John J. Green

Non-operator landowner interest in agroforestry practices in two Missouri watersheds

Land tenure has long been considered a critical factor in determining the adoption and long-term maintenance of agroforestry practices. Empirical evidence from non-US settings has consistently shown that secure land tenure is positively associated with agroforestry adoption. In the US, over 40% of private agricultural land is farmed by someone other than the owner. Given the importance of land tenure in agroforestry decisions in other countries and the magnitude of non-operator landownership in the US, there has been surprisingly little focus on land tenure in the temperate agroforestry literature. Using data from a 1999 survey in Missouri, this study explores factors associated with non-operator landowner interest in agroforestry. Results suggest that differences in farming orientation are linked to interest in agroforestry. Closer ties to farming, stronger financial motivations for landownership, and higher proportion of land planted to row crops were negatively related to interest in agroforestry among non-operator landowners. Environmental or recreational motivations for landownership and contacts with natural resource professionals were positively associated with interest in agroforestry. These results, consistent with earlier qualitative research suggesting that farm operators who have a strong “conventional farming identity” were less interested in agroforestry, point to a divide between landowners for whom environmental and recreational values play an important role in ownership motivation and those for whom financial considerations take precedence. The findings imply that agroforestry development programs in the US should take non-operator landowners and their farming and ownership orientations into account when designing research and outreach efforts.

Community Development as Social Movement: A Contribution to Models of Practice

Community development practice includes the self-help, technical assistance and conflict models. Although instructive, this realm of practical theorizing might be reinvigorated by directing attention to the work that people engage in collectively to impact community life. Approaching community development from an action-oriented direction requires that we borrow from, synthesize and augment existing theoretical perspectives within the realm of social movements, including those focused on political-economic constraints and opportunities, resource mobilization and organization, and framing of grievances and collective action. This approach will help to inform researchers, community development practitioners and policymakers to better understanding the enterprise of intentional social change at the local level. Additionally, it holds promise for those scholars engaged in applied research with change initiatives who want to pursue a more critical assessment of community development work.

Did H1N1 influenza prevention messages reach the vulnerable population along the mississippi gulf coast

OBJECTIVE To identify the primary sources of information utilized by a vulnerable population during the 2009 influenza pandemic and examine disease prevention behaviors related to reports of local H1N1 influenza transmission. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Between May 2009 and December 2009, face-to-face interviews were conducted in towns located in 3 Mississippi counties along the Gulf Coast. PARTICIPANTS Two hundred sixteen residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast were interviewed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Analysis of the interview results described awareness of the influenza outbreak/pandemic and sources of information about the situation. Chi-square tests were used to examine differences in reported disease-preventive behaviors taken by Mississippi Gulf Coast residents before and after H1N1 influenza transmission was confirmed locally. RESULTS Most subjects were aware of H1N1 influenza at the time of interview (n = 212; 98%). Television (n = 145; 69%), newspaper (n = 40; 19%), and the Internet (n = 19; 9%) were the most common sources of information regarding H1N1 influenza. Hand hygiene (n = 85; 41%) was the most reported preventive measure adopted by study subjects and increased following the confirmation of the first H1N1 influenza cases in Harrison County (χ= 4.46, p= 0.04). CONCLUSIONS The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions emphasis on providing health information about H1N1 primarily through the Internet may not have been effective in reaching the public. Provision of health messages through various mediums, especially television, may better inform the public of disease-related prevention messages during a developing influenza pandemic.

SOCIOECONOMIC RESOURCES AND SELF-RATED HEALTH: A STUDY IN THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

Numerous factors influence health, including family background, individual behaviors, and community context. Access to care and insurance are critical, especially for people in lower socioeconomic groups who often face challenges beyond their immediate control. Building from a synthesis of theoretical frameworks, and using data from the Delta Rural Poll, this article utilizes logistic regression to explore the relationship between macro and micro socioeconomic resources and self-rated health among residents of the Mississippi Delta. Results demonstrate that these are important factors, although associations vary by racial group. Theory and policy considerations arising from the results are discussed.

The Local Agrifood System Sustainability/Resilience Index (SRI): Constructing a data tool applied to counties in the southern United States

Abstract Discussions of sustainability, including local agrifood systems research, policy, and practice, increasingly address the concept of resilience. Indicators of resilience need further attention if they are to be useful for community development. This project involved conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement of indicators focused on the resilience of local agrifood systems to construct data-driven tools for theory building and informing development programs and policy, including at the local level. The Local Agrifood Systems Sustainability/Resilience Index was constructed through insights from literature and prior case studies. Building from that work emphasizing the importance of locally modifiable qualities of resilience, this study analyzes publicly available data sources at the county level. Piloted with data from counties in the southern US, findings suggest state and regional differences that may be informative to guide future explanatory research and for development and tracking change as new waves of data become available.

Community Development and Social Development: Informing Concepts of Place and Intentional Social Change in a Globalizing World

As a pluralistic field of scholarship and practice, community development offers insights useful to social development, especially the realm of social work. Among these contributions, of particular interest are the ways in which place matters. Assessing conceptualizations of community and community development, this essay addresses the value of community development scholarship and offers recommendations for future research. The latter include paying more attention to demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and trends in relation to the population-level impacts from development initiatives.

School Health Policies: Evidenced-based Programs for Policy Implementation

ABSTRACT As the Affordable Care Act continues to shape the direction of health care policy in America, this article reports on successful school health policy programs that were implemented to meet the requirements of the Mississippi Healthy Students Act. In 2007, Mississippi passed Senate Bill 2369, also known as the Mississippi Healthy Students Act. The law recommends that schools engage in providing health activities that enhance student’s well-being. However, due to the lack of appropriate funding and bureaucratic structural development, the implementation of the policy has been a lackluster execution. Drawing on policy implementation theory, the authors report findings associated with two initiatives that have been implemented to enhance student health in Mississippi. By examining the New Pathways to Health Initiative (NPHI) and Good Food for Oxford Schools (GFOS), the authors find that numerous positive outcomes were achieved with both initiatives. Although the implementation of school health programs relied heavily on advocacy groups and nongovernmental funding to achieve this success, the authors argue that these models can easily be transferred to other regions of the state and country that are focusing on improving student health.

Exploring the relationships between local agrifood system resilience, multiple measures of development, and health in the Southern United States

ABSTRACT Resilience has become an increasingly popular concept, with numerous frameworks to address a range of topics. Among other approaches, constructing domain-specific measures focused on the local level provides opportunities to explore the relationships between resilience and development concerns like inequality, poverty, health, and efforts to improve wellbeing. Informed by livelihoods, community capitals, and resilience literature, and using publicly available county-level data, this article explores the associations between agrifood system indicators, broader socioeconomic development, and health in the Southern US. Of interest are the associations between socioeconomic status, social capital, agrifood system resilience, traditional food desert measures, and population health outcomes of self-rated health and premature age-adjusted mortality. Regression analysis demonstrates that local agrifood system resilience is associated with population health. This study helps scholars, practitioners, and policy analysts to have a more nuanced understanding of the ways development of local agrifood systems intersect with broader community development goals.

Fundamental Causes of Health Disparities: Associations between Adverse Socioeconomic Resources and Multiple Measures of Health

Abstract Purpose This study tests the first two tenets of the fundamental causes theory – that socioeconomic status influences a variety of risk factors for poor health and that it affects multiple health outcomes – by examining the associations between adverse socioeconomic circumstances and five measures of health. Methodology/approach We employ bivariate and logistic regression analyses of data from the Centers Disease Control and Prevention 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) to test the individual and cumulative associations between three measures of socioeconomic position and five measures of health risk factors and outcomes. Findings The analysis demonstrates support for the fundamental causes theory, indicating that measures of adverse socioeconomic conditions have independent and cumulative associations with multiple health outcomes and risk factors among U.S. adults aged 18–64. Research limitations/implications The findings of this chapter are generalizable to adults aged 18–64 living in the United States and may not apply to individuals living outside the United States, older Americans, and children. Originality/value of chapter Adverse socioeconomic circumstances are not only associated with self-rated health but are also associated with the two leading causes of death in the United States (cancer and heart disease) and risk factors that contribute to these causes of death (smoking and high blood pressure). Improving access to socioeconomic resources is critical to reducing health disparities in leading causes of death and health risk factors in the United States.

Comments from the Editorial Office: Exploring trends in community development research

This special issue of Community Development includes a collection of articles assembled under the leadership of Guest Editors Norman Walzer, Jane Leonard, and Mary Emery. The theme is “innovative measurement and evaluation of community development practices.” We hope you enjoy these timely, informative, and thought-provoking works. This collection represents an important step in advancing our approaches to development of knowledge in the field of community development and thereby better connecting scholarship and practice. Connected to the topics addressed in this issue (e.g. community development, measurement, and evaluation), we in the Community Development Editorial Office want to share summary findings from the meta-study of research articles published in the journal over a five-year time frame (Green, Saulters, & Phillips, 2013). The following broad research questions shaped our study: What is the state of methodology in the field of community development? How do community development scholars design their studies, collect data, and analyze findings? What are the positive trends and where are the gaps? To conduct this study, we adapted techniques from the meta-study approach (Paterson, Thorne, Canam, & Jillings, 2001) to examine, code, and analyze articles published from 2008 through 2012. From the 151 initially screened articles, we deemed 131 as being based on empirical research of some kind. A systematic assessment and coding form was used with each article, with special focus on their methods and analysis sections. Approximately three-quarters of the applicable articles had clearly specified methods sections, while the others provided fewer details. Not surprising, about 60% of the articles specified a case study design. By far, the most common methods used were qualitative interviews, followed by surveys and use of secondary data. Approximately 80% of the articles were based on two or more research methods. Many of the methods sections fell short in terms of describing sampling techniques and coding strategies, and the omissions were frequent in those articles relying primarily on qualitative methods. In terms of quantitative studies involving hypothesis tests, there has been over-emphasis on significance/p-value testing and under-emphasis on confidence intervals and measures of difference between groups and the strength of associations and correlations. On the positive side, we found that community development scholarship – as presented in these articles – in recent years has been based on diverse methods of data collection and analysis, and many scholars are embracing the use of multiple methods in their studies. Case studies are particularly prevalent, and appropriately so. Unfortunately, the challenge for sharing across the field is that insufficient information is provided in these articles in regard to specific designs and sampling techniques.