Rural Sociology Commons^™

Poor Women With Sexually Transmitted Infections: Providers’ Perspectives On Diagnoses, Genevieve R. Cox

Sociology

This article presents results from a study of health care providers, mainly nurses and nurse practitioners, who routinely diagnose sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in rural low-income populations in West Virginia (WV). A qualitative analysis of eighteen semi-structured interviews reveals that providers who consistently work with low-income populations believe patients undergo a negative change in self-image in response to a chronic STD diagnosis. Providers express concerns about a number of issues related to low-income, rural women’s access to sexual health care and see the need for more sexuality education, more funding for free and reduced cost clinics, and more available health …

Understanding Mesosystemic Influences On Reported Health Among Rural Low-Income Women: A Structural Equation Analysis, Tiffany Wigington

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

While ensuring access to health insurance and health care services is important, emerging research indicates that individual health and well-being result from a complex array of environmental, social, and psychological factors. The delineation of how factors of health and well-being unfold and impact rural low-income women is particularly salient for social workers who provide services to rural residents and who work within a rural context. Utilizing components from the ecological systems perspective, this study explored how the factors associated with health risk influenced reported health and mesosystemic processes among rural low-income women. This sample (n=304) for this study was drawn …

Alcohol And Other Drug Resistance Strategies Employed By Rural Adolescents, Jonathan Pettigrew, Michelle Miller-Day, Janice L. Krieger, Michael L. Hecht

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This study seeks to identify how rural adolescents make health decisions and utilize communication strategies to resist influence attempts in offers of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 113 adolescents from rural school districts to solicit information on ATOD norms, past ATOD experiences, and substance offer response episodes. Rural youths’ resistance strategies were similar to previous findings with urban adolescents – refuse, explain, avoid, and leave (the REAL typology) – while unique features of these strategies were identified including the importance of personal narratives, the articulation of a non-user identity, and being “accountable” to self …

Too Much Free Time: Coos County Youth Who Are Least Involved In Out-Of-School Activities Are Most Likely To Use Drugs And Alcohol, Erin H. Sharp

Carsey Publications

Carsey Institute researchers are seeing links between the self-reported substance use and involvement in out-of-school activities. As part of a ten-year tracking survey of high school students in Coos County, New Hampshire, this brief finds that those most involved with constructive activities report the least amount of substance abuse.

Help In A Haystack: Youth Substance Abuse And Mental Health Services In The North Country, Meghan L. Mills

Carsey Publications

A new brief from Nordblom Fellow Meghan Mills at the Carsey Institute finds that youth in New Hampshire's North Country have challenges in accessing support for substance abuse and mental health issues. Mills also finds that the providers face unique challenges, from getting referrals to hiring professionals, all while working without a functional network.

Family Members' Influence On Family Meal Vegetable Choices, Tionni R. Wenrich, J. Lynne Brown, Michelle Miller-Day, Kevin J. Kelley, Eugene J. Lengerich

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Objective—Characterize the process of family vegetable selection (especially cruciferous, deep orange, and dark green leafy vegetables); demonstrate the usefulness of Exchange Theory (how family norms and past experiences interact with rewards and costs) for interpreting the data.

Design—Eight focus groups, two with each segment (men/women vegetable-likers/dislikers based on a screening form). Participants completed a vegetable intake form.

Setting—Rural Appalachian Pennsylvania.

Participants—61 low-income, married/cohabiting men (n=28) and women (n=33).

Analysis—Thematic analysis within Exchange Theory framework for qualitative data. Descriptive analysis, t-tests and chi-square tests for quantitative data.

Results—Exchange Theory proved useful for understanding that regardless …

Quality Of Life And Adolescents In Rural Kentucky, Hatim A. Omar, Søren Ventegodt, Joav Merrick

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

In many rural areas in Kentucky, adolescents lack the basic assets for a good quality of life, such as having caring adults, a safe place and useful activities after school. In this chapter we analyze data from middle and high school students referred to a comprehensive school based health promotion center (SBHPC). From August 2006 to February 2008, a total of 382 students (200 female, 182 male, aged 12-18 years) were referred to the SBHPC for help. Only two (0.5%) students had two parents living with them and 12 (3.1 %) had safe, organized after school activities. 19.9% of the …

Implications For Child Welfare Teaching And Human Services Personnel Perspectives Experiences Of Children With Special Needs, Sarah Huesmann

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Impact Of Poor Quality Of Life On Adolescents In Rural Kentucky: A Brief Report, Hatim A. Omar, Søren Ventegodt, Joav Merrick

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

In many rural areas in Kentucky, adolescents lack the basic assets for a good quality of life, such as having caring adults, a safe place and useful activities after school. Methods: Analysis of data from middle and high school students referred to a comprehensive school based health promotion center (SBHPC). Results: From august 2006 to February 2008, a total of 382 students (200 female, 182 male, aged 12-18 years) were referred to the SBHPC for help. Only two (0.5%) students had two parents living with them and 12 (3.1%) had safe, organized after school activities. 19.9% of the total were …

Has The Hiv Epidemic Peaked?, John Bongaarts, Thomas Buettner, Gerhard Heilig, Francois Pelletier

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This working paper reviews the highly diverse regional and country patterns of HIV epidemics and discusses possible causes of the geographic variation in epidemic sizes. The main finding of this analysis is that the HIV epidemic reached a major turning point over the past decade. The peak years of HIV incidence rates are past for all regions, and the peaks of prevalence rates are mostly in the past except in Eastern Europe, where it is expected to peak in 2008. But owing in part to the life-prolonging effect of antiretroviral therapy and to sustained population growth, the absolute number of …

Teacher Absence As A Factor In Gender Inequalities In Access To Primary Schooling In Rural Pakistan, Sharon Ghuman, Cynthia B. Lloyd

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This paper examines the case of Pakistan, where primary school enrollment among girls in rural areas is substantially lower than among children in urban areas and boys in rural areas, owing to lack of access to government girls’ schools. The focus is on teacher absence as a further barrier to schooling for girls. Using data from a panel study of primary schooling in rural Punjab and NWFP in 1997 and 2004, the report examines trends in teacher absence, examine the factors correlated with teacher absence in the government and private sector, and assesses the implications of these absence levels for …

Science-Based Organic Farming 2006: Toward Local And Secure Food Systems, Charles A. Francis, Katja Koehler-Cole, Twyla Hansen, Peter Skelton

Publications from the Center for Applied Rural Innovation (CARI)

Organic farming includes growing food and fiber—animals, agronomic crops, horticultural fruits and vegetables, related products—as one dynamic and rapidly evolving component of our complex U.S. food system. Even as more farmers are moving toward organic certification and participation in an environmentally sound and economically lucrative market, questions arise about the long-term social impacts and sustainability of a set of practices that has gone from a movement to an industry. Consolidations in the organic trade have brought multinational corporations to the table, as they have observed a grassroots activity that has grown by 20% per year for the past two decades, …

Urban Versus Rural Mortality Among Older Adults In China, Zachary Zimmer, Toshiko Kaneda, Laura Spess

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

For some time, Chinese government policies have treated rural and urban areas very differently, and a by-product of China’s rapid development seems to be an even greater differentiation between urban and rural social and economic life. Over the next several decades, in part because of rapid fertility declines and in part as a result of mortality declines at older ages, China and other developing countries will experience enormous increases in the proportion of older adults and the proportion of the “oldest-old.” It is reasonable to expect that these age structure changes will alter the provision of health care, making an …

The Implications Of Changing Educational And Family Circumstances For Children's Grade Progression In Rural Pakistan: 1997-2004, Cynthia B. Lloyd, Cem Mete, Monica J. Grant

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This Population Council working paper assesses the effects of primary school characteristics, household characteristics, and recent household economic and demographic shocks on school dropout rates during the first eight grades in rural Punjab and North West Frontier Province, Pakistan. While grade retention has improved over the past six years, dropout rates for girls remain fairly high, particularly at the end of primary school (grade five). The results of this study show clearly the complementary nature of supply and demand factors in determining grade progression in rural Pakistan, particularly for girls. The results suggest that substantial improvement in the schooling environment …

Poverty, Wealth Inequality, And Health Among Older Adults In Rural Cambodia, Zachary Zimmer

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This working paper examines the distribution of household wealth and tests whether associations exist between wealth inequality and health outcomes among older adults living in one of the world’s poorest regions, rural Cambodia. Results confirm difficult economic conditions among most elderly in rural Cambodia. This study suggests there is some validity to generalizing the relationship between wealth inequality and health to extremely poor populations and that a very small difference in wealth makes a relatively large difference in regard to the association with health among those living in impoverished surroundings.

The Changing Face Of Rural General Practice: An Ethnographic Study Of General Practitioners And Their Spouses, Angela Durey

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Rural general practice is general practice at its best: a comment by one GP interviewed for this study was echoed by colleagues who viewed their work in a rural setting as challenging, diverse, rewarding and satisfying. Despite reported difficulties associated with rural general practice, many GPs argued that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Few wanted to leave. Nonetheless, too few Australian trained GPs are willing to move from cities to work in the country. Consequently, overseas trained doctors have been recruited to fill vacancies or nurses provide health services in communities unable to attract a GP.

The Effect Of A Livelihoods Intervention In An Urban Slum In India: Do Vocational Counseling And Training Alter The Attitudes And Behavior Of Adolescent Girls?, Barbara Mensch, Monica J. Grant, Mary Philip Sebastian, Paul C. Hewett, Dale Huntington

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This Population Council working paper examines whether an experimental intervention for girls aged 14–19 that provided reproductive health information, vocational counseling and training, and assistance with opening savings accounts in slum areas of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, India had an effect on their attitudes and behaviors. Although the livelihoods program was acceptable to parents and feasible to implement, the project had only a minimal impact on the behavior and attitudes of adolescent girls in the experimental slums. The greatest changes between the baseline and the endline surveys were found in those outcomes that most closely reflected the content of the …

Are We Not Peasants Too? Land Rights And Women's Claims In India, Bina Agarwal

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of SEEDS explores the critical elements in securing effective and independent land rights for women in South Asia. The author presents a range of cooperative strategies for enabling women to retain and cultivate the land and shows how micro-credit and other programs can be redirected to increase the amount and productivity of land women control. Recognizing that new policies and political will are required to foster and sustain such experiments, the author ends with a summary of how women are organizing to place women’s access to land at the center of national and global agendas.

Opportunity, Community, And Teen Pregnancy In An Appalachian State, Robert Bickel, Susan Weaver, Tony Williams, Linda Lange

SHU Faculty Publications

Teen pregnancy has become an issue that educators and public policy makers are obliged to treat as a serious problem. Too often, explanations of teen pregnancy have included uncritical use of the notion of adolescents at risk. Recently, however, attention has been given to structurally-determined contextual factors in explaining teen pregnancy. Such contextual factors include economic and educational opportunities and costs, as well as chances for valued participation in socially and culturally stable communities. This interest in contextual factors parallels a development in the literature on high school dropouts. A data set previously employed to study variability in drop-out rates …

Collection And Utilization Of Child Abuse Statistics In American Indian Communities, Michelle Chino

School of Public Health Faculty Research

Public health research in American Indian communities involves many complex issues that may both help and hinder the development of an effective research methodology and the collection, analysis, and utilization of data. These issues include: 1) the unique strengths and diversity of Indian cultures; 2) the complicated relationships that exist between federal, state, and tribal agencies; 3) the vast distances between communities and services that exist in rural areas; 4) extremely limited human and financial resources; 5) overlapping and often conflicting legal and jurisdictional authorities; and 6) an array of social issues including poverty, substance abuse, modernization, and assimilation. Defining …

Improved Public Health Practices In A Disadvantaged Rural Community, William H. Groff, Beatrice E. Manning

Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station

No abstract provided.

Danger : Watch Out For Foot-And-Mouth Disease, Department Of Agriculture, Western Australia

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

This article was prepared by officers of the Department of Agriculture's Animal Division, with the approval of the Chief Quarantine Officer (Animals) for Western Australia.

THE introduction of foot-and-mouth disease into Australia would be an event of national importance.

Its economic consequences could be far-reaching and grave.