Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Oregon's Population Estimates Program, Huda Alkitkat, Portland State University. Population Research Center

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Presentation given by Huda Alkitkat of the Population Research Center at Portland State University, in which she gives an overview of the Oregon Population Estimates Program.

Oregon Population Forecast Program, Ethan Sharygin, Portland State University. Population Research Center

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Ethan Sharygin, the Director of the Population Research Center at Portand State University, offers an overview of the Oregon Population Forecast Program, and discusses the process by which population estimates are generated and certified.

Oregon 2019 American Community Survey Highlights, Charles Rynerson, Portland State University. Population Research Center

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Charles Rynerson of the Population Research Center at Portland State University discusses highlights from the Oregon 2019 American Community Survey. Topics discussed include how race can be misconstrued in data, demographic trends, poverty in Oregon, and domestic migration.

Webinar: Economic And Business Outcomes Of Bicycle And Pedestrian Improvements, Jenny H. Liu

TREC Webinar Series

The National Street Improvements Study, conducted by PSU in conjunction with PeopleForBikes and consulting firm Bennett Midland, researched the economic effects of bicycle infrastructure on 14 corridors across six cities — Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Memphis, Minneapolis and Indianapolis. The study found that improvements such as bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure had either positive or non-significant impacts on the local economy as measured through sales and employment. In this webinar, lead researcher Jenny Liu will share the results of the investigation and the unique methodology for investigating these economic outcomes.

This webinar is based on a study funded by the …

Data Files: The Role Of Bus Stop Features In Facilitating Accessibility, Keith Batholomew, Ja Young Kim, Divya Chandrasekhar, Reid Ewing, Arlie Adkins, Samuel Jensen

TREC Datasets and Databases

These datasets support a final report published on NITC’s website “The Role of Bus Stop Features in Facilitating Accessibility”: https://nitc.trec.pdx.edu/research/project/1214.

The DOI for the final report is: https://dx.doi.org/10.15760/trec.254.

Policing Politics: Facebook And A Politician's Right To Free Speech, Adewunmi Adedji, Nisha Hemantha Raju, Jennifer Wagner, Alfonso Herrero, Matthew Johnson

Engineering and Technology Management Student Projects

Advancements in technology are not without their own ethical concerns. Social media technology provides for platforms which allow users to interact and exchange ideas in virtual communities. Of these Facebook is among the leaders of the pack with an estimated 2.7 billion monthly active users globally as of the second quarter of 2020 and estimated 190 million users in the United States as of October 2020.

This wide reach, in combination with low cost for advertisement makes it one of the platforms of choice for Organization to promote their products, services or agenda. This accounts for why 98% of the …

An Equity Focused Study On The Trip Temporal Distributions Of Vulnerable Road Users, Santiago Espinosa Wild

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

The United States is a megadiverse nation with a transportation system that, for decades, was designed to serve primarily able-bodied, white, male motorists. This legacy creates a situation in which varying socio-demographic groups experience the transportation system differently with contrasting safety, accessibility, and convenience outcomes. This project introduces descriptive statistics and binary logistic models that provide transportation professionals and policy makers with a quantitative understanding on how, why, and when certain socio-demographic groups are more likely to engage in a trip. This project provides tools to measure and understand the equity implications of a wide array of transportation policy decisions. …

Regional Transportation Goals: Reducing Sprawl Through Interconnected Centers, Reid Ewing

TREC Project Briefs

A “polycentric” region is a network of compact developments (centers) that are connected with each other through high-quality transportation options. As the antidote to sprawling suburbs, compact centers can encourage all the things that sprawl discourages: public health, environmental sustainability, social cohesion, and economic diversity. But how can metropolitan planning organizations ensure that their regional plans will actually meet these goals? Polycentric development has been advocated by urban and transportation planners for more than a decade. However, effective practice must be backed by solid research, and to date there has been little or no research that quantifies the transportation benefits …

Reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled, Encouraging Walk Trips, And Facilitating Efficient Trip Chains Through Polycentric Development, Reid Ewing, Keunhyun Park, Sadegh Sabouri, Torrey Lyons, Keuntae Kim, Dong-Ah Choi, Katherine Daly, Roya Etminani Ghasrodashti

TREC Final Reports

Compact development can result in many benefits for communities and residents. Areas can connect compact developments through high-quality transportation options, creating a network of centers, or a “polycentric” region. This development pattern is very popular in Europe and is linked to significant benefits. Salt Lake County has organically developed several small centers, and with the right strategies could continue to fuel this kind of growth. The metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the region, the Wasatch Front Regional Council, has been planning for polycentric development since the Wasatch Choice for 2040 Vision was released in 2010. Our research is aimed at …

Why Is Dishonesty Difficult To Mitigate? The Interaction Between Descriptive Norm And Monetary Incentive, Arnab Mitra, Quazi Shahriar

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We examine whether changes in perceived norm of dishonesty can offset the effects of changes in benefit from the dishonest action. We find partial support for the hypothesis in laboratory experiments on lying behavior in a cheap-talk sender-receiver game, conducted in two countries. In the experiments, we vary benefit from lying and shift senders’ norm perception by providing them information on lying from prior sessions. The findings suggest that senders adjust their perceived norm as expected, but they respond to norm in a somewhat self-serving manner. Specifically, when benefit from lying is lowered but senders are induced to believe in …

The Role Of Bus Stop Features In Facilitating Accessibility, Keith Bartholomew, Ja Young Kim, Divya Chandrasekhar, Reid Ewing, Arlie Adkins, Samuel Jensen

TREC Final Reports

Although transit decision-makers and riders generally favor improving bus stops by adding shelters, benches, and similar features, it is unclear the impact such features have on transit demand and there has been little research that measures these impacts. This study examines the link between stop improvements and changes in stop-level boardings on scheduled-service buses and in ADA paratransit demand in the Salt Lake City, UT, metropolitan area between 2014 and 2017. The study also investigates current bus stop improvement practices of leading transit agencies nationwide. The study uses a number of quantitative and qualitative techniques, including propensity score matching, propensity …

David Douglas School District Enrollment Forecasts 2021-22 To 2040-41, Portland State University. Population Research Center, Charles Rynerson, Mac Cunningham

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

This report presents a range of three scenarios of district‐wide enrollment forecasts by grade level for the David Douglas School District (DDSD) for the 21 year period between 2019‐20 and 2040‐41. Each enrollment forecast scenario is related to population forecasts that incorporate different assumptions about growth within the District, with the primary differences being the contribution of net migration to the District’s population and age distribution. Individual school forecasts consistent with the middle series are also presented for the 21 year period.

Human Confusion: Why There Must Be Justice For Non-Humans, David Johns

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the last twelve millennia—since agriculture first emerged—humans have increased their exploitation and efforts to control other species and to colonize the Earth. Human on human hierarchy and colonization of other humans follows on the colonization of the natural world. The task of conservation is to undo that colonial relationship. We have been causing the extinction of other life-forms, including hominid species, since we left Africa at least 60,000 years ago. In the last 50 years, or just about two human generations, nearly 68% of all vertebrate animals have disappeared due to human activity (WWF 2020). Humans go into an …

2020 Evaluation Of The Highway Construction Workforce Development Program, Maura Kelly, Lindsey Wilkinson

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) have partnered in a statewide effort—the Highway Construction Workforce Development Program—to recruit, train, and employ a diverse workforce for highway construction jobs throughout the state. This program, begun in 2010, supports a variety of initiatives designed to improve the recruitment and retention of women and people of color in Oregon’s highway construction trades. The programs evaluated in this report include the following: preapprenticeship programs, supportive services providing financial assistance (i.e., fuel assistance; support for overnight travel; childcare; work clothes, tools, and protective equipment; hardship funds) and …

Trail Impact Monitoring In Forest Park, James Mitchell

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

Forest Park is an appropriately named 5,200 acre natural area located in northwest Portland, Oregon. A recent study estimated park usage near half a million annual visits and found "trails" to be the park’s most highly valued feature. Unfortunately, many trails were not designed for such traffic as evidenced by slipping hazards, erosion and other ecological impacts. In response to these observations, I partnered with Portland Parks & Recreation to conduct an objective trail impact assessment prescribed by the Forest Park Natural Resource Management Plan. I modified methods from past studies to expand on a recently completed trail condition class …

A Dyadic Examination Of Drinking Behaviors Within Military-Connected Couples, James D. Lee, Annamarie Sophia O'Neill, Emily Catherine Denning, Cynthia Mohr, Leslie Hammer

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

High rates of alcohol use have been documented within military personnel and spouses. However, scant research has investigated alcohol consumption behaviors in matched couples or nonclinical veteran samples. The manner in which couples influence one another’s drinking remains unclear. The current study examined hazardous drinking scores and drinking behaviors in a sample of post-9/11 separated service members (most of whom were veterans) and active duty reservists and their spouse/partners; 260 military-connected couples participated in the Study for Employment Retention of Veterans (SERVe) and were recruited from 35 workplace organizations in the Pacific Northwest. Participants completed baseline and daily surveys on …

Book Review: Blue Infrastructures: Natural History, Political Ecology And Urban Development In Kolkata, Dana E. Hellman, Melissa Haeffner

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

What role does a river play in shaping urban justice and resilience? Jenia Mukherjee tackles this provocative question with an equally provocative answer: rivers are critical infrastructures with biophysical and social histories, both of which inform their physical condition and socio-ecological assets. In Blue Infrastructures, Mukherjee masterfully illuminates the intersection of materiality and history in the urban environment, exploring its implications for a just and resilient future city. Tracing the uses and evolution of Kolkata's “blue infrastructures”—rivers, wetlands, seas, etc.—from the colonial period to the present, Mukherjee's analysis addresses a pressing question in this era of the Urbanocene: How …

Eco-Publishing In The Book Industry: An Interdisciplinary Case Study With Patagonia Books, Julie A. Collins

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

The purpose of this study is to explore eco-publishing in the book industry with an interdisciplinary approach: I will address eco-trends in human movements and essential industries; provide an overview of the book industry’s recent efforts to determine their environmental impact; and explore eco-publishing in practice by presenting findings from a case study of Patagonia Books featuring an interview with their publisher Karla Olson. This analysis of environmentalism on a broad scale gives us the ability to see how trends outside the industry may affect how we define the goals of publishing, and of particular publishing houses. Patagonia Books is …

Healthy Birth Initiatives: The Road Toward Reproductive Justice, Roberta Hunte, Susanne Klawetter, Sherly Paul

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study concerns racialized experiences of reproductive oppression among Black women and the efforts of one organization - Multnomah County’s Healthy Birth Initiatives (HBI) - to combat this oppression and move towards Reproductive Justice. This study explores how Black women experience and respond to racism-related stress and its impacts on their health during and after pregnancy and subsequent parenting. The project was informed by a pilot focus group conducted in 2016 by Drs. Jenna Ramaker and Roberta Hunte in partnership with HBI, which asked HBI clients about the role of toxic stress and racism-related stress in their lives. The current …

A Qualitative Study On Health Needs Of Syrian Refugees In Jordan Using Emic And Etic Views, Mitra Naseh, Natalia Liviero, Zahra Abtahi, Maryam Rafieifar, Miriam Potocky

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The ongoing civil war in Syria has resulted in the world's largest refugee crisis since 1945. Many Syrians have lived in a protracted exile in Jordan, the neighboring country of Syria, for more than five years. Estimates suggest that by the end of 2017, around 1.4 million Syrians lived in Jordan. As the exile continues for Syrians in Jordan, this study aimed to explore what refugees perceive as their major health needs in comparison to what service providers believe is needed for refugees in Jordan. Grounded theory and thematic analyses (Braun & Clarke, 2006) were used to analyze 17 semi-structured …

We Are Brave: Expanding Reproductive Justice Discourse Through Embodied Rhetoric And Civic Practice, Roberta Hunte, Catherine Ming T’Ien Duffly

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article, we share the example of our recent community-based performance project on reproductive justice, We are BRAVE, to serve as a model of how community-based performance can be an embodied strategy for social change. We draw from the work of scholars of feminist rhetoric, community-based performance, and reproductive justice. In sharing the example of We are BRAVE, we show how using communitycentered, performative storytelling as embodied rhetoric can be an effective mode of public and political persuasion.

Interests And Priorities In Sockeye Salmon Management: How Are Policies Enacted And Interpreted On Three Alaskan Rivers?, Jake P. Palazzi

University Honors Theses

The large export abundance of Alaskan salmon is well documented, and many studies have been performed to assess the economic and environmental viability of the industry and its management. Less research has been done to characterize how state intentions regarding fisheries allocation are conceived of by management or perceived by vulnerable groups in the user pool. This study seeks to qualitatively characterize the disconnect between state and Native Alaskan perceptions of management effectiveness, public interest, and Native Alaskan involvement using interviews. Results showed that Native Alaskan and state manager respondents had very different perceptions of management effectiveness and equity. When …

Exploratory Study Of Obesogenic Commercial School Food Environments In The Portland Metropolitan Area, Sruthi Eapen

University Honors Theses

Objective

The purpose of this exploratory research was to study commercial food environments around high schools in the Portland metropolitan area to explore the question: How do the economic, geographic, and racial demographics of public high schools in the Portland metropolitan area affect the prevalence and make-up of obesogenic commercial food environments surrounding these schools?

Methods

Commercial food environments within a 1 km radius of 35 public high schools in the Portland metropolitan area were surveyed. The “healthiness” of the environment was calculated by establishing a “Food Environment Score.” This score was correlated with economic, geographic, and racial demographics obtained …

Greening Inequality: How Urban Sustainable Development Fails Under Neoliberalism, Josie R. Allison

University Honors Theses

Despite its banner of common-good altruism, urban sustainable development becomes a branding scheme for municipalities when it operates under and prioritizes a neoliberal agenda. Neoliberalism is the dominant economic philosophy within the United States, and other western economies, that emphasizes extreme economic liberalism and open markets with public fiscal austerity and the diminished role of governments. This has transferred a great portion of power and funding once held by the public sector into the hands of the private sector. Under neoliberalism, city governments function with stripped federal funding and limited budgets, while leaning on private companies for public operations, like …

Variation In Female And Male Dialogue In Buffy The Vampire Slayer: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis, Amber Morgan Sanchez

Dissertations and Theses

Media representations of gender often reflect normative societal beliefs about gender and have the ability to both reinforce and subvert those beliefs. The current study examines the linguistic characterization of male and female characters on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a series with an overt feminist message. Previous studies of gender variation in dramatic dialogue have found that female characters tend to be portrayed as using more linguistic features associated with an interpersonal and emotional focus (involvement), while male characters are portrayed as using more features centered on the transfer of information. Previous research has also found …

An Investigation Of The Temporal Relationship Between Agitation And Sleep Disturbances, Emily Catherine Denning

Dissertations and Theses

Suicide rates in the United States have increased almost 30% since 1999, making it the tenth leading cause of death in the country. This problem is especially prominent for veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, as veterans comprise 8.5% of the U.S. population, yet they account for 18% of all deaths by suicide. These increasing rates have spurred the need for a better understanding of suicide risk, especially for this high-risk group. Previous research has focused mostly on chronic risk factors, which are useful for identifying who from a population may be more likely to engage in suicidal behaviors, but …

Nurse Can't Even: The Immediate Impact Of Incivility On Affect, Well-Being, And Behavior, Katharine Lucille Mcmahon

Dissertations and Theses

Interest in researching incivility has increased over the past two decades, as it is recognized as a pervasive issue in the workplace. Certain industries, such as healthcare, pose a higher risk for the aggressive encounters. Low intensity aggression, namely incivility, has a dangerous combination of high prevalence and invisibility that demands an understanding of the target's subsequent reaction process. Following rationale based on the Personality Systems Interaction (PSI) theory, this study proposes that the affective shift directly mediates the relationships between incivility exposure by coworkers and presumed behavioral and well-being outcomes at the day level in a daily diary design. …

A Daily Examination Of Anger And Alcohol Use Among Post-9/11 Veterans, James David Lee

Dissertations and Theses

Anger problems have been commonly reported among military service-connected individuals. Current estimates of self-reported anger issues among post-9/11 veterans are around 57%. Alarmingly, it's been reported that anger does not decrease over the course of the post-deployment period; left unmanaged, it has been associated with a higher risk for suicide, post-traumatic stress, and hazardous alcohol use. Heavy drinking within military-connected samples has also been a well-documented phenomenon. Recent findings suggest that service-connected individuals may cope with adversity and regulate emotions through alcohol use, which may put them at risk for developing alcohol use disorders. While some evidence has observed a …

Evaluating The Self-Determination Model For Older Youth In Foster Care: Establishing Efficacy And Exploring Moderation Of Response To Intervention, Jennifer E. Blakeslee, Laurie E. Powers, Sarah Geenen, Jessica Schmidt, May Nelson, Ann Fullerton, Kevin George, Elizabeth Mchugh, Mary Bryant

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

Limited rigorous research has been conducted to evaluate the impact of interventions designed to promote the successful transitions of young people exiting foster care. The current study builds on previous experimental evaluations of the Model (MLM) for self-determination enhancement, which demonstrated effectiveness in improving educational and transition-to-adulthood outcomes for youth in foster care with disabilities, including those with mental health challenges. The model features one-on-one youth-directed coaching and near-peer mentoring to increase self-determination and goal achievement. The current study was the first to test the impact of the model with a diverse population-based cohort of youth aged 16.5-18.5 in foster …

Waste Management In The Global South: An Inquiry On The Patterns Of Plastic And Waste Material Flows In Colombo, Sri Lanka, Katie Ann Conlon

Dissertations and Theses

Global plastic production continues to increase at an exponential pace, and global waste projections show waste generation rising by 70% by 2050. Plastic waste connects to all social processes, especially within the context of urbanization and development; urban planning and land management; GHG emissions; labor; social equity; public health; rural-to-urban migration; increasing population; increasing consumption; climate change; etc. The focus of this dissertation is an analysis of waste management practices in Sri Lanka using a grounded theory based methodology, with a goal to better understand the social and ecological impacts of plastic waste in Sri Lanka. This research fills a …