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Like many researchers in other areas of the social and behavioural sciences, scholars in occupational health psychology (OHP) often rely on cross-sectional survey designs when addressing the issues...

Most existing safety research focuses on climate and leadership, with most leadership studies investigating transformational leadership, which is likely to be more impactful when exhibited by execu...

Physician communication surrounding vaccination is important in driving patient compliance with schedules and recommendations, but patient psychological factors suggest that communication strategies may have differential effects on patients. This paper investigates how psychological reactance, defined as an individuals' propensity to restore their autonomy when they perceive that others are trying to impose their will on them, impacts perceptions about physician communication and perceptions and prioritizations of vaccination. We propose and describe the results of a study that was conducted to assess the relationship between individual differences in reactance, perceived quality of pediatrician communication, perceptions of vaccination safety, and vaccination prioritization using a sample of parents. We recruited 300 parent participants via the online platform Prolific Academic in which they completed a computer-mediated survey. Results show that compared to those who are low in psychological reactance, those high in psychological reactance place less of a priority on vaccination, and that this relationship is driven by evaluations of physician communication quality and perceived vaccine safety. Our findings suggest that physicians should not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach when interacting with patients and should tailor messaging to patients based on psychological factors including reactance.

This paper builds a theoretical model and decision-making flow chart for optimizing the integration of knowledge from individuals to units, and predicting when the desired integration process will ...

In the Spring 2017 semester, an instructional designer, a writing center coordinator, and a director of distance library services initiated a pilot project for a seven-campus, eight-satellite cente...

The current study examined passive leadership as a potential antecedent of two commonly studied workplace stressors (i.e. workload and work–family conflict), and investigated its negative effect on employee burnout and physical symptoms via these stressors. We collected two waves of data from 274 focal participants, and one wave of data from their co-workers. Results showed that both self-reported and co-worker-reported passive leadership was positively related to employee burnout and physical symptoms, as well as workload and work–family conflict. Additionally, workload and work–family conflict partially mediated the effects of passive leadership on burnout and physical symptoms, respectively. Our findings support the notion that passive leadership can create a stressful workplace and have a detrimental effect on employees’ health.

Health geography is the application of spatial information, perspectives, and methods to the study of health, disease, and medical care. This subfield of geography frequently examines spatial phenomena such as the spread of disease, the accessibility of clean water, and the availability of healthy grocery stores. Also of special interest to health geographers is the accessibility of hospitals and urgent care centers relative to the distribution of a place's population. In particular, hospital emergency departments play significant roles in the communities they serve. This article provides a first analysis of emergency department usage in St. Clair County, Illinois. This sizable southwestern Illinois county is home to three hospitals and within half an hour of a multitude of greater St. Louis area hospitals. By analyzing hospital discharge data using R and geographic information systems, we reveal the most frequently utilized hospitals, show the variation of hospital choice across the county, and describe ...

Like the figurative apple for the teacher, the tomato is a well-known food symbol representing a variety of cuisines. We drew on current scientific research and partnerships with classroom teachers to develop a case study activity consisting of four layers to teach concepts of plant biology and genetics to middle and high school students. The goal was to engage students in conversations about plants, their characteristics, functions, and genetic diversity that result in the variety of tomato shapes and sizes you find in the grocery store. Students were given a scenario in which both red and green tomato fruits are found in a local garden. They are taken through four layers that encourage them to consider possible environmental and biological factors that account for the differences in fruit color. Progressing from a review of basic anatomy to the design and execution of Punnett squares to an exploration of the other variations found across tomatoes, such as taste in a taste-testing exercise, stud...

Librarians employed student assistants and tasked them with the mission of creating library instruction video tutorials for their fellow digital natives. This article describes the benefits of peer instruction and learning within a participatory culture, a culture in which students are not only consumers of content but also creators. It also covers how a university library used these tutorials to teach first-year common experience courses and surveyed 200 students from these courses about their knowledge and comfort levels with specific library services after viewing the videos.

Although studies have found that personality variables moderate the relationship between stressors and counterproductive work behaviour, few have examined the role of narcissism and those that did have found inconsistent results. Using a sample of 515 United States employees, we found that narcissism moderated the relationships between interpersonal conflict at work and counterproductive work behaviours directed at others, and between organizational constraints and counterproductive work behaviours directed at the organization, making both relationships stronger for those high on narcissism. We also found that narcissism moderated the relationship between organizational constraints and counterproductive work behaviours directed at others. Further, we demonstrated that the grandiose exhibitionism facet of narcissism moderated these same stressor–counterproductive work behaviours relationships, whereas the facets of leadership/authority and entitlement/exploitiveness did not. Our study indicates that organi...

Recent years have seen a proliferation of short-term study abroad opportunities. Although they are both supplementing and replacing semester-long study abroad programs, research has focused primarily on semester (long-term) programs. We draw on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explore factors that predict why students choose long-term and short-term programs. Results indicate that students perceive more social pressure to engage in short-term programs, and higher barriers limiting participation in long-term programs. All TPB factors significantly predicted students' intentions to study abroad in both short-term and long-term programs with one exception; perceived behavioral control did not significantly predict intentions to participate in short-term programs. These findings can be used to improve marketing of short-term and long-term programs by addressing student concerns specific to each type of program, potentially increasing the number of students choosing to study abroad.

Project design and implementation, applied to real life situations, is emerging as an educational strategy for application of health professions faculty development learning within a supportive environment.We conducted a retrospective analysis of project evolution to identify common experiences, challenges, and successful strategies of 54 mid-career faculty members from 18 developing countries who attended the Foundation for the Advancement of International Medical Education and Research Institute between 2001 and 2006 and designed, conducted, and evaluated education innovations at their home institutions.Chronological analysis of the evolution of 54 projects over the initial 16-18 months of the 2-year Fellowship was based on an iterative qualitative analysis of 324 reports and individual interview transcripts collected over 6 years.Useful skill areas for project implementation included educational methods, leadership and management, and relationships/collaboration. Common challenges included competing responsibilities, lack of protected time, and limited resources. Themes identified with the evolution and success of education innovation projects included leadership and organization, collaboration, personal professional growth, and awareness of the relevant societal context.Common challenges and success factors in project-based faculty development were identified. Twelve practical strategies to promote successful project-based faculty development emerged that can be generalized for faculty development.

Interleukin-21 (IL-21) is a type I four-helical bundle cytokine that exerts a variety of significant effects on many hematopoietic cells, including T and B lymphocytes and natural killer cells. IL-21 is produced predominantly by CD4+ T cells and natural killer T cells and, when aberrantly overexpressed, appears to play important roles in a wide variety of autoimmune disorders. To generate potential therapeutic reagents capable of inhibiting IL-21 for clinical use, we immunized human immunoglobulin transgenic mice with IL-21 and then identified and cloned a panel of human anti-human IL-21 binding monoclonal antibodies. IL-21 neutralizing and IL-21-binding, non-neutralizing antibodies were assigned to distinct epitope "bins" based on surface plasmon resonance competition studies. The most potent neutralizing antibodies had extremely high (sub pM) affinity for IL-21 and were able to block IL-21 activity in various biological assays using either an IL-21R-transfected pre-B-cell line or primary human B cells, and their neutralizing activity was, in some cases, superior to that of a soluble form of the high affinity heterodimeric IL-21 receptor. Characterization of this panel of IL-21 antibodies provided the basis for the selection of a therapeutic candidate antibody capable of inhibiting IL-21 activity for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

Projects are an important tool in faculty development, and project emphasis may offer insights into perceived education priorities. Impact of projects has been focused on individuals, not institutions or health.Education innovation projects of Fellows in an international faculty development program were examined to better understand perceived needs in health professions education and institutional impact of projects.Four hundred and thirty-five projects were analyzed to identify focus areas. Fellows were asked to identify changes in their schools and communities resulting from their projects.New education methods and curriculum change were common project focus areas. Regional differences were evident with a higher percentage of education methods projects by Fellows residing in India (52%), compared with South Africa (25%) and Brazil (24%). Fifty-six percent of projects were incorporated into the curriculum and/or incorporated as institutional policy. One-third to two-thirds of respondents noted improved teaching quality, collaboration, education research interest, assessment, student performance, and curriculum alignment with community health needs.National differences in project focus may offer insight into local conditions and needs. High rates of diffusion of projects and impact on faculty, students, and curriculum suggest that faculty development projects may be a strategy for institutional change in resource limited environments.

In this study, the relationships among boredom proneness, job boredom, and counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) were examined. Boredom proneness consists of several factors, which include external stimulation and internal stimulation. Given the strong relationships between both the external stimulation factor of boredom proneness (BP-ext) and anger as well as the strong relationship between trait anger and CWB, we hypothesized that examining BP-ext would help us to better understand why employees commit CWB. Five types of CWB have previously been described: abuse against others, production deviance, sabotage, withdrawal and theft. To those we added a sixth, horseplay. Using responses received from 211 participants who were recruited by email from throughout North America (112 of them matched with co-workers), we found support for our central premise. Indeed, both BP-ext and job boredom showed significant relationships with various types of CWB. The boredom proneness factor also moderated the relationshi...

As health care moves from the acute care environment to the community environment, innovative methods are needed to prepare future clinicians. Allied health professionals need to work with one another and, therefore, be familiar with other disciplines. To address the gap in interprofessional allied health education nursing and social work, colleagues from 2 universities developed interdisciplinary health fairs that addressed the needs of 2 community senior centers as a service-learning project for their geriatric courses. All health fair stations were designed, implemented, and evaluted by students, with faculty supervision. Following the health fairs, students completed an adaptation of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS; McFayden et al., 2005: Parsell & Bligh, 1999) and open-ended questions about their interpropfessional experience. Results of this questionnaire will be presented. Service-learning projects as a teaching methodology will also be discussed.

While there are many examples of evaluations of faculty development programs in resource rich countries, evaluation of transnational programs for faculty from developing countries is limited. We describe evaluation of the effects of the FAIMER Institute, an international health professions education fellowship that incorporates not only education content, but also leadership and management topics and, in addition, strives to develop a sustained community of educators. Data were obtained via retrospective pre/post surveys, as well as interviews. Results indicate that participating health professions faculty from developing countries are augmenting their knowledge and skills in education leadership, management, and methodology, and applying that knowledge at their home institutions. Fellows' perceptions of importance of, and their own competence in, all curriculum theme areas increased. Interviews confirmed a nearly universal gain of at least one leadership skill. Findings suggest that the high-engagement experience of the FAIMER model offering integration of education and leadership/management tools necessary to implement change, provides knowledge and skills which are useful across cultural and national contexts and results in the development of a supportive, global, professional network.

It has been widely documented that grandparent caregivers are at risk for serious physical health problems. This study presents a picture of grandparent caregivers' health and prescription medication adherence. A total of 103 grandparent caregivers were interviewed about their physical and mental health and prescription medication usage. Over 55% of the participants reported having 3 or more health problems. Forty-five percent of the grandparents were taking 5 or more medications, and 41% of the participants did not know why they were taking a prescribed medication. Increased numbers of health problems was significantly related to increased risk of medication-related problems. There was strong evidence that participants were experiencing difficulty managing their medications, which can negatively impact their health.

SUMMARY Although grandparent caregiving is not a new phenomenon in the United States, there has been a dramatic increase in grandparent-headed households in the last two decades. Many of these care providers are older and feel somewhat unprepared to raise a new generation of children. As a result, grandparent caregivers are at risk for multiple physical, mental, and emotional problems due to the stresses and strains of care provision. This article summarizes characteristics of grandparent caregivers in our society, the challenges that they face, and how organizations are attempting to assist these older adults with their care provision responsibilities. Recommendations for future research and intervention design will also be discussed.

Older persons are living longer and healthier and, thus, are capable of being more productive and less dependent. Despite this trend, young people persistently hold the age-old negative stereotypes about older persons. The goals of this study were to develop a valid, reliable measure of social values of older people and to assess its utility as predictor to career choice by social work students. The data were collected from 204 social work students enrolled in a southeastern university. Based on the original 13-item aging opinion instrument (Kafer, Rakowski, & Lachman, 1980), the social values of older people (SVOP) scale was modified by changing linguistic expression and adding several items relevant to social value of older people. At the initial screening stage, the internal consistency of the newly created 20-items SVOP scale was found to be acceptable (alpha = .80). But, item analyses identified several deviant items to the overall scale. The exploratory factor analysis with trimmed 16 items produced...

The purpose of this article is to explore the current and developing grandparent caregiver housing programs throughout the United States. Telephone interviews were conducted with eight current and proposed sites for grandparent and/or relative caregivers throughout the United States. Housing design, funding sources, referral sources, service provided, and rules and regulations of the housing programs were discussed. Funding, education, and advocacy appeared crucial to helping these families provide safe homes for the children in their care. Recommendations are made for social workers and grandparent caregivers to lobby legislators for increases in funding for programs nationwide to ensure all grandparent families have safe, affordable and accessible housing.

This mixed methodology study examines the perceptions of key constituents regarding methods for effectively integrating aging content into the foundation curriculum of the BSW and MSW program at the University of Georgia School of Social Work. Students were asked to complete a survey to determine their perception of geriatric content that existed within the foundation coursework. Following an analysis of the survey results, eight semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted with a purposeful sample of students, faculty, field instructors, social work alumni, older adults from the community, and representatives from aging agencies. The intention of these focus groups was to find out what aging content should be infused within the curriculum. The focus group meetings were held in various locations throughout Northeast Georgia and in one remote location in South Georgia. Participants were interviewed about the necessary skills and knowledge for social workers practicing with an aging population in the areas of: essential intervention skills, program policies and regulations, critical information needed to develop client service plans, strategies for addressing service delivery fragmentation, and community collaboration to support intergenerational family needs. The results of this study will be discussed to provide suggestions on how existing foundation courses can integrate aging content.

The purpose of this study is to identify characteristics that would increase the likelihood that a Korean older adult with dementia being cared for by a family caregiver is at risk of being abused. This analysis was based on a sample of 481 primary family caregivers from the data of Comprehensive Study for the Elderly Welfare Policy in Seoul (2003). Multiple regression analysis was used to examine predictors among the demographic characteristics of caregivers and care recipients, the severity of cognitive impairment, functional ability, caregiver burden, and social support for the degree of elder abuse. The degree of elder abuse was significantly associated with caregiver burden, mental impairment, dependency of daily living of care recipient, and use of formal services.

The number of grandparents who are raising grandchildren has risen dramatically as the result of several social trends. Within this article, diversity aspects of this population are explored including characteristics of the grandparents and grandchildren. In addition, support groups, the primary intervention for custodial grandparents, are overviewed with specific attention to models that have relevance for subpopulations of care providers. Finally, child welfare and kinship care policies are examined and critiqued from a diversity perspective.

The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine the impact of a job-training program, the Georgia Fatherhood Program (GFP), on the employment levels and wages of low-income, noncustodial parents. A pretest/posttest design was created to compare GFP participants to a similar comparison group. The results of the research indicate that GFP participants experienced a significant increase in employment, and gained wages similar to the employed comparison group. However, repeated measures analysis revealed that previously employed GFP participants did not significantly increase their wages. The data suggest that the job-training program may be most beneficial to those individuals who are unemployedat the timeof enrollment. Recommendations for future research are presented.

Estimates are that one in ten grandparents will take on the role of primary carer to a grandchild for at least six months before the child is age 18, including a child with a developmental delay or disability. This article reviews the current literature on grandparent caregiving with particular attention to African-American grandmother carers and discusses stressors and reports of elevated symptoms of depression among them. The demographics of a sample of 145 African-American grandmothers of children with a developmental disability are reported here as well as the result of a logistic regression analysis of a model of predictors of elevated (above a score of 16 on the CES-D) symptoms of depression. Being younger than age 60, not working outside of the home, not being married, and having no further than secondary school education, were all found to be significant predictors of elevated symptoms of depression in this sample of African-American grandmothers. Interventions for this group of carers mu...

Summary Using an informal data capture technique, 164 grandparents caring for 208 children with developmental delay or diagnosed disabilities were surveyed in New York City to determine their health status, emotional state, use of formal and informal services, and general life situation. The vast majority of grandparents were female (96%) and African-American (80%). Their ages ranged from 40 to 82. Generally they had cared for at least one grandchild for an average of seven years. The data showed that for these grandparents (1) caregiving was an all-consuming role, (2) their lives were fraught with uncertainty and they could not access sufficient formal and informal supports, and (3) they were constantly worried about the future.

Summary Kinship foster care programs are designed to address the needs of relatives, usually grandparents, who have taken in children who have been removed from their homes voluntarily, or following a substantiated report of neglect and/or abuse. The author reviews the history of kinship foster care nationally and examines related research. Reported are findings on a survey of kinship foster care programs nationwide and from qualitative interviews with nine grandmothers from New York City who were kinship foster care providers. Particular attention was paid in these surveys to the impact of kinship foster care on families caring for children with disabilities.