Business Commons^™

Health And Healthcare: Designing For The Social Determinants Of Health And Blue Zones In North Nashville, Rebecca Tonguis, Honor Thomas, Olivia Hobbs

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Owned by North Nashville’s First Community Church, a now empty site in the Osage-North Fisk neighborhood of North Nashville has been identified as a potential site for a new location of The Store, in addition to a community-centric architectural development based on the social determinants of health and informed by the principles behind Blue Zones, the locations with the highest lifespans in the world. Opened by Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, The Store is a free grocery store that “allow[s] people to shop for their basic needs in a way that protects dignity and fosters hope”, for which North Nashville …

Columnas: The Honors Program Newsletter At Bentley University, Clara Williams, Micaela Corzo, Naeelah Desanges, Alyssa Galin, Isabella Ramirez

Honors Program

Page 1: WHY ARE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS SO HARD TO KEEP? By Sahil Raut ’27

Page 2: THE CAPITALIST INFLUENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION By Kevin Heintz ’26

Page 3: THE IMPORTANCE OF MENSTRUAL HEALTH MANAGEMENT By Sid Goel ’24

Page 4: CAN TECHNOLOGY SOLVE EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY? By Ariana Ramirez ’27

Page 5: DATA PORTABILITY CAN CHANGE THE DIGITAL WORLD By Kassidi Thompson ’27

Page 6: THE POWER OF VULNERABILITY By Peter Epp ’24

Page 7: THREADS OF BELIEF By Yudao Song ’26

Covid-19 And Management Scholarship: Lessons For Conducting Impactful Research, Gerard George, Gokhan Ertug, Jonathan P. Doh, Johanna Mair, Ajnesh Prasad

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for management scholars to address large-scale and complex societal problems and strive for greater practical and policy impact. A brief overview of the most-cited work on COVID-19 reveals that, compared with their counterparts in other disciplines, leading management journals and professional associations lagged in providing a platform for high-impact research on COVID-19. To help management research play a more active role in responding to similar global challenges in the future, we propose an integrative framework that emphasizes a phenomenon’s impact, the conditions that the phenomenon creates at multiple levels, and the responses of actors …

Health Disparities: The Influence Of Black Celebrity Endorsers And Social Media Influencers On Consumption Habits Among African American Consumers, Dale A. Cake, Wooyang Kim

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2024

This study examines the impact of celebrity and social media influencer endorsements on the dietary choices of African Americans, a group disproportionately affected by obesity and diabetes. It focuses on the role of limited access to healthy foods in impoverished communities and cultural influences. Using the source credibility model, the research assesses endorsements based on the endorser's attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness. The methodology involves a two-step approach: conducting semi-structured interviews with African American students to understand perceptions of food-related celebrity endorsements, followed by an experimental design using eye-tracking and galvanic skin response (GSR) technology. This design will evaluate reactions to …

Effect Of The Announcement Of Human-To-Human Transmission On Teleconsultation Services In China During Covid-19, Mairehaba Maimaitiming, Jingui Xie, Zhichao Zheng, Yongjian Zhu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Objectives: Telemedicine enables patients to communicate with physicians effectively, especially during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. However, few studies have explored the use of online health care platforms for a comprehensive range of specialties during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to investigate how telemedicine services were affected by the announcement of human-to-human transmission in China. Methods: Telemedicine data from haodf.com in China were collected. A difference-in-differences analysis compared the number of telemedicine use and the number of active online physicians for different specialties in 2020 with the numbers in 2019, before and after the announcement of human-to-human transmission. Results: …

Medical Tourism & Communication, Alicia Mason

Faculty Submissions

Medical tourism (MT), sometimes referred to as health tourism or medical travel, involves both the treatment of illness and the facilitation of wellness, with travel. Medical tourism is a multifaceted and multiphase process involving many agents and actors that requires careful planning and execution. The coordinated process involves the biomedical, transportation, tourism, and leisure industries. From the communication perspective, the process can be viewed as a 5-stage model consisting of the: (a) orientation, (b) preparation, (c) experiential and treatment, (d) convalescence, and (e) reflection phases. Medical tourism is uniquely situated in a nexus of academic literature related to communication, business …

Universal Health Coverage: A Basis For Pandemic Preparedness?, Merline Feero

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Amid extensive research and reporting on the effects of COVID-19 on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) progress, this study explores an often neglected topic: the potential of UHC to contribute to the foundations of pandemic preparedness. Herein, quantitative analysis reveals that countries with higher UHC coverage tend to exhibit greater pandemic preparedness (as determined by the UHC Service Coverage Index and the Global Health Security Index). Complementary qualitative analysis is used to further illustrate and explain the correlation between UHC and pandemic preparedness using four case study countries, integrating literature reviews and relevant expert interviews. Through these methods, a clear tie …

Progress Reimagined: A Generation Z Perspective On Belfast In Relation To The Unsdgs., Lucy Love Haman, Rebecca F. Macleod, Emilee E. Ernster, Camryn Moore, Erin Miller, Daron Baltazar, Ricardo Jackson

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

This research explores a contemporary outsider view of Belfast, through the eyes of Generation Z visiting college students, in relation to how three United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are carried out (Good Health and Well-Being, Climate Action, and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). To learn through firsthand accounts, the researchers utilized ethnographic and phenomenological methods, as interacting with locals to gather community inputs, surveying different groups in the city, Abstract: recording quotes said by citizens and displayed at billboards, and For Peer Review applying personal sensory experiences. It was found that a political deadlock plays a major role in the …

Lean Six Sigma Body Of Knowledge For Healthcare Industry Administrators: Implementation Of Lessons Learned In Applied Engineering, Mohammed Ali

Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this paper is to propose a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) course curriculum for healthcare administration and management majors. It identifies the relevant opportunities and challenges for the application of LSS within the healthcare industry. The paper also discusses the cultural changes necessary to provide an appropriate climate for its long-term success. This work contains a comprehensive description of the body of knowledge in LSS, which were successful in applied engineering. Additionally, the paper describes how LSS may be applied in the hospital setting to improve processes in patient-care services. Upon successful completion of the course, the healthcare …

Low-Cost Pm2.5 Sensors Can Help Identify Driving Factors Of Poor Air Quality And Benefit Communities, Tim Keyes, Rea Domingo, Samantha Dynowski, Royal Graves, Martha Klein, Melissa Leonard, John Pilgrim, Alison Sanchirico, Kate Trinkaus

WCBT Faculty Publications

Air quality is critical for public health. Residents rely chiefly on government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States to establish standards for the measurement of harmful contaminants including ozone, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), and fine particulate matter at or below 2.5 μm. According to the California Air Resources Board [1], “short-term PM2.5 exposure (up to 24-h duration) has been associated with premature mortality, increased hospital admissions for heart or lung causes, acute and chronic bronchitis, asthma attacks, emergency room visits, respiratory symptoms, and restricted activity days”. While public agency resources …

Revitalizing The Healthcare Market: An Analysis Of Hospital Pricing Transparency Compliance, Ellie Bruggeman

Business and Economics Summer Fellows

The healthcare industry is one of the most praised industries in the US due to its lifesaving capabilities and immersive care. Consumers regularly report that are satisfied with the care they receive from their physicians. Conversely, they also report frustrations and confusions associated with the costs of such care. In extreme cases, this frustration can turn to financial ruin as medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. The healthcare industry does not operate in congruence with other markets, largely due to the presence of insurance and other third-party payers. The undisclosed interactions between third party payers …

Covid Time: How Quarantine Affects Feelings Of Elapsed Time, Minju Han, Guy Voichek, Gal Zauberman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The lockdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly upended people's lives and daily structure. In this survey of 1,506 Americans conducted in June 2020, we test how quarantine affects feelings of elapsed time (the subjective temporal distance from an event). We find that feelings of elapsed time are determined either by how people spent their time in quarantine or by how much time since an event was spent in quarantine, depending on whether people are still in quarantine at the time of evaluation. Specifically, whether people quarantined alone and the extent to which they maintained a temporal structure …

Effects Of The Needle Exchange Program And Its Current Status In West Virginia, Thomas Norton, Amber Graves, Anthony Uriarte, Katherine Duty, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

Excerpt:

One of the main problems that have impacted the state of healthcare in West Virginia has been the rising costs of treatments for bloodborne infections (Bates et al., 2019). Bloodborne pathogens and their resulting diseases have commonly spread by exchanging contaminated needles (Denault & Gardner, 2021). In West Virginia, Needle Exchange Programs (NEPs) have been implemented to reduce the transmission of certain infections, such as HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, which have been more common among drug users (Beck & Kersey, 2018). In 2015, West Virginia had the second-highest rate of cases of hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in …

Harm Reduction In West Virginia: Do Needle Exchange Programs Reduce Disease And Decrease Costs?, Katie Duty, Amber Graves, Anthony Uriate, Stacie Deslich, Alberto Coustasse, Thomas Norton

Management Faculty Research

Needle Exchange Programs (NEP)s were created to help users exchange used needles for new sterile ones and become aware of treatment and rehabilitation options. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of NEPs and their impact on reducing HIV and Hepatitis C infections in West Virginia and decreasing health care costs for the community. Based on studies conducted on the past implementation of needle exchange programs, it is suggested that there has been evidence that closing these programs can have a broad societal impact on the spread of HIV and hepatitis C and the associated costs. In addition, the community …

“High” Innovators? Marijuana Legalization And Regional Innovation, Stephanihe Cheng, Pengkai Lin, Yinliang Tan, Yuchen Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The past three decades have witnessed a tremendous shift in public health policies towards marijuana legalization in the U.S. Adopting the process-based view of innovation, we hypothesize that marijuana's increased use and related consequences after its legalization affect innovators’ behavior and social environment during the innovation process, which in turn impacts regional innovation. Utilizing the staggered adoption of medical marijuana laws by 20 states between 1996 and 2013 as a quasi-experimental setting, we find that legalizing medical marijuana reduces the overall output of regional innovation, as proxied by patents’ total forward-citation count aggregated by innovator location. Further analyses decomposing the …

Marijuana Liberalization And Public Finance: A Capital Market Perspective On The Passage Of Medical Use Laws, Stephanie F. Cheng, Gus De Franco, Pengkai Lin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We find that the staggered passage of state-level laws that legalize marijuana for medical use increases states' borrowing costs by 7–9 basis points. Consistent with economic theory on substance use suggesting that marijuana legalization increases local consumption of the drug (by expanding its availability and reducing its perceived risks), we predict and find that increased consumption represents an important mechanism that explains the higher state bond spreads. We also show that following such laws’ passage, states incur higher marijuana-consumption-related expenditures, including for police, corrections, and public welfare.

The Potential And Peculiarities Of Perma: A Meta-Analysis Of Two Well-Being Measures With Working Samples, William P. Jimenez, Xiaoxiao Hu, Rebecca Garden, Asiye Zeytonli

Psychology Faculty Publications

In the first meta-analysis of the PERMA well-being framework (i.e., positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, accomplishment), we cumulated 692 effect sizes (k = 33 independent samples, N = 10,050 workers). Average reliability did not meet the conventional ɑ = .70 threshold for engagement measured with the PERMA-Profiler or the Workplace PERMA Profiler or for negative emotions measured with the former. Overall, PERMA dimensions were strongly intercorrelated, and model comparisons suggested multidimensionality. We also summarized PERMA’s relationships with some conceptual antecedents (conscientiousness, loneliness); correlates (happiness, negative emotions); and outcomes (physical health, depressive symptoms, overall …

Engaging The Aging Process: Unlock The Fountain Of Youth, Abeni El-Amin Ph.D.

Management Faculty Publications

Employment for aging is a significant aspect shaping the aging processes during formative years. Therefore, work opportunities combined and consequential impacts later in life merit special consideration. Given that population aging has become a global pattern with ensuing changes in labor markets far and wide, there is increased concern about the impacts of retirement around the globe and the macroeconomic advantages frequently connected with delaying retirement. It is fundamental for nations with aging populations to maintain profitability, given an aging workforce. Governments must make it simpler for individuals to maintain a significant presence in the workforce. This contribution focuses on …

Protecting Low-Income Consumers In The Era Of Digital Grocery Shopping: Implications For Wic Online Ordering, Qi Zhang, Priyanka Patel, Caitlin M. Lowery

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is now expected to allow participants to redeem their food benefits online, i.e., via online ordering, rather than only in-store. However, it is unclear how this new benefit redemption model may impact participants’ welfare since vendors may have an asymmetric information advantage compared with WIC customers. The WIC online ordering environment may also change the landscape for WIC vendors, which will eventually affect WIC participants. To protect WIC consumers’ rights in the new online ordering model, policymakers need an appropriate legal and regulatory framework. This narrative review provides that …

Psychometric Properties Of The Persian Version Of Consideration Of Future Safety Consequence (Cfsc) Scale, Fazel Rajabi, Hamidreza Mokarami, Payam Farhadi, Sean Banaee, Mehdi Jahangiri

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Background: Personality traits, due to having a relative stability, are important factors for predicting employees’ safety behavior. Consideration of Future Safety Consequence (CFSC) is a personality trait that was recently introduced to predict the safety behaviors. The purpose of this study was to translate and assess the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the CFSC scale.

Methods: In the first stage of this cross-sectional study, the instrument was prepared by the forward-backward forward translation technique and evaluated by 487 employees of a gas refinery. The validity of the scale was evaluated through face, concurrent, validity, and construct validity. The …

Relieving The Gambling Itch Through Alcohol Consumption: The Impact Of Covid-19 Restrictions On Australian Casino Patrons, Tenghao Zhang, Pi-Shen Seet, Janice Redmond, Jalleh Sharafizad

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper extends our understanding of how casino patrons are affected by COVID-19 restrictions and how they cope by substituting gambling with alcohol consumption. We conducted two studies using a nationwide survey sample collected in Australia during the pandemic lockdown. Study 1 compares the casino patrons with two reference groups (other gambling patrons and non-gambling individuals) and investigates the lockdown restrictions on respondents’ relational strength, and their potential impact on mental health and future prospects. Study 2 applies the stress-response dampening model (SRD) and tests how respondents used alcohol consumption to cope with the lack of access to casinos during …

Landscaping Wellness At Work: A Participatory Model For Worker-Centered Health, Anya Helena Piotrowski

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study contributes to a body of scholarship that demonstrates the benefits and need of employee-driven and defined wellness at work processes. This participatory action research study brought together a team of employees within a remote-work, start-up organization to define and design a process for implementing wellness at work for their organization. Through a participatory process that allowed outcomes to emerge from the group, employees identified opportunities to foster embodied wellness in their organization in three core areas: organizational, personal, and cross-boundary initiatives. Through a reflective collaboration, employees generated ideas and developed a plan to address employee-identified priorities that will …

Predictors Of Covid-19 Vaccination Rate In Usa: A Machine Learning Approach, Syed M. I. Osman, Ahmed Sabit

WCBT Faculty Publications

In this study, we examine state-level features and policies that are most important in achieving a threshold level vaccination rate to curve the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ CHAID, a decision tree algorithm, on three different model specifications to answer this question based on a dataset that includes all the states in the United States. Workplace travel emerges as the most important predictor; however, the governors’ political affiliation (PA) replaces it in a more conservative feature set that includes economic features and the growth rate of COVID-19 cases. We also employ several alternative algorithms as a robustness check. …

Is Nevada A Reproductive Resource Desert?, Tsion Mekonnen

Research Publications

Nevada's reproductive health issues is specified in a list of statistical data. The data ranges from issues concerning women living in poverty, the uninsured population of men and women in Nevada, and the amount of women enrolled/eligible for benefits.

Fear And Trembling While Working In A Pandemic: An Exploratory Meta-Analysis Of Workers’ Covid-19 Distress, William P. Jimenez, Ian M. Katz, Elissa A. Liguori

Psychology Faculty Publications

The global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of workers and taken its toll on health and well-being. In line with recent calls for more inductive and abductive occupational health science research, we exploratorily meta-analyzed workers’ COVID-19 distress, defined as psychological and psychosomatic strain contextualized to experiencing the virus and pandemic broadly. We identified many existing COVID-19 distress measures (e.g., Fear of COVID-19 Scale by Ahorsu et al., 2020; Coronavirus Anxiety Scale by Lee, 2020a) and correlates, including demographic variables (viz., gender, marital status, whether worker has children), positive well-being (e.g., quality of life, perceived social support, resilience), negative well-being …

Patterns Of Health Care Use Among Rural-Urban Medicare Beneficiaries Age 85 And Older, 2010-2017, Yvonne Jonk Phd, Heidi O'Connor Ms, Amanda Burgess Mppm, Carly Milkowski Mph

Access / Insurance

The purpose of this study was to examine rural-urban differences in health care use among Medicare beneficiaries age 85+. Understanding these differences, and the socioeconomic characteristics that contribute to them, can have important implications for Medicare policies aimed at serving the age 85+ population. Using the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey 2010-13 Cost and Use and 2015-17 Cost Supplement Files, we examined whether and how rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries age 85+ differ in terms of their:

1. socioeconomic and health characteristics that may inform health care use;
2. trends in health care use, including use of inpatient and emergency department (ED) care; …

Certified Nursing Assistant Turnover In The Long-Term Care Facility Industry, Michael Leroy Gregory

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Employee turnover in long-term care facilities results in increased operational costs and a reduction in the quality of care delivered. The purpose of this correlational study was to investigate the relationships between employee turnover intention of certified nursing assistants working in long-term care facilities and employee compensation, engagement, job satisfaction, motivation, perceived work stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, and work environment. The population of interest consisted of CNAs over the age of 17, with at least two years of experience working in the central Texas long-term care industry. Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory served as the theoretical framework underpinning this study. Multiple …

Making Virtual Project-Based Learning Work During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Yuanto Kusnadi, Gary Pan, Shankararaman, Venky

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Project-based learning is an increasingly popular pedagogical approach in university education shown to be effective in fostering problem-solving, analytical, design thinking and teamwork skills. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to universities pivoting from project-based learning (PBL) in the classroom to a virtual learning environment. By examining local student consulting courses conducted virtually in a Singapore University (UNIS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to address the knowledge gap in the PBL literature by identifying the roles played by digital literacy - in utilising the digital tools that support virtual learning, in a virtual learning environment. The study also serves …

The Paradoxical Effects Of Covid-19 Event Strength On Employee Turnover Intention, Hui Deng, Wenbing Wu, Yihua Zhang, Xiaoyan Zhang, Jing Ni

All Faculty Open Access Publications

As a global pandemic, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has brought enormous challenges to employees and organizations. Although numerous existing studies have highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic is a stressful event and empirically proved its detrimental effect on employee turnover intention, few scholars have noted that this pandemic can deteriorate the external economic and employment environment simultaneously, which may further complicate employees’ intentions to leave or stay in the current organization. Drawing on event system theory and social cognitive theory, this study aims to uncover two potential cognitive mechanisms of the complex impact of COVID-19 event strength on employee turnover intention. …

Egypt’S Pediatric Oncology Hospital 57357: A Case Study Analysis, Ashley A. Clegg

Honors Theses

Hospital 57357 is the foremost pediatric oncology hospital in Egypt and provides treatment free of charge to children with cancer. Since its establishment in 2007, the hospital has grown to a capacity of 380 patient beds across three locations. Its quest for continuous improvement led to the development of a new performance management system emphasizing the tracking and measurement of a multitude of Key Performance Indicators across all departments. While this new system enables objective and perpetual monitoring of key patient care metrics, its integration into the existing structure introduces challenges that must be addressed. To analyze the external environment …