Browsing by Subject "Interventions"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Describing changes in local short-term outcomes of youth-focused comprehensive tobacco control and their effect on smoking outcomes among cohorts of Minnesota Youth, 2000-2005.
    (2010-07) Alesci, Nina L.
    Introduction: The halting decline in national youth smoking prevalence indicates the need for comprehensive tobacco control (CTC). Social ecological theory postulates that CTC reduces smoking by altering social environments that influence long-term youth tobacco use. At the local level, CTC's short-term outcomes result from 1) policy action, such as ordinances restricting public smoking and youth access to tobacco; 2) school-based prevention, such as trained teachers offering proven curricula; and 3) community mobilization, such as voluntary home smoking restrictions and youth engagement. Few CTC studies document the effect of a cutoff in CTC funding on these outcomes; most studies can only weakly assert that this multilevel intervention causes youth smoking reductions. The Minnesota Adolescent Community Cohort (MACC) study evaluates the state's CTC 2000-2003 program, the Minnesota Youth Tobacco Prevention Initiative (MYTPI), and the effect of its sudden, major funding cut. The current study tested for 1) increases in short-term outcomes during the MYTPI and their sustainability after its shutdown; 2) decreases in youth smoking during the MYTPI and increases in youth smoking after the shutdown; and 3) a link between baseline levels of and changes in short-term outcomes to reduced youth smoking. Methods: MACC is a multilevel, population-based, observational cohort study of Minnesota youth (n=3,636) nested in geo-political units (GPUs; N=60), which signified local communities. A comparison group of youth (n=605) came from six Midwest states that had not dedicated major tobacco control funding. Annual ordinance, youth access enforcement, and school administrator surveys; and a twice-annual youth survey capture short-term outcomes in Minnesota. The youth survey also measures smoking outcomes. Data were collected from the MYTPI launch to two years post-shutdown (2000-2005). Analysis employs latent curve modeling, growth curves using structural equation modeling to parameterize the intercept and slope as latent variables. Piecewise latent curves modeled the effect of a sudden drop in tobacco control funding on short-term outcomes and youth smoking. Parallel process latent curves tested for contemporaneous change between short-term outcomes and youth smoking. Random coefficients models accounted for repeated measures and where appropriate, the multilevel nature of the data. Results: Implementation of short-term outcomes from school-based prevention and community-mobilization increased during the MYTPI; however, this growth eventually stopped or slowed after the shutdown. Some policy action outcomes increased minimally, and one outcome of policy action declined post-shutdown. Increases in smoking stage were the same between Minnesota and comparison groups, showing no period effects for the MYTPI or shutdown. However, younger cohorts, with early-teen MYTPI exposure, smoked less than older cohorts by the same age. Only youth access ordinances scores and living in homes banning smoking were negatively associated with smoking stage. Discussion: MYTPI implemented less controversial educational and community-mobilization strategies, but was not as successful with permanent policy change before its shutdown. This lack of policy action and youth focus could explain why Minnesota youth did not differ from other states with concurrent national tobacco control. The study offers some evidence supporting MYTPI interventions, but study flaws may make the influence of several of them undetectable. Study limitations include lack of/poor comparison group, secular trends, selection bias, measurement error, and analysis issues.
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    The Effects Of Cognitive Reflection Exercises On Employee Engagement: A Positive Intervention And Study Of The Role Of Cognition In Increasing Engagement In The Workplace
    (2020-05) Giddings, Douglas
    The employee engagement literature suggests that in order to increase engagement in the workplace, the number and availability of job resources (e.g., performance feedback, social support, autonomy, etc.) to which employees have access must also increase. This dissertation explores the role of cognition in employee engagement interventions by creating and testing a theoretical model that proposes the relationship between job resources and engagement is mediated by increased cognitive perceptions of those resources (perceptions of resource presence, and perceptions of resource importance). I tested hypotheses by creating a cognitive reflection intervention, similar to those used in the positive organizational scholarship literature, which asked participant to briefly reflect, at the end of each workday, and write about a positive experience they had related to one of five specific job resources. This intervention lasted for five weeks, and included pretest-posttest surveys to analyze overall changes to employee engagement and other key outcomes, as well as five end-of-week surveys to assess within-person changes in outcomes during the intervention period. The active-treatment condition was then compared to results from an active-control condition (who were asked to reflect about positive events more generally, rather than focusing specifically on job resources) and a no-treatment condition. Results revealed no significant changes to engagement for participants assigned to the active-treatment condition, or in differences between the active-treatment group and the other two conditions. Nevertheless, engagement scores for both reflection conditions increased or remained steady during the intervention period, while engagement scores for the no-treatment condition decreased. I conclude with a discussion of findings, theoretical and practical implications, and study limitations.
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    Examining the association between tobacco use and binge drinking and the effects of tobacco interventions on binge drinking behaviors
    (2012-03) Stahre, Mandy Adele
    Background: Binge drinking is a significant public health problem. Although effective alcohol control policies exist, many have eroded over time or face strong political opposition to their implementation. Other mechanisms to reduce binge drinking need to be found. Tobacco and alcohol use share similar biological, personal, and environmental characteristics and research has shown that among alcohol dependent population reducing smoking can lead to decreases in alcohol use. Objectives: The purpose of this dissertation was to assess: (1) the extent that binge drinking and smoking are associated in a non-alcohol dependent population, (2) how this observed association may be modified by individual- and environmental-level factors, and (3) the effect of tobacco interventions on binge drinking. Methods: The first study examined the association between binge drinking and smoking behaviors using a representative sample of active duty military personnel. Additionally, multivariate logistic regression tested whether frequency of deployment and the perception of an alcohol promoting environment moderated the association between binge drinking and smoking. The second study assessed the effect of an individual-level tobacco intervention (health education versus motivational interviewing counseling) on binge drinking and average daily alcohol use in a group of African American light smokers over a six-month period. Generalized linear models assessed the mediation effect of smoking cessation on the relationship between counseling intervention and drinking. The third study used pooled-time-series analyses to assess the effects of two state-level tobacco control policies (tobacco taxes and smoking bans in bars) on state-level binge drinking behaviors from 1998 to 2010. Results: In the first study, binge drinking was found to be significantly higher among current smokers than former and nonsmokers. The frequency of deployment (but not the perception of an alcohol-promoting environment) moderated this relationship although effects varied by branch of service. In the second study, individuals randomly assigned to receive health education counseling decreased their binge drinking at week 8 of the study, but these results diminished within six months. Smoking cessation did not appear to mediate the relationship between counseling type and binge drinking; however, individuals who quit smoking (regardless of counseling type) also decreased their binge drinking at week 8 of the study; these results were not significant at the end of the study. For the third study, neither tobacco taxes nor smoking bans in bars was associated with a decrease in binge drinking outcomes at the state level. Conclusions: Smoking and binge drinking are strongly associated in non-alcohol dependent populations and some evidence suggests that decreasing smoking leads to initial reductions in binge drinking; however, the evidence presented is not strong enough to advocate for a reliance on smoking interventions as a way to reduce and prevent binge drinking. Alcohol advocates need to continue to support and educate lawmakers about the effectiveness of alcohol control policies in order to reduce binge drinking.
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    Examining the evidence-base for the interventions used in a large urban district
    (2013-08) Klingbeil, David Ashwin
    A widely acknowledged gap between research and practice exists in education. Recent federal legislation mandates the use of research-based practices and allows districts to use a lack of response to intervention to qualify students for special education. This requires interventions with suitable evidence for such high-stakes decisions. To date, however, there has been little research on the evidence base for interventions that are commonly used in practice. This study examined the evidence base for the interventions provided to students in a large urban district. This district uses the problem-solving method to assign interventions for students who demonstrate academic or behavioral concerns. School psychologists play an integral role in this process. Volunteer psychologists participated in focus group interviews that investigated their knowledge of interventions used to re-engage students. The results of this study indicate the gap between research and practice still exists despite the focus on evidence-based practices. The majority of academic interventions had minimal evidence or could not be rated due to vague descriptions. Behavior interventions had stronger evidence of effectiveness. Psychologists, however, identified academic interventions with stronger evidence than behavioral interventions. Implications for practice, research, and policy are discussed.
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    Risk-Based Evaluation Of The Public Health Impact Of Food Safety Interventions For The Control Of Salmonella Spp. In The Chicken Meat Production Chain
    (2017-05) Gonzalez, Rolando
    The aim of this work was to develop a risk-based decision analysis framework of farm to table food safety interventions for the control of Salmonella spp. in the chicken meat production chain, using chicken breasts and ground chicken as the model food systems. This framework should assist chicken producers, processors and policy makers when evaluating and selecting the most cost-effective and feasible pre-harvest and post-harvest interventions to control Salmonella spp. The approach included defining the risk factors for Salmonella spp. contamination in the chicken meat production chain, identifying existing and proposed pre- and post-harvest interventions for controlling Salmonella spp., prioritizing pre- and post-harvest interventions based on the reduction of the overall public health risk, developing a quantitative risk assessment to predict the number of Salmonella cases in the US population per year and the impact of individual and combined intervention strategies in reducing the Salmonella public health burden, and finally, applying cost-benefit analysis to identify the most cost-effective measures. The results suggest that the use of peroxyacetic acid as a single intervention applied at post-chill is the most cost-effective intervention to both control Salmonella spp. and meet regulatory performance standards in chicken meat production. It also became evident that there is a need to update the body of published literature to better understand the impact of all stages of the chicken meat production chain, from pre- and post-harvest through consumer handling and cooking, particularly on levels of Salmonella spp.
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    Students’ Intercultural Development During Faculty-led Short-Term Study Abroad: A Mixed Methods Exploratory Case Study of Intercultural Interventions
    (2021-05) Cressy, Kimberly
    The purpose of this case study was to examine the ways in which an instructor’s interventions and guided reflections influenced students’ intercultural development during a short-term study abroad experience in Oaxaca, Mexico The research questions were: (a) What was the impact of the study abroad program on the level of intercultural sensitivity and cultural intelligence of participants? (b) How did the instructor intervene to facilitate students’ intercultural development? (c) In what ways did the interventions influence students’ intercultural development? A mixed methods approach was employed, using both quantitative and qualitative methods to triangulate data, achieve deeper understanding, and further explain the quantitative findings. The population consisted of 10 students from one 4-year public higher education institution in the United States who participated in a faculty-led study abroad program. This study’s findings suggest that a short-term, faculty-led study abroad program can have a positive impact on students’ intercultural development. The major finding from the quantitative research is that students increased their scores on the Intercultural Development Inventory and the Cultural Intelligence Scale. The two major findings from the qualitative data are (a) guided reflections played a critical role in students’ intercultural development, particularly their culture-general learning, and (b) interactions with host nationals played an important role in students’ culture-specific and comparative learning. The findings have important implications for the design of short-term study abroad programs and for the instructors leading such programs.Keywords: faculty-led, short-term study abroad, guided reflections, interventions, intercultural development