Digital Commons Network^™

Responding To Appalachian Voices: Steps In Developing Substance-Use Recovery Ecosystems, Bruce Behringer

Journal of Appalachian Health

A description is presented of the four-step process used by the Appalachian Regional Commission to develop a new Recovery to Work initiative. The Commission identified, defined, and described issues facing individuals who complete substance abuse disorder treatment and who seek reentry into the workforce. Key elements were identified for resources and supports to develop and maintain community-based substance abuse recovery ecosystems. The steps included conceptualization, data collection, analysis, and review to formulate recommendations for program and policy development. The full process of development was accomplished in twelve months.

Experiencing Cancer In Appalachian Kentucky, Melanie Mccomsey, David Ahern, Robin C. Vanderpool, Timothy W. Mullett, Ming-Yuan Chih, Meghan Johnson, Michele Ellison, Karen Onyeije, Bradford W. Hesse, Eliah Aronoff-Spencer

Journal of Appalachian Health

Nothing tells the story of people working together better than a community quilt. A diversity of talents, colors, and materials brought together through skill and shared purpose. Perhaps never before have we as Americans needed a stronger reminder that many hands make short work of big problems. The work presented here by the L.A.U.N.C.H. Collaborative offers a new framework for health care that could be compared to a digital quilt, powered by community-based participatory design, with lived expertise and the newest advances in broadband-enabled connected health solutions. This work demonstrates the value and need to engage local communities and what …

Preface: Experiencing Cancer In Appalachian Kentucky, Michele Ellison, Robin C. Vanderpool

Journal of Appalachian Health

Connected cancer care is of increasing importance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Linking & Amplifying User-Centered Networks through Connected Health (L.A.U.N.C.H.) Collaborative in Appalachian Kentucky has pioneered a new roadmap for equipping communities with the transformative power of broadband to innovate around the future of cancer care and to better scale their ideas. The roadmap involves reaching across disciplines, including public health, anthropology, telecommunications, and user-centered design. The goal is to leverage connectivity and cancer communication research and practice to make a real difference for patients and families.

Appalachian Regional Commission Recovery Ecosystem Background And Overview, Kostas Skordas, Andrew Howard

Journal of Appalachian Health

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has long addressed issues of substance abuse through funded community-based interventions, research, and sponsored conferences. Recently, the opioid crisis created a new urgency for cross-sector collaboration among various partners and funders dealing with this issue. This commentary provides an overview of recent efforts by the ARC to convene stakeholders to focus on assisting individuals with substance abuse disorder to access recovery services while pursuing education and training necessary to reenter the workforce and gain employment. Two papers have been prepared to describe this year-long effort. One paper focuses on the participatory methods used to gather …

Perspective On Substance-Abuse Recovery Ecosystem From The Appalachian Regional Commission Federal Co-Chair, Tim Thomas

Journal of Appalachian Health

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a local, state, and federal partnership focused on economic development in the communities of the Appalachian Region. ARC Federal Co-Chairman Tim Thomas provides his perspective on how an economic development entity, such as ARC, can support efforts to address the Region’s drug crisis in a way that both saves lives and strengthens economic opportunity in communities throughout Appalachia.

Fiscal Challenges And Anticipated Changes To Kentucky's Population Health System, Jeffrey Howard

Journal of Appalachian Health

The hallmark of public health is population-level intervention. However, current public health funding in Kentucky is largely programmatic or disease-based. As a result, public health leaders are not able to appropriately utilize present resources to pursue population health endeavors. However, a recent transformation of the public health system has emphasized multisector partnerships and efficient funding mechanisms that may increase resources to pursue population-level health interventions based on community health assessments.

Essays On Emotional Well-Being, Health Insurance Disparities And Health Insurance Markets, Disha Shende

Economics ETDs

This dissertation has three research papers. First paper looks at the effect of social networks on emotional well-being of cancer patients by studying the response of social networks on their depression symptoms. Using the data from a primary survey conducted in Nepal, the study finds that social networks significantly reduce depression symptoms among cancer patients. The results strongly advocate for the importance of the social networks in improving their emotional well-being. Second paper examines the health coverage disparities among Hispanic and non-Hispanic young adults in five southwestern states of the United States. Using the pooled data from American Community Survey …

Expanding The Economic Approach To Public Policy: An Analysis Of Health And Labor Market Outcomes, Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba

Economics ETDs

The approach used to answer many public policy questions is firmly rooted in the empirical and theoretical frameworks developed in the field of economics. The proposition of the economic approach to public policy has provided the foundation in which policy makers and practitioners design policies and investigate outcomes. The purpose and scope of this dissertation is to explore health and labor market outcomes within in the economic framework, while proposing two separate and novel analytical approaches. The theme connecting the sections of this dissertation can be characterized as a development of the economic approach to public policy analysis. In Chapter …

Impact Of Political Action Committee On Government Contracts, Bibek Acharya

Economics ETDs

This research aims to determine whether politically active corporations are more likely to get government contracts or likely to get more massive deals than corporations that are not politically active. The research question is, to what extent is the increase in government contracts due to the presence of corporate PACs or the amount spent by corporate PACs? In sum, we expect that the existence of PACs and the higher the corporation contributions in support of candidates for federal offices, the higher their chances of getting a contract or a more massive contract. We find that corporations that have a PAC …

Data Science In The Public Interest: Improving Government Performance In The Workforce, Joshua D. Hawley

Upjohn Press

This book is about how new and underutilized types of big data sources can inform public policy decisions related to workforce development. Hawley describes how government is currently using data to inform decisions about the workforce at the state and local levels. He then moves beyond standardized performance metrics designed to serve federal agency requirements and discusses how government can improve data gathering and analysis to provide better, up-to-date information for government decision making.

Measuring Movement And Social Contact With Smartphone Data: A Real-Time Application To Covid-19, Victor Couture, Jonathan L. Dingel, Allison Green, Jessie Handbury, Kevin R. Williams

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Tracking human activity in real time and at fine spatial scale is particularly valuable during episodes such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we discuss the suitability of smartphone data for quantifying movement and social contact. We show that these data cover broad sections of the US population and exhibit movement patterns similar to conventional survey data. We develop and make publicly available a location exposure index that summarizes county-to-county movements and a device exposure index that quantifies social contact within venues. We use these indices to document how pandemic-induced reductions in activity vary across people and places.

The Effects Of Welfare Time Limits On Access To Financial Resources: Evidence From The 2010s, Gabrielle Pepin

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program within the United States. TANF mandated 60-month lifetime time limits for federal cash assistance dollars. Because states reserve the right to set their own stricter or more generous time limits, the 60-month lifetime limit did not bind in all cases. In recent years, however, several states imposed TANF time limits for the first time or made existing time limits more stringent. Using administrative and survey data, I find that stricter time limits decrease annual TANF participation by 22 percent and annual …

Effects Of Welfare Time Limits, Gabrielle Pepin

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Foundational Research And Nih Funding Enabling Emergency Use Authorization Of Remdesivir For Covid-19, Ekaterina Galkina Cleary, Matthew J. Jackson, Zoë Folchman-Wagner, Fred D. Ledley

Natural & Applied Sciences Faculty Publications

Emergency Use Authorization for remdesivir months after discovery of COVID-19 is unprecedented. Typically, decades of research and public-sector funding are required to establish the mature body of foundational research requisite for efficient, targeted drug discovery and development. This work quantifies the body of research related to remdesivir’s biological target, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), or parent chemical structure, nucleoside analogs (NcAn), through 2019, as well as NIH funding for this research 2000–2019. There were 6,567 RdRp-related publications in PubMed, including 1,263 with NIH support, and 11,073 NcAn-related publications, including 2,319 with NIH support. NIH support for RdRp research comprised 2,203 Project …

Immune Function During Pregnancy Varies Between Ecologically Distinct Populations, Carmen Hové, Benjamin C. Trumble, Amy S. Anderson, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven, Aaron Blackwell

ESI Publications

Background and objectives

Among placental mammals, females undergo immunological shifts during pregnancy to accommodate the fetus (i.e. fetal tolerance). Fetal tolerance has primarily been characterized within post-industrial populations experiencing evolutionarily novel conditions (e.g. reduced pathogen exposure), which may shape maternal response to fetal antigens. This study investigates how ecological conditions affect maternal immune status during pregnancy by comparing the direction and magnitude of immunological changes associated with each trimester among the Tsimane (a subsistence population subjected to high pathogen load) and women in the USA.

Methodology

Data from the Tsimane Health and Life History Project (N = 935) and …

The Ocean Climate Action Plan, Jason Scorse, David Helvarg

Working Papers

Climate change and ocean health are often thought about as separate silos, when the two are interconnected.

Climate change is warming the oceans and changing their chemistry. Without ocean health, the entire planetary water cycle and oxygen cycle are in danger. The oceans sequester huge amounts of carbon dioxide helping to cool the planet, but that may not continue with “business as usual.” Climate change affects even those far from any coastline. We must solve the ocean climate challenge together, and we have a short window of time to take action.

The Center for the Blue Economy has partnered with …

International Disease Epidemics And The Shadow Economy, Aziz N. Berdiev, Rajeev K. Goel, James W. Saunoris

Economics Faculty Working Papers

Adding to the emerging body of research related to the current coronavirus crisis, this paper studies the impact of disease epidemics on the worldwide prevalence of the shadow or the underground economy. The informal sector undermines compliance with government regulations and lowers tax collections. Our main hypothesis is that epidemics positively impacts the spread of the shadow economy. Using data on nearly 130 nations and nesting the empirical analysis in the broader literature on the drivers of the shadow sector, we find that both the incidence and the intensity of epidemics positively and significantly contribute to the spread of the …

Attitudes, Behaviours, And The Well-Being Of Older Singaporeans In The Time Of Covid-19: Perspectives From The Singapore Life Panel, Paulin T. Straughan, William Tov, Seonghoon Kim, Terence Cheng, Stephen Hoskins, Micah Tan

ROSA Research Briefs

COVID-19 has affected all Singaporeans, regardless of age and socioeconomic status (SES). Many measures have been implemented by the government to control the spread of this disease, including restrictions on social gatherings, restrictions on overseas travel, and making it compulsory to wear a mask. Measures have also included a partial lockdown – known as the ‘circuit breaker’ – which began in April 2020. This forced Singaporeans to quickly adapt to a new normal with some doing better than others. This research brief provides an overview of how COVID-19 and its related measures have affected seniors in Singapore using data from …

How Can Econometrics Help Fight The Covid'19 Pandemic?, Kevin Alvarez, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

The current pandemic is difficult to model -- and thus, difficult to control. In contrast to the previous epidemics whose dynamics was smooth and well described by the existing models, the statistics of the current pandemic is highly oscillating. In this paper, we show that these oscillations can be explained if we take into account the disease's long incubation period -- as a result of which our control measures are determined by outdated data, showing number of infected people two weeks ago. To better control the pandemic, we propose to use the experience of economics, where also the effect of …

The Full Impact Of The Affordable Care Act On Political Participation, Charles J. Courtemanche, James Marton, Aaron Yelowitz

Economics Faculty Publications

This article examines the impact of both the Medicaid expansion and the private insurance-related components of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on voter turnout and registration. We employ a difference-in-difference-in-differences identification strategy exploiting variation over time, state Medicaid expansion status, and within-state local area pre-ACA uninsured rates. Using data between 2006 and 2016 from the November Current Population Survey and the Census Bureau's Small Area Health Insurance Estimates, our results suggest little effect of the ACA on voter turnout or registration.

Beyond Climate Impacts: Knowledge Gaps And Process-Based Reflection On Preparing A Regional Chapter For The Fourth National Climate Assessment, Scott Lowe

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) provided the most up-to-date understanding of climate change and its effects on the Earth system and on consequences for the United States, including impacts and associated risks, along with approaches to coping with these effects. It is intended to provide guidance to decision-makers in governmental sectors while, in practice, providing guidance for nongovernmental actors. Its regional and topical chapters highlight current knowledge, uncertainties, gaps in knowledge, and emerging threats. The current knowledge and gaps can help set a research agenda to inform future national, regional, and local climate assessments and thereby support better decision-making. …

Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Covid-19: Evidence From Six Large Cities, Joseph Benitez, Charles J. Courtemanche, Aaron Yelowitz

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

As of June 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has led to more than 2.3 million confirmed infections and 121 thousand fatalities in the United States, with starkly different incidence by race and ethnicity. Our study examines racial and ethnic disparities in confirmed COVID-19 cases across six diverse cities – Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, San Diego, and St. Louis – at the ZIP code level (covering 436 “neighborhoods” with a population of 17.7 million). Our analysis links these outcomes to six separate data sources to control for demographics; housing; socioeconomic status; occupation; transportation modes; health care access; long-run opportunity, as …

Resetting Normal: Women, Decent Work And Canada's Fractured Care Economy, The Canadian Women's Foundation, Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives, Ontario Nonprofit Network, Fay Faraday

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

Women in Canada have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to an extent that threatens to roll back equality gains. Economic losses have fallen heavily on women and most dramatically on women living on low incomes who experience intersecting inequalities based on race, class, disability, education, and migration and immigration status. The pandemic crisis has highlighted the fragility of response systems and the urgent need for structural rethinking and systemic change.

Paso Del Norte Economic Indicator Review, July, Hunt Institute For Global Competitiveness

Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Merchants Without Borders: Qusman Traders In The Arabian Gulf And Indian Ocean, C. 1850-1950, Mansour Alsharidah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a history of the economic, social, and political life in Arabia, the Arabian Gulf, and the Indian Subcontinent from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. It draws on materials from al-Qasim, Kuwait, Bahrain, Karachi, Bombay, Calcutta, and London, in addition to travelers’ accounts. These materials and accounts are used to explore the extent and significance of al-Qasim’s international trade between Arabia and India through the Arabian Gulf. It further examines how Qasimi merchants mobilized commodities and traded in the port cities of the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, taking advantage of changing regional and global political …

Calculating Life And Death In A Time Of Covid, Larry Hirschhorn, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Coronavirus Papers

The current pandemic makes us feel helpless. We can respond to its predation pragmatically but its silent march through the population promotes dread. Our helplessness undermines our belief in our culture as the source of our self-esteem and felt significance. One response to our experience of helplessness is the omnipotent stance, the idea that we can master the virus, stop it in its tracks, command one another to comply with injunctions and wreak a path of destruction by devastating the economy. Omnipotence promotes magical thinking. In the service of defeating death, we ignore actual suffering; deaths of despair and deaths …

Genetic Risks, Adolescent Health And Schooling Attainment, Vikesh Amin, Jere R. Behrman, Jason M. Fletcher, Carlos A. Flores, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Hans-Peter Kohler

Center for Policy Research

We provide new evidence on the effect of adolescent health behaviors/outcomes (obesity, depression, smoking, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)) on schooling attainment using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We take two different approaches to deal with omitted variable bias and reverse causality. Our first approach attends to the issue of reverse causality by using health polygenic scores (PGSs) as proxies for actual adolescent health. Second, we estimate the effect of adolescent health using sibling fixed-effects models that control for unmeasured genetic and family factors shared by siblings. We use the PGSs as additional controls in …

An Analysis Of Factors That Affect Audit Opinions: The Case Of The Local Government Units In The Metro Luzon Urban Beltway, Florenz C. Tugas, Maria Corazon P. Gomez, Roselle Marie A. Sacorum, Rica Angela M. Lipana, Geneva Leecea M. Barawid

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The audit is performed to give assurance to the public that financial statements are fairly presented. Accurate issuances of audit opinions show how compliant firms are to auditing standards. Receiving an unfavorable audit opinion will signal firms to improve internal control. Given this, it is important for the top management to assess the factors that can lead to misrepresentation of financial statements and result in adverse opinions. The same principle can be applied to government units and offices. With this in mind, the study was performed to investigate the influences of qualitative and quantitative factors on audit opinions received by …

Migrasi Desa-Kota Di Indonesia: “Risk Coping Strategy Vs Investment”, Joan Marta, Akhmad Fauzi, Bambang Juanda, Ernan Rustiadi

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

The study aims to analyses the reasons behind migrations motives among rural household based on household and area origin characteristic. The study used IFLS data of 2007 and 2014 consisting 2,581 household samples spreading in 13 provinces. Binomial and multinomial logit model was used to estimate probability to migrate based on migration motive. We found the contradictory effect of household income on decision to migrate between motives. Income has negative effect in risk coping as migration motives, otherwise have positive effect in investment motive.

Borderplex Business Barometer, Volume 4, Number 7, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Steven L. Fullerton, Ana Gutierrez Zubiate, Ignacio Santana

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.