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Football 5-a-side is a Paralympic sport played among athletes with visual impairment. Although the sport has been featured in the Paralympics since 2004, it is still at its infant stage with only 52 countries having a national team. With the forthcoming 2028 Paralympics scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, California, one concern that the United States has is the absence of a football 5-a-side national team in the country. Thus, this study aims to find the solutions and examines the potential growth of the sport in the United States. Experts from different organizations were recruited to brainstorm the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of fostering the sport from its grassroot level, and further, establish the football 5-a-side national team in the United States. This paper contributes both practical and theoretical aspects in sport development with the transparency of ideas offered by professionals in various fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A survey of 287 Los Angeles park users examined place attachment and other factors. • Place attachment was associated with frequency of use and mode of travel, though not as expected. • Higher attachment correlated with willingness to participate in stewardship activities. • Renters and lower-income visitors expressed lower levels of place attachment. • Findings have implications for park management and future research into park equity and access. Urban parks are a vital resource. They provide a wealth of benefits that support the health and well-being of the people who use them and the ecosystems in which they reside. In densely populated cities, parks are often the only nearby natural resource for local residents to engage with and learn about the environment. Place attachment—individuals' psychological and emotional connection to their local parks and natural areas—has been shown to be a precursor to engaging in volunteer stewardship activities. Yet the place attachment research to date has largely focused on non-urban recreation settings, such as national parks, leaving a large gap in understanding place attachment in urban settings and on smaller scales. This paper describes the results of a study conducted in the Baldwin Hills Parklands, a multi-use park system located in densely populated Los Angeles, CA, USA. A survey of 287 visitors revealed high levels of place attachment across the Parklands, and frequency of use was positively associated with level of place attachment. Among the highest rated sentiments were feelings of safety and peacefulness. Unexpectedly, drivers expressed greater attachment than those arriving on foot or other means of transportation. Visitors with higher place attachment were also more likely to be willing to participate in volunteer stewardship. Renters and lower-middle income visitors expressed lower levels of place attachment than homeowners and upper income visitors, while Latinx visitors had higher place attachment than non-Latinx visitors. The paper discusses the findings and their implications for management and future research on place attachment in urban parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the US has dramatically expanded immigration enforcement. At the same time, some advocates have sought to support “good” immigrants. This paper considers how the resulting good/bad binaries affect undocumented immigrants. I examine a case study in Los Angeles, where policing intertwined with protection. Based on participant observation and interviews, I show that respondents believed state agents classified them either as “bad” criminals or “good”, immigrants. To the extent immigrants identified as “good”, they credited the US with offering them “freedom” and hoped for political inclusion. At the same time, in what I call moralizing regulation, they also performed “good” behaviour and distinguished themselves from those seen as “bad”. Some also tied “good” behaviour to femininity and “acting white”. At the extreme, they blamed other migrants for inviting state mistreatment. The effects were ambivalent: while immigrants appreciated US support, they also adopted and adapted to the state’s moral norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in educational and institutional strategies to limit or eradicate contemporary forms of racism in the United States. They have generally accepted that most people in the modern-day United States do not actually want to be racist, but the various legacies of oppression live on through American institutions, promote unconscious biases, and manifest in unintentionally racist behaviors. However, previous research has largely overlooked the interactive relationship specifically between insidious racists, and the institutions meant to limit and punish their intentional behavior. Insidious racists are conscious of their racist beliefs, they engage in intentional acts of racism, and yet, they hold value in not being deemed racist by American society. In this article I develop a framework of the varying institutional constraints associated with addressing insidious racism. I then deploy this framework on national and local case studies to highlight the contribution of this work. The national case study analyzes the institutional constraints that allowed for loan officers to engage in racist actions leading up to the Great Recession. The local case study analyzes institutional constraints that led to the deviant behavior and racist redistricting efforts coordinated by members of the Los Angeles City Council. Taken together, I show that institutional design and administrator ideologies determine the levels of insidious racism prevalent in a given institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of dramatic changes to American health care law there is need to understand the challenges that vulnerable populations encounter in obtaining and managing health insurance. Research has found that child language brokers, children who mediate language and culture for their immigrant families, assist with health-related matters. We report on focus groups with 17 language brokers living in Central Los Angeles. In this article we detail their experiences language brokering for health insurance and their knowledge of health insurance and policies that apply to their immigrant families. We illuminate some barriers immigrant families face as well as how they navigate them. We conclude with policy implications, particularly in relation to making health insurance more accessible to non-English speaking and immigrant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Salvadorans who relocated to the United States, the marginalization imposed by American society, the victimization enacted by Mexican gangs and their negative experience with El Salvador's practice of citizenship brought them to create the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and modify 18th Street gangs in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Living on the fringes of society, they were kept from attaining the social, civil and economic benefits of a liberal democratic model of citizenship. This paper claims that, in order to survive, they took it upon themselves to create a parallel model of citizenship, combining anarchism with ''citizenship as agency'' under the gang structure. Following Philip Oxhorn's analysis of models of citizenship, this study examines how Salvadoran refugees came to create such alternative citizenship in the framework of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. Analysis asserts that the structure and development of membership in the gangs is not a coincidence, but rather a response to their marginalization, negative experience of state citizenship, and their participation in public arenas modeled as an extension of social contracts. Understanding the views of these, now transnational, gangs in terms of citizenship can aid policymakers and Central American governments as they approach these groups, eliminating violence and promoting development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper works to more fully integrate critical theories of race and privilege with political economy to explore the connections between segregation, property values and violence in US cities. Through the prism of Los Angeles (LA), it exposes the economic mechanisms and history of violent struggle by which whiteness became, and remains, an intrinsic component of high land values. The resulting articulations of racial ideologies and geography, connecting circuits of real estate capital to common sense and racialised constructions of &#x2018.community’, have helped drive LA’s fragmented and unsustainable form and increasing privatisation. They also lie at the root of violence inflicted upon those excluded, both ideologically and physically, from white constructions of community. This dynamic is key for theorising in support of ongoing justice struggles to create safe and sustainable cities for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how race, class, and gender intersect to shape professional Latinos’ entrepreneurial incorporation, as observed by the conditions that prompt professional Latinos to start a business, including access to capital and experiences with discrimination. In-depth interviews with professional Latino business owners in Los Angeles reveal that individual human capital – via resources and wealth accrued through corporate careers – facilitates entrepreneurial activity. Race, ethnicity, and gender, as intersectional social group identities, combine with class to shape variegated impacts on access to capital and business experiences by gender and target market. Ethnicity is a resource for those serving the coethnic community and is more significant in shaping business ownership experiences for men who target a racially/ethnically diverse clientele, whereas gender and race are more salient for women outside the coethnic community. This study contributes to the ethnic enterprise literature by going beyond ethnicity to demonstrate that multiple dimensions of identity shape professional Latino/as’ entrepreneurial incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: An emerging model for sexuality education is the rights-based approach, which unifies discussions of sexuality, gender norms, and sexual rights to promote the healthy sexual development of adolescents. A rigorous evaluation of a rights-based intervention for a broad population of adolescents in the U.S. has not previously been published. This paper evaluates the immediate effects of the Sexuality Education Initiative (SEI) on hypothesized psychosocial determinants of sexual behavior. Methods: A cluster-randomized trial was conducted with ninth-grade students at 10 high schools in Los Angeles. Classrooms at each school were randomized to receive either a rights-based curriculum or basic sex education (control) curriculum. Surveys were completed by 1,750 students (N = 934 intervention, N = 816 control) at pretest and immediate posttest. Multilevel regression models examined the short-term effects of the intervention on nine psychosocial outcomes, which were hypothesized to be mediators of students' sexual behaviors. Results: Compared with students who received the control curriculum, students receiving the rights-based curriculum demonstrated significantly greater knowledge about sexual health and sexual health services, more positive attitudes about sexual relationship rights, greater communication about sex and relationships with parents, and greater self-efficacy to manage risky situations at immediate posttest. There were no significant differences between the two groups for two outcomes, communication with sexual partners and intentions to use condoms. Conclusions: Participation in the rights-based classroom curriculum resulted in positive, statistically significant effects on seven of nine psychosocial outcomes, relative to a basic sex education curriculum. Longer-term effects on students' sexual behaviors will be tested in subsequent analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether middle- and upper-class Latino entrepreneurs retain a sense of ethnic solidarity expressed through community giving that is aimed at promoting the mobility of co-ethnics. I find that middle-class Latino entrepreneurs engage in more unstructured philanthropic activities, such as volunteering their time at Latino-centric organizations or mentoring low-income Latinos. In contrast, elite Latino entrepreneurs are creating ethnic social structures that focus on education and Latino business development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 20 November 2014, President Barack Obama introduced Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) as a temporary relief for undocumented immigrant parents raising citizen children in the United States. DAPA's implementation stalled indefinitely following a court-issued injunction in 2015, subsequent legal contestation, and a Supreme Court decision in 2016 upholding the original injunction. I purport that both DAPA and its failure to implement constitute sites from within which to critically examine the legal consciousness and sense of belonging of undocumented participants. By bridging scholarship on legal consciousness and belonging, this article examines how Latino first-generation undocumented immigrants from Los Angeles, who considered DAPA, understand their unlawful presence and assert belonging in the United States (US). This article draws on participant observation in Los Angeles, California, including four DAPA legal information forums and 24 in-depth interviews following DAPA's court injunction with undocumented parents who intended to apply to DAPA. Data reveal a legal consciousness imbued with normative and value-based notions of substantive citizenship including parenthood, law-abidingness, and contribution. In light of DAPA's failure, participants draw on these narratives to counter-assert their belonging and deservingness of DAPA. Ultimately, this case draws attention to how undocumented, first-generation immigrant legal consciousness is more complex than previously ascertained, and how DAPA shapes immigrants' claims to a lawful presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Informed by communication infrastructure theory (CIT) and the social capital approach to health, this study focused on the role played by communication hotspots: physical places in a community (e.g., parks, churches, or restaurants) where health information is shared between network actors. By analyzing survey data that included information about communication infrastructure, frequency of health conversations, as well as the size and diversity of respondents' social networks, this study illustrates how communication hotspots may reduce perceived barriers to healthcare among Latinas in the greater Los Angeles area (N = 780). The results suggest that communication hotspots can influence people's health by facilitating information-sharing activities. In addition, communication hotspots may reduce perceived barriers to healthcare by bringing together diverse network actors. We conclude by considering future health interventions and policy planning to leverage and enhance community members' interactions at communication hotspots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, Los Angeles is one of the most racially and economically segregated regions in the nation—a result of generations of entrenched racially exclusionary policies, practices, and systems. Yet economists, policymakers, and developers continue to define the housing crisis as primarily a crisis of supply that can be solved by prioritizing deregulatory solutions. This myopic view undercuts the need for race-and place-based solutions necessary to reimagine more inclusive neighborhoods. The time is ripe to reevaluate and reimagine existing approaches. By using race-and place-conscious strategies such as those outlined below, housing policy can be advanced in a more successful and inclusive manner, measuring housing as one essential part of community health. To do otherwise risks perpetuating inequities and further harming the region's most economically vulnerable communities—overwhelmingly communities of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The recent introduction of direct acting antivirals for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) has dramatically improved treatment options for HCV infected patients. However, in the United States (US) treatment uptake has been low and time to initiation of therapy has been long. We sought to examine provider perspectives of facilitators and barriers to HCV treatment delivery. Methods: From June to August 2019, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with medical staff providing HCV care as part of a university medical center in Los Angeles, CA. In order to understand the HCV treatment process, we interviewed key staff members providing care to the majority of HCV patients seeking care at the university medical center, including hepatologists and infectious disease specialists as well as key nursing and pharmacy staff. The interviews focused on workload and activities required for HCV treatment initiation for non-cirrhotic, treatment naïve patients. Results: Providers noted that successful HCV treatment delivery was reliant on a care model involving close collaboration between a team of providers, in particular requiring a highly coordinated effort between dedicated nursing and pharmacy staff. The HCV care team overwhelmingly reported that the process of insurance authorization was the greatest obstacle delaying treatment initiation and noted that very few patient level factors served as a barrier to treatment uptake. Conclusions: In the US, prior authorization for HCV treatment is a requirement for most public and private insurance plans. In an era with access to therapies that allow for a cure—and until revocation of prior authorization for HCV treatment is a reality—implementing strategies that can expedite authorization to accelerate treatment access are critical. Not only will this benefit patients, but it has the potential to help expand treatment to settings that are otherwise too resource strained to successfully deliver HCV care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent incidents involving both Black American and Korean American communities across the United States have reopened the old wounds between the two minority communities, recalling the two tragic incidents in the 1990s: the death of Latasha Harlins (1991) and the Los Angeles Uprising/Sa-I-Gu (1992). Revisiting and reevaluating these two cases, this article argues that the myth of true Americanness, channeled and reinforced through the concept of model minority, has not only shaped and sustained a contentious relationship between Korean immigrants and Black Americans but also intensified the racial tension among all racial and ethnic groups in the United States. We conclude that American people of all demographics must debunk the myth of model minority and challenge the false Americanism by embracing "deep diversity," not merely distinctive group identities and outlooks, which offers a more diverse and rich interpretation of America as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian redclaw crayfish, Cherax quadricarinatus, is a popular aquaculture crayfish that has been introduced around the world. Here we report the first occurrence of the species in the United States in Lake Balboa, Los Angeles, California. The impacts of this species are largely unknown, and further research is needed to determine the species' effects on native ecosystems. Sampling is needed to evaluate the population status in Lake Balboa to determine to what extent the species has spread in the greater Los Angeles River basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the three decades that Diamond Kimm spent in the United States, he confronted the most powerful judicial and legislative authorities in the country. As a leader in the Korean American community in Los Angeles, Kimm spoke publicly about his political beliefs and criticized U.S. policies overseas and military intervention on the Korean peninsula. Immigration officials sought to deport Kimm on the basis of his suspected communist affiliations and Kimm's subsequent fight to remain in the country illuminates a significant chapter in the development of constitutional protections for immigrants, as well as the history of Asian Americans in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the conventional wisdom holds that increasing the number of minority officers will enhance residents' perceptions of police and the criminal justice system, further systematic investigation of this hypothesis may be needed. Building on the group‐position thesis, the representative bureaucracy theory, and prior research, this study investigates whether perceived minority police presence within residents' neighborhoods affects residents' perceptions of criminal injustice, whether this effect is more pronounced for minority residents and in minority neighborhoods, and whether perceived minority police presence has a stronger effect on perceptions of criminal injustice for minority residents in more integrated and white neighborhoods than minority residents in minority neighborhoods. Analyses of data collected from Los Angeles, CA, show that residents perceive a lower level of criminal injustice when they report that officers in their neighborhoods are not white‐dominated, and this finding is not dependent on the respondent's race/ethnicity or the racial/ethnic composition of the neighborhood. In addition, perceived minority police presence seems to have a weak to no effect on residents' perceptions of criminal injustice for Hispanic communities. We discuss these findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Serologic RhD-negative blood donors are tested by a method known to detect weak D antigen expression. Serology does not detect all red blood cells with RhD expression and RHD genotyping has been used to identify variant RHD alleles, which may lead to some RhD expression. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of RHD variant alleles in serologic RhD-negative blood donors at a hospital-based donor center in Los Angeles.Study Design and Methods: RHD genotyping of serologic RhD-negative blood donors over a 20-month period was performed using the Immucor RHD BeadChip assay. DNA sequencing was performed when the RHD BeadChip assay failed to assign a genotype. For RHD variants known or suspected to result in RhD expression, recipients of previous blood donations were investigated for alloimmunization.Results: RHD genotyping was performed in 1174 RhD-negative blood donors, and 1122 were genotyped for RHCE variants. Eleven donors (0.94%) harbored mutations predicted to yield RhD expression. The predicted phenotypes were, in decreasing frequency, DEL, partial, and weak D phenotypes. Anti-D was not detected in 16 patients who had received blood from these donors after an average follow up of 182 days.Conclusion: Genotyping can be used to identify donors with the potential to sensitize RhD-negative recipients. In this limited study, 0.94% of serologic RhD-negative blood donors were found to have variant RHD alleles that might cause alloimmunization in RhD-negative recipients. To our knowledge, a study of this nature has not been reported in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the socioeconomic and demographic make‐up of Koreans in Los Angeles metropolis, the largest hub of Koreans in the United States, to better understand the decentralized concentration of Koreans by addressing their within‐ and among‐group variations. By employing the rarely used measures of correspondence and typology analyses, we delineate the boundaries for Korean clusters using Getis and Ord G* local statistic, wherein each cluster's neighborhood and demographic characteristics are compared to gain nuanced insights of within‐group variations, and its evolution during 1970–2010. Cluster level analysis of Koreatown suggests that even though it was classified as a Korean cluster, Korean Americans were unevenly distributed across these clusters, with underrepresentation in white‐dominant neighborhoods, whereas much of their intraurban spaces were shared with Hispanics. All clusters except extended Koreatown exhibited Li's ethnoburb‐style spatial patterns. The Koreatown and suburban clusters were also distinct in terms of their demographic/ethnic, socioeconomic, educational, age/life cycle, and housing characteristics, suggesting socio‐spatial polarization. Our analysis, challenges the commonly perceived notion of Koreans being a homogenous group and Asians being model minorities. We illustrate significant within‐group differences among the Koreangelos. We, thus, propose innovative measures to analyze population groups to flesh out rich narratives of America's fast changing social geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An enduring question in the cultural study of psychological experience concerns how emotion may play a role in shaping moral aspects of children's lives as they are mentored into socially preferred ways of understanding and responding to the world at hand. This article brings together approaches from psychological and linguistic anthropology to explore how cultural schemas of normativity are communicated, embodied, and enacted as children participate in day-to-day family activities and routines. Illustrative examples emanate from a videotaped corpus of naturalistic interactional data that document the daily lives of 32 ethnically diverse U.S. middle-class families who reside in the Los Angeles, California metropolitan region. The article employs discourse and narrative analysis to examine how children are apprenticed into perceiving, appraising, and reacting to the emotions of self and others as culturally shaped indicators for proper comportment. Data analysis emphasizes how implicit components of caregivers' interactions with children (i.e., gesture, gaze, facial expression) intertwine with explicit, verbal communication to constitute intricately layered affective messages that shape the evaluative frames through which children interpret, display, and respond to emotions. The article identifies two culturally salient childrearing practices, "pep talks" and "time outs," that apprentice children into moral accountable relationships with others by encouraging them to manage their emotions in culturally preferred ways. Study findings suggest that parental communications conveying praise and approval—or conversely indexing disapproval—toward children are emotionally resonant motivational practices in this cultural milieu as children are mentored into culturally meaningful emotional management techniques. The article highlights how children actively employ semiotic socio-communicative resources and it closely traces their sense-making processes in tandem with their discursive contributions to the moment-by-moment interaction. It argues that emotion, morality, and interpersonal relations are critical in shaping children's acquisition of consensually validated ways of perceiving, feeling, and responding to the phenomena they encounter in their day-to-day lives. This perspective aims toward contextualized understandings that render plausible connections between local contexts of everyday action and broader macro-level discourses and master narratives, such as those associated with a neo-liberal emphasis on cultivating citizens who learn to regulate their emotions on behalf of self and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Schools are thought to have an important impact on adolescent behaviors, but the mechanisms are not well understood. We hypothesize that there are measurable constructs of peer- and teacher-related extrinsic motivations for adolescent behaviors and sought to develop measures of school culture that would capture these constructs.Methods: We developed several survey items to assess school behavioral culture and collected self-reported data from a sample of adolescents age 14-17 attending high school in low income neighborhoods of Los Angeles. We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to inform the creation of simple-summated multi-item scales. We also conducted a cultural consensus analysis to identify the existence of shared pattern of responses to the items among respondents within the same school.Results: From 1159 adolescents, six factors were identified: social culture regarding popular (Cronbach's alpha = 0.84) and respected (alpha = 0.83) behaviors, teacher support (alpha = 0.86) and monitoring of school rules (alpha = 0.85), valued student traits (alpha = 0.67) and school order (alpha = 0.68). Cultural consensus analysis identified a shared pattern of responses to the items among respondents at 8 of the 13 schools. School academic performance, which is based on standardized test results, is strongly correlated with social culture regarding popular behaviors (Pearson's correlation coefficient r = 0.64), monitoring of school rules (r = 0.71), and school order (r = 0.83).Conclusions: The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses did not support a single, overall factor that measures school culture. However, the six identified sub-scales might be used individually to examine school influence on academic performance and health behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disproportionate number of Latinos employed in unskilled US service industries appears to exemplify the bleak labour market prospects and intergenerational immobility facing this population. Yet as the children of immigrants enter "bad" service and retail jobs alongside the first generation, how might they be faring differently? Drawing on over two years of ethnographic research, this study examines the labour prospects of 1.5- and second-generation Latinos working at a Los Angeles restaurant. I show that while structural disadvantages initially funnel these workers into bottom-rung jobs at the restaurant, many are able to leverage their in-betweenness on a shopfloor divided into immigrant Latino and privileged white employee cohorts. Doing so has allowed some latter-generation workers access to new occupational mobility pathways virtually closed to the first generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconstructs the life and times of Peter Biggs, a free African American man in 1850s and 1860s Los Angeles, revealing the social and economic niche that he fashioned between the U.S.-Mexican War and the Civil War. Biggs's little-known biography illuminates a forgotten moment in the temporal and spatial history of American racial construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business improvement districts (BIDs) are local organizations that have been revitalizing commercial areas for the last two decades in the United States. However, not every commercial district has succeeded in establishing BIDs despite some initial efforts. This research presents a comparative examination of two neighborhoods in Los Angeles—MacArthur Park and the Byzantine Latino Quarter (BLQ)—to examine the BID formation process in poor immigrant neighborhoods and to identify how community characteristics differ between the neighborhood that succeeded in BID formation and the other that did not. The BLQ displayed distinguishable factors that may have contributed to successful BID formation, including invested community stakeholders, organizational resources, residents’ activism, and efforts to embrace multiethnic groups. This research demonstrates that community organizing capacity and characteristics can change the course and outcome of BID formation. This study also offers insights for multicultural community organizing and equitable distribution of public services to the areas with inconclusive or ineffective efforts of BID formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Medicaid health home option of the Affordable Care Act provides a new opportunity to address the fragmented system of care for persons with serious mental illness. This study examined the implementation of integrated health homes in Los Angeles County.Methods: Longitudinal data on client-reported physical health status, clinician-reported mental health recovery, and screening for common chronic conditions among 1,941 persons enrolled in integrated care programs for serious mental illness and chronic general medical illness were combined with site visit data measuring the level of integration of general medical and mental health care among ten integrated care programs. Various analyses were used to compare outcomes by level of program integration (generalized estimating equations for physical health status and mental health recovery and logistic regression and chi-square tests for screening for common chronic conditions and clinical risk factors).Results: Clients in more highly integrated programs had greater improvements in physical health status and mental health recovery and higher rates of screening for common chronic conditions compared with clients in less integrated programs. They also had greater reductions in hypertension but a worrisome increase in prediabetes and diabetes.Conclusions: Highly integrated mental health and general medical programs were associated with greater improvements in health outcomes compared with less integrated programs. Additional research is necessary to identify predictors of integration, to determine which aspects of integration drive improvements in health outcomes, and to identify strategies to increase integration within less integrated programs. Efforts are needed to coordinate pharmacotherapy, including increased consideration of the metabolic effects of antipsychotic medication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sober living houses ( SLHs) are alcohol and drug-free living environments for individuals in recovery. The goal of this study was to map the distribution of SLHs in Los Angeles ( LA) County, California ( N = 260) and examine neighborhood correlates of SLH density. Locations of SLHs were geocoded and linked to tract-level Census data as well as to publicly available information on alcohol outlets and recovery resources. Neighborhoods with SLHs differed from neighborhoods without them on measures of socioeconomic disadvantage and accessibility of recovery resources. In multivariate, spatially lagged hurdle models stratified by monthly fees charged (less than $1400/month vs. $1400/month or greater), minority composition, and accessibility of treatment were associated with the presence of affordable SLHs. Accessibility of treatment was also associated with the number of affordable SLHs in those neighborhoods. Higher median housing value and accessibility of treatment were associated with whether a neighborhood had high-cost SLHs, and lower population density was associated with the number of high-cost SLHs in those neighborhoods. Neighborhood factors are associated with the availability of SLHs, and research is needed to better understand how these factors affect resident outcomes, as well as how SLHs may affect neighborhoods over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil extraction began in the City of Los Angeles in the 1890s and continues to this day. A series of oil booms contributed to the city's explosive growth in the early twentieth century. Because oil drilling was so dangerous, however, Los Angeles residents and city officials tried repeatedly to regulate oil exploration near homes and businesses. This article explains how oil drilling influenced Los Angeles residents' understanding of property rights, how damage to residential property in the 1930s finally enabled city officials to pass and enforce limits on oil drilling, and then, how mobilization for World War II undermined those limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research describes how race-ethnicity, nativity and neighbourhood characteristics are associated with reports of unfair treatment by police in the previous five years by residentially stable men. Data are from waves 1 and 2 of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey. Results suggest that foreign-born Latinos are less likely than African Americans and US-born whites to report unfair treatment. After accounting for tract percentage Latino, US-born Latinos were less likely to report unfair treatment than African Americans, which partially supports a gradient model. Neighbourhood affluence was negatively associated with reports, but poverty, percentage Latino and immigrant concentration were not. The importance of neighbourhood privilege is highlighted, as is the need to better understand Latino immigrants' experiences with police. Future work should examine immigrants' interpretation of interactions with police and their willingness to report unfair treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we study protest participants in the May 2006 immigration rights marches in Los Angeles. Analysis of original survey data of 876 march participants yields five main results. First, despite substantial dispute among organizers on how to frame the marches, we find protest participants were similar across march locations organized by different coalitions. Second, we find Spanish-English bilingual participants seemed to benefit from being in two media environments, as they reported more information sources about the protest events than monolingual participants. Third, women reported hearing about the protest events from more information sources, and Spanish-English bilingual women reported hearing from more information sources than any other group, suggesting they acted as social connectors behind the massive participation. Fourth, we confirm the importance of Spanish-language radio as an information source, but our data also point to the significance of television and English-language radio. Finally, analyzing data of first-time protesters, we estimate the immigrant rights marches newly politicized 125,000 people in Los Angeles who spoke Spanish and not English. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study compares urban landscapes in the Portland and Los Angeles metropolitan areas at the neighbourhood level by operationalising six smart growth indices and mapping their spatial distribution patterns and time trends. Analysis results show that the two metropolitan areas have both strengths and weaknesses in different aspects of smart growth. Most neighbourhoods in both regions do not excel in all six smart growth measures: they are at the high ends of some smart growth indices but at the low ends of others. Some smart growth features such as mixed land use and mixed housing are already pervasive in suburban areas. Density in some mature suburban neighbourhoods is also relatively high. A large number of neighbourhoods in suburban and exurban areas exhibit high levels of socioeconomic diversity. Time trend analyses suggest that in both regions, older neighbourhoods tend to be ‘smarter’ than newer ones, except for racial/ethnic diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the influence of immigrant activism in the progressivism landscape of Los Angeles, California, where they were able to establish racial lines for community benefits agreements, job training programs and transit justice. Topics discussed include the influence of the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 on the city's political landscape, how the city's most undocumented immigrant workforce changed worker's living standard and the impact of the city's Proposition 187 on its immigrants, as well as inspirations it ignited that led to the city's progressive activism.

An essay is presented concerning the significance of the Los Angeles, California, Thai Theravada Buddhist temple known as Wat Thai and the suburban culture of Thai Americans in the east San Fernando Valley, California. It examines the concept of the Thai American ideal and suburban culture, Thai American cultural practices at Wat Thai and suburban culture, and the significance of such cross-culturalism upon democracy and inclusiveness. It also discusses zoning conflicts surrounding Wat Thai.

Based on over four years of ethnographic research among street vendors in Los Angeles and on interviews with family members of vendors and former vendors living in Mexico, this article examines the influence of a sending community and its social networks on migrant outcomes in the USA. These social networks affect migration patterns, ease entry into the fruit-vending business but also facilitate exploitation. Furthermore, these social networks do not always function as effective conduits of information because its members, due to feelings of shame or embarrassment, often fail to add to the existing body of knowledge. As a result, international migration patterns, job placement and exploitative practices do not change or improve for subsequent migrants. This creates a cycle in which social networks become stagnant and successively fail to function as effective conduits of information and resources in ways that might help network members equally and in the aggregate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]