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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Pink Tax: A Comparative Case Study Between Tennessee And Washington State, Megha Chitturi May 2023

The Pink Tax: A Comparative Case Study Between Tennessee And Washington State, Megha Chitturi

Baker Scholar Projects

The imposition of an additional luxury tax on menstrual health products, otherwise referred to as the “Pink Tax” or the “Tampon Tax”, is present in some states while absent in others. The decision to repeal such a tax is one that has proven to be critical, as it removes the connotation that such products are of “luxury” and make them more accessible to menstruators throughout the state. As of 2023, twenty-three states have eliminated the tax. The state of Washington falls under that parameter while Tennessee does not. The purpose of this undergraduate honors thesis is to explore the potential …


Competing For Innovation: A Case Study Of Knoxville And Similar Metropolitan Areas, Lucille G. Marret May 2023

Competing For Innovation: A Case Study Of Knoxville And Similar Metropolitan Areas, Lucille G. Marret

Baker Scholar Projects

Knoxville competes with other mid-sized metropolitan areas for economic development and business attraction at the national level. Cities such as Greenville, SC, Huntsville, AL, and Ann Arbor, MI have similar resources and attributes to Knoxville, yet they are consistently surpassing Knoxville in business attraction and expansion. It is necessary for policy makers to understand what factors are contributing to underperformance in order to better support Knoxville’s efforts to create an innovation fund. Comparing available assets and access to funding for each MSA reveals that Knoxville has the necessary resources through the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to …


Centrality And Compliance: Unitary Vs. Federalist Political Systems In The Implementation Of The Kyoto Protocol In Argentina And Uruguay, Aidan Homan May 2023

Centrality And Compliance: Unitary Vs. Federalist Political Systems In The Implementation Of The Kyoto Protocol In Argentina And Uruguay, Aidan Homan

Baker Scholar Projects

When Uruguay and Argentina first gained their respective independence in the early 1800s, they appeared to be following the same path of development As countries that came from the same Spanish colonization, share almost identical agricultural economies, and retain a close relationship, it is logical that they would follow similar trajectories. This assumption proves to be inaccurate in more ways than one, but most prominently within the environmental sphere. One way to analyze this difference in policy implementation lies in compliance with international environmental treaties which contain specific goals and limits for all parties involved. The Kyoto Protocol presents a …


Does Electoral Proximity Influence Commitment To International Human Rights Law?, Nolan Ragland May 2023

Does Electoral Proximity Influence Commitment To International Human Rights Law?, Nolan Ragland

Baker Scholar Projects

The core international human rights treaties from the United Nations have been signed and ratified by varying groups of states, and much of previous research has been dominated by a desire to explain ratification of international human rights law (IHRL) through the democratic lock-in effect and states’ economic and political ties to one another. In this paper, I seek to understand when states are ratifying IHRL, testing whether the presence of elections influences commitment to three of the nine core international human rights treaties: the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of …


Serving American Veterans: A Review And Analysis Of Gaps In Service In The Needs Of Veterans, Mary Elisabeth Germann May 2023

Serving American Veterans: A Review And Analysis Of Gaps In Service In The Needs Of Veterans, Mary Elisabeth Germann

Baker Scholar Projects

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is the agency of the federal government that is responsible for providing benefits, health care, and cemetery services to US military Veterans and their families. About a quarter of the nation’s population, approximately 70 million people, are potentially eligible for VA benefits and services because they are veterans, family members, or survivors of veterans. Due to this expansive demand, the United States has developed the most comprehensive system of Veterans assistance programs in the World. But many argue that the US VA still falls short of expectations and fails to fulfill the needs …


The Development Of Health System Resiliency: How Kenya's Experience With Malaria Impacted Its Reaction To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zoe A. Ward May 2023

The Development Of Health System Resiliency: How Kenya's Experience With Malaria Impacted Its Reaction To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Zoe A. Ward

Baker Scholar Projects

Public health scholars have recently focused on health system resiliency to explain how previous experiences dealing with public health crises impact the healthcare sector, public behavior, and policy response to novel crises. However, it is unclear how resiliency develops. This study contributes by testing whether a health system’s experience with a health emergency and significant interventions impacts the response to a novel crisis. This research asks, “How has Kenya’s experience with malaria impacted its response to COVID-19?” Using the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS), I develop a malaria adherence score to measure county-level compliance …


Ballad Health: Understanding Appalachia’S Regional Healthcare Monopoly, Meredith A. Bailey May 2023

Ballad Health: Understanding Appalachia’S Regional Healthcare Monopoly, Meredith A. Bailey

Baker Scholar Projects

The Ballad Health merger of 2018, which combined the now 21 hospitals in the region under one organization, has impacted the healthcare landscape in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Historically, Appalachia has had to persevere through primary physician shortages, a lack of specialty care, geographic obstacles to accessing healthcare, challenges related to substance abuse, and much more. Since the merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System, little research has been done to assess the perceived impact the aggregation of providers has had on the population it serves. This study utilizes an online survey to better understand the …


The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Scott May 2023

The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Scott

Baker Scholar Projects

Since 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has long been viewed as an economic trading partner of the United States of America (US). The PRC has grown to be an economic powerhouse, and the US directly helped with that process and still benefits from it. However, during the mid-2010’s, US rhetoric began to turn sour against the PRC. The American government rhetoric toward the PRC, beginning with the Obama administration, switched. As Trump’s administration came along, they bolstered this rhetoric from non-friendly to more or less hostile. Then, Biden’s administration strengthened Trump’s rhetoric. Over the past ten years or …


The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Craig Scott May 2023

The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Craig Scott

Baker Scholar Projects

Since 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has long been viewed as an economic trading partner of the United States of America (US). The PRC has grown to be an economic powerhouse, and the US directly helped with that process and still benefits from it. However, during the mid-2010’s, US rhetoric began to turn sour against the PRC. The American government rhetoric toward the PRC, beginning with the Obama administration, switched. As Trump’s administration came along, they bolstered this rhetoric from non-friendly to more or less hostile. Then, Biden’s administration strengthened Trump’s rhetoric. Over the past ten years or …


The Practice Environment For Nurse Anesthetists In Tennessee, Taylor Cathey, Jessica Hobbs, Matthew Owen, Alexis Varney, James Alberding, Tausha Alexander Apr 2023

The Practice Environment For Nurse Anesthetists In Tennessee, Taylor Cathey, Jessica Hobbs, Matthew Owen, Alexis Varney, James Alberding, Tausha Alexander

Graduate Publications and Other Selected Works - Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Potential consequences of anesthesia provider shortages may include a reduction in health care access, poor patient outcomes, and increased costs to government funded agencies. Current leaders in the anesthesia profession need to establish a work environment that is embracing, supportive, and safe so that certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNA) can remain healthy and productive. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) scholarly project was to provide an overview of the current CRNA practice environment in Tennessee and advocate for policies to promote CRNA retention and enhance patient access to care. The overarching goal included gathering sufficient evidence regarding …