Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Reimagining A Caregiver-Friendly Society, Jodi L. Southerland

Journal of Appalachian Health

Demographic aging is accelerating in the Appalachian Region, resulting in a growing proportion of caregivers living in areas that lack services to support their needs. Strategies are urgently needed in Appalachia to address deficiencies in the region’s long-term supports and services for older adults and their caregivers. Strengthening equitable access to care and community supports for family caregivers is a policy priority for state and community leaders in Appalachia.

An Overview Across Three Generational Packages: Pioneer Generation, Merdeka Generation, And Young Seniors, Paulin T. Straughan, Yi Wen Tan, Rachel Ngu, Zidane Tiew, Wensi Lim

ROSA Research Briefs

In Singapore, there has been a concerted effort to implement diverse programs and initiatives to cater to the needs of the ageing demographic. In Singapore, it is expected that those aged 65 and above will make up 27% of the population by 2030 (Soh et al., 2020). It is also crucial to acknowledge that within this ageing population, each cohort follows a distinct life trajectory (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2010). For instance, older generations in Singapore may have navigated through uniqueevents like World War II, profoundly impacting their life trajectories. Meanwhile, newer generations are likely to experience remarkable economic growth alongside …

Key Determinants Of Life Satisfaction In Older Adults, Barry Nuqoba, Yi Wen Tan, Yen Cong Wong, Wensi Lim

ROSA Research Briefs

Life satisfaction constitutes a fundamental facet of wellbeing, exerting an influence on an individual's mental and emotional state (Zissi & Barry, 2006). Among older adults, elevated levels of life satisfaction are frequently linked to a more optimistic outlook, contributing to improved health and resilience (Khodabakhsh, 2022; Zheng, Huang, & Fu, 2020). This in turn enhances societal involvement, both in the professional and social domains (Khodabakhsh, 2022). It is also vital to acknowledge that life satisfaction is a multifaceted construct, intricately influenced by an array of external and internal determinants. Life satisfaction is essentially a subjective judgement and assessment of one’s …

Family, Work, Economy, Or Social Policy: Examining Poverty Among Children Of Single Mothers In Affluent Democracies Between 1985-2016, Amie Bostic

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Children of single mothers face higher rates of poverty than children in two-parent households in practically every affluent democracy. While this difference is widely acknowledged, there is little consensus regarding the causes of their poverty and, as a result, little consensus on the best way to address poverty among these children. Explanations include both individual-level, structural, and political explanations in four areas: family structure, labor force activity, economic performance, and welfare generosity. Previous research, however, tends to focus on only one of these four aspects at a time. Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study and the Organisation for Economic …

Assessing The Influence Of Food Insecurity And Retail Environments As A Proxy For Structural Racism On The Covid-19 Pandemic In An Urban Setting, Rachael D. Dombrowski, Alex B. Hill, Bree Bode, Kathrybn A. G Knoff, Hadis Dastgerdizad, Noel Kulik, James Mallare, Kibibi Blount-Dorn, Winona Bynum

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

A collaborative partnership launched the Great Grocer Project (GGP) in March 2021 in Detroit, Michigan where health inequities, including deaths due to COVID-19, have historically been politically determined and informed by socially entrenched norms. Institutional and structural racism has contributed to a lack of diversity in store ownership among Detroit grocers and limited access to high-quality, affordable healthy foods as well as disparate food insecurity among Detroit residents. The GGP seeks to promote Detroit’s healthy grocers to improve community health and economic vitality through research, programs, and policies that have the potential to advance health equity. A cross-sectional design was …

Substance Use Awareness: A Unique Look At Social Policy For Children And Families, Malik Hamm

Community Engagement Student Work

This work is a collection of substance use and addiction research gathered in order to assess substance abuse treatment and services in regard to equity and inclusion. The history of the U.S. government’s approach to substance use policy has led to stigma, criminality, and marginalization between groups in our community. Youth and families of all demographics are looking for ethical, informed mental health and substance use services to provide the best outcomes. Stigmatizing language, overly marketed tobacco and alcohol products, restrictive policy, and rigid law-enforcement tactics promoting the criminality of both adults and juveniles for possession, trafficking, and operating under …

Three Essays On Governance, Inequality, And Social Equity, Sarah Ausmus Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Comprised of three essays, my dissertation is linked by a common focus: the relationship between state or local governance arrangements and inequality or facets of social equity. I draw upon a range of literatures to motivate my research questions and inform my methodologies—welfare and social policy, public economics, intergovernmental relations, public finance and management.

In the first essay, I ask: does localizing welfare governance impact geospatial access to the social safety net? This is an important question because proximity is highly salient to program utilization. I geocode the location of human services nonprofits from tax filings in eight states using …

Ipv At The Margins: Conceptualizing Gaps In The Survivor Safety Net For Lower-Income Black Women, Cristina Toppin

Honors Program Theses

This paper evaluates U.S. social and criminal justice policies in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV) against lower-income Black women in the U.S. Theories from the literature on IPV and gender-based violence (GBV) at-large, as well as the literature on inequity, are utilized to examine how entrenched racist, sexist, and classist ideas influence policymaking. It is argued that this process has resulted in policies that reinforce the higher rates of IPV against lower-income Black women as compared to their upper-income white peers. Two overarching research questions are addressed to support this argument. First, how have pejorative stereotypes against Black …

Preparation And Response To Covid-19: An Exploratory Analysis Of Policy Response Spending And Health Expenditures In 20 Oecd Countries, Anis Ben Brik, Neil Gilbert

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article examines the comparative impact of COVID-19 in terms of the number of cases per capita and the per capita mortality rate and analyzes the relationships between these impact estimates and three policy measures in 20 OECD countries, controlling for the population over age 65. The policy measures involve public and private health expenditures prior to the pandemic onset and per capita fiscal expenditures devoted to policies designed to address the pandemic, which are identified in the International Monetary Fund’s policy tracker. The findings show no relationship between the policy measures and COVID-19 when controlling for the population over …

Defining Worthy Victims: State-Level Legislative Decisions To Prevent The Criminalization Of Commercially Sexually Exploited Children In The United States, Kathleen A. Price

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) includes children (anyone under 18) who are sexually exploited for commercial purposes in its definition of human trafficking victims. However, most states currently arrest and/or prosecute sex trafficked children for prostitution. From 2008 to 2017, six states neither arrested nor prosecuted sexually exploited children for prostitution; eight retained the right to arrest, but not prosecute minors for prostitution; and 36 states both arrested and prosecuted this population for prostitution. All 50 states passed their first human trafficking laws between 2003 and 2013. Washington passed the first in 2003 and Wyoming was …

Independent Women? Social Class And Social Policy After The Gender Revolution In The West, Berglind H. Ragnarsdóttir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The gender revolution of the mid-20^th century resulted in extensive changes in social, economic, and policy realms. With their unprecedented entrance into the paid labor market, women moved toward greater economic independence. However, it remains unclear whether these changes in women’s economic well-being resulted in positive change for women across the class spectrum. The large-scale entrance of women into paid labor was not accompanied by men’s equal take up in unpaid domestic work. Thus, women found themselves struggling to balance work and family life and as a result, gender inequality in employment outcomes persists. In this dissertation I explore …

An Analysis Of Poverty In Latin America And Three Community Development Strategies As A Solution, Grace Higgins

Selected Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze three community development models and the impact they have on poverty in Latin America. This thesis also develops an understanding of how inequality effects poverty in Latin America and explores three community development strategies that could be implemented in Latin America consisting of agropolitan development, modernization development, and development by market expansion. In addition to these three development models, this thesis analyzes critical factors that contribute to the sustainability of a community, and how each of the three models incorporate or do not incorporate those factors.

Frameworks Of Recovery: Exploring The Intersection Of Policy & Decision-Making Processes After Hurricane Katrina, Kim Mosby

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to understand how local and national newspaper articles and African American residents frame obstacles to returning to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It explores how recovery planning processes and policy changes influenced the decision-making processes of African Americans displaced to Houston through a content analysis of the media and qualitative interviews with displaced and returned residents. The study shows the media and participants framed disaster recovery policies as creating opportunities and gaps in assistance that varied by location. Participants described how policy decisions that created gaps in assistance compounded the difficulty of returning for working- and middle-class …

Family Environments And Children's Cognitive Skills: Accounting For Heritable Influences Through Comparing Adopted And Biological Children, Shelby Mae Mcneill

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing ECLS-K:2011 data, this study compares adopted and biological children to account for the role of heritable characteristics in explaining the relationship between family environments and children's cognitive skills. I find that cognitive skills do not differ across adopted and biological children after adjusting for the systematic differences between them. I also find that the relationship between family environment and children's cognitive skills does not differ across adopted and biological children. Taken together, these results suggest that the relationship between family environment and children's cognitive skills is not spurious.

Towards Active Ageing: A Comparative Study Of Experiences Of Older Ghanaians In Australia And Ghana, Daniel Doh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Population ageing has become a central feature of the 21st century, as most countries search for economically viable strategies to support and manage their ageing populations to live in a dignified way. In 2002, the World Health Organisation (WHO) proposed the active ageing policy framework to guide countries to develop policies that promote the quality of life for their older people. However, the interpretation and application of the active ageing model in the literature and policy discussions are inconclusive on the most important elements that promote the quality of life of older people. The discussions have largely focused on health …

Policy Brief No. 6 - Age Of Pension Eligibility, Life Expectancy, And Social Policy, Frank T. Denton, Byron G. Spencer

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Research/Policy Brief

As the baby-boom generation retires over the next two decades, there will be a sharp increase in the fraction of the population eligible to receive public pension benefits. This increase would happen even without ongoing reductions in mortality rates and the resultant increases in life expectancy. However, reductions in mortality mean that the impact will be even greater, especially if no offsetting adjustment is made to the age at which people are eligible to receive pension benefits. Continued gains in life expectancy, when not accompanied by an extension of working life, result in increasingly large fractions of the human lifespan …

The Fiscalization Of Social Policy : Tax Expenditures And The Cultural Legacies Of Public Policies, Joshua Thomas Mccabe

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines the politics behind the increasing use of tax expenditures as tools for social policy in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. Tax expenditures, particularly in-work and child tax credits, have grown into major components of social policy across a number of countries since the 1970s. While some scholars have noted this increasing "fiscalization" of social policy, our current theories of welfare states struggle to explain this expansion across all three countries in an era of "permanent austerity" as well as variation in the distribution of these tax credits between the U.S. on one hand and Canada …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Individual And Society: Sociological Social Psychology, Lizabeth A. Crawford, Katherine B. Novak

Katherine B. Novak

Can Policy To Address Some Rights Address Breaches Of Other Disability Rights?, Sally Robinson, Karen Fisher Assoc Prof

Professor Sally Robinson

Governments must implement the UN CRPD. In practice, government prioritises policies relating to some rights more highly than others. This unequal implementation relates in part to constraints on government, including competing interests, multiple participants and incremental policy change. In the context of these constraints, can differential policy priorities address breaches of other disability rights? This paper tests this question in relation to support for people living in boarding houses in Queensland, focusing particularly on residents with intellectual disability. Among the core disability rights are the rights to housing and housing support (Article 19). For some people living in boarding houses, …

Conceptualizing Age-Friendly Community Characteristics In A Sample Of Urban Elders: An Exploratory Factor Analysis, Richard J. Smith, Amanda J. Lehning, Ruth E. Dunkle

Social Work Faculty Publications

Accurate conceptualization and measurement of age-friendly community characteristics would help to reduce barriers to documenting the effects on elders of interventions to create such communities. This article contributes to the measurement of age-friendly communities through an exploratory factor analysis of items reflecting an existing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policy framework. From a sample of urban elders (n =1,376), we identified six factors associated with demographic and health characteristics: Access to Business and Leisure, Social Interaction, Access to Health Care, Neighborhood Problems, Social Support, and Community Engagement. Future research should explore the effects of …

Dating Violence Policy: Making The Grade, Richard Hoefer, Beverly Black, Mashooq Salehin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Dating violence rates affect an unacceptably high percentage of youth. This paper tests a model to understand the considerable variation in state dating violence policy comprehensiveness. Independent variables in the model are state political culture, partisan control of political institutions, prevalence of dating violence, and median household income. Bivariate results show partial support for preliminary hypotheses. Regression analysis indicates that strength of Democratic Party control of governmental institutions is the only variable in the model that achieved statistical significance. Implications and recommendations for future research are provided.

Poverty, Work And Social Networks: The Role Of Social Capital For Aboriginal People In Urban Australian Locales, Julie Lahn

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

In this article, I present the key findings from a project entitled “The Social Context of Indigenous Poverty”. The research involved a series of interviews with Aboriginal people in urban SE Australia on issues of poverty, social capital and social exclusion. In the article I draw together Aboriginal perspectives on the meaning of poverty to reflect on the relevance of social capital concepts for understanding Aboriginal economic disadvantage and hence, the merits of policy framed in these terms.

Perceived Job Readiness Among The Previously Incarcerated, Amy Audet

Honors Projects

This study aims to determine the primary factor in employment readiness for previously incarcerated individuals. Ex offenders were were surveyed for job readiness using a scale developed in the studies' literature review. This scale emcompasses factors such as skills, knowledge, confidence and goals. Surveys were also done according to age, age of first incarceration, incarceration history and job training history. Because this population is marginalized, this study may bring new awareness about the effects of employer discrimination and the need for future programs to increase job readiness among the previously incarcerated individuals.

Unmet Social Needs In Singapore: Singapore's Social Structures And Policies, And Their Impact On Six Vulnerable Communities, Braema Mathi, Sharifah Mohamed

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

In line with Lien Centre’s vision to catalyse positive social change, this research was carried out to understand social gaps in Singapore and how our society’s ability to meet social needs can be enhanced. Despite basic social needs in Singapore being essentially met through direct government interventions and the contributions of non-governmental social service activities, there are today some vulnerable groups that remain or have become more prominent. This research project aims to identify some of these needs and the possible approaches to addressing them.

It is hoped that some of the recommendations of this report will be helpful for …

Sozialpolitik Nach Dem Verursacherprinzip : Beispiele Der Anwendung Bei Sucht, Gewichtsproblemen, Medikamentenmissbrauch, Arbeitslosigkeit, Prostitution, Isidor Wallimann

Books

Dieses einzigartige Buch ist der "Praxisband" des bekannten und renommierten Experten im Bereich der modernen Sozialpolitik. In mehr und mehr Ländern wird punktuell das Verursacherprinzip auch in der Sozial- und Gesundheitspolitik angewendet, leider zu bruchstückhaft und oft wenig reflektiert. Sozialpolitik nach dem Verursacherprinzip ist genau jenes Thema, dass kontroversiell diskutiert wird. Prominente Fallbeispiele wie zB im Bereich der Tabakindustrie in den USA prägen die Diskussion und gesellschaftspolitischen Diskurse.

Im Idealfall sollen mit dem Verursacherprinzip Soziale Probleme und Belastungen an alle dafür verantwortlichen Akteure zurückgebunden und so vermieden werden. Akteure, die andern Schaden zufügen, müssen dafür die Verantwortung übernehmen. Kosten zu …

The Emergence Of Latin America: A Break With History?, Mauricio Cardenas

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

The idea is to discuss recent economic and social trends in Latin America, many of which defy the conventional wisdom in the U.S. about the region. At the same time, the region is divided between two ideological camps, so progress will not be uniform between countries. Understanding the origins and implications of the ideological divide is crucial.

Indigenous Health – Australia, Canada, New Zealand And The United States - Laying Claim To A Future That Embraces Health For Us All., Lisa Jackson Pulver, Melissa R. Haswell, Ian Ring, John Waldon, Wayne Clark, Valorie Whetung, Dianne Kinnon, Catherine Graham, Michelle Chino, Jonathon Lavalley, Christina Compher, Ritu Sadana

Public Health Faculty Publications

Improving the health of all peoples has been a call across the globe for many decades and unfortunately remains relevant today, particularly given the large disparities in health status of peoples found around the world. Rather than differences in health, or health inequalities, we use a different term, health inequities. This is so as mere differences in health (or "inequalities") can be common in societies and do not necessarily reflect unfair social policies or practices. For example, natural ageing implies older people are more prone to illness. Yet, when differences are systematic, socially produced and unfair, these are considered health …

Re-Imagining The Nature Of Development: Biodiversity Conservation And Pastoral Visions In The Northern Areas, Pakistan, Nosheen Ali

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

Examines how, in the mountainous village of Shimshal, national parks and “community-based” conservation projects such as trophy hunting are deeply problematic, promoting exploitive ideologies of nature and development while delegitimizing the values and rights of pastoralists. The Shimshalis have creatively resisted the appropriations of their land by creating a Shimshal Nature Trust, implementing a model of ecological sovereignty instead of “community participation”—challenging the very logic of protected areas in international conservation.

Resurrecting Smelser: Collective Power, Generalized Belief, And Hegemonic Spaces, Mikaila M. L. Arthur

Faculty Publications

When people mobilize for collective action, it is because they want something. These wants are known as grievances, and in order for them to emerge, collectivities must break free of hegemonic power to see their true interests. This paper takes a new look at Smelser's The Logic of Collective Action and finds that by incorporating a robust understanding of power, Smelser's framework can provide an understanding of grievance emergence.