This formative research project involves the creation and maintenance of an advisory group comprised of adolescents from Escambia County Florida who are brought together on a regular basis to discuss the health-related concerns of teenagers in the local area. Adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18 are recruited through local high schools and undergo a rigorous parental consent process prior to participation. The goals of this project are to gain an understanding of adolescents’ health concerns and priorities, include adolescents’ perspectives in health care planning and delivery systems, and provide opportunities for adolescent-generated health promotion and disease prevention program development.
Estonia, a former soviet nation of approximately 1.4 million people located in the Baltic region, gained independence in 1991 and has since experienced rapid social and economic reform. Tallinn University (TU), located in the capitol of Tallinn, has over 400 faculty and 8,000 students. The University of West Florida (UWF), a State University located in Pensacola, has nearly 10,000 students and just under 350 faculty. The National College Health Assessment (NCHA) of the American College Health Association (ACHA) is a standardized, comprehensive health behavior survey that has been administered to over 350,000 college student at more than 300 universities in the U.S., including UWF. In 2008, the NCHA was administered in an online format to a randomly selected sample of over 1,000 UWF students and a paper format of the NCHA was administered to a convenience sample of 130 TU students. Cross-cultural comparisons between these two universities will be examined.
Okaloosa AIDS Support and Informational Services, Inc. (OASIS), a community-based, AIDS service organization in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, sponsors an annual conference for people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. This consumer-based event, known as the Positive Living Conference, draws approximately 300+ attendees from more than a dozen states for a weekend full of workshops, panel presentation, seminars, and social events aimed at empowering individuals infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS. The conference provides state of the art information on HIV transmission, prevention, and treatment topics as well as support and encouragement form others. Participants at the 2008 Positive Living Conference completed measures of quality of life, HIV treatment knowledge, and satisfaction with conference events. Relationships between knowledge, satisfaction, and quality of life among persons living with HIV/AIDS will be examined.
Voter turnout has ranged from only 52-62% of eligible voters for the past ten presidential elections. While the political science literature offers a wealth of information related to predictors of candidate preferences of voters, limited information is available in the psychological or political science literature regarding prediction of those who vote versus those who don’t vote. This prospective project examines several factors that may be used to predict intentions to vote and actual voting behavior in a sample of several hundred college students:
Shortly after the election, a follow-up will assess actual voting behavior.
Transgender individuals are persons whose subjective experience of gender identity is incongruent with their anatomical or assigned sex. As sexual minorities, transgender individuals often report the experience of prejudice and discrimination. Social psychology theories suggest that contact with others who are dissimilar to oneself may reduce negative stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. This project tested the impact of live, interpersonal contact with transgender individuals on college students’ attitudes toward transgender individuals. Forty-five students in a human sexuality course were randomly assigned to one of two conditions following a baseline assessment of attitudes toward transgender individuals: a live, panel presentation by transgender individuals followed by a lecture presentation on transgender issues or a lecture presentation on transgender issues followed by a live, panel presentation by transgender individuals. Significantly greater reductions in negative attitudes toward transgender individuals were found following the live panel presentation than the lecture presentation.
Although there are several standardized measures of attitudes toward other sexual minorities (e.g., gay and lesbian individuals), extensive review of the literature reveals only one published, psychometrically-sound measure of attitudes toward transgender individuals. The Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS) contains some very strong items and may not capture more subtle negative attitudes and beliefs. The Attitudes Toward Transgender Individuals Scale (ATTIS) was developed in an effort to address this gap, by adapting items from standardized homophobia scales and including items specific to common stereotypes about transgender people. The ATTIS was administered to approximately 100 college students along with several standardized measures to assess construct validity. Factor analytic derivation of scales will be performed and internal consistency will be assessed.
The Transtheoretical Model asserts that behavior change occurs in a sequence of stages that vary as a function of intention to change and commitment to change efforts. Individuals are thought to move from the earliest stage where there is no intention to change (pre-contemplation) through to a stage of thinking about changing (contemplation) to a stage of planning to change (preparation) to a stage of attempting to change (action) to a final stage of new, habitual behavior (maintenance). This theory has been found to apply to a wide range of behaviors and it may apply to women’s efforts to change behaviors related to their vulnerability to sexual assault, such as using the buddy system or monitoring drinks for the introduction of date rape drugs. A ten item scale assessing women’s readiness to change behaviors related to vulnerability to sexual assault was administered to approximately 200 college-age women to assess its reliability and validity.
The Transtheoretical Model asserts that behavior change occurs in a sequence of stages that vary as a function of intention to change and commitment to change efforts. Individuals are thought to move from the earliest stage where there is no intention to change (pre-contemplation) through to a stage of thinking about changing (contemplation) to a stage of planning to change (preparation) to a stage of attempting to change (action) to a final stage of new, habitual behavior (maintenance). This theory has been found to apply to a wide range of behaviors and it may apply to college students’ use of protective behaviors while consuming alcohol, such as alternative alcoholic beverages with water or pacing one’s alcohol consumption. A six item scale assessing college students’ readiness to change protective drinking behaviors was developed and administered to over 800 college students to assess its reliability and validity.
Individuals have been found to vary with regard to their beliefs about the control of one’s health, or health locus of control. Health locus of control may be attributed to internal factors or external factors, including chance and powerful others. Health locus of control beliefs may influence health-related behaviors, including HIV risk behaviors such as injection drug use, condom use, and number of sexual partners. Health locus of control was assessed via a standardized scale among 200 consecutive adults presenting for HIV testing at a community-based HIV testing center. The relationship between health locus of control and HIV risk behaviors will be examined.
People living with HIV/AIDS often have multiple health care needs, including needs for outpatient medical care, inpatient medical care, specialty medical care, pharmaceutical assistance, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, dental care, and many others. Unfortunately, these health care needs are not always met and unmet health care needs may influence quality of life and overall health outcomes. Unmet health care needs may vary as a function of socioeconomic status and access to health insurance or other health financing programs, such as those provided by the Ryan White Treatment Modernization Act. This research project examines the level of met and unmet health care needs among a convenience sample of more than 90 adults living with HIV/AIDS. The relationship between unmet health care needs and quality of life will be examined, as will the relationship between access to health care financing resources and unmet health care needs.