Community-Based Research Commons^™

Spatial Health Indicator Analysis Data Collection Unlv Study, Amelia Gulling, Jeff Greer, Tom Stewart

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Southern Nevada Strong (SNS) is a collaborative regional planning project between local public agencies and NGOs throughout the Las Vegas Valley. This project is headed by City of Henderson on behalf of the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Committee. SNS received a $3.5 million Sustainable Community (SC) grant from HUD which is set to expire in 2015. SNS member agencies receive preference for future HUD grants by participating in successful SC grant, which could be considered a motivating factor for participation for outside agencies.

Friends In The Desert Foundation, Inc. Program Evaluation, Gina Brooksbank, Jessica Wilde, Holly Williams

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This report presents an evaluation of the Friends in the Desert, Foundation Incorporated (FID), a sit-down feeding program in downtown Henderson, Nevada. The evaluation identified both strengths of the program and opportunities for growth. Major components of this report are presented in the following order: scope of work, research design, findings, recommendations, conclusions and limitations. The report recommendations provide the agency’s members and principal stakeholder groups with proposals designed to improve the program’s financial position and long-term viability. These recommendations focus on opportunities for restructure, growth, and uninterrupted success.

FID is a sit-down feeding program located at St. Timothy’s Episcopal …

Friends Of Rainbow Company Program Evaluation, Holly Balmer, Christian Downing, Eric Garner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Friends of the Rainbow Company (Friends) is a nonprofit organization that supports the mission of The Rainbow Company Youth Theatre (Rainbow Company) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Established in 1978, it supports the Rainbow Company through non-traditional financial streams and hands-on support. The Rainbow Company receives primary financial support from the City of Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs. Being the City’s only youth theatre education program of its kind, it has received local governmental funding since 1976. The City support is mainly for salaried employees and facilities.

Friends and the Rainbow Company are very closely linked in several ways. First, …

Session 3-2-D: Managing A Research Collaborative: Challenges And Outcomes, Joachim Haeusler

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Collaborative with the Division on Addiction

The collaborative set off in 2005 and since then produced 18 peer reviewed publications, leading to a paradigm shift in online gambling research and which allowed us to establish an evidence-based consumer protection concept.

Goals:

• Creating a scientific evidence base about actual online gambling behavior, relying on behavioral data
• Continuously evaluating games and player protection measures and designing a consumer protection concept based on this evidence
• Creating an early-detection model for the identification of customers at-risk of developing problems

Transparency:

• Full access to de-identified gambling transaction data of large samples (up to 100,000 customers), …

Session 3-2-F: A Game-Theoretic Analysis Of Baccara Chemin De Fer, Stewart N. Ethier, Carlos Gamez

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Baccara chemin de fer — review of main contributions

Baccara was first mentioned in print by Van Tenac in 1847.

It was analyzed by Dormoy in 1872 and Bertrand in 1889.

Borel called Bertrand’s study “extremely incomplete,” but it motivated Borel to develop game theory in the 1920s.

Von Neumann planned to study baccara after proving the minimax theorem in 1928, but he didn’t.

The first game-theoretic solution was by Kemeny and Snell in 1957.

In 1964, Foster gave a solution based on a new algorithm, unaware of the Kemeny–Snell solution.

A solution under more realistic assumptions was found by …

Session 3-1-C: A Qualitative Examination Of Online Gambling Culture Among College Students: Factors Influencing Participation, Maintenance And Cessation, Rina Gupta, Jeffrey L. Derevensky, Michael Wohl

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Qualitative research: focus groups

Population: college students

Objective: achieve a better understanding of the factors attracting students to online gambling including the role played by social media sites.

More importantly, the issue of migration between the play-for-fun gambling social media sites and online gambling was of primary interest.

Session 3-1-E: Segmenting Slot Machine Players: A Factor-Cluster Analysis, Stowe Shoemaker, Dina Marie Zemke

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Overall objectives of the study:

Understand the following aspects of slot players:

– Demographic profile

– Motivations to play

– Behavioral characteristics while playing

– Factors important in choosing a game to play

– Attitudes toward progressives

– Desire for themed games

Session 3-1-B: Casino Employee Crime: Equal Opportunity Threat, Teresa Dalton

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Patterns of Offending

Gender Crime Theories

HR Implications

Session 3-1-E: Anatomy Of A Jackpot: Characteristics Of Purchasers Of Large Jackpot Lottery Tickets, Todd Maki, Don Feeney

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Jackpot “Run” & Survey Design

Record breaking Powerball jackpot

Started at $40 million on Oct 6, 2012

Rolled 15 times to reach $550 million Nov 28, 2012

MN Sold $25.2 million worth of tickets

Sales from all lotteries totaled $1.3 billion

Internet Survey

1,000 Minnesota adults

In the field Dec 14 to 18

Took, on average, about 10 minutes to complete

Representative of the general population (age and gender)

Conducted by Ipsos

Session 3-1-C: Gambling Behaviors Among American College Student-Athletes: Results From The 2012 National Collegiate Athletic Association Study, Tom Paskus, Jeffrey L. Derevensky, Caroline Temcheff

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Why Is the NCAA Concerned about Student-Athlete Gambling?

Student-athlete well-being

Contest integrity

Media Bias Through Facial Expressions On Local Las Vegas Television News, Jessica Zimmerman

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Trust in news media has been considered an important base for social order and cohesion in society and is a crucial variable for evaluating news media. Media credibility has been questioned by the audience for some time and the audience’s trust in the media has been slowly diminishing over the years. When a news broadcaster communicates a story on local television news, it is possible for his own opinions and beliefs to leak through nonverbal communication, specifically facial expressions. This presentation explores the four main local Las Vegas television news stations’ anchors and reporters to visually analyze whether facial characteristics …

Investigating Perspectives Of Rural Nevadans On Climate Change Solutions, Tricia Dutcher

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Rural perspectives are important for the issue of climate change. Rural areas are high concentrations of active voters who deny the problem of anthropogenic climate change. Rural residents also face decisions about inviting large, utility scale renewable energy developments in their areas. This research examines rural Nevadan’s perspectives on climate change to offer insights about the relationship between climate change perceptions and communication strategies. The research offers policy implications that address context specific issues, solution-oriented dialogue, and interest matching to mitigate anthropogenic climate change.

Evaluating The Impact Of Team Policing In Las Vegas, Nevada, Natalie N. Martinez

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Team policing involves the continuous geographical assignment of both patrol officers and investigators to the same, defined area, which allows them to become familiar with area residents and knowledgeable about community concerns and thus, enables them to develop individualized strategies to resolve the neighborhood problems that can lead to crime and disorder. This study evaluates the impact of a team policing intervention in Las Vegas, Nevada that combines an emphasis on community outreach with problem-focused policing strategies to determine the effectiveness of team policing as a crime control strategy. The results indicate that the team policing did not result in …

Police Injury Crashes And The Intersections Of Policy, Technology, And Culture, Carol Servino

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Motor vehicle crashes caused the majority fatalities to police officers in the U. S. for more than a decade, yet little is known about factors contributing to injury crashes. This research project required original data collection. A national survey of police chiefs in state, county, and local agencies of all sizes was conducted online in June and July, 2012. Questions focused on various driving policies and practices, including those related to communication technology commonly used in police patrol vehicles. Other questions included hypothetical situations to explore the culture of driving safety in individual police organizations. The majority of chiefs clearly …

Socioeconomic Effect On Crime In The Southwest United States Pre- And Post-Great Recession, Kristina Donathan, Jaewon Lim

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Facing the Great Recession, the Southwest megapolitan cluster in the United States including Las Vegas, Southern California and Sun Corridor in Arizona had a massive negative economic shock. Skyrocketing unemployment, massive foreclosures and other socioeconomic factors may negatively affect our safe environment with changing patterns in crime. This study aims to investigate the impacts of socioeconomic factors on different types of crimes committed in the megapolitan cluster of the Southwest United States. Using annual crime datasets, we look at the three years before the Great Recession and subsequent three years (2005-2010). The metropolitan areas, Los Angeles, CA, Las Vegas, NV, …

Police Responses To Domestic Violence And Public Perception, Kelly Stout, Alexis Kennedy

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Domestic violence, also known as, intimate partner violence (IPV), has become an epidemic in the United States. This research is intended to explain the types of IPV, describe the effects of severe IPV, look at the change in public perceptions of IPV situations, and explore the police responses to such situations. Students at UNLV participated in the “Police Responses to Calls for Service” survey, that was created to determine the public’s level of awareness of IPV situations and whether that awareness increases support for police policies in responding to intimate partner violence calls.

Building A Taxonomy Of Player Types And The Effects On The Self And Interaction Between Players, Kyle Yim

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

This paper conducted a literature review of current research examining fantasy football participants. Fantasy football has become popular in recent years due the attention from the media, most notably sports shows providing more coverage of fantasy football. Theories that have examined fantasy football include gambling theory, and uses and gratifications. Motivational types also provide categories to describe players. Additionally this theory also provides a method to measure these players called the Motivational Scale for Fantasy Football Participation (MSFFP). Thus the purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore the literature in fantasy sports; propose to build taxonomical categories for serious …

Does Movie Viewing Cultivate Unrealistic Expectations About Love And Marriage?, Lauren Galloway

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

The present study investigated the connection between romantic movie viewing frequency and endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs for romantic relationships in a university-based sample of 228 participants. Respondents completed a questionnaire in which they reported demographic information as well as responses to the several scales that measure endorsement of romantic ideals. I base this investigation of Segrin and Nabi’s (2002) examination of television viewing habits and proclivity for unrealistic expectations of sex, love, and marriage. Both the current study and the investigation conducted by Segrin and Nabi (2002) support the supposition that media play a part in reinforcing beliefs about coupleships. …

States And Multicultural Education Policies: A Multinomial Logit Analysis, Leander D. Kellogg

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

This research evaluates the factors that facilitate or constrain the adoption of multicultural education policies in the fifty US state at the state legislature and state bureaucracy levels. According to the 2010 Census, the majority of children under age two—for the first time in US history—are minorities. Furthermore, 11 states and the District of Columbia already have a “minority-majority” population of children under age five. Seven more states are expected to join them in the next decade. Previous research has found that multicultural education policies have been increasingly adopted but are not yet widespread across the states. This study first …

Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse:What Heals And What Hurts In A Couple Relationship, Laura Smedley, Kathy Disney-Fairchild, Stephen Fife, Colleen Peterson

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a significant trauma that affects a person’s self-concept and ability to form healthy intimate relationships later in adulthood. Approximately 20% of adults who experienced childhood sexual abuse go on to evidence serious psychopathology in adulthood (Harway & Faulk, 2005). Knowledge of how relationship partners affect the healing of the survivor may be very beneficial to couples’ therapists, to survivors themselves, and to their intimate partners. The purpose of this qualitative study is to increase understanding of the survivor’s experience of what is helpful and what is counterproductive in their healing process within the construct of …

Juror Typologies And Dna Comprehension:Who Benefits From Jury Trial Innovations?, Mari Sakiyama, Joel D. Lieberman

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

When DNA evidence is presented in the courtroom, it is typically accompanied by complex testimony conveying information such as the method of generating population frequencies, match criteria and probabilities, as well as laboratory errors and error rates. Although this evidence may have high probative value, the legal community has expressed growing concern regarding jurors’ ability to comprehend it. However, courts have implemented a variety of jury trial innovations to facilitate jurors’ ability to process complex information. Although these innovations may have a positive effect on comprehension of complex trial evidence, it is unclear whether some jurors are more likely to …

Accessible Medical Equipment For Patients With Disabilities In Primary Care Clinics: Why Is It Lacking?, Jennifer Renee Pharr

Environmental & Global Health Faculty Research

Background: Previous research has identified inaccessible medical equipment as a barrier to health care services encountered by people with disabilities. However, no research has been conducted to understand why medical practices lack accessible equipment.

Objectives/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to examine practice administrators’ knowledge of accessible medical equipment and cost of accessible medical equipment to understand why medical practices lack such equipment. Hypotheses were: 1) Practice administrators lacked knowledge about accessible medical equipment and 2) The cost of accessible medical equipment was too great compared to standard equipment for the clinic.

Methods: This study was a mixed methods …

Awareness And Beliefs Regarding Intimate Partner Violence Among First-Year Dental Students, Rhonda J. Everett, Karl Kingsley, Christina A. Demopoulos, Edward E. Herschaft, Christine Lamun, Sheniz Moonie, Timothy J. Bungum, Michelle Chino

Environmental & Global Health Faculty Research

Intimate partner violence (IPV) may affect one to four million individuals per year in the United States, with women accounting for the majority of both reported and unreported cases. Dental professionals are in a unique position to identify many types of IPV because injuries to the head and neck may be indicators or predictors of IPV abuse. Fewer than half of dental programs surveyed have reported having IPV-specific curricula, and most dental students surveyed have reported having little experience or training to recognize IPV. Based on this information, this pilot study sought to assess the awareness and beliefs regarding IPV …

Effectiveness Of A Portable, Large-Area Ultraviolet Germicidal Device, Mark P. Buttner, Thomas Yee, Patricia Cruz, Vanessa Stevens

Nevada Journal of Public Health

Effective disinfection of the hospital environment is a key component in the prevention of healthcare-associated infections. The objective of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of an ultraviolet germicidal device in reducing the concentrations of culturable bacteria on indoor surfaces. The ultraviolet germicidal device was installed and operated in four experimental trials conducted in a microbiology research chamber. Agar plates inoculated with known concentrations of two test microorganisms were placed on benches inside the chamber at two distances, 1.5 meters and 3.0 meters from the machine, for exposure times of 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 20 minutes. With test …

Predicting Barriers To Primary Care For Patients With Disabilities: A Mixed Methods Study Of Practice Administrators, Jennifer Renee Pharr, Michelle Chino

Environmental & Global Health Faculty Research

Background. People with disabilities continue to be identified as a group who experience disparate health/health care. They are less likely to engage in some health care services. Structural barriers are often identified as one of the reasons for the underutilization of some health care services by people with disabilities. However, to date no study has been conducted to understand why structural barriers persist twenty years after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law.

Objectives. We examined the relationship between primary care practice administrators’ knowledge of the ADA and the number of accessibility barriers that patients with mobility disabilities might …

Environmental, Human And Socioeconomic Characteristics Of Pedestrian Injury And Death In Las Vegas, Nv, Jennifer Renee Pharr, Courtney Coughenour, Timothy J. Bungum

Environmental & Global Health Faculty Research

Background: Pedestrian crashes are a deterrent to physical activity, especially walking. The purpose of this study was to analyze pedestrian crash characteristics in Clark County, NV and to determine if there was a significant relationship between pedestrian crashes and socio-economic variables.

Methods: Police reported pedestrian crash data collected between January 2009 and December 2011 were analyzed. Frequencies and rates for pedestrian crashes, injuries and deaths were calculated for environmental and human characteristics. Chi square tests were utilized to determine if there were significant differences in environmental and human characteristics for pedestrian injuries and deaths. Zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression analysis …

Emotional, Psychological, And Behavioral Challenges Of Children With Incarcerated Parents, Starr Bailey, Marie Antoinette Wakefield

McNair Poster Presentations

Children of incarcerated mothers and fathers are at a high risk of developing emotion­al, psychological, and behavioral problems (Dallaire, 2000; Lotze, Ravindran, & Myers, 2010; Nurse, 2004). The literature review conducted for this study noted several problem­atic behaviors. Some children were at a high risk for delinquency and criminal activity. Others experienced several home displacements which led to foster care or grand parenting responsibilities (Belknap, 2006). Further, mental health issues and school behavior prob­lems were directly linked to parental incarceration (Arditti, 2012). Four main problems in children were identified, which included aggression, anxiety, poor concentration, and so­cial withdrawal. Some children …

Selective Screening Of Type 2 Diabetes For Washoe County’S Hispanic Population, Linda M. Dunn

Nevada Journal of Public Health

Hispanic Americans with unrecognized, asymptomatic diabetes are more likely to experience poor quality of life and diabetic complications such as heart, eye and kidney disease than non-Hispanic whites of similar age. Multiple factors, such as cultural beliefs, lack of knowledge and limited access to health care, contribute to the fact that one-third of total diabetes among Hispanic Americans is undiagnosed. For Washoe County, Nevada, the actual percentage of adult Hispanics with diabetes may be almost 12%. In 2003, the Defeat Diabetes Screening Project provided three screenings targeting the Hispanic population in Reno and Sparks. Seventy-one percent of 348 screened were …

How We Want To Be Treated! What Clark County African American Patients Want Their Health Providers To Know, Charlene A. Day, Joyce Woodson, Erica Archuleta

Nevada Journal of Public Health

Research continues to validate the fact that cultural values and beliefs play a major role in determining the extent to which an individual will engage in healthy behaviors, adhere to medical regimen, and seek care when necessary. A 2000 survey of 950 members of predominately African American churches in Clark County, Nevada (a county which comprises Las Vegas) conducted by the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension found members preferred healthcare providers as a source of information on health-related matters. Yet, research shows that for a variety of reasons, many African Americans do not regularly see a health care professional, and …

Screening For Mental Health Problems Among Incarcerated Youth In Nevada: Practice And Policy, Michelle Chino, Jennifer Personius-Zipoy, Denise Tanata

Nevada Journal of Public Health

Incarcerated youth in Nevada with serious mental health problems are not being effectively identified. The current study examined the utility of simple screening instruments as a mechanism for identifying incarcerated youth who may have a mental health disorder. Adjudicated youth, incarcerated at each of Nevada’s 12 juvenile detention facilities, participated in the study by completing a demographic questionnaire and a standardized mental health screening instrument: the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2). Findings indicate a high prevalence of mental health disorders among incarcerated juveniles in Nevada. Identifying youth with mental health problems is complicated by the lack of a systematic …