A Participant-Informed Model for Preventing Teen Pregnancy in a Rural Latino Community

Recognizing the need for health prevention efforts that are tailored to the needs of Latinos in rural communities, the researchers utilized focus groups to ascertain the perspectives of Latino children and their parents who participated in a teen pregnancy prevention program. This article presents a Latino-driven conceptual design of an evidence-informed comprehensive, community-based, and culturally sensitive teen-pregnancy prevention program. The new model, called the Family-Festival Prevention Model, (1) used culturally relevant and experiential learning activities, (2) promoted community connections, (3) incorporated strategies that engaged fathers, and (4) engaged important faith-based and community stakeholders to involve the whole community in prevention efforts.     

Review of Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children

ABSTRACT

Marital flourishing can be enriched by emotions; however, only in recent years, researchers have begun to acknowledge the benefits of emotions toward the understanding of marital functioning. This paper draws on the exploration to investigate the association between emotion expressivity (positive, negative, and impulse control) and psychological flourishing (individual and relationship) among married individuals, and the moderating role of married individual’s gender and the role of their marriage; arrange or love in these associations. Self-report responses on Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire and Psychological Flourishing Scale from a total sample of 591 married individuals (342 wives and 249 husbands), aged 21–80 years, were analyzed using linear regression analysis and moderation. Findings of the study exposed that emotion expressivity was associated with psychological flourishing among married individuals. Expression of positive emotions negatively predicted relationship flourishing and individual flourishing within marital relationship. Expression of negative emotions also negatively predicted husbands’ and wives’ psychological flourishing. Correspondingly, the strength of impulse reactions too, negatively predicted individual as well as relationship flourishing of married individuals. The interaction effect between emotion expressivity and gender was a significant predictor of psychological well-being. Likewise, the interaction effect between emotion expressivity and type of marriage was also a significant predictor of psychological flourishing. These results proposed that both gender and kind of marriage proved to be significant moderators between emotion expressivity and flourishing. The results had been discussed with regard to contemporary literature and cultural context of a non-western society.     

Implementing a Knowledge Management System in a School of Social Work: The Possibilities,Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Managing emerging scientific, professional, and applied practice knowledge has become increasingly more important in the 21st century because economic and social connections in organizations are becoming more complex, associated with greater global connectivity. One approach to this growing complexity and emerging need involves the development of a technology-based knowledge management (KM) system. This paper describes one human service organization's attempt to implement and capture the complex knowledge needs and requirements for a knowledge management system. The implementation described is in the third year of a five year process. The challenges when incorporating such reorganization will be addressed. This case example also illustrates the complexities, possibilities, and lessons learned while implementing a knowledge management system within a school of social work and subsequently its capacity to be transferred to human service organizations.     

An mHealth Approach to Extend a Brief Intervention for Adolescent Alcohol Use and Suicidal Behavior: Qualitative Analyses of Adolescent and Parent Feedback

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) tools that supplement inpatient psychiatric care can maintain and enhance intervention effects following hospitalization. Adolescents hospitalized following a suicidal event represent a vulnerable population who could greatly benefit from such an mHealth intervention. In specific, suicidal adolescents who drink alcohol are in need of robust interventions that address the bidirectional relationship between alcohol use and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, because it puts them at especially high risk for suicide upon discharge. The purpose of this study was to conduct qualitative interviews to gather feedback to improve a brief alcohol intervention provided to suicidal adolescents during psychiatric hospitalization, and to develop a mHealth tool to extend care after discharge. Participants, eight adolescents and their parents, identified the need for a smartphone application to deliver intervention content to adolescents and parents during the posthospitalization period. Adolescents sought support in meeting alcohol- and mood-related goals, while parents desired general resources as well as tips for conversations with their adolescent about mood and alcohol use.     

Using Promotores Programs to Improve Latino Health Outcomes: Implementation Challenges for Community-Based Nonprofit Organizations

ABSTRACT

Promotores are community lay health workers who provide outreach and services to Latinos. Little research on the promotores programs exists, and the focus of this article is to identify the challenges faced by community-based nonprofits when implementing promotores programs. To explore this type of program, telephone interviews were conducted with 10 promotores academic experts and nonprofit executives. The results suggest that implementation challenges fall into three major categories: the lack of standardized information on promotores programs, labor issues, and organizational costs. Future recommendations made in the article highlight promotores recruitment and retention strategies and the development of a clearinghouse of programmatic implementation information for community-based nonprofits.     

A cluster analysis of service utilization and incarceration among homeless youth

Our paper examines service usage (e.g., shelter) as well as a typology of individuals who are most likely to use groupings of services among 249 homeless youth. Our results revealed that the majority of homeless young people have used food programs (66%) and street outreach (65%) on at least one occasion within the past year. Cluster analysis of services revealed four distinct groups: (1) basic survival service use, characterized by above average shelter, food, and outreach service use, but below average on counseling, substance abuse/mental health services, and incarceration; (2) multiple service use, which included above average use of all six services; (3) incarceration experience, characterized by above average incarceration experience, but below average use of all other five services; and (4) minimal service use, which included slightly above average use of counseling, but below average use of all other services. These findings have the potential to provide important information that may assist with targeting services to homeless youth.     

Trends in point-of-sale tobacco marketing around college campuses: Opportunities for enhanced tobacco control efforts

Objective: Colleges have implemented policies to limit tobacco use on-campus; however, the off-campus environment is often overlooked in tobacco control efforts. We assessed availability, marketing, and promotion of cigarettes, snus, and traditional smokeless tobacco (SLT) in a sample of communities surrounding 11 college campuses in North Carolina and Virginia. Participants: Between January-March of 2011, 2012 and 2013, 481 tobacco-selling retailers, including convenience stores, pharmacies and supermarkets, located near campuses were assessed. Methods: Trained observers completed annual point-of-sale assessments. Results: The percentage of stores selling (81.4% to 58.6%; p < .0001) and advertising snus (80.1% to 53.11%; p < .0001) significantly decreased over time. Convenience stores increased promotions of cigarettes (65.4% to 72.8%; p = 0.04) and SLT (3.1% to 23.3%; p = 0.02). Conclusions: Off-campus environments have abundant tobacco availability and marketing. Colleges should collaborate with state and local tobacco control advocates to address tobacco promotion near campuses to potentially decrease product appeal and access among young adults.     

“Harder and Harder”? Is Mainstream Pornography Becoming Increasingly Violent and Do Viewers Prefer Violent Content?

It is a common notion among many scholars and pundits that the pornography industry becomes “harder and harder” with every passing year. Some have suggested that porn viewers, who are mostly men, become desensitized to “soft” pornography, and producers are happy to generate videos that are more hard core, resulting in a growing demand for and supply of violent and degrading acts against women in mainstream pornographic videos. We examined this accepted wisdom by utilizing a sample of 269 popular videos uploaded to PornHub over the past decade. More specifically, we tested two related claims: (1) aggressive content in videos is on the rise and (2) viewers prefer such content, reflected in both the number of views and the rankings for videos containing aggression. Our results offer no support for these contentions. First, we did not find any consistent uptick in aggressive content over the past decade; in fact, the average video today contains shorter segments showing aggression. Second, videos containing aggressive acts are both less likely to receive views and less likely to be ranked favorably by viewers, who prefer videos where women clearly perform pleasure.