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Portland State University

2012

Sociology

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Articles 1 - 30 of 44

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Civic Ecology: Living Community Systems For Sustainability, Tim Smith Nov 2012

Civic Ecology: Living Community Systems For Sustainability, Tim Smith

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

Civic Ecology is a stakeholder-driven, whole systems framework for creating sustainable communities. The framework focuses on empowering citizens of all ages, cultures, and abilities to envision, create, and manage their community’s unique “software” -- the integrated energy, nutrient, water, waste, material, and food systems, as well as economic flows and cultural interactions that animate their place. Exploring and supporting these flows allows communities to enhance their local wealth (environmental, economic, and social), resilience, and competitiveness, and help them take control of designing and managing their future through collaboration and innovation. The Civic Ecology framework can be the foundation upon which …


Health Behaviour Changes After Diagnosis Of Chronic Illness Among Canadians Aged 50 Or Older, Jason T. Newsom, Nathalie Huguet, Pamela L. Ramage-Morin, Michael Joseph Mccarthy, Julie Bernier, Mark S. Kaplan, Bentson H. Mcfarland Nov 2012

Health Behaviour Changes After Diagnosis Of Chronic Illness Among Canadians Aged 50 Or Older, Jason T. Newsom, Nathalie Huguet, Pamela L. Ramage-Morin, Michael Joseph Mccarthy, Julie Bernier, Mark S. Kaplan, Bentson H. Mcfarland

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Changes in health behaviors (smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and fruit and vegetable consumption) after diagnosis of chronic health conditions (heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, and diabetes) were examined among Canadians aged 50 or older. Results from 12 years of longitudinal data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey indicated relatively modest changes in behavior. Although significant decreases in smoking were observed among all groups except those with respiratory disease, at least 75% of smokers did not quit. No significant changes emerged in the percentage meeting physical activity recommendations, except those with diabetes, or in excessive alcohol consumption, except …


Lower Nutritional Status And Higher Food Insufficiency In Frail Older Us Adults, Ellen Smit, Kerri M. Winters-Stone, Paul D. Loprinzi, Alice M. Tang, Carlos J. Crespo Nov 2012

Lower Nutritional Status And Higher Food Insufficiency In Frail Older Us Adults, Ellen Smit, Kerri M. Winters-Stone, Paul D. Loprinzi, Alice M. Tang, Carlos J. Crespo

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Frailty is a state of decreased physical functioning and a significant complication of ageing. We examined frailty, energy and macronutrient intake, biomarkers of nutritional status and food insufficiency in US older adult (age ≥ 60 years) participants of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (4731). Frailty was defined as meeting ≥ 2 and pre-frailty as meeting one of the following four-item criteria: (1) slow walking; (2) muscular weakness; (3) exhaustion and (4) low physical activity. Intake was assessed by 24 h dietary recall. Food insufficiency was self-reported as ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ not having enough food to eat. Analyses …


System Dynamics Modeling Of Prescription Opioid Pain Reliever Abuse, Alexandra Nielsen Oct 2012

System Dynamics Modeling Of Prescription Opioid Pain Reliever Abuse, Alexandra Nielsen

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

The nonmedical use of prescription opioid pain relievers and associated overdose deaths have been labeled an epidemic by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. While these medicines play an important role in the treatment of pain, the benefits of opioids for the treatment of pain need to be balanced against these very real risks. Alex has been working closely with Professor Wayne Wakeland, Teresa Schmidt, and Dr. Dennis McCarty (OHSU) to create a dynamic systems-level model of opioid use, abuse, and diversion in order to give context to current research in this area and to provide a better understanding …


Police Use Of Force: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Oct 2012

Police Use Of Force: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone

Criminology and Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Project

Our research led to 22 articles with information relevant to the subject of police use of force. The studies explored a variety of topics, ranging from media coverage of force to characteristics of deadly force encounters and many issues in between. The information presented below is a summary of the most significant and useful data gathered from these studies. The material has been divided into five categories: Definitions and Prevalence, Suspects (those who experience force), Officers (those who use force), Patterns of the practice, and Implications, which include best practices or prevention over abuse. The “Definitions and Prevalence” section provides …


Body Mass Index And The Risk Of Prostate Cancer, Daniel Lee Mcgee, Carlos J. Crespo Oct 2012

Body Mass Index And The Risk Of Prostate Cancer, Daniel Lee Mcgee, Carlos J. Crespo

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: This article presents cohort studies that use data from the National Health Information Survey from 1986 to 1994 and compares the effectiveness of Cox proportional hazards models that assume a linear relationship between body mass index (BMI) and the risk of prostate cancer with models that assume a J-shaped relationship. Methods and results: Our study found that for black males over 40 years of age, neither a linear nor a J-shaped relationship yielded a statistically significant model. With white males over 40 years, assuming a linear relationship did not yield a statistically significant model (P = 0.582). When we …


Predictive Policing: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Jul 2012

Predictive Policing: A Review Of The Literature, Portland State University. Criminology And Criminal Justice Senior Capstone

Criminology and Criminal Justice Senior Capstone Project

Improving knowledge of crime and crime causation is an important focus for many law enforcement agencies. Many believe such knowledge can be used to predict crime and criminal behavior. Predictive policing is one of a variety of strategies developed by law enforcement personnel and researchers. The practice of law enforcement is frequently reactive, in nature, where police officers respond to crimes after they have been committed. In an effort to prevent future crimes, however, those with an interest in prevention have also added the strategy of proactive policing, where information and advanced analyses are added to their repertoire of approaches. …


Toward A Culture Of Healing: Why Alternative Therapies And A Feminist Framework Are Needed In The Care Of Pregnant Women And Treatment Of Postpartum Mood Disorders, Angela Leonardo Jul 2012

Toward A Culture Of Healing: Why Alternative Therapies And A Feminist Framework Are Needed In The Care Of Pregnant Women And Treatment Of Postpartum Mood Disorders, Angela Leonardo

Anthós

Pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood are areas of human development that have systematically migrated away from their roots as a series of natural life events to a highly, and perhaps unnecessarily, medicalized arena. This shift has been detrimental for women, especially for poor, socially isolated, single, and/or ethnic minority women. In this paper, I outline my concerns with the increased medicalization of birth and postpartum care, as well as with the status of mothers in the United States, and critically examine the patriarchal context in which this shift has occurred. My focus is on maternal health and mortality, including depression …


Narrative Processes In Urban Planning: A Case Study Of Swamp Gravy In Colquitt, Georgia, Ronald David Pate Jul 2012

Narrative Processes In Urban Planning: A Case Study Of Swamp Gravy In Colquitt, Georgia, Ronald David Pate

Dissertations and Theses

In 1990 many in Colquitt, Georgia considered themselves to be a dying town due to the loss of jobs and outmigration that occurred when labor intensive farming transitioned to the machine. In response citizens brought in a theater director from Chicago who helped them launch a performance series of inclusive stories that were acted by local volunteers. The resulting series called Swamp Gravy has run from 1992 to present (2012), and has led to purported claims of community revitalization. The purpose of this study was to discover what this ongoing narrative community engagement meant to the people of Colquitt in …


Complexity Theory & Political Change: Talcott Parsons Occupies Wall Street [Presentation], Martin Zwick Jun 2012

Complexity Theory & Political Change: Talcott Parsons Occupies Wall Street [Presentation], Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Complexity theory can assist our understanding of social systems and social phenomena. This paper illustrates this assertion by linking Talcott Parsons' model of societal structure to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Parsons' model is used to organize ideas about the underlying causes of the recession that currently afflicts the US. While being too abstract to depict the immediate factors that precipitated this crisis, the model is employed to articulate the argument that vulnerability to this type of event results from flaws in societal structure. This implies that such crises can be avoided only if, in Parsons' terms, structural change occurs …


Complexity Theory & Political Change: Talcott Parsons Occupies Wall Street, Martin Zwick Jun 2012

Complexity Theory & Political Change: Talcott Parsons Occupies Wall Street, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Complexity theory can assist our understanding of social systems and social phenomena. This paper illustrates this assertion by linking Talcott Parsons' model of societal structure to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Parsons' model is used to organize ideas about the underlying causes of the recession that currently afflicts the US. While being too abstract to depict the immediate factors that precipitated this crisis, the model is employed to articulate the argument that vulnerability to this type of event results from flaws in societal structure. This implies that such crises can be avoided only if, in Parsons' terms, structural change occurs …


Religion And Infant Mortality In The United States: A Community-Level Investigation Of Denominational Variations, Ginny Garcia-Alexander, John P. Bartkowski, Xiaohe Xu May 2012

Religion And Infant Mortality In The United States: A Community-Level Investigation Of Denominational Variations, Ginny Garcia-Alexander, John P. Bartkowski, Xiaohe Xu

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A burgeoning body of scholarship has explored the influence of community-level religiosity (religious ecology) on various health outcomes. In this study, we enlist data from the Glenmary Census of Churches, county-level infant mortality rates from the NCHS, and select Census data to investigate the relationship between infant mortality and religion. Our study employs both aggregate analyses of major faith traditions (conservative Protestant, mainline Protestant, Catholic, and other religions) as well as decomposition analyses that subdivide conservative Protestants into four variants: fundamentalist, evangelical, Pentecostal, and other conservative Protestant. Our preliminary findings suggest that counties with a high prevalence of Catholic and …


Beyond Race Cards In America's Pastime: An Appreciative Reply To Findlay And Santos, Robert Muñoz May 2012

Beyond Race Cards In America's Pastime: An Appreciative Reply To Findlay And Santos, Robert Muñoz

Chicano/Latino Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this reply, I salute the correction, replication, and extensions carried out by David Findlay and John Santos (2012) based on my jointly authored paper Hewitt, Muñoz, Oliver, and Regoli (2005). I expound briefly on why, even though we and they have found no statistically significant race-discrimination effect in baseball card prices, we should not be quick to diminish the role of racial thinking and racial preference—especially as the sample was restricted to Hall of Famers.


Visualizing Fair Trade Coffee, Daniel Jaffee, Philip Howard Apr 2012

Visualizing Fair Trade Coffee, Daniel Jaffee, Philip Howard

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The fair trade certification world has entered a period of major change. The recent departure of Fair Trade USA from the international certification system led by Fair Trade International (formerly FLO), and its decision to develop separate U.S. standards that permit certification of plantation-produced coffee, cocoa, and other crops, has thrown the meaning of the U.S. fair trade label into question. The recent appearance of a new certification—The Institute for Marketecology (IMO) “Fair For Life” label—has made the panorama even more complex. These developments follow a decade of struggles within the fair trade movement over the nature of its relationship …


The Subtleties Of Social Exclusion: Race, Social Class, And The Exclusion Of Blacks In A Racially Mixed Neighborhood, Daniel Monroe Sullivan, Jonathan Picarsic Apr 2012

The Subtleties Of Social Exclusion: Race, Social Class, And The Exclusion Of Blacks In A Racially Mixed Neighborhood, Daniel Monroe Sullivan, Jonathan Picarsic

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

We use interviews, content analysis, and surveys to describe how a neighborhood association in a racially mixed neighborhood in Portland, Oregon (USA) subtly excludes many blacks from being full members of the neighborhood. In contrast to explicit cases of social exclusion, this neighborhood association excludes blacks without ever referring to race. They instead justify their actions—e.g., helping close down a black social club and discouraging more affordable housing—based on such nonracial goals as increasing homeownership, minimizing crime, and maximizing “economic diversity.” We argue that without the inclusion of black residents and their neighborhood organizations (e.g., churches) in the decision-making process, …


Home Forward’S Aging In Place Initiative: Planning For Current And Future Residents, Paula C. Carder, Jenny Weinstein, Jacklyn Nicole Kohon Feb 2012

Home Forward’S Aging In Place Initiative: Planning For Current And Future Residents, Paula C. Carder, Jenny Weinstein, Jacklyn Nicole Kohon

Institute on Aging Publications

This report was prepared on behalf of the Aging in Place Initiative of Home Forward. The Initiative sought to gather information about older persons currently residing in Home Forward’s public housing properties, from persons age 55 and older on the waitlist for housing, and from older adults in the Portland area. While local data were unavailable at the time of this report, we know that nationally, more than one-third (37 percent) of the approximately 5 million households receiving housing assistance from HUD are headed by persons age 62 and older. With this in mind, Home Forward must make decisions now …


Complexity Theory And Political Change: Talcott Parsons Occupies Wall Street, Martin Zwick Jan 2012

Complexity Theory And Political Change: Talcott Parsons Occupies Wall Street, Martin Zwick

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

Complexity theory can assist our understanding of social systems and social phenomena. This paper illustrates this assertion by linking Talcott Parsons' model of societal structure to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Parsons' model is used to organize ideas about the underlying causes of the recession that currently afflicts the US. While being too abstract to depict the immediate factors that precipitated this crisis, the model is employed to articulate the argument that vulnerability to this type of event results from flaws in societal structure. This implies that such crises can be avoided only if, in Parsons' terms, structural change occurs …


Gateway Center For Domestic Violence Evaluation Report, Portland State University. Hatfield School Of Government. Center For Public Service, Masami Nishishiba, Mathew Jones, Jillian Girard Jan 2012

Gateway Center For Domestic Violence Evaluation Report, Portland State University. Hatfield School Of Government. Center For Public Service, Masami Nishishiba, Mathew Jones, Jillian Girard

Center for Public Service Publications and Reports

The Gateway Center for Domestic Violence, which opened in September 2010, is governed by the terms of an intergovernmental agreement between the City of Portland and Multnomah County, Oregon. The intergovernmental agreement established an Advisory Council. It also requires a formal evaluation of the Center. This report assesses the Gateway Center’s operation based on the success measures identified by the Gateway Center Advisory Council.


Drinking With Friends: A Cellular Automata Approach To Modeling Peer Influence On Binge Drinking Behavior, Piper Jackson, Andrew Reid, Niki Huitson, Kathryn Wuschke, Vahid Dabbaghian Jan 2012

Drinking With Friends: A Cellular Automata Approach To Modeling Peer Influence On Binge Drinking Behavior, Piper Jackson, Andrew Reid, Niki Huitson, Kathryn Wuschke, Vahid Dabbaghian

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this project, we adopt Cellular Automata (CA) modeling as a means to focus solely on the elements of concern: individual state (binging) and local interactions (peer pressure). CA models are well suited for exploring the dynamics that occur within a population, and are useful for visualizing the clustering behaviour of communities. With this more abstract approach, it is possible to simulate large populations with reasonable computational requirements.


Crime Emergence And Simulation Modeling: Modeling Crime Space, Patricia Brantingham, Kathryn Wuschke, Richard Frank, Paul J. Brantingham Jan 2012

Crime Emergence And Simulation Modeling: Modeling Crime Space, Patricia Brantingham, Kathryn Wuschke, Richard Frank, Paul J. Brantingham

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter explores several new modeling approaches and research findings, showing how they may be used to explore and enhance theory. There is a special emphasis on Target Choice Selection, focusing on Crime Pattern Theory and the Geometry of Crime (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1978a, 1984, 1991; Brantingham and Brantingham, 1981, 1993a, 2008). This exploration is described through a series of research examples and a case study of the target choice behavior of high repeat offenders. The goal is to explore the emergence of patterns better understood against the urban backcloths for high repeat offenders. Emphasis is in this case study …


Understanding The Role Of Patient Activation In The Association Between Patient Socio-Economic Demographics And Patient Experience, Katsuya Oi Jan 2012

Understanding The Role Of Patient Activation In The Association Between Patient Socio-Economic Demographics And Patient Experience, Katsuya Oi

Dissertations and Theses

This study focuses on the association between patient characteristics, which include both demographic and contextual factors, and patients' experiences with health care. The pre-existing literature provides rich information about patients' various demographics related to patient experience. Despite the abundance of empirical evidence showing that patients' demographics do affect how they perceive their health care. However, there is little to no empirical knowledge explaining the significance of such factors. As the existing literature points out the need for taking into contextual factors such as patient's beliefs, attitudes, skills that are pertinent to dealing with health care, my study proposes patient activation …


Humor-Related Social Exchanges And Mental Health In Assisted Living Residents, Ann Elizabeth Mcqueen Jan 2012

Humor-Related Social Exchanges And Mental Health In Assisted Living Residents, Ann Elizabeth Mcqueen

Dissertations and Theses

Social contact is known to be vital for older adults' mental and physical health, but few studies of social interactions have taken place in long-term care settings. The current study investigated whether the psychological well-being of assisted living residents was influenced by factors associated with residents' social interactions involving humor. Specific aims of the present study were to develop and test a measure related to humor-related social exchanges, to examine how humor-related social exchanges affect residents' mental health, and to explore whether humor-related social exchanges mediated the effects of resident and facility characteristics on indices of mental health. One hundred …


Public Participation In Emergency Management, Jason Alexander Rood Jan 2012

Public Participation In Emergency Management, Jason Alexander Rood

Dissertations and Theses

With disasters increasing in frequency and costs each year, this study seeks to explore ways greater public participation can assist emergency managers in their mission to keep communities safe. Specifically this study examines the policy process and administrative functions of emergency management to illuminated the benefits and hindrances involved in greater participation. This study conducted a qualitative analysis of governmental documents, disaster case studies, international research, as well as political science and administrative doctrines, to arrive at its conclusions. The results of this study reveal that the public is a largely untapped resource in the emergency management field. Engaging the …


An Empirical Test Of Alternative Theories Of Educational Inequality, Arthur Sakamoto, Changhwan Kim, Hyeyoung Woo Jan 2012

An Empirical Test Of Alternative Theories Of Educational Inequality, Arthur Sakamoto, Changhwan Kim, Hyeyoung Woo

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A classic issue in education centers on the nature of the relationship between schooling and labor market outcomes. Three general theories of this relationship are the human capital view, the market signal view, and the credentialist view. All three approaches predict a positive association between education and wages, but they differ in regard to its underlying causes. We argue that these theories may be fundamentally differentiated in terms of their implications for productivity, and we provide some relevant findings using productivity data for US manufacturing industries from 1976 to 1996. The results most strongly support the market signal view which …


Beyond The Shadow Of White Privilege?: The Socioeconomic Attainments Of Second Generation South Asian Americans, Hyeyoung Woo, Arthur Sakamoto, Isao Takei Jan 2012

Beyond The Shadow Of White Privilege?: The Socioeconomic Attainments Of Second Generation South Asian Americans, Hyeyoung Woo, Arthur Sakamoto, Isao Takei

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite numerous studies of second generation minorities in recent years, South Asian Americans have been largely ignored. Using the most recent data available from the US Census Bureau, we investigate the socioeconomic attainments of second generation South Asian Americans. We find that their average levels of education, wages, and occupational attainment exceed those of non-Hispanic whites. Contrary to the “model minority myth” view, second generation South Asian Americans remain slightly advantaged relative to non-Hispanic whites in terms of labor market success net of age, education, and region of residence. These results are also inconsistent with discussions of white privilege that …


Apprenticeship Needs Assessment In Heavy Highway Construction Workforce, Maura Kelly, Lindsey Wilkinson Jan 2012

Apprenticeship Needs Assessment In Heavy Highway Construction Workforce, Maura Kelly, Lindsey Wilkinson

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

To gain an understanding of the reasons that women and men of color are not retained in apprenticeships relevant to the heavy highway trades at the same rate as are white men. Particular attention shall be focused on the reasons that apprentices refuse job assignments/dispatches, leave assignments before the contractor’s job is finished, and retention in the third period of apprenticeships. Differences in motivations, the nature of obstacles faced and the type and effectiveness of particular supports to affect retention rates shall be considered, with attention to the potentially different experience of people in different trades and regions, as well …


Suicide Mortality Risk In The United States By Sex And Age Groups, Hyeyoung Woo, Jarron M. Saint Onge, Daniel Standridge Jan 2012

Suicide Mortality Risk In The United States By Sex And Age Groups, Hyeyoung Woo, Jarron M. Saint Onge, Daniel Standridge

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Overall individual health has been critically improved over the last century in the United States. However, among the leading causes of death, only suicide rates show a significant increase in recent decades and the increases have been even greater among females. This study is designed to better understand adult suicide mortality risk by sex and age groups using data from the National Health Interview Surveys linked to mortality information from the National Death Index (1986-2006). Our results from Cox proportional hazard models confirm that the social patterns in suicide mortality differ by sex: strong associations of education, marriage and bed …


The Crossover Effects Of Supervisor Work-Family Positive Spillover On Employee Sleep Deficiency: Moderating Effects Of Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (Fssb), Tori Laurelle Crain Jan 2012

The Crossover Effects Of Supervisor Work-Family Positive Spillover On Employee Sleep Deficiency: Moderating Effects Of Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (Fssb), Tori Laurelle Crain

Dissertations and Theses

The majority of literature on the work-family interface has focused on, and provided evidence of, the conflict associated with engagement in both work and family roles (Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley, 2005). Research examining the positive aspects of work and family participation remains limited. The current study investigated how work-family positive spillover is transferred between members of the supervisor-employee dyad and subsequently how this affects employee sleep outcomes. It was hypothesized that work-to-family affective positive spillover experienced by supervisors would crossover to employees and increase their experiences of work-to-family affective positive spillover. In turn, this would allow for better …


The Health And Housing Specialist: An Emerging Job Classification To Support Aging In Place In Subsidized Housing, Paula C. Carder, Jenny Weinstein, Jacklyn Nicole Kohon Jan 2012

The Health And Housing Specialist: An Emerging Job Classification To Support Aging In Place In Subsidized Housing, Paula C. Carder, Jenny Weinstein, Jacklyn Nicole Kohon

Institute on Aging Publications

As the U.S. population ages, the availability of workers with a basic understanding of aging and health-related services has not kept pace. This is true in traditional health care organizations such as hospitals and primary care clinics as well as in long-term care settings and senior housing, including subsidized housing, the focus of this report. Nearly 1.8 million older persons receive some form of publicly-subsidized rental assistance. Some subsidized housing providers, including those that operate buildings designated for older persons, are developing new systems of service delivery that would either coordinate or provide health screenings, physical activity programs, nutrition programs, …


The Implications Of Migration Theory For Distributive Justice, Alexander Sager Jan 2012

The Implications Of Migration Theory For Distributive Justice, Alexander Sager

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the implications of empirical theories of migration for normative accounts of migration and distributive justice. It examines neo-classical economics, world-systems theory, dual labor market theory, and feminist approaches to migration and contends that neo-classical economic theory in isolation provides an inadequate understanding of migration. Other theories provide a fuller account of how national and global economic, political, and social institutions cause and shape migration flows by actively affecting people's opportunity sets in source countries and by admitting people according to social categories such as class and gender. These empirical theories reveal the causal impact of institutions regulating …