Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Impact Of Laws Aimed At Healthcare-Associated Infection Reduction: A Qualitative Study, Patrica W. Stone, Monika Pogorzelska-Maziarz, Julie Reagan, Jacqueline A. Merrill, Brad Sperber, Catherine Cairns, Matthew Penn, Tara Ramanathan, Elizabeth Mothershed, Elizabeth Skillen

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

Background: Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are preventable. Globally, laws aimed at reducing HAIs have been implemented. In the USA, these laws are at the federal and state levels. It is not known whether the state interventions are more effective than the federal incentives alone.

Objective: The aims of this study were to explore the impact federal and state HAI laws have on state departments of health and hospital stakeholders in the USA and to explore similarities and differences in perceptions across states.

Methods: A qualitative study was conducted. In 2012, we conducted semistructured interviews with key stakeholders from states with and …

Health Literacy 101: Increasing Literacy Reduces Health Disparities, Nancy Patterson

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), health disparities are “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations”. The American Medical Association (AMA) has identified literacy as the number one social determinant of an individual’s health, above education, income and race.

Learn about health literacy as a tool in the fight against health disparities from this poster as well as methods of effective health communication between health information providers and information seekers. Self-advocacy, plain language cultural competence, and the teach-back technique are …

Think Inside The Blocks: Health Literacy Outreach To Disadvantaged People In Their Own Environment, Nancy Patterson

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

This bilingual (Spanish/English) poster highlights six creative health literacy outreach projects that have proven to be successful in increasing participation in health-related events in their communities and in boosting health literacy in the process.

For example, in Georgetown, South Carolina, a beauty salon owner, concerned about her clients’ frequent frustration with trying to decipher medical information, partners with her local public library and is grant funded to provide a Wellness Workstation in her salon. Years later, her clients research health information between services using the workstation, evening health literacy classes are regularly conducted for community members and continued funding has …

The State Of Accreditation Readiness In Georgia: A Case Study, Angela Peden, Gulzar H. Shah, Russell B. Toal, Dayna S. Alexander, Alesha Wright, Ashton Anderson, Nandi A. Marshall, Scott Uhlich, Jeffery A. Jones

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

Background: Georgia’s public health districts first began exploring the idea of national public health accreditation in 2008 when Cobb & Douglas Public Health included accreditation in their strategic plan. In May 2015, Cobb & Douglas Public Health was the first Georgia public health district to achieve national accreditation status. This article discusses the current state of accreditation readiness in Georgia and explores strengths and barriers to accreditation.

Methods: This study utilized a case study approach in order to examine PHAB accreditation efforts in Georgia within a reallife context. Data came from three sources: nine Accreditation Readiness Assessments, a PHAB Pre-Application …

Assessing The Education And Training Needs Of Nebraska's Public Health Workforce, Brandon L. Grimm, Patrik Johansson, Preethy Nayar, Bettye A. Apenteng, Samuel T. Opoku, Anh Nguyen

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

Introduction: In 2012, the Great Plains Public Health Training Center (Grant #UB6HP22821) conducted an online survey of state and local health departments and the American Indian (tribal clinics, tribal health departments, and urban Indian clinic) public health workforce across three professional levels. The objectives of the needs assessment were to determine the competency levels of the state’s public health workforce, assess gaps in public health competencies, identify public health training interests, needs, and preferences, and to determine the barriers and motivators to participate in public health training.

Methods: The assessment was developed using the Council on Linkages Between Academia and …

Cultural Beliefs And Understandings Of Cervical Cancer Among Mexican Immigrant Women In Southeast Georgia, John S. Luque, Yelena N. Tarasenko, Jonathan N. Maupin, Moya L. Alfonso, Lisa C. Watson, Claudia Reyes-Garcia, Daron G. Ferris

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

Rural Mexican immigrant women in the U.S. are infrequently screened and experience health disparities from cervical cancer. We explored cancer-related cultural beliefs in this population. We administered a cross-sectional survey to 39 Mexican immigrant women due for screening. We conducted univariate and bivariate analyses of participants’ characteristics, Pap test history, cancer-related knowledge and beliefs, and cultural consensus analysis about causes of cervical cancer and barriers to screening. For all the cultural consensus tasks, there was consensus (Eigenratios >3:1) among survey participants. Comparing the rankings of risk factor clusters, clusters related to sexual behaviors were ranked more severely than clusters related …

Evidence Consistent With The Multiple-Bearings Hypothesis From Human Virtual Landmark-Based Navigation, Martha R. Forloines, Kent D. Bodily, Bradley R. Sturz

Department of Psychology Faculty Publications

One approach to explaining the conditions under which additional landmarks will be learned or ignored relates to the nature of the information provided by the landmarks (i.e., distance versus bearings). In the current experiment, we tested the ability of such an approach to explain the search behavior of human participants in a virtual landmark-based navigation task by manipulating whether landmarks provided stable distance, stable direction, or both stable distance and stable direction information. First, we incrementally shaped human participants’ search behavior in the presence of two ambiguous landmarks. Next, participants experienced one additional landmark that disambiguated the location of the …

Use Of Facebook By Local Health Departments: Activity And Focus Areas, Rakhi Trivedi, Gulzar H. Shah

Health Policy and Management Faculty Presentations

This presentation was given at the Keeneland Conference for Public Health Systems and Services Research.

Assessing Changes In Safety Net Providers Since The Passage Of The Affordable Care Act, Arlesia Mathis, Julia Burke, Gulzar H. Shah

Health Policy and Management Faculty Presentations

The passage of the Affordable Care Act presented opportunities and challenges for safety net providers. Significant investments in provider capacity promised much needed expansion of services; and in 2014, the law extended coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans. However, safety net providers are concerned that changes to financing brought about by changes in the ACA may threaten their ability to provide services to millions more who still lack insurance. This is a preliminary study of changes occurring with maternal and child health services among safety-net providers.

Levels And Predictors Of Lhds' Engagement In Community Health Assessment, 2002-2013, Gulzar H. Shah, Kay Lovelace, Daniel F. Linder

Health Policy and Management Faculty Presentations

This presentation was given at the Keeneland Conference for Public Health Systems and Services Research.

Factors Driving Local Health Department’S Collaboration With Other Organizations In The Provision Of Personal Healthcare Services, Huabin Luo, Nancy L. Winterbauer, Ashley Tucker, Gulzar H. Shah

Health Policy and Management Faculty Presentations

Background: Recent work has highlighted the necessity of integrating primary care services and public health to improve quality and reduce the cost of healthcare.

Research Objectives: To describe levels of partnership between local health departments (LHD) and other organizations in the community in the provision of personal healthcare services; and to assess LHD organizational characteristics and community factors that contribute to partnerships.

Data Sets and Sources: Data were drawn from the 2013 NACCHO Profile Study (Module 1) and the Area Health Resource File. A total of 490 LHDs responded to Module 1, where LHDs were asked to describe the level …

Characteristics Of Local Health Departments Associated With Their Implementation Of Electronic Health Records And Other Informatics System, Gulzar H. Shah, Jonathon P. Leider, Brian C. Castrucci, Karmen S. Williams, Huabin Luo

Health Policy and Management Faculty Presentations

Background: Information technology and information systems (IT/IS) play a critical role in the daily operation of local health departments (LHDs). Assessing LHDs’ informatics capacities is important, especially within the context of broader, system-level health reform efforts.

Research Objective: This study assesses a nationally representative sample of LHDs’ level of adoption of information systems, technology, and the factors associated with adoption/implementation. Specifically, five areas of public health informatics were examined: electronic health records (EHRs), health information exchange (HIE), immunization registry (IR), electronic disease reporting system (EDRS), and electronic lab reporting (ELR).

Data Sets and Sources: Data from NACCHO’s 2013 National Profile …

The Impact Of Emotional Intelligence On Conditions Of Trust Among Leaders At The Kentucky Department For Public Health, Jennifer Redmond Knight, Heather M. Bush, William A. Mase, Martha Cornwell Riddell, Meng Liu, James W. Holsinger

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

There has been limited leadership research on emotional intelligence and trust in governmental public health settings. The purpose of this study was to identify and seek to understand the relationship between trust and elements of emotional intelligence, including stress management, at the Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH). The KDPH serves as Kentucky’s state governmental health department. KDPH is led by a Commissioner and composed of seven primary divisions and 25 branches within those divisions. The study was a non-randomized cross-sectional study utilizing electronic surveys that evaluated conditions of trust among staff members and emotional intelligence among supervisors. Pearson correlation …

Unsilencing The Voice Within: Expressive Writing As A Therapeutic Tool, Karla L. Sapp

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

Written words are a very powerful tool that is used to facilitate self-healing, awareness, and growth through the communication of one’s deepest thoughts, emotions, and desires. The purpose of this poster session is to provide mental health providers (community, school, criminal justice) with an overview of expressive writing, forms of expressive writing that can be utilized, and implications for professional practice with At-Risk Youth.

The Nonreligious – Nonspiritual Scale (Nrnss): Measuring Everything From Atheists To Zionists, Ryan T. Cragun, Joseph H. Hammer, Michael Nielsen

Department of Psychology Faculty Publications

Although hundreds of measures of personal religiousness and spirituality exist, none are capable of reliably and validly assessing individuals who identify as nonreligious and nonspiritual. There is a need to develop a valid and reliable measure of (non)religiousness and (non)spirituality. This article discusses these problems, and presents the development and initial validation of a 17-item Nonreligious-Nonspiritual Scale (NRNSS) across three studies. The NRNSS exhibited high internal consistency (α > .94) and high test-retest reliability (r = .92). Two exploratory and one confirmatory factor analysis of the NRNSS supported the hypothesized two-factor solution: (a) institutional religiousness and (b) individualistic spirituality. The NRNSS …