Miles A. McNall

The Problem of Metaphorical Nonequivalence in Cross-Cultural Survey Research Comparing the Mental Health Statuses of Hmong Refugee and General Population Adolescents

The use of questionnaire data to compare the mental health of Hmong refugee and general population high school students demonstrates the difficulty of translating between investigator and subject lexicons and, consequently, of equating the conceptual systems they signify. Whether particular psychosocial variables that are standardized for a general population can be used to study the adjustment of linguistically unassimilated ethnic minorities depends on the nature of the semantic discontinuities that exist between the source and target languages. Metaphorical nonequivalence significantly affected the responses of a subset of Hmong subjects to English survey items.

The Impact of School-Based Health Centers on the Health Outcomes of Middle School and High School Students

OBJECTIVES We studied the direct and indirect effects of school-based health centers (SBHCs) on the health and health behaviors of middle and high school students. METHODS We used a prospective cohort design to measure health outcomes annually over 2 consecutive years by student self-report. Cohorts of middle school and high school students were recruited from matched schools with and without SBHCs. Data were obtained from 744 students in both year 1 and year 2 of the study. We used 2-level hierarchical linear models to estimate the effects of the presence of SBHCs at the school level and of SBHC use at the student level. RESULTS At year 2, users of SBHCs experienced greater satisfaction with their health, more physical activity, and greater consumption of healthy food than did nonusers of SBHCs. CONCLUSIONS Students who used SBHCs were more satisfied with their health and engaged in a greater number of health-promoting behaviors than did students who did not use SBHCs. These findings indicate that SBHCs are achieving their goal of promoting childrens health.

Early Marriage in a Hmong Cohort.

Rumbaut and Imas (1988) report on the social and cultural adaptation of Southeast Asian refugee youth in Sad Diego indicated that the Hmong have retained their traditional family patterns more than any other group studied. Important characteristics of these family patterns include early age of marriage for female children, high levels of fertility, and a narrow set of circumscribed roles for females vis-a-vis those of males. Other studies indicate that after more than a decade of residence in the United States, a majority of Hmong adults remain unemployed and a majority of households have incomes below the federal poverty line (Fass, 1991). The linkage between early marriage and fertility and subsequent opportunities for the successful social and economic integration of Hmong adolescents and young adults suggests that additional attention should be focused on the social processes that lead to early marriage, and on the consequences of early marriage for the educational careers of Hmong students. The study of ethnic subgroups such as the Hmong is important in several respects. Detailed studies of ethnic populations allow us to assess the generalizability of models developed from surveys of the general population; comparisons among ethnic groups may also indicate the degree to which theories that explain demographic patterns and minority status for one group are applicable to other ethnic subgroups (cf. Ogbu, 1991). In addition, the Hmong have been stereotyped elsewhere as encouraging their daughters to many at an early age. Although some instances of pubescent girls becoming wives have been mentioned in ethnographic literature on the Hmong in their Laotian homeland, we do not have reliable data to indicate the extent to which they may be repeating a traditional pattern by marrying while in high school. Anthropological accounts of early marriage lack even basic measures of central tendency and variance that would allow us to establish connections between antecedent conditions and contemporary patterns of marriage in the Hmong community. In this article we report on early marriage in a cohort of Hmong high school students in St. Paul, Minnesota. Using panel data from the Youth Development Study, we are able to track a cohort of male and female high school students from their freshman year through the second semester of their senior year. The high school years are an important period of transition for adolescents in industrialized countries. This period is even more crucial for Hmong adolescents, who must negotiate not only the usual transition from adolescence to adulthood, but also the competing and sometimes contradictory demands of Hmong culture and the dominant Anglo society. Most studies assume that early marriage has negative consequences for the subsequent educational achievement and economic success of both husband and wife. The underlying theoretical perspective of these studies implies a rather narrow and individualistic definition of educational achievement and economic success, which may be inappropriate for the Hmong. In this study we examine the attitudes of Hmong adolescents toward marriage and fertility, and explore factors associated with early marriage and childbearing. For the Hmong, high fertility may still be an effective strategy for spreading risks across several offspring: If one has many children, chances are that one of them will be economically successful and therefore will be able to contribute to the support of the parents. Because early marriage may well be typical in the Hmong community, we are confronted with a set of parallel but seemingly contradictory research questions: (a) What factors promote early marriage and early childbearing for Hmong adolescents, and (b) why do some Hmong adolescents--in particular, some adolescent Hmong females decide to delay marriage and childbearing until they have completed their high school educations? REVIEW OF LITERATURE There exists an abundant literature on family formation and factors affecting early marriage and childbearing in both the general population (Rindfuss, Morgan, & Swicegood 1988; Sweet Bumpass, 1987) and for ethnic/racial subgroups such as African Americans (Bennet, Bloom, & Craig, 1989) and Mexican Americans (Stephen, 1989; Stephen & Bean, 1992). …

The Effect of Trauma on Recent Inconsistent Condom Use Among Young Black Gay and Bisexual Men

The authors examined lifetime prevalence of sexual assault, emotional abuse, and physical violence, in a statewide sample of 180 Black gay and bisexual males ages 14 to 24. Rates of exposure to each form of abuse was high; 33% reported sexual assault, 74% reported at least one type of physical violence, and 91% reported at least one type of emotional abuse. Co-occurring trauma was the dominant pattern. Sexual assault and number of types of trauma experienced were associated with inconsistent condom use. Physical violence and number of types of trauma experienced were associated with depression and substance abuse. Implications for intervention are discussed.

A dynamic model of client recruitment and retention in community-based HIV prevention programs.

The study used system dynamics modeling computer simulations to gain a better understanding of the process of delivering small-group, evidence-based HIV prevention programs in the community and to explore implications for public health practice. A model was developed to explain provider-reported challenges associated with recruiting, retaining, and graduating people from small-group workshop programs. The model simulations revealed the difficulty in sustaining high rates of recruitment and retention in small-group programs over time. The model simulations provided insight into what processes may lead to suboptimal numbers of people being recruited and positively influenced by these programs.

Socioeconomic Status and the Physical and Mental Health of Arab and Chaldean Americans in Michigan

Research that explains health of Arab and Chaldean Americans relative to the health of non-Arab White Americans is limited but steadily increasing. This study considers whether socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between race/ethnicity and physical and mental health. Data come from a state representative sample of Arab and Chaldean Americans—the 2013 Michigan Behavioral Risk Factor Survey and the 2013 Michigan Arab/Chaldean Behavioral Risk Factor Survey (N = 12,837 adults with 536 Arab/Chaldean Americans). Structural equation models examine whether socioeconomic status, operationalized as educational attainment, moderates the relationship between Arab/Chaldean identity and health, and whether physical activity, access to healthcare, and depression mediate the relationship between educational attainment and health. Results indicate that while Arab/Chaldean Americans have poor health relative to non-Arab White Americans, these differences are largely explained by educational differences. Depression, access to healthcare, and physical activity mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status and health of Arab/Chaldean Americans.

The Oral History of Evaluation: The Professional Development of Thomas D. Cook

Since 2003, the Oral History Project Team has conducted interviews with individuals who have made particularly noteworthy contributions to the theory and practice of evaluation. In 2013, Mel Mark, Valerie Caracelli, and Miles McNall sat with Thomas (Tom) Cook in Washington, DC, during the American Evaluation Association (AEA) annual conference. The interview was taped and subsequently transcribed verbatim into a 37-page document. We edited the transcript for clarity and length. Cook reviewed and approved the final product prior to its submission to American Journal of Evaluation. Thomas D. Cook was the Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair of Ethics and Justice at Northwestern University, where he is professor emeritus of sociology, psychology, education, and social policy. Cook joined Mathematica Policy Research as senior fellow in 2014. Cook has also held multiple visiting positions, including at the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s Program Evaluation and Methodology Division, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, the Russell Sage Foundation, and George Washington University. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Cook’s many awards include the Peter H. Rossi Award for contributions to the Theory or Practice of Program Evaluation from the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management, the Donald Campbell Prize for Innovative Methodology from the Policy Sciences Organization, and the AEA’s Myrdal Prize for Science. Cook is well known for his work on social science methods, especially for his books on quasiexperiments with Donald Campbell and William R. Shadish. Cook has also authored important publications on a wide range of topics including meta-evaluation, the generalization of causal conclusions, program theory, and empirical tests of alternative methods for estimating the effects of a treatment. His book with Shadish and Laura Leviton, Foundations of Evaluation Theory, is a

Recent Sexual Partnerships Among Adolescent and Emerging Adult Black Men Who Have Sex With Men: The Role of Age and Race Discordant Partnerships in Risk-Taking Behavior

Young black men who have sex with men (MSM) are disproportionately impacted by HIV. The authors assessed the characteristics of recent sexual partnerships among 180 young black MSM, ages 15 to 24; 153 (85%) reported anal or vaginal sex in the prior 90 days with 363 sexual partners. Mens partners were typically older (age-discordant) than the respondent and of the same race (race-concordant) as the respondent. Men in age-discordant partnerships displayed a pattern of higher risk behavior including more partners and fewer regular partners than did men in age-concordant partnerships. Race-discordant partnerships were riskier than race-concordant partnerships. Prevention implications for adolescent and young men are discussed.