Health Policy Commons^™

The Shortfalls Of Vulnerability Indexes For Public Health Decision-Making In The Face Of Emergent Crises: The Case Of Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake In Virginia, Lydia Cleveland Sa, Erika Frydenlund

VMASC Publications

Equitable and effective vaccine uptake is a key issue in addressing COVID-19. To achieve this, we must comprehensively characterize the context-specific socio-behavioral and structural determinants of vaccine uptake. However, to quickly focus public health interventions, state agencies and planners often rely on already existing indexes of "vulnerability." Many such "vulnerability indexes" exist and become benchmarks for targeting interventions in wide ranging scenarios, but they vary considerably in the factors and themes that they cover. Some are even uncritical of the use of the word "vulnerable," which should take on different meanings in different contexts. The objective of this study is …

Dietary Fat Quality And Serum Androgen Concentrations In Middle-Aged Men, Miika M. Wynne-Ellis, Jaakko J. Mursu, Tomi-Pekka Tuomainen, Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson, Jukka T. Salonen, Jyrki K. Virtanen

Health Promotion and Policy Faculty Publication Series

Average testosterone concentrations in men have declined over the last few decades. The reasons for this are not fully known, but changes in dietary fat quality have been suggested to have a role. This study aimed to investigate the associations of different dietary fatty acids with serum androgen concentrations.

Factors Associated With Successful Military-To-Civilian Transition Among Special Forces Veterans, Edward Richter

Theses and Dissertations--Social Work

The purpose of this study was to explore the military-to-civilian transitional experience in a sample of Special Forces veterans. Acknowledging challenges in accessing the veteran population, most existing research on the military-to-civilian transition consolidates military occupations into a single sample. This method fails to address the intricacies that may exist within individual military occupations, especially that of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers. Special Forces qualified soldiers represent the largest portion of all U.S. Military Special Operations Forces and are responsible for the majority of all Special Operations activities, yet their experience in transitioning out of the Army is largely unknown. …

Drawing On The Strengths Of Community Health Workers To Address Sexually Transmitted Infections: Roles, Medicaid Reimbursement, And Partnerships, Naomi Seiler, Katie Horton, Paige Organick-Lee, Claire Heyison, Alexis Osei, Greg Dwyer, Aaron Karacuschansky, Mekhi Washington, Amanda Spott

Health Policy and Management Informal Communications

Rates of bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the United States are high and, largely, still soaring. Though chlamydia cases have decreased slightly since 2017, gonorrhea and syphilis have increased by 25% and 68%, respectively, and congenital syphilis has increased by 184%. Bacterial STI can lead to pain, infertility, and even, in the case of syphilis and congenital syphilis, death. With appropriate detection and treatment, all of these STIs are curable. And yet a range of barriers between communities and the healthcare system perpetuate the STI epidemic.

Community health workers (CHWs) could play a key role in helping bridge the …

Sexually Transmitted Infections And Social Determinants Of Health: Emerging Opportunities In The Medicaid Program, Naomi Seiler, Katie Horton, Paige Organick-Lee, Mekhi Washington, Taylor Turner, Lily Ryan

Health Policy and Management Informal Communications

No abstract provided.

Congenital Syphilis In The Medicaid Program: Assessing Challenges And Opportunities Through The Experiences Of Seven Southern States, Naomi Seiler, Claire Heyison, Paige Organick-Lee, Aaron Karacuschansky, Gregory Dwyer, Alexis Osei, Helen Stoll, Katie Horton

Health Policy and Management Informal Communications

Congenital syphilis (CS) is an infection acquired in utero that can lead to devastating outcomes, including stillbirth, infant death, or long-term health complications. Over the past decade, rising national rates of syphilis, including among women, have led to major increases in congenital syphilis cases and deaths.

CS is tragic and costly, but it is also preventable. With appropriate testing and treatment during prenatal care, syphilis in a pregnant woman can be identified and treated, and transmission to the fetus averted.

The Medicaid program is the payer for nearly half of all births in the U.S., making the program a crucial …

Using Adult Learning Characteristics And The Humanities To Teach Undergraduate Healthcare Students About Social Determinants Of Health, Elizabeth A. Brown, Hannah Kinder, Garrett Stang, Wendy Shumpert

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Authors used an andragogy framework to help undergraduate allied health students better understand social determinants of health (SDOH) using a photo essay assignment. The study examined students’ perceptions of SDOH in various communities, description of health outcomes associated with their chosen SDOH, and lessons learned and suggestions to improve the assignment for future cohorts. Data were extracted from photo essays from 2019–2021 and entered in Microsoft Excel and Word for data analysis after course completion. Conventional qualitative content analysis was used to analyze student evaluation data from open-ended questions. Data were extracted from 53 student essays from 2019 to 2021. …

Use Of The Rasch Model For Fit Statistics And Rating Scale Diagnosis For The Student Perception Appraisal- Revised, Robert J. Hawkins, Janice Hawkins, Beth Tremblay, Lynn Wiles, Karen Higgins

Nursing Faculty Publications

Background and Purpose: Nursing student retention is essential to meet workforce demands. Jeffrey's Nursing Student Retention Student Perception Appraisal-Revised (SPA-R1) has been used extensively to understand factors that impact retention. Psychometric testing of the SPA-R1 contributes to greater confidence in the instrument's reliability and validity.

Methods: Item response theory and specifically, the single parameter polytomous Rasch model was used as a framework for fit statistic testing and rating scale diagnostics of the SPA-R1. This was a secondary analysis of a convenience sample of undergraduate prelicensure nursing students. The setting for the previous study was virtual, and the study period was …

Fighting For The Public’S Health: Challenges And Opportunities To Reinvigorate Public Health Advocacy, Madeleine S. Frey

Georgia Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Conference

Background

Covid-19 shed a painful light on racial health disparities. As health officials asserted their public health authority to stop the pandemic and promote health equity, elected officials moved to limit their ability to do so. Without strong advocacy infrastructure, public health has struggled to defend its legal public health authority, support the workforce, and ensure equitable health outcomes for everyone.

Methods

Fighting for Public Health, a 2022 Feasibility Study from the Network for Public Health Law, assessed what’s happening in public health advocacy, and what’s needed to strengthen it on state and national levels. With funding from Healthcare …

The Paradox Of Child Poverty And Welfare, Tirna Purkait

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

The United States confronts persistent child welfare issues rooted in poverty. The age-old debate vacillates between advocating personal responsibility and bolstering social safety nets. Current welfare programs, aiming to mitigate child poverty, often fall short given the deep nexus of poverty and child maltreatment. This paper probes the intricate ties between child poverty and welfare, emphasizing state legislative variances, inherent system paradoxes, and potential policy enhancements. Exploring historical contexts, existing societal frameworks, and future reforms, this research emphasizes the urgency for all-encompassing solutions. These should tackle poverty’s core while fortifying child welfare, safeguarding the well-being of forthcoming American generations.

Understanding And Assessing Demographic (In)Equity Resulting From Extreme Heat Exposure Due To Lack Of Tree Canopies In Norfolk, Va Using Agent-Based Modeling, Virginia Zamponi, Kevin O'Brien, Erik Jensen, Brandon Feldhaus, Russell Moore, Christopher J. Lynch, Ross Gore

VMASC Publications

Prolonged exposure to extreme heat can result in illness and death. In urban areas of dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat, extreme heat conditions can arise regularly and create harmful environmental exposures for residents daily during certain parts of the year. Tree canopies provide shade and help to cool the environment, making mature trees with large canopies a simple and effective way to reduce urban heat. We develop a demographically representative 1 (agent): 1 (person) agent-based model to understand the extent to which different demographics of residents in Norfolk, VA are equitably shaded …

Abortion Decisions As Humanizing Acts: The Application Of Ambivalent Sexism And Objectification To Women-Centered Anti-Abortion Rhetoric, Rachel L. Dyer, Olivia R. Checkalski, Sarah Gervais

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric, grounded in ostensibly positive beliefs that pregnant people are precious objects who must be protected from having abortions, has proliferated anti-abortion activism and legislation. However, abortion stigma, marked by negative perceptions of people who terminate pregnancies, is the most widely used theoretical tool for understanding the social and psychological implications of abortion. In this article, we first integrate these two seemingly contradictory perspectives on abortion through the lens of ambivalent sexism theory. We then argue that ambivalent sexism paves the way for objectifying perceptions and treatment of pregnant people; specifically, our typology of reproductive objectification provides a …

Graphic Health Warnings And Plain Packaging In The Philippines: Results Of Online And Household Surveys, Gianna Gayle H. Amul, Eunice U. Mallari, John Rafael Y. Arda, Alen Josef Santiago

Ateneo School of Government Publications

In line with Article 11 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the Philippines has implemented graphic health warnings on cigarette packs. To date, there has been no published literature evaluating the perceived effectiveness of GHWs in the Philippines. This study aims to contribute to the evidence on the perceived effects of graphic health warnings (GHWs) in cigarette packaging and the potential impact of plain packaging in the Philippines. The study involved an online convenience survey and a nationwide household survey. Mock-up sets of cigarette packs based on the Philippines’ law on GHWs, and Thailand’s and Singapore’s plain packaging …

The Expected Risks And Exacerbations Of Poverty, Mental Health Disorders, And Maternal Mortality From Abortion Bans: A Comparative Literature Analysis, Daniel J. Francisco

All Master's Theses

Background. Early termination of a pregnancy (hereinafter referred to as an “abortion”) has been debated in the United States (U.S.) for decades, without much regard to the negative outcomes that forced pregnancies have for those assigned female at birth regarding poverty, mental health and maternal mortality. In 1973, access to safe abortions was protected so long that the procedure was done within the legal gestational period and/or was necessary for the health and safety of the patient (Blackmun, 1972). Unfortunately, in 2022, the Supreme Court took that protection away and made it legal for states to determine the reproductive rights …

Surveillance Normalization, Christian Sundquist

Articles

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has expanded public surveillance measures in an attempt to combat the spread of the virus. As the pandemic wears on, racialized communities and other marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by this increased level of surveillance. This article argues that increases in public surveillance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic give rise to the normalization of surveillance in day-to-day life, with serious consequences for racialized communities and other marginalized groups. This article explores the legal and regulatory effects of surveillance normalization, as well as how to protect civil rights and liberties …

Covid-19, Health Inequities, And Behavioral Health Issues Facing Children, Gulzar H. Shah

Department of Health Policy and Community Health Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Technology Adoption Of Computer-Aided Instruction In Healthcare: A Structured Review, Queenie Kate Cabanilla, Frevy Teofilo-Orencia, Rentor Cafino, Armando T. Isla Jr., Jehan Grace Maglaya, Xavier-Lewis Palmer, Lucas Potter, Dave E. Marcial, Lemuel Clark Velasco

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) is one of the interactive teaching methods that electronically presents instructional resources and enhances learner performance. In health settings, using CAI is one of the important ways to improve learners' knowledge and usefulness in their healthcare specialization yet there is still a lack of research that offers a comprehensive synthesis of investigating into the adoption of CAI in healthcare. This research aims to provide a comprehensive review of related literatures on the enablers and barriers for technology adoption of CAI in healthcare. 31 journals were analyzed and revealed that several studies were utilizing the Unified Theory of …

The Impact Covid-19 On The Healthcare Industry’S Systems And Policies: A Case Study, Jameyshia Franklin

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

People worldwide experienced some impacts from the 2019 Coronavirus at various degree. The healthcare industry worldwide was significantly affected by the high volume of patients being infected with the Coronavirus. The COVID-19 virus brought on several challenges for the healthcare industry and the federal government in the United States. Hospitals operated under severe circumstances to treat sick COVID-19 patients and keep their employees safe from contracting the disease. Government mandated social distancing, mask wearing, and cancelation and closing of services to assist with stopping the spread of the virus. This study aimed to identify how the pandemic affected the healthcare …

Motivations And Conflicts In Prison Medical Contracting, Meagan D. Sok

Theses and Dissertations

State correctional departments are responsible for all medical care incarcerated individuals require. Many systems outsource their medical

State correctional departments are responsible for all medical care incarcerated individuals require. Many systems outsource their medical program. Literature indicates that many of these contracts experience significant issues that negatively impact state resources, including both personnel and money.

This dissertation explores the relationship between prison administrators' motivations and the structure, outcomes, efficiencies, and partner conflicts that arise in the contractual process. Using a framework developed from Incomplete Contract Theory, Contracts as Reference Points Theory and the concept of “essential tension,” this dissertation hypothesizes …

‘A Healthy Mtu’ A Mixed Methods Baseline Programme Of Research To Empirically Inform A Campus Health Promotion Initiative Within An Irish Higher Education Setting, Andrea Bickerdike

Theses

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been called to lead global health promotion actions, yet there remains a dearth of empirically informed ‘Healthy University’ (HU) initiatives. This thesis constituted a baseline mixed methods needs assessment to inform a settings-based health promotion (HP) initiative (‘A Healthy MTU’) within a multi-campus ‘case’ HEI in Ireland (Cork campuses of MTU, formerly CIT). Specific aims were to (i) investigate student and staff health metrics, and (ii) identify the cultural and environmental determinants of health and wellbeing within the case HEI setting. Using a phased, mixed methodology (QUAN-QUAL), five sequential empirical studies were undertaken. Quantitative data …