Can Condoms Be Compelling? Examining the State Interest in Confiscating Condoms from Suspected Sex Workers

Confiscating condoms from suspected sex workers leaves them at risk for HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancy. Yet, police officers in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles collect condoms from sex workers to use against them as evidence of prostitution. Sometimes, the condoms are taken solely for the purpose of harassment. These actions put sex workers at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases because they may continue to engage in sex work without using protection. In the landmark case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court established a fundamental privacy right in the use and access of contraceptive devices. While this right has been examined in the context of married couples and individuals, it has not been applied to the confiscation of condoms, a contraceptive device, by police officers. This Note shows that by taking condoms from suspected sex workers, police officers and departments are actually violating sex workers’ constitutional right to privacy, and, therefore, the practice must be abandoned

Can Condoms Be Compelling? Examining the State Interest in Confiscating Condoms from Suspected Sex Workers

Confiscating condoms from suspected sex workers leaves them at risk for HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancy. Yet, police officers in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles collect condoms from sex workers to use against them as evidence of prostitution. Sometimes, the condoms are taken solely for the purpose of harassment. These actions put sex workers at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases because they may continue to engage in sex work without using protection. In the landmark case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court established a fundamental privacy right in the use and access of contraceptive devices. While this right has been examined in the context of married couples and individuals, it has not been applied to the confiscation of condoms, a contraceptive device, by police officers. This Note shows that by taking condoms from suspected sex workers, police officers and departments are actually violating sex workers’ constitutional right to privacy, and, therefore, the practice must be abandoned

Bridging the Rural-urban Disparity: A Mixed-methods Analysis of Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Uptake in Montana

Purpose/Background: Since introduction of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in 2006, national efforts to increase vaccine uptake have been largely successful in urban areas, but less effective in rural settings. As of 2017, HPV vaccine series initiation rates were 10.8% percentage points lower for adolescents residing in rural versus urban areas of the U.S. This disparity leaves rural youth at higher risk of developing of HPV- caused cancers and other diseases, including cervical cancer, tongue and throat cancers, and genital warts. In Montana, a predominantly rural state, only 49% of adolescents are up-to-date on the recommended 2-dose vaccine series, well below the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80%. For this project, we sought to identify barriers to and opportunities for increasing HPV vaccine uptake in Montana. Materials & Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods analysis that included quantitative analyses of 2013-2017 National Immunization Survey-Teen (NIS-Teen data for 13- through 17-year-old adolescents and qualitative analyses of interviews with Montana medical providers. Using NIS-Teen data we identified trends in vaccination rates, parent-reported provider recommendation to vaccinate, and parents’ intention to vaccinate. Initial quantitative analyses informed development of a semi-structured interview tool. In these interviews, a range of Montana medical providers who care for adolescents, including family medicine physicians, pediatricians, physician assistants, and advanced practice nurses were asked about their approach to and experiences with recommending the HPV vaccine. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Two study team members who were not involved in the interviews reviewed transcripts and conducted qualitative coding to identify themes across interviews. Qualitative analyses were conducted using NVivo software and quantitative analyses of NIS-Teen data were conducted using SAS software. Results: In 2013-2017, adolescent HPV vaccine series initiation rates increased from 46% to 65%. The percentage of parents reporting that a medical provider had recommended the vaccine for their adolescent child also increased, from 44% to 75%. Among parents of unvaccinated adolescents in 2017, almost half reported their provider did not recommend the vaccine and 22% reported receiving a provider recommendation but not intending to vaccinate their child within 12 months. Top reasons for not intending to vaccinate were concerns about the vaccine\u27s safety and belief that the vaccine was not necessary for their child. In interviews with adolescent medical providers, parental concerns about the recommended age at vaccination and vaccine safety were commonly reported barriers to vaccination. Providers also reported that they and parents more frequently include adolescents in decision-making about HPV vaccination as compared to other vaccines. Discussion/Conclusion: Our results support continued work in educating providers about consistent HPV vaccine recommendations, providing targeted information to address parent’s safety concerns, and engaging adolescents in HPV vaccine promotion programs in Montana

Social health maintenance organizations' service use and costs, 1985-89.

Presented in this article are aggregate utilization and financial data from the four social health maintenance organization (S/HMO) demonstrations that were collected and analyzed as a part of the national evaluation of the S/HMO demonstration project conducted for the Health Care Financing Administration. The S/HMOs, in offering a $6,500 to$12,000 chronic care benefit in addition to the basic HMO benefit package, had higher start up costs and financial losses over the first 5 years than expected, and controlling costs continues to be a challenge to the sites and their sponsors

Lossless compression of image data products on th e FIFE CD-ROM series

How do you store enough of the key data sets, from a total of 120 gigabytes of data collected for a scientific experiment, on a collection of CD-ROM's, small enough to distribute to a broad scientific community? In such an application where information loss in unacceptable, lossless compression algorithms are the only choice. Although lossy compression algorithms can provide an order of magnitude improvement in compression ratios over lossless algorithms the information that is lost is often part of the key scientific precision of the data. Therefore, lossless compression algorithms are and will continue to be extremely important in minimizing archiving storage requirements and distribution of large earth and space (ESS) data sets while preserving the essential scientific precision of the data

Social/health maintenance organization and fee-for-service health outcomes over time.

Evaluating the performance of long-term care (LTC) demonstrations requires longitudinal assessment of multiple outcomes where selective mortality and disenrollment, if not accounted for, can give the appearance of reduced (or enhanced) efficacy. We assessed outcomes in social/health maintenance organizations (S/HMOs) and Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) care using a multivariate model to estimate active life expectancy (ALE). S/HMO enrollees and samples of FFS clients in four sites were analyzed and outcome differences assessed for a 3-year period. Results provide insights into S/HMO performance under different conditions and, more generally, into evaluating LTC demonstrations without randomized client and control groups

Heirlooms

Tools have always played an important role in my life. Whether I was in my dad\u27s workshop or my grandfather\u27s garage, I always had a fascination with tools. As a child, my father encouraged me to explore the use of different tools in his woodshop. As he showed me how to use them, I became the next generation to learn the skills of a craftsman. In the past few years, I have been handed down tools from both sides of my family. Most of these tools are from my father and grandfathers, although some are from my great grandfather. The history of these tools shows through the wear patterns that have emerged over the generations. The tools are extensions of my father, grandfathers and great-grandfather\u27s hands- a lineage that I have become a part of when I use these tools. To me, these tools have become much more than their original intention because of their connection to my family history. Therefore I created reliquaries for these tools. Historically, reliquaries contain bones of a holy person or objects touched by that person, and often mimic the relic it enshrines. These are claimed to posses the power and soul of that person through the relic inside. The containers that I created are castings of the objects the tools were used to repair. Inside these containers are the actual items handed down to me. This approach provides context for a narrative between the tool, reliquary, and my family history

Tootsie Pop: Memorable Childhood Candy Commercial

Before I began writing the first draft I watched the Classic Tootsie Pop commercial multiple times and determined how the commercial effectively allured to the audience of both parents and their children. While I wrote my first draft, I continued to play the commercial and reminded myself of the lasting impact of this 1970s commercial as my classmates in elementary school conducted this licking experiment. After my first draft, I received feedback from a classmate and my professor. I took some of their advice, edited my paper, and turned it in

The long term effects of conditional cash transfer programs on health: an analysis of Mexico's Oportunidades

Mexico’s conditional cash transfer program Oportunidades first began in 1997 in highly impoverished rural communities. Since then, the program has expanded throughout Mexico and has been copied by governments worldwide. The program aims to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of poverty by providing cash transfers to parents for sending their children to school, receiving regular check-ups, and complying with various other co-responsibilities. Initial evaluations of the program were positive, but research on its long-term impacts has, thus far, been limited. This paper uses the Mexican Family Life Survey to analyze the long-term impact of Oportunidades on the health of young adults who have aged out of the program. Difference in difference estimators and the fixed-effect regression model are employed to measure the difference in health caused by increased exposure to the program. It is found that longer exposure to Oportunidades does have a statistically significant, positive impact on the health of young adults. These findings suggest that Oportunidades continues to impact former recipients after they age out of the program and support the theory that the program could help break the intergenerational cycle of poverty

Engaging adolescents and families in human papillomavirus vaccine education

Our objective was to determine when, where, and how Montana adolescents and their families want to receive educational information about HPV vaccination. To achieve this objective, we partnered with Community Medical Center (CMC) in Missoula, MT to assemble an Adolescent Health Patient and Family Advisory Council