Preventing Child Maltreatment: Multicultural Considerations in
the United States is the first book in a concentrated series
that examines child maltreatment across minoritized, cultural
groups. ...Specifically, this volume examines core multicultural
concepts (e.g., intersectionality, acculturation, spirituality,
oppression) as they relate to child maltreatment in the United
States, while the other books take a closer look at particular
ethnic or racial communities in this country. Additionally, this
book examines child maltreatment through the intersection of
feminist, multicultural, and prevention/wellness promotion lenses.
Recommendations for treatment in each book build on a foundation of
prevention and wellness promotion, along with multicultural and
feminist theories. Throughout this book, five case studies, which
are introduced in Chapter One, are revisited to help the readers
make important and meaningful connections between theory and
practice.
Understanding the mechanisms controlling community diversity, functions, succession, and biogeography is a central, but poorly understood, topic in ecology, particularly in microbial ecology. ...Although stochastic processes are believed to play nonnegligible roles in shaping community structure, their importance relative to deterministic processes is hotly debated. The importance of ecological stochasticity in shaping microbial community structure is far less appreciated. Some of the main reasons for such heavy debates are the difficulty in defining stochasticity and the diverse methods used for delineating stochasticity. Here, we provide a critical review and synthesis of data from the most recent studies on stochastic community assembly in microbial ecology. We then describe both stochastic and deterministic components embedded in various ecological processes, including selection, dispersal, diversification, and drift. We also describe different approaches for inferring stochasticity from observational diversity patterns and highlight experimental approaches for delineating ecological stochasticity in microbial communities. In addition, we highlight research challenges, gaps, and future directions for microbial community assembly research.
Grassroots initiatives for change rely on people with limited power, limited resources and limited ability to influence others. From this position, people acting from the bottom up can change their ...own actions, seek to influence others around them and seek to change the social structures that they inhabit. These acts are invariably conceived, initiated and enacted within communities, and there is an emerging interest from practitioner, policy and academic circles in the importance of community as a space for realising pro-environmental change. In this paper, we ask what role grassroots initiatives can have in creating low-carbon communities. Using a theoretical framework from work on community-based practice change initiatives, we discuss the interplay between grassroots action and community capacity. We then present two cases of grassroots low-carbon community initiatives in light of this theoretical work. We conclude by discussing key themes emerging from the cases, including the potential for grassroots initiatives to build community capacity for low-carbon practices, and the importance of locally crafted solutions according to the structures specific to place.
Community health workers (CHWs) are increasingly recognized as an integral component of the health workforce needed to achieve public health goals in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs). Many ...factors influence CHW performance. A systematic review was conducted to identify intervention design related factors influencing performance of CHWs. We systematically searched six databases for quantitative and qualitative studies that included CHWs working in promotional, preventive or curative primary health services in LMICs. One hundred and forty studies met the inclusion criteria, were quality assessed and double read to extract data relevant to the design of CHW programmes. A preliminary framework containing factors influencing CHW performance and characteristics of CHW performance (such as motivation and competencies) guided the literature search and review.
A mix of financial and non-financial incentives, predictable for the CHWs, was found to be an effective strategy to enhance performance, especially of those CHWs with multiple tasks. Performance-based financial incentives sometimes resulted in neglect of unpaid tasks. Intervention designs which involved frequent supervision and continuous training led to better CHW performance in certain settings. Supervision and training were often mentioned as facilitating factors, but few studies tested which approach worked best or how these were best implemented. Embedment of CHWs in community and health systems was found to diminish workload and increase CHW credibility. Clearly defined CHW roles and introduction of clear processes for communication among different levels of the health system could strengthen CHW performance.
When designing community-based health programmes, factors that increased CHW performance in comparable settings should be taken into account. Additional intervention research to develop a better evidence base for the most effective training and supervision mechanisms and qualitative research to inform policymakers in development of CHW interventions are needed.
Le personnel de santé communautaire (PSC) est de plus en plus reconnu comme élément prépondérant du personnel de santé nécessaire pour atteindre les objectifs de santé publique dans les pays à faible et moyen revenu. Beaucoup de facteurs influencent les performances des PSC. Nous avons mené une revue systématique pour identifier les facteurs lors de la conception d’initiatives qui ont une influence sur les performances des PSC. Nous avons cherché systématiquement dans six bases de données provenant d’études quantitatives et qualitatives incluant les PSC travaillant pour la promotion, la prévention et les soins curatifs dans les services de santé primaires pour les pays à faible et moyen revenu. Nous avons trouvé 140 études correspondant aux critères d’inclusion et dont la qualité a été évaluée ainsi qu’une relecture pour extraire les données pertinentes pour la conception de programmes de PSC. Un cadre préliminaire contenant des facteurs influençant la performance des PSC ainsi que les caractéristiques des performances des PSC (telles que la motivation et les compétences) a permis de diriger la recherche de documents et leur analyse. Un mixe d’incitations financières ou non financières, prévisibles pour le PSC, semble être une stratégie efficace pour améliorer la performance, spécialement pour les PSC qui ont plusieurs rôles. Les incitations financières pour encourager la performance peuvent parfois entrainer une négligence sur les t âches non rémunérées. La conception des initiatives, qui implique une supervision fréquente et une formation continue, a entrainé une meilleure performance des PSC dans certains cas. La supervision et la formation ont souvent été mentionnées comme éléments facilitateurs mais peu d’études ont testé quelle approche marchait le mieux et quel est le meilleur moyen de les mettre en place. L’intégration du PSC dans la communauté et dans le système de santé a permis de diminuer la charge de travail et d’augmenter la crédibilité du PSC. Le fait de clairement définir le rôle du PSC et d’introduire un processus de communication clair entre les différents niveaux du système de santé pourrait renforcer la performance du PSC. Lorsque les programmes de santé communautaire sont conçus, les éléments qui favorisent l’amélioration des performances du PSC dans des contextes comparables doivent être pris en compte. Nous avons besoins d’initiatives supplémentaires afin de développer un meilleur cadre pour une formation efficace, pour des mécanismes de supervisions ainsi que pour des recherches qualitatives afin d’informer les législateurs du développement des initiatives du PSC.
在低收入和中等收入国家（LMICs）中，为了达到公共医疗 目标，社区医疗工作者（CHWs）越来越多得被认为是医疗 工作者的一个组成部分。很多因素影响社区医疗工作者的绩 效。本文对这些影响因素做了一个系统评价。我们对六个数 据库定量和定性的研究进行了系统搜索，包括了在低收入和 中等收入国家中在促进、预防和基础医疗服务领域工作的社 区医疗工作者。达到我们标准的 140 个研究被进行了质量评 估，并被再次阅读提取出与社区医疗工作者项目设计相关的 数据。我们提前设计好了一个框架来指导文献搜索和综述工 作，框架里包括了影响社区医疗工作者绩效的因素和绩效的 特点（比如动机和能力）。
经济和非经济动机的混合，可以预见到，是提高绩效的有效 措施，特别是对于有多项工作的社区医疗工作者来说。以绩 效为基础的经济刺激有时会导致对一些不支付金钱的工作的 忽视。在一些情景中，包含了经常性监督和持续培训的干预 措施的设计能够带来更好的绩效。监督和培训是经常被提到 的影响因素，但是很少有研究试验哪种方式最有效或者如何 实施最有效。将社区工作者融入社区和医疗系统中能减少工 作量并增加社区工作者的可信度。清晰地界定社区工作者的 角色和引入医疗系统中不同层面的人的对话机制也能加强绩 效。
当设计以社区为基础的医疗项目时，应该考虑在对比情境下 增加社区医疗工作者绩效的因素。还应该进行额外的干预措 施研究建立一个证据库用以找出最有效的培训和监督机制和 为政策制定者设计干预措施提供定性研究。
Los trabajadores de salud comunitaria (TSCs) son reconocidos cada vez más como un componente integral del personal de la salud necesario para lograr los objetivos de la salud pública en los países de ingresos bajos y medianos (PIBMs). Muchos factores influyen en el rendimiento de los TSCs. Se realizó una revisión sistemática para identificar los factores relacionados con el diseño de la intervención que influyen en el rendimiento de los TSCs. De forma sistemática usamos seis bases de datos para buscar estudios cuantitativos y cualitativos que incluyeron los TSCs que trabajan en servicios promocionales, preventivos o curativos de atención primaria de salud en PIBMs. Ciento cuarenta estudios cumplieron los criterios de inclusión y fueron evaluados en materia de calidad. Se hizo doble lectura para extraer datos relevantes al diseño de programas de los TSCs. Un marco preliminar que contiene los factores que influyen en el rendimiento de los TSC y sus características de rendimiento (tales como motivación y competencias) orientaron la búsqueda bibliográfica y la revisión.
Una combinación de incentivos financieros y no financieros, previsibles para los TSCs, resultó ser una estrategia efectiva para mejorar el rendimiento, especialmente para aquellos TSCs con múltiples tareas. Los incentivos financieros basados en el rendimiento resultaron a veces en el abandono de las tareas no pagadas. Los diseños de las intervenciones que implicaron la supervisión frecuente y la formación continua llevaron a un mejor rendimiento de los TSC en ciertos contextos. La supervisión y la capacitación se mencionaron a menudo como factores facilitadores, pero pocos estudios probaron cual enfoque funcionó mejor o cómo éstas se implementaron de mejor manera. Se encontró que el arraigamiento de los TSCs en los sistemas comunitarios disminuyó la carga de trabajo y aumentó su credibilidad. Funciones de los TSCs claramente definidas y la introducción de procesos claros para la comunicación entre los diferentes niveles del sistema de salud podrían fortalecer el rendimiento de los TSCs.
Al diseñar los programas de salud basados en la comunidad, los factores que aumentan el rendimiento de los TSCs en contextos comparables deben ser tenidos en cuenta. Son necesarias investigaciones adicionales sobre la intervención para desarrollar una mejor base de pruebas sobre los mecanismos de formación y supervisión más eficaces, e investigaciones cualitativas para informar a los responsables de las políticas en el desarrollo de las intervenciones de los TSCs.
The escalating illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is one of the most high-profile conservation challenges today. The crisis has attracted over US$350 million in donor and government funding in recent ...years, primarily directed at increased enforcement. There is growing recognition among practitioners and policy makers of the need to engage rural communities that neighbor or live with wildlife as key partners in tackling IWT. However, a framework to guide such community engagement is lacking. We developed a theory of change (ToC) to guide policy makers, donors, and practitioners in partnering with communities to combat IWT. We identified 4 pathways for community-level actions: strengthen disincentives for illegal behavior, increase incentives for wildlife stewardship, decrease costs of living with wildlife, and support livelihoods that are not related to wildlife. To succeed the pathways, all require strengthening of enabling conditions, including capacity building, and of governance. Our ToC serves to guide actions to tackle IWT and to inform the evaluation of policies. Moreover, it can be used to foster dialogue among IWT stakeholders, from local communities to governments and international donors, to develop a more effective, holistic, and sustainable community-based response to the IWT crisis. El creciente mercado ilegal de vida silvestre (MIVS) es uno de los obstáculos de más alto perfil para la conservación hoy en día. La crisis ha atraído más de US$350 millones en financiamiento por donadores y por el gobierno en los años recientes, principalmente dirigido a un aumento en la aplicación de la ley. Existe un reconocimiento creciente por parte de los practicantes y quienes hacen las políticas de la necesidad de hacer partícipes a las comunidades rurales que colindan o viven con la vida silvestre como compañeros clave para aplacar el MIVS. Sin embargo, se carece de un marco de trabajo para guiar dicha participación comunitaria. Desarrollamos una teoría de cambio (TdC) para guiar a quienes hacen las políticas, los donadores y los practicantes en el asociamiento con las comunidades para combatir el MIVS. Identificamos cuatro vías para las acciones a nivel comunitario: fortalecer los impedimentos para el comportamiento ilegal, incrementar los incentivos para la adopción de la vida silvestre, disminuir los costos de vivir con la vida silvestre y apoyar los sustentos que no están relacionados con la vida silvestre. Para tener éxito, todas las vías requieren fortalecer la activación de las condiciones, incluyendo la capacidad de construcción y de gobemanza. Nuestra TdC sirve para guiar las acciones que impidan el MIVS y para informar a la evaluación de las políticas. Además, puede utilizarse para fomentar el diálogo entre los accionistas del MIVS, desde las comunidades locales hasta los gobiernos y los donadores internacionales, para desarrollar una respuesta basada en la comunidad más efectiva, holística y sustentable a la crisis del MIVS.
This study investigates the degree to which community can be found in Dutch neighbourhoods and attempts to explain why there is more community in some neighbour than in others. We apply a perspective ...on community which assumes that people create communities with the expectation to realize some important well-being goals. Conditions that account for the creation of a local community are specified, i.e. the opportunity, ease, and motivation to do so. These conditions are realized when (i) neighbourhoods have more meeting places; (ii) neighbours are, given their resources and interests, motivated to invest in local relationships; (iii) neighbours have few relations outside of the neighbourhood, and (iv) neighbours are mutually interdependent. Data from the Survey of Social Networks of the Dutch on 1,007 respondents in 168 neighbourhoods are used. Results show that there is a sizeable amount of community in Dutch neighbourhoods and that all the four conditions contribute to the explanation, while interdependencies among neighbours have the strongest impact on the creation of community.
Large-scale online communities rely on computer-mediated communication between participants, enabling them to sustain interactions and exchange on a scale hitherto unknown. Yet little research has ...focused on how these online communities sustain themselves and how their interactions are structured. In this paper, we theorize and empirically measure the network exchange patterns of long-duration sustainable online communities. We propose that participation dynamics follow specific forms of social exchange: direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, and preferential attachment. We integrate diverse findings about individual participation motivations by identifying how individual behavior manifests in network-level structures of online communities. We studied five online communities over 27 months and analyzed 38,483 interactions using exponential random graph (
p
*
) models and mixed-effects analysis of covariance. In a test of competing models, we found that network exchange patterns in online community communication networks are characterized by direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity patterns and, surprisingly, a tendency away from preferential attachment. Our findings undermine previous explanations that online exchange follows a power law distribution based on people wanting to connect to "popular" others in online communities. Our work contributes to theories of new organizational forms by identifying network exchange patterns that regulate participation and sustain online communities.
This article investigates the association between sense of community belonging and health among settlements of different size and across the urban to rural continuum in Canada. Using data from the ...recent 2007/08 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), the objective is to identify the major health, social and geographic determinants of sense of community belonging and to consider policy options aimed at improving sense of belonging among certain segments of the population. The research found a significant and consistent association between sense of belonging and health, particularly mental health, even when controlling for geography and socio-economic status. At the same time, sense of community belonging improved progressively across the urban to rural continuum with remarkably high levels of belonging evident in the outer most regions of Canada. Despite the health deficit that exists in rural and small-town Canada, the paper postulates that these communities are able to overcome health challenges to create conditions conducive to a positive sense of belonging. Overall, sense of belonging was also found to be highest among seniors, people residing in single-detached homes and among couples with children and was lowest among youth, residents of highrise apartments and among single-parents. Finally, in the context of addressing deficiencies in sense of belonging, the paper examines several recent policy developments aimed at improving mental health services in Canada.
Evolving from years of teaching experience by one of the top experts in vegetation ecology, Data Analysis in Vegetation Ecology aims to explain the background and basics of mathematical (mainly ...multivariate) analysis of vegetation data. The book lays out the basic operations involved in the analysis, the underlying hypotheses, aims and points of views. It conveys the message that each step in the calculations has a specific, straightforward meaning and that patterns and processes known by ecologists often find their counterpart in mathematical operations and functions. The first chapters introduce the elementary concepts and operations and relate them to real-world phenomena and problems. Later chapters concentrate on combinations of methods to reveal surprising features in data sets. Showing how to find patterns in time series, how to generate simple dynamic models, how to reveal spatial patterns and related occurrence probability maps.
PDF
