Heterosexual Anal Sex Among Men and Women in Substance Abuse Treatment: Secondary Analysis of Two Gender-Specific HIV-Prevention Trials

Receptive anal sex has high human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission risk, and heterosexual substance-abusing individuals report higher anal sex rates compared to their counterparts in the general population. This secondary analysis evaluated the effectiveness of two gender-specific, evidence-based HIV-prevention interventions (Real Men Are Safe, or REMAS, for men; Safer Sex Skill Building, or SSSB, for women) against an HIV education (HIV-Ed) control condition on decreasing unprotected heterosexual anal sex (HAS) among substance abuse treatment-seeking men (n = 171) and women (n = 105). Two variables, engagement in any HAS and engagement in unprotected HAS, were assessed at baseline and three months postintervention. Compared to the control group, women in the gender-specific intervention did not differ on rates of any HAS at follow-up but significantly decreased their rates of unprotected HAS. Men in both the gender-specific and the control interventions reported less HAS and unprotected HAS at three-month follow-up compared to baseline, with no treatment condition effect. The mechanism of action for SSSB compared to REMAS in decreasing unprotected HAS is unclear. More attention to HAS in HIV-prevention interventions for heterosexual men and women in substance abuse treatment is warranted.     

In the shadow of the coal breaker: cultural extraction and participatory communication in the Anthracite Mining Region

What stories do ruins tell? What is the legacy of the extractive coal industry? When is extraction complete in a single-industry area? Tied to global capital, fuelling the Industrial Revolution on the labour immigrants, the legacy of extraction in the Anthracite Coal-Mining Region in Northeastern Pennsylvania extends into local notions of heritage, memory, community welfare, and place. Tracking (de)industrial life scenes in the Anthracite Coal-Mining Region, this ethnographic work follows traces of the past as they emerge and the day-to-day practices that sustained them noting intensities and flashpoints as they arise in daily life. As a particular flashpoint, Coal Region residents processed the demolition of the ruins of Saint Nicholas Coal Breaker, the last anthracite coal breaker built before 1960 and once the largest coal breaker in the world. Residents rapidly produced and shared digital media of the Breaker with and through a large public digital humanities collaboratory that I created and maintain through an active Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AnthraciteCoalRegion) of more than 8000 members and a corresponding website (http://anthracitecoalregion.com). Engaging in community dialogue, participatory communication, and offering critical interpretations, residents wrote accounts about the demolition of the Breaker including its historical and mnemonic relevance, the cultural politics surrounding it, and the ethical dimensions of its extraction from the landscape by a mining company engaged in strip-mining on the surrounding land. These connections and dislocations between situated pasts show affective intensities arising suddenly even though dominant or more official narratives may have overwhelmed them. The sanitizing of the landscape of Saint Nicholas Breaker tries to empty the physical place of the material cultural traces of mining people/mined people to re-extract more coal through strip-mining operations, thereby rendering superfluous the underground miners’ labour by removing the last sign of it - the Breaker - from the landscape.     

Bee-friendly community gardens: Impact of environmental variables on the richness and abundance of exotic and native bees

With their abundant floral resources, urban community gardens have the potential to play an important role in pollinator conservation. At the same time, the gardens themselves are dependent upon the pollination services provided by insects. Thus, understanding the variables that can increase bee richness or abundance in community gardens can contribute to both urban agriculture and pollinator conservation. Here we examine the impact of several environmental variables on bee abundance and diversity in urban community gardens in Sydney, Australia. We used hand netting and trap nests to sample bees in 27 community gardens ranging from inner city gardens with limited surrounding green space, to suburban gardens located next to national parks. We did not find strong support for an impact of any of our variables on bee species richness, abundance or diversity. We found high abundance of a recently introduced non-native bee: the African carder bee, Afranthidium repetitum (Schulz 1906). The abundance of African carder bees was negatively correlated with the amount of surrounding green space and positively correlated with native bee abundance/species richness. Our results highlight the seemingly rapid increase in African carder bee populations in inner city Sydney, and we call for more research into this bee’s potential environmental impacts. Our results also suggest that hard-to-change environmental factors such as garden size and distance to remnant forests may not have a strong influence on native bee diversity and abundance in highly urbanized area.     

Strong,healthy, energized: Striving for a healthy weight in an older lesbian population

The Office on Women’s Health funded five pilot healthy weight intervention studies for lesbian and bisexual (LB) women, which included a program called Strong. Healthy. Energized (SHE). SHE was a 12-session program, targeted toward LB women age 60 and older, which focused on exercise, including a pedometer to track steps; nutrition; stress management; and group discussions. The program enrolled 39 participants. Waist circumference decreased by 3.7% across the group (p < .01). Participants with the lowest one-third baseline step count saw a marked step increase. This intervention was effective in improving health behaviors and short-term health outcomes for older LB women.     

A mixed methods evaluation of televised health promotion advertisements targeted at older adults

The purpose of this research was to evaluate television advertisements targeted at 55–70-year olds that promoted physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption. Awareness of the campaign, perceived credibility of the source, intentions to visit a promoted website, and intentions to perform the healthy behaviors were evaluated using mixed methods research. Results from a population level survey (n = 1600) showed low unprompted and prompted awareness of the campaign and no differences in intentions or behaviors among those who were aware of the campaign. Unprompted recall resulted in a very wide range of responses including the citation of many commercial advertisers. Qualitative themes that emerged from the focus groups included neutral, positive, and negative comments about the advertisements, source credibility, website considerations specific to seniors, and suggestions about appropriate advertising for older adults. This research showed that the increased attention paid to the advertisements was due in a large part to negative reactions to the character used in the advertisements. Another important finding was the government was not considered to be a credible source of health information. Finally, health promoters should be cautious about websites as the primary source of information, particularly for older adults.     

Disability: A Rose by Any Other Name?“People‐First” Language in Canadian Society*

Dans cet article, nous examinons la notion d'incapacité telle qu'elle est créée et véhiculée par le langage qui privilégie la « personne avant tout » Nous nous penchons en premier lieu sur la formulation très répandue, qui consiste à désigner les personnes handicapées comme des « personnes comme les autres ». En second lieu, nous étudions l'idéolo‐gie actuelle, qui met l'accent sur le fait que les personnes handicapées sont simplement des « personnes avec des handicaps », dans l'une de ses manifestations les plus concrètes, c'est‐à‐dire un document récent du gouvernement intituléÀl'unisson: Une approche canadienne con‐cernant les personnes handicapées. En partant du concept de Dorothy Smith, selon lequel le langage constitue l'organisation sociale, nous démontrons la façon dont l'incapacité est médicalisée et individualisée dans ce document, et, par là, la manière dont l'incapacité prend la forme d'une limitation anormale et d'une insuffisance fonctionnelle que certaines personnes, quatre millions de Canadiens en l'occurrence, «éprouveraient ». Enfin, nous concluons que le langage qui privilégie la personne avant tout se comprend dans le cadre d'un processus continu où l'incapacité n'est plus perçue comme un phénomène social et, par conséquent, complexe sur le plan politique. This paper examines the representation of disability that is generated by, and supports, “people‐first language.” The paper first describes the ubiquitous formulation of disabled people as “just people.” Second, the current ideology that stresses that disabled people are simply “people with disabilities” is examined in one of its concrete manifestations: a recent government document entitled In Unison: A Canadian Approach to Disability Issues. By making use of Dorothy Smith's concept that language is social organization, the author shows how disability is organized in this document as a medicalized and individual matter and, as such, takes shape as abnormal limitation and lack of function that some people‐four million Canadians‐“just happen to have.” Finally, the paper concludes that people‐first language is best understood as part of an ongoing process that removes the possibility of understanding disability as a social, and thereby complex, political phenomenon. How we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others is based on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation — Dyer, 1993: 1