Application of the Kindling Hypothesis to the Long-Term Effects of Racism

Abstract

This theoretical article proposes that the kindling hypothesis has significant potential impact in the conceptualization of the global impact of racism over time in the lives of black Americans. The kindling hypothesis describes how repeated shocks within the brain can trigger seizure activity. This same phenomenon has been applied to mental health in the areas of affective disorders and psychological trauma. In these circumstances, repeated minor traumas occurring over time are theorized to trigger clinical threshold depression and trauma.     

A multilevel analysis of perceived intergenerational mobility and welfare state preferences

Previous scholarship suggests that the effect of perceived intergenerational mobility on attitudes related to social justice, inequality and redistribution is more salient than the effect of individuals' objective intergenerational mobility. However, virtually no studies have attempted to link individuals' perception of experiencing intergenerational mobility and their support for different welfare state programmes. In my study using nationally representative and comparative survey data for 33 Western European welfare democracies and post‐socialist transition societies, I found that perceived intergenerational mobility is associated with support for certain welfare state programmes. Results from multilevel linear probability models indicate that subjectively downwardly mobile individuals are less likely to support education and healthcare expenditure and more likely to prefer targeted assistance of the poor, while subjectively upwardly mobile individuals oppose extra spending on housing and old‐age pensions. The described associations are more vividly manifested in post‐socialist societies than in the analysed Western European democracies.     

The role of social representations in the construction of power relations

The conceptualizations of power, traditionally associated with control, have been nuanced in the past decades by influential authors such as Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt and Pierre Bourdieu. These authors offer a perspective on power focused on the agency of individuals, with an emphasis on the way the dynamics and relations of power operate. Relying on these conceptual frameworks, we argue that the theory of social representations is of particular relevance to an analysis of the construction of power relations, whether it be to criticize the effects of domination or examine those of emancipation. The results of our research on the social representations of depression illustrate the latter's role in the construction, continuity and transformation of the power dynamics at play in the area of access to healthcare services by people who have experienced a depressive episode.     

在线健康信息服务动态定价与推广策略

在线健康信息服务逐渐成为健康管理的有效手段，正在受到各界人士的广泛关注． 为了解决在线健康信息服务的动态定价和推广策略问题，以同时提供免费公共健康信息服务和收费定制化健康信息服务的在线健康信息服务提供商为研究对象，以其利润最大化为目标，基于微分动力学理论，分析免费公共健康信息服务和定制化健康信息服务两类消费者之间的动态转换特征，构建在线健康信息服务动态定价最优控制模型． 结果表明: 服务期较长的在线健康信息服务，对消费者实行收费服务前给予一定时长的“免费体验期”能够增加在线信息服务提供商的利润; 而服务期较短的在线健康信息服务，没有必要设置“免费体验期”． 在线健康信息服务提供商的潜在消费者数量增长率和在线健康信息服务时间长度对免费公共健康信息投放程度有显著的影响． 在线健康信息服务上线初期，针对高收入消费群体适当延长“免费体验期”能够使服务提供商获得更大的利润． 这些结论对健康信息服务提供商制订服务定价和推广策略具有参考价值．     

Culture-Centered Counseling Skills as a Preventive Strategy for College Health Services

Abstract

All learning occurs in a cultural context. Successful counseling can be achieved by training healthcare providers to interpret behaviors in their cultural context. The author describes a culture-centered approach, using a cultural grid that matches same/different behaviors with same/different expectations. Clients with shared positive expectations may display dissonant and apparently negative behaviors. Culturally accurate knowledge and culturally appropriate skills provide a three-level developmental sequence for more accurate and more appropriate healthcare guidance in such multicultural settings as those met on the college campus.     

Poverty and disabled households in the People’s Republic of China: experiences with a new rural health insurance scheme

This article discusses what in international literature has commonly been termed the ‘vicious circle’ of poverty and disability. Our aim is to shed light on recent policies that attempt to break the vicious circle in rural areas in the People’s Republic of China. Drawing on data produced from fieldwork conducted in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China, our approach is to explore experiences that households with people with disabilities have had with a newly implemented rural health insurance reform. The introduction of this reform is significant as lack of insurance and high healthcare expenses are currently perceived as crucial to causing poverty in rural China. We show that people with disabilities have been able to access this new insurance. At the same time, as currently practised, the new insurance does not prevent poor households from sinking deeper into poverty when using healthcare services as healthcare expenses increase.     

Trust as a Means of Bridging the Management of Risk and the Meeting of Need: A Case Study in Mental Health Service Provision

Shifts in public policy towards an increasing focus on risk have been deemed problematic at a number of levels, particularly the tendency for concerns over reputational risk to institutions to trump the interests and needs of service‐users. This article explores the tension between these two dimensions, of risk and need, in a case study of local mental health services – a setting where conflicting objectives to manage risk and meet need are apparent. Media‐driven pressure to ward against the ‘risk’ represented by service‐users tends towards more coercive policy which may obstruct the meeting of need, which in turn may undermine service‐user engagement and hinder risk management. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with service‐users, professionals and managers, the article explores the process of trust and its facilitative role in meeting need and managing risk. Findings suggest that while existing foci on risk are at times counter‐productive, trust plays a significant role in service‐users' initial and ongoing engagement, communication and co‐operation with professionals. Yet inherent obstacles to trust within mental healthcare contexts remain, due to cultural pressures on professionals, the nature of the illness experience and negative past experiences of in‐patient care.     

All I want for Christmas is recovery – changes in employee affective well-being before and after vacation

Abstract

Transformational leaders employ a visionary and creative style of leadership that inspires employees to make independent decisions and develop in their work. There is some evidence that the transformational (inspirational) leadership style is linked to employee burnout and stress. However, little research has focused on the psychological mechanisms that could explain this link, nor has there been a focus on positive affective well-being. We propose that transformational leaders influence their followers' self-efficacy, thereby affecting affective well-being in followers. This study extends previous work by examining the direct link between leadership and well-being both cross-sectionally (N=447) and longitudinally (N=188), and testing the mediating effects of self-efficacy. The study was carried out within parts of an elderly care department in a Danish local government. A theory-driven model of the relationships between leadership, self-efficacy and affective well-being was tested using Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicated that followers' self-ratings of self-efficacy mediated the relationship between transformational leadership style and positive affective well-being. Only limited evidence for a direct path between leadership behaviour and positive affective well-being was found. These findings have implications for how organizations may promote employee well-being, through interventions directed at supporting transformational leadership behaviours.     

Importance of issues related to RFID-enabled healthcare transformation projects: results from a Delphi study

Despite the high operational and strategic potential of Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in terms of increased healthcare efficiency and effectiveness, and better decision-making, its adoption and use within health care remain fairly low, mainly because of the challenging nature of RFID projects. Further, scholarly research has yet to identify key issues related to RFID projects. The present study intends to fill this knowledge gap in the literature by identifying and rating key issues related to RFID-enabled healthcare transformation projects through a panel of experts using four rounds of the Delphi study. Finally, implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Factors influencing mentees' and mentors' learning throughout formal mentoring relationships

A qualitative case study approach was taken to identify what factors were perceived to influence learning for mentees and mentors during a pilot formal mentoring programme, within a West Midlands Healthcare Trust. Both sides of five dyads were interviewed at regular intervals over a 17-month period (October 2009 to February 2011). The results from this longitudinal study show how learning was expected and achieved by both parties, over time. Factors influencing learning were categorized and later compared to pre-existing theory in relation to sharing experiences, sharing information, discussing politics, reflection, observation and support. Additional categories emerged in relation to questioning and listening skills, and similarity and difference between both parties. A change of emphasis was clear in relation to some factors which influenced learning, as the relationships matured. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for human resource development (HRD) professionals in relation to how formal mentoring programmes are designed and supported over time.