Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

3 Selections From "Upon The Body: Poems Of/To A Black Social Epi, Pt.Ii--Love//Resistance In The Time Of Covid", R. J. Petteway

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

The 3 poems included here are from a collection written between January and August 2020. The full collection—27 poems total—examines intersections of structural racism, racialized police violence, and COVID-19, drawing from generations of creative resistance produced and embodied by Black artists, activists, and scholars like Nina Simone, Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Audre Lorde, Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, and W.E.B. DuBois. The collection as a whole is crafted as counternarrative to public health’s ahistoric, apolitical, racist, and homophobic proclivities in times of crisis. The 3 poems here are from Part II, "LOVE//Resistance in the Time of COVID.” These selections …

Treatment Disparities In Emergency Medical Services: The Influence Of Race/Ethnicity, Obesity, And English Proficiency, Jamie Kennel

Dissertations and Theses

Different treatment in healthcare settings provided to different social groups of people may lead to disparities in health, quality of life, and life span. Despite the critical role among healthcare services that Emergency Medical Services (EMS) provides disproportionately for marginalized communities, it remains unclear if and to what extent treatment disparities take place in the pre-hospital setting. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of social worth, aversive racism, and stigma, this study utilizes medical chart data from three different public and private datasets to investigate treatment disparities by Emergency Medical Service providers for racial minority, obese, and limited English proficiency patients. …

Parent Attitudes Towards Childhood Vaccines After The Onset Of Sars-Cov-2 In The United States, Douglas J. Opel, Anna Furniss, Chuan Zhou, John D. Rice, Heather Spielvogle, Christine Spina, Cathryn Perreira, Jessica Giang, Jeffrey D. Robinson, Multiple Additional Authors

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: To understand the influence of a novel infectious disease epidemic on parent general attitudes about childhood vaccines.

Methods: We conducted a natural experiment utilizing cross-sectional survey data from parents of infants in Washington and Colorado participating in a larger trial that began on September 27, 2019. At enrollment, parents completed the short version of the Parental Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV-SF), a validated survey scored from 0-4, with higher scores representing more negative attitudes. The exposure variable was onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the US, with the before-period defined as September 27, 2019 –– February 28, …

Covid's Impact On Nurses & Their Labor Market, Joshua Stanfill

University Honors Theses

The Covid pandemic has swept across the globe impacting many different kinds of people in many different ways. Businesses and workers experienced changes in how their respective labor markets operated with new incentives. One group of laborers that experienced quite a significant impact are nurses working through the Covid pandemic. The pandemic created new incentives for nurses that heavily impacted their labor market. Through a literature review of scientific studies examining the impacts of working through a pandemic on nurses, I discovered that this was causing psychological and emotional damage to nurses. Covid spurred on an already occurring nursing shortage …

Houseplants As Mental Health Supports For Dorm Occupants During The Lockdown Period At Portland State University, Brittani Wallsten

Anthós

In this study, students who lived in dorms around the lockdown period of Portland State University, March 2020—September 2021, were interviewed about their experience and how their houseplants affected their mental health. This was done via in-person interviews and an online focus group. Houseplants were found to support students’ mental health by encouraging a regular routine, providing opportunities for responsibility, adding aesthetic value, and serving as a general indicator of mental health. All of the participants recommended houseplants as a mental health support to their fellow students.

Reflecting On Resilience: Insight Into Resiliency Development And Utilization In Oregon's Older Adults From 2020 To 2022, Riley A. Wilton

University Honors Theses

The events of the last 2 years have complicated the lives of older adults throughout the world. For many, their survival can be traced back to one key trait: resilience. In the state of Oregon, the years 2020-2022 came with a host of issues that expanded past the COVID-19 pandemic. These events provide context for the world our storytellers discuss.

Using a snowball recruitment strategy through the efforts of community organizations and senior centers, 4 storytellers sat down to describe their resilience in different ways. They were asked to reflect on their own life experiences, how it influenced their resilience, …

Augmentative And Alternative Communication Use, Service Delivery Experiences, And Communicative Participation For People With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Betts Peters

Dissertations and Theses

People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) often experience changes to their speech, and may use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices and techniques to maintain the ability to communicate. The use of AAC may facilitate the participation of people with ALS in various life situations involving communication. There is limited data in the literature about the AAC approaches currently used by people with ALS, the professional services they receive to support communication, or the effects of AAC on their communicative participation. This dissertation involved a nationwide online survey of people with ALS, and comprises three papers intended to add to …

Fortunate People In A Fortunate Land: Dwelling And Residential Alienation In Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing, Lauren E.M. Everett

Dissertations and Theses

The importance of safe and stable housing for individual and community wellbeing is widely acknowledged. However, for the one third of Americans who rent their homes, housing-related stress and precarity (residential alienation) may undermine stability and a sense of home. Rent control is perhaps the most well-known tenant protection policy in the United States, but it remains highly controversial and its efficacy has been debated for decades. This research is the first academic inquiry to examine the policy through the experience of residents of rent-controlled housing. In academic discourse dominated by quantitative inquiry from the discipline of economics, this study …

Examination Of An Individual-Level Stigma Reduction Tactic In Front-Line Service Encounters, Christopher J. Waterbury, Nicholas A. Smith Phd., Larry Martinez Phd., Shi (Tracy) Xu Phd.

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

Minority stress theory links short- and long-term negative health outcomes to stigma and discrimination. It is important that workers have the agency to effect change in the processes of discrimination as a social determinate of health. Identity management strategies are elective tactics that workers may wish to use to reduce discrimination. Front line service workers may be discriminated against by customers in the form of negative customer service evaluations. Group-level stereotypes may influence customer service perceptions more than objective service quality. In this poster, we report findings from two studies in which we examined the effectiveness of an individual-level stigma …

Effect Of Sin Lek Rice Intervention On Cognitive Function, Dietary Patterns, And Fecal Microbiota Of Elementary School Children In Chiang Rai, Thailand, Angie Setthavongsack, Siam Popluechai, Jackilen Shannon, Justin Denny, Eleni Gentekaki, Kongkiat Kespechara, Lucsame Gruneck, Thomas J. Sharpton, Kullawong Niwed, Lisa K. Marriott

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

Thailand has struggled with malnutrition rates in young children. Rice is a key component of Southeast Asian diets and a whole grain rice varietal (Sin Lek) may support improved nutrition. Diet can influence cognitive function and human gut microbiota, which were explored in the context of a rice intervention. We conducted a pilot study using a non-randomized, crossover clinical trial of Sin Lek rice versus traditional white rice consumption in elementary school children in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Outcomes related to diet, anthropological factors, cognitive function (e.g., short-term working memory, attention, impulsivity), and gut microbial populations were measured at baseline and …

Tools For Addressing Intimate Partner Violence And Suicide Risk: Lessons Learned From Oha’S Covid-19 Emergency Response For Suicide Prevention Grant, Karen Cellarius, Aliza Tuttle, Lea Sevey

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

In August 2020, the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (OCADSV), the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), and Portland State University’s Regional Research Institute for Human Services (PSU RRI) began an 18-month collaboration to strengthen support for domestic violence and mental health agencies during COVID-19. As part of this grant, six domestic violence advocacy organizations around Oregon were able to place co-located advocates with their mental health partner agencies for services and cross-training. The content of this booklet is another product of this collaboration.

2022 Zero Suicide Implementation In Oregon: Cross‐Site Follow‐Up Change Report, Karen Cellarius, Aliza Tuttle

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

This implementation self‐assessment and the accompanying web survey were adapted for the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) by Portland State University in collaboration with the OHA Youth Suicide Prevention staff. The assessment was adapted from three existing Zero Suicide resources available at http://zerosuicide.org/.

The Organizational Self‐Study is a questionnaire about the extent to which each component of the Zero Suicide approach is in place at a single organization. Zero Suicide recommends completing this self‐study at the start of an organization’s Zero Suicide initiative, then every 12 months after that as a measure of fidelity to the model. The self‐study questions …

Reconstructability Analysis: Discrete Multivariate Modeling, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

An introduction to Reconstructability Analysis for the Discrete Multivariate Modeling course and for other purposes.

Antipsychotic Medication Administration In Oregon Assisted Living/Residential Care Settings: Analyzing An Action Situation, Sarah Dys

Dissertations and Theses

Antipsychotic medication use (APU) in assisted living and residential care (AL/RC) settings is an under-studied and controversial health policy issue. APU in older adults with dementia is associated with an increased risk of falls, hospitalizations, and early mortality. I operationalize the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework using a situational analysis approach, an extension of grounded theory methods, to explore the APU in Oregon AL/RC settings. Regulatory deficiency citations, Oregon AL/RC population data, and semi-structured interviews suggest that staff role clarity, organizational characteristics, and perceived agency influence decision-making around APU. AL/RC providers and caregivers are forced to simultaneously balance and prioritize …

A Comparison Of The Risk Of Fracture In Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients With And Without Receiving Chinese Herbal Medicine, Hou-Hsun Liao, Hanoch Livneh, Yu-Jung Chung, Ching-Hsing Lin, Ning-Sheng Lai, Hung-Rong Yen, Tzung-Yi Tsai

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often suffer from bone complications due to persistent joint inflammation, especially incident fracture. Nowadays, Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) have provided safe and effective therapy for treating skeletal conditions, but it is unclear whether CHMs can prevent fracture onset among RA individuals. This study aimed to determine the association between the use of CHMs and the risk of fracture among them.

Methods: This retrospective, population-based study retrieved administrative health data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance (NHI) database to identify patients with newly diagnosed RA between 2000 and 2009. Of the 6178 incident …

The Longitudinal Effects Of A Family And Sleep Supportive Intervention On Service Member Anger And Resilience, Shalene Joyce Allen

Dissertations and Theses

The vast majority of workplace intervention research on employee anger and resilience primarily focuses on individual-level strategies for mitigating employee anger and resilience outcomes in the workplace, with no studies having examined these outcomes with tangible occupational health interventions utilizing organizational-level techniques. Thus, the current study extends the literature on how to provide improvements in employee anger and resilience using higher system and organizational change mechanisms by providing evidence-based support for the effectiveness of a Total Worker Health® intervention, referred to as the Family and Sleep Supportive Intervention Training (FaSST). This approach employs both health protection and health promotion strategies …

“It’S Like 1998 Again”: Why Parents Still Refuse And Delay Vaccines, Jiana L. Ugale, Heather Spielvogle, Christine Spina, Cathryn Perreira, Ben Katz, Barbara Pahud, Phd Amanda F. Dempsey Md, Jeffrey D. Robinson Phd, Kathleen Garrett Ma, Mph Sean T. O’Leary Md, Mph Douglas J. Opel Md

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

We conducted a qualitative study from 2018 to 2019 to update the reasons why US parents’ refuse or delay vaccines. Four focus groups and 4 semi-structured interviews involving 33 primary care pediatric providers were conducted in Washington and Colorado. A thematic analysis was conducted to identify themes related to reasons for parental refusal or delay. Five predominant themes were identified: (1) vaccine safety, (2) relative influence of information sources, decision-makers, and timing, (3) low perceived risk of contracting vaccine-preventable disease, (4) lack of trust, and (5) religious objection. Vaccine safety was the theme mentioned most frequently by providers (N = …

Exploring How Gentrification-Related Effects Impact The Health Of Older Black Adults, Ann Wachana, Holly Hinson

McNair Symposium

Black adults living in gentrifying neighborhoods experience cultural incongruence with new, often younger, high SES and White residents. In addition, older Black adults are losing deep ties to their neighborhood. This is a major loss to their social network and their sense of belonging within their own neighborhoods. Disruption of long-standing social ties can cause changes in mental health and raises concerns about gentrification’s potentially disruptive impact on cognitive health and the brain aging process. In order to learn more about the experience of older Black adults within a rapidly changing city, focus group discussions from the Sharing History through …

Ronald E. Mcnair Scholars Program Profiles And Abstracts 2021, Mcnair Scholars Program

McNair Symposium

This is the complete event program and provides presentation abstracts and biographies of McNair scholars and their mentors.

Graphical Models In Reconstructability Analysis And Bayesian Networks, Marcus Harris, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reconstructability Analysis (RA) and Bayesian Networks (BN) are both probabilistic graphical modeling methodologies used in machine learning and artificial intelligence. There are RA models that are statistically equivalent to BN models and there are also models unique to RA and models unique to BN. The primary goal of this paper is to unify these two methodologies via a lattice of structures that offers an expanded set of models to represent complex systems more accurately or more simply. The conceptualization of this lattice also offers a framework for additional innovations beyond what is presented here. Specifically, this paper integrates RA and …

Incarceration And Suicide: Do The Risk Factors Differ For Civilians And Veterans?, Rheannon Gail Ramsey

Dissertations and Theses

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in United States jails and prisons. Many researchers have looked at suicides in prisons and what can potentially cause suicidal ideation but there are conflicting findings among civilian incarcerated populations and United States military veteran incarcerated populations.

The intent of this study is to examine which risk factors are most prevalent among adults in custody, with a focus on mental health and substance use or abuse and how these risk factors differ between incarcerated civilians and incarcerated veterans. Using survey data from the 2002 Survey of Inmates in Local Jails conducted …

The Relationship Between Regulation And Care Access In The Doula Industry, Charissa Billings

University Honors Theses

Birth doulas are unregulated service providers in the United States, who provide informational, emotional, and physical support before, during, and after birth. Currently, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate amongst the most developed nations, as well as a serious racial gap, with Black women being twice as likely to die due to pregnancy-related complications when compared to White women. Birth doulas can help close the gaps with trained support and advocacy. Since over 40% of the births in the US are covered by Medicaid, providing birth doula services to Medicaid recipients could result in improved birth outcomes. …

The Psychedelic Renaissance: A Convergence Of Indigenous Knowledge And Science, Ronan K. Peck

University Honors Theses

In recent times, psychedelics have come back into the public eye, mostly through scientific intrigue about their healing potential. In the past decade, hundreds of studies have been conducted to explore the possible benefits, or risks, that these substances could bring to people – and there is great potential being found. This is the psychedelic renaissance, and with this phenomenon in full swing, it is important to take a step back and look at the full picture of our history with these substances. By doing so, it starts to become clear that psychedelics have guided human perception and understanding of …

Travelling For Abortion Services In Mexico 2016–2019: Community-Level Contexts Of Mexico City Public Abortion Clients, Laura E. Jacobson Mph, Biani Saavedra-Avendano, Evelyn Fuentes-Rivera, Raffaela Schiavon, Blair Darney

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: To describe the community context of women who travel to access Mexico City’s public sector abortion programme and identify factors associated with travelling from highly marginalised settings.

Methods: We used data from the Interrupción Legal de Embarazo (ILE) programme (2016–2019) and identified all abortion clients who travelled from outside Mexico City. We merged in contextual information at the municipality level and used descriptive statistics to describe ILE clients’ individual characteristics and municipalities on several measures of vulnerability. We also compared municipalities that ILE clients travelled from with those where no one travelled from. We used logistic regression to identify …

Lessons From The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Role Of Socioeconomic Status In Health Outcomes, Leila Karout

Anthós

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon the world many challenges, both for the health and safety of citizens and in the public health system. Along with these challenges, pre-existing inequalities have been exacerbated. Vulnerable populations have struggled during these times not only due to their increased likelihood of pre-existing health conditions, but in finding access to quality care and treatment. Thus, it is important to discuss and examine the outcomes of this pandemic for those most at risk as this is telling to the current state of our healthcare system and what changes should be made. COVID-19 has again revealed …

Treatment Satisfaction And Self-Efficacy In Hispanic Diabetes Patients At A Free Clinic Setting, Lhanze Tum

University Honors Theses

Diabetes continues to be one of the leading causes of death within the United States, with the Hispanic population having an especially high risk of developing diabetes. Understanding the different factors that may affect adherence to diabetes self-care, such as self-efficacy, duration of diabetes, and patient treatment satisfaction is important to reduce diabetes-related health complications. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between patient self-efficacy for diabetes management and satisfaction with treatment, as well as whether the duration of diabetes is associated with self-efficacy for disease management. Baseline data was collected on 16 Hispanic patients with diabetes …

Happy 😊, Sad 😥Or Pizza 🍕: A Review Of Emoji Effects On Reading Times And Their Relation To Mood, Fetheya Alattar

University Honors Theses

With recent advancements in technology, emoji are continuously changing the way that people communicate and process language. Their use continues to evolve as a mechanism to counter the loss of the rich nonverbal cues of face-to-face communication. Subsequently, the need for research examining how emoji are processed and how they affect language and communication has become more important. This research specifically examines the scholarship on emoji effects on sentence reading times (RT) and how this relates to mood. Results on the effects of emoji on sentence RT are mixed. In some instances, emoji slowed RT and in others, they sped …

Where To Draw The Line: Evaluating Visuospatial And Attentional Processing In Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Alisha Steigerwald

University Honors Theses

Objective: We investigated visuospatial processing in individuals with autism using bisection and quadrisection tasks to evaluate the presence of a possible downward vertical spatial bias that could provide insights into the preference for attending to the mouth in ASD populations.

Methods: Twenty participants with ASD and 20 age, IQ, and sex-matched control participants were recruited (ages 6-23). Participants were asked to bisect, quadrisect from the top, and quadrisect from the bottom vertical lines placed in their left, center, and right visual spaces. Distance from the true midpoint and quadripoint were calculated and compared between the two groups.

Results: No significant …

The Digital Divide And Health: Examining Digital Access As A Social Determinant Of Health, Elizabeth Melissa Withers

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is comprised of three papers that consider ways in which one's level of digital access may impact self-rated health. Data are from multiple years of three separate nationally representative cross-sectional surveys: National Health Interview Survey, General Social Survey, and Health Information National Trends Survey to address the primary overarching research question: Is there an association between digital access and health? The examination of the relationship between digital access and health is situated within a social determinants of health perspective and draws on van Dijk's (2005) causal and sequential model of digital access. Education, income, race and ethnicity, work …

Identifying The Cost Of Preventable Chronic Disease In Prison: Can Illness Prevention Of Adults In Custody Save Money?, Molly Bineham

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates the cost of preventable health problems and ailments when compared to other costs of incarceration. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of imprisonment on the costliest chronic illness. The health of adults in custody related to the general population and the overall fiscal cost of the deadliest chronic illness among incarcerated adults is discussed. Linear regression is used to analyze the occurrence of heart disease and diabetes among adults in custody while controlling for other factors. The results of this analysis provide insight that chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes should be …