Placentophagy’s effects on mood,bonding, and fatigue: A pilot trial,part 2

Background

Human maternal placentophagy is gaining popularity among a growing number of women who believe it provides maternal benefits, including prevention of postpartum blues/depression, improved maternal bonding, and reduced fatigue.

Challenges to care coordination posed by the use of multiple health IT applications

Coordinating care for hospitalized patients requires the use of multiple sources of information. Using a macroergonomic framework (i.e. the work system model), we conducted interviews and observations of care managers involved in care coordination across transitions of care. When information is distributed across multiple health IT applications, care managers experience a range of challenges, including organizational barriers, technology design problems, skills and knowledge issues, and task performance demands (i.e. issues related to individual information processing and management and sharing of information). These challenges can be used as a checklist to evaluate the proposed IT infrastructure that will allow the integration of multiple health IT applications and, therefore, support coordination across transitions of care.     

Residential landscapes as social-ecological systems: a synthesis of multi-scalar interactions between people and their home environment

Residential landscapes are a common setting of human-environment interactions. These ubiquitous ecosystems provide social and ecological services, and yard maintenance leads to intended and unintended ecological outcomes. The ecological characteristics of residential landscapes and the human drivers of landscape management have been the focus of disciplinary studies, often at a single scale of analysis. However, an interdisciplinary examination of residential landscapes is needed to understand the feedbacks and tradeoffs of these complex adaptive social-ecological systems as a whole. Our aim is to synthesize the diversity of perspectives, scales of analysis, and findings from the literature in order to 1) contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of residential landscapes and 2) identify research needs while providing a robust conceptual approach for future studies. We synthesize 256 studies from the literature and develop an interdisciplinary, multi-scalar framework on residential landscape dynamics. Complex human drivers (attitudinal, structural, and institutional factors) at multiple scales influence management practices and the feedbacks with biophysical characteristics of residential landscapes. However, gaps exist in our interdisciplinary understanding of residential landscapes within four key but understudied areas: 1) the link between social drivers and ecological outcomes of management decisions, 2) the ecosystem services provided by these landscapes to residents, 3) the interactions of social drivers and ecological characteristics across scales, and 4) generalizations of patterns and processes across cities. Our systems perspective will help to guide future interdisciplinary collaborations to integrate theories and research methods across geographic locations and spatial scales.     

Social Workers’ Roles in Supporting the Sexual and Relational Health of Children with Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to understand social workers’ roles in meeting the sexual and relational health needs of children (aged 3–11) with disabilities. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 social workers from a range of practice settings. A phenomenological lens privileged the perspectives of social workers in their definitions of disability and sought to convey the meaning they assigned to their experiences of working with children in practice concerning matters related to sexual and relational health. Social workers enacted a broad definition of disability and often came to work with youth in contexts labeled as sexually problematic. In the provision of sexual health services, social workers embodied commonly adhered to roles including as practitioners, enablers, advocates, brokers, and managers. Services are needed that promote positive sexuality and relational health among children with disabilities. It is important that social workers be proactive advocates for the full inclusion of people with disabilities as equal sexual citizens.     

Utilizing a Family Decision-Making Lens to Examine Adults’ End-of-Life Planning Actions

Guided by Rettig’s family decision-making theory, the study investigated the effect of an adult child’s decision environment, an adult child’s decision-making perceptions, and a parent’s end-of-life (EOL) planning actions before death on an integrated measure of medical and financial EOL planning actions. Data came from Wave 3 of the public use data of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Results indicated that household net worth, parent’s completion of a living will before death, and adult children’s avoidance of death ideation explained the greatest proportion of variance in adult children’s EOL planning actions. Results also indicated that women, those married, and those with higher education did more EOL planning. Practitioners can use this information to close accessibility gaps due to net worth differences, advocate for a more unified approach to EOL planning, and shift the focus of discussions of death from the death itself to a life well lived.     

Reports of Conferences,Institutes, and Seminars

ABSTRACT

This quarter's column reports on sessions from NASIG 2017: Racing to the Crossroads, held in Indianapolis, IN, June 8 to 11, and ALA Annual 2017: Transforming Our Libraries, Ourselves, which took place in Chicago, IL, June 22–27.     

How child inclusive were Australia's responses to COVID-19?

From March 2020, Australia introduced a range of policies to respond to COVID-19, most of which impacted significantly on the lives of children. This article applies a child-centred framework, developed from rights-based participatory research with children, to analyse how children have been represented in policy narratives around COVID-19 and the extent to which policy responses have been child-inclusive or child-centred. We argue that, overall, COVID-19 policy responses have failed to be child-inclusive or child-centred. This has important implications not only for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on children but also in understanding—and potentially rethinking—the place of children in policies as Australia emerges from COVID-19 restrictions.     

Partnering Across the Life Course: Sex, Relationships, and Mate Selection

Marital delay, relationship dissolution and churning, and high divorce rates have extended the amount of time individuals in search of romantic relationships spend outside of marital unions. The scope of research on intimate partnering now includes studies of "hooking up," Internet dating, visiting relationships, cohabitation, marriage following childbirth, and serial partnering, as well as more traditional research on transitions into marriage. Collectively, we know much more about relationship formation and development, but research often remains balkanized among scholars employing different theoretical approaches, methodologies, or disciplinary perspectives. The study of relationship behavior is also segmented into particular life stages, with little attention given to linkages between stages over the life course. Recommendations for future research are offered.     

Factors Associated with Long-Term Survival of Family Businesses: Duration Analysis

This study identified factors influencing family business survival using National Family Business Panel and Spatial Hazard Events and Losses data. Sustainable Family Business Theory guided the use of a parametric duration model of long-term survival. Community characteristics, family achievements, family processes during change, business and owner characteristics, and business processes during stability affected long-term survival. Economic vulnerability of rural counties, family income from business, hiring temporary help, business size, viewing business as a way of life, and owner experience were associated with increased duration of business survival. Being home-based, a female owner, and customer-focused were associated with decreased duration of survival. Some family processes and achievements increased the duration of business survival; none decreased it.