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Background and Objectives As the older adult population grows, it is important to understand the effectiveness of service delivery systems that support aging in place. Studying service delivery processes and organizational structures of Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) is essential for future efforts to understand service delivery outcomes and innovations. Research Design and Methods We conducted site visits with 5 government-run California AAAs. We used a template and constant comparative analysis to analyze transcripts from site visits and focus groups with key informants. Results AAA representatives discussed how their organizational structure was related to (a) which services and programs they provided; (b) administrative cost savings and access to funding sources; (c) inter- and intra-agency coordination; and (d) visibility among clients and community partners. Discussion and Implications These findings can be used to guide decisions surrounding how changes in AAA structure may affect funding, coordination, service delivery, and visibility, among other factors. Consolidating the AAA with other departments and programs facilitates coordination and shared administrative costs, yet consolidation may reduce standalone AAAs' visibility and ability to innovate. AAA structure should be tailored to fit community resources, local government organization, and the needs of older residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latinos encounter structural and cultural barriers that hinder their ability to access mental health services, often turning to faith-based organizations for support. This grounded theory study aimed to analyze the impact of a faith-based mental health literacy program on Latino mental health. Qualitative interviews were used to generate data and results were evaluated through social constructivism and intersectionality lenses. Findings demonstrated that the impact of the program extended past the individual level to the family and community level, ultimately enhancing mental health literacy, improving parenting practices, breaking intergenerational stigma, and promoting engagement with formal mental health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online parenting programs are an effective way to teach behavioral management skills to parents in the absence of in‐person resources. This community‐engaged study aimed to examine strategies for disseminating online parenting resources in schools. Online resources were disseminated to parents in a Northern California school district. Dissemination strategies were informed by conversations with school principals, teachers, and parents and considered agent, message, and format. A total of 685 parents and teachers clicked on the online resources: 151 parents and 114 teachers attended synchronous classes. The use of dissemination strategies had a compounding influence on the number of synchronous class attendees and clicks. Emails sent by the school district yielded the greatest number of clicks, which was influenced by message content and format. A community–academic partnership (CAP) led to the dissemination of evidence‐based online parenting resources to a large population and led to lessons learned that could inform future research involving CAPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial heterogeneity in composition and function enables ecosystems to supply diverse services. For soil microbes and the ecosystem functions they catalyze, whether such heterogeneity can be maintained in the face of altered resource inputs is uncertain. In a 50-ha northern California grassland with a mosaic of plant communities generated by different soil types, we tested how spatial variability in microbial composition and function changed in response to nutrient and water addition. Fungal composition lost some of its spatial variability in response to nutrient addition, driven by decreases in mutualistic fungi and increases in antagonistic fungi that were strongest on the least fertile soils, where mutualists were initially most frequent and antagonists initially least frequent. Bacterial and archaeal community composition showed little change in their spatial variability with resource addition. Microbial functions related to nitrogen cycling showed increased spatial variability under nutrient, and sometimes water, additions, driven in part by accelerated nitrification on the initially more-fertile soils. Under anthropogenic changes such as eutrophication and altered rainfall, these findings illustrate the potential for significant changes in ecosystem-level spatial heterogeneity of microbial functions and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the need for community among those living in Los Angeles, California and how community is defined in order to develop mutual networks and give residents a sense of place. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of the Lakewood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Several comments from writers such as Joan Didion and themes from motion picture films such as "Chinatown" and "L.A. Confidential" are cited as examples that reflect the perception of the city as an unknowable place.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between discrimination and psychological distress in Latino migrant day laborers (LMDLs), including potential protective factors: access to cultural resources (e.g., festivals, people from one's country of origin), including community services perceived to be culturally competent, and contact with family in country of origin (e.g., phone/text, visits). Findings expand our understanding of discrimination-related psychological distress, in a particularly stigmatized population of Latinos, and how cultural and community resources may help mitigate discrimination-related distress.Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 344 LMDLs in the San Francisco Bay Area from February to July 2014. Participants were 46.5% Mexican and 50.7% Central American, 91.9% undocumented, and 40.5 years of age on average (SD = 10.8). Mediation and moderation analyses tested whether protective factors would mitigate discrimination-related distress.Results: Discrimination was related to depression, anxiety, and desesperación, the latter a popular Latino idiom of psychological distress, and this relationship was mediated by access to cultural resources and use of culturally competent community services.Conclusions: Culturally competent community services, including cultural resources from country of origin, may help mitigate discrimination-related distress in LMDLs. However, such interventions are likely to have diminishing returns unless the structural vulnerability of LMDLs is addressed (e.g., expanding work authorization, sanctuary city ordinances). Implications for future research include developing multilevel measures of LMDL discrimination that include structural factors perceived as discriminatory (i.e., antiloitering city ordinances, immigration control). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of civic leadership and land use decisions in San Diego, California's economic development. It states that the city is the home of the U.S.' most robust technology clusters wherein the public's early regional land use decisions with venture investments and collaboration has fostered economic expansion. It mentions the organization called CONNECT which organizes events every year to ensure practices and collaboration are continuously reinforced in the region.

The article describes a community in San Francisco, California known as the Mission District and the programs that are made available to citizen who require access to certain resources. The Mission Neighborhood Resource Center attempts to give aid to low-income families, homeless individuals, immigrants and others who are struggling in the community. The author explains how the Center works, what sorts of programs it offers and how they maintain services. The article also explains how this program has protected itself and its clients through creating a sustainable community connection.

This study aimed at adapting the Questionnaire Quality of Life in Epilepsy (QOLIE-89 version 1.0: Vickrey et al., 1993), Quality of Life in Epilepsy QoLIE-89 RAND (Santa Monica, CA)] so that it may be used to measure quality of life (QoL) of older adults, healthy or suffering from various chronic illnesses. The participants were 202 older adults recruited from the Pathology Clinic of a general hospital in Thessaloniki, Greece, and from Community Centers for Older adults. The mean age was 71 years. Of them, 51 suffered from diabetes, 50 from cardiovascular disease, 52 suffered from arthritis/myoskeletal diseases, and 49 were healthy. The QOLIE-89 inventory comprises 89 items that measure 17 topics. Exploratory factor analysis revealed 3 factors, namely, health (i.e., physical health and functioning), cognition, and social behavior. Cronbach’s α for the various topics in each group of participants ranged from 0.60 to 0.90 with a number of exceptions with very low α. Concurrent validity was tested through correlations with measures of subjective well being, affect, life satisfaction, and adaptation to old age. A series of ANOVAs showed differences between the healthy and the chronic illness groups of participants but no clearcut differences between the three chronic illness groups. Further study on the adaptation of QOLIE-89 is needed so that its potential as a general measure of QoL in older adults is determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes findings from a pilot study of drug use and environment for Southeast Asian youths in the San Francisco Bay Area. From interviews with 31 drug-involved youths living in two low-income predominantly ethnic minority neighborhoods, smoking marijuana emerged as pervasive and highly normative. Smoking marijuana provided a means for coping with the stresses of home and community life, and located youths, moreover, within an alternative ghetto lifestyle of rap music, marijuana smoking, and youth crime, as modeled by co-resident ethnic minority peers, with which many Southeast Asian youths identified. The findings indicate the importance of the social environment as well as social status in the substance use of this group of second-generation youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the figure of the neighbor in the Los Angeles, California community. Reiteration of power of local place; Multifaceted nature of the construct of the neighbor; Brief excursions to provisional neighborhoods.

This study focuses on two methodological aspects of neighborhood integration measurement: temporal variations and choice of demographic units. In the first case, I use a unified census tract database from 1940 to 1990 to examine the changing patterns of integration in Los Angeles County. In this section, I illustrate that use of the Entropy Index for integration classification may produce results that are in tune with the historical demography of a given metropolitan area. In the second case, I use a cluster analysis technique to illustrate the spatial fragmentation of racial and ethnic subgroups compared to the larger demographic units. This analysis suggests that spatial associations do not reflect the singularity of demographic nomenclatures such as those assigned to Latinos and Asian subgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the establishment and evolution of Koreatown in Los Angeles, California. Transformation of the area into an urban village; Social and economic benefits of the progress for those who live in the area; Impact of intense social and cultural isolation on the area.

Introduces essays in the September 2003 issue of the journal 'City & Community.' Inclusion of debate on the legacies of the Chicago and Los Angeles schools of urban studies; Tendency to emphasize the special or paradigmatic properties of particular cities; Critiques of paradigm-building rhetoric in contemporary urban studies; Generalizability of urbanization theory; Paris as the "capital of the nineteenth century;" Chicago or Los Angeles as the "capital of the twentieth century;" superlative formulations in urban studies.

Using 498 randomly selected Korean residents in Los Angeles from a recent epidemiological health telephone survey, correlates of subjective well-being in the Korean-American community were investigated including riot victim status, perceived riot effects, demographic variables (age, gender, and income), acculturation, and social support and social integration variables, approximately 6 months after the Sa-i-gu (April 29) Los Angeles Riots. Multiple regression analyses indicated that two indices of subjective well-being, general happiness and perceived physical health status, though significantly correlated, appeared to be influenced by different psychological processes. Moreover, significant gender differences were found in various types of correlates in accounting for the two indices of subjective well-being. Overall, of the correlates investigated, demographic (age and income) factors. perceived riot effects, acculturation indices, and social support/social integration contributed to both Korean-American men and women's subjective welt-being. Certain effects of social support and social integration were not consistent with past research implications for future research and Limitations were discussed in terms of community psychology's focus on extra- individual, as opposed to micro-level individual approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tests several hypotheses from sociology and psychology regarding factors important to residents' overall `sense of community' in a suburban region in Orange County, California. Satisfaction with the amount of local participation in the community; Impacts of urbanization; Implications of suburban theory, research and community design.

This article outlines the immigration and settlement patterns of Asian Indians in the United States from the turn of the century to the present decade. The focus is on the efforts of the Sikh pioneers to succeed in what can only be viewed as a hostile social environment, marked primarily by racial discrimination and legal restrictions on their entry into this country. With modifications in the U.S. immigration laws of 1965 an educated professional class of Asian Indians have monopolized the flow of immigrants from India, with the result that the Sikhs presently constitute a small proportion of the total number of Asian Indians in the U.S. However, the recent political crisis in India has served to galvanize the American Sikh community into political action. This has resulted in a political split between the Sikhs and other Asian Indians in this country. This article concludes with an analysis of the demographic composition of the "third wave" Asian Indian immigrants in the United States and their potential impact on political conditions in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a pilot study at Pacific Colony, a hospital in California, that demonstrates what can be done in the way of successful community placement of high grade morons and borderline mental defective who are primarily personality problems. One finding of the study is the relatively low number of borderline mental defective patients at Pacific Colony. This is because the diagnosis of mental deficiency was utilized conservatively. Furthermore, many cases with relatively high intellectual levels were placed on indefinite leaves of absence before the start of the study.

The article focuses on the community--result of war relocation--life of Tule Lake, California. It had government, a police force, a general hospital, schools, limited employment possibilities, provision for a limited recreational program, a welfare department, and the prejudices that are a part of current community life. It had, in addition, provision for planned social research, which made it possible to examine at close range the effects of social research in this community. Then because it is impossible not to make connections between the role of the social sciences in the War Relocation Authority program generally, and in community life today. At the time of Pearl Harbor there existed a minority such as exists in all parts of the country, a minority whose problems had long been the subject of study by sociologists and anthropologists. Yet responsibility for a decision requiring knowledge of the way persons of Japanese descent might behave after the United States had declared war on Japan was delegated to a military commander, and he did not consult the experts in the social sciences.

Some characteristics dud attitudes of 100 middle-class families, recent migrants to a California metropolitan area, were sampled by questionnaire. The respondents had a history of frequent moves on short notice and reported that they settled into new communities quickly and without apparent difficulty. The sample showed a higher than anticipated level of independence, self- reliance, and ability to adapt to what is often considered a tension- and stress-producing situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voices of the Elders: On Creating Aging-Friendly Communities from a Member of the "Target Population." The article reprints a post to the "Collaboration Café," an online forum for participants in Creating Aging-Friendly Communities, a free Web-based international convergence produced by the University of California at Berkeley's Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services. The writer laments her experience in a gated senior community when she instead wants to be engaged with the more world. She urges "the experts" to design communities that can meet a person's needs while maximizing the individual's ability to contribute to the collective continuity of a community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a speech by Lincoln Cushing, a librarian, delivered at an event to protest the closure of the Salinas Public Library in Salinas, California, on April 2, 2005. Support of the Progressive Librarians Guild, a national activist organization of library workers affiliated with the American Library Association to the event; Job profile of Cushing as a librarian at the University of California in Berkeley, California; Information about the library community.

The article presents an analysis on the early photographs and images of the Joseph Eichler's homes. It discusses how these photographs of Eichler's homes depict functionality, visibility of structure and economy that provides human needs for comfort, familiarity and joy. It features the photographer, Ernest Braun and his images of the Eichler's homes that show a military-industrial-university complex in northern California and the benefits of new materials and techniques during World War II. The images also reveal a contemporary concept of collaboration and an ongoing process of social and spatial change.

Presents views shared by readers of `The American Enterprise' on issues related to towns and cities in the United States. Brief history of Los Angeles, California; Advantage of living in a small community.

The author describes his experiences teaching video production to young people in South Central Los Angeles, which has reinforced their sense of identity and provided access to technology previously outside their realm. The community center started by the author in South Central Los Angeles, California, has forged connections with other centers in the country and the world by teleconferencing with videophones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on reboot.fm and Juniradio, a combination of local FM radio transmissions with open-source software cultural projects in Los Angeles, California. Organizations that are involved in projects; Communication norms prevalent in the projects; Approaches employed in communicating the goals of the project to the community.

Emphasizes the use of Internet to break class, racial and spatial divisions among the people in Los Angeles, California. Argument of author Norman Klein on the impact of Internet on cultural preservation; Comments on the advantages of the Internet in community-building.

The article presents information about the book "The California Cauldron: Immigration and the Fortunes of Local Communities." The book explores how California's more recent immigrants are meshing with the existing population across the geography of California-whether they follow the old pattern of integration or whether a new model of pluralism is being constructed. It describes the flows and changing intensity of immigration to California. The book addresses how the state as a whole and particular localities are faring under the changes due to immigration and why local fortunes vary across communities. The book also examines the changing pattern of skills, earnings and dependency for recent immigrants as a whole and for Mexicans and Central Americans, Asians and Middle Eastern immigrants as separate groups. It also considers whether immigration will eventually produce a stable social blend or a contentious mix of competing groups marked by social isolation, balkanization and antagonism and presents recommendations for government and stakeholders.