Understanding and Measuring LGBTQ Pathways to Health: A Scoping Review of Strengths-Based Health Promotion Approaches in LGBTQ Health Research

Health research traditionally has focused on the health risks and deficits of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations, obscuring the determinants that can promote health across the life course. Recognizing, appropriately measuring, and rendering visible these determinants of health is paramount to informing appropriate and engaging health policies, services, and systems for LGBTQ populations. The overarching purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the findings of a scoping review aimed at exploring strengths-based health promotion approaches to understanding and measuring LGBTQ health. Specifically, this scoping review examined peer-reviewed, published academic literature to determine (a) existing methodological frameworks for studying LGBTQ health from a strengths-based health promotion approach, and (b) suggestions for future methodological approaches for studying LGBTQ health from a strengths-based health promotion approach. The findings of this scoping review will be used to inform the development of a study aimed at assessing the health of and improving pathways to health services among LGBTQ populations in Nova Scotia, Canada.     

The Impact of Social Connectedness and Internalized Transphobic Stigma on Self-Esteem Among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults

The transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) community continues to represent a notably marginalized population exposed to pervasive discrimination, microaggressions, and victimization. Congruent with the minority stress model, TGNC individuals persistently experience barriers to wellbeing in contemporary society; however, research uncovering resilience-based pathways to health among this population is sparse. This study aimed to explore the impact and interaction between internalized transphobic stigma and a potential buffer against minority stress—social connectedness—on the self-esteem of TGNC identified adults. Data were collected from 65 TGNC identified adults during a national transgender conference. Multiple regression analysis reveals that self-esteem is negatively impacted by internalized transphobia and positively impacted by social connectedness. Social connectedness did not significantly moderate the relationship between internalized transphobia and self-esteem. Micro and macro interventions aimed at increasing social connectedness and decreasing internalized transphobic stigma may be paramount for enhancing resiliency and wellbeing in the TGNC community.     

Victims,soldiers, peacemakers and caretakers: the neoliberal constitution of women in the EU’s security policy

Feminist scholars praise and criticize the UNSC Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security for its considerations of women and gender in conflicts. Poststructuralist feminists show how gender is constructed in the UN’s security policies and how these constructions reproduce gendered dichotomies between women and men and representations of women as victims, part of civil society and neoliberal subjects. Although the UNSC Resolutions 1325 and 1820 are implemented by the EU, there is no literature on how the EU is taking up the UN’s discourse. Scholars studying gender policies in and of the EU mainly analyze the (in)effectiveness of EU gender mainstreaming but rarely interrogate its discursive foundations. Using a governmentality perspective, I argue that on the one hand the EU produces a binary and stereotypical understanding of gender, and on the other hand constitutes women as neoliberal subjects responsible for their own well-being, ignoring broader structures of (gender) inequality and war and making gender equality solely an instrument to achieve more security and development.     

Randomized controlled trial of the Resilience and Coping Intervention (RCI) with undergraduate university students

Objective: The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the Resilience and Coping Intervention (RCI) with college students. Participants: College students (aged 18–23) from a large Midwest US university who volunteered for a randomized controlled trial during the 2015 spring semester. Methods: College students were randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 64) or a control (n = 65) group. Intervention participants received three 45-minute RCI sessions over subsequent weeks. All participants completed pre- and post-intervention assessments at the beginning of Week 1 and end of Week 3. Student resilience, coping, hope, stress, depression, and anxiety were assessed. Results. RCI participants reported significantly more hope and less stress and depression from Week 1 to Week 3 compared with control participants. Results for resilience also approached statistical significance. Effect sizes were small to moderate. Conclusions: This study found preliminary evidence that RCI is an effective resilience intervention for use with college students.     

Affective capitalism,humanitarianism and extractivism in Colombia: old and new borders for future times

Contemporary Colombian conjuncture encompasses two dynamics. These incorporate social, economic, political and cultural aspects, whose related rationalities are yet to be mapped out and understood in their complex and multi-layered dimensions and registers. On the one hand, as I will explain throughout the text, we have been witness to on-going peace talks between the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia guerrilla group, a whole set of practices of forgiveness, inaugurations of memory museums, the passing of the victims and land restitution law, as well as the recognition of victims and the effervescence of their movements and organizations. These factors have spiralled victims’ demonstrations and fuelled marches all over the country. On the other hand, there are increased rates of foreign investment in those regions that, until as little as a decade ago, were subject to appalling rates of internal displacement, massacres and disappearances, and which now constitute new borders where global capitalism has been able to reconfigure and increase its rates of capital accumulation. In this article, I analyse the processes referred to above and their complex relationships from the vantage point of a cultural studies interrogation of the affective and the popular, focusing on two Colombian regions: Montes de María and Mapiripán. My goal is to understand how different groups and actors are experiencing these processes in their everyday lives. Here, I include victims and their organizations but also government officials and entrepreneurs related to agro-industry initiatives – mentioned below – today refashioned within the new mantra of corporate responsibility. I want to understand the issue of where people are located and what they are doing, facing, consuming, or resisting in terms of these new challenges. Finally, I wish to offer an analytical study that can capture the everyday textures of these processes in a complex and concrete fashion.     

A Study of Battered Women’s Purpose of Life and Resilience in South Korea

The principal objective of this study is to determine whether battered women’s purpose of life (meaning/value) affects resilience (self‐efficacy/communication efficiency/optimism). This purpose is meaningful in that it may help provide battered women with a new perspective of a changeable life, away from the negative perspectives frequently associated with domestic violence sufferers. The subjects of this study were 110 battered women staying at shelters located in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, Korea. The survey was conducted between August 15 and September 20, 2010. The data were collected using questionnaires measuring sociodemographic variables, a purpose‐of‐life scale, and a resilience scale. The collected data were evaluated with frequency, correlation, and multiple regression analysis. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the meaning and value of life positively influenced self‐efficacy. Second, only the meaning had a beneficial effect on communication efficiency. Third, only the value variable positively affected optimism. Therefore, this study implied that resilience is an important area in the context of spousal abuse. Based on these results, a program for enhancing the meaning of life is suggested to help domestic violence survivors to build up resilience.     

Assessing Engineering Resilience for Systems with Multiple Performance Measures

Recently, efforts to model and assess a system's resilience to disruptions due to environmental and adversarial threats have increased substantially. Researchers have investigated resilience in many disciplines, including sociology, psychology, computer networks, and engineering systems, to name a few. When assessing engineering system resilience, the resilience assessment typically considers a single performance measure, a disruption, a loss of performance, the time required to recover, or a combination of these elements. We define and use a resilient engineered system definition that separates system resilience into platform and mission resilience. Most complex systems have multiple performance measures; this research proposes using multiple objective decision analysis to assess system resilience for systems with multiple performance measures using two distinct methods. The first method quantifies platform resilience and includes resilience and other “ilities” directly in the value hierarchy, while the second method quantifies mission resilience and uses the “ilities” in the calculation of the expected mission performance for every performance measure in the value hierarchy. We illustrate the mission resilience method using a transportation systems‐of‐systems network with varying levels of resilience due to the level of connectivity and autonomy of the vehicles and platform resilience by using a notional military example. Our analysis found that it is necessary to quantify performance in context with specific mission(s) and scenario(s) under specific threat(s) and then use modeling and simulation to help determine the resilience of a system for a given set of conditions. The example demonstrates how incorporating system mission resilience can improve performance for some performance measures while negatively affecting others.     

Critical understandings of child development: the development of a module for a post-qualifying certificate course in child protection studies

This paper explores the dilemmas involved in selecting appropriate theoretical and research material to help social workers in practice. Concentrating on the needs of those working in child care and protection, the paper uses the example of the area of child development knowledge to illustrate a process of presenting theory for practice. Specifically, the focus is on the redevelopment of a child development module for a post-qualifying certificate course in child care and protection that aims to encourage students to make critical use of current research and theory. The paper explains the reasoning behind the choice of attachment theory as the underpinning theoretical framework. It also addresses possible pitfalls in an uncritical use of such theory. The paper finally sets out how the module addresses the need social workers have for a framework to guide intervention in individual cases. The dimensions described are those of individual vulnerability or resilience and factors in the environment that are adverse or protective.     

Civic responsibility in a risk democracy

The National Research Council advocates for what they term a risk democracy, in which risk issues require community decision-making based on dialogue. This essay focuses on the promotion of civic responsibility in a risk democracy. Award-winning public awareness campaigns are analyzed to demonstrate how community partnerships and civic responsibility can improve community resilience. First, the role of a community in an emergency is discussed; second, the current focus of the Department of Homeland Security on prevention rather than preparation as illuminated by interviews with emergency managers is critically examined; and finally, public awareness campaigns are presented to show how personal and civic responsibility can assist in emergency planning and response.     

组织弹性研究的现状和趋势

福岛核事故表明,组织安全需定位于组织本身的应对事故和风险的能力,即组织的弹性。文章在文献研究的基础上,研究了组织管理安全研究的发展过程,对近年来国外关于组织弹性的研究现状进行了介绍,包括弹性的定义、组织弹性的结构和部分测量方法。最后对研究现状进行评价并且指出未来的研究方向。