Blue-Green Coalitions: Fighting for Safe Workplaces and Healthy Communities

[Excerpt] My goal in this book is to examine the formation of labor-environmental alliances that focus on health issues. Health concerns are increasingly a common ground on which blue-green coalitions are developing across the United States. Activists from both movements often see health issues through different lenses, which lends a particular slant to how they approach potential solutions for reducing exposures to toxics. The coalition framework emphasizes the fundamental link between occupational and environmental health, providing an internal cohesion and a politically persuasive agenda based on the centrality of health-related issues. By engaging labor and environmental activists in a common dialogue regarding the need for cooperative action to reduce the risks of community and workplace exposures, blue-green coalitions are creating new opportunities for progressive social change

Triaging Content Severity in Online Mental Health Forums

Mental health forums are online communities where people express their issues and seek help from moderators and other users. In such forums, there are often posts with severe content indicating that the user is in acute distress and there is a risk of attempted self-harm. Moderators need to respond to these severe posts in a timely manner to prevent potential self-harm. However, the large volume of daily posted content makes it difficult for the moderators to locate and respond to these critical posts. We present a framework for triaging user content into four severity categories which are defined based on indications of self-harm ideation. Our models are based on a feature-rich classification framework which includes lexical, psycholinguistic, contextual and topic modeling features. Our approaches improve the state of the art in triaging the content severity in mental health forums by large margins (up to 17% improvement over the F-1 scores). Using the proposed model, we analyze the mental state of users and we show that overall, long-term users of the forum demonstrate a decreased severity of risk over time. Our analysis on the interaction of the moderators with the users further indicates that without an automatic way to identify critical content, it is indeed challenging for the moderators to provide timely response to the users in need.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (2017

Intervention strategies for children and adolescent with disorders: from intrapsychic to transactional perspective

A large amount of studies and clinical evidence document the importance of infancy and early childhood influences on long term developmental trajectories toward mental health or psychopathology (Sameroff, 2000, 2010). Without healthy, productive adults no culture could continue to be successful. This concern is the main motivation for society to support child development research. Although the academic interests of contemporary developmental researchers range widely in cognitive and socialemotional domains, the political justification for supporting such studies is that they will lead to the understanding and ultimate prevention of behavioural problems that are costly to society. With these motivations and support, there have been major advances in our understanding of the intellectual, emotional, and social behaviour of children, adolescents and adults. This progress has forced conceptual reorientations from a unidirectionalunderstanding of development (e.g., parents affect children and not vice versa) toward a bidirectional conceptualization of development. Childrenare now assumed to affect and even select their environments as much as their environments affect their behaviour. Indeed, key among many of the most influential developmental theories in the past several decades is the assumption that children have bidirectional, or reciprocal, relationships with their environments (Bandura, 1977; Bronfenbrenner, 1979). To date, it is widely accepted that children’s healthy development is shaped by complex transactional processes among a variety of risk and protective factors, with cumulative risk factors increasing the prediction of emotional and behavioural problems (Anda et al., 2007; Rutter & Sroufe, 2000; Sameroff, 2000). Risk and protective factors include individual child characteristics such as genetic and constitutional propensities and cognitive strengths and vulnerabilities; parent characteristics such as mental health, education level, sense of efficacy, and resourcefulness; family factors such as quality of the parent-child relationship, emotional climate, and marital quality; community connectedness factors such as parental social support, social resources, and children’s peer relationships; and neighbourhood factors such as availability of resources, adequacy of housing, and levels of crime and violence (Sameroff & Fiese, 2000). The predictive value of these factors across many studies led to the development of transactional-bioecological models that attempt to conceptualize the relative contributions of proximal and distal risk and protective factors to children’s developmental outcome (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). In 1975, Sameroff and Chandler proposed the transactional model. This theoretical framework has become central to understanding the interplay between nature and nurture in explaining the development of positive and negative outcomes for children. The transactional model is a model of qualitative change. Sameroff asserted that the transactional model concerned qualitative rather than incremental change and that the underlying process was dialectical rather mechanistic in nature. The aim of this chapter is to explore this theoretical framework and its intervention strategies. In the first part, the transactional model will be described after a brief summary that will illustrate the transition from intrapsychic to transactional perspective. In the second part, intervention strategies for children and adolescent will be described. The attention of research on environmental risk and protective factors has fostered a more comprehensive understanding of what is necessary to improve the cognitive and social-emotional welfare of children and adolescents

Analysis of Sociodemographic and Psychological Variables Involved in Sleep Quality in Nurses

Background: Sleep quality is related to health and quality of life and can lead to the development of related disorders. This study analyzed the sociodemographic and psychological factors related to sleep quality in nurses. Methods: The sample comprised 1094 nurses who were assessed according to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Questionnaire, the Goal Content for Exercise Questionnaire, the Brief Emotional Intelligence Inventory, and the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18. Results: The results confirm the impacts of diet, motivation for physical exercise, emotional intelligence, and overall self-esteem on sleep quality in nurses. Conclusions: Sleep quality in healthcare professionals is vitally important for performance at work; therefore, appropriate strategies should be applied to improve it

Spontaneous thought and vulnerability to mood disorders : the dark side of the wandering mind

There is increasing interest in spontaneous thought, namely task-unrelated or rest-related mental activity. Spontaneous thought is an umbrella term for processes like mind-wandering, involuntary autobiographical memory, and daydreaming, with evidence elucidating adaptive and maladaptive consequences. In this theoretical framework, we propose that, apart from its positive functions, spontaneous thought is a precursor for cognitive vulnerability in individuals who are at risk for mood disorders. It is important that spontaneous thought mostly focuses on unattained goals and evaluates the discrepancy between current and desired status. In individuals who stably (i.e., trait negative affectivity) or transitorily (i.e., stress) experience negative emotions in reaction to goal-discrepancy, spontaneous thought fosters major cognitive vulnerabilities (e.g., rumination, hopelessness, low self-esteem, and cognitive reactivity), which, in turn, enhance depression. Furthermore, we also highlight preliminary links between spontaneous thought and bipolar disorder. The evidence for this framework is reviewed, and we discuss theoretical and clinical implications of our proposal

Exploration of the Association Between Professional Interactions and Emotional Distress of Intensive Care Unit Nursing Personnel

Several studies provide evidence for the association between the quality of collaboration among intensive care unit (ICU) professionals and patients' outcomes, as well as nurses' moral distress and professional satisfaction. However, potential associations between collaboration and nurses' mental health indices have not been explored. The aim of this descriptive correlational study was to investigate the degree of satisfaction from interaction among ICU nursing personnel, as well as between ICU nursing personnel and physicians, and potential associations with ICU nursing personnel's anxiety symptoms. The sample consisted of ICU nursing personnel from 11 adult general hospitals in Greece (n = 229). Hamilton's Anxiety scale was applied for the quantitative assessment of anxiety symptoms and Stamps' Index of Work Satisfaction for the appraisal of nursing personnel's satisfaction from professional interactions. Demographic, vocational, and educational data were also recorded. Descriptive statistics were explored, and group comparisons, correlation, and regression analysis were used. The average satisfaction score from interaction among nursing personnel was moderate to high (5.3 [SD, 1.0]) and from nurse-to-physician interaction was moderate (4.0 [SD, 1.4]) (scale range, 1-7). The score of satisfaction from nurse-to-physician interaction was negatively mildly correlated with participants' (a) total anxiety score ( = ?0.160, P = .001), (b) tension ( = ?0.125, P = .015), and (c) depressive symptoms ( = ?0.148, P = .005). Weak negative correlations were detected between satisfaction from interaction among nursing personnel and participants' (a) total anxiety state ( = ?0.139, P = .003), (b) tension ( = ?0.137, P = .008), and (c) sleep disturbances ( = ? 0.150, P = .003). Overall, female respondents had higher levels of anxiety symptoms than male respondents (Mann-Whitney U, P = .007). Satisfaction from professional interaction was not a strong predictor of anxiety symptoms among ICU nursing personnel (R2 = 0.046, ?0.15). Nursing personnel in Greek ICUs seem to be satisfied with the quality of relationships among them, as well as with physicians. Despite that anxiety symptoms associate with the degree of satisfaction from professional interaction, the latter may not be a significant indicator of ICU nurses' well-being. Further qualitative research is needed to identify mediating factor

LEAD Program Evaluation: Recidivism Report

The LEAD program was established in 2011 as a means of diverting those suspected of low-level drug and prostitution criminal activity to case management and other supportive services instead of jail and prosecution. The primary aim of the LEAD program is to reduce criminal recidivism. Secondary aims include reductions in criminal justice service utilization and associated costs as well as improvements for psychosocial, housing and quality-of-life outcomes. Because LEAD is the first known pre-booking diversion program of its kind in the United States, an evaluation is critically needed to inform key stakeholders, policy makers, and other interested parties of its impact. The evaluation of the LEAD program described in this report represents a response to this need.Background: This report was written by the University of Washington LEAD Evaluation Team at the request of the LEAD Policy Coordinating Group and fulfills the first of three LEAD evaluation aims. Purpose: This report describes findings from a quantitative analysis comparing outcomes for LEAD participants versus "system-as-usual" control participants on shorter- and longer-term changes on recidivism outcomes, including arrests (i.e., being taken into custody by legal authority) and criminal charges (i.e., filing of a criminal case in court). Arrests and criminal charges were chosen as the recidivism outcomes because they likely reflect individual behavior more than convictions, which are more heavily impacted by criminal justice system variables external to the individual. Findings: Analyses indicated statistically significant recidivism improvement for the LEAD group compared to the control group on some shorter- and longer-term outcomes

Developmental pathways to autism: a review of prospective studies of infants at risk

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, and the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviors. Symptoms of ASD likely emerge from a complex interaction between pre-existing neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities and the child's environment, modified by compensatory skills and protective factors. Prospective studies of infants at high familial risk for ASD (who have an older sibling with a diagnosis) are beginning to characterize these developmental pathways to the emergence of clinical symptoms. Here, we review the range of behavioral and neurocognitive markers for later ASD that have been identified in high-risk infants in the first years of life. We discuss theoretical implications of emerging patterns, and identify key directions for future work, including potential resolutions to several methodological challenges for the field. Mapping how ASD unfolds from birth is critical to our understanding of the developmental mechanisms underlying this disorder. A more nuanced understanding of developmental pathways to ASD will help us not only to identify children who need early intervention, but also to improve the range of interventions available to them

Capital and Punishment: Resource Scarcity Increases Endorsement of the Death Penalty

Faced with punishing severe offenders, why do some prefer imprisonment whereas others impose death? Previous research exploring death penalty attitudes has primarily focused on individual and cultural factors. Adopting a functional perspective, we propose that environmental features may also shape our punishment strategies. Individuals are attuned to the availability of resources within their environments. Due to heightened concerns with the costliness of repeated offending, we hypothesize that individuals tend toward elimination-focused punishments during times of perceived scarcity. Using global and United States data sets (studies 1 and 2), we find that indicators of resource scarcity predict the presence of capital punishment. In two experiments (studies 3 and 4), we find that activating concerns about scarcity causes people to increase their endorsement for capital punishment, and this effect is statistically mediated by a reduced willingness to risk repeated offenses. Perceived resource scarcity shapes our punishment preferences, with important policy implications