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Parents and preschool teachers play a key role in shaping children's dietary behaviors. Knowledge of nutrition and healthy dietary choices is a key component to improve dietary habits and reduce the prevalence of obesity and associated co-morbidities. Using valid and reliable instruments is necessary for accurate assessment of knowledge to tailor interventions and measure effectiveness specific to the population of interest. The objectives of this paper are to (1) identify potential gaps in the baseline nutrition knowledge among parents and teachers using a previously validated questionnaire prior to a preschool obesity prevention intervention; and (2) assess the instrument's reliability and construct validity for a low socioeconomic status population using a post hoc Rasch analysis. Participants included 177 parents and 75 teachers who participated in a Head Start intervention study. Knowledge scores, instrument reliability, and item fit and difficulty were assessed using a Rasch analysis; t-tests were used to determine differences in scores between parents and teachers. Parents answered 38% of questions correctly while teachers correctly answered 46% of the questions. Adequate item fit and reliability were indicated for Sections 1 and 2 of the Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire (NKQ). Section 3 demonstrated less adequate reliability. The items were found to adequately and reliably define the unidimensional measures of the three components of knowledge represented in this instrument, providing evidence of construct validity. However, Rasch measures indicated the NKQ overall was difficult for participants. Recommendations for improving the instrument for nutrition education/intervention and research practice areas related to obesity and obesity-related conditions are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background.: The purpose of this study was to collect updated school food service purchasing practices from K-12 public school food service directors (SFSD) in Mississippi and to determine their current abilities, experiences, and desires to engage in Farm to School (F2S) activities. Methods.: The online survey was created using questionnaire items from existing F2S surveys. The survey opened in October 2021 and closed in January 2022. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. Results.: Of the 173 SFSD sent email invitations, 122 (71%) completed the survey. The most common fresh fruit and vegetable purchasing practices included Department of Defense Fresh Program (65%) and produce vendor (64%). Forty-three percent of SFSD purchased at least one locally sourced fruit and 40% purchased at least one locally sourced vegetable, while 46% did not purchase any locally sourced foods. The most common challenges for purchasing from farmers included no relationship with farmers (50%) and food safety regulations (39%). Sixty-four percent of SFSD were interested in at least one F2S activity. Conclusions.: Most SFSD do not purchase local foods directly from farmers and almost half do not purchase any local foods regardless of source. Lack of connection with local farmers is a significant challenge to F2S. Recently proposed framework by USDA for shoring up the food supply chain and transforming the food system may help reduce or remove ongoing challenges to F2S participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A community’s health can be enhanced through access to healthy eating and active living which, in turn, can be supported through the built environment. While local and state governments have taken active steps toward promoting healthy communities, efforts of encouraging healthy eating and active living have not reached their full potential. The state of Mississippi is known as “the fattest state” in the United States and one of the factors that has led to such a classification is related to the way development occurs throughout the state. Drawing on a case study approach, the purpose of this study is to describe how local policy efforts can influence the potential for healthy eating and active living in the state of Mississippi. The paper examines the content of existing municipal comprehensive plans in terms of goals, objectives and policies related to healthy eating and active living over a 15-year time-frame (2000 - 2015). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cotton offers next-to-skin comfort and hence is a preferred fiber for undergarments. There have been a number of studies on the effect of different fiber types, fabric structure, fabric finishes, etc. on the moisture vapor transport properties. However, there has been no report in the public domain on the relationship between cotton varieties on the moisture vapor transport characteristics of fabrics produced from them. The study reported in this paper focuses on the moisture vapor transport properties (MVTR) of cotton fabrics knitted from 31 different cotton fibers with different pedigrees grown over a three-year period in three major cotton growing regions of US, Southwest (Texas), Mid-South (Mississippi) and Southeast (Georgia). Results indicate that cotton varieties influence the MVTR of knitted fabrics produced from them. This study, for the first time has attempted to link varietal effects on the most important property of cotton--breathability quantified using MVTR. Preliminary analysis indicates a relationship between the basic sugar content such as verbascose of cotton and its moisture vapor transport. However this result has to be followed up with a thorough study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 1964, several civil rights organizations, led by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), formed a coalition and conducted a voter registration and educational program in Mississippi which was originally called the Summer Project but became known later as Freedom Summer. Continuing the civil tights work that preceded ii, Freedom Summer was distinguished by its organized, state-wide, and highly public attempt to promote its three-pronged educational program of Freedom Schools, community centers, and voter registration and by the recruitment of sez4eral hundred out-of-state student volunteers to implement the program. Adult education played a critical role in the schools, the centers; and the voter registration work and included literacy education, practical skills, and political awareness. Paulo Freire's work in adult education in Brazil and his paradigm of critical consciousness provide an Intriguing historical parallel as well as a useful theoretical frame from which to analyze the adult education component of the Summer Project. Confronted with verbal, legal, and sometimes violent hostility, Freedom Summer sought to use education and moral suasion to give democracy and citizenship a more genuine meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an investigation of communication behavior in a "natural" social system the white adult community in a Mississippi town of 5,000 population, called Bakerville in this report. The study was directed at the general question of who talks to whom about specific community problems and projects. The present paper, however, deals with only one aspect of this problem: how persons who report a variety of communication contacts differ from those who report few or no contacts. To examine the relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and other variables the sample has been dichotomized into high communicators and low communicators. Operationally defined, high communicators are those who report talking to three or more different persons about community problems; low communicators, those who report talking to fewer than three persons. "Positional" Factors. The relationship between extensiveness of communication contacts and position in the social structure was in part investigated in the present study by comparing the social status of high and low communicators. Index of Status Characteristics (ISC) was used as a convenient method for estimating the social position of members of the sample.

Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi Governor's Commission for Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal collaborated with the Congress for the New Urbanism to generate rebuilding proposals for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. One of the ideas generated from this partnership was the Katrina Cottage--a small home that could serve as an alternative to the FEMA Trailer. The State of Mississippi participated in the Pilot Alternative Temporary Housing (PATH) program, which was funded by the U.S. Congress. This study examines how local governments and residents responded to the Mississippi Cottage Program. This study finds that while the Mississippi Cottage program did provide citizens with needed housing following Hurricane Katrina, there are significant policy and implementation challenges that should be addressed before future disasters. The paper concludes by offering recommendations on how communities across can prepare to provide temporary housing in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper proposes an analytical approach to the assessment of geographic population health disparities that are measured as the consolidation of public health related indicators into geographic-specific scores, and are representative of the level of public health capability within counties in the state of Mississippi. Study Design: A multi-criteria decision model was employed to develop an additive scoring system that assigns a numerical score of public health capability disparities for a geographical area (county). Methods: Routinely collected indicators were used to measure each county's current public health related concerns. These indicators include access, risks, health care quality, and outcomes data. Public health experts rated and ranked indicators to generate indicator weight. Results: A county score was developed to rank Mississippi counties based on relative public health capability. This scoring system depicts population health disparities among Mississippi counties. Conclusions: The model is useful and ideal for establishing expectations and benchmarks for reduction or equalization of disparities. This information can be used to manage geographic population health disparities by guiding policy formulation and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hurricane Katrina caused the worst hurricane damage ever seen on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Immediately following the hurricane, the Mississippi Governor ~s' Commission for Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal provided teams of planners and designers to work with communities along the coast to prepare rebuilding plans. The initial plans have been followed up with further long-range planning. This paper examines the degree to which hazard mitigation has been incorporated into the long- range plans developed in the communities along the coast in Harrison County, Mississippi, 18 months after Katrina. It finds that hazard mitigation has been significantly integrated into some community plans, whereas in other cases it has been ignored. Although the literature suggests that immediate experience with a natural disaster should increase citizen and local government response to disaster mitigation, this study found that the degree of storm surge inundation did not have a significant impact on whether communities integrated hazard mitigation measures into their plans. The paper concludes by offering recommendations on how these communities can improve their plans relative to hazard mitigation measures as they move into their next phase of long- range planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term individual recovery from a catastrophic event involves the restoration of critical lifelines such as housing and employment as well as social and emotional well-being, particularly for displaced and highly traumatized populations. One strategy for measuring recovery over time involves a longitudinal observational cohort. This analysis examines the cost and effort involved in developing and maintaining a longitudinal cohort. The Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study recruited 1,079 randomly sampled individuals in Louisiana and Mississippi within months after Hurricane Katrina and followed them for 13 years. Participants in the study were interviewed in person five times over the study period. Despite the challenges involved in maintaining a transient and economically vulnerable study cohort, 80.4 percent of all eligible participants were surveyed at the fifth time point, over a decade after the event. At each round of data collection, the refusal rate ranged from less than 1 percent to 3.3 percent. Reasons for non-participation included institutional inaccessibility for those who were incarcerated, in treatment programs, or in nursing homes. Physical and mental health issues which precluded participation included cognitive decline and significant loss of function. Other participants were lost to follow-up or death. At the final round of face-to-face interviewing in 2018, the average field cost per survey was $353.27, not including a respondent incentive of $50, and required an average of 15.74 hours per case to complete. This report describes the strategies employed to maintain such a long-term disaster cohort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on rural gangs in America has found these groups not only to be relatively transitory in nature but also forming during periods of economic recovery. This qualitative study focuses on a community within the impoverished rural Mississippi Delta with an extended history of institutionalized Black gangs with ties to national gang nations. Through in-depth interviews with incarcerated members of the community, many of whom have/had gang ties, we seek to understand the unique conditions that fostered these non-traditional rural gangs. More specifically, we critically examine the relationship between social and structural factors that affected the origins, processes, and persistence of gangs in the area. Our findings highlight the social dislocations influenced by state-abandoned responsibilities and the corresponding adaptations by gangs and their members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on archival research and in-depth interviews conducted from 1999 through 2007, this article examines the role of Tougaloo College's Social Science Forums as a prefigurative collective free space in Mississippi's civil rights struggles. These Forums offered White and Black integrationists a unique opportunity to come together to hear lectures and discuss provocative ideas, some of which informed and inspired challenges to the state's system of White supremacy. By providing a location where integrationist networks and ideas were established and developed, the Forums helped to sow the seeds of discontent for challenges off campus and offered an interracial microcosm of the world that the Southern civil rights movement was trying to achieve. The article sheds light on specific ways an on-campus free space at a private Black Southern college fostered and mobilized oppositional ideas, interracial networks, and practices prior to and during the development of the Mississippi civil rights movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses the specific problems and opportunities related to health and economics in the Delta Region of Mississippi. He refers to authors Arthur Cosby and Diana Bowser, saying that the disparities in health have developed and not reduced despite the growth in the economics of the region. He suggests that the region's initiatives to such disparities must prevent factors including the lack of local support, minute concentration, and undercapitalization.

This study of the Mississippi civil rights movement and the War on Poverty examines the relationship between social movements and policy implementation. A "movement infrastructure" model is developed that focuses on organizational structure, resources, and leadership to account for the impact of social movements on policy implementation. A two-tiered research design is employed that includes (1) a quantitative analysis of poverty programs in Mississippi counties from 1965 to 1971, and (2) case studies that show the complex interaction between the civil rights movement, resistance by whites, local powerholders, and federal agencies. The quantitative analysis shows that counties with strong movement infrastructures generated greater funding for Community Action Programs. The case studies show that movements were excluded from the initial formation of these programs as local whites attempted to preempt civil rights activists. However, in counties with strong movement infrastructures, activists were able to gain access to decision-making bodies and shape the content of poverty programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the relationship between social movements and political outcomes. I begin by assessing the existing social movement literature and identifying key areas in which further theoretical development and additional empirical research will advance current knowledge. Building on the issues raised by this assessment, I examine the civil rights movement in Mississippi from the period of widespread mobilization in the early 1960s through the early 1980s. Specifically, I examine the impacts of local movements on four political outcomes: (1) number of Black voters registered, (2) votes cast for Black candidates in statewide elections, (3) the number of Black candidates running for office in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and (4) the number of Black elected officials. The strategies used by Whites to defeat or minimize the impact of the movement are critical pieces of the analysis. The evidence indicates that local movements have continued to play a central, though complex, role in the transformation of local politics long after the civil rights movement peaked. This suggests that, while mobilization plays a key role in the short run, its long-term consequences must be considered as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses how race and sex act to determine the educational performance and career aspirations of over 3,000 students enrolled in 23 public schools in Mississippi. The data, collected in 1972, pertain to the schooling experiences of small town and rural students. The results strongly support the conclusions of Wisconsin researchers and others concerning the dynamics of early achievement processes for whites. Moreover, we find that even as of 1972 social origins, academic aptitude, and academic performance facilitated or retarded subsequent interpersonal and aspirational outcomes differently for whites of the two sexes. The Wisconsin model, moreover, yields much poorer explanations of "ambition" among blacks of both sexes and sex differences among blacks are smaller than they are for whites. A major difference by race is that career expectations of blacks depend less on status origins than those of whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a movement to promote naloxone adoption by law enforcement and other stakeholders in the state of Mississippi. The purpose of this study is to understand how local media are framing the conversation about naloxone products, and to better understand how it might affect naloxone adoption among law enforcement. We searched for news articles published in Mississippi from January 2012 to July 2018 mentioning the words Narcan® and/or naloxone. Four main themes emerged from 25 articles: (a) positive and informative discussion of naloxone, (b) full articles persuading readers to use and/or advocate the use of naloxone, (c) government or organizational effort to increase the availability and use of naloxone products, and (d) negative or misleading information about naloxone. Better efforts to disseminate correct and persuasive information about the drug will have a profound and positive effect on the opioid epidemic in Mississippi and in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The act of lynching in the United States was in fact a form of domestic terrorism perpetrated against darker-skinned Americans. Historians have been pressed to acknowledge the lynching of African-Americans particularly in the Bible-belt South in such states as Mississippi and Alabama. The history of Mexican-Americans lynched by Anglo mobs has been for the most part, ignored by Western historians. Said ignored transgressions occurred frequently in border-states including Texas. Approximately 40 years before the lynching of 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till was the lynching of 14-year-old Mexican-American Antonio Gómez. Both were boys accused of Anglo disrespect. Buried in historical archives, the lynching of Gómez was a Mexican-American manifestation of Anglo colorism. Once informed, social scientists and the U.S. society at-large must then readily admit they lynched Mexican-Americans too! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offers information on the upcoming Shea-Pulec-Silverstein International Workshop in Otology in February 2001 in Tunica, Mississippi. Subjects to be discussed at the workshop; History of the workshop.

Adolescence, a critical and rapid stage of human development, requires innovative approaches in the provision of health care. With considerable mental health issues occurring among adolescents, an urgent need exists to address their mental and behavioral health. School-based health centers can provide an important safety net, particularly for young people who lack access to comprehensive and behavioral health care. We describe the design and implementation of behavioral health assessment, screening, and treatment services in a primary care school-based health center. We reviewed primary care and behavioral health measures as well as the challenges and lessons learned of this process. Five hundred and thirteen adolescents and young adults aged 14-19 years from an inner-city high school in South Mississippi were screened for behavioral health issues from January 2018 through March 2020, and all 133 adolescents deemed at risk for behavioral health issues received comprehensive health care. Lessons learned included the importance of recruiting behavioral health providers to ensure sufficient staff, establishing academic–practice arrangements to ensure funding, increasing student enrollment by improving the return rate of consent for care, and enhancing data collection through process automation. This case study may help inform the design and implementation of integrated primary and behavioral health care in school-based health centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust in one’s health care provider, trust in the health care system in general, and even trust in one’s community affects engagement in HIV-related health care. This article examines the issue of trust among a random sample of HIV-infected individuals residing in Mississippi, an area hard-hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Five constructs based on survey responses from these individuals were developed: (1) trust in one’s provider to offer the best possible medical care, (2) trust in one’s provider to protect patient privacy, (3) willingness to disclose HIV status to one’s provider, (4) trust in the health care system, and (5) trust in one’s community. Findings suggest that interventions to improve trust in providers to deliver the highest quality of care should be targeted to young people, African Americans, and the more highly educated. Interventions to increase trust in providers to protect privacy should focus on creating and strengthening social support groups or networks that build relationships and foster trust. Interventions aimed to increase community trust also should be targeted to young people. This information is useful to researchers, policy makers, health care providers, and organizations interested in prioritizing interventions and strategies that have the greatest potential to reduce health disparities in HIV diagnosis and treatment in the Deep South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 19th century, sublime depictions of North American mounds captivated Euro-American colonists and Romantic travelers. Settlers frequently embedded farms and homesteads into the material fabric of these Indigenous ruins across the American Bottom region and surrounding uplands, uncovering traces of antiquity in the process. Focusing on the Emerald mound site and broader mound discourses, I examine how material intimacies underlying this 19th-century phenomenon periodically corrupted Romantic sensibilities. Specifically, I highlight aspects of archival and spatial data that capture fleeting moments when mound intercourse generated uncanny affects and queer temporalities. I argue that in moments when uncanny affects haunted colonial homes, Indigenous histories queered the tense of settler colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, historians of cartography have resituated the map as a form of discourse that contains power, rhetoric, and value. Unlike the critical investigations into Euro-American maps, however, explorations of Native maps have remained positivist activities: attempts to find “authentic” Indian world-views. It has become a truism that Indian understanding and depictions of place were incompatible with cartographic representations of the expanding American state. In this interpretation, the creation and circulation of a map of America inherently meant the erasure of indigenous ways of understanding their place—literally—in the geographic creation of the American republic. Yet for much of the nineteenth century, nothing in the process of mapping the expanding American state inherently excluded Native people. This article argues that Indian names and naming practices were essential to the cartographic creation of the American west. By analyzing the toponyms inscribed on what a specialist for cartographic history at the Library of Congress has called the “most important map of the American West prior to the Civil War”, this article will demonstrate how this essential process of state-building was a reflection of both Euro and Native American mapping practices and typified the syncretic nature of how the American West was mapped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed the effects of a 6-month, church-based, diet and supervised physical activity intervention, conducted between 2011 and 2012, on improving diet quality and increasing physical activity of Southern, African American adults. Using a quasi-experimental design, eight self-selected, eligible churches were assigned to intervention or control. Assessments included dietary, physical activity, anthropometric, and clinical measures. Mixed model regression analysis and McNemar’s test were used to determine if within and between group differences were significant. Cohen’s d effect sizes for selected outcomes also were computed and compared with an earlier, lower dose intervention. Retention rates were 84% (102/122) for control and 76% (219/287) for intervention participants. Diet quality components, including fruits, vegetables, discretionary calories, and total quality, improved significantly in the intervention group. Strength/flexibility physical activity also increased in the intervention group, while both aerobic and strength/flexibility physical activity significantly decreased in the control group. Effect sizes for selected health outcomes were larger in the current intervention as compared to an earlier, less intense iteration of the study. Results suggest that more frequent education sessions as well as supervised group physical activity may be key components to increasing the efficacy of behavioral lifestyle interventions in rural, Southern, African American adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complementarity of livability and sustainability at a theoretical level but recognizes that linkage in practice is complex. Connection between these concepts is examined through the analysis of comprehensive plans in fourteen jurisdictions in the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where a federally funded regional planning process was initiated to create “livable sustainability.” Results show variation in local plan compliance with the livable sustainability guidelines in the region, with particular challenge integrating nontraditional planning concerns. Attention to issues of scale, context, and potential to enable change will help planners promote long-term sustainability while recognizing local livability preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using funds provided by the Ryan White Care Act, we conducted a statewide needs assessment of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Mississippi as required by provisions of the Act. Most published research addressing access to care for PLWHA is based on convenience samples of persons already accessing care in specified clinic locations. For this study of a single state with a well-established mandatory reporting system, we conducted a cross-sectional study interviewing a random sample of PLWHA across the state of Mississippi. The Mississippi State Department of Health has maintained the Mississippi HIV/AIDS Reporting System since its inception in 1980. The database tracks all reported cases of HIV+ cases and includes name, age, last-known address, and other contact information. The sample was selected from a frame of all recorded PLWHA in Mississippi at that time, regardless of their association with care facilities. The purpose of this article is to describe the design and methodology of this study, difficulties encountered in locating this hard-to-reach population, multimethod recruiting strategies and outcomes, and lessons learned. Locating participants using a truly random sample from a mandatory reporting database was resource intensive. However, data collected as a result of these efforts have provided invaluable information on a number of topics important to PLWHA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although recent research with the Disgust Scale–Revised (DS-R) has contributed to current knowledge regarding the structure of disgust, this line of research has exclusively employed adult samples. The current study extended existing research by examining the factor structure of the DS-R in an adolescent sample (N = 637). Exploratory factor analysis revealed three factors: Contagion, Mortality, and Contact Disgust. Subsequent to removing three items due to inadequate factor loadings, confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the 3-factor model across gender, grade level, and racial subgroups. Tests of item–intercept invariance also revealed no differences in item means across grade level. However, three and four items were associated with differences across race and gender, respectively. Latent factor means were also found to be invariant across racial groups and grade level, but not across gender. Implications of the DS-R factor structure in this adolescent sample and its domains are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comprehensive exposure-based approaches to treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are effective, but they are time intensive and not widely used because of factors such as client noncompliance and fears of iatrogenic effects. Exposure by writing disclosure (WD), modeled after Pennebaker’s brief stress-reduction procedure, may circumvent these obstacles. WD treatment reduces PTSD symptoms in trauma victims but has rarely been tested in diagnosed PTSD participants and never in substance use disorder (SUD) populations—despite high comorbidity rates. The authors applied a standard Pennebaker WD treatment for 45 SUD inpatients screened for full or subsyndromal PTSD in an uncontrolled study. Results suggested potential strong cost-effectiveness: Posttreatment outcome measures showed significant symptom reductions, which remained stable at 3-month follow-up. With converging evidence from future controlled studies, WD strategies may emerge as effective and easily implemented treatment options for PTSD in SUD treatment settings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 4 years that Michel Hersen spent at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (1970-1974) are described in this article from the viewpoint of his place in the history of the development of behavior analysis and therapy. The Department of Psychiatry at the University of Mississippi Medical Center became a leader in enhancing the role of psychologists as clinician researchers within psychiatry and applying basic findings from psychology to the bedside. A vigorous research program involving psychology residents and postdoctoral students, and psychology and psychiatry faculty emerged from this integration of science and practice. Many of the faculty members, including Michel Hersen, became leaders in the field of behavior therapy. Much of what was groundbreaking at the time is now commonplace within many medical schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African American women share the common ground of surviving in a racially stratified society. Nonetheless, the diversity of their experiences emerges. This article contrasts the lived experiences of two elderly African American daughters of the Jim Crow South. Commonly shared social markers (race, gender, and historical and regional contexts) are held in contrast to their notably different social classes. Salient features of their diverse experiences corroborate the supposition that although all African American women encounter racism, social-class differences influence how racism is experienced. Family racial socialization pathways are conceptualized as reliance on personal resources versus reliance on personal defiance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Five focus groups were conducted as part of an assessment to identify stakeholders' views of the service delivery needs of persons who are visually impaired. The analyses of the data from the focus groups were clustered into four distinct themes or concerns regarding the variability in services, outreach, transportation, and service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As prisons across the United States increasingly utilize faith-based programs under the auspices of correctional treatment, investigators have studied how these programs impact the attitudes and behaviors of inmates while in prison and after release. Little is known, however, about the ministry workers responsible for the provision of these faith-based prison programs. We address this understudied issue using the rich narratives of thirty prison chaplains and local religious congregants in Mississippi. Two overarching themes emerged from their narratives of prison ministry work. First, chaplains and local congregants have a distinctive goal orientation that discourages the creation of numeric goals for their ministry. Second, the ministry workers are careful to avoid specific denominational issues that might create barriers to inmates' religious involvement or that might create security issues. This study provides an indepth understanding of the motivations and approaches used by this understudied group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's opinion on clinical and policy issues related to mental health provision for the Iraq War and/or the recovery effort for the Mississippi Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. The military presence on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is mentioned. The author notes that many families affected by Hurricane Katrina had family members deployed to Iraq during the hurricane.

The article presents a process that allows the citizens of Delta Region in Mississippi to make a public health standard of practice and a corollary enforceable duty for public health assistance. It provides a stimulation of positive dialogue between state policy makers and the citizens on the coverage of police power authority to enhance health in the region. It examines the public health malpractice by way of an inference for medical malpractice tenets and states. It mentions that the people of a state have the right to establish an enforceable duty to represent public health officials and the arguments of the duty.

It is difficult to separate the demographic, social, and economic changes that have occurred in the Delta. The complex fabric that forms the Delta cannot be broken into parts for simple analysis. Healthcare issues cannot be separated from economic issues, and neither of these issues can be separated from social, political, and other factors of race and power that form the fabric of the Delta. While this analysis disaggregates the data into separate and distinct sections, the reader should be aware of the complex interactions of the performance measures. The clear interaction of health and economic data cannot be overstated and neither can the relationships between education, productivity, employment, income, and social progress. Health is one aspect of investing in human capital and, like education, has its support in the basic mix of public and private goods. Social goods require social investments, and public safety, education, and health are frequent exceptions to the rules of the marketplace. In many areas of the Delta, the allocation of scarce federal and state financial resources to address the problems of the Delta has served to relieve some of the region's distress. The commitment to long-term intervention has, however, varied widely over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 2005, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) was enlisted to produce rebuilding plans for eleven towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast that had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The plans they produced are microcosms of New Urbanist social doctrine: an accessible public realm, neighborhoods that are socially diverse, and walkable access to life's daily needs--design principles that are essentially aimed at promoting social equity. This article examines the rhetoric and reality of the social equity goals of the New Urbanist plans for the Mississippi Gulf Coast region. While social equity goals are both implicitly and explicitly stated and visualized throughout the plans, the realization of social equity goals will require more than physical designs. Without the policy, institutional, programmatic, and process requirements that go along with the New Urbanists' physical design proposals, the designs may lose their connection to social equity goals. Given the intensity of development pressure in the region, realization of social equity goals may require an unprecedented level of effort and commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Television news coverage of Hurricane Katrina's impact on Mississippi and New Orleans presented viewers with broadcast journalists who were on the scene but were largely left without access to traditional government sources. Through a textual analysis of transcripts of cable and network news reports, this study compares the media's performance during the six days following 29 August, 2005 to news coverage following 11 September, 2001. In this way, it interprets how and why the 11 September attacks produced a 'sphere of consensus' unifying the media and the state, while Katrina produced the opposite dynamic. Central to this analysis is the normative concept of 'media ritual', especially where the media's ritual consensus with government was 'decentered' by the federal government's de facto absence from the storm scene for that crucial week. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent involvement in teacher education policy around a proposed stand-alone phonics course in Mississippi revealed important guidelines for researchers aiming to influence policy, including (a) build relationships with policy makers; (b) help to define problems by framing issues and proactively put forth solutions rather than waiting to respond to proposals; (c) avoid dichotomization, but instead work to build common ground; and (d) use a strategy of small wins to achieve small successes, thereby learning to negotiate the policy environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a number of cities along Mississippi's Gulf Coast were forced to rebuild their communities. This article examines the disaster response efforts of these cities, led by the State of Mississippi. To address both short- and long-term recovery efforts, Mississippi leaders focused on coordinating with a renewed vision for gaming and tourism that economically supports the economy of south Mississippi. This strategy employed by Mississippi provides a useful framework that points out the importance of public leadership and vision, public input, infrastructure and economic recovery, and an intergovernmental regional recovery plan. As a result of the coordinated response, Mississippi communities have created an articulated vision for the future of their respective communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a dearth of literature documenting a relationship between old-fashioned racism and the vote for a racially conservative candidate or White opposition to various racial policies. In fact, a number of scholars have argued that a new racism has supplanted the old-fashioned racism. Analysis of a survey of college students in the state of Mississippi reveals that old-fashioned racism provides the strongest explanation of White support for the Mississippi state flag. These findings are startling given the educational levels of the respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the relationship between heuristic and systematic processing and first-, second-, and third-person effects. Controversy surrounding a referendum over the Confederate battle emblem appearing on the Mississippi state flag served as a backdrop for a survey of residents (N = 520) concerning the perceptions of the media's influence on self and others. Results suggest that accuracy-motivated heuristic and systematic processing shows a limited relationship to third- and first-person effects while at the same time demonstrating a robust relationship with transpersonal (second-person) effects. The study revealed that inferred attention of others to the flag issue accounted for additional variance beyond inferred exposure. In addition, systematic processing and second-person effects emerged as significant predictors of indicators of civic participation, discussion and voting, and media censorship. Implications of using the heuristic-systematic model in areas such as political campaigns, social capital and trust, agenda-setting, framing, and the spiral of silence are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the development of the economic boycotts supported by paramilitary organization in Natchez, Mississippi in 1965. Background on the Natchez movement in 1965; Role of Charles Evers in the Natchez boycott; Replication of the insurgent model of Natchez in Black communities of southwest Mississippi.

Legislation, such as the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and the authorization of federally-funded health insurance coverage for children (State Children's Health Insurance or SCHIP) continues the shift of assigning increased power and responsibility for health and human services "safety net" programs from the federal level to the state level. Known as "devolution," this complex shifting of responsibility and accountability continues to evolve with increasing transference of authority, control, and administration of social programs to local governments, such changes require an informed citizenry and, hence, demand grassroots capacity building activities around public policy issues. This article describes a project designed to build the capacity of community-based organizations in several cities in Mississippi to become involved in health care policy activities. The primary purpose of this project was to inform and organize community members around improving health policies for low-income children and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been argued that differences exist between male and female inmates' attitudes toward homosexuality. Unfortunately, this statement has never been fully addressed in correctional literature. To test this hypothesis, anonymous surveys were administered to 256 male and female inmates in Mississippi. The study revealed that not only gender but also race, homosexual behavior during incarceration, and remaining sentence time had statistically significant effects on inmates' attitudes toward homosexuality. In other words, incarcerated men were more likely than incarcerated women to have homophobic attitudes. Black inmates were more tolerant of homosexuality compared to White inmates. Inmates who had engaged in homosexual behavior during incarceration were less likely to have homophobic attitudes than those who had not. Finally, those who had longer remaining sentence times were more likely to have negative attitudes toward homosexuality compared to those with shorter remaining sentence times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an article on the Mississippi River. History of the river; Information on the banks of the river; Activities at the river.

Using survey data collected in 1983-84 on 212 participants in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer project and 118 individuals who applied, were accepted, but did not take part in the project, the author seeks to assess the short-and long-term political and personal consequences of high-risk activism. Using both descriptive and inferential statistics, the author demonstrates a strong effect of participation on the subsequent lives of the volunteers and "no-shows." The volunteers were more politically active throughout the sixties than the no-shows and remain so today. In addition, the volunteers are much less likely to be married and to have significantly lower incomes at present than are the no-shows. Besides reporting these basic findings, the author seeks through path analysis to explore the specific factors and processes that mediate the impact of participation in Freedom Summer on the later lives of the volunteers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the Mississippi State University's (MSU) Master of Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) Intensive Semester (IS) format. The MPPA program, offered in the MSU campus at Starkville, Mississippi, was begun in 1977 to provide the state of Mississippi and the Mid-South region with professional public administrators. Yet the IS format was not instituted until 1981, when several practitioners expressed their desire to obtain the MPPA degree yet are daunted by the travel and distance of the school. Several approaches were considered to reach this audience before the faculty decided on the IS approach suggested by Visiting Professor Chet Newland and seconded by Professor Frank Sherwood, director of the Federal Executive Institute. In the IS program, the traditional university semester was rearranged into four 13-week quarters with one seminar offered each quarter. Thus four courses are offered during a 52-week period. Each semester is divided into three phases: preparatory, intensive and the application phase. In sum, the IS approach allowed the department to accomplish its goal of enrolling in-career professionals from a variety of locations. Student assessments of the program revealed their satisfaction with it but voiced the difficulties encountered by an enrollee.

Direct and indirect relationships between predisposing, enabling and need-for-care factors and the use of prescribed and over-the-counter (OTC) medicine were examined among the rural elderly. Data were gathered through personal interviews conducted among a stratified random sample (based on geographic grids) of persons aged sixty or older residing in a northern Mississippi county. Findings showed that anxiety, perceived morbidity, and perceived availability of pharmacy services exerted direct effects on prescribed-medicine use, while several other predisposing and enabling factors exerted only indirect effects. The model derived for OTC-medicine use was much simpler: only anxiety and transportation exerted direct effects; anxiety and other predisposing variables exerted indirect effects through transportation. The model proved a better predictor of prescribed- than OTC-medicine use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]