Knowledge,Attitudes, and Informational Behaviors of College Students in Regard to the Human Papillomavirus

Abstract

Objective: To assess students’ human papillomavirus (HPV) knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Participants/ Methods: Students (N = 1,282) at a large, public university in the Northeast United States completed a questionnaire during February 2008 assessing HPV knowledge, prevalence, transmission, cervical cancer risk and stigma; sexual behavior, vaccination status, as well as past and preferred sources of information about HPV and sexual health. Results: A majority of respondents know of HPV. However, understanding was insufficient in several important areas. Overwhelmingly, respondents heard about HPV via television commercials yet preferred to obtain sexual health information from physicians. Hearing about HPV on a TV commercial was associated with increased knowledge. More knowledge of HPV was associated with less stigma. Men exhibit a higher level of stigma and less knowledge than women. Conclusions: Publicly funded health campaigns aimed at increasing knowledge about HPV are overdue and necessary. This is especially true for efforts targeting young adults about this extremely common sexually transmitted infection (STI).     

WELFARE LEAVERS AND RETURNERS

This study investigates a random sample of people who left welfare and a similar sample who returned to welfare in a mid-Atlantic state in 2002. Findings show that child-care difficulties are important barriers to employment and that they are bound together with other conditions of poverty such as adverse neighborhood conditions and other deprivations. Child care provision becomes difficult when neighborhoods are infested with drugs or guns or when caregivers must spend too much time finding the means to pay bills or rent and put food on the table. For the poorest groups, all these conditions negatively impact quality of life. The study's findings suggest social policy revisions that emphasize programs to improve the children's neighborhood environment and means of socialization, supplement caregivers’ income to levels sufficient to pay for child care, and remove inadequacies or inconsistencies in government child care provision.     

Feasibility of a Telephone Follow-Up on Use of Emergency Contraceptive Pills in a College Health Center

Abstract

The authors examined the feasibility and effectiveness of a telephone follow-up procedure on use of emergency contraceptive pills (ECP) at a college health center. They made 264 telephone calls to the 97 women who had received ECPs during one 16-week academic semester and were successful in reaching 65 (67%) of the women, who responded with information about their experiences with ECPs. The women demonstrated a high rate of adherence to the medical regimen and reported very few side effects from ECPs; a majority said that ECPs did not affect their ability to carry out daily activities. On weighing the relative absence of problems following ECP distribution against the time, effort, and cost required to reach just over two thirds of the women, the researchers concluded that an ECP telephone follow-up procedure was neither cost-effective nor particularly useful.     

Large Contests

We consider contests with many, possibly heterogeneous, players and prizes, and show that the equilibrium outcomes of such contests are approximated by the outcomes of mechanisms that implement the assortative allocation in an environment with a single agent that has a continuum of possible types. This makes it possible to easily approximate the equilibria of contests whose exact equilibrium characterization is complicated, as well as the equilibria of contests for which there is no existing equilibrium characterization.     

Substrate reinforcement and dialectal differences in Melanesian Pidgin

Stabilization of a new contact language involves a process of levelling, or the reduction of variants. One of the factors influencing which grammatical variants are retained in the process is substrate reinforcement – the existence in the substrate languages of a congruent structure with a similar function. This article illustrates substrate reinforcement in the development of the three current dialects of Melanesian Pidgin. First, evidence of earlier variability is presented and the sociolinguistic conditions that later led to greater stability are described. Second, five grammatical features that differentiate the dialects are examined. For each feature, it is shown first that at least two variants were previously in use. Then evidence is presented illustrating correspondence between the particular variant retained in the dialect and a feature of the substrate languages of that geographic area. Differing substrates reinforced different variants, and this accounts for these dialectal differences.     

Five-Hundred Life-Saving Interventions and Their Cost-Effectiveness

We gathered information on the cost-effectiveness of life-saving interventions in the United States from publicly available economic analyses. "Life-saving interventions" were defined as any behavioral and/or technological strategy that reduces the probability of premature death among a specified target population. We defined cost-effectiveness as the net resource costs of an intervention per year of life saved. To improve the comparability of cost-effectiveness ratios arrived at with diverse methods, we established fixed definitional goals and revised published estimates, when necessary and feasible, to meet these goals. The 587 interventions identified ranged from those that save more resources than they cost, to those costing more than 10 billion dollars per year of life saved. Overall, the median intervention costs $42,000 per life-year saved. The median medical intervention costs $19,000/life-year; injury reduction $48,000/life-year; and toxin control $2,800,000/life-year. Cost/life-year ratios and bibliographic references for more than 500 life-saving interventions are provided.     

Fingerprint-based background checks for personal care workers: Stakeholder views of policy criteria

Decision makers face difficult choices when tasked with identifying and implementing appropriate mechanisms for protecting the elderly and other vulnerable adults from abuse. A pilot project involving fingerprint-based criminal history background checks for personal care workers in Michigan has supplied an opportunity to examine one such mechanism. In conjunction with the pilot project, we have conducted a stakeholder analysis with the aim of informing decision makers about stakeholder perceptions of standard policy criteria like effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. We employed focus groups and a Web-based survey to collect data from stakeholders. While stakeholders generally see fingerprint-based background checks for personal care workers as potentially effective and as a net benefit, they also point to a variety of contingencies. They also recognize difficulties and constraints for government involvement. This preliminary analysis provides solid foundational information for decision makers and for more extensive benefit–cost analysis.     

Transgender experiences and transphobia in higher education

While categories like “campus climate” highlight variation across institutions, trans people's experiences also vary within an institutional context. By studying trans people's experiences in higher education, however, we can better understand and respond to the differentiated and changing needs of transgender people in other arenas. In this paper, I review key qualitative and quantitative findings along several themes: (a) disclosing trans identities, (b) trans communities, and (c) resources and career‐level support. Specifically, I use the concept of microclimates to explain how trans people encounter various forms of support and discrimination on campus. For example, someone might receive support from particular individuals, such as an advisor, or spaces, like a gender studies classroom, but not others. Researchers also report both similarities and differences between binary and nonbinary trans people, as well as between transgender men and transgender women, suggesting that there is no universal trans experience, nor a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to supporting trans students and faculty members. Challenging interpersonal and systemic transphobia requires context‐specific interventions.