Social Work Commons^™

Effectiveness Of Community Development Organizations In The St. Louis Metropolitan Area, Kyle Pitzer

Brown School Theses and Dissertations

Concentrated poverty has been a core issue in urban America for close to half of a century. The consequences of living in these neighborhoods are also dire. These "neighborhood effects" are defined as the effects of living in concentrated poverty over and above individual circumstances, which have been tied to a number of important life outcomes. One approach to addressing these issues is community development, and perhaps the most salient vehicle of community development is the community development corporation (CDC). This current study sought to address three aims: 1), understand the effects of CDCs on population-level outcomes; 2), understand the …

Social Capital And Mental Health Among Chinese Older Adults, Yuekang Li

Brown School Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to develop our understanding of social capital by exploring the dimensions and profiles of social capital among Chinese older adults and the factors and health conditions associated with social capital in later life. The approach was secondary analyses of the China Family Panel Study (CFPS), a nationally representative survey of the Chinese population. It is the intent of this work to offer applicable guidance on policy and project design regarding health promotion for the aging population through social intervention. Aim 1 explores the dimensions and associative factors of social capital of Chinese older adults. It was found …

The Cost Of Child Support: Policy Design And Father Identity, Lara Markovitz

Brown School Theses and Dissertations

Child support policy is one of the key forces in the lives of families in the U.S., where 1 in 4 children and half of African American children live apart from their fathers (Carlson et al., 2017; Grall, 2020; U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). Most unmarried fathers of newborns express a strong desire and commitment to their children (Carlson & McLanahan, 2002; England & Edin, 2007). However, by the time their children turn five, fathers'; involvement (caregiving and time, provision of child support) diminishes greatly (Turner & Waller, 2017). This decrease in father involvement among low-income NRFs is thought to be …

Trauma Exposures Across The Life Course For Individuals Who Experience Incarceration, Maria Morrison

Brown School Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, with 2.2 million people currently behind bars, 60% of whom are people of color. At the same time, there is an unprecedented political consensus to develop strategies for reducing the incarcerated population and safely returning the majority of incarcerated individuals to society. While there has been a substantial research focus on the potential of this population to commit acts of violence post-release, this tells only half the story. This dissertation hopes to provide a more complete picture of the role of violence in the lives of individuals released …

Protecting Native Motherhood: A Longitudinal Investigation Of Interpersonal Violence Among Alaska Native Women, Autumn Asher

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alaska Native mothers and their children are continually impacted by present day disparities resulting from decades of historical oppression. Indigenous women face a substantially greater risk for experiencing violence during pregnancy. Further, Alaska Native children are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system, including both overrepresentation in out of home care, and underrepresented in preventative and restorative services in comparison to the general population. The present work utilizes data from the Alaska Longitudinal Child Abuse and Neglect Linkage Project (ALCANLink) which follows children of Alaska mothers originally sampled in the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). The ALCANLink is a …

Choice And Opportunity: Examining Housing Relocation And Organizational Partnerships Within Federal Mixed-Income Community Development Initiatives, Andrew Scott Foell

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, residential segregation by race and class has resulted in the creation and growth of geographic areas of concentrated poverty, or the concentration of mostly poor families of color into extremely poor neighborhoods. Due to the durability of concentrated poverty, along with the numerous adverse effects of living in neighborhoods characterized by concentrated poverty, deconcentrating poverty has been a prominent focus of urban poverty policy and housing and community development practice. Mixed-income development initiatives have emerged as promising strategies that focus on assisting low-income families living in distressed public housing while simultaneously investing in housing and neighborhood …

Utilization Patterns Of Community-Based Mental Health Services Among School-Going Adolescent Girls In Southwestern Uganda., William Byansi

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Globally an estimated 20% of children and adolescents experience a disabling mental illness (Belfer, 2008). Mental health disorders are the second leading cause of disease burden and the eleventh leading cause in older adolescents (15-19 years). Yet, children and adolescents are over-represented in low-resourced countries and settings often characterized by violence, wars, diseases, physical and sexual abuse, all of which are associated with poor mental health functioning (Kieling et al., 2011; Naker, 2005). Moreover, in LMICs the treatment gap is about 93% of individuals without access to mental health services with virtually no coverage of evidence-based …

Impact Of Care Practices On The Food Security And Nutritional Status Of Ethnic Minority Children With Work-Away Parents In Rural China, Yiqi Zhu

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background and significance: Zero Hunger as the second Sustainable Development Goal builds crucial foundation to achieve other sustainable development goals and is a key approach to the Social Work Grand Challenges. In China, there is a huge gap between in nutritional well-being between urban and rural children. Among all the rural Children, ethnic minority children often live in the poverty-stricken regions have parents work away in urban regions. Their nutritional well-being is understudied. Improve the well-being of ethnic minorities children with work-away parents and closing the nutrition gaps of the rural and urban become the key for China to further …

Patterns And Trends Among Intimate Partner Homicide Cases: An Analysis By Victim’S Sex And Race/Ethnicity, Shih-Ying Cheng

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Data suggest sex and race/ethnicity disparities in intimate partner homicide (IPH) and different trends in the IPH rates over time by sex and racial/ethnic groups. It is, however, less clear how to explain the disparities using the existing literature. This dissertation investigates the patterns and trends among IPH cases with a focus on differences within and between victims’ sex and race/ethnicity subgroups using the National Violent Death Reporting System, Restricted Access Database (NVDRS-RAD). Data were linked to Census and policy data using the geographic indicator in the NVDRS-RAD. Latent class analysis (LCA) and mixed-effects modeling were performed to identify patterns …

Racism-Based Trauma And Policing Among Black Emerging Adults, Robert Motley

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Community violence exposure (CVE) among Black emerging adults ages 18-29 in the United States is a major public health concern. However, an unknown is the nature of the relationship between Black emerging adults CVE and substance use when the perpetrator(s) of the violence are the police and the violence is experienced as a race-based traumatic event. The Classes of Racism Frequency of Racial Experiences (CRFRE) measure assesses individuals’ exposure to perceived racism-based events. However, the CRFRE hostile-racism scale does not capture the range of police violent events that are most salient for a population. To fill the noted gaps in …

Exploring The Service Utilization Of Formerly Incarcerated Persons With Substance Use Disorders, Sara Beeler-Stinn

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We are in a new era of mass reentry from years of mass incarceration (Chamberlain & Wallace, 2016) that will is complicated by challenging conditions at release (Mallik-Kane & Visher, 2008). Recent data suggests that rearrest rates within nine years of release are over 80% among individuals released from prison (Alper et al., 2018). These challenges are further complicated by drug and alcohol abuse with over 20 million individuals aged 12 and older reporting living with a substance use disorder (SAMSHA, 2019). Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated populations are estimated to have rates of substance use disorders (SUDs) often 10 to …

Examining Mental Health In Northern Haiti, Michael Galvin

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mental health is a severely neglected field in low- and middle-income countries globally. Populations in countries such as Haiti demonstrate a high level of need for mental health services despite a lack of services and trained professionals. In addition to the dearth of biomedical services, local belief systems and explanatory models lead a majority of the population to rely on traditional medicine as their first option for care. The goal of this dissertation is to characterize mental health beliefs, practices, and services in northern Haiti by examining the relationship between traditional beliefs and mental illness, assessing the impact of traumatic …

“I’M Not Dark, I’M Not Light… I’M Medium!”: The Colorism Experiences Of Adolescent African American Girls, Maya Williams

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While colorism scholars often discuss the effects of skin tone bias on the lives of African American adults, Black youth are understudied. This mixed methods study analyzes the impacts skin tone bias and colorism have on African American girls’ self-concept, impression formation, affiliation with others, attraction to others, and interaction with their environment. This paper proposes a conceptual model that integrates four theoretical models (i.e., critical race theory, intersectionality theory, social identity theory, and skin tone theoretical model) to frame this research. Participants in this study range from ages 11-14 and attend school in Missouri. N=60 girls completed the quantitative …

The Relationships Between Stress, Psychosocial Resources, And Mental Health And Adherence Outcomes Among Perinatally Hiv-Infected Adolescents In South Africa, Thabani Nyoni

Brown School Theses and Dissertations

Adolescents living with perinatally acquired HIV (APHs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) constitute a significant population group that is experiencing poor HIV treatment outcomes (CIPHER Global Cohort Collaboration, 2018). Compared to younger children and older adults within the SSA sub-region, APHs experience poorer health outcomes, including retention in care, virologic treatment failure, and mortality rates (Anderson et al., 2019). Among countries in the SSA sub-region, South Africa has 360,000 adolescents living with HIV (ages 10-19), a disproportionate burden, accounting for 20% of the global adolescents living with HIV (UNAIDS, 2019a). The public health costs of suboptimal antiretroviral treatment (ART) adherence in …

A Case Study Of The Experiences Of Black Female Faculty At Research-Intensive Schools Of Social Work, Lashawnda N. Fields

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Representation has improved over the past 40 years among Black female faculty members in social work schools; however, low academic rank and distribution of this demographic across institutions is one way in which predominately White institutions (PWI) of higher education perpetuate racial inequalities. Higher education, in general, continues to result in negative experiences and poor outcomes for Black female faculty members such as time to tenure, low academic rank, and feelings of isolation. However, little is known about the experiences of this demographic in schools of social work, particularly those identified as research-intensive (R-1) Carnegie-designated institutions of higher education. This …

Maintaining Natural Recovery From Prescription Opioid Use Disorder, Christina Drymon

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prescription opioid use disorder (POUD) has been steadily rising in the United States since 1999 and is often accompanied by increases in heroin and synthetic opioid use, overdose deaths, and other adverse public health outcomes. Women in particular are at greater risk of developing POUD and associated outcomes. Even though high rates of mortality and morbidity are common among those with POUD, recovery is possible with nearly half of all individuals with POUD recovering naturally (i. e. , without formal or informal treatment). The natural recovery process from POUD has received little empirical attention. Using a grounded theory approach, semi-structured …

Scaling-Up Child And Youth Mental Health Services: Assessing Coverage Of A County-Wide Initiative, Cole Douglas Hooley

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over 7 million children and youth have a diagnosable mental illness any given year. There are evidence-based treatments (EBTs) to effectively treat these conditions, but these EBTs reach a very small percentage of their target population with treatment rates between 1-3%.1 We know very little about what influences these coverage rates. Beginning in 2009, the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department (LACDMH) began an ambitious agenda to scale-up the provision of EBTs in child/youth mental health care. The present study seeks to contribute to the scale-up literature by examining three questions based on LACDMH’s initiative: 1) To what extent have …

Caseworker Turnover In Foster Care Services: Problem Or Symptom? A System Dynamics Approach, Marian Joan Stahlschmidt

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Problem: Child welfare (CW) caseworkers perform a crucial role in our society--ensuring the safety, permanency, and well-being of one of our most vulnerable populations, victims of child maltreatment. Yet, since its inception in the early 20th century, CW, including foster care services, has been plagued by high turnover rates that have been associated with delayed permanency and recurrent maltreatment. This dissertation aimed to develop a dynamic hypothesis about the system structure that produces turnover in foster care services, to create a formal system dynamics simulation model representing the problem, to develop an intervention to reduce the problem, and to test …

A Formative Assessment Of The Vulnerability Context Of Three Indigenous Communities In Rural Ecuador For Improved Intervention Design, Ivy Blackmore

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nearly 20 % of the current world population are small-scale producers living in rural areas who rely on agriculture and related activities to support their families (IFAD, 2016; World Bank, 2008). Despite the almost 76 billion USD of official development assistance committed to agriculture improvement projects and associated activities over the past decade, many of the intended beneficiaries remain poor and struggle to meet their basic needs. The lack of success in addressing rural poverty highlights the need for quality research focused on understanding what type of intervention/s could help rural communities sustainably improve their livelihood security.

The goal of …

Social Engagement Among Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment And Conversion To Dementia, Takashi Amano

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Promoting social engagement is a promising approach to prevent or delay conversion from cognitive impairment no dementia (CIND) to dementia. However, little is known about social engagement among people with CIND. This dissertation project aimed to improve understanding of social engagement among people with CIND by addressing gaps in the literature. It had three specific aims including: to describe and identify factors associated with heterogeneity of social engagement among older adults with CIND, to assess the association between heterogeneity of social engagement and conversion from CIND to dementia, and to investigate the relationship among heterogeneity of social engagement, other types …

Promoting Child Behavioral Health In Homeless Services: A Community-Based System Dynamics Approach, Katherine Marcal

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Families with children comprise one-third of the entire homeless population (Henry, Watt, Rosenthal, & Shivji, 2017). Homelessness exposes children to chaotic, unsafe living environments that pose threats to healthy development; unsurprisingly, children in homeless services display high rates of mental health disorders compared to stably housed children (Bassuk et al., 2015; Buckner, 2008). Despite concerted efforts at the state and local levels to end family homelessness by 2020, rates have remained largely unchanged over the past decade (Henry et al., 2017; U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, 2015). Additional indicators such as increasing wait times, average length of stay, and reentry …

Subtypes Of Neglect In Relation To Reporting Practices, Safety Outcomes Among Known Cases, And Risk And Protective Factors, Chien-Jen Chiang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: The overall objective of this dissertation is to build knowledge about the phenomena of neglect subtypes to better guide prevention and child welfare intervention efforts in the future. The first aim focuses on how we come to officially identify cases of child neglect and its relationship to policies that set definitions for what is reportable in a given state. The second aim highlights whether or not there appear to be differences in safety and permanency outcomes for children known to CPS for different forms of neglect. The third aim focuses on why families may develop specific neglecting behaviors that …

The Intersection Of Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration, Intervention And Faith, Maxine Davis

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the U.S. most interventions with men who have acted abusively against intimate partners occurs because of a domestic violence conviction and court-mandate to complete treatment. This dissertation examines the intersection of intimate partner violence/abuse (IPV/A), intervention, and faith by investigating a parish-based voluntary partner abuse intervention program known as The Men’s Group (TMG). The function and implementation of TMG is first explored through a case study, laying the groundwork for understanding why men continuously participate in the program. This qualitative study then investigates how group members view the role of religious faith in relationship to IPV/A and how they …

Does Privatization Matter? An Exploration Of Foster Care Permanency Outcomes, Allison Early Dunnigan

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, at any given time, there are nearly 400,000 children in foster care due to maltreatment or for reasons such as parental incarceration, parental death or voluntary relinquishment. Youth in out of home care are a small proportion of all children served by the child welfare system, but they comprise the majority of the system costs and are at high risk for poor outcomes across a number of domains. Concerns regarding both cost and poor outcomes began a trend toward privatization of child welfare in the mid-1990s. Despite the long history, there has been very little evaluation …

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 …

Self-Employment In Later Life: Implications For Financial, Physical, And Mental Well-Being, Cal Halvorsen

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

More than one in five working Americans aged 50 and older are self-employed, yet scholarship that examines the relationships between self-employment and personal health and financial well-being is limited. Using data from six biennial waves of the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally-representative panel study of Americans past 50 years of age, this quasi-experimental dissertation documents the characteristics of self-employed older adults in comparison to wage-and-salary workers, as well as compares self-employed and wage-and-salary workers in later life on a set of financial well-being and personal health outcomes. This study incorporates inverse probability of treatment weighting (also referred to as …

Understanding Child Maltreatment Report Risks As A Function Of Age, Socioeconomic Status, Race, And Neighborhood, Hyunil Kim

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: This study seeks to improve our understanding of risk and protective factors for child maltreatment both over time and within an ecological context. First, this study examines longitudinal patterns of child maltreatment reports (CMR) with child age from 1 to 17 years based on various risk and protective factors (Aim 1). This study also examines neighborhood contextual effects on CMR (Aim 2).

Methods: This study used secondary data from a larger longitudinal study which had followed up two samples from the 1991-1994 St. Louis birth cohorts. The CAN sample included all children aged 3 or under with a first-time …

Allocating Interventions Based On Counterfactual Predictions: A Case Study On Homelessness Services, Amanda R. Kube

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Modern statistical and machine learning methods are increasingly capable of modeling individual or personalized treatment effects by predicting counterfactual outcomes. These counterfactual predictions could be used to allocate different interventions across populations based on individual characteristics. In many domains, like social services, the availability of possible interventions can be severely resource limited. This thesis considers possible improvements to the allocation of such services in the context of homelessness service provision in a major metropolitan area. Using data from the homeless system, I show potential for substantial predicted benefits in terms of reducing the number of families who experience repeat episodes …

A Context And Stakeholder Focused Exploration Of The Sustainability Of Local Organizations In Development, Brad Tucker

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The design and development of this study emerged as the result of the investigator’s work with local nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the Global South – particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through experience and study, the investigator observed: 1) The conceptualization and the study of organizational sustainability and effectiveness (OS/OE) – both in scholarship and in practice – are fragmented and, while emphasizing the critical importance of context, do not explain how context impacts sustainability. 2) Existing conceptualizations of OS/OE lack the perspectives of key stakeholders – namely the management and staff of the local NPOs themselves. 3) There is a considerable …

Participation In Governance And Well-Being In The Yukon Flats, Jessica Charlene Black

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explains the relationship between participation in governance and well-being in the Yukon Flats. To garner a deeper understanding of this relationship, definitions of governance and well-being are sought from the participants, thus providing holistic, Indigenous definitions of these concepts. Both formal and informal governance are also explored to understand the important institutions that underpin these larger relationships. Lastly, this dissertation investigates the relationship between participation in traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering and well-being in the Yukon Flats. Qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, observations, and photographs are all used to document these relationships. Applied thematic analysis is used due …