Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Restricted Access And Delays To Hcv Treatment Among Medicaid Patients In Louisiana, Morris M. Kim, Keanan M. Mcgonigle

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Background: Many people living with chronic Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) have seen delays in accessing treatment or been denied entirely due to Medicaid restrictions requiring patients to meet certain criteria prior to receiving approval for medication pre-authorization.

Methods: This study identified a cohort of Medicaid-insured patients with chronic HCV infection within New Orleans, LA. Patient medical records were reviewed and information regarding HCV care was gathered. This study sought to determine the degree to which HCV care was delayed for this population and describe common reasons for prior-authorization denials for direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medications.

Results: For this population of Medicaid-insured …

“It Creates Fear And Divides Us:” Minority College Students’ Experiences Of Stress From Racism, Coping Responses, And Recommendations For Colleges, Ladrea Ingram, Barbara Wallace

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Prior research underscored the association between experiences of racism and biopsychosocial outcomes for minority college students, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and negative impacts on physical health. Within the lens of social justice, power is often ascertained by increased wellness and education attainment; therefore, addressing minority college students’ experiences of racism is critical to advancing national efforts to eliminate health disparities and for achieving social equity. Thus, this mixed methods study used an online survey to examine the prevalence of experiences of racism and/or oppression (e.g. sexism) for a convenience sample of undergraduate and graduate minority college students. Quantitative …

Nutrient And Food Group Intakes Of Low-Income Pregnant Women By Race/Ethnicity, Alla M. Hill, Danielle L. Nunnery Phd, Rdn, Ldn, Alice Ammerman Drph, Jigna M. Dharod Phd

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

In an exploratory study, a convenience sample of 148 pregnant women was recruited from a WIC clinic in the southeast region of the U.S. to: 1) Examine and compare daily nutrient and food group intakes of WIC pregnant women to national guidelines, and; 2) Determine racial/ethnic differences in nutrient and food group intakes among WIC pregnant women. Women were selected for the study if they were: ≥ 18 y, in 2^nd trimester of pregnancy, and if they spoke English or Spanish as a first language. Upon recruitment, participants were interviewed to collect information on their socio-demographics, including race/ethnicity. Additionally, …

Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors And Disparities Between The United States Mainland Compared To Puerto Rico, Guam, And United States Virgin Islands (I. E., United States Territories), Wendell C. Taylor, Dena Shugart, Raheem J. Paxton

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Background: No studies have compared the lifestyle behaviors between Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U. S. Virgin Islands to that of the United States mainland. Documenting and addressing health disparities between these geographically and culturally distinct areas are important public health objectives. Differences in health status between and among the United States mainland and territories merit systematic and careful analyses. Methods: Four key healthy lifestyle characteristics include tobacco use, body mass index, physical activity, and fruit/vegetable consumption. Data from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (N=420,481) were used to examine United States mainland and territorial differences among the four …

Five-Year Trend In Diabetes Clinical Care And Self-Management Among Adults With Diabetes In West Virginia: 2010-2014, Ranjita Misra 2934168, Usha Sambamoorthi

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Objective: To examine the five-year trend in clinical care and diabetes self-management activities among adults living in the Appalachian state of West Virginia.

Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design with data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in 2010 (N=685) and 2014 (N=958), among noninstitutionalized adults with diabetes. Five-year trend in recommended diabetes clinical care, diabetes self-management activities and diabetes education was analyzed after adjusting for sex, education, income, insurance, age, obesity, comorbid hypertension, race and lifestyle behaviors (exercise and smoking).

Results: A significant increase in percentage of adults with 2 or more A1C tests was …

The Librarian Parlor: Demystifying The Research Process Through Community, Chelsea Heinbach, Charissa Powell, Hailley Fargo, Nimisha Bhat

Library Faculty Research

Academic LIS researchers have inconsistent research responsibilities and support depending on their institution and position. Some are offered time, mentorship, and professional development funding in order to accomplish goals, while others are asked to conduct research on their own. This paper identifies gaps in our profession’s support for those interested in pursuing, developing, and publishing library research. Presenters also share the process they went through and lessons learned from creating an online community for new LIS researchers called LibParlor.

Physical Fitness Of Children And Adolescents With Moderate To Severe Intellectual Disabilities, Marieke Wouters, Heleen M. Evenhuis, Thessa I.M. Hilgenkamp

Physical Therapy Faculty Research

Background: Low levels of physical fitness are associated with low physical and mental health. The aims of this study were to assess the health-related physical fitness of children with intellectual disability (ID), and study the association of physical activity and motor development with physical fitness. Methods: One hundred and twenty-eight children with moderate to severe ID (83 boys; age 2–18 years) visiting specialised day programme centres engaged in field-based physical fitness tests (body composition, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and cardiorespiratory fitness). Scores were compared to reference values, and with linear regression analysis the association between the fitness outcomes and physical …

From Temporary To Transformative: Leveraging Externally-Funded Special Collections Projects As Organizational Learning And Development Opportunities, Cory K. Lampert, Marina Georgieva

Library Faculty Presentations

This poster proposes an academic library approach to addressing temporary project staffing in Special Collections and Archives with a focus on organizational transformation, professional development, and mentoring. The strategy includes both managerial perspective and insights from a visiting faculty librarian on key aspects of hiring, supporting, and leveraging temporary professional staff for impactful organizational development. While the focus of temporary projects is often completing deliverables on time, this poster presents three areas of layered learning outcomes that leverage project work as a catalyst for organizational development, managerial development, and new professional mentoring.

Physical Fitness Is Predictive For 5-Year Survival In Older Adults With Intellectual Disabilities, Alyt Oppewal, Thessa I.M. Hilgenkamp

Physical Therapy Faculty Research

Background: The very low physical fitness levels of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) may influence their life expectancy. Therefore, we investigated the predictive value of physical fitness for survival in older adults with intellectual disabilities. Method: In the Healthy Ageing and Intellectual Disabilities (HA‐ID) study,the physical fitness levels of 900 older adults (≥50 years; 61.5 ± 8.1 years) were measured at baseline. All‐cause mortality was collected over a 5‐year follow‐up period. Cox proportional hazard models were used to determine the association between each physical fitness test and survival, adjusted for age, sex, level of ID, and Down syndrome. Results: The …

Identi-Tea Podcast: An Original Play, Karsyn Wilson

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Creative Works Winner for 2019:

Identi-Tea Podcast is an original play based on the word-for-word interviews of three LGBTQ+ students of color from UNLV who explore all the various facets of their identities formatted in the style of a podcast. In various moments during the play, audience members are prompted by the actors to critically engage with the ideas presented.

Influence Of Biomedical Risk Factors On Chronic Low Back Pain Among Women, Jennifer Kawi

Nursing Faculty Research

Purpose Nurses and nurse practitioners are highly involved in managing patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). Management remains challenging with persistent biomedical risk factors (e.g, high opioid use, Body Mass Index [BMI], chronic widespread pain). Due to pervasive pain care disparities among women, this quantitative pilot study evaluated biomedical risk factors among adult females with CLBP. Findings can assist in targeting risk factors to help address known undertreatment of pain in women. Methods This IRB-approved, descriptive, and cross-sectional study was conducted in a pain center to identify significant associations of relevant biomedical factors with pain/pain-related variables. Self-report questionnaires were …

The 2018 Midterms In The Mountain West, Molly Reynolds

Brookings Mountain West Publications

The 116^th Congress has begun with a bang, with a protracted government shutdown and promises of aggressive oversight from the new Democratic House majority. To understand how we got to this point—and where we might be going in 2020—a look back at the 2018 elections is valuable. As a region, the Mountain West—Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah—provides useful insights into broader national political dynamics across all levels of government, from Congress to state legislatures.

Select Proceedings Of The 2nd Annual Graduate Student Conference: Games, Sins & Mafia, Samuel Gilpin, Carly Hunter, Jenessa Kenway, Alexander Valle, Jarret Keene

Graduate Student Conference

The four papers collected here were originally presented at the Second Annual Graduate Student Conference: "Games, Sins & Mafia." Hosted by the UNLV World Languages & Cultures department and the Organization of Vistas of Hispanic Studies, the conference took place on the UNLV campus on March 16, 2019. These proceedings feature three (at the time) graduate students and one undergraduate student from the UNLV English department. Taken as a whole, the proceedings explore the aesthetic, sociological, and philosophical concerns of a range of authors—William Faulkner, Juan Rulfo (Mexico), Roberto Harrison, and Clarice Lispector (Brazil).

Comparative Analysis Of Chinese And Western Authors’ Use Of Evidentiality, Steven Mccafferty, Tian Dong, Shaoan Zhang, Lu Qiu

Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education Faculty Research

Academic writing is the process of authors’ interaction and communication with readers. Based on Yang's classification of evidentiality and self-built corpus, this study examines and compares the characteristics of Chinese and western authors’ use of evidentiality in second language academic writing. The major results include: 1) Evidentials are universal in research papers. Chinese authors’ less use of evidentials indicates their tendency to conceal personal opinions to offer more objective arguments; 2) Both Chinese and western authors prefer reporting and inferring evidentials, owing to the style of natural science and the language practice of the subject; 3) The frequency of English …

"The Great Debate" 2019 - Brookings V. Unlv Debate Team, Brookings Mountain West, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Brookings Mountain West, in partnership with the UNLV Debate Team, was proud to host the inaugural UNLV - Brookings Institution event, “The Great Debate.” Representatives from the nationally ranked UNLV Debate Team engaged colleagues from the Brookings Institution in a battle of ideas and policy positions destined to be remembered as one of the great intellectual forums of the 21st century. Featured speakers participated in a modified format of intercollegiate debate rules that allowed teams and individual members the opportunity to craft their arguments and responses in an open and respectful exchange of information to persuade, inform, and entertain audience …

Creating Websites And Leading Librarians To A New Level Of Project Engagement, Marina Georgieva

Library Faculty Presentations

The 90-min workshop covers the main website components and some fundamental tools for static web design. The session has a practical component with hands-on activities - during that part the participants can actively build a custom WordPress website.

The session is divided as follows:

Part I (45 min) features 20 min presentation of basic web design concepts, tools and technologies and 25 min demo of the back-end of 2 static WordPress websites (free and paid versions)
Part II (45 min) features hands-on guided activities to design a new WordPress website from scratch

Attendees will learn web design fundamentals and some …

The Road To Carnegie R1 At The University Of Nevada, Las Vegas, Robert E. Lang, David F. Damore

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

Founded in 1957, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is now classified as a top research university by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This is a major accomplishment. The Lincy Institute’s analysis of all 130 “Carnegie Doctoral Universities” (2018) with “very high research activity,” or R1 status, (Appendix A provides a summary of the data on the 93 public institutions with R1 status, and Appendix B sorts this list by age of institution) finds that UNLV is among the 10 youngest institutions founded post-World War II in the U.S. to achieve this status.2 This is a …

Metadata Remediation: Updates, Procedures, Workflows, Marina Georgieva

Library Faculty Presentations

The presentation is a brief update on ongoing metadata remediation projects, procedures and workflows. It discusses some patterns emerging from data clean-up and possible ways for streamlining the process by developing more efficient workflows.

Impact Of Carb's Tailpipe Emission Standard Policy On Co2 Reduction Among The Us States, Jaewon Lim, Doohwan Won

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set the nationwide emission standard policy, but each state in the U.S. has an option to follow the higher emission standard policy set by CARB (California Air Resources Board) in 2004. There are 14 “CARB states” that follow California’s more restrictive standards. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of CARB’s tailpipe emission standard policy. Using the panel dataset for 49 U.S. states over a 28-year study period (1987–2015), this paper found the long-term policy effect in reducing CO2 emission from CARB’s tailpipe standard, and its long-run effect is 5.4 times higher than …

The Devaluation Of Assets In Black Neighborhoods: How Racism Robs Homeowner Of The American Dream, Andre Perry

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Homeownership lies at the heart of the American Dream, representing success, opportunity, and wealth. However, for many of its citizens, America deferred that dream. For much of the 20th century, the devaluing of black lives led to segregation and racist federal housing policy through redlining that shut out chances for black people to purchase homes and build wealth, making it more difficult to start and invest in businesses and afford college tuition. This lecture explained how much money majority-black communities are losing in the housing market stemming from racial bias, finding that owner-occupied homes in black neighborhoods are undervalued by …

Categorization Of Exam Questions To Improve Metacognition, Tiffany Barrett

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

This practice addresses UNLV students’ need for greater metacognitive awareness. Students often employ memorization as a study strategy when preparing for an exam. This can create an inability to apply the knowledge in a complex or different scenario. We know that “practice retrieving” study activities produce greater gains in meaningful learning (Karpicke 2011) but often students don’t identify a need for a change in study habits and a deeper level of understanding, especially if their exam score is considered passing.

Connecting With Students As A Motivator For Learning, Michelle Arroyo

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Students want to feel cared for and that their instructors have their best educational interests in mind. Having an instructor who demonstrates compassion and shows empathy toward students creates a positive classroom climate and the course is more meaningful to the students at UNLV.

Reducing Anxiety While Boosting Creativity: Lessons From The Progymnasmata, Bryan Blankfield

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The fear of public speaking is a widely shared among individuals. This can be difficult to overcome when students are assigned several large, heavily-weighted speeches with few opportunities to become acclimated to standing in front of an audience. Several times throughout the semester students are assigned a 2–3 minute long speech inspired by the progymnasmata (a series of rhetorical exercises from Ancient Greece). The speeches vary widely from presenting a fable to impersonating an individual.

Critically Thinking About Real-World Content And Practices: The Theory Show & Tell, Erika Engstrom

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Analytical and communication skills list high on employers’ priorities. Beyond assessing comprehension through exams and research papers, this project requires, pilot research using content analysis, in-class presentation, short-form synthesis of findings.

Enacting Agency Through Influence On Power Relationships, Steve Hayden

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Agency is the temporal and ecological understanding of the capacity to make choices, take principled action,and enact positive change. Why is agency important? Because teaching is complex! 1. New policy directions 2. Wider variety of stakeholder voices 3. Increase in student diversity 4. Power relationships are embedded in school context: Hierarchical structure, Accountability Measures, Evaluative components

Reality In The Classroom: Teaching Critical Thinking With Scenarios, Timothy T. Self

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

One of the challenges for hospitality educators is to develop critical thinking skills in the future leaders of the industry. It is often thought that students will develop this skill as a by product of course work, but research indicates that it must be explicitly taught.

How Technology Will Change Our Built Environment, Adie Tomer

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

As part of the ongoing Brookings Scholar Lecture Series, Brookings Mountain West presented a lecture titled, "Digital Place: How Technology Will Change Our Built Environment" by Fellow in Metropolitan Policy, Adie Tomer on February 6, 2019. Digital technologies promise to upend nearly every component of the economy, including how we work, shop, travel, and even live inside our homes. There is too little conversation about how adoption of various technologies will interact with the current built environment and the policies that guide future investment. This lecture explores how the economy currently functions, where technology will transform economic functions, and how …

University Libraries Co-Curricular Outreach Plan July 2017 – June 2019, Rosan Mitola

Instruction Session and Workshop Materials

The purpose of this document is to align new co-curricular outreach efforts for undergraduate and graduate students with the University Libraries’ Strategic Framework

July 2017 - June 2019. The University Libraries contribute to student learning that takes place outside of the curriculum through a number of ways, throughout the academic year. This plan will be adapted and updated as needed to stay in alignment with the work of the Educational Initiatives department and the University Libraries.

Digitization Workflows: Streamlining The Digitization Process And Distinguishing The Peculiarities In Capturing Various Archival Materials, Marina Georgieva

Library Faculty Research

A case study based on one librarian’s experience that shares some of the practices, issues, challenges and tips related to making the digitization process more robust. They are universal and equally helpful for large-scale and smaller scale digitization projects.

Strategies Employed By Community-Based Service Providers To Address Hiv-Associated Neurocognitive Challenges: A Qualitative Study, Renato M. Liboro, Sean B. Rourke, Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco, Andrew Easton, Daniel Pugh, Claudia Medina, Allan Rae, Paul A. Shuper, Lori E. Ross

Psychology Faculty Research

Background: HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders and other causes of neurocognitive challenges experienced by people living with HIV (PLWH) persist as public health concerns in developed countries. Consequently, PLWH who experience neurocognitive challenges increasingly require social support and mental health services from community-based providers in the HIV sector. Methods: Thirty-three providers from 22 AIDS service organizations across Ontario, Canada, were interviewed to determine the strategies they used to support PLWH experiencing neurocognitive difficulties. Thematic analysis was conducted to determine key themes from the interview data. Results: Three types of strategies were identified: (a) intrapersonal, (b) interpersonal, and (c) organizational. Intrapersonal strategies involved …