Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Tick–Tock Goes The Croc: A High-Density Eeg Study Of Risk-Reactivity And Binge-Drinking, John E. Kiat, Jacob E. Cheadle

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Links between individual differences in risk processing and high-risk behaviors such as binge-drinking have long been the focus of active research. However, investigations in this area almost exclusively utilize decision-making focused paradigms. This emphasis makes it difficult to assess links between risk behaviors and raw risk reactivity independent of decision and feedback processes. A deeper understanding of this association has the potential to shed light on the role of risk reactivity in high-risk behavior susceptibility. To contribute toward this aim, this study utilizes a popular risk-taking game, the crocodile dentist, to assess links between individual differences in decision-free risk-reactivity and …

The Role Of Protective Behavioral Strategies, Social Environment, And Housing Type On Heavy Drinking Among College Students, Kimberly A. Tyler, Rachel M. Schmitz, Colleen M. Ray, Scott A. Adams, Leslie Gordon Simons

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background: Though research has examined heavy drinking by housing type, the link between type of college student housing and protective behavioral strategies (PBS) has rarely been examined comparing different college campuses. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of housing type, perceptions of peer drinking, and PBS with respondent heavy drinking among undergraduate college students from one Southeastern and one Midwestern university in the United States. Methods: 1,448 college students enrolled in undergraduate courses at two public universities completed a paper and pencil survey of attitudes and experiences about dating, sexuality, and substance …

Book Review: Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories Of Ex-Hasidic Jews, By Lynn Davidman., Kelsy Burke

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Lynn Davidman begins Becoming Un- Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews with a powerful story from her own life. She, like the respondents whose interviews provide the data for the book, chose to leave the Hasidic Jewish community in which she was raised. Davidman uses her own story and the stories of others to shine a light on an understudied religious community. In doing so, she richly illustrates a complex definition of what religion is: a combination of shared rituals and embodied practices, in addition to prescribed beliefs. This is why leaving religion involves more than losing faith. As Davidman argues, …

Erratum: A Comprehensive Analysis Of Morbidity Life Expectancies Among Older Hispanic Subgroups In The United States: Variation By Nativity And Country Of Origin (Table 3 & Figure 2), Marc A. Garcia, Catherine Garcia, Chi-Tsun Chiu, Mukaila Raji, Kyriakos S. Markides

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Age Of Migration And The Incidence Of Cognitive Impairment: A Cohort Study Of Elder Mexican-Americans, Marc A. Garcia, Adriana M. Reyes, Brian Downer, Joseph L. Saenz, Rafael A. Samper-Ternent, Mukaila Raji

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background and Objectives: To explore nativity and age of migration differentials in the incidence of cognitive impairment among older Mexican-Americans. Research Design and Methods: We employ maximum-likelihood discrete time hazard models to estimate risk ratios of cognitive impairment in a sample of 2,708 Mexican-Americans 65 and older who were cognitively healthy at baseline over a follow-up period of up to 20 years. Results: Late-life immigrant women have a 46% higher risk of cognitive impairment compared to U.S.-born Mexican- American women. Conversely, midlife immigrant men have a 29% lower risk of cognitive impairment compared to U.S.- born Mexican-American men. The incidence …

The Role Of Education In The Association Between Race/Ethnicity/Nativity, Cognitive Impairment, And Dementia Among Older Adults In The United States, Marc A. Garcia, Joseph Saenz, Brian Downer, Rebeca Wong

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND—Older Black and Hispanic adults are more likely to be cognitively impaired than older White adults. Disadvantages in educational achievement for minority and immigrant populations may contribute to disparities in cognitive impairment.

OBJECTIVE—Examine the role of education in racial/ethnic and nativity differences in cognitive impairment/no dementia (CIND) and dementia among older US adults.

METHODS—Data comes from the 2012 Health and Retirement Study. A total of 19,099 participants aged ≥50 were included in the analysis. Participants were categorized as having normal cognition, CIND, or dementia based on the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS) or questions from a proxy interview. We …

Life Expectancies With Depression By Age Of Migration And Gender Among Older Mexican Americans, Catherine García, Marc A. Garcia, Chi-Tsun Chiu, Fernando I. Rivera, Mukaila Raji

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background and Objectives: Prior studies examining depression among older Mexican Americans suggest both women and immigrants are at higher risk of depressive symptomatology than males and U.S.-born Mexican Americans. We use data from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly to examine whether life expectancy with depression and without depression varies by nativity, age of migration, and gender.

Research Design and Methods: Sullivan-based life tables were used to estimate depression life expectancies among Mexican Americans aged 65 years and older residing in the Southwestern United States. Depression is based on the 20-item Center for Epidemiological Studies …

Do Listeners Perceive Interviewers’ Attributes From Their Voices And Do Perceptions Differ By Question Type?, Nuttirudee Charoenruk, Kristen Olson

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

As an aural mode, an interviewer’s voice is an important part of telephone surveys. A speaker’s voice can convey information about his or her trustworthiness and confidence, among other attributes. Consequently, respondents may perceive attributes of interviewers from their voices. We evaluated how five perceived attributes of interviewers (expertise, confidence, reliability, trustworthiness, and easiness to understand) are associated with interviewer voice characteristics (pitch, intonation, speech rate, and disfluencies) and whether this varies by types of question and interviewer characteristics. Overall, listeners perceived interviewers’ attributes from their voices. Interviewers with higher pitched voices, moderate intonation, a faster pace, and fewer disfluencies …

A Comparison Of Full And Quasi Filters For Autobiographical Questions, Kristen M. Olson, Megumi Watanabe, Jolene Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Some survey questions do not apply to all respondents. How to design these questions for both eligible and ineligible respondents is unclear. This article compares full filter (FF) and quasi filter (QF) designs for autobiographical questions in mail surveys. Using data from National Health, Wellbeing, and Perspectives Study, we examine the effect of type of filter on item nonresponse rates, response errors, and response distributions. We find that QF questions are more confusing to respondents, resulting in higher rates of item nonresponse and response errors than FF questions. Additionally, FF questions more successfully identify ineligible respondents, bringing estimates closer to …

Item Location, The Interviewer–Respondent Interaction, And Responses To Battery Questions In Telephone Surveys, Kristen Olson, Jolene Smyth, Beth Cochran

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Survey researchers often ask a series of attitudinal questions with a common question stem and response options, known as battery questions. Interviewers have substantial latitude in deciding how to administer these items, including whether to reread the common question stem on items after the first one or to probe respondents’ answers. Despite the ubiquity of use of these items, there is virtually no research on whether respondent and interviewer behaviors on battery questions differ over items in a battery or whether interview behaviors are associated with answers to these questions. This article uses a nationally representative telephone survey with audio-recorded …

Choose The Method For Aggregating Religious Identities That Is Most Appropriate For Your Research, Conrad Hackett, Philip Schwadel, Gregory A. Smith, Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac, Claire Gecewicz

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Some U.S. surveys measure many religious identities, including detailed Protestant affiliations. Researchers must decide how to aggregate these diverse identities. There are now a variety of options for aggregating religious groups into categories. Depending on the research question, it may be appropriate to use one of the existing options or to develop an aggregation strategy tailored to the project in question.

Cross-National Variation In The Social Origins And Religious Consequences Of Religious Non-Affiliation, Philip Schwadel

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

I argue that the social implications of religious non-affiliation vary across cultural contexts, leading to differences across nations in both who is likely to be unaffiliated and the religious consequences of such non-affiliation. I test these propositions by examining cross-national variation in associations with non-affiliation using multilevel models and cross-sectional survey data from almost 70,000 respondents in 52 nations. The results indicate that: 1) both individual characteristics (gender, age, and marital status) and nation-level attributes (GDP, communism, and regulation of religion) strongly predict religious non-affiliation; 2) differences in non-affiliation by individual-level attributes—women vs. men, old vs. young, and married vs. …

Memory Gaps In The American Time Use Survey. Investigating The Role Of Retrieval Cues And Respondents’ Level Of Effort, Antje Kirchner, Ana Lucía Córdova-Cazar, Robert F. Belli, Robert F. Belli

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Unaccounted respondent memory gasp- i.e., those activity gaps that are attributed by interviewers to respondents' memory failure- have serious implications for data quality. We contribute to the existing literature by investigating interviewing dynamics using paradata, distinguishing temporary memory gaps, which can be resolved during the interview, from enduring memory gaps, which cannot be resolved. We investigate factors that are associated with both kinds of memory gaps and how different response strategies are associated with data quality. We investigate two hypotheses that are associated with temporary and enduring memory gaps. The motivated cuing hypothesis posits that respondents who display more behaviors …

Antibiotic Overuse In The Geriatric Population, Kimberley Allison Kelly

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid are requiring long-term care facilities (LTCFs) to implement antibiotic stewardship programs (ASPs) to alleviate overuse of antibiotics in the nursing home population. Current research shows that the benefits of ASPs include improved patient outcomes, reduced adverse events related to Clostridium difficile (C-diff) infection, improvement in rates of antibiotic susceptibilities, and optimized resource utilization. This project addressed the problem of antibiotic overuse and misuse in the geriatric population and whether the implementation of an ASP reduced the overuse of antibiotics, C-diff infection, and resistance rates in the LTCF. Application of the Johns Hopkins nursing model …

Medication Reconciliation In Primary Care Setting, Lawrence James-Osondu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Polypharmacy entails the use of multiple drugs taken at the same time to manage the various comorbidities common among elderly patients. Polypharmacy is associated with increased health care spending due to drug duplication, adverse drug events, and medication noncompliance. Medication reconciliation has been shown to reduce the problems seen with polypharmacy. The purpose of this project was to review published evidence to develop a staff education program on medication reconciliation in a primary care setting and determine the efficacy of the program in relation to staff confidence and knowledge levels concerning medication reconciliation. The project was guided by Nola Pender's …

Family Reunification Among Women In Recovery From Substance Abuse And Complex Trauma, Cesha Tiffany Reese

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

For women in recovery from complex trauma and substance abuse, the lack of posttreatment family reunification services such as family engagement, service delivery, and aftercare planning increase the likelihood of parental relapse and children reentering foster care. A primary caregiver's continued relapse can lead to longer out of home placement for minor children and a loss of parental rights, with a negative impact on both children and parents. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine the lived experiences of women in recovery, their sobriety practices, and how they reunified their families. The theoretical framework was Herman's trauma …

Ethnic Identity And Adult Attachment As Correlates Of Relationship Satisfaction Among White, Black, And Interracial Couples, Donalea Mcintyre

Dissertations

Problem

Relationship satisfaction is a broad construct that has been extensively researched. However, there are gaps in the literature pertaining to relationship satisfaction in minority and interracial couples. This present study examines the extent of the relationship between ethnic identity and adult attachment to relationship satisfaction in White, Black, and Interracial couples.

Method

Participants completed surveys that measure a) ethnic identity, b) adult attachment, and c) relationship satisfaction. Several statistical analysis methods were used to answer two research questions. These methods included descriptive statistics, one-way MANOVA, and Path Analysis. Six hundred and seven adults in the United States general population …

Is It Morally Permissible To Have Children, Awinyandji W. Djebou

Theses and Dissertations

Having children is something that has always been considered morally good. Generations and generations of human beings have been raised with the idea that procreating is part of the natural processes of life. To have a child is often considered an important milestone in a person’s life most societies. In fact, it is expected of any well-rounded adult. However, in recent years, some philosophers have argued against the moral permissibility of having children. In this thesis I aim to end the debate on the morality of procreation. I will argue that it is morally permissible to have children, but only …

Repetitive Questioning Ii, Ronald C. Hamdy, Amber Kinser, A. Depelteau, J. V. Lewis, Rebecca Copeland, Tracey Kendall-Wilson, Kathleen Whalen

ETSU Faculty Works

Repetitive questioning is a major problem for caregivers, particularly taxing if they are unable to recognize and understand the reasons why their loved one keeps asking the same question over and over again. Caregivers may be tempted to believe that the patient does not even try to remember the answer given or is just getting obnoxious. This is incorrect. Repetitive questioning is due to the underlying disease: The patient’s short term memory is impaired and he is unable to register, encode, retain and retrieve the answer. If he is concerned about a particular topic, he will keep asking the same …

Insomnia And Mild Cognitive Impairment, Ronald C. Hamdy, Amber Kinser, Kara Dickerson, C Kendall-Wilson, Audrey Depelteau, Rebecca Copeland, Kathleen Whalen

ETSU Faculty Works

Insomnia is a common problem in older people, especially in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) whose circadian rhythm is often compromised. Insomnia exerts such a toll on caregivers that it is frequently the primary reason for seeking to institutionalize their loved ones. Three different types of insomnia are recognized: sleep-onset or initial insomnia, sleep maintenance or middle insomnia, and early morning awakening or late insomnia. Nocturnal hypoglycemia, as a cause of middle insomnia, is the main focus of this case study. Other types of insomnia are also briefly reviewed. The management of insomnia is then discussed including sleep hygiene, …