Reducing Health Disparities: Research Updates from the Field. Volume III
This volume of collected essays is a product of the 2017-8 Minority Health Disparities Initiative writing retreat at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The goal of UNL’s MHDI is to disseminate and translate the research of affiliated university faculty to our community partners and organizations, as part of a larger goal to address the needs of minority and underserved populations throughout the Central Plains. These essays discuss ongoing research on language and health outcomes, communication and social “space”, communication and community-level engagement, and effective communication in health campaigns and programs.
Published: April, 2019
Reducing Health Disparities: Research Updates from the Field. Volume II
This volume of collected essays is a product of the 2016 Minority Health Disparities Initiative writing retreat at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The goal of UNL’s MHDI is to disseminate and translate the research of affiliated university faculty to our community partners and organizations, as part of a larger goal to address the needs of minority and underserved populations throughout the Central Plains. These essays discuss ongoing research on language and health outcomes, communication and social “space”, communication and community-level engagement, and effective communication in health campaigns and programs.
Published: January 2017
Reducing Health Disparities: Research Updates from the Field.
This volume of collected essays is a product of the 2015 Minority Health Disparities Initiative writing retreat at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The goal of UNL’s MHDI is to disseminate and translate the research of affiliated university faculty to our community partners and organizations, as part of a larger goal to address the needs of minority and underserved populations throughout the Central Plains. These essays discuss ongoing research on discrimination and stress, obesity prevention in rural areas, human trafficking, Native American health promotion, the health impacts of bi- and multi-racial identity, and the emerging field of community health workers.
Published: February 2016
Culture Politics: The Story of Native Land claims in Alaska
Looking back over 22 years of ethnographic research, Dombrowski revisits the themes and events of his first book. In the process he lays out an analytic framework for the reconsideration of changes in Native American communities since the early 1970s. Based on three years of residence in Alaska Native communities, and more than 15 years of research and writing, this book takes indigenous studies in a new direction, touching on events from North America to Australia.
Indigenous Adolescent Development: Psychological, Social and Historical Contexts
This volume explores the first four waves of a longitudinal diagnostic study of Indigenous adolescents and their families. The first study of its kind, it calls attention to culturally specific risk factors that affect Indigenous (American Indian and Canadian First Nations) adolescent development and describe the historical and social contexts in which Indigenous adolescents come of age. It provides unique information on ethical research and development within Indigenous communities, psychiatric diagnosis at early and mid-adolescence, and suggestions for putting the findings into action through empirically-based interventions.
Published: January 13, 2014
Mental Health and Emerging Adulthood among Homeless Young People
What happens to homeless and runaway adolescents when they become adults? This is the first study that follows homeless youth into young adulthood and reviews the mental health consequences of runaway episodes and street life. The adolescents were interviewed every three months for three years from their mid teens to their early twenties. The study documents the psychological consequences associated with becoming adults when missing the critical developmental tasks of adolescence. The authors report high levels of psychological problems associated with victimization prior to and after running away. These victimization experiences shape the behaviors of these young people, affecting their relationships with others and their chances of conventional adjustment. Across time, the more successful their adaptation to street life and the street economy, the more barriers to conventional adult life emerge. The distress, including self-mutilation and suicidal behaviors, among this population is examined, as well as the impact street life has on future relationships, education, and employment. Nutritional and health problems are also explored, along with the social and economic impact of this population on society. As such, the book provides insight about why the current prevention and treatment programs are failing in an effort to help policy makers modify approaches to adolescent runaways. Intended as a supplementary text for undergraduate and/or graduate courses on homelessness, high risk youth, social deviance, adolescence and/or emerging adulthood taught in departments of psychology, human development, sociology, social work, and public health, this compelling book will also appeal to anyone who works with homeless adolescents.
Against Culture: Development, Politics, and Religion in Indian Alaska
In a small Tlingit village in 1992, newly converted members of an all-native church started a bonfire of “non-Christian” items including, reportedly, native dancing regalia. The burnings recalled an earlier century in which church converts in the same village burned totem poles, and stirred long simmering tensions between native dance groups and fundamentalist Christian churches throughout the region. This book traces the years leading up to the most recent burnings and reveals the multiple strands of social tension defining Tlingit and Haida life in Southeast Alaska today. Author Kirk Dombrowski roots these tensions in a history of misunderstanding and exploitation of native life, including, most recently, the consequences of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. He traces the results of economic upheaval, changes in dependence on timber and commercial fishing, and differences over the meaning of contemporary native culture that lie beneath current struggles. His cogent, highly readable analysis shows how these local disputes reflect broader problems of negotiating culture and Native American identity today. Revealing in its ethnographic details, arresting in its interpretive insights, Against Culture raises important practical and theoretical implications for the understanding of indigenous cultural and political processes.
Nowhere to Grow: Homeless and Runaway Adolescents and Their Families
Les B. Whitbeck and Dan R. Hoyt begin their report on street children in the Midwest with the statement, “If you live in or have visited even a medium-sized city recently, you have seen runaway and homeless young people. They congregate in certain downtown areas and hang out in malls during inclement weather . . . Mostly, they look like the other kids. . . . The difference is that they won’t be going home tonight.” This book draws on a study of over six hundred runaway and homeless adolescents and over two hundred of their caretakers from cities in four Midwestern states. It focuses on the family histories of these young people and on the developmental impact of early independence. Street social networks, subsistence strategies, sexuality, and street victimization are all considered, as well as their effect on adolescent behaviors and emotional health. Relying on interviews and data from survey research, and working in partnership with street outreach agencies, Whitbeck and Hoyt lead the reader through the various risk factors associated with precocious independence, beginning in the family and extending to external environments and behaviors. Nowhere to Grow is an emotional account of the cumulative consequences for young people with few good options at the outset and even fewer once they are on their own.