Perceived stress among Hispanic young adults: Impact of the coping with work and family stress program.

Objective: To examine the effect of an evidence-based curriculum on stress perceptions across time. Participants: Hispanic college students from a Hispanic-serving institution in a U.S. southern border city. Methods: A permuted block design with repeated measures was used. Participants were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The treatment group received the Coping with Work and Family Stress (CWFS) evidence-based curriculum while the control group did not receive any programming. Data were collected from both the groups at baseline, exit, and at 3-month follow-up. Results: Stress reduction was observed among program participants however an unintended negative consequence of the intervention was found among those who experience intimate partner violence. Conclusion: The CWFS evidence-based intervention may be appropriate to use in reducing general types of stress but perhaps not stress resulting from intimate partner violence.

Social, health and ethnicity correlates of complaints of excessive police force.

BACKGROUND: Following several high-profile police shootings of Black Americans, renewed debate has focused on race as a predictor of police violence. Past research has been inconsistent on this score. Some scholars argue that socioeconomic issues are better predictors of police-related violence than are race and ethnicity. AIMS: To test relationships between complaints of excessive use of police violence and racial/ethnic population demographics, allowing for social and mental health variables. METHODS: We examined records from all 195 municipal police departments in California to identify complaints of excessive force by police and tested for associations between such complaints and health, socio-economic and demographic data from county records, using multivariate analyses. RESULTS: There was no difference in reporting between communities according to Black or White American residency proportions; communities with more Latino Americans were less likely to complain formally of excessive use of police force. The strongest associate of complaints to police departments that their employees had used excessive force was experiencing mental distress in the community. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings are limited by reliance on complaints to police authorities rather than actual incidence of police use of excessive force and by having to map municipal data on to county data, but the finding that factors other than or in addition to any inherent police problems may contribute to excessive use of force by the police offers new lines for remedying the problem. In particular, our findings suggest that more training for police in recognising and managing mental distress and more provision of mental health experts to work alongside police would be worth evaluating as a next step.

Using egocentric analysis to investigate professional networks and productivity of graduate students and faculty in life sciences in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Prior studies showed that scientists' professional networks contribute to research productivity, but little work has examined what factors predict the formation of professional networks. This study sought to 1) examine what factors predict the formation of international ties between faculty and graduate students and 2) identify how these international ties would affect publication productivity in three East Asian countries. Face-to-face surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of faculty and doctoral students in life sciences at 10 research institutions in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Our final sample consisted of 290 respondents (84 faculty and 206 doctoral students) and 1,435 network members. We used egocentric social network analysis to examine the structure of international ties and how they relate to research productivity. Our findings suggest that overseas graduate training can be a key factor in graduate students' development of international ties in these countries. Those with a higher proportion of international ties in their professional networks were likely to have published more papers and written more manuscripts. For faculty, international ties did not affect the number of manuscripts written or of papers published, but did correlate with an increase in publishing in top journals. The networks we examined were identified by asking study participants with whom they discuss their research. Because the relationships may not appear in explicit co-authorship networks, these networks were not officially recorded elsewhere. This study sheds light on the relationships of these invisible support networks to researcher productivity.

Mentor-mentee interaction and laboratory social environment: Do they matter in doctoral students' publication productivity?

We explored the social shaping of science at the micro-level reality of face-to-face interaction in one of the traditional places for scientific activities-the scientific lab. We specifically examined how doctoral students' perception of their: (i) interaction with doctoral mentors (MMI) and (ii) lab social environment (LSE) influenced productivity. Construed as the production of peer-reviewed articles, we measured productivity using total number of articles (TOTAL), number of articles with impact factor greater than or equal to 4.00 (IFGE4), and number of first-authored articles (NFA). Via face-to-face interviews, we obtained data from n = 210 molecular biology Ph.D. students in selected universities in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Additional productivity data (NFA) were obtained from online bibliometric databases. To summarize the original 13 MMI and 13 LSE semantic-differential items which we used to measure students' perceptions, principal component (PC) analyses were performed. The results were smaller sets of 4 MMI PCs and 4 LSE PCs. To identify which PCs influenced publication counts, we performed Poisson regression analyses. Although perceived MMI was not linked to productivity, perceived LSE was linked: Students who perceived their LSE as intellectually stimulating reported high levels of productivity in both TOTAL and IFGE4, but not in NFA. Our findings not only highlight how students' perception of their training environment factors in the production of scientific output, our findings also carry important implications for improving mentoring programs in science. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(2):130-144, 2017.

Perceptions matter: faculty caring, campus racial climate and academic performance.

AIM: Examine the influence of students' perception of faculty caring on academic performance and the moderating role of students' perceptions of campus racial climate. BACKGROUND: There is limited knowledge on how students' perceptions of faculty caring, campus racial climate and academic performance are linked. Understanding this nexus is crucial to improving nursing education. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of a cross-sectional data obtained from seven undergraduate nursing programs in Texas, USA. METHOD: Data were from 385 students enrolled in Medical-Surgical 1 over three semesters (March 2010-December 2010). Six sets of factor analytic scores derived from 31 original perceptions of faculty caring items served as predictors; one set of scores derived from seven original perceptions of campus racial climate items served as moderating variable in a regression model. Numeric grade was the outcome variable. RESULTS/FINDINGS: Perception of faculty having a positive outlook/compassion had an enhancing effect on performance. As students' perceptions of campus racial climate became increasingly discriminating, the positive association between perceptions of faculty's trust in students' judgment and academic performance became increasingly strong. CONCLUSION: Results highlight ways by which students' perception of micro-level social reality (dyadic interaction) might interact with their perception of meso-level social reality (social environment) to influence their academic performance.

English-Language Proficiency, Academic Networks, and Academic Performance of Mexican American Baccalaureate Nursing Students.

AIM: We examine how academic networks mediate between English-language proficiency and academic performance. BACKGROUND: The relationship between English-language proficiency and academic performance remains inconclusive; it is possible that academic networks play a role in this relationship. Filling this knowledge gap is central to building best practices in teaching, and to evaluating the impact of networks on success. METHOD: Data were analyzed from 164 Mexican American nursing students. We used English Language Acculturation Scale (ELAS) items as predictors, interaction with academic networks as the mediating variable, and course grade as the outcome; regression analyses were performed. RESULTS: Interaction with academic networks correlated with grades; ELAS was not significant. Instead, academic networks mediated between entrance GPA and grades, an unexpected finding. CONCLUSION: Academic networks are critical in academic performance. However, only those students who have a history of high performance are likely to have or to activate academic networks.

Research experiences and mentoring practices in selected east Asian graduate programs: predictors of research productivity among doctoral students in molecular biology.

Although doctoral mentors recognize the benefits of providing quality advisement and close guidance, those of sharing project management responsibilities with mentees are still not well recognized. We observed that mentees, who have the opportunity to co-manage projects, generate more written output. Here we examine the link between research productivity, doctoral mentoring practices (DMP), and doctoral research experiences (DRE) of mentees in programs in the non-West. Inspired by previous findings that early career productivity is a strong predictor of later productivity, we examine the research productivity of 210 molecular biology doctoral students in selected programs in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Using principal component (PC) analysis, we derive two sets of PCs: one set from 15 DMP and another set from 16 DRE items. We model research productivity using Poisson and negative-binomial regression models with these sets as predictors. Our findings suggest a need to re-think extant practices and to allocate resources toward professional career development in training future scientists. We contend that doctoral science training must not only be an occasion for future scientists to learn scientific and technical skills, but it must also be the opportunity to experience, to acquire, and to hone research management skills.

School-located influenza vaccination and absenteeism among elementary school students in a Hispanic community.

Seasonal influenza is recognized as a significant health burden to children and is a cause of excess school absenteeism in children. In 2008, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended annual influenza vaccination for all children 6 months to 18 years of age. School nurses influence participation in this recommendation by conducting school-located influenza vaccination (SLIV) programs at their campuses. Knowing the effect of SLIV programs on student absenteeism may motivate school nurses and district administrators to conduct such vaccination programs. This study examines the impact of an SLIV program on elementary school absenteeism in an inner city school district with a predominantly Hispanic population. Using Poisson regression models with robust standard errors, we analyzed data from 3,775 records obtained by stratified random sampling. Results of the study indicate that students vaccinated through an SLIV program have fewer absences than unvaccinated students. A surprising result of the study shows that students vaccinated through an SLIV program had fewer absences than students vaccinated elsewhere. These results are of particular importance to school nurses who work with large Hispanic populations. Our study illustrates one way that a school nurse can assess the effect of an SLIV program on absenteeism.

Do cell phones, iPods/MP3 players, siblings and friends matter? Predictors of child body mass in a U.S. Southern Border City Middle School.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the association of children's (i) micro-social environment, specifically siblings [kin-friends] and friends from school and neighborhood [non-kin-friends], and (ii) ownership of information and communication technologies (ICT), specifically cell phones and iPod/MP3 players, with body mass index percentile (BMIp). SUBJECTS: Fifty-five randomly selected 6th graders with a mean age of 12 years, stratified by gender (23 boys and 32 girls), from a Texas middle school located in a city along the U.S. southern border. METHODS: The linear regression of BMIp on number of siblings and of non-kin-friends, and ownership of cell phone and of iPod/MP3 player was examined using two models: M1 was based on the manual selection of predictors from a pool of potential predictors. M2 was derived from the predictors specified in M1 using backward elimination technique. Because sample size was small, the significance of regression coefficients was evaluated using robust standard errors to calculate t-values. Data for predictors were obtained through a survey. Height and weight were obtained through actual anthropometric measurements. BMIp was calculated using the on-line BMI calculator of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. RESULTS: Findings reveal that children's social environment and ICT ownership predict BMIp; specifically, number of siblings (M2: ß = -0.34, p-value < .001), and ownership of iPod/MP3 players (M2: ß = 0.33, p-value < .001). These results underscore the importance of family in configuring, and of new personal technical devices (that encourage solitary, and oftentimes sedentary, activities) in predicting child body mass.