Help is available: Supporting mental wellness through peer health navigation with young black men who have sex with men with HIV

Young black men who have sex with men (YBMSM) with HIV experience disproportionate rates of trauma, incarceration, poverty, racial discrimination, and homophobia. The synergistic effects of these adverse experiences, along with increased rates of mental health disorders, increase their risk for poor health. To address this need, the study authors adapted a current HIV service model to include a peer-health navigation intervention (WITH U) to attend to behavioral health, health literacy, linkage to services, and psychosocial support for YBMSM with HIV. This longitudinal, mixed-methods, nonexperimental study reports on the mental health burden among participants and the association between participation in WITH U and mental wellness outcomes. Participants

Parental Buffering in the Context of Poverty: Positive Parenting Behaviors Differentiate Young Children\u27s Stress Reactivity Profiles

Experiencing poverty increases vulnerability for dysregulated hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning and compromises long-term health. Positive parenting buffers children from HPA axis reactivity, yet this has primarily been documented among families not experiencing poverty. We tested the theorized power of positive parenting in 124 parent–child dyads recruited from Early Head Start (Mage = 25.21 months) by examining child cortisol trajectories using five samples collected across a standardized stress paradigm. Piecewise latent growth models revealed that positive parenting buffered children\u27s stress responses when controlling for time of day, last stress task completed, and demographics. Positive parenting also interacted with income such that positive parenting was especially protective for cortisol reactivity in families experiencing greater poverty. Findings suggest that positive parenting behaviors are important for protecting children in families experiencing low income from heightened or prolonged physiologic stress reactivity to an acute stressor

The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative: Investigating Immigration and Social Policy Preferences. Executive Report.

In an era of mass migration, social scientists, populist parties and social movements raise concerns over the future of immigration-destination societies. What impacts does this have on policy and social solidarity? Comparative cross-national research, relying mostly on secondary data, has findings in different directions. There is a threat of selective model reporting and lack of replicability. The heterogeneity of countries obscures attempts to clearly define data-generating models. P-hacking and HARKing lurk among standard research practices in this area.This project employs crowdsourcing to address these issues. It draws on replication, deliberation, meta-analysis and harnessing the power of many minds at once. The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative carries two main goals, (a) to better investigate the linkage between immigration and social policy preferences across countries, and (b) to develop crowdsourcing as a social science method. The Executive Report provides short reviews of the area of social policy preferences and immigration, and the methods and impetus behind crowdsourcing plus a description of the entire project. Three main areas of findings will appear in three papers, that are registered as PAPs or in process

Cost of unintended pregnancy in Norway: a role for long-acting reversible contraception

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to quantify the cost burden of unintended pregnancies (UPs) in Norway, and to estimate the proportion of costs due to imperfect contraceptive adherence. Potential cost savings that could arise from increased uptake of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) were also investigated. METHODS: An economic model was constructed to estimate the total number of UPs and associated costs in women aged 15–24 years. Adherence-related UP was estimated using ‘perfect use’ and ‘typical use’ contraceptive failure rates. Potential savings from increased use of LARC were projected by comparing current costs to projected costs following a 5% increase in LARC uptake. RESULTS: Total costs from UP in women aged 15–24 years were estimated to be 164 million Norwegian Kroner (NOK), of which 81.7% were projected to be due to imperfect contraceptive adherence. A 5% increase in LARC uptake was estimated to generate cost savings of NOK 7.2 million in this group. CONCLUSIONS: The cost of UP in Norway is substantial, with a large proportion of this cost arising from imperfect contraceptive adherence. Increased LARC uptake may reduce the UP incidence and generate cost savings for both the health care payer and contraceptive user