People of immigrant and refugee background sharing experiences of mental health recovery: reflections and recommendations on using digital storytelling

Ten individuals of immigrant or refugee background, who had experi- enced mental health or emotional issues, participated in an immersive workshop to create digital stories as part of a national multicultural men- tal health initiative. Known collectively as ‘Finding our way’, the stories combine the power of first-person narrative with digital technologies. Three years on, six workshop participants and two coordinators reflect on the project’s effects, and offer recommendations for conducting and evaluating similar projects in the future. Individuals experienced the proj- ect as personally empowering. The stories have been used to facilitate community and service-based conversations about diversity, mental health and recovery

Recovering from mental illness and suicidal behaviour in a culturally diverse context: the use of digital storytelling in cross-cultural medical humanities and mental health

en people of immigrant and refugee background, with a lived experience of mental health or emotional issues, participated in a four-day digital storytelling workshop, to create a story that expressed something about their personal encounters with mental ill-health and recovery. As many other DST projects have done before, this project used the power of first-person narratives and provided an opportunity for ‘unheard voices to be heard’.The storytellers were supported to create their own accounts, share their experiences (in mainstream media, in policy and service settings, and for practitioner education), grow in self-confidence, and develop other capabilities.This chapter describes the DST process and discusses its impact from the perspective of the two project coordinators in consultation with six participants, five as storytellers and one support person. It also provides the perspective of a Mandarin-speaking participant in depth. The digital stories can be freely viewed at www.vtmh.org.au

Health System Reform in the United States

In 2010, the United States adopted its first-ever comprehensive set of health system reforms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Implementation of the law, though politically contentious and controversial, has now reached a stage where reversal of most elements of the law is no longer feasible. The controversial portions of the law that expand affordable health insurance coverage to most U.S. citizens and legal residents do not offer any important lessons for the global community. The portions of the law seeking to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of medical care as delivered in the U.S., hold lessons for the global community as all nations struggle to gain greater value from the societal resources they invest in medical care for their peoples. Health reform is an ongoing process of planning, legislating, implementing, and evaluating system changes. The U.S. set of delivery system reforms has much for reformers around the globe to assess and consider

Combined analysis of KamLAND and Borexino neutrino signals from Th and U decays in the Earth's interior

The KamLAND and Borexino experiments have detected electron antineutrinos produced in the decay chains of natural thorium and uranium (Th and U geoneutrinos). We analyze the energy spectra of current geoneutrino data in combination with solar and long-baseline reactor neutrino data, with marginalized three-neutrino oscillation parameters. We consider the case with unconstrained Th and U event rates in KamLAND and Borexino, as well as cases with fewer degrees of freedom, as obtained by successively assuming for both experiments a common Th/U ratio, a common scaling of Th+U event rates, and a chondritic Th/U value. In combination, KamLAND and Borexino can reject the null hypothesis (no geoneutrino signal) at 5 sigma. Interesting bounds or indications emerge on the Th+U geoneutrino rates and on the Th/U ratio, in broad agreement with typical Earth model expectations. Conversely, the results disfavor the hypothesis of a georeactor in the Earth's core, if its power exceeds a few TW. The interplay of KamLAND and Borexino geoneutrino data is highlighted.Comment: 12 pages, including 6 figure

Internal EAPs and the low-wage Worker: Practitioners'Perceptions of Services

INTERNAL EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS AND LOW-WAGE WORKERS: PRACTITIONERS' PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICES Kathleen E. McDonough, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2005 Utilizing a mailing list secured from the Employee Assistance Professionals' Association, practitioners of internal employee assistance programs (EAPs) were surveyed to assess their perceptions of how their programs compared in service provision between low-wage and other workers. The sample consisted of 71 respondents, and was gender-balanced but overwhelmingly Caucasian. Respondents estimated minor differences between the two worker groups in program utilization, but programs that offered concrete, tangible services had higher low-wage utilization rates. Supervisory and human resource referrals were generally higher for low-wage workers, but programs that used a variety of promotional strategies had higher low-wage self-refer rates. There were no major disparities in problem categories between the two groups with the exception of financial and attendance difficulties. Respondents rated their EAPs helpfulness with low-wage workers positively, but were less optimistic in comparison to other workers. The majority of respondents did not perceive major differences in treatment between the two worker groups, but they did think that low-wage workers were less likely to remain in treatment. Analyses of responses to open-ended items sometimes conflicted with the quantitative data. Implications for practice and policy in EAP service provision to low-wage workers and recommendations for future research are discussed. ii

The Road to Universal Health Coverage in Massachusetts: A Story in Three Parts

In 1988, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a new law, a “play or pay” employer mandate, requiring all employers with six or more workers to provide health insurance coverage for their employees. A few years later, with Medicaid identified as a “Budget Buster,” the Weld administration sought deregulation as the way to cut costs and expand access by establishing MassHealth, which dropped the employer mandate and expanded Medicaid, and eventually distinguished Massachusetts as the state with the greatest percent of covered citizens. But MassHealth enrollment has declined as premium costs have risen, and the Uncompensated Care Pool is once again faced with providing for large numbers of uninsured — a solution more expensive than providing health insurance. It appears that the Romney administration may be on the verge of launching another initiative

The Farmington Plan: An Informative Study

From the title page: An essay by George E. McDonough, who in addition to being an Assistant Professor in English at Seattle Pacific College, holds a master\u27s degree in Librarianship from the University of Washington. Contents: I. What the plan is and how it works II. An outline of Farmington Plan history, 1953-1961 III. The Vosper-Talmadge survey IV. A bibliography of the Farmington Plan, 1953-1961 V. Statistics of receipts VI. Countries, agents, and advisers VII. Materials excluded from the plan VIII. A note on principles of classification IX. Libraries and their responsibilities X. Allocations indexed by classification symbols XI. Former allocations XII. Alphabetical subject-list of allocations Includes bibliography and footnotes

Lived experiences of mental health recovery in persons of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds within the Australian context

Lived experience research related to mental health recovery is advancing, but there remains a lack of narrative material from the perspectives of people from under-represented, non-dominant cultural backgrounds in this domain. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of mental health recovery in people of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in the Australian context. The current study involved a secondary analysis of audio and visual data collected during the digital storytelling project Finding our way in Melbourne, Australia. Thematic analysis was used to understand the lived experience narratives of nine participants in relation to mental health recovery. Five themes were identified through an iterative process of analysis, including Newfound opportunities and care, Family as key motivators and facilitators, Coping and generativity, Cultivating self-understanding and resilience, and Empowerment through social engagement. First person lived experience narratives offer deep insight into understanding the ways in which individuals of marginalised communities conceptualise and embody recovery. These findings further the literature and understanding on how to better serve the needs of people with mental health challenges from CALD communities through informed knowledge of what may be helpful to, and meaningful in, individuals’ recoveries

Neutrino Constraints on Inelastic Dark Matter after CDMS II

We discuss the neutrino constraints from solar and terrestrial dark matter (DM) annihilations in the inelastic dark matter (iDM) scenario after the recent CDMS II results. To reconcile the DAMA/LIBRA data with constraints from all other direct experiments, the iDM needs to be light ($m_\chi < 100$ GeV) and have a large DM-nucleon cross section ($\sigma_n \sim$ 10$^{-4}$ pb in the spin-independent (SI) scattering and $\sigma_n \sim$ 10 pb in the spin-dependent (SD) scattering). The dominant contribution to the iDM capture in the Sun is from scattering off Fe/Al in the SI/SD case. Current bounds from Super-Kamiokande exclude the hard DM annihilation channels, such as $W^+W^-$, $ZZ$, $t\bar{t}$ and $\tau^+ \tau^-$. For soft channels such as $b\bar{b}$ and $c \bar{c}$, the limits are loose, but could be tested or further constrained by future IceCube plus DeepCore. For neutrino constraints from the DM annihilation in the Earth, due to the weaker gravitational effect of the Earth and inelastic capture condition, the constraint exists only for small mass splitting $\delta <$ 40 keV and $m_\chi \sim (10, 50)$ GeV even in the $\tau^+ \tau^-$ channel.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

Modulation of Rab GTPase function by a protein phosphocholine transferase.

The intracellular pathogen Legionella pneumophila modulates the activity of host GTPases to direct the transport and assembly of the membrane-bound compartment in which it resides. In vitro studies have indicated that the Legionella protein DrrA post-translationally modifies the GTPase Rab1 by a process called AMPylation. Here we used mass spectrometry to investigate post-translational modifications to Rab1 that occur during infection of host cells by Legionella. Consistent with in vitro studies, DrrA-mediated AMPylation of a conserved tyrosine residue in the switch II region of Rab1 was detected during infection. In addition, a modification to an adjacent serine residue in Rab1 was discovered, which was independent of DrrA. The Legionella effector protein AnkX was required for this modification. Biochemical studies determined that AnkX directly mediates the covalent attachment of a phosphocholine moiety to Rab1. This phosphocholine transferase activity used CDP-choline as a substrate and required a conserved histidine residue located in the FIC domain of the AnkX protein. During infection, AnkX modified both Rab1 and Rab35, which explains how this protein modulates membrane transport through both the endocytic and exocytic pathways of the host cell. Thus, phosphocholination of Rab GTPases represents a mechanism by which bacterial FIC-domain-containing proteins can alter host-cell functions