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The Tortured Pre-History Of Urban Blight: African American St. Louis And The Politics Of Public Health, 1877-1940, Taylor Desloge

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a long history of the contested legal and environmental category of blight, especially in its racialized dimensions, in tandem with the African American experience of living in blighted urban spaces and forging a black politics of public health and welfare. Rethinking the conventional view that identifies blight as simply a preoccupation of post-World War II planners, this dissertation relocates its roots in a politics of public health that emerged a hundred years earlier, in the Post-Reconstruction Era, when black migration to the city and the rise of industrial capitalism raised new questions over both the social needs …

The Role Of Personality In The Development Of Health Disparities During Late-Mid Life, Juliette Mcclendon Iacovino

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: The current study examined race/gender disparities in initial levels and trajectories of self-reported physical and mental health, and health care utilization, as well as the impact of personality and stressful life events on race/gender disparities. We hypothesized that health disparities would remain stable or decrease over time; that at-risk personality traits (e.g., high neuroticism) would have a more robust negative impact on health for black participants; that trust would mediate racial disparities in health; and that personality traits would moderate the association between stressful life events and health trajectories differentially across race/gender. Methods: Analyses utilized the first six waves …

Violence Exposure And Pathways To Hiv Risk Behaviors In Black And White Young Men Who Have Sex With Men, Donald Robert Gerke

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

HIV remains a critical public health issue facing men who have sex with men (MSM) in the United States. Young MSM (YMSM) ages 13-34 years account for the greatest number of new HIV infections in MSM, with Black YMSM bearing the highest burden of disease. Sexual risk behaviors (e.g. unprotected sex) continue to be the leading transmission mode for HIV among all YMSM and studies have indicated that these behaviors are associated with a number of psychosocial and environmental factors, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), exposure to violence, substance use, and mental health problems. Moreover, recent studies based on the …

Studies On Health, Place, And Education, Kelly Mcclelland Harris

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Good health is positively associated with education outcomes, and likewise higher education-related achievement is positively associated with good health. Similarly, social disadvantage follows a cyclical pattern. It is cumulative; both accruing over the life course and across generations. Moreover, this relationship disproportionately impacts our most vulnerable populations, including both minorities and children living in or near poverty. For example, since the 1990s asthma, the most common chronic illness among youth, has seen the greatest increases in urban environments, and among racial and ethnic minorities in or near poverty. Still, consideration of the interdependence between health, place, and education remains underdeveloped …

Building A Theory Of Adaptive Neuroticism, Sara Jo Weston

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neuroticism is widely believed to be detrimental to health, but the evidence is mixed. Many large-scale studies find null or positive effects of neuroticism on mortality and health. A theory of “healthy neuroticism” was generated to explain these discrepant results. According to this theory, neuroticism can lead an individual down one of two paths: an anxiety and stress-ridden path of maladaptive coping and poor outcomes, or a path of vigilance and proactivity. Trait conscientiousness is thought to be the defining feature of healthy neuroticism, although studies substantiating this claim are few and far between. Meanwhile, other important factors - notably, …

Relationship Satisfaction And Health Outcomes In The Context Of Personality, Janine Galione

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-reported dissatisfaction in romantic relationships is a well-documented risk factor for impaired physical health outcomes. Most research has focused on identifying the mechanisms that could potentially explain this link, but it is just as important to explore what type of person is more vulnerable to the quality of romantic relationships. Relationship satisfaction may be more consequential in the context of some personality traits than others. We examined whether each of the five factor traits interacts with self-reported relationship satisfaction to predict three health outcomes over 18 months: major physical health events, health perceptions, and health behaviors. The hypotheses for this …

State Of Health: African-American Laboring Health And The Politics Of Reparations In The Age Of Emancipation, 1830-1900, Dale Kretz

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

State of Health recasts the long history of emancipation in the United States. Emancipation is conventionally framed as a transition from lash to cash, wherein the federal government abandoned the formerly enslaved to the free labor system of the postbellum South. Yet this picture fails to account for the hundreds of thousands of intimate interactions freedpeople had with federal officials of the U.S. Pension Bureau in the decades after the Civil War. This dissertation accordingly shows how the personal rule of the slaveholder gave way to the personal rule of the American central state.

The first chapters demonstrate that the …