The transition to college presents a period of vulnerability to mental illness, and opportunity for positive psychosocial development.
The present study sought to build an explanatory person-centered ...and contextualized model of student wellbeing in the transition to college.
Participants were entering first year undergraduate students at a large public university in the United States (n = 5509). Online survey data were collected at three time points across the academic year, with outcomes of depression and anxiety, thriving, and grade point average, and predictors including resilient coping, self-compassion, social support, school connections and the acute and chronic stressors experienced during the transition to college. Latent growth curves were used to examine trajectories of change in depression and anxiety, and a cross-lagged panel model was used to describe a system of how all measured variables influenced each other over time.
There were four main findings. On average, students experienced moderate increases in depression and anxiety from the summer before college through the spring, with wide variability across students and no clear patterning by demographic groups. Second, self-compassion was the strongest and most consistent predictor of successful transitions. Third, chronic stressors were strongly predictive of more negative outcomes, and self-compassion and coping skills did not buffer their effects. Finally, people most likely to experience chronic stressors over the school year included women, people who identify as sexual minorities and first-generation students.
Programming to support entering college students should seek to foster self-compassion, while also limiting chronic stressors and reducing their inequitable distribution across the student population.
•Self-compassion predicted better mental health across the first year of college.•Chronic stressors predicted worse mental health and academic outcomes.•Female, sexual minority and first-generation students faced the most chronic stress.•Self-compassion did not buffer the negative effects of chronic stressors.
Neoliberalism and Commodity Production in Mexico Thomas Weaver, James B. Greenberg, William L. Alexander, Anne Browning-Aiken / Thomas Weaver, James B. Greenberg, William L. Alexander, Anne Browning-Aiken
06/2012
eBook
Neoliberalism and Commodity Production in Mexico details the impact of neoliberal practice on the production and exchange of basic resources in working-class communities in Mexico. Using ...anthropological investigations and a market-driven approach, contributors explain how uneven policies have undermined constitutional protections and working-class interests since the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Detailed ethnographic fieldwork shows how foreign investment, privatization, deregulation, and elimination of welfare benefits have devastated national industries and natural resources and threatened agriculture, driving the campesinos and working class deeper into poverty. Focusing on specific commodity chains and the changes to production and marketing under neoliberalism, the contributors highlight the detrimental impacts of policies by telling the stories of those most affected by these changes. They detail the complex interplay of local and global forces, from the politically mediated systems of demand found at the local level to the increasingly powerful municipal and state governments and the global trade and banking institutions. Sharing a common theoretical perspective and method throughout the chapters, Neoliberalism and Commodity Production in Mexico is a multi-sited ethnography that makes a significant contribution to studies of neoliberal ideology in practice.
Resilience describes the ability to maintain or restore baseline psychological and physical function following exposure to a stressor. Psychological resources (PsyResources) that may contribute to ...resilience include a patient's optimism, thriving, hope, self-compassion, and psychological capital, among other domains. Such constructs are an under-studied resource in oncology, with no studies to date quantifying resilience in bladder cancer patients. Our objective was to prospectively characterize baseline PsyResources in patients with bladder cancer using validated measures. Frailty assessments were also conducted at baseline to assess the relationship between a patient's PsyResources and frailness. We measured patient-reported health-related quality of life (HRQOL) at 2 weeks, 3- and 6-month follow-up;to assess associations with PsyResources as well. We hypothesized that psychological resources would be positively associated with HRQOL responses and inversely associated with increased frailty.
With IRB approval, patients with bladder cancer were prospectively enrolled from a multidisciplinary bladder cancer clinic between 6/2020 and 7/2021. After signing informed consent, patients completed a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) incorporating validated assessments of frailty, functional statusρ, multimorbidity, nutrition, cognition, and mental health (N=67). The CGA was augmented with four additional validated PsyResource assessments: The University of Washington Resilience Survey (UWR), Psychological Capital (PsyCap), Brief Inventory of Thriving (BIT), and Self-Compassion Survey (SCS) which measure resilience, psychological capital, self-compassion, and mental health, respectively. HRQOL surveys including the Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS), EORTC- QLQ-C30 and EORTC-QLQ-BLM (Bladder cancer-specific quality of life) were completed at 2 weeks, 3 and 6 months following the completion of their elected treatment. Correlation matrices between PsyResources and baseline frailty assessments were conducted, and Spearman's correlation coefficient (rho) was reported. Associations between PsyResources and HRQOL were evaluated with linear regression.
The study cohort consisted of 67 patients with a median age 71 years old, (16.4% female). Most patients had muscle-invasive bladder cancer (77.6%; cN+: 20.9% and M1: 7.6%) with;ASA class ≥III in 55.2%, ECOG PS ≥3 in 25.4%, and CCI;≥3 in 54%. PsyResource assessment completion rates ranged from 96-100%/instrument and;median scores for baseline PsyCap, UWR, BIT, and SCS were 4.4/6 (Interquartile range (IQR) 3.9-4.9;), 44.3 (IQR 41.9-49.6; T-score), 3.9/5 (IQR 3.4-4.4) and 3.8/5 (IQR 3.4-3.9), respectively.;All PsyResource assessments had strong associations with each other (ρ=0.52-0.81, p< 0.0001;for all, Table). Each PsyResource was strongly inversely correlated with mental health, (ρ=-0.50–0.65, p<0.0001). Weakly negative correlations were found between multimorbidity and self-compassion (ρ=-0.37, p=0.006). Baseline PsyCap, BIT, and SCS responses were;weakly positively correlated with baseline global health;(ρ=0.29-0.32, p< 0.05). Finally,;UWR and PsyCap were positively associated with 3-month HRQOL (p=0.03).
We present the first prospective characterization of baseline PsyResources using validated measures of resilience, psychological capital, thriving, and self-compassion in a prospective cohort of patients with bladder cancer receiving care in a multidisciplinary bladder cancer clinic. We demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining these measures prospectively. We observed that PsyResources demonstrated high correlations across construct and with Geriatric Depression Scores, and inverse correlation with severity and burden of multimorbidity. Interestingly, resilience and psychological capital were associated with improvement in HRQOL at 3 months after bladder cancer treatment. Ongoing work is exploring the relationship between resilience and different domains of frailty and the potential role of functional recovery and functional decline following bladder cancer treatment. Future work will also evaluate the ability to modify resilience to facilitate recovery of functional status and quality of life after treatment as well as associations with survival.
We have analyzed how the collaborative development process of a decision-support system (DSS) model can effectively contribute to increasing the resilience of regional social–ecological systems. In ...particular, we have focused on the case study of the transboundary San Pedro Basin, in the Arizona-Sonora desert region. This is a semi-arid watershed where water is a scarce resource used to cover competing human and environmental needs. We have outlined the essential traits in the development of the decision-support process that contributed to an improvement of water-resources management capabilities while increasing the potential for consensual problem solving. Comments and feedback from the stakeholders benefiting from the DSS in the San Pedro Basin are presented and analyzed within the regional (United States–Mexico boundary), social, and institutional context. We have indicated how multidisciplinary collaboration between academia and stakeholders can be an effective step toward collaborative management. Such technology transfer and capacity building provides a common arena for testing water-management policies and evaluating future scenarios. Putting science at the service of a participatory decision-making process can provide adaptive capacity to accommodate future change (i.e., building resilience in the management system).
Objectives
When parenting-related stressors and coping resources are chronically imbalanced, there is risk of parental burnout, and consequent negative impact on parent and child wellbeing. The ...objective of this study was to determine the relations between structural and social determinants of health inequities, self-compassion (a theoretically indicated coping practice), and parental burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Method
Participants were parents (
n
= 2324) with at least one child aged 4–17 in the household recruited from NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel (a probability-based panel providing coverage of 97% of the US household population). Parents completed an online or telephone questionnaire in English or Spanish in December 2020. Structural equation modeling was used to test a system of relations between income, race and ethnicity, parental burnout, and parent and child mental health. Indirect effects and moderation by self-compassion were also tested.
Results
On average, parents experienced symptoms of burnout several days per week. Symptoms were the most frequent among parents with the least income, as well as female-identified and Asian parents. More self-compassion was associated with less parental burnout, and fewer parent and child mental health difficulties. Black and Hispanic parents were more self-compassionate compared to white parents, helping to explain similar levels of parental burnout and relatively better mental health outcomes, despite comparatively more stressors.
Conclusions
Self-compassion is a potentially promising target for interventions aiming to address parental burnout; however, such efforts must not detract from critical structural changes to reduce parenting stressors, particularly those impacting parents experiencing systemic racism and other forms of socioeconomic disadvantage.
Preregistration
This study is not preregistered.
Lipids represent a diverse array of molecules essential to the cell's structure, defense, energy, and communication. Lipid metabolism can often become dysregulated during tumor development. During ...cancer therapy, targeted inhibition of cell proliferation can likewise cause widespread and drastic changes in lipid composition. Molecular imaging techniques have been developed to monitor altered lipid profiles as a biomarker for cancer diagnosis and treatment response. For decades, MRS has been the dominant non‐invasive technique for studying lipid metabolite levels. Recent insights into the oncogenic transformations driving changes in lipid metabolism have revealed new mechanisms and signaling molecules that can be exploited using optical imaging, mass spectrometry imaging, and positron emission tomography. These novel imaging modalities have provided researchers with a diverse toolbox to examine changes in lipids in response to a wide array of anticancer strategies including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, signal transduction inhibitors, gene therapy, immunotherapy, or a combination of these strategies. The understanding of lipid metabolism in response to cancer therapy continues to evolve as each therapeutic method emerges, and this review seeks to summarize the current field and areas of unmet needs.
Lipids play critical roles in biological systems, ranging from structural integrity to trafficking, energy, defense, and communication. This article reviews lipids and lipid metabolic pathways altered in cancer development and their changes in response to therapy that are amenable for study by imaging. We focus first on MRS, which was instrumental in defining the field of lipid imaging (figure) and still plays a major role, followed by complementary molecular imaging methods including PET, mass spectroscopic imaging, and optical imaging.
This study uses measures from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement to examine rates of volunteerism, use of political voice, and electoral indicators between ...college students and college student-athletes attending three institutions with Division I athletic programs. Findings illustrate increased volunteer behaviors of athletes, coupled with lower participation in political activities and relatively low interest in electoral practices as compared to college students overall. Student-athlete civic engagement is discussed in the context of previous research indicating student-athlete reluctance to engage in political activism and recent student-athlete activism on issues of student-athlete treatment and welfare.
A deep understanding of how discrimination impacts psychological health and well-being of students could allow us to better protect individuals at risk and support those who encounter discrimination. ...While the link between discrimination and diminished psychological and physical well-being is well established, existing research largely focuses on chronic discrimination and long-term outcomes. A better understanding of the short-term behavioral correlates of discrimination events could help us to concretely quantify such experiences, which in turn could support policy and intervention design. In this paper we specifically examine, for the first time, what behaviors change and in what ways in relation to discrimination. We use actively-reported and passively-measured markers of health and well-being in a sample of 209 first-year college students over the course of two academic quarters. We examine changes in indicators of psychological state in relation to reports of unfair treatment in terms of five categories of behaviors: physical activity, phone usage, social interaction, mobility, and sleep. We find that students who encounter unfair treatment become more physically active, interact more with their phone in the morning, make more calls in the evening, and spend more time in bed on the day of the event. Some of these patterns continue the next day. Our results further our understanding of the impact of discrimination and can inform intervention work.
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