The Social Work Assessment Tool (SWAT)

This paper reports on the last of three National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization initiatives to move hospice and palliative care social workers into the patient/family outcomes arena: the development of the Social Work Assessment Tool. The experience of a team of practitioners and researchers is described, including results of two pilot studies and subsequent SWAT revisions. The major focus is on the current model performance improvement project, in which 19 social workers from 14 hospice and palliative care programs used the SWAT with 101 patients and 81 primary caregivers for a median of 44 days. Quantitative analysis indicated significant improvement in SWAT scores for patients from the first to the second social work visit (t = -2.60, df = 47, p .01). Qualitative interviewing of the social workers indicated some lack of readiness in the field to conduct quantitative outcomes measurement. Additional measures are needed in addition to the SWAT, including qualitative measures, and measures of mezzo and macro practice. Participants indicated that the SWAT was appropriate for use with economically and culturally diverse clients.     

Some multiple comparison procedures for comparing treatments within several groups

Multiple comparison procedures are extended to designs consisting of several groups, where the treatment means are to be compared within each group. This may arise in two-factor experiments, with a significant interaction term, when one is interested in comparing the levels of one factor at each level of the other factor. A general approach is presented for deriving the distributions and calculating critical points, following three papers which dealt with two specific procedures. These points are used for constructing simultaneous confidence intervals over some restricted set of contrasts among treatment means in each of the groups. Tables of critical values are provided for two procedures and an application is demonstrated. Some extensions are presented for the case of possible different sets of contrasts and also for unequal variances in the various groups.     

Estimation of Main Effect When Covariates Have Non-Proportional Hazards

The Cox proportional hazards (PH) regression model has been widely used to analyze survival data in clinical trials and observational studies. In addition to estimating the main treatment or exposure group effect, it is common to adjust for additional covariates using the Cox model. It is well known that violation of the PH assumption can lead to estimates that are biased and difficult to interpret, and model checking has become a routine procedure. However, such checking might focus on the primary group comparisons, and the assumption can still be violated when adjusting for many of the potential covariates. We study the effect of violation of the PH assumption of the covariates on the estimation of the main group effect in the Cox model. The results are summarized in terms of the bias and the coverage properties of the confidence intervals. Overall in randomized clinical trials, the bias caused by misspecifying the PH assumption on the covariates is no more than 15% in absolute value regardless of sample size. In observational studies where the covariates are likely correlated with the group variable, however, the bias can be very severe. The coverage properties largely depend on sample size, as expected, as bias becomes dominating with increasing sample size. These findings should serve as cautionary notes when adjusting for potential confounders in observational studies, as the violation of PH assumption on the confounders can lead to erroneous results.     

Photographs of disasters. An ethnomethodological approach

The essay analyses the photographs produced and circulated during the March 2011 tsunami and earthquake disaster in Japan, which show destroyed buildings, flooded landscapes, desperate people. Disaster destroys existing order. On first sight, the photographs of disaster depict this dissolution of order. The empirical analysis shows that the disastrousness of disaster is (also) created through the pictures of the disasters. The paper discusses why and in what way certain pictures reveal themselves to be iconographic of disaster and how they enter the visual memory as its representative. To achieve this, the study will invoke ethnomethodology. At the centre of the analysis is the question of the particular means with which these images illustrate the destructive force of the disasters and how pictures showing destruction and pain (‘pictures of pain’) turn into pictures effecting pain in the viewer (‘painful pictures’). The empirical study demonstrates: the photographs show the destruction of order; however, they do this in an orderly manner.

for Jörg Bergmann’s 70th birthday     

Social-ecological research in urban natural areas: an emergent process for integration

Urban Ecosystems - Understanding the structure and function of urban landscapes requires integrating social and ecological research. Here, we integrate parallel social and ecological assessments of...     

Applying the Housing First approach to single-site permanent supportive housing

This study explored how the U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program applies Housing First principles in the context of ten single-site programs. Focus group discussions with 64 HUD-VASH staff and community partners explored how the programs were influenced by Housing First principles and specific strategies to implement these principles in a single-site setting. Focus group respondents described resourceful ways that the principles of Housing First were implemented in their programs specifically related to (1) housing choice and structure, (2) separation of housing and services, (3) service philosophy, and (4) service array. Several of the Housing First domains cite the importance of integrated housing and the provision of services off-site; it was of particular interest to learn how single-site programs address these issues logistically. Lessons learned from this study include the importance of leveraging the independent yet overlapping tasks of case management and property management to ensure functional – if not geographic – separation of housing and services; maintaining staff on-site to address Veterans’ needs; working with community service organizations to complement the array of service available to residents; and housing single-site programs in mixed-use buildings.     

Presenteeism, Power and Organizational Change: Long Hours as a Career Barrier and the Impact on the Working Lives of Women Managers

This paper discusses the results from a survey on the gendered impact of organizational change and the implications for workloads and working hours. These results suggest that restructuring leads to increased workloads and that the pressure of long working hours is associated with male-dominated organizations. Restructuring is also associated with 'presenteeism' (the tendency to stay at work beyond the time needed for effective performance of the job) as fear of redundancy and uncertainty over promotion opportunities lead to a need to demonstrate visible commitment. Such presenteeism was found to be gendered: it is associated with a competitive masculine culture, it is seen by women as a form of 'male resistance' to their presence as managers and it imposes heavy costs on women as they attempt to meet the conflicting demands of work and home. This paper suggests that organizational restructuring can produce dysfunctional outcomes such as 'competitive presenteeism' (whereby managers compete over who stays longest in the office) and that such outcomes have important gender implications. It concludes that gender mix is a defining feature in how well women fit into the organization and how easily they accommodate to changes in organizational structures and managerial work.     

Racial Segregation,the Concentration of Disadvantage,and Black and White Homicide Victimization

Discriminatory housing market practices have created and reinforced patterns of racial residential segregation throughout the United States. Such segregation has racist consequences too. Residential segregation increases the concentration of disadvantage for blacks but not whites, creating African-American residential environments that heighten social problems including violence within the black population. At the same time, segregation protects white residential environments from these dire consequences. This hypothesized racially inequitable process is tested for one important type of violence—homicide. We examine race-specific models of lethal violence that distinguish residential segregation from the concentration of disadvantage within racial groups. Data are from the Censuses of Population and Federal Bureau of Investigation's homicide incidence files for U.S. large central cities for 1980 and 1990. Our perspective finds support in the empirical analyses. Segregation has an important effect on black but not white killings, with the impact of segregation on African-American homicides explained by concentrated disadvantage.