Media Constructions of Risk and Safety: Differential Framings of Hazard Events*

The media play an important role in the social construction of risk and safety. In this article, we analyze how reports in a New Orleans newspaper defined the risk and safety associated with a series of four events during the summer of 1988: a drought, low water levels in the Mississippi River, a saltwater intrusion, and toxic pollution in local bodies of water. The newspaper reports defined some of the events as hazards by assessing their negative consequences and, in turn, defined them as specific kinds of hazards by identifying their causes. Specifically, we found that the reports defined the nonlocal consequences of an event as more varied and severe than its local consequences. Further, the reports consistently defined each of the events as natural events rather than attributing their causes to social or technological events or conditions. Our results suggest the importance of news sources, economic and political power, and a preference for monocausal frames in the social construction of news. Our results also suggest the importance of local cultural world views in defining hazards and risks. We use the findings to suggest avenues for future research and theory.     

Longitudinal Patterns of Women's Marital Quality: The Case of Divorce,Cohabitation, and Race-Ethnicity

Previous work on marital quality has compared average levels of marital quality by demographic characteristics, such as cohabitation, divorce, or race-ethnicity. Less work has examined whether such differences persist over time. To begin to answer this question, this article uses multigroup latent growth curves to examine changes in marital quality over time, in addition to measuring differences in levels of reported marital quality among cohabitors versus noncohabitors, divorced versus stably married women, and members of different racial-ethnic groups. Although many differences are small and statistically insignificant, the results show that non-normative and traditionally disadvantaged groups experience not only lower levels of marital quality but that these differences also persist throughout the life course. This article also shows that using marital instead of relationship duration for cohabitors has substantive implications when interpreting the results.     

Influence of a Community Health Worker Intervention on Mental Health Outcomes among Low-Income Latino and African American Adults with Type 2 Diabetes

This study investigated the influence of a community health worker (CHW) diabetes lifestyle intervention on mental health outcomes. Our study was guided by the principles of community-based participatory research. Data were collected from 164 African American (N = 94) and Hispanic adults (N = 70) participating in a randomized, 6-month delayed intervention group design for improving glycemic control. The intervention time periods were baseline to 6 months for the treatment group and 6–12 months for the delayed group. Linear mixed models were used to conduct longitudinal analyses of the Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) scales. In the model adjusted for demographics, the PAID dropped significantly from pre-intervention to post-intervention within both the treatment and delayed groups (p < 0.05) with an average intervention effect of ?6.4 (p < 0.01). The PAID dropped even further within the immediate group from 6 to 12 months. Although the PHQ did not change significantly, the PHQ-2 had an average intervention effect of ?0.3 (p < 0.05) in the model adjusted for demographics. This study contributes to an understanding of how a CHW-led diabetes intervention can result in positive mental health outcomes for Latinos and African Americans with Type 2 diabetes. It also highlights the importance of further exploring what factors may contribute to racial/ethnic variation in mental health outcomes for African Americans and Latinos with diabetes and the role CHWs can play.     

Yarning about gambling in Indigenous communities: an Aboriginal and Islander Mental Health Initiative

Gambling impacts upon the health, wellbeing and finances of many people throughout Australia. This study aimed to explore the socioeconomic and cultural factors linked with gambling in urban and remote Indigenous settings in the Northern Territory to inform the development of a gambling public health strategy. The Aboriginal and Islander Mental Health Initiative developed a semi‐structured questionnaire with Aboriginal partner organisations following consultation. Indigenous consumers of substance use treatment facilities participated in focus group discussions and key informant interviews were conducted with nine service providers at two time points, a year apart. Participants described key strengths in community as family, health and culture, while key worries included substance misuse, health concerns and family disharmony. Regulated gambling and card playing were also identified as important community worries. Financial and family concerns and addictive behaviour were seen as negative consequences of gambling. There was increasing concern linked with card playing and electronic gaming machines and an increased call for awareness campaigns, support from government for change and greater regulation. The findings of this study provide the most recent insight into attitudes, behaviours and consequences linked with Indigenous gambling in the Northern Territory.     

‘You Feel Sad?’ Emotion Understanding Mediates Effects of Verbal Ability and Mother–Child Mutuality on Prosocial Behaviors: Findings from 2 Years to 4 Years

Early individual differences in prosocial behaviors are pivotal for children's peer relationships. To investigate the interplay among verbal ability, emotion understanding, and mother–child mutuality as predictors of prosocial behaviors, we observed 102 children at the ages of two, three, and four. All time points included verbal ability and emotion understanding tests and both video‐based and maternal ratings of prosocial behavior. The first two time points also included video‐based ratings of mother–child mutuality. The third time point included teacher ratings of prosocial behavior and an experimental task. Regression analysis demonstrated robust associations between emotion understanding at the age of three and prosocial behavior at the age of four. Path analysis showed that emotion understanding at the age of three mediated associations between verbal ability/mother–child mutuality at the age of two and prosocial behavior at the age of four.     

Strangers of the north: South Asians,cricket and the culture of ‘Yorkshireness’

As a county, Yorkshire is a ‘cultural region’: an imagined space, where culture is constructed, refined and articulated by a set of discursive relationships between local populations and a whole range of cultural forms. In this context however, culture is conceived as something which belongs to, and is only accessible by, certain groups of people. Our focus in this article is on the culture of Yorkshire cricket. Historically, Yorkshire cricket has been linked with White male privilege and some studies have shown that people within Yorkshire take a degree of pride in this. Consequently, the county and its cricket club have faced frequent accusations from minority ethnic communities of inveterate and institutionalised racism. Drawing upon Bauman’s notion of ‘liquid modernity’, we argue that the processes of deregulation and individualisation championed by New Right policies have led to a divorce between power and politics, a cornerstone of the old solid modern world. This in turn has led to an erosion of the state, causing individuals to navigate turbulent life projects which are consistently haunted by the spectres of fear and insecurity. Such an environment has caused cricket to be pushed further behind gated social spaces, in an attempt to maintain a semblance of ‘community’.