White Ethnic Diversity in Small Town Iowa: A Multilevel Analysis of Community Attachment

Community attachment is the feeling of being connected to community life. Within the community attachment literature, two classic approaches frame scholars’ understanding of this important dimension of community life: the linear development and systemic models. Our empirical models emphasize different factors for community attachment, including population size, density, and heterogeneity for the linear development model and age, length of residence, and social status for the systemic model. Surprisingly, heterogeneity has been omitted from analyses of the linear development model throughout the literature since its introduction, a shortcoming our study addresses. Though heterogeneity can be conceptualized in a number of ways, a large—and growing—body of literature focuses on the effects of race and ethnicity for communities. Here, we focus on a particular type of ethnic heterogeneity—European ancestry—and reincorporate this essential dimension of communities back into the linear development model of community attachment. Using data from the 2004 wave of the Iowa Community Survey and multilevel modeling techniques, we explore how white ethnic diversity matters for community life. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our study, including potential avenues for future research focusing on other ethnicities that are often subsumed under broader racial and panethnic labels.     

Checkbooks in the Heartland: Change over Time in Voluntary Association Membership

Numerous scholars documented declines in America's social capital through the mid‐1990s but we do not know whether the trend has continued. Further, despite warnings by Robert Putnam and Theda Skocpol that the quality of Americans' voluntary association memberships has also deteriorated—moving from active, “face‐to‐face” memberships to passive, “checkbook” memberships—data have not been available to test this claim. In this article, we use both the Iowa Community Survey and the General Social Survey to explore the changing nature of voluntary association membership between 1994 and 2004. We demonstrate that not only are declines in voluntary association memberships continuing in the new century but there has been a shift in the intensity of voluntary association participation over time. We observe a decline in active membership over time and an increase in checkbook membership over time. These findings provide support for Putnam's claim that checkbook membership is increasing at the expense of more active types of memberships.     

Immigrants and Housing Markets in Mid-Size Metropolitan Areas1

The recent trend of immigrants arriving in mid-size metropolitan areas has received growing attention in the literature. This study examines the success of immigrants in the housing markets of a sample of 60 metropolitan areas using Census microdata in both 2000 and 2005. The results suggest that immigrants are less successful in achieving homeownership and more likely to live in overcrowded conditions than native-born whites of non-Hispanic origin. The immigrant effect on homeownership differs by geography and by immigrant group. Finally, we find evidence that immigrant networks increase the likelihood of becoming a homeowner.     

Walk-in Together: A pilot study of a walk-in online family therapy intervention

Many Australians are requiring mental health care, including families, leading to long wait times in order to access support. Walk-in therapy reduces barriers to mental health support services by providing support at the time that families seek help. This paper presents a proof-of-concept study investigating the acceptability and short-term effectiveness of an online walk-in family therapy service, Walk-in Together (WIT). Part 1 of the paper describes the experiences of 44 family members from 22 families who presented to a public family therapy clinic for a virtual walk-in family therapy session. The session was conducted by a team of three experienced family therapists. Family members' experiences were sought pre-session, post-session, and at 6 weeks follow-up via survey and interview. Part 2 of the paper explores therapist perceptions (n = 7) of the WIT approach, through thematic analysis of semi-structured interview data. Post-session feedback showed 85% of family members found WIT to be helpful and 50% were optimistic about their future as a family after their WIT session. Six weeks post-session it was revealed that WIT supported planning for families in equipping them to move forward with 88% of family members reporting that they knew what to do after the session. All therapists uniformly experienced the model as offering a timely and beneficial service, suitable for diverse presentations and constellations of families. These preliminary results suggest the significant utility of this WIT intervention as a well-received and helpful service for families, who valued the easy access and rapid therapeutic response afforded by the online, walk-in delivery model. This proof-of-concept paper suggests the potential for further development and growth of WIT, as well as other mental health support services using a walk-in, telehealth model to meet the rising demand for therapeutic support for families in distress.     

Improving the Mental Health Outcomes of LGBTQ Youth and Young Adults: A Longitudinal Study

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this groundbreaking study was to evaluate outcomes of 482 LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning) youth and young adults who received services and supports through the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children with Serious Emotional Disturbances Program (CMHI). This study was a secondary data analysis using data from a larger study of 3208 LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ youth ages 11 through 21 who had a serious emotional disturbance (SED). This study is significant in that it evaluates functional outcomes for young people identified as LGBTQ based on a specialized service framework (i.e., system of care approach). In essence, do LGBTQ youth with SED benefit from a specific approach to intervention? In addition, a comparison at intake on suicidality, bullying and victimization was conducted between the LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ identifying youth from the larger sample. The youth and a caregiver were interviewed face-to-face separately at intake, 6-months, and 12-months. Significant improvements were found across all of the dependent variables, supporting the viability of SOC for improving outcomes for LGBTQ youth. Future research should continue to build on this study by adding to the design a control group to improve internal validity of the findings.     

Madam Senator: Growth in Women's State Senate Representation, 1978–2010

Using a dataset of women state senators from all 50 states (1978–2010) and latent growth curve analysis, this article tests two longitudinal theories of the growth of women's political representation over time. Gender salience theory posits that women increase their political representation when they explicitly campaign on their gender. Political climate theory argues that women fare better electorally during periods when domestic issues predominate as opposed to international issues. Results provide support for gender salience theory, but the evidence is too mixed for political climate theory to provide a plausible explanation for the growth in women's state-level political representation. By political party, results suggest that Democratic women were generally advantaged over Republican women; however, Republican women exclusively benefited in the 1992 and 2010 elections. This article concludes with an assessment of the two longitudinal theories and what they may tell us more broadly about women in politics.     

Sexual deception as a social-exchange process: development of a behavior-based sexual deception scale

The use of deception in association with sexual encounters may take many forms, ranging from outright lies to more subtle, evasive manipulations. To address such deceptions, a behavior-based sexual deception scale was developed utilizing social exchange theory. Participants were 267 individuals associated with two large universities who were surveyed regarding different aspects of their sexual deceptive behaviors. In addition, items addressing sexually related behaviors and attitudes were assessed for validation purposes. Principal components analysis identified three components of sexual deception, labeled Blatant Lying, Self-Serving, and Avoiding Confrontation. Confirmatory factor analysis verified the resulting structure, and promising validity was noted. In general, those using any of these deceptions reported more sexual partners and one-night stands. Those telling blatant lies to have sex were more likely to report greater needs for sex, while those using self-serving lies or having sex to avoid confrontation experienced greater worry about partner loss. Men were more likely to use blatant lies to have sex, while women were more likely to have sex to avoid confrontation. Results support sexual deception as an exchange process, with sex for pleasure and positive relationship outcomes acting as rewards, and unwanted sex and deception consequences as costs. Implications for health interventions and primary prevention applications are discussed.     

Using In Vitro High‐Throughput Screening Data for Predicting Benzo[k]Fluoranthene Human Health Hazards

Today there are more than 80,000 chemicals in commerce and the environment. The potential human health risks are unknown for the vast majority of these chemicals as they lack human health risk assessments, toxicity reference values, and risk screening values. We aim to use computational toxicology and quantitative high‐throughput screening (qHTS) technologies to fill these data gaps, and begin to prioritize these chemicals for additional assessment. In this pilot, we demonstrate how we were able to identify that benzo[k]fluoranthene may induce DNA damage and steatosis using qHTS data and two separate adverse outcome pathways (AOPs). We also demonstrate how bootstrap natural spline‐based meta‐regression can be used to integrate data across multiple assay replicates to generate a concentration–response curve. We used this analysis to calculate an in vitro point of departure of 0.751 μM and risk‐specific in vitro concentrations of 0.29 μM and 0.28 μM for 1:1,000 and 1:10,000 risk, respectively, for DNA damage. Based on the available evidence, and considering that only a single HSD17B4 assay is available, we have low overall confidence in the steatosis hazard identification. This case study suggests that coupling qHTS assays with AOPs and ontologies will facilitate hazard identification. Combining this with quantitative evidence integration methods, such as bootstrap meta‐regression, may allow risk assessors to identify points of departure and risk‐specific internal/in vitro concentrations. These results are sufficient to prioritize the chemicals; however, in the longer term we will need to estimate external doses for risk screening purposes, such as through margin of exposure methods.     

Is there a generalized energy conservation ethic? A comparison of the determinants of gasoline and home heating energy conservation

The body of research that has attempted to identify and characterize the “ecologically concerned” or “socially responsible” consumer is challenged for its assumption that this is a single group sharing a general disposition to conserve. Based on a comparison of gasoline and home heating energy conservers from a single sample, evidence is provided that these are two unique groups and that those who are conservers in both areas form a third unique group that is closer to the original notion of a generalized conservation ethic. Implications are discussed for future research focusing on energy conservation and social responsibility.