Digital Commons Network^™

Weaving In Wellness: Infographics For Self-Care, Adair Finucane, Mickey Sperlich, Whitney Mendel

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

Human service professionals are at risk for burnout, vicarious trauma (VT), and compassion fatigue (CF) throughout their careers, and contemporary levels of burnout, VT, and CF suggest a need for interventions. Engagement in mindfulness and self-care has been found to buffer these risks while increasing worker wellbeing. This article presents infographics intended for facilitating practical self-care engagement. The accompanying infographics provide guidance for mindful self-care behaviors woven into daily transitions. They present a low-cost means of promoting self-care strategies throughout agencies and organizations. This, along with minimal time commitments for each practice, makes these infographics an accessible intervention for human …

Population, Development, And Policy, John Bongaarts, Michele Gragnolati, S. Amer Ahmed, Jamaica Corker

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The extensive literature on population and development yielded few policy-relevant results before the discovery of the demographic dividend. This dividend refers to a rise in per capita income that results from an increase in workers per capita as a population’s fertility declines. This paper describes the role of the demographic dividend in economic development in developing countries and summarizes policy options for strengthening the dividend. The first section reviews the demographic transition with an emphasis on its later phases when declining fertility and a changing population age structure produce the dividend. Next, the demographic drivers of the dividend and its …

An Analysis Of A New Shoe Technology In The Gait Patterns Of A Child With A Neurological Disability, Emma Madonna, Jeff Bauer

The SUNY Journal of the Scholarship of Engagement: JoSE

This study focused on the application of a unique technology originally designed to supply biofeedback to dancers, but in this case was used to assist a child learning to walk while battling the effects of Cerebral Palsy. The musical shoes, called Electroskip^TM, utilize a biofeedback system that generates variable sounds/beats/songs when an individual is walking and placing pressure on their heel or toe. The study lasted six weeks with two sessions per week. Each session started with shoes fitted with Electroskip^TM technology placed on the child’s feet. When instructed by the researcher the child would proceed to …

Conceptualizing The Effects Of Continuous Traumatic Violence On Hiv Continuum Of Care Outcomes For Young Black Men Who Have Sex With Men In The United States, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

The United States (US) is on track to achieve the 90-90-90 targets set forth by UNAIDS and the National HIV/AIDS strategy, yet significant racial disparities in HIV care outcomes remain, particularly for young Black men who have sex with men (YBMSM). Research has demonstrated that various types of violence are key aspects of syndemics that contribute to disparities in HIV risk. However, little research has looked collectively at cumulative violent experiences and how those might affect HIV treatment and care outcomes. Drawing on extant literature and theoretical underpinnings of syndemics, we provide a conceptual model that highlights how continuous traumatic …

Parent Responses To Pediatric Pain: The Differential Effects Of Ethnicity On Opioid Consumption, Candice D. Donaldson, Brooke N. Jenkins, Michelle A. Fortier, Michael T. Phan, Daniel M. Tomaszewski, Sun Yang, Zeev N. Kain

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective

Within the context of the United States opioid epidemic, some parents often fear the use of opioids to help manage their children's postoperative pain. As a possible consequence, parents often do not dispense optimal analgesic medications to their children after surgery, putting their children at risk of suffering from postsurgical pain. The objective of this research was to assess ethnicity as a predictor of both pain and opioid consumption, and to examine how Hispanic/Latinx and Non-Hispanic White parents alter their child's opioid consumption in response to significant postsurgical pain.

Methods

Participants were 254 children undergoing outpatient tonsillectomy and/or adenoidectomy …

Not All Factors Are The Same: Examining Institutions Among Sex Offenders Throughout The Life-Course, Brooke Cooley

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focused on the quality of institutions relative to theories of life-course and desistance. Specifically, this study focused on the quality of marriage, parenthood, and employment and whether the quality of these institutions inhibited or encouraged sexual offending/reoffending and how these factors influenced individuals’ offending behavior over time. While there is an abundance of literature relative to institutions and general offending, little is known about how these institutions impact sexual offending. The purpose of this dissertation was to fill this gap in the extant literature by qualitatively examining how the institutions of marriage, parenthood, and employment influenced sexual offending/reoffending …

Homicide And Drug Trafficking In Impoverished Communities In Brazil, Elenice De Souza Oliveira, Braulio Figueiredo Alves Da Silva, Flavio Luiz Sapori, Gabriela Gomes Cardoso

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Many studies demonstrate that homicides are heavily concentrated in impoverished neighborhoods, but not all socially disadvantaged neighborhoods are hotbeds of violence. Conducted in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, this study hypothesizes that the association between high rates of homicide and impoverished areas is influenced by the emergence of a specific type of street drug-dealing common to favelas (slums). The study applies econometric techniques to police data on homicides and drug arrests from 2008 to 2011, as well as 2010 Census data, to test its hypothesis. The findings provide insight into the development of crime prevention policies in areas of high social vulnerability.

A Preliminary Study Interrogating The Cataloging And Classification Schemes Of A K-12 Book Discovery Platform Through A Critical Race Theory Lens, Kafi D. Kumasi, Cynthia Jimes, Amee Evans Godwin, Lisa A. Petrides, Anastasia Karaglani

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This article presents the results of a preliminary study to examine the cataloging and classification schemes and ideological factors that play out in book discovery platforms for children’s and young adult books. Using Critical Race Theory and a Rapid Contextual Design approach to exploring the curatorial behaviors of school librarians when searching for diverse books, the study offers design ideas for retooling discovery platforms in ways that bridge the cultural disconnect that young adults from historically marginalized racial backgrounds experience in their libraries. The article concludes that in order for school librarians to find, recommend and teach about books that …

The Rattler (Volume 109, Issue 1), St. Mary's University

The Rattler (Previous issues)

Founded in 1919, The Rattler is the student voice of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. The newspaper documents campus life, academic and social issues, student opinion, and local and national events as they relate to the University community. Content typically includes news articles, editorial commentary, arts and culture coverage, sports reporting, and advertisements.

The Forgotten Students: Covid-19 Response For Youth And Young Adults Aging Out Of Foster Care, Mauriell H. Amechi

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

[First paragraph]

In March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic upended American higher education and shuttered campus doors across the country. As the opening vignette illustrates, many college students reported severe housing and food insecurities as a result. Nevertheless, not all college students experienced COVID-19’s effects and consequences equally. For example, Ivory, a current student enrolled at Concordia University Texas who spent 17 years in foster care, illuminated some of the difficulties she has personally faced in the wake of COVID-19. College students impacted by foster care make up approximately 5% of all undergraduates, and many are struggling to have their basic …

Racial Justice And The Image Of Public Health, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The City Commission in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio recently adopted a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis. In doing so, Dayton joins municipalities around the country, as the global pandemic of coronavirus COVID19 swirls around us. The Commission gave compelling reasons for their action, citing the disparate rates of poor health outcomes in African American communities, as well as disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, economic distress, homelessness, incarceration, and inadequate education.1 The Commission’s commitment to remedy these inequities is welcome. Others have laid out this evidence in much detail; I want to focus here on public health …

Comment By Michael Andregg, Michael Andregg

Comparative Civilizations Review

We have already determined that global civilization is experiencing a flurry of interrelated crises that challenge many things we hold dear, in extremis, human survival.

Self-Determination In Transportation: The Route To Social Inclusion For People With Disabilities, Jessica Murray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

People with disabilities encounter many challenges with transportation but are not usually considered in research about travel behavior and well-being. Research on transportation challenges is often disability-specific even though different access needs can complement or conflict with each other. I argue that disability should be centered in the study of travel and well-being because it magnifies problems that may also frustrate people who do not currently consider themselves disabled. The goal of the dissertation was to identify how basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence apply to the context of transportation and identify ways to measure fulfillment and frustration …

¿Cómo Traducimos "Ni Una Más" Al Inglés?: Latin American Manifestation Of The Phenomenology Of Femicide, And The United States’ Subsequent Internal Neglect, Suemi Mendez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper aims to tackle two components in analyzing the phenomenological concept of femicide, most simply known as the killing of women because they are women through structural violence and oppression. First, it will develop its deployment within the Latin American framework as it has been adapted to function within the regional lexicon, both socially and legislatively. This assessment will serve to address the successes and failures thus far in tackling femicide as the location with the highest statistics globally. Through this foregrounding, it will lead into how this revised deployment of femicide fits into the context of Global North …

Destination Diploma: How Chinese Upper-Middle-Class Families “Outsource” Secondary Education To The United States, Siqi Tu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research examines the emerging phenomenon of Chinese urban upper-middle-class families sending their only children, the so-called “parachute students,” to American private high schools in a triple framework of transnational elite education, the emerging global middle class, and the complicated formation of citizenship, membership, and identities across borders. This study draws from data collected through multiple qualitative research methods, including content analysis of online advertising materials of educational agents, ethnographic participant-observation of school recruitment and application consulting workshops, and in-depth interviews with Chinese parents, students, and educational consultants.

I investigate why and how Chinese urban upper-middle-class families make educational decisions …

Being And Becoming: Voice And The Performance Of Self By Black And Brown Women Members Of An Educational Space Organized In Whiteness, Anamaria Correa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation joins the voices of experiences of Black and Brown individuals in elite white spaces of independent schools. As a qualitative research project this study utilizes narrative, I Poems, and art-ifacts to create an ecology of experiences illustrating the past and the resiliency of the present. This research disrupts status quo narratives of lauded diversity efforts of excellent private school education and is a call to action for accountability in anti-racist owning up and restructuring of independent school spaces, leadership, governance and cultural practices. Undergirded by Critical Race Feminist Theory as the theoretical framework this dissertation presents the intersectional, …

Legitimizing Violence At The European Border: Gendered Misrepresentations At Sea And The Vulnerable Other, Michela Demelas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis highlights a temporal and spatial gap in the feminist literature about migrants' journeys throughout the Mediterranean, and investigates the gendered dynamics acting upon the encounter between the European border and racialized bodies at sea. The Mediterranean sea’s material features allow Europe to approach migration as a humanitarian crisis coming from outside, which discharges its responsibility for the deaths. Yet, essentialistic views represent the feminized Other as vulnerable and needing to be saved from the male Other and the sea. Such views shape the Western narratives around concrete rescue procedures and border authorities behaviors. The encounter between the border …

Development Of A Minority Stress Preventive Intervention For Sexual And Gender Minority Youth And Young Adults, Natalie Holt

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mental health disparities amongst sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals are spurred by exposure to minority stressors and sustained by mediators of problems with emotion regulation, social support, and cognitive processes. Emerging clinical research suggests empirically supported behavioral health treatments can be culturally adapted to address these mental health disparities, however less work has focused on the prevention of symptoms. The present study developed a brief preventive intervention targeting mediators of the minority stress model for SGM youth and young adults aged 17 to 26. Focus groups with 8 SGM participants informed development to ensure the content and delivery of …

Racial Justice And The Image Of Public Health, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The City Commission in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio recently adopted a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis. In doing so, Dayton joins municipalities around the country, as the global pandemic of coronavirus COVID-19 swirls around us. The Commission gave compelling reasons for their action, citing the disparate rates of poor health outcomes in African American communities, as well as disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, economic distress, homelessness, incarceration, and inadequate education.

The Commission’s commitment to remedy these inequities is welcome. Others have laid out this evidence in much detail; I want to focus here on public health …

Adverse Childhood Experiences And Cigarette Smoking: Demographic Moderators, Taylor Cosanella

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Research suggests that there is a dose-response relationship between ACE score and cigarette smoking, such that as ACE score increases, so does smoking behavior, but little is known about what factors moderate this relationship. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine demographic characteristics as potential moderators of relationship between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and cigarette smoking. A secondary data analysis was conducted using the 2013 California Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data. The sample included 2,604 U.S. adults (54.8% female; Age: M = 53.3, SD = 8.10; 83.6%; Caucasian, 6.4% Asian, 5.9% Black or African American, 3.1% American …

Program Evaluation On The Kids First Program, Katherine E. Yamauchi

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

This study is a program evaluation of the Kids First program, an eight-week psychoeducation program, on parents and children who have experienced a divorce and/or separation. This study was conducted to assess the usefulness of specific program interventions as it relates to parental insight, co-parenting, and child adjustment. A descriptive analysis was conducted to examine results of the evaluations. Results indicated over 85% of the sample rated program satisfaction as moderately or very valuable, suggesting parents gained some knowledge and saw value in the program. Results also endorsed 95% of parents moderately or highly valued the effectiveness of the program’s …

Pestilence And Other Calamities In Civilizational Theory: Sorokin, Mcneill, Diamond, And Beyond, Vlad Alalykin-Izvekov

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper analyses the phenomenon of pestilence through paradigmatic and methodological lenses of several outstanding social scholars, including Pitirim A. Sorokin, William H. McNeill, and Jared M. Diamond. All three thinkers have advanced original, fundamental, and revolutionary paradigms regarding the profound role which infectious diseases played, are playing, and will continue to play in world history and culture. The phenomenon of pestilence is studied in the context of other major calamities. The relevant historic, as well as contemporary macro-level and long-term sociocultural research, is reviewed. The author advances a number of original concepts, as well as makes relevant projections into …

Integrating Affect Perception Tasks From The New York Emotion Battery Into A Comprehensive Measure Of Neuropsychological Change Across The Lifespan, Melinda A. Cornwell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: The ability to perceive others’ emotions is a vital skill for social competency, impacting the success of personal and professional relationships (Brinton & Fujiki, 2011; Cassidy et al., 1992; Côté & Miners, 2006). According to Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST; Carstensen, 1991), human motivation develops to become more discerning in choosing milieus that yield the most gratifying return on the investment of personal resources (e.g., time, attention, and effort), perhaps explaining why some research findings indicate that older adults may demonstrate an affect perception (AP) bias described as a positivity effect (Reed et al., 2014). Moreover, AP predicts cognitive and …

The Emergence Of Ecosystems-Based Fisheries Management From The Groundfish Crisis In New England: An Actor-Network Theory Analysis, Catherine King

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research investigates the emergence of ecosystems-based fisheries management (EBFM) for New England's marine fisheries in the context of the "crisis" that is escalating in its groundfish fishery. Close observations of the practices of fisheries scientists in coordination with managers at the New England Fisheries Management Council, with focus on how knowledge is being produced and employed, allows for understanding EBFM as an emergent construction produced by networks of associations between actants, human and non-human, material and semiotic, and not strictly as a policy prescription informed by experts on biology, ecology, and socio-economics. This analysis identifies and elucidates the multiplicity …

Developmental Predictors Of Adolescent Mental Health Stigma And A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial Of "Ending The Silence" In New York City, Joseph S. Deluca

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explored predictors of mental health stigma among adolescents and the effectiveness of a school-based mental health stigma reduction and health promotion program, “Ending the Silence” (ETS), developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Youth mental health service use is impacted by many factors, but concern about stigma and low mental health knowledge have been consistently identified as leading barriers to help-seeking. Beyond education and contact program components, existing research on how to design a successful adolescent stigma reduction intervention has been inconclusive. A diverse sample of 206 high school students in New York City participated in the …

Caregivers’ Expectations, Reflected Appraisals, And Arrests Among Adolescents Who Experienced Parental Incarceration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Melissa Noel

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

This research sought to identify a potential process by which intergenerational crime occurs, focusing on the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ subsequent arrests. We drew from Matsueda’s work on reflected appraisals as an explanatory mechanism for this effect. Thus, the present research examined whether caregivers’ and adolescents’ expectations for adolescents’ future incarceration sequentially mediated the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ actual arrest outcomes. Propensity score matching was used to examine this effect in a sample of 1,735 15- to 16-year-olds using NLSY97 data. Parental incarceration was positively related to caregivers’ expectations of adolescents’ future arrest. Moreover, caregivers’ expectations …

An Examination Of Hiv Risk, Testing And Prevention Intervention Participation Among Vulnerable Youth, Bianca V. Lopez

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Young gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (YGBM) of color are disproportionately affected by HIV and bear the burden of the disease in the United States. Gay and bisexual men – referred to in surveillance systems as men who have sex with men (MSM) – continue to be the risk group most severely affected by HIV in the United States. The dissertation study explored factors related on HIV prevention intervention participation, HIV testing and sexual risk behaviors among YGBM ages 13-29 in the Bronx. Additionally, this dissertation endeavored to study the concept of “intervention fatigue”, …

Effects Of Parental Incarceration On Their Children : A Study Of Children Of Incarcerated Parents, Afua Amankwaa

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

The adult prison population is estimated to have increased recently, at a rate similar to the rate at which the total world population has increased. As prison adult population increases, it can be inferred that the number of children with incarcerated parents is also on the rise. However, with lack of data and policy on these children, particularly in the Low Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), little or virtually nothing is known about these children and how they are faring after the separation of their parents from them. This study aimed at bridging this knowledge gap by examining the effects of parental …

Covid-19 Didn't Create A Child Care Crisis, But Hastened And Inflamed It, Jess Carson, Marybeth J. Mattingly

Carsey Publications

In this Carsey Perspective, authors Jess Carson and Marybeth Mattingly describe the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has strained the nation’s already-fragile early childhood care systems.

Child care providers are struggling to address revenue losses associated with closures, fewer enrollments, and new safety guidelines. Meanwhile, demand for formal child care is shifting in yet-unknown ways, with unemployment, telework, uncertain school reopenings for older children, and health-related concerns all playing a part.

The authors conclude that the child care system requires significant policy support to regain lost footage, but encourage policymakers to utilize the pandemic’s disruption as an opportunity to rebuild …

Book Review: Reconnecting To The Source By Ervin Laszlo, Elizabeth W. Szatmari Krasnoff

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Quantum philosopher Ervin Laszlo has taken one step further outside of the contemporary mainstream scientific view, which believes in a reductive “scientific” method primarily of highly controlled experiments to determine truth. In this visionary work, Laszlo proposes that the true laws of nature can also be accessed and felt experientially. Here he argues that the new quantum science can support this view, and even assist us as we heal the rift between mind and spirit and reconnect to our source. Laszlo proposes a new paradigm, a holotropic worldview with love as the core attracting force of wholeness. Indeed, as the …