Explaining the association of race and ethnicity with the HIV/AIDS-related attitudes,behaviors and skills of high school students

This study deals with intervening factors such as family composition, religiosity, and HIV/AIDS knowledge in understanding the association of race and ethnicity with HIV/AIDS-related attitudes and behaviors. Data represent Wave 1 of a five-month panel design involving 10th grade students in eight public high schools in Dade County (greater Miami) Florida. Significant differences in attitudes and behaviors were found among racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, Hispanics had more negative attitudes about condom use than blacks or whites. Whites had the most permissive, and blacks the least permissive, sexual attitudes. Hispanics felt least confident and blacks felt most confident about interpersonal sexual skills. Blacks were most likely to have had sexual intercourse, and whites least likely. Religiosity was found to be a significant intervening variable in the less permissive sexual attitudes of both blacks and Hispanics. The most significant implication of this study is that racial/ethnic differences in sexual behavior can be explained more fully by socio-environmental factors such as family structure or religiosity than by knowledge or attitudes. Thus, interventions directed toward minority populations should focus on the development of alternative social environments that would support more positive behaviors. More specifically, extended family, religious youth groups, and other community organizations should be brought into the HIV/AIDS risk-reduction arena.     

Accounting for the transition from inpatient to outpatient surgery

This article reports on some of the factors that have advanced and impeded hospital progress in moving from inpatient to outpatient surgery. Early on, patients, physicians, and hospital administrators all agreed that outpatient surgery had an intuitive appeal. Patients liked it because they didn't have to go in the hospital. Physicians liked it because they could get in and out of the outpatient surgery center more easily than the main hospital operating room. Administrators recognized the inherent appeal of outpatient procedures but were unable or unwilling to switch services from inpatient to outpatient for a variety of reasons. First, empty hospital beds and diminished scope of inpatient operations are a threat to the power of administrators. Moving surgery from inpatient to outpatient settings reduces inhouse operations. Second, reimbursement incentives were definitely in favor of continued inpatient care long after technology was in place for outpatient care. The third and most critical reason was that cost data on outpatient operations were just not available for making decisions on when to move into the outpatient setting. This review of the literature was intended to document the lack of relevant cost-based accounting. Instead, many other factors that more directly slowed progress were encountered. More than anything, this illustrates the erratic course of progress in health care reform.     

Vertical Coordination,Producer Response,and the Locus of Control over Agricultural Production Decisions1

Abstract Structural change in U.S. agriculture in part has been characterized by shifts in control over agricultural production decisions from the farm-level to off-farm firms. In the past decade, this process has accelerated as increasing concentration in production and processing has led to increased vertical integration and contract production. To retain control, some farmers have formed bargaining units, have created production and marketing networks, and have petitioned subnational state governments for regulation of production contracts. Concurrently, there has been an impressive increase in alternative marketing outlets linked with smaller-scale production based on farm-level control over production decisions. Structural change and producer collective response has a long history in U.S. agriculture. Using Mooney's and Hunt's (1996) recent contribution on recurrent ideologies of agrarian social movements, this paper outlines recent structural changes and collective responses to those changes with reference to the shifting locus of control over agricultural production decisions.     

The Production Function,Crop Diversity,and the Debate Between Conventional and Sustainable Agriculture1

Abstract Organizational assumptions embedded in the production function of neoclassical economics have served to structure production agriculture in the United States for the past 100 years. The narrow focus of the production function on the inputs of land, labor, capital, and management and the use of on-farm profitability as the primary definition of sustainability have come under attack from sustainable agriculturalists, who argue that the social and environmental consequences of production are as important as the economic outcomes. Using diversity of crops harvested as an indicator of sustainability, the production function is operationalized to inform the debate between the conventional, neoclassical model of production and the alternative, sustainable model. Census of agriculture data from 1978, 1982, and 1987 are used in both cross-sectional and temporal models. Results show that increases in expenditures for equipment and machinery, prevalence of corporate farms, higher rates of tenancy, and the prevalence of large farms are associated with lower levels of diversity at the county level. Conversely, higher levels of diversity are found in counties with greater farm labor expenses, where there are more medium-size farms, and where farmers are more likely to farm full-time.     

PATHS AND SEMIPATHS: RECONCEPTUALIZING STRUCTURAL COHESION IN TERMS OF DIRECTED RELATIONS

In a groundbreaking article, Moody and White (2003) introduced the concept of structural cohesion, simultaneously characterizing emergent communities and their internally embedded layers by the number of node-independent paths interconnecting individuals. Like many studies, however, they "corrected" the directionality discovered in some of their data. While often done for important purposes, doing so potentially confounds structural cohesion with unrelated concepts. Some relations, especially those relating to the dynamic aspects of social life, are inherently directed, in whole or in part, and it may prove worthwhile to respect this directionality. In this article, I recast structural cohesion in terms of directed social relations and identify four distinct ways of measuring it. In two example data sets—hiring relations among graduate programs and trust relations among neighborhood residents—I show that only strong embeddedness, a type of structural cohesion emerging from directed relations, proves to be a powerful, robust, independent explanatory factor. I further show that if the directionality in the data in these examples had been "corrected," the importance of structural cohesion would have been dramatically undervalued.     

Web-assisted instruction for changing social cognitive variables related to physical activity

The authors examined the efficacy of Web-assisted instruction for promoting the use of social cognitive theory (SCT) strategies related to physical activity. They recruited college students attending health courses. The authors created 3 groups (Web-assisted, comparison, and control) based on the course structure. The Web-assisted group received information on exercise and fitness and a Web-based program (treatment, n = 127); 7 sections received the same exercise and fitness information as the treatment condition, but no Web-based program (comparison, n = 118); and 6 sections received information in unrelated areas (control, n = 178). The Web-based program consisted of 9 Web assignments (1 per week) that targeted key SCT variables. Satisfaction with the Web-based program was high. Use of self-regulation strategies was significantly higher at posttest in the treatment group than it was in the other groups. Knowledge concerning the skills taught by the Web assignments was significantly greater in the treatment group than it was in the comparison group. The results of this study demonstrate that a Web-based instructional program has a positive impact on knowledge and skills related to SCT strategies for changing physical activity behavior.     

Sardonic Atheists and Silly Evangelicals: the Relationship between Self-Concept and Humor Style

Humor is widely used as a means of supporting group solidarity, but what determines the direction that this humor takes (i.e. its quality and targets)? I suggest that the answer lies in an interaction between self-concept, perceptions of outgroups and micro group culture. Aspects of self-concept that are central for a group’s identity work, especially how the group imagines outsiders, open possibilities for certain types of humor while closing off others. Then micro-cultural processes, heavily dependent on the exact persons present in a given interaction, influence the humorous forms used. This process explains why groups in roughly similar structural positions often make use of humor to generate solidarity in strikingly different ways, as well as why styles of humor vary, within limits, within groups. I provide illustrations of this process in two religious minority groups with very different humorous styles: atheists in the Bible Belt and evangelical Christians in Chicago.     

Developmental Outcomes of Internationally Adopted Children

This study followed 106 international adoptees over an 18-month period. Mothers completed the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) at 6, 12, and 24 months post-adoption, assessing their children's development in multiple domains. Results revealed that the sample overall demonstrated linear improvement over time in most domains, but children with initially low scores remained significantly lower than others at the 18-month follow-up. ASQ scores were unrelated to age at adoption, but significant differences by birth country emerged. Across most domains, children from Eastern Europe had generally lower scores than children from other birth regions.