Digital Commons Network^™

Prevalence, Nature, Context And Impact Of Alcohol Use In India: Recommendations For Practice And Research, S. Prabhu, David A. Patterson Silver Wolf (Adelv Unegv Waya) Phd, Catherine N. Dulmus Phd, K. S. Ratheeshkumar

Brown School Faculty Publications

Presently alcohol policy in India takes a moral stand rather than a scientific approach towards understanding and dealing with the problem of alcoholism. To effectively address this social problem in India, public policy must take into account the nature, extent of the problem and the context in which it occurs. This literature review examines the nature, prevalence and impact of alcohol use and misuse in India, within its historical and cultural contexts, as a beginning step to inform policy. Recommendations for practice and future research directions are suggested.

Vulnerability And Disability In Darfur, Maria Kett, Jean-Francois Trani

Brown School Faculty Publications

The difficulties faced by persons with disabilities throughout the displacement process contribute to their increased vulnerability.

Missouri County Profiles: Tobacco-Related Disparities In Missouri, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Amy Sorg, Sarah Shelton, Jenine Harris

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report identified tobacco-related disparities in Missouri through examining tobacco use, secondhand smoke exposure, and smoking cessation based on demographic, socioeconomic and personal characteristics. Findings from this report can be used to better understand differences in tobacco use among specific populations across the state. Addressing groups that are bearing a disproportionate burden from tobacco use will contribute to comprehensive tobacco control efforts, reducing overall tobacco use and making Missouri a healthier place to live.

Public School District: Baseline Policy Assessment, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Sarah Moreland-Russell, Bobbi Carothers, Laura Brossart

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report from the CPPW project presents the findings from a baseline assessment of tobacco policies in all St. Louis County public school districts. These findings are provided to stakeholders to help inform intervention efforts for strengthening school tobacco policies.

The Oregon Profile: Advancing The Best Practices, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Max Bryant, Stephanie Herbers, Lana Wald

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This Oregon case study/profile presents findings from an evaluation that aimed to understand how evidence-based guidelines were disseminated, adopted, and used within state tobacco control programs.

Model Pratice Building: Baseline Evaluation Findings, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Virginia Houmes, Nicole Leacock, Nancy Mueller

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report presents the key findings based on data from baseline qualitative interviews and retrospective data collected from December 2007 to September 2009. The evaluation found grantees reported much success implementing their project. In particular, increasing project visibility and buy-in within their communities were areas where grantees felt they made significant progress.

Point Of Sale Advertising: Baseline Policy Assessment, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Sarah Moreland-Russell, Julianne Cyr, Doneisha Snider

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report provides an overview of the retail environment and point of sale advertising in a sample of St. Louis County tobacco retailers. These findings were provided to the St. Louis County Department of Health and other CPPW stakeholders, including the Leadership Team, to help inform intervention efforts for strengthening point of sale policies.

Best Practices User Guide: Youth Engagement, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Sarah Moreland-Russell, Laura Brossart, Sarah Schell, Erin K. Black, Anneke Mohr, Kendre E. Israel, Nancy B. Mueller, Douglas A. Luke

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This user guide, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focuses on the role youth play in advancing policy as part of a comprehensive tobacco control program. This guide will provide tobacco control program managers with information on the best practices for engaging youth as a part of a comprehensive program. Youth involvement can lead to important policy and social norm changes, and advance the fight against pro-tobacco influences.

The Heaven And Earth Haggadah, Krista Hyde

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

African American Caregiver Resiliency: Resources, Vulnerabilities, Coping, And Well-Being Among Caregivers Of Persons With Chronic Illness, Kimberly Carter

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Using a sample of African American family members from the National Survey of Families and Households: NSFH), this study explored the experience of caring for a family member with chronic illness. Guided by the Model of Family Stress, Adaptation, and Resiliency the study looked at the role that family stress and coping factors: specifically, resources, vulnerabilities, and coping behaviors) have on caregiver well-being. T-tests and chi-square analyses of the entire sample, both the caregivers and non-caregivers: N = 2390) revealed no significant differences, other than gender, between caregivers and non-caregivers across demographic, stressor, and coping factors. Caregivers were more likely …

Psychosocial Problems Of Homeless Sexual Minority Youths And Their Heterosexual Counterparts, Maurice Gattis

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Abstract The purpose of this dissertation was to better understand the psychosocial problems: mental health problems, substance use problems, and sexual risk behaviors) and the associated contextual risk factors by comparing homeless sexual minority youths with their heterosexual counterparts. This study used an ecological perspective: Bronfenbrenner, 1989) and a risk and protective factors framework: Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992) to identify contextual risk factors at the microsystem, mesosystem, and macrosystem levels that are associated with the psychosocial problems of homeless sexual minority and homeless heterosexual youths. Individuals aged 16-24 were recruited from three drop-in programs serving homeless youths in downtown …

Predictors Of Intercultural Competence Among International Volunteers, Benjamin Lough

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

International volunteering and service: IVS) has the potential to promote intercultural competence, or "the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one's intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes": Deardorff, 2008: 33). Although conditions of IVS vary greatly across program models, nearly all claim that volunteering will increase intercultural competence. Contact theory, transformative learning theory, and various stage theories of intercultural learning all suggest, however, that cultural contact will only improve a volunteer's intercultural competence under certain conditions. This dissertation builds on previous scholarship by isolating four characteristics that vary across institutional models, and testing how these variations …

The Pursuit Of Accreditation In Children's Mental Health Care: Motivations, Experiences, And Perceptions, Madeline Lee

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Accreditation is a growing, worldwide phenomenon and thousands of mental health organizations spend considerable amounts of money and resources towards achieving and maintaining accreditation. Despite its widespread use, the empirical and theoretical literature on accreditation is sparse. This study is the first step towards examining accreditation's potential as an organizational intervention to improve the quality of mental health services. Using a mixed methods multiple case study design, this exploratory study aimed to 1) understand agencies' motivations to pursue accreditation, 2) explore agencies' experiences with the accreditation process, 3) identify mental health care workers' perceptions of how the accreditation process may …

Impacts Of Parental Resources On Child Educational Outcomes: Assets And Mediating Pathways, Youngmi Kim

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Scholars have begun to pay more attention to the role of parental wealth in children's educational attainment. There is still no consensus on how different types of assets contribute to children's educational outcomes. Also, asset effects on high school dropout are not examined to date, and mediating pathways of social-psychological characteristics are more investigated with educational achievement: e.g. measured by test scores, GPA) rather than educational attainment. In response to these academic gaps, this study investigates: 1) the effects of parental assets in child's educational attainment from high school dropout to college degree attainment and: 2) the mediating roles played …

Racial Disparities In Hiv Seroprevalence Among Male Street Sex Workers, Larry Morton

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation examined whether racial disparities in HIV/AIDS between African American and Caucasian male street sex workers: MSSWs) existed and, if so, what were the possible reasons for these disparities. African American MSSWs were significantly more likely to report being HIV/AIDS-positive. However, when included in binary logistic models, the relationship between HIV risk factors: of syphilis and sexual assault) and HIV status did not significantly vary between African American and Caucasian MSSWs. Mediation of sexual assault and/or syphilis between race and HIV/AIDS could not be tested due to not meeting the assumptions for mediation. African American MSSWs are over twice …

Evaluating The Patient-Centeredness Of Medicare Part D, Melissa Hensley

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The implementation of the Medicare prescription drug benefit: "Part D") has brought about many changes in the provision of prescription medications to adults with serious mental illness. Existing research on the impact of Part D on this population, for the most part, examines the benefit from the perspective of the physicians who treat these individuals. This research seeks to use a framework of patient-centered care to examine the impact of the Part D benefit on adults with mental illness, from the viewpoints of beneficiaries themselves and the case managers: "community support workers") who serve them. In addition, data from the …

Minding The Gap: Rethinking The Perceived Disjuncture Between Rurality And Homosexuality, Jessica Harris

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

"Kneecapping" Academic Freedom, Robert R. Kuehn, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

As universities increasingly seek to educate students through service learning courses, law school clinics may be the bellwether for determining if faculty’s traditional academic freedom of teaching will transcend the traditional classroom or be left at the classroom door. Recent legislative and corporate efforts to interfere in the operations of law clinics indicate that academic freedom is at risk when hands-on student learning bumps up against “real world” disputes. This article examines why attacks on law school clinics are a harbinger of how academic freedom is treated when it moves out of the classroom.

The authors discuss the role of …

Missouri County Profiles: Adult Tobacco Use And Smoke-Free Policies, Center For Public Health Systems Science

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report book provides county-specific tobacco data to use in policy advocacy efforts. Data included are from the largest special survey ever conducted in Missouri. This data set is envisioned to be a catalyst for change in Missouri, identifying and describing the health of communities to better inform health professionals and policy makers.

Private Schools: Baseline Policy Assessment, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Sarah Moreland-Russell, Bobbi Carothers, Laura Brossart

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report presents the findings from a baseline assessment of tobacco policies in private schools in St. Louis County Districts 1 through 4. These findings were provided to the St. Louis County Department of Health and other CPPW stakeholders, including the Leadership Team and initiative grantees, to help inform intervention efforts for strengthening school tobacco policies.

Missouri County Profiles: Characteristics Of Missouri Tobacco Users, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Sarah Shelton, Amy Sorg, Stephanie Herbers

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This report is the first in a series of Missouri County Profiles. These reports were disseminated to tobacco control stakeholders throughout Missouri to support programmatic efforts and inform strategic planning of tobacco control activities. This report presents results from the first analysis, which sought to highlight characteristics of Missouri tobacco users and gather knowledge about tobacco use among Missourians.

Does Household Food Insecurity Affect Parental Characteristics And Child Behavior?: Evidence From The Panel Study Of Income Dynamics (Psid), Jin Huang, Karen M. Matta Oshima, Youngmi Kim

Center for Social Development Research

This study examines the link between household food insecurity and child behavior problems mediated through parental characteristics (parenting stress, parental warmth, psychological distress, and parent’s self-esteem) using two waves of data from the Child Development Supplement in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Analyses of fixedeffects models are conducted on a low-income sample of 416 children from 249 households. This study finds that the effects of food insecurity on child behavior problems are mediated by parenting stress. However, two robustness tests show different results from those of the fixed-effects models. This inconsistency suggests that the complicated relationship between household food …

Mei Guo De Zi Chan Jian She: Zheng Ce Chuang Xin Yu Ke Xue Yan Jiu [Asset Building In The Us: Policy Innovation And Scientific Research], Michael Sherraden, Li Zou

Center for Social Development Research

Mei Guo De Zi Chan Jian She: Zheng Ce Chuang Xin Yu Ke Xue Yan Jiu [Asset Building in the US: Policy Innovation and Scientific Research]

Parental Income, Assets, And Borrowing Constraints And Children's Post-Secondary Education, Jin Huang, Baorong Guo, Youngmi Kim, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

This study is a test of two theoretical models linking parental economic resources to children’s post-secondary education, namely, short-term borrowing constraints and long-term family background. a series of structural equation models (SEM) are tested using data from a sample of young adults (N=650) in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). To further understand the role of parental resources in children’s education, analyses are conducted for both income and assets, with assets measured by liquid assets and net worth. Findings indicate that both income and assets have consistent long-term associations with children’s college entry. When measures of household wealth are …

Assets And Child Well-Being In Developed Countries, Trina Williams Shanks, Youngmi Kim, Vernon Loke, Mesmin Destin

Center for Social Development Research

Although there is no universal approach to offering Child Development Accounts (CDAs), this paper introduces a framework for an age-based conceptual model that describes how such accounts might influence indicators of child wellbeing. With a focus on optimal age-appropriate development beginning at birth and ranging through young adulthood, the model incorporates research from multiple disciplines to include direct effects, indirect effects and critical milestones. We review empirical evidence from national datasets (primarily from the United States, but including research from other developed countries) to provide a context for this framework. This conceptual and empirical backdrop provides a starting point from …

Streamlined Enrollment And Default Investment: Innovations In Alaska's College Savings Plan, Margaret M. Clancy, Terry Lassar, Rebekah Miller

Center for Social Development Research

As college savings plans have gained in popularity and matured over the years, states have developed a number of innovations to facilitate access to and participation in 529s. This paper examines innovations in streamlined enrollment, pre-selected investment, and default investment in Alaska’s college savings plan. These 529 innovations—intended to facilitate greater participation, especially amongst low- and middle-income families—could play a more important role in other states to encourage savings for postsecondary education.

Assets And Liabilities, Educational Expectations, And Children's College Degree Attainment, Min Zhan, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Assets and Liabilities, Educational Expectations, and Children's College Degree Attainment

Low-Cost State Innovations To Help Families Save For College, Mark Huelsman, Margaret M. Clancy

Center for Social Development Research

While 529 plans are defined in the federal tax code, individual states have considerable latitude to innovate and make their plans more inclusive. Some states have undertaken large-scale initiatives, such as matching contributions or establishing accounts at birth. Other states have been exploring a number of smaller, lower- cost innovations to remove disincentives and increase savings. States are often the testing ground for future federal policies, and several of these initiatives could also be enacted at the federal level.

Account Monitoring Research At Michigan Seed, Vernon Loke, Margaret Clancy, Robert Zager

Center for Social Development Research

Account Monitoring Research at Michigan SEED

The Southern Regional Asset Building Coalition Survey, Gena Gunn, Jennifer Heffern

Center for Social Development Research

The Southern Regional Asset Building Coalition Survey