Methods to assess measurement error in questionnaires of sedentary behavior

Sedentary behavior has already been associated with mortality, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Questionnaires are an affordable tool for measuring sedentary behavior in large epidemiological studies. Here, we introduce and evaluate two statistical methods for quantifying measurement error in questionnaires. Accurate estimates are needed for assessing questionnaire quality. The two methods would be applied to validation studies that measure a sedentary behavior by both questionnaire and accelerometer on multiple days. The first method fits a reduced model by assuming the accelerometer is without error, while the second method fits a more complete model that allows both measures to have error. Because accelerometers tend to be highly accurate, we show that ignoring the accelerometer's measurement error, can result in more accurate estimates of measurement error in some scenarios. In this article, we derive asymptotic approximations for the mean-squared error of the estimated parameters from both methods, evaluate their dependence on study design and behavior characteristics, and offer an R package so investigators can make an informed choice between the two methods. We demonstrate the difference between the two methods in a recent validation study comparing previous day recalls to an accelerometer-based ActivPal.     

“It has given me life.” Latinas and the U-Visa: A Qualitative Study

Women, particularly undocumented women, are at an increased risk for gender-based violence including intimate partner violence (IPV). Women’s lack of legal immigration status is often used as a tool of dominance and control of undocumented women. The Victim of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act 2000 created the U-Visa that provides undocumented IPV victims with lawful immigration status if they are willing to assist authorities in investigating crimes. The objective of this study is to better understand the benefits of obtaining the U-Visa from the perspectives of Latina U-Visa recipients who are survivors of IPV. In this community-based qualitative research study involving IPV survivors, community leaders, service providers and academics, we collected qualitative data through interviews with 20 participants including 15 survivors of IPV who were U-Visa recipients. Interviews were digitally-recorded, transcribed and translated, and analyzed using a qualitative software to develop key themes. Women received a $20 gift card as a token of appreciation for their participation in this study. Findings highlight key benefits such as improved mental health, renewed confidence and self-esteem, self-confidence, less perceived exploitation, access to better jobs and housing, freedom to travel, and improved economic and social well-being for visa recipients and their families. Obtaining the U-Visa was a transformative and life-changing experience for Latina survivors of IPV. Social policies such as TVPA help support vulnerable women who are victims of IPV.     

Eminent Social Scientists’ Views on Immigration Issues: 1985 and 2006

Following up on a research note by Stephen Moore published in 1985, this article compares the results of the survey conducted in 1985 against one carried out in 2006 on the views of eminent social scientists (economists, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, historians and anthropologists) on immigration issues. Specifically, the surveys report on whether the respondents are likely to favor an increase in the number of immigrants who are allowed into the United States and other issues such as whether immigrants improve the economy.

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“Grace Is Deceitful and Beauty Is Vain”: How Hassidic Women Cope with the Requirement of Shaving One’s Head and Wearing a Black Kerchief

Women’s modesty norms are often perceived as governing women’s bodies and as patriarchal oppression. This study challenges these perspectives, offering a deeper, multi-dimensional picture showing that the reality of the women’s life is much more complicated. The article chose to discuss aspects of modesty among women of one of the most extreme Jewish ultra-Orthodox groups, and in particular, to investigate how they experience an extremely demanding requirement—shaving off the hair on their head upon marriage and covering their head with a black kerchief. The findings show that there are a variety of voices among the women, ranging from the view that these practices are desirable, through the view that they empower the women, to the view that they damage one’s attractiveness and are quite painful.

Domestic violence screening and service acceptance among adult victims in a dependency court setting

Many child welfare systems are unable to effectively identify and address co-occurring domestic violence and child maltreatment. In response, the Dependency Court Intervention Program for Family Violence implemented a protocol to identify indicators of domestic violence in families involved with child protection proceedings. This article highlights data that demonstrate the ability of an outreach and screening process to identify adult victims of domestic violence in dependency court and to offer them appropriate intervention services.     

Home study methods for evaluating prospective resource families: history, current challenges, and promising approaches

Every state requires a home study before the placement of foster children for adoption. This article examines the history of home studies, presents results from expert interviews on the changing processes and purposes of home studies, and explores current challenges for the field. The article also introduces the Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE), a uniform home study format that encourages consistent family evaluations across workers, agencies, and jurisdictions. The article clarifies how SAFE may address challenges facing foster care and adoption practice.     

Assessing lesbian and gay prospective foster and adoptive families: a focus on the home study process

Foster care and adoption by gay men and lesbians is not a new phenomenon. Children and youth have always been placed by states and public agencies in homes with gay and lesbian parents. Some gay men and lesbians have fostered or adopted children independently from private agencies or have made private adoption arrangements with individual birthmothers, while others have fostered or adopted through the public system. Drawing on research literature, practice wisdom from 31 years of child welfare experiences, and case examples, this article offers child welfare professionals guidelines for competent assessment with prospective foster or adoptive parents who identify as lesbian or gay.     

Educated Caring: The Emergence of Professional Identity Among Nurses

This article examines the formation of occupational identity in a nursing program. The normative and ideological dimensions of this process are revealed in the program’s goals and the views of educators and students through qualitative data from observations and 30 in-depth interviews. Educators seek to socialize students toward professionalism to raise the occupation’s status by emphasizing the scientific and technical basis of nursing. Yet students uphold a gendered discourse by identifying a normative dimension of caring as central to their occupational identity. The dilemma between professionalism and caring is reconciled as students construct an occupational identity based on “educated caring,” where these two dimensions are equally valuable and significant.

Managing The Lactating Body: The Breast-Feeding Project and Privileged Motherhood

Drawing on interviews with twenty-five mostly white, educated, work-force experienced and class-privileged mothers, this paper explores how these women construct the lactating body as a carefully managed site and breast-feeding as a project—a task to be researched, planned, implemented, and assessed, with reliance on expert knowledge, professional advice, and consumption. The framing of breast-feeding as a project contrasts with the emphases on pleasure, embodied subjectivity, relationality, and empowerment that characterizes much of the recent breast-feeding literature across the humanities and social sciences. I argue that the project frame sheds light on the amount of work and self-discipline involved in compliance with broader middle-class mothering standards set in the consumerist, technological, medicalized, and professionalized contexts that shape parenting in late capitalist America.