Do fines for violating possession-use-purchase laws reduce youth tobacco use?

The present brief report followed children exposed to consequences for violating Purchase, Use, and Possession (PUP) laws over time to assess changes in their smoking status. Youth in 24 towns were surveyed once a year for 3 years, and rates of tobacco use for those fined for PUP law violations were assessed. Of those who were given a ticket for a PUP law violation, 35 (39%) reported not smoking during year 1. Students in grade 7 were more likely to have quit smoking (84%) than those in grade 8 (35%), grade 9 (32%), or grade 10 (21%). For the two follow-up years, 45% and 41% reported not smoking. Assuming those who attrited were smokers, it is possible that about 15% to 24% of the original sample of children cited actually quit smoking over the follow-up period. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Reciprocal relationships among alcohol use, risk perception, and sexual victimization: a prospective analysis

OBJECTIVE: The authors' purpose in this study was to assess longitudinally the relationships among alcohol use, risk perception, and sexual victimization. PARTICIPANTS: Three hundred and seventy-two women from 2 midsized universities made up the sample. METHODS: Participants filled out questionnaires regarding history of sexual victimization, alcohol use, and perceived personal risk for sexual assault in the following 2 months. The authors then reassessed participants at 2 follow-up periods. RESULTS: The pattern of results suggested that that the relationship between alcohol use and sexual victimization was complex and that alcohol use may moderate the relation between history of victimization and revictimization for women with sexual assault histories. In particular, results indicated an increase in risk for sexual revictimization with increases in alcohol use for women with a history of sexual victimization. The data did not, however, support a reciprocal relationship between sexual assault and drinking (eg, in that a sexual victimization during one time period did not predict drinking behaviors in subsequent time periods). CONCLUSIONS: These results underscore the importance of both alcohol and sexual assault programming on college campuses.     

Perceived threats of female infidelity, male proprietariness, and violence in college dating couples

According to evolutionary theory, men faced the adaptive problem of keeping their partners sexually faithful. In the current study, men's perception that their partners are interested in other men was hypothesized to be associated with more controlling behaviors in romantic relationships. Of the two dimensions of mating tactics, controlling and attentive behaviors, physically aggressive men were expected to be especially controlling, but not attentive. Using structural equation modeling with 116 college dating couples, women who reported greater interest in other men were perceived by their partners to do so and these men also exhibited more controlling behaviors, which were associated with physical aggression. Men's perception of women's interest in others was a more important predictor of male violence than women's actual interest in other men. The link between women's control tactics and their use of physical violence differed from men.     

Workplace discrimination and cancer

Data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Integrated Mission System database were analyzed with specific reference to allegations of workplace discrimination filed by individuals with cancer under ADA Title One. These 6,832 allegations, filed between July 27, 1992 and September 30, 2003, were compared to 167,798 allegations from a general disability population on the following dimensions: type of workplace discrimination; demographic characteristics of the charging parties (CPs); the industry designation, location, and size of employers; and the outcome or resolution of EEOC investigations. Results showed allegations derived from CPs with cancer were more likely than those in the general disability population to include issues involving discharge, terms and conditions of employment, lay-off, wages, and demotion. Compared to the general disability group, CPs with cancer were more likely to be female, older, and White. Allegations derived from CPs with cancer were also more likely to be filed against smaller employers (15-100 workers) or those in service industries. Finally, the resolution of allegations by CPs with cancer were more likely to be meritorious than those filed from the general disability population; that is, actual discrimination is more likely to have occurred.     

Getting Off: Development of a Model Program for Gay and Bisexual Male Methamphetamine Users

An evidence-based gay-specific cognitive behavioral therapy (GCBT) intervention for methamphetamine-using gay and bisexual men was adapted for use in a community-based setting, thereby moving research into practice. The 48-session, 16-week GCBT intervention was revised to 24 sessions requiring 8 weeks and renamed Getting Off: A Behavioral Treatment Intervention for Gay and Bisexual Male Methamphetamine Users. GCBT was modified for implementation within the limited resources and capacity of community-based organizations while also retaining drug use and HIV risk reduction outcomes. Since 2007, Getting Off has been sustained with public health funding at the community site and has been adopted by multiple community-based sites.     

A multivariate analysis of response structure: Race attitudes, 1972–1977

A particular kind of latent class model is used to characterize the unobservable variable measured by six discrete indicators of racial stance in 1972 and 1977. Methods recently introduced by Clogg and Goodman, 1982, Clogg and Goodman, 1983) for the simultaneous latent structure analysis of two multidimensional contingency tables are employed in across-year homogeneity tests on the latent class proportions. Trends in multivariate response patterns over the 5-year interval are then examined by cross-classifying the predicted latent variable with selected demographic characteristics of respondents in each year. The results indicate that (1) no significant changes in the distribution of the latent variable occurred over the 5-year time period, and (2) the status of certain demographic variables as predictors of racial stance fluctuated between the two survey years.     

Social Work and Child Mental Health: Psychosocial Principles in Community Practice

Correspondence to Steven Walker, Senior Lecturer, School of Community Health and Social Studies, Anglia Polytechnic University, 2nd Floor, Ashby House, Brook Street, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SQ, UK. E-mail: s.walker{at}apu.ac.uk Summary The increased prevalence, complexity and earlier onset of childand adolescent mental health difficulties, has prompted governmentinitiatives to reconfigure current provision for this clientgroup, their parents and the carers who try to support them.Social workers have an important part to play in respondingto the needs of these individual children and families. A residual,care management role is not adequate in these circumstances.This paper describes the development of social work in childand adolescent mental health, and suggests that a synthesisof psychosocial principles and community practice, offers theoptimum social work model of assessment and intervention. Sucha model embraces the most useful aspects of psychodynamic theoryin the context of practice consistent with anti-discriminatory,children's rights and partnership principles.     

FAIR DIVISION OF INDIVISIBLE ITEMS

This paper analyzes criteria of fair division of a set of indivisible items among people whose revealed preferences are limited to rankings of the items and for whom no side payments are allowed. The criteria include refinements of Pareto optimality and envy-freeness as well as dominance-freeness, evenness of shares, and two criteria based on equally-spaced surrogate utilities, referred to as maxsum and equimax. Maxsum maximizes a measure of aggregate utility or welfare, whereas equimax lexicographically maximizes persons' utilities from smallest to largest. The paper analyzes conflicts among the criteria along with possibilities and pitfalls of achieving fair division in a variety of circumstances.     

Divide the Dollar: Three solutions and extensions

Divide the Dollar (DD) is a game in which two players independently bid up to 100 cents for a dollar. Each player receives his or her bid if the sum of the bids does not exceed a dollar; otherwise they receive nothing. This game has multiple Nash equilibria, including the egalitarian division of (50, 50), but this division is not compelling except for its symmetry and presumed fairness.This division is easy to induce, however, by punishing — more severely than does DD — deviations from it, but these solutions are not reasonable. By altering the rules of DD, however, one can induce an egalitarian division (by successive elimination of weakly dominated strategies), but no reasonable payoff scheme produces this division with egalitarian bids of 50.Three alternatives to DD are analyzed. DD1, which rewards lowest bidders first, shows how an egalitarian outcome can be induced with equal but nonegalitarian bids. DD2, which adds a second stage that provides the players with new information yet restricts their choices at the same time, is used to introduce dominance inducibility. DD3 combines the features of DD1 and DD2, is reasonable (like DD1), makes calculations transparent (like DD2), and induces egalitarian bids as well as the egalitarian outcome. The possible application of the different procedures to a real-world allocation problem (setting of salaries by a team), in which there may be entitlements, is described.