Translating Occupational Justice Education Into Action: Reflections From an Exploratory Single Case Study.

There is a growing body of scholarly literature about occupational justice, human rights, and power redistribution ready to be integrated into occupational science and occupational therapy education. As students around the world become familiar with the concepts and intents underlying occupational justice, it will be important to investigate their translation of occupational justice understandings into actions outside the classroom. This exploratory single case study describes curricular, university, and regional factors related to one former student's engagement in social protests following her occupational justice education. Based on her reflections, we emphasize the need to provide classroom opportunities where students can apply and critically reflect on (a) knowledge about occupational justice and (b) unintended consequences and potential professional tensions that may arise in relation to pursuing occupational justice. Future research will benefit from broader comparative studies that analyze personal, contextual, and programmatic differences among instances of occupational justice education and students' engagement in occupational reconstructions.

Poor sleep and reactive aggression: Results from a national sample of African American adults.

BACKGROUND: We know that poor sleep can have important implications for a variety of health outcomes and some evidence suggests a link between sleep and aggressive behavior. However, few studies have looked at this relationship among African-Americans in the United States. METHODS: Data from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL) and the NSAL Adult Re-Interview were used to examine associations between sleep duration and self-reported quality of sleep on reactive aggression among African American and Caribbean Black respondents between the ages of 18 and 65 (n = 2499). RESULTS: Controlling for an array of sociodemographic and psychiatric factors, sleep was found to be significantly associated with reactive aggression. Specifically, individuals who reported sleeping on average less than 5 h per night were nearly three times more likely to report losing their temper and engaging in a physical fight (AOR = 3.13, 95% CI = 1.22-8.02). Moreover, individuals who reported being "very dissatisfied" with their sleep were more than two times more likely to report losing their temper and engaging in physical fights (AOR = 3.32, 95% CI = 1.50-7.33). Persons reporting everyday discrimination and problems managing stress were more likely to sleep poorly. CONCLUSIONS: The present study is among the first to document an association between poor sleep and reactive violence among African-Americans. Findings suggest that reducing discrimination may lead to improved sleep and subsequently reduce forms of reactive violence.

A preliminary empirical test of Silverthorn and Frick's delayed-onset pathway in girls using an urban, African-American, US-based sample.

BACKGROUND: Silverthorn and Frick argued that there is no pathway to criminal activity among girls that is analogous to the early-onset/life-course-persistent-type one among boys. Instead, they argued for a female-specific theory in which even girls with the same high-risk backgrounds and criminal outcomes as early-onset/life-course-persistent boys show delayed-onset offending. AIMS: To test the Silverthorn Frick model of gender-specific pathways to offending in an independent cohort. METHODS: A cohort of 987 urban, African-American males and females participated in the Philadelphia portion of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project which collected biological, psychological and sociological variables. By age 18, 220 of these individuals had incurred a least one police contact, of which 64 did so under the age of 13. A criminal history follow-up was conducted in 1998 when cohort members had all reached their mid-thirties. RESULTS: Females and males were equally likely to experience early-onset offending (police contact by age 13), but female late-onset offenders resembled male early-onset offenders on nine of 10 risk factors. Male early-onset offenders had worse criminal outcomes compared with female and male late-onset offenders, but did not differ from female early-onset offenders. Female late-onset offenders showed many similarities on key risk factors to male late-onset offenders. CONCLUSIONS: Silverthorn and Frick may have over-estimated the outcome similarity of late-onset offending females to early-onset males and under-estimated occurrence of early-onset-life-course persistent offending in females. In so far as cohort studies such as these inform social policy, it is likely to be important that they are interpreted with sensitivity to minority needs.