Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Prospective Association Between Positive Psychological Well-Being And Diabetes, Julia K. Boehm, Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald, Mika Kivimaki, Laura D. Kubzansky

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective: Positive psychological well-being has protective associations with cardiovascular outcomes, but no studies have considered its association with diabetes. This study investigated links between well-being and incident diabetes.

Methods: At study baseline (1991-1994), 7,800 middle-aged British men and women without diabetes indicated their life satisfaction, emotional vitality, and optimism. Diabetes status was determined by self-reported physician diagnosis and oral glucose tolerance test (screen detection) at baseline and through 2002-2004. Incident diabetes was defined by physician-diagnosed and screen-detected cases combined and separately. Logistic regression estimated the odds of developing diabetes controlling for relevant covariates (e.g., demographics, depressive symptoms). Models …

Life Balance – A Mindfulness-Based Mental Health Promotion Program: Conceptualization, Implementation, Compliance And User Satisfaction In A Field Setting, Lisa Lyssenko, Gerhard Müller, Nikolaus Kleindienst, Christian Schmal, Mathias Berger, Georg Eifert, Alexander Kölle, Siegmar Nesch, Jutta Ommer-Hohl, Michael Wenner, Martin Bohus

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Mental health disorders account for a large percentage of the total burden of illness and constitute a major economic challenge in industrialized countries. Several prevention programs targeted at high-risk or sub-clinical populations have been shown to decrease risk, to increase quality of life, and to be cost-efficient. However, there is a paucity of primary preventive programs aimed at the general adult population. “Life Balance” is a program that employs strategies borrowed from well-established psychotherapeutic approaches, and has been made available to the public in one federal German state by a large health care insurance company. The data presented here …

Effects Of A Mental-Health Clinical Simulation Experience Using Standardized Patients And Two Debriefing Styles On Prelicensure Nursing Students' Knowledge, Anxiety, And Therapeutic Communication And Psychiatric Assessment Skills, Debrayh Gaylle

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study was to compare the effects of two debriefing styles (insimulation and postsimulation) on (a) students’ knowledge of psychiatric assessment and therapeutic communication, (b) students’ performance of a psychiatric assessment using therapeutic communication, (c) students’ perceived anxiety related to a clinical rotation in psychiatric mental-health, and (d) students’ perceptions of the efficacy of the insimulation debriefing. The participants (n = 67) were senior, prelicensure nursing students enrolled in a baccalaureate degree program. Students were assigned randomly to either the treatment or the compression group and participated in a series of simulated interviews using student …

Exploring The Process, Models, And Outcomes Of Hospital-Public Health Partnerships, Danielle M. Varda, Jessica H. Retrum, Carrie Chapman

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Health care reform has resulted in changes throughout the health system, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirement that hospitals conduct community health needs assessments, taking into greater consideration the public health of their respective communities. This has led to growing strategies to develop partnerships between hospitals and public health (PH) as a way to meet these needs¹. Meantime, there is a need for data on Hospital-PH partnerships, due to the growing emphasis that these types of partnerships get implemented in practice. In this paper we analyze a secondary data set to explore how hospitals and public health …

A Case Study Of Cross-Jurisdiction Resource Sharing: The Merger Of Two Tuberculosis Clinics In East Tennessee., Anne Kershenbaum, Margaret A. Knight, Martha L. Buchanan, Janet Ridley, Paul C. Erwin

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Cross-jurisdiction resource sharing is considered a possible means to improve efficiency and effectiveness of public health service delivery. A merger of the Tuberculosis (TB) clinics of a rural and a metropolitan jurisdiction in East Tennessee provided an opportunity to study service provision changes in real time. A mixed methods approach was used, including quantitative data on latent TB treatment outcomes and qualitative data from staff interviews, as well as documentation of changes in staffing time in TB services. Results showed a mix of efficiency changes, indicating probable increased pressure on key service providers after the merger, in addition to expected …

Health Communication As A Public Health Training And Workforce Development Issue, Nancy L. Winterbauer, Ann P. Rafferty, Katherine A. Jones, Mary Tucker-Mclaughlin, Colleen Bridger

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Effective communication is one of the core competencies for public health professionals and is required for local health department (LHD) accreditation. Public health communication specialists play a critical role as conduits of health information, particularly with regard to managing relationships with media and the message that is ultimately represented by news outlets. However, capacity for engagement with traditional media in community health improvement at the local level has not been well-described. As part of a larger study examining the use and impact of the County Health Rankings in North Carolina, LHD media staffing and interaction with traditional media were examined …

What “Community Building” Activities Are Nonprofit Hospitals Reporting As Community Benefit?, Erik Bakken, David Kindig, Jo Ivey Boufford

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

In 2008, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revised and standardized the reporting policy for community benefit expenses for nonprofit hospitals. These expenses are required for tax exemption. At that time, the IRS designated some categories of activities as non-eligible as a community benefit, but still mandated their reporting on hospitals’ Form 990, the annual tax filing for nonprofit organizations. One such category was community building, which encompasses a broad range of nonmedical determinants of health and an important potential source of population health revenue. This is the first study to analyze community-building dollars at any level, examining New York State’s …

Well-Born: Black Women And The Infertility Crisis No One Is Talking About, Kaara Baptiste

Capstones

Black women are twice as likely to experience infertility than white women, but are less likely to seek treatment or to have successful fertility results once treated. Despite this alarming number, this topic is not often discussed, even among the black community. My narrative piece t tells the story of a black woman confronting her infertility diagnosis and the role her race played in her fertility treatment, while exploring the role racism and sexuality have had in keeping this issue in the shadows.

Overcoming Obstacles, Melisa Stumpf

Capstones

the contributing factors that lead to the purported low life expectancy for transgenders (suicide, high risks of HIV, lack of healthcare access, refusal of care, etc.) which some experts, advocates and transgender individuals themselves think it's of about 35 years-old.

Lady Luck: The Rise Of Women Problem Gamblers, Antonia Massa

Capstones

Gambling addiction, once considered a nearly exclusively male affliction, is becoming more common among women. This story looks at the lives and addictions of two women problem gamblers. The project includes text, audio, images and a web app for smartphones, designed to help women who think they may have a gambling problem.

Turning Waste Into Resources In Haiti, Alexis Barnes

Capstones

Sanitation infrastructure in Haiti is an ongoing problem- one that only exacerbated a massive cholera epidemic brought to the country by Nepalese United Nations peacekeeping troops. SOIL is an NGO that works in alternative sanitation- using "urine-diverting dry toilets" to turn waste into a fertile resource. In my capstone, I explore the potential for alternative sanitation in Haiti, how it works and what internal and external political and economic factors lead to the current state of water and sanitation infrastructure in the country.

Mcdonald's Or Mesquite: Struggles On The Salt River Pima Reservation, Stefani Kim

Capstones

The Salt River Pima Indians, prior to colonization, had a strong tradition of harvesting and food sovereignity. As the tribe adapted to a more Westernized diet which consisted mainly of processed food rations, the rate of diabetes began to skyrocket on the reservation and, at one point, the tribe had one of the highest per capita diabetes rates in the world. This year, the tribe's cultural resources department will resurrect a 16-year-old community garden program originally funded by a USDA/Habitat for Humanity grant as a way to help combat health problems related to a poor diet such as diabetes and …

Journal Cover And Front Matter

Journal of Clinical Art Therapy

No abstract provided.

Broadband In Nebraska: Current Landscape And Recommendations, Nebraska Information Technology Commission, Nebraska Broadband Initiative, Nebraska Public Service Commission, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nitc Community Council, Nebraska Department Of Economic Development, Aim

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

N ebraska’s broadband vision is that residents, businesses, government entities, commu-nity partners, and visitors have access to affordable broadband service and have the necessary skills to effectively utilize broadband technologies.

Objectives

To increase economic development opportunities, create good-paying jobs, at-tract and retain population, overcome the barriers of distance, and enhance qual-ity of life in Nebraska by stimulating the continuing deployment of broadband technologies which meet the need for increasing connection speeds.

To increase digital literacy and the widespread adoption of broadband technolo-gies in business, agriculture, health care, education, government and by individu-al Nebraskans.

Goals

The following goals and targets help …

Implementing Outside The Box: Community-Based Social Service Provider Experiences With Using An Alcohol Screening And Intervention, David A. Patterson Silver Wolf (Adelv Unegv Waya) Phd, Alex T. Ramsey, Carissa Van Den Berk-Clark

Brown School Faculty Publications

Objective: The aim of this study is better understand perceptions of front-line social service workers who are not addiction specialists, but have to address addiction-related issues during their standard services. Method: Six social service organizations implemented a validated alcohol assessment and brief education intervention. After a 3-month trial implementation period, a convenience sample of 64 front-line providers participated in six focus groups to examine barriers and facilitators to the implementation of an alcohol screening and brief intervention. Results: Three themes emerged: (1) usefulness of the intervention, (2) intervention being an appropriate fit with the agency and client population, and (3) …

Research Brief: "The Potential For Health-Related Uses Of Mobile Phones And Internet With Homeless Veterans: Results From A Multisite Survey", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the use of mobile phones among homeless veterans for medical appointment reminders, and other health services provided by healthcare practitioners. In policy and practice, social workers and counselors should determine whether mobile communication would benefit homeless veterans with whom they work and should identify certain barriers to mobile communication that could exist; the VA should expand its mobile notification efforts and look for programs that reduce barriers to regular access to mobile communication. Suggestions for future research include expanding the sample of homeless veterans to include those who are living on the streets or in a …

The Narratives Of Young Women With Brca 1/2 Gene Mutation: A Qualitative Analysis, Drew D. Reilly

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A narrative qualitative research design was used to understand the stories of young women diagnosed with BRCA1 and BRCA 2 genetic mutation. Four participants were selected who met the following criteria: (a) the participant is diagnosed with BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutation, b) is within the age range of 18 to 35, (c) is without a cancer diagnosis, and is (d) not currently pregnant and does not have children. The four participants were interviewed through open-ended inquiry. The participants’ narratives proved both similar and dissimilar. The themes were organized into within-case narratives and across-case narratives. The narratives revealed that young …

Determining The Critical Window Of Influence Of Pcb Perinatally On Behavioral And Hormonal Development In Sprague-Dawley Rat Pups, Natalie Sommerville, Lee A. Meserve, Howard C. Cromwell

Honors Projects

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) had widespread use in the United States in commercial manufacturing in the United States until the late 1970s. Even though they were banned, measurable amounts can still be found in the environment and food sources. PCB has known effects on altering hormone development and behavior in the species Rattus norvegicus. To determine the most crucial developmental time of exposure to PCB in Sprague-Dawley rat pups, rat pups were exposed to PCB at differing weeks of either gestation period or the first postnatal week. Behavioral tests were performed for the different rat pups, as well as blood …

Sugihara Causality Analysis Of Scalp Eeg For Detection Of Early Alzheimer's Disease, Joseph C. Mcbride, Xiaopeng Zhao, Nancy B. Munro, Greg A. Jicha, Frederick A. Schmitt, Richard J. Kryscio, Charles D. Smith, Yang Jiang

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Recently, Sugihara proposed an innovative causality concept, which, in contrast to statistical predictability in Granger sense, characterizes underlying deterministic causation of the system. This work exploits Sugihara causality analysis to develop novel EEG biomarkers for discriminating normal aging from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer's disease (AD). The hypothesis of this work is that scalp EEG based causality measurements have different distributions for different cognitive groups and hence the causality measurements can be used to distinguish between NC, MCI, and AD participants. The current results are based on 30-channel resting EEG records from 48 age-matched participants (mean age 75.7 …

Impact Of Improving Throughput In The Emergency Department, Katherine J. Edrington

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the patient experience in the emergency department (ED) and in the inpatient setting while correlating increased throughput and patient outcomes at a suburban Acute Care facility in Ohio. The culture in the organization has lacked accountability and ownership of the patients. The ED admitted length of stay (ALOS) was 358 minutes in the beginning of 2013. For the first time in the organization’s history, the ED ALOS is now typically less than the recommended benchmark of 300 minutes. A report of findings among ED’s surveyed showed the ALOS best practice is 244 …

Implementing And Evaluating A Clinical Information Interface Between An Electronic Medical Record And A Patient Classification System, Tanya Osborne-Mckenzie

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

As a result of the Affordable Care Act and the Institute of Medicine’s initiatives, hospitals are challenged to improve outcomes as efficiently as possible. How does the national initiative of RNs partnering with other healthcare professionals to improve the quality of patient care at a lower cost, cascade down to individual organizations? One answer may come by focusing on nurse staffing in acute care hospitals. Considering the impact RNs have on patient quality outcomes and the bottom line of hospitals, appropriate management of the RN workforce is one of the most important areas hospitals can focus on in order to …

Launching A Virtual Decision Lab: Development And Field-Testing Of A Web-Based Patient Decision Support Research Platform, Aubri S. Hoffman, Hilary A. Llewellyn-Thomas, Anna N. A. Tosteson, Annette M. Oconnor

Dartmouth Scholarship

Over 100 trials show that patient decision aids effectively improve patients’ information comprehension and values-based decision making. However, gaps remain in our understanding of several fundamental and applied questions, particularly related to the design of interactive, personalized decision aids. This paper describes an interdisciplinary development process for, and early field testing of, a web-based patient decision support research platform, or virtual decision lab, to address these questions.

Combating Hiv/Aids In Marginalized Communities: Papua And West Papua Provinces, Indonesia, Bani Cheema

Master's Theses

My study focuses on foreign aid and local initiatives for HIV/AIDS prevention in eastern Indonesia using the provinces of Papua and West Papua as a case study. The two provinces are home to indigenous tribal groups that are socioeconomically marginalized and most affected by the epidemic. My research investigates behavior change communication as a principal strategy undertaken by multiple organizations for HIV/AIDS prevention in this region. I take a qualitative approach by examining the effectiveness of this strategy in local communities and by revealing social and cultural barriers that impede success. Obstacles that negatively impact prevention efforts include structural violence, …

Examination Of Capital Murder Jurors’ Deliberations: Methods And Issues, Keith Price, Susan Coleman, Gary R. Byrd

Administrative Issues Journal

The study of capital juries remains a subject of critical interest for the public and for legislative and judicial policy makers as well as legal scholars and social scientists. Cowan, Thompson, and Ellsworth established one of the standard methodologies for examination of this topic in their 1984 seminal study by observing the subjects’ debate about conviction in a death penalty case utilizing mock juries; other scholars employed different techniques to add more information in the late 1990s. Yet, the question of death qualification and prosecutorial bias remains open to inquiry. This preliminary study found evidence to support bias toward conviction …

Exploring The Intersection Between Folk And Conventional Medicine In Albany, Kentucky, Chloe J. Brown

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Approximately 60% of patients surveyed (in Albany, KY) practice folk medicine, which suggests that a significant segment of the population may practice folk medicine. Patients typically use folk medical treatments concurrently with conventional medical treatments; while the interaction of these treatments is generally innocuous or positive, folk medical treatments can sometimes be harmful, lead to negative interactions with other drugs prescribed by a conventional medical professional. Since folk medicine and conventional medicine frequently interact, it is important for medical professionals to be aware of and address folk medical practices in a conventional medical environment. In order to better address folk …

Lack Of Medicaid Funding For Occupational Therapy Serving The Autism Spectrum Disorder Population Ages 0-5 Years, Nadia Yala

Honors Theses

The prevalence of autism in the United States is currently 1 in 68 children (Autism Alliance of Michigan, 2014). This is considered an epidemic. There are a variety of treatments available in the state of Michigan for children with autism, such as occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, and applied behavior analysis (ABA). Effective April 1^st, 2013, Michigan increased their funding cap for ABA therapy for treating children with autism. However, there is a lack of knowledge within the community and amongst professionals in regards to the critical treatment occupational therapy practitioners provide and as a result, there …

Developmental And Cultural Perspectives On Children’S Postoperative Pain Management At Home, Brooke N. Jenkins, Michelle A. Fortier

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Outpatient surgery is extremely common in children, and approximately 4 million children experience significant pain after surgery in the USA each year. Management of children's postoperative pain in the home setting is suboptimal and is impacted by characteristics of children and parents, as well as the larger family and cultural context. In particular, developmental status of the child, parental beliefs regarding pain expression and analgesic use in children, cultural values and language barriers can affect management of children's postoperative pain. Targeting the myriad barriers to children's pain management by capitalizing upon the use of tailored interventions may help bridge the …

Increasing Response Time And Response Evaluation Time Compensates For Information Processing Difficulties In Persons At Risk For Alcoholism, Yasmin Akbari

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Parental history of alcoholism is associated with increased alcoholism risk in their children. One factor increasing alcoholism risk is the presence of attention and information encoding disruptions in adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) compared to persons who are not ACOAs (NACOA). Alcohol ingestion reduces these disruptions in ACOAs. This study examined whether alterations of information processing parameters can function like alcohol and reduce processing disruptions experienced by the ACOA.

Participants were 80 ACOAs and 80 NACOAs, partitioned into four groups of 20 participants. During learning, subjects studied presentations of stimulus items followed by the presentation of associated response items. The …

Adjusting Learning Parameters To Increase Cognitive Resource Allocation In Persons With Alcoholism Risk, Brooke Snelgrove, Taylor Stephens, Yasmin Akbari, Reyn Yoshiura, Lilian Andrade

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Parental history of alcoholism is associated with increased alcoholism risk in their children. One factor increasing alcoholism risk is the presence of attention and information encoding disruptions in adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) compared to persons who are not ACOAs (NACOA). Alcohol ingestion reduces these disruptions in ACOAs. This study examined whether alterations of information processing parameters can function like alcohol and reduce processing disruptions experienced by the ACOA. Participants were 80 ACOAs and 80 NACOAs, partitioned into four groups of 20 participants. During learning, subjects studied presentations of stimulus items followed by the presentation of associated response items. The …

The Economics Of Implementing Population Health Strategies: Progress In Public Health Services & Systems Research, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

Successful strategies to scale up and spread complex community-level interventions require an understanding of the resources required for implementation, how best to distribute them among supporting institutions, and how resource consumption and distribution varies across settings. This session reviews methods and early findings from the RWJF’s Public Health Delivery and Cost Studies (DACS) Initiative, which includes 12 inter-related studies examining the causes and consequences of variation in the costs of delivering complex community-level prevention strategies across more than 300 community settings in 12 states. Findings from these studies highlight the value of studying the economics of implementation, the measurement and …