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Educating Primary Care Providers on Naloxone Distribution in a Rural Federally Qualified Healthcare Center
No full textD.N.P.Opiate overdose is a leading cause of death in the United States (U.S). Universal distribution of naloxone medication is an effective harm-reduction strategy that decreases deaths related to opioid use, and educating health care providers has proven effective to increase naloxone distribution in a rural outpatient setting. This quality improvement project (QI) was implemented over 12 weeks, and it introduced an evidence-based educational session for primary care providers in a rural federally funded and qualified healthcare center (FQHC). The education session provided information related to naloxone use, overdose prevention, and encouraged providers to universally distribute naloxone. The project measured the change in naloxone medication kit distribution by primary care providers after the educational session was implemented. A secondary aim measured provider satisfaction with the educational session’s components. Chart abstraction was used to track the number of naloxone kits distributed 12 weeks before the project's onset and during implementation. Weekly data was collected on the number of naloxone kits distributed. The satisfaction survey was implemented at two points: immediately after the educational session ended and after the implementation period. Before implementation, the distribution of naloxone medication kits occurred at a rate of 2.7 per 1,000 patients; following implementation, the rate of distribution for naloxone medication kits increased to 28.8 per thousand patients. The findings indicate a statistically significant increase (z = 11.3,
Influenza Vaccine Implementation in Free-Standing Emergency Rooms
No full textD.N.P.Influenza is a significant global public health concern due to its contagiousness and potential for severe complications. This project evaluates the impact of nurse-driven education on flu vaccine acceptance among adults discharged from the Emergency Department (ED). A systematic review from 2000 to 2022 focused on vaccine implementation in EDs, and the project utilized databases like Web of Science, PubMed, CINAHL, and Google Scholar. Findings showed that nurse-driven education successfully increased flu vaccine acceptance in 5 discharged patients. However, the project faced limitations due to high patient volume and exclusions from two free-standing EDs during the two months. Despite these challenges, nurse- driven education can enhance flu vaccination acceptance among ED patients. It is crucial to stress the importance of continued efforts and improvements in project site protocols and research methodologies, as these will enhance vaccine uptake and lessen the burden of influenza on the public health system
The Relationship Between Foreign Aid Spending in Health and Recipient Domestic Health Expenditures in West Africa
No full textM.P.P.While the United States and its economic peers heavily invest in foreign aid programs in West Africa, these programs lack articulated transition strategies or exit policies. The relatively poor governance structures and investment landscapes in West African recipient countries raise concerns about the sustainability of incoming aid, specifically as it relates to a recipient country’s ability to mobilize internal resources. These concerns have significant implications for the long-term socioeconomic and health outcomes of this region’s population. This paper explores the relationship between donor investment behaviors and recipient-country domestic resource mobilization strategies. My research is intended to add to the existing literature on donor dependence and behavior through the use of temporal and geographic lenses. Using data from U.S. Foreign Assistance databases, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization, this paper employs a geographic focus in West Sub-Saharan Africa. My results suggest that there is no significant relationship between foreign aid spending in health and recipient domestic health expenditures in the sample. However, the results identify statistically significant relationships between recipient domestic health expenditure and the USAID PEPFAR program, the efficiency of resource mobilization, and the country’s GDP per capita. These results indicate a meaningful relationship between a country’s economic status and its ability to leverage internal funds to better engage in and independently sustain outcomes from foreign aid assistance.
Uttering Unspeakable Truths: The Victims of the Colombian armed conflict and the Continuum of Violence
No full textThe violence committed during the internal armed conflict in Colombia demonstrates the severe damage perpetrated against Indigenous communities. In transitional justice studies, victims of conflicts have been studied by multiple experts, highlighting the complexity of the Colombian internal armed conflict. The diversity of the actors is part of this complexity due to the selective killings of social leaders, threats to entire communities, recruitment of youth and children, violence based on gender, and destruction of nature. This research is focused on the consequences experienced for a specific group of victims of narcotrafficking; women and LGBTQ+ individuals, and the victims of extrajudicial executions and its correlation with the Continuum of Violence.
The Continuum of Violence is a category used to explain the accumulative layers of violence suffered for some victims in the highest levels of cruelty. This capstone examines the complexity of those different layers of violence on the Neehwesx Indigenous community in Northern Cauca; some women and LGBTQ+ individuals and the victims of extrajudicial executions in Dabeiba, Antioquia. The Continuum of Violence as a concept of interpretation opens a new discussion about the nature of the victims, the intersectionality of the crimes committed against them, and the mechanisms of reparations created by the Transitional Justice System
Vulnerability during Hurricane Katrina: A discussion involving low-income African single mothers.
No full textWith the recurrence of global and national climate-related events, single African American women are impacted more compared to other single American mothers. As years have passed and climate-related events routinely impact the American landscape, no other population of single American women have been exposed to the aftereffects of climate-related events on the same scale as single African American women. Disaster preparedness in general is not an issue of single African American mothers’ everyday concerns. Their concerns pertain to providing food, shelter, clothing, and education for their children while they raise their children by themselves. The levels of vulnerability are higher due to their economic status, educational level, and their inability to secure long-lasting financial resources to sustain their families if the need to evacuate their homes for a long period of time regarding a climate-related event. A questionnaire, whose purpose was to give direction to the research as to the causes of higher levels of vulnerability for single African American mothers in relation to climate-related events, was created and administered to single African American mothers who have school-aged children (ranging from elementary to college within the Richmond area). The results also help understand avenues in which this specific demographic can navigate ways of reducing their vulnerabilities
Discursive Construction of Defendant and Victim Identity in Courtroom Opening Statement Narratives
No full textPh.D.Social scientists have long been interested in understanding how jurors make verdict decisions, and research in the field of psychology has demonstrated the importance of stories in this decision-making process (Griffin, 2013). In this research, I take a structural and performative narrative analytic approach (Riessman, 2008) to understanding how attorneys construct persuasive, opposing narratives through their identity construction of defendants and victims in the opening statements of U.S. criminal trials. Utilizing frameworks from narrative analysis (Labov, 1972; Davies & Harré, 1990; Bamberg, 1997), I analyze the opening statement narratives of three criminal trials (MN v. Chauvin, FL v. Lewis, and WI v. Rittenhouse) with the goal of better understanding how attorneys create persuasive narratives in part through identity construction of defendants and victims. The analysis shows the attorneys across cases and sides utilize a variety of linguistic strategies including involvement strategies (Tannen, 2007), stancetaking (Ochs, 1993; Du Bois, 2007), and comparison (Labov 1972; 1997) to position defendants and victims through attribution of agency, comparison to other groups or individuals, adoption of alternative perspectives, and normative judgements based on sociocultural expectations. These positions contribute to the overarching construction of identities for defendants and victims which are evaluated against relevant legal standards to support the main point of the narrative: the defendant is guilty or not guilty. This work will connect linguistic research on opening statement narratives with psychological research on juror decision-making, contribute to the relatively sparse literature on identity construction in the courtroom, and provide a granular analysis of one way in which courtroom narratives are linguistically constructed to be more persuasive
Birth and Death: The Effect of Abortion Restrictions on Maternal Mortality
No full textM.P.P.This thesis investigates the impact of abortion restrictions on maternal mortality rates in the United States, particularly in the aftermath of the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. This study analyzed regional data spanning from 2019 to 2022 to explore the hypothesis that heightened abortion restrictions correlate with elevated maternal mortality rates. While this study did not find a statistically significant relationship based on traditional thresholds, the findings demonstrate a need for additional research and improved data collection methods
Veterans Interest Newsletter Issue 67
No full textTopics include the origins of Memorial Day; a reproduction of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s letter to the troops on the eve of D-Day in 1944; a summary of a scandal within the US Navy involving Malaysian defense contractor Leonard Glenn Francis, aka Fat Leonard, who bribed numerous Naval officers into turning over classified materials; statistics on the first year of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) suicide help program; the death of Vietnam War activist Barry Romo; the identification of two US soldiers killed during the Korean War; and an excerpt from World War I soldier and poet Alan Seeger’s poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.” Also includes statistics of the annual and total cost of the war in Afghanistan from Statistica
The Rhode Island Right to Read Act and State Personnel Development Grant: A Preliminary Evaluation
No full textM.P.P.The Rhode Island State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG) was awarded to the Rhode Island Department of Education in 2021 and provides funding from the U.S. Department of Education to support the state in its implementation the of the Rhode Island Right to Read Act, passed in 2019 and intended to improve reading instruction and student literacy. Implementation of the grant’s Professional Development (PD) trainings began in Fall 2021 for Early Childhood through Grade 12 educators. In this study, a difference-in-differences approach is used to evaluate the effect of the PD delivered to an initial cohort of participants (i.e., Cohort 1). I use a quasi-experimental, matched comparison design to establish a control group against which I evaluate the performance of third grade students in public elementary schools whose educators participated in Cohort 1 of the SPDG. Third grade scores are selected as an important gauge of early literacy and a predictor of future academic success. My results show no meaningful effect on assessment scores. I suggest though, that additional years of implementation and formative evaluation feedback may reveal potential effects. Policy considerations for Rhode Island and states implementing similar Science of Reading legislation are provided in the meantime to strengthen the quality of PD delivered to improve student literacy outcomes
The Politics of Immigration: The Effect of Right-Wing Populism on the Naturalization Process
No full textM.P.P.The past two decades have witnessed a resurgence of support for right-wing populist parties and candidates, characterized in part by a strong opposition to immigration. The electoral success of right-wing populism has been accompanied by numerous proposed and enacted restrictions to countries’ naturalization processes, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Using data from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)’s International Migration Dataset and the Comparative Political Data Set from 2000 to 2021, I examine the extent to which increased electoral support for right-wing populism affects a country’s naturalizations. Overall, the results of this study suggest that an increase in right-wing populist parties’ vote share has little to no statistically significant impact on the number of naturalizations recorded per year