RURAL CHILDREN AT A GLANCE

The number of children in nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas increased by 3 percent between 1990 and 2000, compared with a 16-percent increase in metropolitan (metro) areas. A number of nonmetro counties lost population in the 1990s due to outmigration of young families, and the small increase in the number of nonmetro children may reflect that. Although rural child poverty rates declined in the 1990s, they remain higher (21 percent) than the rates for urban children (18 percent). In 2003, 2.7 million rural children under 18 were poor, representing 36 percent of the rural poor. The geographic distribution of child poverty-heavily concentrated in the South-is important for targeting poverty reduction policies and programs in nonmetro areas.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Security and Poverty,

Data report of oblique reflection-refraction radio-sonobuoy profiles on the African Atlantic continental margin : (R/V Atlantis II cruises 67 and 75)

Two hundred sixty-four unreversed oblique reflection-refraction profiles using expendable radio-sonobuoys were obtained during two geophysical cruises to the Atlantic continental margin of Africa. This data report gives the profile locations, a summary of the data collection and analysis, and 780 interval reflection and refraction velocities and thicknesses that were determined.Prepared for the International Decade of Ocean Exploration, National Science Foundation Grant GX-28193 for the Eastern Atlantic Continental Margin program

Relationship Between the Organization of Play Space and Children's Behavior

Family Relations and Child Developmen

Mental Health Outcomes, Parenting Skills and Family Functioning of Adult and Family Treatment Court Participants

Background: Parental substance use places children at risk for poor social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. Many parents with substance use disorders (SUD) are treated through accountability drug courts including adult drug courts (ADC) through the criminal justice system and family drug treatment courts (FTC) through the child welfare system. Little is known about the children of parents who participate in treatment through adult drug courts, which could serve as an important treatment venue for improving child outcomes. Children treated through family treatment courts are often the center of treatment. This research compared outcomes of parents and children involved in adult drug and family treatment courts. Methods: Participants were 105 drug court clients (80 from ADC; 25 from FTC) from four Georgia based drug courts. Participants completed computerized interviews containing a variety of measures focusing on adult mental health, parenting behaviors and communication, and child mental health and behavior. Results: Parents in FTC compared to those in ADC reported greater social support (p =.05) and better family functioning (p =.03). Parents in ADC reported poorer parental involvement and poorer monitoring of children than FTC, but no differences in positive parenting (p =.13), inconsistent discipline (p =.27), or child abuse potential (total risk \u3e 9, p =.42; total risk \u3e12, p =.37). Regarding mental health, ADC parents reported a greater number of symptoms or poor mental health than FTC. No differences were found for parent-child communication skills (p =.38), post-traumatic stress symptom severity (p =.62), or child behavior problems. Conclusions: This data suggests that children of caregivers in drug treatment via ADC are at equal and perhaps greater risk than children of caregivers in FTC because of increased parental risk factors. ADC should consider offering family -based treatments that can enhance the parent-child relationship and promote recovery by reducing family conflict

Validation of a new measure of concept of a good death

BACKGROUND: The concept of a good death is central to end-of-life care research. Despite its importance and the high interest in the topic, there are few measures currently available for use in clinical research. PURPOSE: The present work describes the development and testing of a set of items intended to measure the importance of several components posited to be critical to the concept of a good death. It is intended for use with health care providers and lay people in the context of end-of-life care research and education. POPULATION: Four cohorts (n = 596) were recruited to participate, representing two helping profession disciplines, nonhelping professionals, and a range of ages, specifically: (1) undergraduate medical students; (2) master\u27s degree students in nursing; (3) graduate students from the life sciences; and (4) practicing hospice nurses. METHODS: Participants completed self-report questionnaires at baseline and retest. Psychometric analyses included item frequency distributions, factor analysis, alpha reliability, intraclass correlation, and measures of association. RESULTS: The new Concept of a Good Death measure demonstrated good item frequency distributions, acceptable internal consistency reliability, and test-retest stability. Its factor structure revealed that three distinct domains are measured, reflecting the psychosocial/spiritual, physical, and clinical aspects of a good death. An examination of patterns of correlations showed differential associations with death anxiety, spiritual beliefs and practices, anxious mood, and sociodemographic characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: The new Concept of a Good Death instrument appears to measure three distinct factors which people consider important to a Good Death. Ratings of the importance of these factors are reliable and valid. The instrument has the advantage of being a brief, self-report index for use in end-of-life care research

Abundance of Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, in the Coastal Gulf of Mexico

The abundance of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) for many coastal areas of the United States Gulf of Mexico is poorly known. During spring and fall 1987, we used aircraft and strip transects to estimate bottlenose dolphin abundance within 37 km of the U.S. Gulf shore. Greatest estimated dolphin densities were in the north-central Gulf (spring), northern Florida (fall) and Louisiana study areas (fall) (about 0.30 dolphins / km2). We estimated the coastal U.S. Gulf population of bottlenose dolphins to be 16,892 ± 3,628 (95% Cl) and 16,089 ± 3,338 in spring and fall, respectively. Bottlenose dolphins were found throughout the U.S. Gulf waters searched, but herds offshore of Texas were concentrated near passes and Louisiana herds were more common in and near eastern bays. Our estimates are one of the first assessments of the abundance and density of bottlenose dolphins throughout the coastal U.S. Gulf and may provide useful baseline estimates

Social networks, work and network-based resources for the management of long-term conditions: a framework and study protocol for developing self-care support

Background: increasing the effective targeting and promotion of self-care support for long-term conditions requires more of a focus on patient contexts and networks. The aim of this paper is to describe how within a programme of research and implementation, social networks are viewed as being centrally involved in the mobilisation and deployment of resources in the management of a chronic condition. This forms the basis of a novel approach to understanding, designing, and implementing new forms of self-management support.Methods: drawing on evidence syntheses about social networks and capital and the role of information in self-management, we build on four conceptual approaches to inform the design of our research on the implementation of self-care support for people with long-term conditions. Our approach takes into consideration the form and content of social networks, notions of chronic illness work, normalisation process theory (NPT), and the whole systems informing self-management engagement (WISE) approach to self-care support.Discussion: the translation and implementation of a self-care agenda in contemporary health and social context needs to acknowledge and incorporate the resources and networks operating in patients' domestic and social environments and everyday lives. The latter compliments the focus on healthcare settings for developing and delivering self-care support by viewing communities and networks, as well as people suffering from long-term conditions, as a key means of support for managing long-term conditions. By focusing on patient work and social-network provision, our aim is to open up a second frontier in implementation research, to translate knowledge into better chronic illness management, and to shift the emphasis towards support that takes place outside formal health services.<br/