Health Disparities in Michigan's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community

The purpose of the research was to illustrate how the health of LGBT persons are affected by stigma, discrimination, and bias within the state of Michigan. It will be researched through answering these questions: Statement about the health of the LGBT population. Did the LGBT person feel they were treated worse than other sexual identities? How did their experiences differ when seeking health care? Had they experienced physical symptoms as a result of how they were treated? Research in the area of LGBT health states that there is a lack of access to health care, there is discrimination and bias when they received care and that there was an increased need of mental health services. Methods: This study utilized a cross sectional design to via an anonymous online survey for LGBT people over the age of 18 living in the state of Michigan. The survey was implemented Qualtrics Software, took about 3 0 -4 5 minutes to complete, and was advertised through email, a Facebook event, and word of mouth. It was a cross-sectional study and a descriptive analysis was performed using the same Qualtrics software and SPSS Statistics 17.0. Results: Respondents were predominately white women with higher education and who identified as heterosexual. Thus the sample size for comparison was small giving a limited scope of health and health experiences for LGBT people in Michigan. Future research should include a filter question to make sure that the majority of people who fill out the survey are in fact LGBT. For the next survey using self identification instead of predetermined categories will allow for more information gathering from subjects about gender identity and sexual orientation. Questions with regard to health outcomes would be beneficial. Having a larger sample size is necessary. Conclusions: Access to care was not a problem which is inconsistent with what the literature review stated. Respondents did not rate their physical health as poor or bad. They stated that they did not feel they were having different experiences than heterosexuals while receiving care. The majority stated that they did not experience physical symptoms based on their treatment but they did experience more negative events daily than their heterosexual counterparts. These negative experiences add stress to their everyday lives. Finally, respondents did engage in smoking and drinking alcohol at a higher rate than their heterosexual counterparts but at a lower rate than was reported for Genesee County in their 2010 Speak to Your Health Survey. Overall the experience of the LGBT population surveyed was similar to that of the heterosexual population which is inconsistent of what the literature review suggested. Future health interventions with this population should then not necessarily be focused on the care provider but on mental health including stress management and dealing with stressful situations. This was consistent with the literature.Master of ScienceHealth EducationUniversity of Michigan-Flinthttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143504/1/SmithA.pd

Despite help on offer, many smokers prefer to quit on their own – here’s why

If you smoke more than ten cigarettes a day or have experienced cravings while trying to quit, your doctor has probably recommended a cigarette substitute such as nicotine patches or gum to help you. But our research suggests most Australians don’t want to quit smoking this way, and continuing to make these substitutes (pharmacotherapy) more affordable and readily available is not necessarily going to persuade smokers to quit. Pharmacotherapies are government-subsidised and widely available to all Australian smokers. Nicotine-replacement therapy (such as gum) has been available from pharmacies since 1997. Zyban®, an oral prescription drug to reduce cravings and other withdrawal symptoms, has been subsidised via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) since 2001. Champix®, a drug that reduces the pleasure from smoking, has been available since 2008. Patches have been subsidised on the PBS since 2011. Even supermarkets and convenience stores have sold nicotine-replacement therapies since 2006. This is all based on the assumption by researchers and health-care practitioners that if we provide smokers with effective interventions they will seek them out to quit smoking. Turns out, they often don’t. The majority of smokers in Australia still choose not to use assistance to quit. Approximately half to two-thirds quit unassisted and about half who attempt to quit do so unassisted.This work was supported by a project grant (No. 1024459) from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australi

Quitting unassisted: the 50-year research neglect of a major public health phenomenon.

Smoking cessation research today is dominated by the development and evaluation of interventions to improve the odds of quitting successfully. Yet little attention has been paid to the large majority of ex-smokers who quit without recourse to any formal assistance. To many, these unassisted quitters are of little interest other than as a comparator population against which to test the efficacy or effectiveness of pharmaceutical or behavioral interventions. The effect of this neglect is compounded by the preference for reporting intervention success as rates rather than as the numbers of ex-smokers generated across populations through such interventions. In so doing, researchers have insulated those in policy and practice from the importance of unassisted smoking cessation and the unparalleled contribution it has made and will continue to make to reducing smoking prevalence

Quitting unassisted: the 50-year research neglect of a major public health phenomenon.

Smoking cessation research today is dominated by the development and evaluation of interventions to improve the odds of quitting successfully. Yet little attention has been paid to the large majority of ex-smokers who quit without recourse to any formal assistance. To many, these unassisted quitters are of little interest other than as a comparator population against which to test the efficacy or effectiveness of pharmaceutical or behavioral interventions. The effect of this neglect is compounded by the preference for reporting intervention success as rates rather than as the numbers of ex-smokers generated across populations through such interventions. In so doing, researchers have insulated those in policy and practice from the importance of unassisted smoking cessation and the unparalleled contribution it has made and will continue to make to reducing smoking prevalence

Rebuilding Shattered Worlds

Rebuilding Shattered Worlds explores the ways a demolished neighborhood in Easton, Pennsylvania, still resonates in the imaginations of displaced residents. Drawing on six years of ethnographic research, the authors highlight the intersecting languages of blight, race, and place as elderly interlocutors attempt to make sense of the world they lost when urban renewal initiatives razed “Syrian Town”—a densely packed neighborhood of Lebanese American, Italian American, and African American residents.This ethnography of remembering shows how former residents engage collective memory-making through their shared place, language, and class position within the larger cityscape. Demonstrating the creative power of linguistic resources, material traces, and absent spaces, Rebuilding Shattered Worlds brings together insights from linguistic anthropology and material studies, foregrounding the role language plays in signaling “pastness.

Contemporary Homeschooling: Black Children’s Best Interests, Freedom from Religion, and Anti-Racism

The coronavirus pandemic has increased interest in homeschooling, igniting discussion and debate surrounding the intersections of family and children’s rights, religious freedom, and education law. This essay raises awareness regarding the changing faces of homeschool families which challenge notions of equity and familial rights related to education and religion. We draw on the above representative quote from Anneliese to provide understanding of the benefits and meaning of homeschooling from an African American perspective. Traditional homeschooling – in which parents assume full responsibility for their children’s education outside of public or private school settings – long has been viewed as a primarily White, middle class, Christian fundamentalist phenomena. However, the homeschool community is more diverse than generally recognized. In 2016, approximately 136,000 Black children were identified as homeschoolers, a small percentage of the nearly 1.7 million children homeschooled in that year, but one of the fastest-growing segments among homeschool families. By 2018, the number of Black homeschooled children had multiplied to an estimated 220,000. The upward trend towards diversification is predicted to continue, and the coronavirus pandemic likely will accelerate that trend

Children’s preference for HAS and LOCATED relations: A word learning bias for noun–noun compounds

The present study investigates children’s bias when interpreting novel noun–noun compounds (e.g. kig donka) that refer to combinations of novel objects (kig and donka). More specifically, it investigates children’s understanding of modifier–head relations of the compounds and their preference for HAS or LOCATED relations (e.g. a donka that HAS a kig or a donka that is LOCATED near a kig) rather than a FOR relation (e.g. a donka that is used FOR kigs). In a forced-choice paradigm, two- and three-year-olds preferred interpretations with HAS/LOCATED relations, while five-year-olds and adults showed no preference for either interpretation. We discuss possible explanations\ud for this preference and its relation to another word learning bias that is based on perceptual features of the referent objects, i.e. the shape bias. We argue that children initially focus on a perceptual stability rather than a pure conceptual stability when interpreting the meaning of nouns

Challenges for Novice School Leaders: Facing Today’s Issues in School Administration

Challenges for novice school leaders evolve as information is managed differently and as societal and regulatory expectations change. This study addresses unique challenges faced by practicing school administrators (n=159) during their first three years in a school leadership position. It focuses on their perceptions, how perceptions of present novices compare to those of experienced school leaders, and how pre-service programs can better prepare them for these challenges. Findings showed that perceptions of present novice school leaders vary somewhat from those of experienced school leaders. Two themes shared relatively the same prominence among experienced leaders as they did with novices: navigating politics and gaining a sense of credibility. Experienced leaders expounded more on specific political hurdles with school boards, other teachers, and parents, and—regarding these same populations—experienced leaders voiced that they wished they had been more successful in their earlier years in developing credibility more quickly with stakeholders. A theme not occurring at all among present novices but noted by five experienced leaders was that of adjusting to the culture of a new school as its leader. This phenomenon may be explained by the value more seasoned leaders have developed for factors inherent in a campus culture