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Assessing the Impact of Prenatal Care Mode on the Incidence of Birth Weight and Preterm Birth
No full textM.S.IntroductionPrenatal care is an essential aspect in mitigating pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight, very low birth weight, and preterm birth. Covid-19 resulted in the use of telehealth prenatal care, allowing mothers without access to it to receive the care they need. Addressing disparities in access to prenatal care, especially in areas such as Washington D.C., is essential to promoting maternal health equity. Urban populations such as D.C. face barriers such as transportation challenges, limited healthcare facilities, and socioeconomic factors that may prevent access to prenatal services but may be fixed through telehealth. This study's purpose is to understand the impact of telehealth on adverse birth outcomes.MethodsThis study utilizes data from Washington Hospital Center and statistical analysis was calculated using SAS version 9.4. The final data set is comprised of 2,676 mothers giving birth during the time of April 1, 2020-March 31, 2022. The exposure variable was the mode of prenatal care categorized in-person or telehealth prenatal care. The outcome variables were preterm birth, very low birth weight, and low birth weight. The independent variables were age, race, and insurance status. Comorbidities of gestational diabetes and hypertension was included in this study.ResultsThe findings show that there was a statistically significant association between mode of prenatal care and birth outcomes. Statistical analysis revealed that patients who used telehealth prenatal care were more likely to experience these adverse birth outcomes than those who use in-person prenatal care. Moderation analysis was conducted to see the impact that presence of comorbidities had on the relationship between mode of prenatal care and birth outcomes which was not significant moderation.ConclusionThe findings from this study suggest that having received telemedicine during pregnancy is associated with adverse outcomes. The association between telemedicine use during pregnancy and adverse outcomes shines a light on the critical importance surrounding continuity of care and highlights potential disparities in prenatal care delivery. Further research needs to be done to determine whether this is related to unmeasured variables that impacted outcomes during the height of COVID-19 when there were more telemedicine visits or if it reflects the need for in person care for pregnant people
Does Democracy Mean Happiness
No full textM.P.P.This thesis delves into the relationship between democracy and happiness to encourage policymakers to understand the nuances that effect a nations happiness levels. By arguing that democracy is not the most relevant factors to a nation’s happiness, we scrutinize the intricate relationship between a nations democracy and happiness scores to dispel the notion that states must adopt democratic governments to prosper. While there is an association between democracy and happiness, we conduct comprehensive analysis considering a variety of contextual factors that effect a nations happiness in the categories of economic, governance, demographical, and time in-variant factors. Through a blend of historical and contemporary perspectives, we aim to provide insights into whether democracy is a catalyst for a nation's well-being via happiness, or if alternative governance structures can yield comparable outcomes. We find that when looking at economic, governance, demographical and colonial histories of countries, democracy is not significantly associated with happiness scores. A nations government effectiveness, no matter what the government style, and demographic conditions are more predictive of how happy the citizens will be. In many foreign policy instances, democracy promotion has undermined sovereignty and stability in developing nations. Our findings enable policymakers to have a better understanding of why nations should or should not be subjugated to being democratic through the examination of democracy and happiness, shedding light on this complex relationship contributing to a deeper understanding of the role of democracy or other factors in shaping a nation's overall contentment
Trading Interactions with the United States and United Nations Voting Alignment
No full textM.P.P.This thesis investigates the relationship between trade interactions with the United States and voting alignments within the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In an evolving geopolitical landscape where trade dynamics profoundly influence diplomatic behaviors, this study aims to understand how economic dependencies affect political alignments, particularly in the context of significant global shifts. The research finds that increased trade with the US would lead to closer voting alignments with the US; democratic values in countries do not influence their alignment with the US; the effect of trade on UN voting alignments do not diminishes with China's accession to the WTO in 2001; and the recent US trade policy reversals, especially during the Trump administration, weaken traditional trading and alignment dynamics
The Prelude to a Crisis: How Military Commanders Create Their Informational Environment
No full textPh.D.What explains the variation in how a theater military command develops and chooses its strategies at war? While strategy is often a popular topic of debate among scholars studying war, few have systematically examined the development of the informational environment that informed strategy selection. Leveraging theories of political psychology and organizational decision-making, this dissertation addresses that gap by identifying two behavioral attributes that influence how a military theater commander shapes their informational and decision-making environment. I theorize that these attributes – a commander’s need for control and their level of cognitive complexity – define the advisory and control system within a theater military headquarters. It determines who gets to make what decisions and what information is available to support that decision. Using Bayesian analysis and process-tracing to review cases of US intrawar crises since WWI, I test this argument in four cases: the 1950 Chinese Intervention into the Korean War, the 1964 strategic reassessment in South Vietnam, the 1968 Tet Offensive, and the 1972 Easter Offensive. I find that my Commander’s Personality Theory provides a better explanation of the strategy selection process in each case than the alternatives. It demonstrates that how a commander seeks to understand the nature of a situation, how they validate their beliefs, how involved they are in the process, and how open they are to being corrected once they feel they have “figured it out” plays a critical role in defining how the senior military headquarters responsible for managing a conflict curates its information and forms decisions. This research enhances our understanding of how informational structures that distort a more objective understanding of reality are formed and how that environment influences decision-making and strategy selection. It also emphasizes the broad implications an individual can have on shaping the direction of a conflict
I Don't Care for G.O.B.: Examining Social Aggressions in Arrested Development
No full textThis paper examines the frequency of social aggression in the television show Arrested
Development and explores the potential impacts of such continuous displays of aggression
on one of the show’s main audiences, teenage boys. Humor as social aggression and
social aggression as humor are common behaviors in the 21st century, and, as a result, the
behaviors often appear in our lives and on screen. This consistency warrants analysis of the
behavior. To examine the impact of these portrayals, a literature review of social aggression
is provided. Next, a summary of the show and the context of social aggression on screen
introduces readers to the intersection of the topics. A media effects and content analysis
methods section explains the reasoning for the method and how the study was conducted.
Content Analysis was performed on 53 episodes of Arrested Development. There were 522
instances of social aggression. Out of these instances, 287 were manifest acts of aggression
that were overt and intentional; the other 235 were subtler but nonetheless designed to
harm. Results of the analysis are followed by a discussion of possible micro and macro
media effects of the social aggression depicted within the show, specifically increased
uptake of social aggression behavior leading to worsening social fulfillment and mental
health quality for young men in particular. Finally, the show and findings are contextualized
by placing both in context with our current social climate and media consumption habits.
This contextualization reveals that the original intentions of the show may be lost and
stresses the possible impact of such a loss on young men in today’s sociopolitical landscape
The Relationship Between Armed Conflict in Mexico and Educational Attainment: A State-Level Analysis
No full textM.P.P.While Mexico essentially achieved universal primary enrollment in 2014, secondary school enrollment rates remain some of the lowest among the OECD. The dropout between primary and secondary school in Mexico is significant, and the dropout between lower secondary and upper secondary schools is even more significant. Aside from this, Mexico has also been engaged in a conflict with drug trafficking organizations for decades, both in an official and unofficial capacity. Since the official declaration of the war on drugs in 2006, there have been 360,000 intentional homicides and 79,000 disappearances in Mexico. Existing literature suggests a significant relationship between armed conflict and reduced educational attainment, both in Mexico and internationally. Given the conflict related to the war on drugs in Mexico, this analysis uses state-year data on the 32 states of Mexico between 1997 to 2018 to investigate the relationship between conflict and secondary school attendance. This will contribute to existing literature through a larger set of years, as opposed to only looking at the years directly following the official declaration of the war on drugs, and novel metric of measurement for educational attainment, in specifically investigating both lower and upper secondary school attendance. In contrast to existing literature, the results found in this study do not reflect a significant relationship between armed conflict and reduced educational attainment. This could be due to various limitations within the study and demonstrates the need for further research on this topic
An Unexpected Cosmopolis: Italy and the Multifaceted Visions of Otherness
No full textReview article - Global Perspectives in Modern Italian Culture. Knowledge and Representation of the World in Italy from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century, ed. by Guido Abbattista. London: Routledge, 2021, 332 p., ISBN: 9780367467920 Cosmopolitan Italy in the Age of Nations. Transnational Visions from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. by Edoardo Tortarolo. London: Routledge, 2023, 256 p., ISBN: 9780367565268https://doi.org/10.57928/azgv-4x8
Political Dynamics and Federal Oversight: An Examination of Questioned Costs and Divided Government
No full textM.P.P.The relationship between the political environment and the federal government’s ability to identify wasteful spending is increasingly important as policymakers debate whether government funds are allocated efficiently. Policymakers should be incentivized to review all government programs for wasteful spending; however, political pressures such as divided government and political bias likely influence how policymakers identify wasted taxpayer dollars. I hypothesize that divided government, rather than unified government, will identify higher levels of wasteful spending across all government programs, and Republican control of the House of Representatives, Senate, and White House will be associated with higher wasteful spending identified. Using an Ordinary Least Squares regression, which also controls for entity- and time-fixed-effects, this thesis will examine the relationship between divided government and wasteful spending identified by Offices of Inspectors General, federal oversight entities. The results of the regressions will convey the relationship between the political environment and wasteful spending, which is increasingly important as divided government continues to be the norm compared to historic trends
