Can Clinical Skills Be Taught Online? Comparing Skill Development Between Online and F2F Students Using a Blinded Review

This study compared the development of clinical assessment and intervention skills between students enrolled in a face-to-face (F2F) or an asynchronous online clinical social work class. All students from three semesters of F2F (n = 74) and online (n = 78) sections of an MSW clinical class taught by the same instructor were included. Two assignments were used to compare students: an assessment and treatment plan of a fictional case and a digital role-play. A doctoral student who was blinded to the course delivery mechanism graded the role-play. After controlling for baseline differences in age, there were no differences between online and F2F students in skill demonstration. It appears clinical skills can be taught as effectively online as in F2F situations based on blinded review of role-plays.     

Mangrove forests store high densities of carbon across the tropical urban landscape of Singapore

Tropical forested ecosystems provide multiple ecosystem services to rural and urban landscapes, with carbon storage gaining particular attention. Deforestation due to rural-urban transitions may lead to a reduction in carbon storage ability. Coastal mangrove forests are particularly at risk from deforestation due to their location in the rapidly urbanizing coastal zone, and the city state of Singapore is an extreme example, losing as much as 90 % of its original mangrove cover due to land reclamation and reservoir construction. Knowledge of mangrove ecosystem services may allow better conservation, restoration and incorporation of remaining mangrove patches into the urban landscape. Focusing on the regulating ecosystem service of carbon storage, mangrove carbon stocks have been estimated for Singapore using a combination of field and remote sensing techniques. Biomass carbon showed substantial spatial variation, with old, contiguous mangrove patches containing a higher density of biomass carbon than fragmented, river-fringing or restored mangroves. In total, national biomass carbon equated to 116,117.1 megagrams of carbon (Mg C), and a coarse estimate of the total carbon stock (including soil carbon) suggests that Singapore’s mangroves may store 450,571.7 Mg C. While lower than other regional estimates focused on natural, oceanic mangroves, this is a significant carbon stock for a disturbed, urban mangrove system, and may be equivalent to the average annual carbon emissions of 621,000 residents. This analysis, alongside a review of other urban forest studies, highlights the importance of forested ecosystems such as mangroves in providing a carbon storage ecosystem service to urban areas.     

Assessing the contribution of fallen autumn leaves to airborne fungi in an urban environment

Urban Ecosystems - Many street trees in urban areas are deciduous and drop leaves during autumn. These leaves are a potential growing substrate for fungi, which when aerosolized and inhaled, can...     

Women and Their Work on Australian Farms

Traditional definitions of farm work have been narrow and commodity-based, allowing the efforts of women to be discounted because they have not been viewed as directly contributing to production. This paper examines the structural gender arrangements that operate to render farm women powerless and to discount their contributions. Data are presented on the extent of women's economic contribution on Australian farms.     

From Privilege to Prevalence: Contextual Effects of Women’s Schooling on African Marital Timing

In Africa and elsewhere, educated women tend to marry later than their less-educated peers. Beyond being an attribute of individual women, education is also an aggregate phenomenon: the social meaning of a woman’s educational attainment depends on the educational attainments of her age-mates. Using data from 30 countries and 246 birth cohorts across sub-Saharan Africa, we investigate the impact of educational context (the percentage of women in a country cohort who ever attended school) on the relationship between a woman’s educational attainment and her marital timing. In contexts where access to education is prevalent, the marital timing of uneducated and highly educated women is more similar than in contexts where attending school is limited to a privileged minority. This across-country convergence is driven by uneducated women marrying later in high-education contexts, especially through lower rates of very early marriages. However, within countries over time, the marital ages of women from different educational groups tend to diverge as educational access expands. This within-country divergence is most often driven by later marriage among highly educated women, although divergence in some countries is driven by earlier marriage among women who never attended school.     

Male Clients of Male Escorts: Satisfaction,Sexual Behavior,and Demographic Characteristics

Few studies have examined male clients who pay for sex with male escorts. In 2012, clients (n = 495) completed an online survey about their most recent hire. Most clients were White/Caucasian (87.7%), HIV negative (89.5%), employed full time (71.1%), single (58.6%), with a mean age of 54. Three-quarters of clients were gay identified, 18% bisexual, and 4% heterosexual. The median rate paid to escorts was $250 per hour with a modal appointment time of 1 to 2 hours (41.6%). Oral sex was common (80% gave, 69% received), 30% reported anal insertive sex, and 34% reported anal receptive sex. In total, few (12%) reported unprotected anal sex. Satisfaction with encounters was high. Receptive unprotected anal intercourse was associated with greater satisfaction in bivariate analyses but not in multivariable analyses. In a multivariable model, having receptive anal sex (whether protected or not) and rating the financial cost of the encounter as “worth it” were significantly associated with greater satisfaction. This study contributes to a scarce literature regarding clients of male sex workers and, in particular, provides information on the characteristics of men hiring men for sexual services, behavioral event-level data about their encounters, and analysis of factors directly associated with client satisfaction.     

Risk Factors for Homelessness Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths: A Developmental Milestone Approach

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youths are over-represented in the homeless population. To examine why some LGB youths become homeless, this report compares homeless and non-homeless LGB youths. Of the 156 LGB youths, 48% reported ever being homeless (i.e., running away or being evicted from home). Results indicate that sexual orientation awareness and the initiation of sexual behavior occurred earlier in homeless than in non-homeless LGB youths and predated the first homeless episode. Substance use was more frequent and first occurred at an earlier age in homeless as compared to non-homeless LGB youths; however, substance use occurred subsequent to first homelessness. Childhood sexual abuse was associated with homelessness; and, early sexual orientation development was related to homelessness among youths without a history of sexual abuse. Findings suggest that interventions should help youths cope with their unfolding sexual orientation and work to prevent or address the consequences of sexual abuse.     

Professional identity: How communication management practitioners identify with their industry

This paper explores the current status of professionalization of communication management practice which emerged from a content analysis of 360 responses to questions exploring the nature of practitioner identity (or dis-identity) with communication management. The results revealed that positive identification arose from an ability to influence, emulate the professional values of peers, and cohesion with the wider practitioner community. Conversely, dis-identification arose from the poor performance of colleagues, advice not being taken, and media ‘spin’.     

Widening the social context of disablement among married older adults: Considering the role of nonmarital relationships for loneliness

Utilizing the stress process and life course perspectives, we investigated the influence of non-spousal social support on the associations between marital quality, physical disability, and loneliness among married older adults. Using data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), we found that the association between physical disability and loneliness was partially accounted for by the fact that physical disability was associated with less supportive nonmarital relationships. While physically-disabled older adults in higher-quality marriages were buffered from loneliness, supportive non-martial relationships did not offset elevated loneliness among those in low-quality marriages. These associations were largely similar for men and women. Thus, although both marital and nonmarital relationships are important for loneliness, when confronted with a stressor such as disablement it is the marital relationship alone that matters.