Vivian L. Towe

Towards More Nuanced Classification of NGOs and Their Services to Improve Integrated Planning across Disaster Phases

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are being integrated into U.S. strategies to expand the services that are available during health security threats like disasters. Identifying better ways to classify NGOs and their services could optimize disaster planning. We surveyed NGOs about the types of services they provided during different disaster phases. Survey responses were used to categorize NGO services as core—critical to fulfilling their organizational mission—or adaptive—services implemented during a disaster based on community need. We also classified NGOs as being core or adaptive types of organizations by calculating the percentage of each NGO’s services classified as core. Service types classified as core were mainly social services, while adaptive service types were those typically relied upon during disasters (e.g., warehousing, food services, etc.). In total, 120 NGOs were classified as core organizations, meaning they mainly provided the same services across disaster phases, while 100 NGOs were adaptive organizations, meaning their services changed. Adaptive NGOs were eight times more likely to report routinely participating in disaster planning as compared to core NGOs. One reason for this association may be that adaptive NGOs are more aware of the changing needs in their communities across disaster phases because of their involvement in disaster planning.

Youth Resilience Corps: An Innovative Model to Engage Youth in Building Disaster Resilience.

OBJECTIVE Despite the growing awareness that youth are not just passive victims of disaster but can contribute to a communitys disaster resilience, there have been limited efforts to formally engage youth in strengthening community resilience. The purpose of this brief report was to describe the development of a Youth Resilience Corps, or YRC (ie, a set of tools to engage young people in youth-led community resilience activities) and the findings from a small-scale pilot test. METHODS The YRC was developed with input from a range of government and nongovernmental stakeholders. We conducted a pilot test with youth in Washington, DC, during summer 2014. Semi-structured focus groups with staff and youth surveys were used to obtain feedback on the YRC tools and to assess what participants learned. RESULTS Focus groups and youth surveys suggested that the youth understood resilience concepts, and that most youth enjoyed and learned from the components. CONCLUSIONS The YRC represent an important first step toward engaging youth in building disaster resilience, rather than just focusing on this group as a vulnerable population in need of special attention.

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and invariance assessment of the perceived powerlessness scale among youth in Baltimore

Generalized perceived powerlessness is an important psychosocial construct that determines a wide range of health behaviors and outcomes. This study has two aims: (1) examine the structure of the newly developed perceived powerlessness scale using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and (2) assess the scale’s invariance across key demographic variables using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis among a random household sample of African American and White youth (aged 15–24 years) residing in Baltimore, MD. Our study results demonstrated that the powerlessness scale is valid among a demographically diverse sample of urban youth, showing promise for use in future health behavior and outcome studies.

The Interaction of Sexual Validation, Criminal Justice Involvement and STI Risk among Adolescent and Young Adult Males

Background Young men who have been involved with the criminal justice system are more likely to have concurrent sexual partners, a key driver of sexually transmitted infections. The value men place on having sexual relationships to validate themselves may play an important role in understanding this association. Methods Data were from a household survey. Young men (N = 132), aged 16 to 24 years, self-reported whether they ever spent time in jail or juvenile detention and if they had sexual partnerships that overlapped in time. A novel scale, “Validation through Sex and Sexual Relationships” (VTSSR) assessed the importance young men place on sex and sexual relationships (&agr; = 0.91). Weighted logistic regression accounted for the sampling design. Results The mean (SD) VTSSR score was 23.7 (8.8) with no differences by race. Both criminal justice involvement (CJI) (odds ratio [OR], 3.69; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.12–12.1) and sexual validation (OR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.04–1.16) were associated with an increased odds of concurrency; however, CJI did not remain associated with concurrency in the fully adjusted model. There was effect modification, CJI was associated with concurrency among those who scored high on sexual validation (OR, 9.18; 95% CI, 1.73–48.6]; however, there was no association among those who scored low on sexual validation. Racial differences were observed between CJI and concurrency, but not between sexual validation and concurrency. Conclusions Sexual validation may be an important driver of concurrency for men who have been involved with the criminal justice system. Study findings have important implications on how sexual validation may explain racial differences in rates of concurrency.