Rodney D. Green

The Impact of the Recession on College Students

This article had three goals: (a) to provide a brief economic review of the relationship between recessionary times, institutional reactions, and the life trajectory of recession-era college students; (b) to discuss the recession-related psychosocial stressors facing todays college students; and (c) to discuss how counseling centers can help students and make resources available to staff and students.

The Impact of Housing Stressors on the Mental Health of a Low-Income African-American Population

Health and disease reflect broad social conditions including economic, environmental, and cultural components. The impact of challenging housing conditions experienced by low-income African American households on their mental health is an example of this principle. Do physical housing conditions, the presence of roaches and rodents, plumbing defects, and heating/cooling problems contribute to mental health dysfunction such as being depressed, feeling worried, feeling sad, feeling helpless, and feeling emotionally upset? To address this research question, a sample of 128 households that originally lived in public housing in Washington, D.C. were surveyed. These households had been relocated to other low-income housing during the demolition and reconstruction phase of a HOPE VI project, some to alternative public housing developments and others to private units based on vouchers. The survey included self-reports by heads of household on their housing conditions and mental health status using Likert scales. The survey also asked participants for demographic, socio-economic, and physical health data and for information on neighborhood characteristics. Correlation and regression analyses were used to estimate the impact of building structure, building systems, neighborhood characteristics, physical health, and socio-economic/demographic variables on mental health stresses. Specific housing issues included the number of bedrooms, plumbing, heating, cooling, rodents, roaches, and building security (the independent variables). Mental health stresses (the dependent variables) included feeling depressed, nervous, anxious, sad, helpless, and having trouble concentrating. Several alternative specifications and models were used and estimated. They generally demonstrated strong overall explanatory value. The findings from these models suggested that challenging housing conditions significantly contributed to many mental health disorders. For example, in the 2SLS model of “problem being depressed”, the condition of the apartment (β = 0.278, t = 2.022) and plumbing (β = 0.182, t = 2.145) were significant and the model’s explanatory power was reasonable with an adjusted R2 = 0.221. Many non-housing control variables were also significantly associated with mental health challenges.

Selecting a Lead Hazard Control Strategy Based on Dust Lead Loading and Housing Condition: I. Methods and Results

A methodology was developed to classify housing conditions and interior dust lead loadings, using them to predict the relative effectiveness of different lead-based paint hazard control interventions. A companion article in this issue describes how the methodology can be applied. Data from the National Evaluation of the HUD Lead Hazard Control Grant Program, which covered more than 2800 homes in 11 U.S. states, were used. Half these homes (1417) met the studys inclusion criteria. Interior interventions ranged from professional cleaning with spot painting to lead abatement on windows, and enclosure, encapsulation, or removal of other leaded building components. Modeling was used to develop a visual Housing Assessment Tool (HAT), which was then used to predict relative intervention effectiveness for a range of intervention intensities and baseline floor and windowsill dust lead loadings in occupied dwellings. More than 117,000 potential HATs were considered. To be deemed successful, potential HATs were required to meet these criteria: (1) the effect of interior strategy had to differ for HAT ratings of good vs. poor building condition and/or baseline dust lead loadings; (2) the HAT rating had to be a predictor of one year post-intervention loadings; (3) interior intervention strategy had to be a predictor of one-year loadings; (4) higher baseline loadings could not be associated with lower one-year loadings; and (5) neither exterior work nor site/soil work could result in higher predicted one-year loadings for either HAT rating. Of the 1299 HATs that met these criteria, one was selected because it had the most significant differences between strategy intensities when floors and sills were considered together. For the selected HAT, site/soil work was a predictor of one-year loadings for floors (p = 0.009) but not for sills (p = 0.424). Hazard control work on the building exterior was a predictor of both sill and floor one-year loadings (p = 0.004 and p < 0.001, respectively). Regardless of the type of interior intervention strategy, interior work was a predictor of both floor and sill one-year loadings (each p ≤ 0.001).

Scenarios for economic development in an inner city community in the district of Columbia

Summary, Conclusion and LimitationsDespite the considerable amount of commercial activity taking place in LGA, the area reamins economically challenged. The low participation rate of residents in the labor market is a likely contributing factor to this paradox. Nearly 13 percent of residents in these areas are unemployed, nearly 30 [ercent of the adults are living below the poverty level, and almost half of the adults are not in the workforce. One of the reasons for these infortunate conditions is that the area’s social institutions have unquestionably failed to help a large number of residents become and reamin employable and find gainful employnment.

Quantitative sources for studying urban industrial slavery in the antebellum US South

The composition of antebellum Southern urban industrial labour forces is an area requiring careful quantitative analysis. Southern elites worried about slaves in urban industry (especially hired slaves) because they experienced wage‐labour freedoms and so had greater opportunites to resist slavery. The distribution of late antebellum Richmond tobacco factory workers between hired slaves and owned slaves is studied by examining property tax records and census of manufacturing records. Tax records are shown to understate by 11–12 per cent the number of slaves used in factories. This error is due to tax evasion, assessment inefficiency, and seasonal variations between census and tax record collection dates. Furthermore, tax records cannot be used to distinguish between owned and hired slaves in factories, as previous researchers allege. Only the 1860 census of manufacturers explicitly divides the slave force between hired and owned slaves. This record shows that 58 per cent of Richmond tobacco workers were h...

Black Progress Through Business Improvement: Two Articles by Joseph R. Houchins, 1900-1989

This report consists of an analysis of twenty-one questionnaires which were received from Negro chambers of commerce. Although thirty of fifty-one groups did not return our questionnaire, the chief purpose of this study – to indicate the nature and the extent of organization existing among Negro business men in local communities has been realized. Rev Black Polit Econ (2017) 44:421–433 DOI 10.1007/s12114-017-9255-z

Going Full Circle With Teacher Feedback

Research on the evaluation of early childhood programs focuses mainly on its outcomes rather than its process with often little attention given to the role that feedback to teachers in pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs plays in the larger cycle of the evaluation process. This article provides a case example of a multiyear evaluation of community-based pre-k programs serving about 360 three- and four-year old children over a 5-year period in the District of Columbia. The Closing the Loop Evaluation Model proposed represents a responsive evaluation approach that illustrates the interconnected interactions between teacher feedback during the evaluation process and two supporting evaluation methodologies that emphasize social justice and utility. Findings from the case example highlight the responsive evaluation approach, feedback process, and ensuing conceptual and instrumental changes that occurred among stakeholders from whole-group feedback to small-group “report card” meetings with add-ons such as technical assistance, teacher-generated action plans, and teacher follow-up and feedback to close the evaluation loop. The authors discuss lessons learned about the evaluation process from the case example around aspects of feedback, including timing, audience, and function. Findings highlight the importance of feedback being timely and prompt, high quality in focus and content, non-punitive, collaborative, concise, and useful. The authors conclude that an evaluation process that includes teacher feedback, couched in social justice and utility, can have positive outcomes for all stakeholders and will likely lead to higher quality early childhood education programs.

Selecting a Lead Hazard Control Strategy Based on Dust Lead Loading and Housing Condition: II. Application of Housing Assessment Tool (HAT) Modeling Results

In Part I in this issue, modeling was used to identify a Housing Assessment Tool (HAT) that can be used to predict relative intervention effectiveness for a range of intervention intensities and baseline dust lead loadings in occupied dwellings. The HAT predicts one year post-intervention floor and windowsill loadings and the probability that these loadings will exceed current federal lead hazard standards. This article illustrates the field application of the HAT, helping practitioners determine the minimum intervention intensity needed to reach “acceptable” one year post-intervention levels, with acceptability defined based on specific project needs, local needs, regulations, and resource constraints. The HAT is used to classify a dwellings baseline condition as good or poor. If the average number of interior non-intact painted surfaces per room is ≥2, then the dwelling is rated as poor. If exterior windows/doors are deteriorated and the average number of exterior non-intact painted surfaces per building side is ≥5, then the dwelling is rated as poor. If neither of these conditions is true, then the dwellings HAT rating is good. The HAT rating is then combined with baseline average floor loading to help select the treatment intensity. For example, if the baseline floor loading is 100 μg/ft2 (1,075 μg/m2 and the HAT rating is poor, the probability that the one-year floor loading exceeds the federal standard of 40 μg/ft2 (430 μg/m2 is 27% for a high-intensity strategy (i.e., window lead abatement with other treatments) but is 54% for a lower-intensity strategy (i.e., cleaning and spot painting). If the HAT rating is good, the probability that the one-year floor loading exceeds 40 μg/ft2 is approximately the same for low-and high-intensity strategies (18% for window lead abatement with other treatments compared with 16% for cleaning and spot painting). Lead hazard control practitioners can use this information to make empirically based judgments about the treatment intensity needed to ensure that one year post-intervention loadings remain below federal standards.

The impact of oil-export dependency on a developing country : The case of Algeria

Abstract What is the effect of reliance on oil exports on development in Third World countries? A large oil export sector is often considered to be a potential spur to diversification and full modernization, especially when a central government controls and plans the use of oil revenues with such goals in mind. We evaluate this proposition by developing a 12-equation Keynesian econometric model of the Algerian economy. The models equations, estimated using ordinary least squares, are robust with strong R-squares, significant t-tests for the independent variables, and reasonable Durbin-Watson statistics. Historical simulations track the true variables rather closely. Our RMSEs (percentage) are in general better than those in most studies of less-developed countries, ranging from 7 to 21%. Our results indicate that there has been a growing dependency of most major economic sectors on oil revenues, both before and after nationalization. Improvements in oil exports will, ceteris paribus , lead to elastic increases in luxury imports and domestic consumption, and inelastic increases in domestic investment. Thus, the goals of diversification, modernization and industrialization will not be met under the current set of policies in Algeria.