Evaluating the Effectiveness of Ohio\u27s Certificate of Relief

Employment has been cited as a factor that can aid one\u27s desistance from criminal activity. However, research has consistently demonstrated that those with criminal history face significant barriers to securing employment. In recognition of this problem, most states have implemented various rights restoration mechanisms aimed to increase employment opportunities for ex-offenders. One of these mechanisms, the certificate of relief, aims to aid ex-offenders in their job search by ensuring employers that certificate holders are not a safety risk, providing employers with negligent hiring immunity, and removing occupational licensing bans. A handful of studies have examined whether this mechanism improved hiring outcomes for ex-offenders, but these studies produced mixed results and suffered from important methodological limitations. The goal of the current study was to address the limitations of previous research to provide a more comprehensive test of one state\u27s (Ohio) certificate. This goal was achieved with the use of two field experiments. Both experiments utilized a correspondence approach where hypothetical applicants submitted resumes to entry-level job postings. The first portion of the study utilized a mixed experimental design that included a within-subject criminal record variable and a between-subject race variable. The second portion of the study utilized a between-subjects experimental design that included a between-subjects criminal record variable and a between-subjects race variable. Results showed that certificate holders received significantly fewer callbacks for interviews than those with no criminal record. Results also showed that certificate holders fared no better in terms of callbacks than those with a criminal record and no certificate. Further, African American applicants received significantly fewer callbacks than White Applicants in all criminal record categories. These results were supported in several robustness checks. Policy implications of these findings are discussed in detail along with study limitations, directions for future research, and technical notes on correspondence studies

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security