A Comparative Exposure Assessment of Campylobacter in Ontario,Canada

To inform source attribution efforts, a comparative exposure assessment was developed to estimate the relative exposure to Campylobacter, the leading bacterial gastrointestinal disease in Canada, for 13 different transmission routes within Ontario, Canada, during the summer. Exposure was quantified with stochastic models at the population level, which incorporated measures of frequency, quantity ingested, prevalence, and concentration, using data from FoodNet Canada surveillance, the peer‐reviewed and gray literature, other Ontario data, and data that were specifically collected for this study. Models were run with @Risk software using Monte Carlo simulations. The mean number of cells of Campylobacter ingested per Ontarian per day during the summer, ranked from highest to lowest is as follows: household pets, chicken, living on a farm, raw milk, visiting a farm, recreational water, beef, drinking water, pork, vegetables, seafood, petting zoos, and fruits. The study results identify knowledge gaps for some transmission routes, and indicate that some transmission routes for Campylobacter are underestimated in the current literature, such as household pets and raw milk. Many data gaps were identified for future data collection consideration, especially for the concentration of Campylobacter in all transmission routes.     

Actuarial risk assessment in child protective services: Construction methodology and performance criteria

Purpose

To prevent the recurrence of child maltreatment, actuarial risk assessment can help child protective services (CPS) workers make more accurate and consistent decisions. However, there are few published articles describing construction methodologies and performance criteria to evaluate how well actuarial risk assessments perform in CPS. This article describes methodology to construct and revise an actuarial risk assessment, reviews criteria to evaluate the performance of actuarial tools, and applies a methodology and performance criteria in one state.

Methods

The sample included 6832 families who were followed for two years to determine whether they were re-reported and re-substantiated for maltreatment.

Results

Both the adopted and the revised tools had adequate separation and good predictive accuracy for all families and for the state's three largest ethnic/racial groups (White, Latino, and African American). The adopted tool classified relatively few families in the low-risk category; the revised tool distributed families across risk categories.

Conclusions

The revised tool classified more families as low-risk, allowing CPS to allocate more resources to higher-risk families, but at the cost of more false negatives.     

Perceptions of “Impingement” and Marital Satisfaction Among Wives of Retired Husbands

ABSTRACT

Initial pilot interviews with women whose husbands were in the first year of retirement revealed that problems of “impingement”—perceptions of husbands as intruders into their worlds-as-lived—were cited, in response to open-ended items, as the most difficult aspect of husbands' retirement. An impingement index, consisting of items constructed from those responses, was administered to the original panel of 83 women whose husbands were now in the fourth year of retirement, and to a new panel of 61 women whose husbands had been retired for one year. Paired T-tests revealed one significant difference in perceptions of impingement between the two groups of wives, and not in the expected direction. Indeed, wives in year 4 were more often bothered by some impingement conditions than wives in year 1, and these were significantly related to self-assessments of marital satisfaction. Results have implications for “adjustment” to life transitions, including situations that may inhibit initiation of adaptive responses, degree of investment in social roles, and issues of expectation.     

‘Falling through the cracks’: recognising sitting disabilities

This article attempts to ‘give voice’ to those with sitting disabilities, in order to raise awareness and enable constructive dialogue amongst stakeholders. These voices were collected through interviews and conversational email correspondence, with participants recruited via support websites and hailing from across Europe, Australia and North America. Numerous themes emerged in our participants’ accounts and were largely framed around an inability to fit the deeply-rooted prevailing norms of a sitting society. Necessary shifts in relationships, an inability to travel, difficulties with retaining employment and feelings of distrust and inauthenticity in relation to official knowledges all emerged as a result of this. After an account of the participants’ stories, we offer a preliminary analysis via Nancy Fraser’s understanding of social justice, where these experiences can be understood through the categories of recognition and distribution. In doing so, we develop some recommendations for change.     

Religiosity,sexual behaviors,and sexual attitudes during emerging adulthood

The current study examined associations between religiosity and sexual behaviors and attitudes during emerging adulthood. Two hundred and five emerging adults completed surveys about five aspects of their religiosity (group affiliation, attendance at religious services, attitudes, perceptions of negative sanctions, and adherence to sanctions) and their sexual behaviors (abstinence, age of onset, lifetime partners, condom use) and attitudes (conservative attitudes, perceived vulnerability to HIV, and condom‐related beliefs). Associations were found between the measures of religiosity and sexuality, although the patterns differed by measures used. Religious behavior was the strongest predictor of sexual behavior. Many aspects of religiosity were associated with general sexual attitudes, which was not the case for perceived vulnerability to HIV and condom‐related beliefs. The findings support reference group theory and highlight the importance of considering the specific constructs of religiosity and sexuality assessed in studies of these topics.     

Family involvement in small,local nongovernmental organizations

The involvement of family members in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has been largely overlooked in the literature on the nonprofit and voluntary sector. This study draws on the family business literature to explore the main features of family involvement and the implications for organizational survival and effectiveness. It shows that the family is an important research variable. Exploring the NGO sector in India, the article demonstrates that family involvement can significantly influence the management of human and material resources, governance, and decision making. Although there are several advantages to family involvement, a large overlap of family and organization can threaten credibility and legitimacy. Family‐based NGOs must stress their value orientation to counter negative perceptions.     

Developing Prospective Measures of Adversity Among Australian Families with Young Children

Most studies of children’s development and parents’ wellbeing have not dealt effectively with the complexity of multiple disadvantage. Traditional approaches have typically used a limited set of outcomes and predictors. Even studies utilizing multiple risk factors have often treated these as confounders, adjusting for their influence, while concentrating on a primary association of interest. Such strategies do not illuminate the real world essence of disadvantage, i.e. that adversities co-occur more than expected by chance and that multiple disadvantage is common. The main aim of the present paper is to address this neglected topic and develop summary measures of adversity using the 2004–2005 data from Wave 1 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Information was obtained from families of 5,107 babies (0–1 years) and families of 4,983 children (4–5 years). The prevalence of multiple disadvantage among families with young children and the degree to which summary adversity measures are associated with each other and with family and child outcomes is then estimated. Using factor analysis, 12 lower-order constructs and two higher-order components of adversity were developed, labelled (1) material and (2) psychosocial adversity. Findings show that the two component scores were more strongly associated with outcomes than were the more specific construct scores and that psychosocial adversity was somewhat more relevant to family wellbeing and child development than material adversity.     

The Melanoma Patient Exchange: Insights from a Supportive Group Intervention for Melanoma Patients and their Caregivers

Melanoma is one of the fastest growing cancers worldwide, and the psychosocial impact of its diagnosis and treatment can be substantial. The authors implemented a support group for melanoma patients and caregivers to address a gap in support services. The authors describe insights from the first year of the program, including group format and dynamics, participant feedback, and satisfaction. Feedback was collected using the Group Session Rating Scale and two open-ended questions. Sixty-six members participated and responses demonstrated high satisfaction with the group (Mean = 38.7/40.0). Similar organizations may utilize these strategies to provide a support group option for their population of interest.