Single mothers and self help groups.

Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1981 .M222. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 40-07, page: . Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1981

The Open Resource Scholarly Network: a new era for historians, archivists and technologists

Since 1985 the staff of the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre (Austehc) have been collecting and disseminating information about the history of Australian science, technology and medicine including data about archival resources on the presumption that scholarly practice, including the creation of new knowledge, was based on free access to, and the citability of, existing knowledge. The advent of electronic network technologies has enable us to realise our goals in ways that were not even dreams in the earlier environment. However, not all players in the scholarly information and publishing realms have responded in the same way. Despite these new technologies, which should be making resources much more readily accessible, many valuable resources are locked up (discoverable perhaps but uncitable) behind closed database walls or are available only on a user pays basis. In many cases these resources were previously available freely through research libraries. Austehc has spent the last few years developing database driven Web publishing tools to support an open resource scholarly electronic network. These tools are being offered to the community at no cost, under the open source philosophy, if they are used for public good and education purposes. These tools, the "Online Heritage Resource Manager" (OHRM) and the "Web Academic Resource Publisher" (WARP) will be presented to this meeting.Hosted by the Scholarly Text and Imaging Service (SETIS), the University of Sydney Library, and the Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (RIHSS), the University of Sydney

Family decision making and sex role attitudes in the context of selection of a vacation destination

The purpose of this research is to investigate family decision making and more specifically, how decisions are made and what factors might impact them. Sex role attitudes have been related to household role behaviors and they are believed to be linked to decision influences within the family. This research addresses the family decision making process in a vacation decision context. The Brisoux-Laroche model of awareness sets is tested and the husband-wife decision influence patterns within the same decision context are examined, taking into consideration sex role attitudes of the spouses. Finally, the impact of sex role attitudes on the awareness sets is examined. The results indicate a high level of agreement between spouses when looking at the awareness set analysis: importance ratings, determinant attributes, frequency of destinations in each set, agreement on all measures as well as on presence of attributes in common sets. The perception of decision influence analysis indicates that spouses perceive certain sub-decisions to be under a different influence (husband or wife) depending on their sex role attitude; however, the trend is not clear. In terms of influence sharing, the results indicate that, as sex role attitude becomes more modern, six out of seven decisions become more egalitarian according to at least one of the spouses. Finally, looking at the relationship between awareness set profiles and sex role attitudes, it was found that set sizes and confidence levels were related to sex role attitude. Also, modern spouses chose destinations that had a different profile than those chosen by the more traditional spouses while attributing less importance to the cost of the trip

Identity formation and conflict in older Irish gay men

Gay Irish men over 55 grew up in the 1950s and 1960s when homosexuality in Ireland was illegal, the Catholic Church was an unquestioned dominance within society and the heterosexual family was seen as the basic unit of the Catholic state. The power of the Catholic Church, homophobia and repressive laws combined to create an atmosphere that made many people unable or unsafe to admit their sexuality. Gay men constructed their identity under a cloak of secrecy and negotiated any identity threat and conflict between their multiple identities alone. Evidence suggests that gay and lesbian individuals with religious identities face greater social and psychosocial challenges due to their identity configuration. Furthermore, the challenges faced within identity construction, and the obstacles of threat and conflict, have shown to affect an individual’s mental health. Using the interpretive lens of Identity Process Theory (IPT) the present study used a qualitative design to explore how older gay Irish men (over the age of 55) understand and construct their sexual identity and investigate the strategies they used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven older gay men to explore their experiences, perceptions and understanding of being an older gay person in Ireland and the UK. Thematic analysis identified three themes i) experiences of sexual awareness and identity conflict; ii) the dilemma of ‘staying in ‘ vs. ‘coming out’; iii) dealing with identity conflict. The results suggested that many men faced challenges and barriers to constructing a stable identity. Religious and cultural experiences played a central role in Irish men’s identity acquisition and how they made sense of it. The results show ways in which identity conflicts were created and how the men developed strategies to minimise these conflicts. The study has implications for professionals working therapeutically with sexual minority clients. Recommendations are provided for improved understanding of sexuality issues concerning minority clients within therapeutic work. Health practitioners need to be willing to engage in discussion about the effect that religious and cultural influences have on a client’s well-being, as this will help support patients, reduce psychological distress and improve therapy outcomes

Rapid Evaluation for health and social care innovations: Challenges for “quick wins” using interrupted time series.

Background: Rapid evaluation was at the heart of National Health Service England’s evaluation strategy of the new models of care vanguard programme. This was to facilitate the scale and spread of successful models of care throughout the health & social care system. The aim of this paper is to compare the findings of the two evaluations of the Enhanced health in Care Homes (EHCH) vanguard in Gateshead, one using a smaller data set for rapidity and one using a larger longitudinal data set and to investigate the implications of the use of rapid evaluations using interrupted time series (ITS) methods. Methods: A quasi-experimental design study in the form of an ITS was used to evaluate the impact of the vanguard on secondary care use. Two different models are presented differing by timeframes only. The short-term model consisted of data for 11 months data pre and 20 months post vanguard. The long-term model consisted of data for 23 months pre and 34 months post vanguard. Results: The cost consequences, including the cost of running the EHCH vanguard, were estimated using both a single tariff non-elective admissions methodology and a tariff per bed day methodology. The short-term model estimated a monthly cost increase of £73,408 using a single tariff methodology. When using a tariff per bed day, there was an estimated monthly cost increase of £14,315. The long-term model had, using a single tariff for non-elective admissions, an overall cost increase of £7576 per month. However, when using a tariff per bed-days, there was an estimated monthly cost reduction of £57,168. Conclusions: Although it is acknowledged that there is often a need for rapid evaluations in order to identify “quick wins” and to expedite learning within health and social care systems, we conclude that this may not be appropriate for quasi-experimental designs estimating effect using ITS for complex interventions. Our analyses suggests that care must be taken when conducting and interpreting the results of short-term evaluations using ITS methods, as they may produce misleading results and may lead to a misallocation of resources

Doubling the number of health graduates in Zambia: estimating feasibility and costs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Ministry of Health (MoH) in Zambia is operating with fewer than half of the human resources for health (HRH) necessary to meet basic population health needs. Responding urgently to address this HRH crisis, the MoH plans to double the annual number of health training graduates in the next five years to increase the supply of health workers. The feasibility and costs of achieving this initiative, however, are unclear.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We determined the feasibility and costs of doubling training institution output through an individual school assessment framework. Assessment teams, comprised of four staff from the MoH and Clinton Health Access Initiative, visited all of Zambia's 39 public and private health training institutions from 17 April to 19 June 2008. Teams consulted with faculty and managers at each training institution to determine if student enrollment could double within five years; an operational planning exercise carried out with school staff determined the investments and additional operating costs necessary to achieve expansion. Cost assumptions were developed using historical cost data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The individual school assessments affirmed the MoH's ability to double the graduate output of Zambia's public health training institutions. Lack of infrastructure was determined as a key bottleneck in achieving this increase while meeting national training quality standards. A total investment of US$58.8 million is required to meet expansion infrastructure needs, with US$ 35.0 million (59.5%) allocated to expanding student accommodation and US$23.8 million (40.5$ 58.0 million over the five-year scale-up period. Total cost of expansion is estimated at US$ 116.8 million over five years.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Historic underinvestment in training institutions has crippled Zambia's ability to meet expansion ambitions. There must be significant investments in infrastructure and faculty to meet quality standards while expanding training enrollment. Bottom-up planning can be used to translate national targets into costed implementation plans for expansion at each school.</p

Evaluation of US Federal Guidelines (Primary Response Incident Scene Management [PRISM]) for Mass Decontamination of Casualties During the Initial Operational Response to a Chemical Incident

Study objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical and operational effectiveness of US federal government guidance (Primary Response Incident Scene Management [PRISM]) for the initial response phase to chemical incidents. Methods The study was performed as a large-scale exercise (Operation DOWNPOUR). Volunteers were dosed with a chemical warfare agent simulant to quantify the efficacy of different iterations of dry, ladder pipe system, or technical decontamination. Results The most effective process was a triple combination of dry, ladder pipe system, and technical decontamination, which attained an average decontamination efficiency of approximately 100% on exposed hair and skin sites. Both wet decontamination processes (ladder pipe system and technical decontamination, alone or in combination with dry decontamination) were also effective (decontamination efficiency >96%). In compliant individuals, dry decontamination was effective (decontamination efficiency approximately 99%), but noncompliance (tentatively attributed to suboptimal communication) resulted in significantly reduced efficacy (decontamination efficiency approximately 70%). At-risk volunteers (because of chronic illness, disability, or language barrier) were 3 to 8 times slower than ambulatory casualties in undergoing dry and ladder pipe system decontamination, a consequence of which may be a reduction in the overall rate at which casualties can be processed. Conclusion The PRISM incident response protocols are fit for purpose for ambulatory casualties. However, a more effective communication strategy is required for first responders (particularly when guiding dry decontamination). There is a clear need to develop more appropriate decontamination procedures for at-risk casualties.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio