Improving body image and sexual health behaviors among college women

ABSTRACT

Objective: To conduct a pilot test to determine if the Body Project, an eating disorder prevention program, was able to reduce risky sexual behaviors. Participants: Twenty college-age women ages 18–21 (in March, 2015) who endorsed both body image dissatisfaction and previous or current sexual activity. Methods: Participants were randomized to the Body Project or psychoeducational control group, and completed baseline, post-test, and 6-month follow-up measures assessing body image concerns, eating behaviors, and sexual behaviors and attitudes. Results: An intervention manipulation check demonstrated that body image variables were in expected directions, though were not significant by group. There was a significant interaction across group and time for “unanticipated sexual encounters,” which decreased in the Body Project group. Conclusions: This pilot study supports the feasibility of using an eating disorder prevention program to reduce other risky behaviors, specifically risky sexual behaviors.     

A Mandatory Student Health Insurance Program at a Large State University

Abstract

A new compulsory-with-waiver health insurance plan at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUN-YAB) was designed in 1976 after assessing available literature on students' insurance, morbidity, health care costs, attitudes, data from past SUNYAB insurance plans and health service statistics. Previous findings that the morbidity of this population is low is corroborated by the data available on the students considered within this project. Illnesses common to this age group are predominantly acute, and require a low rate of hospitalization. The new insurance program cost an unmarried single student $67.00 and was a success by several criteria. Approximately 5,000 more students were enrolled in the complusory plan than in the previous voluntary one. Among students interviewed, both those who enrolled and those who did not, felt that the idea of compulsory health insurance for students was a good idea. Virtually all full-time students in the university were covered by some health insurance.     

The inter-rater reliability and validity of self-report of risk factors for cumulative trauma disorders within the hand therapist population - a pilot study

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the validity of hand therapists' self-report of cumulative trauma disorder (CTD) risk factors by comparing the self-report to observations performed by the raters. Inter-rater reliability was also analyzed between the raters who observed the hand therapists. STUDY DESIGN: Two raters simultaneously observed each hand therapist during a splinting task at a therapy facility. Following this task, the raters and the hand therapist independently completed an identical assessment tool. Thirteen therapists were observed and a total of six raters observed the therapists. Responses from two categories of the self-assessment, "posture" and "mechanical stress", were compared. Percentage of agreement was calculated by dividing the number of like responses by the total number of possible responses for each category. RESULTS: Overall inter-rater reliability was 72%, significantly above the accepted minimum standard of 60-70%, and validity was 39%, significantly below the accepted minimum. CONCLUSION: The high percentage of inter-rater reliability established consistency and accuracy among the raters in their observations. However, the low percentage of validity should prompt hand therapists to investigate the accuracy of a patient's self-report before relying on it for treatment.     

Does Culture Make a Better Citizen? Exploring the Relationship Between Cultural and Civic Participation in Italy

In the last decades, policy discussions have increasingly considered participation in arts and cultural activities as a vehicle to reach broader social policy goals, such as social inclusion or active citizenship. However, convincing empirical evidence on the social impacts of arts and culture is still scarce. In particular, little attention has been given to the impact that cultural participation may have on individuals’ engagement in civil society, especially in Europe. In order to address this lack of evidence, this paper explores the connection between cultural participation and civic participation in Italy using Likert-scale data collected in the ISTAT “Aspetti della Vita Quotidiana” Survey (2014). To do so, two composite indicators—the participation in cultural life indicator and the participation in civic life indicator—have been built using an approach based on partial order theory and the concept of Average Rank. The effect of cultural participation on civic engagement has been estimated using a quantile regression model which controls for potentially cofounding factors such as education, income, age and gender. Results do confirm that participation in arts and cultural activities is highly correlated with participation in civic life. It is particularly worth noticing that at higher levels of civic participation, cultural participation has a positive and strong effect on civic engagement of people having a low educational level.