Social Work Today E-Zine

Families of children with disabilities are struggling to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and to pay for needed health and dental care. But according to a new study from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, these challenges are now falling on middle-income households and not just on poor families as previous research found.

“The bottom line is that U.S. families raising children with disabilities are reporting severe hardships at rates that are chilling, including families that are solidly middle-class,” says Susan L. Parish, PhD, the study’s lead investigator and an assistant professor in the UNC School of Social Work.

The study, which is based on 2002 data from the National Survey of American Families and analyzed 28,141 households, was recently published in Exceptional Children.

Data indicated that a significant percentage of struggling families of children with disabilities are higher-income households. Yet based on federal poverty guidelines, those same households would not be classified as “poor,” she says. They also would not qualify for assistance, despite the higher costs of raising children with disabilities, Parish notes. In 2002, the federal poverty level for a family of four was $18,100.

According to the study, 40% of the surveyed families of children with disabilities who earned between two to three times the federal poverty level (between $36,200 and $54,300 for a family of four, for example) experienced at least one food hardship, including worrying that food would run out or skipping meals because of a lack of money. Fifteen percent of families with incomes at three or more times the federal poverty level ($54,300 and up for a family of four) experienced housing instability, meaning they were unable to pay their rent or had to move in with others.

“These families struggle to provide adequate care for their disabled children,” Parish says, “and stronger supports are vital.”

— Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) applaud Olympic gold-medalist Michael Phelps and his mother, Deborah Phelps for educating the public about succeeding with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"Congratulations to Michael Phelps for winning eight Olympic gold medals. I applaud him and his mother for speaking about ADHD. Mr. Phelps shows that it's possible to go beyond coping with ADHD and truly achieve. His candor addresses stigma and, hopefully, will inspire others to seek help," says AACAP president Robert Hendren, DO.

"It's important for people living with ADHD to pursue interests they enjoy and at which they excel," explains Marie Paxson, CHADD's board president. "Phelps's success demonstrates that being a part of a supportive family, setting goals, engaging in enjoyable activities, and receiving positive feedback are all important in building self-esteem. Phelps is clearly an exceptionally talented athlete and a source of pride for the millions of people affected by ADHD."

On men's mental health Hendren says, "Among men, there is a deep stigma associated with seeking treatment for ADHD. I hope that Michael Phelps's openness conveys to young men that it's okay to seek treatment, that it is part of a wise game plan."

On the role of family support, Hendren says, "It's obvious to everyone who watched the Olympic games that Mr. Phelps has an engaged, supportive, and enthusiastic family who helped him find his right fit with swimming."

— Source: Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

An estimated 15 million American children are diagnosed with a mental disorder, but only about one quarter of them are getting appropriate treatment based on scientific evidence. Many more children are at risk of developing behavioral disorders. And the problem is only going to get worse unless the healthcare system changes how it delivers services, according to a task force of the American Psychological Association (APA).

A report released by the APA’s Presidential Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice with Children and Adolescents at the annual conference recommends dissemination of evidence-based practice approaches—treatments that are based on scientific evidence along with clinical expertise while taking into account patient characteristics, culture and preferences—as a way to ensure that children and adolescents with mental health problems receive the best available care.

“The care should include prevention, early intervention, targeted treatments for particular disorders, an understanding of developmental processes, and continuity of care,” said task force chair Anne E. Kazak, PhD, ABPP. “Furthermore, treatments should be accessible regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, race, ethnicity, and culture. Lastly, evidence-based practice should be cross-disciplinary and include collaborations with families, schools, practitioners, and researchers from various health fields.”

These treatments and services need to reach youth from all different cultures, geographic regions and socioeconomic groups to prevent further escalation of the problem, said Kazak. “This is especially true for low-income youth, for youth in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems, ethnic minority youth, and those with drug/alcohol problems.”

— Source: American Psychological Association

Certain types of video games can have beneficial effects, improving gamers’ dexterity as well as their ability to problem-solve—attributes that have proven useful not only to students but to surgeons, according to research discussed at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

In one paper, Fordham University psychologist Fran C. Blumberg, PhD, and Sabrina S. Ismailer, MSED, examined 122 fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-graders’ problem-solving behavior while playing a video game that they had never seen before. As the children played the game, they were asked to think aloud for 20 minutes. Researchers assessed their problem-solving ability by examining the types of cognitive, goal-oriented, game-oriented, emotional, and contextual statements they made.

“Younger children seem more interested in setting short-term goals for their learning in the game compared to older children who are more interested in simply playing and the actions of playing,” said Blumberg. “Thus, younger children may show a greater need for focusing on small aspects of a given problem than older children, even in a leisure-based situation such as playing video games.”

In a second paper, Iowa State University psychologist Douglas Gentile, PhD, and William Stone, BS, described several studies involving high school and college students and laparoscopic surgeons that looked at their video game usage and its effects.

A study of 33 laparoscopic surgeons found that those who played video games were 27% faster at advanced surgical procedures and made 37% fewer errors compared with those who did not play video games, said Gentile.

A second study of 303 laparoscopic surgeons (82% men; 18% women) also showed that surgeons who played video games requiring spatial skills and hand dexterity and then performed a drill testing these skills were significantly faster at their first attempt and across all 10 trials than the surgeons who did not the play video games first.

“The big picture is that there are several dimensions on which games have effects, including the amount they are played, the content of each game, what you have to pay attention to on the screen, and how you control the motions,” said Gentile. “This means that games are not ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ but are powerful educational tools and have many effects we might not have expected they could.”

— Source: American Psychological Association

Argun Saatcioglu, PhD, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies and an adjunct assistant professor of sociology at the University of Kansas, presented “The Hidden Value Of School Desegregation: Evidence On Integration’s High School Promoting Power From The Cleveland Municipal School District, 1977-1998” at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting.

In his research, Saatcioglu examined the changing contribution of high schools to students’ drop out tendencies in districts that experienced both desegregation and resegregation over the last few decades. He showed that although desegregation could not sufficiently improve student performance, it was able to considerably increase the schools’ contribution to success.

Saatcioglu addressed desegregation’s “hidden value” in making urban schools a positive force in the lives of disadvantaged students, although student-level outcomes such as test scores may continue to remain low due to social and economic impediments to student performance originating from outside the schools.

By separating the schools’ contribution to student performance (or the schools’ “promoting power”) from other factors that play a role in performance, Saatcioglu examines changes in schools’ influence over dropout behavior under conditions of segregation, desegregation, and resegregation. His analysis, based on data from the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD), suggests that, during the 1980s when CMSD desegregated, its high schools effectively counteracted dropout tendencies, particularly when students began high school having attended desegregated elementary and middle schools.

By contrast, both before desegregation (in the 1970s) and in the resegregation era (1990s), the district’s high schools functioned as a major obstacle to success, severely hurting the average student’s chances of graduation. Essentially, not only did students suffer from nonschool disadvantages, the schools aggravated the problem.

Sociologists and policy researchers have known for a long time that success is affected by various nonschool factors. “Though we know this,” Saatcioglu argued, “we have not properly integrated this insight in our ways of evaluating educational reform.”

— Source: American Sociological Association

As NASA prepares to send humans back to the moon and then on to Mars, psychologists are exploring the challenges astronauts will face on missions that will be much longer and more demanding than previous space flights. Psychologists outlined these mental health challenges at the American Psychological Association’s (APA) 116th Annual Convention, and introduced a new interactive computer program that will help address psychosocial challenges in space.

Psychologists said longer missions mean astronauts will be faced with immense psychological pressures as they adjust to being so far away from Earth, which could lead to depression and interpersonal conflicts. The presenters spoke at the APA’s first symposium to address the psychological challenges of returning to the moon and going to Mars.

Historically, astronauts have been reluctant to admit to mental or behavioral health problems for fear of being grounded. Psychologist James Carter, PhD, and his colleagues are in the process of developing a suite of interactive computer programs, dubbed the Virtual Space Station, using input from 13 veteran long-duration NASA astronauts who have flown on the International Space Station, Mir and Skylab. This interactive program will help astronauts prevent, detect, assess and manage their own psychosocial problems. They will learn how to cope with depression and how to resolve conflicts with other astronauts.

“Behavioral health problems can interfere with the success of the mission, especially on long-duration space flights like missions to the International Space Station, the moon, and Mars. These self-guided software tools will provide private and immediate access to treatments even though the patient may be many miles from Earth,” Carter said.

— Source: American Psychological Association

It’s a catch-22 of the highest order. People with alcohol problems often use alcohol to get to sleep—but it actually keeps them from getting good-quality sleep all night long. At the same time, they’re highly likely to suffer from full-blown chronic insomnia, a condition has been shown to cut their chances of getting sober again. Meanwhile, their doctors aren’t likely to prescribe them insomnia medications, because most sleeping pills can be habit-forming or have adverse effects due to an alcohol-damaged liver.

Now, a small new pilot study from a team of University of Michigan (UM) alcoholism and sleep researchers offers some sign of a possible way out of this conundrum. The study, published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, suggests that the drug gabapentin might be able to reduce insomnia in recovering alcoholics, and help them stay away from alcohol more successfully. The drug, often used to treat epilepsy and chronic pain, is not habit-forming and is not processed by the liver.

Although the study involved only 21 insomniacs in recovery from alcohol dependence, and did not provide long-term gabapentin treatment or long-term follow-up on their sleep or their alcohol recovery, it was randomized, placebo-controlled, and double-blinded. In all, 30% of the patients who received gabapentin during alcohol recovery relapsed to drinking, compared with 80% of those who received a placebo.

“We showed that the patients who got the real drug, rather than placebo, were less likely to relapse to drinking—or if they relapsed it was later,” says lead author Kirk Brower, MD, FASAM, executive director of UM Addiction Treatment Services and a professor of psychiatry at the UM Medical School.

— Source: University of Michigan Health System

More than one half of 26,000 students across 70 colleges and universities who completed a survey on suicidal experiences reported having at least one episode of suicidal thinking at some point in their lives. The survey was administered in the spring of 2006 and gathered information about a range of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among college students. The survey was reviewed by the participating campus counseling directors as well as two experts in suicidology.

Six percent of undergraduates and 4% of graduate students reported seriously considering suicide within the 12 months prior to answering the survey. Approximately two thirds of those who contemplate suicide do so more than once in a 12-month period. More than one half of students who experienced a recent suicidal crisis did not seek professional help or tell anyone about their suicidal thoughts.

Fourteen percent of undergraduates and 8% of graduate students who seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months made a suicide attempt. Nineteen percent of undergraduate attempters and 28% of graduate student attempters required medical attention. One half of attempters reported overdosing on drugs as their method, according to the study.

From the survey, the authors found that relying solely upon the current treatment model, which identifies and helps students who are in crisis, is insufficient for reducing all forms of suicide behavior on college campuses. The authors suggested a new model for dealing with the problem of student suicidal tendencies in order to address the entire continuum of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. By focusing on suicidal thoughts and behaviors as the problem, rather than looking only at students in crisis, interventions can be delivered at multiple points, they said.

— Source: American Psychological Association

At the American Psychological Association (APA) annual convention, the APA urged psychologists to take a leading role in ending discrimination based on gender identity, calling upon the profession to provide “appropriate, nondiscriminatory treatment to all transgender and gender-variant individuals” and encouraging more research into all aspects of gender identity and expression.

The association’s governing Council of Representatives adopted a resolution supporting full equality for transgender and gender-variant people. The resolution also calls on the APA to: support legal and social recognition of transgender individuals consistent with their gender identity and expression; 
support the provision of adequate and medically necessary treatment for transgender and gender-variant people; 
recognize the benefit and necessity of gender transition treatments for appropriately evaluated individuals;
and call on public and private insurers to cover these treatments.

In addition to adopting the wide-ranging resolution, the Council of Representatives received a report by the APA’s Task Force on Gender Identity and Gender Variance. The report, noting that transgender people, their families, friends, and employers are increasingly turning to psychologists for help, stated that “this trend underscores the need for psychologists to acquire greater knowledge and competence in addressing transgender issues.”

— Source: American Psychological Association

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University have discovered that children as young as 14 months old can—and do—use the same technique that adults use to remember numbers to increase their working memories, indicating that "chunking" information in this way is not a learned strategy, but a fundamental aspect of the human mind.

In the team’s experiment, the 14-month-olds were shown four toys that were then hidden in a box. The children then were allowed to search for the missing toys. Sometimes, two of the four toys were secretly withheld in another place. The researchers observed how long the youngsters continued to search the box, the idea being that they would search longer if they remembered there were more toys yet to be found.

The researchers found the children would search longer when the four toys consisted of two groups of two familiar objects, cats and cars, and one of each type had been withheld. That indicated that the youngsters were using mental chunking as a way to recall more items at a time. The team also found that 14-month-olds can use spatial grouping cues to expand memory, in the same way that adults group digits when remembering phone numbers. When provided with such cues, the little ones could remember up to six objects.

The researchers’ results may have implications for educational strategies or for helping those who suffer short-term memory problems. But more directly, they show that the memory systems of young infants are surprisingly similar to those of adults.

— Source: Johns Hopkins University

The mammoth increase in the United States’ prison population since the 1970s is having profound demographic consequences that disproportionately affect black males. “This jump in incarceration rates represents a massive intervention in American families at a time when the federal government was making claims that it was less involved in their lives,” according to a University of Washington (UW) researcher who presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Drawing data from various sources that looked at prison and general populations, Becky Pettit, a UW associate professor of sociology, and Bryan Sykes, a UW postdoctoral researcher, found that the boom in prison population is hiding lowered rates of fertility and increased rates of involuntary migration to rural areas and morbidity that is marked by a greater exposure to and risk of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV or AIDS.

These effects are most heavily felt by low-skill black males, and she said the disproportionately high incarceration rates among African Americans suggest the prison system is a key suspect in these demographic results. Pettit said well-documented facts—one in 100 Americans is behind bars in 2008, about 2.4 million people currently are incarcerated and nearly 60% of young black males who dropped out of high school have served time in jail—don’t seem to register with Americans.

In addition, she noted that the effects of an ever-growing criminal justice system extend beyond those who are serving sentences to include children, partners, and even entire communities. “It is in our own self-interest to be concerned. And certainly from a fiscal standpoint we have an interest. … This is a challenging public policy question.”

— Source: University of Washington

When combined with antipsychotic medications, the estrogen estradiol appears to be a useful treatment in women with schizophrenia, according to a report in a recent issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

“Epidemiologic observations of sex differences in the onset and course of schizophrenia prompted exploration of estrogen’s role in schizophrenia,” the authors wrote. Jayashri Kulkarni, MBBS, MPM, FRANZCP, PhD, of The Alfred and Monash University and The Alfred Hospital in Australia, and colleagues conducted a randomized, double-blind study involving 102 women of child-bearing age with schizophrenia. For 28 days, 56 women were randomly assigned to receive 100 micrograms of estradiol daily via a skin patch and 46 women received a placebo skin patch in addition to their regular medications.

Psychotic symptoms, which include delusions and hallucinatory behavior, were assessed weekly with a commonly used scale. The group of women taking estradiol exhibited a greater improvement in psychotic symptoms over time than did the women taking antipsychotic medications alone. They also experienced a decline in positive symptoms—those that represent a distortion of normal functions. No difference was observed between the two groups regarding negative symptoms, those that occur when normal functions are lost or diminished.

“Estrogen’s neuroprotective and psychoprotective actions may be mediated by a variety of routes, ranging from rapid actions, including antioxidant effects and enhancement of cerebral blood flow and cerebral glucose utilization, to slower, genomic mechanisms, which may include permanent modification of neural circuits,” the authors wrote. “The lack of effect for negative symptoms is consistent with literature reporting that negative symptoms are less responsive to treatment than other symptoms of schizophrenia. It is possible that longer-term treatment is required for negative symptoms to respond to treatment.”

— Source: American Medical Association

Children and teens who get less sleep, especially those who spend less time in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, may be more likely to be overweight, according to a report in a recent issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Xianchen Liu, MD, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine department of psychiatry and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and colleagues studied 335 children and adolescents aged 7 to 17 (an average age of 10.8). For three consecutive nights, participants’ sleep was monitored through polysomnography. Weight and height were measured to calculate body mass index (BMI).

A total of 49 participants (14.6%) were at risk for becoming overweight and 45 (13.4%) were overweight. Compared with children at a normal weight, those who were overweight slept about 22 minutes less per night and had lower sleep efficiency (percentage of time in bed that an individual is asleep), shorter REM sleep, less eye activity during REM sleep and a longer wait before the first REM period. After adjusting for other related factors, one hour less of total sleep was associated with two-fold increased odds of being overweight and one hour less of REM sleep was associated with three-fold increased odds.

“Given the fact that the prevalence of overweight among children and adolescents continues to increase and chronic sleep insufficiency becomes more prevalent in modern society, family- and school-based sleep interventions that aim to enhance sleep hygiene and increase sleep duration may have important public health implications for the prevention and intervention of obesity and type 2 diabetes in children,” the authors concluded.

— Source: American Medical Association

China’s rise as an economic powerhouse hasn’t come without a social cost. China is confronting the effects of the largest rural to urban migration in world history, the unintended consequences of its “one-child policy” and the plight of those left behind in rural villages without social services.

The University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) is supporting China’s efforts to reestablish a social work profession through a partnership dating back to 1994. What began as an effort to supply materials to China Youth University in Beijing has evolved into a partnership that encompasses exchanges of research, faculty, and students.

“China is beginning to recognize the need for a wide range of social services,” says GSSW Dean James Herbert Williams, who just returned from China. “Our long partnership allows committed Chinese social work professionals to take the best from 100 years of U.S. social work experience and adapt it to their needs.”

Their needs include typical urban issues seen in developing Western societies—domestic violence, drug use, and homelessness. But some of the country’s social problems are uniquely Chinese and require uniquely Chinese solutions. They must find a way to address individual needs in a collectivist culture. And they must find ways to deliver services efficiently and effectively to huge numbers of low-income Chinese spread densely through urban population centers and sparsely through rural villages.

“I think our work can really improve U.S.–China relations,” says Julie Laser, a GSSW professor. “If we know each other as human beings, we can bring our countries closer together.”

— Source: The University of Denver

The traumatic effect of watching a parent suffer abuse has been well documented. Children can be psychologically, physically, and emotionally damaged. Whether they witness it or experience it themselves, children growing up with violence in the home are more likely to develop psychological or behavioral disorders.

However, documentation of cases of families with intimate partner violence is largely based on the retrospective eye of children who experienced incidents at an older age. A new study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is looking at the effects of intimate partner violence on small infants and their mothers, focusing on the interaction between them.

“Most of what we know about family violence we know from those who recall the experience much later—often years following the experience,” says Jean Hughes, an associate professor at the Dalhousie School of Nursing and one of the investigators involved in the study. Hughes notes that while many children feel the effects of violence very strongly, others appear less affected—as if they rise above it.

The Mothering Study aims to create a new understanding of what behaviors and services help a mother to protect her young child or children from these lasting psychological and behavioral effects. Researchers want to learn how to better help women in abusive relationships, especially those with infants.

In order to do this, they are interviewing mothers, videotaping interactions between mother and child, and talking to service providers who help mothers in (or formerly in) abusive relationships. This includes talking to formal providers, such as doctors, as well as community providers such as shelters and support groups. Hughes stresses that there is complete confidentiality for all who participate.

— Source: Dalhousie University

A Johns Hopkins expert in HIV and how the AIDS virus hides in the body says antiretroviral drugs have stopped HIV from replicating, the first of three key steps needed to rid people of the virus.

In an address delivered at the XVII International Conference on AIDS, infectious disease specialist Robert Siliciano, MD, PhD, said current drug-combination therapies can stop HIV in its tracks, with some combos suppressing its ability to make copies to less than one in a billion. But, he said, progress is still needed in identifying where viral reservoirs persist and in finding ways to eliminate these HIV hiding places.

According to Siliciano, laboratory models that mimic HIV infection in these reservoir cells are key to finding drugs that can eliminate them. “We know now that HIV can be stopped,” he said. “Our next steps are to go after these reservoirs of HIV. And although much work needs to be done to find and eliminate them, infected people who have access to antiretroviral drugs and who take them as prescribed stand a good chance of leading normal lives.”

Siliciano pointed out that if antiretroviral drugs can be made more accessible, affordable, and less toxic, then infected people who take the drugs correctly will not develop AIDS. Included in the presentation are recent data from his team and researchers at the National Cancer Institute and the University of Pittsburgh, which shows that adding a fourth, more potent anti-HIV drug to existing antiviral combinations does not further suppress the number of HIV viral copies in the blood.

“Adding more drugs to current regimens will not further reduce the amount of virus in the blood,” said Siliciano. “We have already reached rock bottom in using drugs to stop HIV from replicating. The trace amounts of virus that remain are coming from viral reservoirs, not active replication of the virus.”

— Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

The Health Department recently announced a new online campaign to engage teenagers grappling with depression, drugs, and violence and to encourage them to seek help. NYC Teen Mindspace, posted on MySpace, is the agency's first effort to promote health through Web-based social networking—a medium with great potential because of its popularity with young people. To see the campaign, visit www.myspace.com/nycteen_mindspace.

Though many teens experience mental health issues, they are often reluctant to acknowledge them and seek help. When asked who they are most likely to talk with when they feel sad, more than 20% of teens said they talk to no one, 31% said they would talk to a friend only, and just 32% said they would talk to an adult. The Mindspace page responds to these issues with interactive features that raise awareness and combat stigma by helping teens identify with peers and prompting them to seek help, including the following:

• Video blogs for teen characters featureing fictional, composite personalities, such as "Kyle," "Nicole," and "Stephanie," who chronicle their struggles through video posts.

• Opportunities to reach out for help by sending a confidential message to a mental health counselor from LifeNet or calling 800-LifeNet.

• Quizzes, polls, games, and fact sheets to test knowledge and compare feelings with those of peers.

• Music downloads. A standard piece of any popular page, this feature invites teens to express themselves by playing music to fit their moods.

— Source: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Working overtime has a disproportionate impact on women in dual-earner households, exacerbating gender inequality and supporting the “separate sphere” phenomenon in which men are the breadwinners while women tend to the home, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

“Women whose husbands work long hours are more likely to quit their jobs, yet men’s careers are not impacted when their wives put in long hours," says Youngjoo Cha, the study’s author and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Cornell University. “This suggests a potential return to the ‘separate spheres’ arrangement—breadwinning men and homemaking women—as long hours become increasingly common.”

Cha found that women whose husbands worked more than 60 hours per week were 44% more likely to quit their own jobs. However, there was no impact on husbands’ odds of quitting when wives worked long hours.

Results were even more pronounced when Cha isolated professional workers. Professional women were 52% more likely to quit their jobs when their husbands worked more than 60 hours per week. As in the case of all workers, overworking wives did not affect the employment status of professional men.

Among professionals, husbands were more than twice as likely as wives to work more than 50 hours per week (30% of husbands compared to 12% of wives). According to Cha, this suggests that in professional occupations, women are less likely to expect spousal support than men are.

— Source: American Sociological Association

The Utah state government’s implementation of a four day work week could result in higher job satisfaction and lower levels of work-family conflict, according to a new Brigham Young University (BYU) study. Those benefits translate into higher productivity, researchers say.

Rex Facer and Lori Wadsworth of BYU’s Romney Institute of Public Management examined the outcome of a Utah city’s transition to a schedule in which most employees worked four 10-hour days a week. Their paper appears in a recent issue of Review of Public Personnel Administration.

According to Facer, Utah cities embraced the new schedule to both save money on utilities and also to give citizens a wider range of times to access city hall. Now they are also reaping the morale and retention benefits among employees who save on fuel costs by commuting one fewer day each week.

BYU researchers found that even though four-day work week employees work the same number of hours per week as their traditional work-week counterparts, they reported being more satisfied with their jobs, compensation, and benefits, and were less likely to look for employment elsewhere in the next year.

Among the most significant findings was the four-day work week’s connection to conflicts between work and home. The four day work week employees were less likely to report that they come home too tired, that work takes away from personal interest, and that work takes time they would like to spend with family. Other studies have linked work-home conflict with low job performance and lessened productivity.

“The challenges of balancing work and home lives have become much more complex,” Facer says. “Finding ways to better manage work-family conflict is important in building stronger organizations and satisfied employee bases.”


— Source: Brigham Young University

Since 2003, Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) Commission on Global Social Work Education has granted its Partners in Advancing Education (PIE) for International Social Work Awards to individuals and social work programs demonstrating outstanding innovations in international social work education. This year’s winners, Frederic L. Ahearn and Southern Illinois University Carbondale, were selected based on their ability to advance the concepts, curricula, and programming in social work education.

Frederick L. Ahearn, Jr, DSW, a professor of social work at the Catholic University of America, was selected as a PIE recipient because of his ability to establish social work graduation programs in countries undergoing sociopolitical changes and his positive impact on other people, social policy, institutional building efforts, and the social work education structure on a global level. He has also strengthened international social work curricula in many U.S. universities and has authored content on migration, refugees, and internally displaced people.

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale’s School of Social Work is being recognized for its collaborative partnerships across the globe. Of particular note is its involvement with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in providing a two-year certified education program for its 300 social workers and supervisors in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza.

— Source: Council on Social Work Education

Over the last decade, energy drinks—such as Red Bull, Monster, and Rockstar—have become nearly ubiquitous on college campuses. The global market for these types of drinks currently exceeds
$3 billion a year and new products are introduced annually. Although few researchers have examined energy drink consumption, a researcher at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) has been investigating links between energy drinks and public health concerns like substance abuse and risky behaviors.

A new research report, published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health, by RIA Research Scientist Kathleen E. Miller, PhD, examines the relationships between energy drink consumption and risk-taking in college students.

Miller's research validates and expands upon existing concerns about energy drink consumption: "The principal target demographic for energy drinks is young adults ages 18 to 25, but they're nearly as common among younger teens," she explains. "This is a concern because energy drinks typically contain three times the caffeine of a soft drink, and in some cases, up to 10 times as much."

Frequent energy drink consumers (six or more days a month) were approximately three times as likely than less-frequent energy drink consumers or nonconsumers to have smoked cigarettes, abused prescription drugs, and been in a serious physical fight in the year prior to the survey.

They reported drinking alcohol, having alcohol-related problems and using marijuana about twice as often as nonconsumers. They were also more likely to engage in other forms of risk-taking, including unsafe sex, not using a seatbelt, participating in an extreme sport, and doing something dangerous on a dare. The associations with smoking, drinking, alcohol problems, and illicit prescription use were found for white but not African American students.

Miller says she hopes to develop future research into the influence of personality traits, peer norms, and other factors that may influence the relationships among energy drink consumption, race, gender, and risk-taking. Better understanding of these relationships, she argues, may be useful in developing programs for preventing substance use and other health-compromising behaviors.

— Source: University at Buffalo

Nearly one half of women treated for breast cancer did not know that their odds of being alive after five years are roughly the same whether they undergo mastectomy or breast conserving surgery. Minority women were even less likely to be aware of this important factor of their treatment decision, according to a study from the University of Michigan (U-M) Comprehensive Cancer Center. Results of the study appeared in a recent issue of Health Services Research.

The researchers surveyed 1,132 breast cancer patients and asked them whether the chances of being alive five years after surgery were the same after a mastectomy or after lumpectomy with radiation, and whether the chance of breast cancer coming back after treatment was the same for the two surgeries.

Overall, only 51% responded correctly to the survival question, but the numbers varied significantly for minorities: 57% of whites answered correctly, 34% of African Americans knew their survival odds, and 37% of Latinas did.

The researchers found similar results for the recurrence question. Overall, 48% said they did not know the answer to the recurrence question, with African Americans and Latinas significantly more likely to answer “don’t know.” Research shows that both survival and recurrence are about the same for both surgical options.

“If women do not make an informed decision, they’re more likely to be dissatisfied down the road with the treatment they received,” says study author Sarah Hawley, PhD, a research investigator at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

— Source: University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center

"No Child Left Behind,” the Bush administration’s education package, will continue no matter who wins the November presidential election. Its focus, however, will likely shift to early intervention programs, predicts Marcia Rock, PhD, an associate professor of special education at The University of Alabama.

"We will see a reemphasis on early intervention regardless of who moves into the White House,” says Rock.

“The early intervention research is unequivocal. We know, without question, that early intervention services improve outcomes for individuals with exceptionalities,” says Rock. “These changes that will take place will only strengthen those efforts by refocusing on our greatest needs and where we see our greatest results.”

“Instead of spending revenue widely across the board, we will be identifying areas that we know make a difference for children,” says Rock. “The goal of No Child Left Behind has always been to improve results for all children, and these changes will only strengthen those efforts by refocusing on our greatest needs and where we see our greatest results.”

— Source: University of Alabama

Eating tuna and other types of fish may help lower the risk of cognitive decline and stroke in healthy older adults, according to a study published in a recent issue of Neurology.

For the study, 3,660 people aged 65 and older underwent brain scans to detect silent brain infarcts, or small lesions in the brain that can cause loss of thinking skills, stroke, or dementia. Scans were performed again five years later on 2,313 of the participants. The people involved in the study were also given questionnaires about fish in their diets.

The study found that people who ate broiled or baked tuna and other fish high in omega-3 fatty acids (called DHA and EPA) three times or more per week had a nearly 26% lower risk of having the silent brain lesions that can cause dementia and stroke compared with people who did not eat fish regularly. Eating just one serving of this type of fish per week led to a 13% lower risk. The study also found people who regularly ate these types of fish had fewer changes in the white matter in their brains.

“While eating tuna and other types of fish seems to help protect against memory loss and stroke, these results were not found in people who regularly ate fried fish,” says Jyrki Virtanen, PhD, RD, with the University of Kuopio in Finland. “More research is needed as to why these types of fish may have protective effects, but the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA would seem to have a major role.”

— Source: American Academy of Neurology

Experts have long believed that girls tend to internalize their problems, becoming depressed or anxious, while boys externalize, turning to violence against people or property.

But a new study, involving 2,549 youths who appeared before a juvenile court in five counties in Ohio, found that this oft-repeated idea didn’t hold true for African American youths. For them, whether they internalized or externalized depended not on gender, but on what was happening within their families. This study, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.

The results suggest more attention needs to be paid to the intersection of race, gender and family when it comes to dealing with troubled youth, says Stephen Gavazzi, PhD, coauthor of the study and professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.

“If you look at most studies involving internalizing and externalizing among youth, they generally look at white, middle-class samples,” Gavazzi says. “Most research has not paid attention to race. And when studies do look at race, they are not likely to look at family and gender as well.”

In this study, the results showed that black girls and boys showed similar levels of externalizing and internalizing behavior, once family dysfunction was taken into account. In these families, boys and girls were more likely to show outward aggression if they lived in families with higher levels of dysfunction. Such a relationship was not found in white families.

“Family issues affect children in African American families differently than they do in white families,” Gavazzi says. “That is something that really hasn’t been found before.”

— Source: Ohio State University

Marin Institute, the alcohol industry watchdog, held a news conference to release the disturbing findings of its landmark report, The Annual Catastrophe of Alcohol in California, which will be published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Such a comprehensive study has never been done in California. At the conference, digital clocks ticked away in real time the incredible economic costs ($1,200 per second or $38.4 billion annually), incidents of harm (100 per hour or 921,928 annually), and deaths (1 per hour or 9,439 annually).

Marin's study calculates that moderate-to-high alcohol consumption in California is costing roughly $1,000 per resident. By comparison, tobacco costs California approximately $550 per resident. The study also estimates $25.3 billion in lost productivity and reduced earnings.

"What makes these study results both so complex and so tragic is how alcohol-related harm takes so many forms and affects so many lives," said Michele Simon, JD, MPH, Marin Institute research and policy director. Simon coauthored the report with Ted Miller, PhD, of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, and Simon Rosen, Marin Institute research analyst.

The study also estimates an additional $48.8 billion in quality of life costs, due to the pain and suffering of victims and families. "These harms are not just economic, they are also deeply personal. Quantifying the pain and suffering endured by numerous people from alcohol harm may be the most compelling result of this study," Rosen added.

Marin Institute is calling for a number of steps to reverse the catastrophe, including higher alcohol taxes to reduce excessive consumption and the related harm and costs. While the harmful cost of alcohol is equal to $2.80 per drink, current alcohol taxes come to only 8 cents per drink.

— Source: Marin Institute

The life expectancy for patients with HIV has increased by more than 13 years since the late 1990s thanks to advancements in antiretroviral therapy, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. The study was published in The Lancet.

Improved survival has led to a nearly 40% drop in AIDS deaths among 43,355 HIV-positive study participants in Europe and North America, bolstering the call for improved anti-HIV efforts worldwide, the study authors say.

The authors looked at changes in life expectancy and mortality among the 43,355 HIV patients taking a cocktail of drugs called combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). Data was compiled from a total of 14 studies in Europe and North America.

“Since their introduction in 1996 cART regimens have become more effective, better tolerated and easier to follow,” says Michael Mugavero, MD, an assistant professor in UAB’s division of infectious diseases and a coauthor on the study.

The new study found cART yielded a 13.8-year life-expectancy increase. Despite the good results, the study found life expectancy for HIV patients is far lower on average than the general population, which includes all those with other chronic illnesses. For example, an HIV-positive patient starting cART at age 20 will live to 63, about 20 years shorter than the average life span of noninfected adults.

With nearly one half of all patients diagnosed with advanced HIV infection, the life expectancy benefits of cART are not fully realized, says Mugavero. Improved AIDS testing and increased access to care is needed.

— Source: University of Alabama at Birmingham

Up to three quarters of U.S. schools deemed failing based on achievement test scores would receive passing grades if evaluated using a less biased measure, a new study in Sociology of Education suggests.

Ohio State University researchers developed a new method of measuring school quality based on schools’ actual impact on learning. Using this impact measure, about three quarters of the schools now rated as “failing” because of low test scores no longer would be considered substandard. That means that in these schools mislabeled as failing, students may have low achievement scores, but they are learning at a reasonable rate and they are learning substantially faster during the school year than they are during summer vacation.

“Our impact measure more accurately gauges what is going on in the classroom, which is the way schools really should be evaluated if we’re trying to determine their effectiveness,” says Douglas Downey, PhD, coauthor of the study and a professor of sociology at Ohio State University. Downey conducted the study with Paul T. von Hippel, a research statistician in sociology at Ohio State.

Using achievement scores to measure school quality assumes that all schools have students with equivalent backgrounds and opportunities that will give them equal opportunities to succeed in school. And that’s obviously not true, von Hippel says.

The results suggest that states may have to reconsider how they evaluate schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which emphasizes holding schools accountable for student achievement.

The study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a national survey conducted by the Department of Education. The analysis focused on 4,217 children in 287 schools. The survey measured children’s math and reading scores on four occasions: the beginning and end of their kindergarten year, and the beginning and end of first grade.

Comparing test scores from the beginning and end of first grade allowed the researchers to see how much children learn during the school year. They then were able to calculate how much faster students learned during the first-grade school year compared with when they were on summer vacation. This was the “impact” score that showed how much schools were actually helping students learn.

“If we evaluate schools that way, things change quite a bit as far as which ones we would identify as failing,” Downey says.

— Source: Ohio State University

The University of Texas School of Public Health Dallas Regional Campus researchers will survey 1,500 Mexican-American males living on the United States-Mexico border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California to examine their alcohol consumption and behavior. This research will then be compared with a sample of 1,500 Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and Houston who were surveyed as part of previous research.

“The border population is particularly interesting because it is exposed to underage drinking options, with Mexico’s legal drinking age being 18,” says Raul Caetano, MD, PhD, regional dean of the UT School of Public Health Dallas Regional Campus. “Along with age, we will be considering other factors such as religious affiliation, the Mexican culture’s influence, the cost of drinking, and male/female behavior comparisons.”

The researchers will explore the difference in the Mexican border population as compared with that of the nonborder population. The acculturation of the nonborder population will also be considered as a factor when examining Catholic or Protestant religious affiliation.

— Source: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston