Resiliency and Risk in Native American Communities: A Culturally Informed Investigation

This paper reviews recent research findings and empirically investigates resiliency and vulnerability factors within two Native American communities. The primary factors under consideration are related to American Indian psychosocial factors. This project is an exploratory investigation of pathology and wellness for understudied American Indians, and it examines the nature of resiliency and risk for American Indians. The factors under investigation include adversarial growth, spirituality, ethnic identity, communal identity, social support, historical trauma, stressors experienced, hope, quality of life, and general psychological status for American Indians sampled. Numerous statistically significant relationships emerged, providing empirical support for culturally embedded aspects of resiliency among American Indians. The most salient resiliency factors for Native American/American Indians, in order of statistical significance, were: social support, hope, general resilient coping abilities, traditional cultural and spiritual practices, ethnic pride/enculturation, and communal mastery. Higher levels of protective factors were associated with higher levels of adversarial growth and lower levels of reported unpleasant affect, affective Historical Loss, and scores on psychological distress. Hope scores, Brief Resiliency Coping scores, and Communal Mastery were each found to predict significant proportions of variance in adversarial growth scores, and significant relationships were found to exist between the observed protective factors. Hope, Social Support, Communal Mastery, and Enculturation were found to moderate the relationship between the experience of stressful life events and Adversarial Growth, Psychological Distress indicators, and Quality of Life Ratings. Due to the large amount of significant results observed, exploratory factor analyses were conducted and scales based on these analyses were used in linear regression models. Enculturation, tribal spirituality and participation, as well as Communal Mastery were all found to be cultural factors that predicted significant amounts of the variance in each of the combined dependent variable estimates. Qualitative information regarding resiliency within these communities was also collected, and it provided a powerful portrayal of Reziliency or resiliency among American Indians

The Significance of a K-12 Diabetes-Based Science Education Program for Tribal Populations: Evaluating Cognitive Learning, Cultural Context, and Attitudinal Components

Preventing and reducing the onset of type 2 diabetes among American Indian/Alaska Native youth requires ground-breaking strategies to affect knowledge, attitudes, and cognitive decision-making skills. In an unparalleled endeavor to address the growing epidemic of type 2 diabetes in tribal communities, a K-12 Diabetes Education in Tribal Schools (DETS) curriculum was created by eight tribal colleges and three federal agencies. This article highlights the results of the implementation phase, the final evaluation step in acquiring and measuring student knowledge and attitude gains through pre-post standardized assessment

Outsourcing — The benefits and the risks.

Abstract Outsourcing is promoted as one of the most powerful trends in human resources management. The rationale for outsourcing HR functions includes financial savings, an increased ability to focus on strategic issues, access to technology and specialized expertise, and an ability to demand measurable and improved service levels. However, there are some indications that these benefits are not being realized. Furthermore, there may be a serious impact on employee morale and a risk of transferring expertise and insider knowledge to vendors. Managing the outsourcing arrangement is critical. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Outsourcing; Benefits; Risks BP (British Petroleum) outsourced HR to Exult for several reasons. The first was to reduce costs, the second to provide quality support for its employees and the third was to focus on its core HR strategies, and offload the time consuming administrative work. As the VP for HR stated "Our cost of delivering HR activities was uncompetitive, and the quality of the delivery was uncertain. Further the burden of administration on the HR departments in the business units was preventing the function from performing more effectively in the more strategic HR services". At $600 million (US), this was the largest outsourcing contract on record. Through rapid growth, BP had acquired 10,000 new employees and dozens of incompatible systems in compensation and appraisal. The BP-Exult agreement specified that the outsourcer would handle the administrative elements of compensation, benefits, payroll, organizational development, performance management, employee development, training, recruitment and relocation for 56,000 US and UK employees. BP retained everything that required judgment and policy. The deal achieved the following results: a 40$15 million a year, and the avoidance of funding $30 million in capital costs for technology. The outsourcing allowed HR professionals the time to support the business lines Outsourcing refers to a contractual relationship for the provision of business services by an external provider. In other words, a company pays another company to do some work for it. Currently, outsourcing is being promoted as one of the most powerful trends reshaping management. However, organizations have always outsourced some functions. For decades, most organizations hired firms to operate their cleaning or restaurant functions. What is different now is the scale. Firms are outsourcing everything from information technology management to entire functions such as human resources

Markers for Risk of Type 1 Diabetes in Relatives of Alsacian Patients With Type 1 Diabetes

Background: The cytotoxic T lymphocyteassociated antigen 4 gene (CTLA-4) encode the T cell receptor involved in the control of T cell proliferation and mediates T cell apoptosis. The receptor protein is a specific T lymphocyte surface antigen that is detected on cells only after antigen presentation. Thus, CTLA-4 is directly involved in both immune and autoimmune responses and may be involved in the pathogenesis of multiple T cell-mediated autoimmune disorders. There is polymorphism at position 49 in exon 1 of the CTLA-4 gene, providing an A-G exchange. Moreover, we assessed the CTLA-4 49 (Thr/Ala) polymorphism in diabetic patients and first-degree relatives as compared to control subjects