Measuring the extent, depth, and severity of food insecurity: an application to American Indians in the USA

Within the extensive food insecurity literature, little work has been done regarding (a) the depth and severity of food insecurity and (b) the food insecurity of American Indians. This paper addresses both these topics with data from the 2001 to 2004 Core Food Security Module of the Current Population Survey. To measure food insecurity, three axiomatically derived measures of food insecurity are used. As expected, given the worse economic conditions facing American Indians, their food insecurity levels are generally higher than non-American Indians. However, the magnitude and significance of these differences differ depending on the choice of food insecurity measure.

Crisis and Disaster Counseling: Lesson Learned from Hurricane Katrina and Other Disasters

Social work education has a major role in preparing social workers to engage in policy practice intended to impact policies which can affect the well-being of their service users and address social problems. Legislative advocacy is one of these strategies. This article describes and evaluates an innovative 4-day intensive course on legislative advocacy for MSW students from two schools of social work, which took place within Israel’s parliament and drew upon elements of active and experiential learning. The evaluation study was based on a nonequivalent comparison group design with pretest (a month before the course)–posttest (4 months after the completion of the course) measurements. The study group consisted of the 29 students who participated in the intensive course while the comparison group consisted of 33 students who did not. The study, which employed quantitative tools along with open-ended questions, revealed that the course succeeded in accomplishing some of its desired outcomes. Compared to a group of their peers, the course enhanced the participants’ knowledge on the parliament and on legislative advocacy, their political interest, their perceived legislative advocacy skills, and the likelihood that they will engage in legislative advocacy in the future.     

Food Banking and Food Insecurity in High-Income Countries

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Food banks are a particular type of voluntary sector organization that bridges the government sector, private sector, and...     

Toward a Fuller Understanding of Nonresident Father Involvement: An Examination of Child Support,In-Kind Support,and Visitation

The majority of studies of nonresident father involvement focus on either child support payments or visitation. However, nearly 60% of custodial parents receive in-kind (i.e., noncash) support of some form. Using data from a nationally representative sample of children with nonresident fathers (the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics), we simultaneously investigate via a trivariate probit model the relationships among three aspects of father involvement: child support, in-kind support, and visitation. We find that these dimensions of involvement are positively related and highly intertwined with the strongest positive relationship being between in-kind support and visitation. Additionally, these aspects of involvement have different sets of determinants. Economic characteristics of the resident household are more frequently associated with the receipt of child support, while demographic characteristics of the child, mother, father and resident household are related to all three aspects of nonresident father involvement. Generally speaking, when differences in impacts of determinants vary for lower and higher income resident families, the differences are related to the receipt of child support. Fewer differences are observed with regard to in-kind support receipt or with visitation. Our model also measures how unobserved factors are related to these facets of involvement. Most notable across income groups is that unobserved factors are positively related for child support and in-kind support receipt for higher income resident households. This relationship is insignificant for lower income resident households.     

Embedded in relations—Interactions as a source of agency and life opportunities for care-experienced young adults

This paper explores how young people who have been in out-of-home care develop a positive agentic capacity. The analyses are based on longitudinal biographical interviews with 24 care experienced young people (age 16–32 years) living in Norway. At the time of the interviews, they were in the education system or working and described themselves as ‘doing well’. Through the application of a relational understanding of agency, this paper provides in-depth insights into how relations shape the biography, identity and decisions of young people with care backgrounds, scaffold positive possibilities and enhance their life opportunities.     

Are the Effects of the Macroeconomy and Social Policies on Poverty Different in Nonmetro Areas in the United States?*

Abstract The macroeconomy and social policies can have substantial influences on poverty in the United States. In this paper, I investigate whether these influences differ across metro and nonmetro areas. To do so, using a 16‐year panel of state‐level data, I estimate state and year fixed effects models separately for metro and nonmetro areas to see if the effects of the macroeconomy and social policies differ between these two areas. These models are estimated using two measures—the poverty rate and the squared poverty gap—and by family type. I find that cyclical forces have a much stronger effect on the poverty rate in nonmetro areas in comparison to metro areas, but the effects are similar for the squared poverty gap; wage growth has a pronounced effect on poverty in metro areas but no effect in nonmetro areas; and state‐level social policies have slightly larger effects in nonmetro areas, but the effects are small.     

Reaching a representative sample of college students: A comparative analysis

ABSTRACT

Objective: To explore the feasibility of a random-digit dial (RDD) cellular phone survey in order to reach a national and representative sample of college students. Methods: Demographic distributions from the 2011 National Young Adult Health Survey (NYAHS) were benchmarked against enrollment numbers from the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS). The sample quality was compared with the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (1993), National College Health Risk Behavior Survey (1995), and National College Health Assessment (2011). Results: Overall, the NYAHS performed as well, if not better, than previous college health surveys at reaching important demographic subgroups. Conclusions: Cellular phone RDD is one feasible approach for studies of the general population of college students that can potentially generate national estimates of health behavior.     

Poverty and macroeconomic performance across space,race, and family structure

We examined the effects of macroeconomic performance and social policy on the extent and depth of poverty in America using state-level panel data from the 1981-2000 waves of the Current Population Survey. We found that a strong macroeconomy at both the state and national levels reduced both the number of families who were living in poverty and the severity of poverty. The magnitude and source of these antipoverty effects, however, were not uniform across family structures and racial groups or necessarily over time. While gains in the eradication of poverty, in general, were tempered by rising wage inequality, simulations indicated that female-headed families and families that were headed by black persons experienced substantial reductions in poverty in the 1990s largely because of the growth in median wages. An auxiliary time-series analysis suggests that the expansions in the federal Earned Income Tax Credit of the 1990s accounted for upward of 50% of the reduction in after-tax income deprivation.