planning strategy that makes use of groups should organize people in terms of identities that are most relevant to their work in order (a) to have an impact on the way people think and act and (b) to ensure that people have (and feel that they have) the opportunity to provide input that is relevant, useful and important for the organization. The paper discusses a technique, AIRing, that allows organizations to address this issue effectively. This is the first stage of the ASPIRe negotiation‐based planning model (Eggins et al., Social Identity at Work: Developing Theory for Organizational Practice, pp. 241–260, Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis, 2003; Haslam et al., British Journal of Management, 14 (2003), pp. 357–369).     

Some Pitman closeness properties pertinent to symmetric populations

In this paper, we focus on Pitman closeness probabilities when the estimators are symmetrically distributed about the unknown parameter θ. We first consider two symmetric estimators θ?₁ and θ?₂ and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for θ?₁ to be Pitman closer to the common median θ than θ?₂. We then establish some properties in the context of estimation under the Pitman closeness criterion. We define Pitman closeness probability which measures the frequency with which an individual order statistic is Pitman closer to θ than some symmetric estimator. We show that, for symmetric populations, the sample median is Pitman closer to the population median than any other independent and symmetrically distributed estimator of θ. Finally, we discuss the use of Pitman closeness probabilities in the determination of an optimal ranked set sampling scheme (denoted by RSS) for the estimation of the population median when the underlying distribution is symmetric. We show that the best RSS scheme from symmetric populations in the sense of Pitman closeness is the median and randomized median RSS for the cases of odd and even sample sizes, respectively.     

Firearm advertising: product depiction in consumer gun magazines

In contrast to tobacco, alcohol, and other consumer products associated with health risks, we know very little about how firearm manufacturers advertise their products. The authors examined advertisements for firearms in all 27 ad-accepting magazines listed in Bacon's Magazine Directory "guns and shooting" category. Sixty-three manufacturers spent an estimated $1,195,680 on firearm advertising during the month studied. Annual advertising costs ranged widely; manufacturers spent an estimated $28.16 in advertising per firearm produced. Firearms generally were presented as a part of a lifestyle. Self-protection was noted infrequently in the advertisements. By contrast, attributes of the gun, typically technological characteristics, were noted in almost every advertisement.     

A close look at why one social norms campaign did not reduce student drinking

The authors examined 3 possible explanations for the failure of a social norms campaign at a large public university. They administered an anonymous survey to 2 random samples of undergraduate classes: a baseline assessment of 616 students before the campaign's implementation and a follow-up survey of 723 students 4 academic years later. At follow-up, 66.5% of the students were aware of the campaign, yet the survey revealed no reduction in perceived drinking norms or alcohol use in this group. An analysis of the postcampaign sample revealed that (1) a majority of the students did not find the statistics used in the campaign messages credible, (2) higher levels of alcohol use predicted lower levels of perceived campaign credibility, and (3) only 38.5% of the students understood the campaign's intended purpose. If they are to influence personally relevant drinking norms, these campaigns must undergo further development to enhance message credibility and participants' understanding.     

Factors influencing student selection of marriage and family therapy graduate programs

To understand which factors students consider most important in choosing a marriage and family therapy (MFT) graduate program and how programs met or did not meet these expectations of students over the course of graduate study, we conducted an online mixed-method investigation. One hundred twelve graduate students in Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education-accredited programs responded to an online survey assessing what factors led them to select a specific graduate program in MFT. In the quantitative portion, students ranked each factor (personal fit, faculty, funding, research, clinical work, and teaching) as well as characteristics of each factor in relation to its importance in their selection of an MFT program. Additionally, students indicated to what level their programs meet their expectations. In the qualitative portion, students described how they believed their chosen program was or was not meeting their expectations. Both doctoral and master's students ranked personal fit as the top factor affecting their choice of graduate program in MFT, but they differed on the characteristics of each of these factors and their importance in selecting an MFT program. Implications for this research include program evaluation and program advertising, and are consistent with the scientist-practitioner model.     

Does Child Sex Moderate Vulnerability to Postpartum Risk among Infants of Mothers at Risk for Psychopathology?

Early childhood behavior problems may indicate risk for subsequent psychopathology (Shaw, Gilliom, Ingoldsby, & Nagin, Developmental Psychology, 39, 2003, 189). There is some evidence to suggest that boys and girls may be differentially susceptible to postpartum risk factors that predict problem behaviors in early childhood (Kochanska, Coy, & Murray, Child Development, 72, 2001, 1091; Martel, Klump, Nigg, Breedlove, & Sisk, Hormones and Behavior , 55, 2009, 465). The main aim of this study is to examine whether child sex moderates the effect of infant and maternal predictors of toddler problem behaviors in a unique sample of high‐risk mother–child dyads. Analyses were based on data collected for 198 mother–child dyads (52% male offspring) followed longitudinally from birth to 18 months. Maternal and infant variables, including maternal PTSD and depression symptoms, maternal maltreatment history, observed maternal parenting quality, demographic risk, and infant negative emotionality and night waking, were used to predict toddler behavior problems. Although boys and girls displayed similar levels of total problem behaviors at 18 months overall, the specific set of infant and maternal variables that predicted toddler problems varied by child sex. The significant predictor for boys was maternal PTSD symptoms, whereas significant predictors for girls were infant negative emotionality and sleep problems. Results suggest that sex‐differentiated transmission of risk can be identified as early as 18 months postpartum. These differences suggest a gender‐specific biological sensitivity to maternal psychopathology, or alternatively, a gender‐specific reporting bias among mothers with childhood maltreatment histories.