A Systematic Review of Psychosocial Interventions in Treatment of Opioid Addiction

Opioid addiction has become a U.S. epidemic. It is important to determine whether psychosocial interventions help prevent relapse. A total of 14 studies were included in this systematic review. Most studies compared psychosocial interventions in conjunction with pharmacological maintenance. Only 2 studies found that psychosocial interventions led to statistically significant benefits for outcomes related to opioid abuse when compared to maintenance and less or no psychosocial intervention. Psychosocial interventions were not found to be additive to pharmacological treatments during induction or maintenance stages. Further research is needed to determine effectiveness of psychosocial interventions during dose reduction and long-term relapse prevention.     

Reliability and validity of the Vulnerability Index-Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT) in real-world implementation

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Vulnerability Index-Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT), a widely-used assessment of the health and social vulnerabilities and housing needs of individuals experiencing homelessness. Homeless Management Information System data were obtained for 1495 individuals who were administered the VI-SPDAT between 2014 and 2016. Subsamples were selected for reliability and validity assessments. Results suggest there are challenges to the reliability and validity of the VI-SPDAT in practical use. VI-SPDAT total scores did not significantly predict risk of return to homeless services, while type of housing was a significant predictor. Vulnerability assessment instruments have important implications for communities working to end homelessness by facilitating prioritization of scarce housing resources. Findings suggest that further testing and development of the VI-SPDAT is necessary.     

Factors influencing dietary fat intake among black emerging adults

Objective: To determine what factors influenced dietary fat intake (DFI) among black emerging adults. Participants: Sample included 251 black emerging adults, ages 18–25 years, living in the US. Methods: This was a nonexperimental cross-sectional study based on self-report data. Results: The sample had high DFI. Factors related to DFI were gender (r_pb = ?.22, p < .001), perceived barriers for healthy eating (r = .32, p < .001), and perceived self-efficacy (r = ?.33, p < .001). These variables were also significant predictors for DFI. Gender was significantly related to DFI (b = ?5.894, p = .000). Religious commitment moderated the effect of stress on DFI. Conclusions: Gender, perceived barriers for healthy eating, and perceived self-efficacy were significant predictors for DFI. Religious commitment influenced the relationship of perceived stress and DFI. These findings may lead to interventions designed to reduce DFI and cardiovascular risks among black emerging adults.     

Urban college student self-report of hookah use with health care providers

Objective: This study's purpose was to describe urban college students’ communication about hookah with health care providers. Participants: Participants included a random sample of undergraduate urban college students and health care providers. Methods: Students surveyed determined the epidemiology of hookah use in this population, how many health care providers asked about hookah, and how many students admitted hookah use to a physician. Results: Of 375 students surveyed, 78 (20.8%) had never tried it, 284 (75.7%) had smoked hookah at least once, and 64 students (22.6%) were classified as frequent hookah smokers. Only 15 (4.7%) reported a health care provider asking about hookah during visits, whereas 36 (12.7%) admitted their hookah use to a health care provider. Conclusion: Hookah use was found to be highly prevalent among students in one urban university. This study supports the hypothesis that few health care providers broach the topic with patients. Additional research on health consequences of hookah use, education, and improved screening is warranted.     

Challenges facing foster parent resource workers in Canada

Many different professional staff members in children's services systems interact with foster parents. In Canada, the title “resource worker” is used in many jurisdictions for those who work most directly and closely with licensed foster parents. There is, however, limited research on the experiences of resource workers. In the study, 68 resource workers from 14 agencies within a large metropolitan area in Canada were asked: “What challenges do you face as a foster parent resource worker?” The results were analyzed using concept mapping methodology and resulted in nine concepts: balance diverse stakeholder needs, motivate foster parents, manage dual roles, respond to foster parent misconduct, deal with disagreements, maintain credibility, meet demands of organization, stay up to date on changes, and lack of support. The results were compared and contrasted with the available literature.     

Wellbeing and Society: Towards Quantification of the Co-benefits of Wellbeing

Social Indicators Research - The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it reviews the empirical evidence showing the existence of linkage between wellbeing and possible co-benefits,...     

Firms' (non)responses: The role of ambivalence in the case of population aging in Japan

The literature supports and recommends that firms be responsive to external environments for prosperity and survival. However, many firms do not seem to heed this advice when it comes to important but uncontrollable environmental forces such as population aging. We investigate firms' (non)responses to population aging, one of the grand challenges of our time. While theoretical explanations for firms' responses to external environments abound, surprisingly, we lack concrete empirical evidence about why some companies do not respond to population aging while others do. Building on the cognition–response framework and utilizing a sample of 545 Japanese corporations, we investigate the magnitude and extent of organizations' corporate-level responses to population aging in Japan, the world's most aged society. While controlling for the firms' resource dependence and slack resources, we find robust, positive effects of perceived state certainty on organizational responses. Specifically, we find that perceived state certainty takes both direct and indirect routes (Daft and Weick 1984) to increasing firm response to population aging. We also find that firms' self-perceived controllability has a direct effect on firm response. Most intriguingly, the organization's ambivalence toward the implications of population aging on their business does not directly reduce firm response. Instead, it is found to be a quasi-moderator that interacts with perceived state certainty and negatively affects the responses to population aging. Ambivalence is an important factor that has been largely overlooked and warrants more research attention to address not only this particular grand challenge but also others (e.g., climate change).     

Top foundations' 10‐year plunge into alternatives yields mixed results and high fees

Private foundations control a sizable pool of investment capital. This paper examines the endowment returns of private foundations. Over the 10‐year period, 2006–2015, the top 56 of these organizations fully embraced the “Yale model” of portfolio construction. As a group, they substantially cut allocations to publicly traded stocks and bonds in favor of illiquid alternatives that supposedly offered higher returns and lower volatility. Despite pursuing risky investments in illiquid alternative assets, our study concludes that the foundations were not “paid” for illiquidity in terms of a meaningfully return premium (vs. public markets). Moreover, their annual return volatility, or risk, was similar to either a 60–40 composite index portfolio or a typical public pension plan, both of which had lower equity‐type exposure and greater liquidity. The implication is that foundations can achieve the same returns with better liquidity and/or lower risk with passive investments in broad index mutual funds or similar vehicles. In addition, we estimate the third‐party money management fees of the top foundations to equal 1.43% of the assets for the fiscal year 2016. This 1.43% is a sizable number when compared to the 5% of assets (including overhead expenses) that the federal government requires that foundations distribute each year in furtherance of their charitable missions.     

Mental health and the media: From illness to wellbeing

The media are a main source of information about mental health for many people, and an ever‐growing body of literature is evaluating their coverage of the topic. To help keep track of such research, several comprehensive but now dated literature reviews have been published. We assess more recent studies (2007–2017) and suggest future directions by integrating (a) the “circuit of mass communication” model from media and communication studies which posits that production, content, and reception need to be analysed for an in‐depth understanding of the media, (b) the holistic view of mental health as comprising both illness and wellbeing, and (3) the critical psychiatry literature questioning the assumptions underlying psychiatric knowledge and practice. We find that recent studies have focused on content and “the illness side” of mental health by examining the representation of particular mental disorders and events involving individuals with specific diagnoses. We identify as a promising development the growing interest in “the wellbeing side” of mental health whereby authors have started to analyse recovery messages. We invite more production and reception research and more critical content studies which use diagnostic labels cautiously and analyse the representation of people with mental health problems as the victims of violence.     

Child deprivation in Australia: A child‐focused approach

Income‐based studies of child poverty treat children and young people as effectively invisible and determine the poverty status of families or households on the basis of information that is provided by, and is primarily about, adults. In contrast, the consensual deprivation approach provides a way of developing measures that reflect the views of children about what constitutes poverty and can be applied to data that children themselves provide. This paper extends earlier Australian studies of adult deprivation by applying a similar approach to children aged 11–17 attending a NSW government high school. Focus groups were conducted with children to help identify items regarded as essential for all children, and the results informed the development of a survey that was completed by over 2,600 students. The survey asked about 24 items, 18 of which were retained after statistical testing, and these items form the basis of the deprivation analysis. The findings indicate that a substantial proportion of survey respondents experience either or both of material deprivation and social exclusion. A new Child Deprivation Index (CDI) is developed and used to compare the circumstances of different groups, highlighting some of the factors that are associated with higher levels of deprivation and providing some initial pointers to possible underlying causes.