Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Decreasing Barriers For Teens: Evaluation Of A New Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Strategy In School-Based Clinics, Abbey C. Sidebottom, Amanda Birnbaum, Sarah S. Nafstad

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Sidebottom et al seek to evaluate the effects of the change in distribution systems on students' receipt of requested contraceptives and demand for contraceptive school-based clinics (SBC). The result of the study reveals that the average number of requests per student was higher under the voucher system, possibly as a consequence of expires vouchers resulting in repeated requests. The findings also suggest that SBCs could go a step further in reducing adolescents' barriers to accessing contraceptives by adopting an on-site direct delivery system..

Client Commitment Language During Motivational Interviewing Predicts Drug Use Outcomes, Paul Amrhein, William R. Miller, Carolina Yahne, Michael Palmer, Laura Fulcher

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Client language from a motivational interview (MI) and drug use outcome were investigated. Interview videotapes of 84 drug abusers were coded for frequency and strength of utterances expressing commitment, desire, ability, need, readiness, and reasons to change or maintain their habit. Cluster analysis of proportion days abstinent (PDA) revealed 3 groups: high PDA at intake and follow-up (3, 6, 9, 12 months; maintainers); low intake PDA/high follow-up PDA (changers); and low intake PDA/low to moderate follow-up PDA (stragglers). Distinct group patterns emerged for commitment strength (CS) during MI. Clients dishonest in checklist self-report exhibited CS similar to stragglers. CS for …

Time Course Of Loudness Recalibration: Implications For Loudness Enhancement, Yoav Arieh, Lawrence E. Marks

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Loudness recalibration, the effect of a relatively loud 2500-Hz recalibrating tone on the loudness of a relatively soft 2500-Hz target tone, was measured as a function of the interstimulus interval (ISI) between them. The loudness of the target tone, assessed by a 500-Hz comparison tone, declined when the ISI equaled or exceeded about 200 ms and leveled off at an ISI of about 700 ms. Notably, the target tone’s loudness did not change significantly at very short ISIs (<150 ms). The latter result is incompatible with the literature reporting loudness enhancement in this time window but is compatible with the suggestion made by Scharf, Buus, and Nieder [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 807–810 (2002)] that early measurements of enhancement were contaminated by the influence of the recalibrating tone on the comparison …

Predicting Adolescents’ Intake Of Fruits And Vegetables, Leslie A. Lytle, Sherri Varnell, David M. Murray, Mary Story, Cherly Perry, Amanda Birnbaum, Martha Y. Kubik

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Objective

To explore potential predictors of adolescent fruit and vegetable intake by expanding on current theory and drawing from other adolescent research.

Design

This research reports on the baseline and interim data from a school-based intervention study. Data were collected through surveys administered to students at the beginning and end of their 7th-grade year.

Setting

The students attended 16 public schools in Minnesota.

Participants

Data were collected on 3878 students; approximately half were female and 67% were white. All students in the 7th-grade cohort were invited to participate in the surveys and over 94% completed both surveys.

Variables Measured

Our …

Recalibrating The Auditory System: A Speed–Accuracy Analysis Of Intensity Perception, Yoav Arieh, Lawrence E. Marks

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Recalibration in loudness perception refers to an adaptation-like change in relative responsiveness to auditory signals of different sound frequencies. Listening to relatively weak tones at one frequency and stronger tones at another make the latter appear softer. The authors showed recalibration not only in magnitude estimates of loudness but also in simple response times (RTs) and choice RTs. RTs depend on the sound intensity and may serve as surrogates for loudness. Most important, the speeded classification paradigm also provided measures of errors. RTs and errors can serve jointly to distinguish changes in sensitivity from changes in response criterion. The changes …

School Functioning And Violent Behavior Among Young Adolescents: A Contextual Analysis, Amanda Birnbaum, Leslie A. Lytle, Peter J. Hannan, David M. Murray, Cheryl L. Perry, Jean L. Foster

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper examines associations between overall school functioning and the frequency of violent behaviors among young adolescents (ages 10–14). The sample included 16 middle schools participating in an unrelated intervention study (on nutrition) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A School Functioning Index developed to characterize schools’ overall stability, performance, and demographics was constructed using data from public archives and school administrator surveys. Data on violent behaviors and other variables were collected in student surveys in fall 1998 and spring 1999. We used multilevel modeling to assess the effect of school functioning on violent behavior after adjusting for known individual-level covariates of violent …

Killing For The State: The Darkest Side Of American Nursing, Dave Holmes, Cary H. Federman

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The aim of this article is to bring to the attention of the international nursing community the discrepancy between a pervasive ‘caring’ nursing discourse and the most unethical nursing practice in the United States. In this article, we present a duality: the conflict in American prisons between nursing ethics and the killing machinery. The US penal system is a setting in which trained healthcare personnel practices the extermination of life. We look upon the sanitization of death work as an application of healthcare professionals’ skills and knowledge and their appropriation by the state to serve its ends. A review of …

Cross-Modal Enhancement Of Perceived Brightness: Sensory Interaction Versus Response Bias, Yoav Arieh, Lawrence E. Marks, Eric C. Odgaard

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Stein, London, Wilkinson, and Price (1996) reported the presence of cross-modal enhancement of perceived visual intensity: Participants tended to rate weak lights as brighter when accompanied by a concurrent pulse of white noise than when presented alone. In the present study, two methods were used to determine whether the enhancement reflects an early-stage sensory process or a later-stage decisional process, such as a response bias. First, the enhancement was eliminated when the noise accompanied the light on only 25% versus 50% of the trials. Second, the enhancement was absent when tested with a paired-comparison method. These findings are consistent with …

Associations Between Perceived Family Meal Environment And Parent Intake Of Fruit,Vegetables, And Fat, Kerri N. Boutelle, Amanda Birnbaum, Leslie Lytle, David M. Murray, Mary T. Story

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Objective

To describe the family mealtime environment and assess associations with adult fruit, vegetable, and fat intake.

Design

Telephone survey.

Participants

A convenience sample of 277 adults in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area were recruited through 4 schools. The sample was 85% female and 70% married. The mean number of children in the household was 2.6 (range 1 to 9).

Variables Measured

Adult fruit and vegetable intake, fat intake, and perceptions of the mealtime environment.

Analysis

Descriptive and mixed-model linear regression.

Results

Participants reported that the television was frequently on during dinner meals and almost one third felt that their family …