Beyond Education Dollars: Does Social Safety Net Spending Affect High School Graduation Rates?

Purpose: To examine the relationship between social safety net (SSN) spending and high school graduation rates for all students, as well as students belonging to minoritized groups. Also, to determine whether public SSN investments and PK-12 education are independent.

Methods: Using Common Core Data and the State-by-State Spending on Kids data, we estimated the effects of per-child SSN spending on graduation rates over time (2010-2016) using two-way fixed effects.

Student and Teacher Perspectives of Service Utilization at Their School-based Health Center.

School-based health centers (SBHCs) positively influence student health. However, the extent to which these benefits are actualized varies across sites. We conducted focus groups with high school students and teachers at an underperforming SBHC to identify facilitators and barriers to student access to SBHC services.

Gendered powerlessness in at-risk adolescent and young women: an empirical model.

In the United States, youth aged 13-24 comprised approximately 21% of new HIV infections in 2017; 13% of these infections occurred among women, the majority of whom (86%) acquired HIV through heterosexual contact (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2019a. .

Latinx Mental Health Scholars' Experiences with Cultural Adaptation and Implementation of Systemic Family Interventions.

An increasing number of culturally adapted family-level interventions address mental health disparities with marginalized populations in the United States. However, with these developments many barriers have arisen, such as challenges with degree of cultural fit, engagement, and sustainability. We conducted 12 elite phenomenological interviews with mental health scholars involved in prevention and intervention family research with various Latinx communities within and outside of the United States.

Youth health outcomes from the Connect-to-Protect Coalitions to prevent adolescent HIV infections.

We assessed the relationships among HIV-related social and behavioral outcomes resulting from an adolescent-focused HIV structural change initiative in eight urban sites operating Connect to Protect (C2P) coalitions. Over a 4-year period, annual cross-sectional panels of adolescents (N = 2,248) completed an audio-computer-assisted interview, providing data on satisfaction with their communities as adolescent-supportive environments, internalized HIV stigma, lifetime HIV-testing, lifetime sexual risk-taking, and number of sexual partners in the prior year. We used structural equation modeling to estimate hypothesized links between time since coalition mobilization to our social and behavioral outcomes.

Structural Effects on HIV Risk Among Youth: A Multi-level Analysis.

We proposed a multilevel model of structural influences on HIV-risky sexual partnerships in a diverse sample of 1793 youth residing in 23 states and the District of Columbia. We examined the influence of concentrated disadvantage, HIV stigma, and sexual and gender minority stigma on engagement in HIV risky sexual partnerships and whether youth's participation in opportunity structures, anticipation of HIV stigma, and perceptions of their community as youth-supportive settings mediated structural effects. After controlling for age, HIV status, and race, we found structural HIV stigma had deleterious indirect effects on youth's participation in HIV-risky sexual partnerships.

Ecological Barriers to HIV Service Access among Young Men who have Sex with Men and High-Risk Young Women from Low-resourced Urban Communities.

Using an ecological perspective, we sought to elucidate the perceived barriers preventing HIV service access among two groups of U.S. youth (ages 12-24) disproportionately affected by HIV, men who have sex with men and high-risk women.

Structural and Community Change Outcomes of the Connect-to-Protect Coalitions: Trials and Triumphs Securing Adolescent Access to HIV Prevention, Testing, and Medical Care.

Connect to Protect (C2P), a 10-year community mobilization effort, pursued the dual aims of creating communities competent to address youth's HIV-related risks and removing structural barriers to youth health. We used Community Coalition Action Theory (CCAT) to examine the perceived contributions and accomplishments of 14 C2P coalitions. We interviewed 318 key informants, including youth and community leaders, to identify the features of coalitions' context and operation that facilitated and undermined their ability to achieve structural change and build communities' capability to manage their local adolescent HIV epidemic effectively.

Working together to solve disparities: Latina/o parents' contributions to the adaptation of a preventive intervention for childhood conduct problems.

Left untreated, conduct problems can have significant and long-lasting negative effects on children's development. Despite the existence of many effective interventions, U.S.

Exploring the role of Natural Helpers in efforts to address disparities for children with conduct problems.

The incorporation of natural helpers into services has been suggested as an innovative strategy to address disparities for historically underserved children with conduct problems. In order to inform incorporation efforts, this study examined the perceptions of natural helpers serving one U.S.

Assessing the Key to Effective Coaching in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: The Therapist-Parent Interaction Coding System.

This paper describes the initial evaluation of the Therapist-Parent Interaction Coding System (TPICS), a measure of in vivo therapist coaching for the evidence-based behavioral parent training intervention, parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT). Sixty-one video-recorded treatment sessions were coded with the TPICS to investigate (1) the variety of coaching techniques PCIT therapists use in the early stage of treatment, (2) whether parent skill-level guides a therapist's coaching style and frequency, and (3) whether coaching mediates changes in parents' skill levels from one session to the next. Results found that the TPICS captured a range of coaching techniques, and that parent skill-level prior to coaching did relate to therapists' use of in vivo feedback.

Incorporating Natural Helpers to Address Service Disparities for Young Children with Conduct Problems.

In response to the high levels of unmet need among historically underserved young children with conduct problems, this paper outlines some of the key issues involved in incorporating natural helpers into the delivery of parenting interventions for the treatment of conduct problems among historically underserved children. Strategies for the selection and training of natural helpers are discussed along with challenges that might be encountered in these processes. Directions for future research are also highlighted.

Views on sex and sex education among gang-involved Latino youth in the United States.

Although gang-involved Latino youth in the United States are uniquely at risk of adverse consequences from sexual behavior, little research is available that can guide those who wish to develop interventions to reduce sexual risk among these youth. To facilitate the development of effective interventions, we identified cultural and contextual factors that influence sexual behavior and sex education among gang-involved Latino youth in one U.S.

Cultural competence: a literature review and conceptual model for mental health services.

This article presents a conceptual model of organizational cultural competence for use in mental health services that resulted from a comprehensive review of the research literature. The model identifies four factors associated with cultural competence in mental health services (community context, cultural characteristics of local populations, organizational infrastructure, and direct service support) and redefines cultural competence as the degree of compatibility among these factors. A strength of this model of organizational cultural competence is that it facilitates future research and practice in psychiatric services settings and links culturally competent practices to service parity.

Disentangling the relation between television viewing and cognitive processes in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and comparison children.

Objectives: To develop causal hypotheses regarding the effects of television viewing on cognitive processes in children and to examine the proposition that deleterious effects of television may be stronger among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Design: Longitudinal study involving 2 phases occurring 18 months apart.

Setting: University research facilities in Lexington.