Relationships Among Disease,Social Support,and Perceived Health: A Lifespan Approach

We examined the relationship between the cumulative presence of major disease (cancer, stroke, diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension), social support, and self‐reported general and emotional well‐being in a community representative sample of predominantly White and African American respondents (N = 1349). Across all ages, greater presence of disease predicted poorer reported general health, and predicted lower emotional well‐being for respondents 40 and above. In contrast, social support predicted better‐reported general and emotional well‐being. We predicted that different types of social support (blood relatives, children, friends, community members) would be relatively more important for health in different age groups based on a lifespan or life stage model. This hypothesis was supported; across all ages, social support was related to better reported general and emotional health, but sources of support differed by age. Broadly, those in younger age groups tended to list familial members as their strongest sources of support, whereas older group members listed their friends and community members. As a whole, social support mediated the effect of disease on reported well‐being, however, moderated mediation by type of support was not significant. The results are consistent with a lifespan approach to changing social ties throughout the life course.     

A Multilevel Approach for Reducing Mental Health and Substance Use Disparities Affecting Bisexual Individuals

Despite bisexual individuals being at increased risk for mental health and substance use problems, clinicians’ ability to provide affirmative and competent care to bisexual clients is limited by their lack of bisexual-specific training. To address this common gap in training, this article provides a brief review of bisexual health disparities and the factors that influence them. Then, we describe a multi-level approach for improving the health and well-being of bisexual individuals. This approach addresses factors that influence health at the micro-level (e.g., strategies that clinicians can use to help bisexual clients cope with stigma-related stressors), mezzo-level (e.g., adaptations to clinical environments and training programs that promote bisexual-affirmative care), and macro-level (e.g., advocating for political change and implementing strategies to reduce prejudice against bisexual individuals at the population-level). Specifically, we describe how clinicians can adapt evidence-based interventions to tailor them to the needs of their bisexual clients. Additionally, we discuss the need for bisexual-affirmative clinical training and provide recommendations for how clinical training can be adapted to prepare clinicians to work effectively with bisexual clients. Finally, we describe how population-level interventions can be used to reduce prejudice against bisexual individuals in order to reduce bisexual health disparities. Given the striking health disparities affecting bisexual individuals, there is a critical need to develop, test, and disseminate interventions to improve the health of this population and to prepare clinicians to provide bisexual-affirmative care.     

The Application of Community Psychology Practice Competencies to Reduce Health Disparities

This article demonstrates the application of community psychology practice competencies to health disparities reduction. It begins with a discussion of changes and evolution of the maternal child health field over nearly three decades, then describes implications for community psychology practice and the application of practice competencies.     

Applying Community-Based Participatory Approaches to Addressing Health Disparities and Promoting Health Equity

This special issue highlights work that contributes to our understanding of health disparities and community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches to promoting health equity across diverse populations and issues that matter to communities. We take on a global perspective, and thus, various efforts across international contexts are illustrated. Articles elucidate a variety of CBPR approaches designed to empower and build capacity among individuals and communities in order to seek changes at the level of community practices, programs, and systems. These articles span across diverse populations—children, youth, and families; adults and older adults; immigrants; refugees; Black people; Latinx people; Native Americans/Indigenous people, the Roma community; Muslim women, and women with disabilities—experiencing inequities of interest to community psychologists and other researchers and practitioners.     

The Social Influence Model: A Social Psychological Approach to Counseling

Social influence theory suggests that counseling is an interpersonal influence process. This article reviews the literature on the model and suggests future directions for research.     

Eavesdropping on Health: A Naturalistic Observation Approach for Social Health Research

This article provides an overview of a novel ecological momentary assessment method called the electronically activated recorder or EAR. The EAR is a portable audio recorder that periodically records snippets of ambient sounds from participants' momentary environments. In tracking moment-to-moment ambient sounds, the EAR yields an acoustic log of a person's day as it naturally unfolds. As a naturalistic observation method, it provides an observer's account of daily life and is optimized for the assessment of audible aspects of participants' daily social environments and interactions. The article discusses the EAR method conceptually and methodologically and identifies three important ways in which it can enrich social health research. Specifically, it can help cross-validate research findings independent of self-reports, calibrate psychological measures against behavioral markers of real-world social functioning, and further our understanding of the role that people's mundane social interactions and language use play in coping and health.     

Exploratory Health Disparities Research: The Need to Provide a Tangible Benefit to Vulnerable Respondents

This article examines the responsibilities of researchers who conduct exploratory research to provide a service to vulnerable respondents. The term "service" is used to denote the provision of a tangible benefit in relation to the research question that is apart from the altruistic research benefits. This article explores what this "service" could look like, who might be responsible for providing it, and the challenges associated with such a service. The article argues that not providing a tangible benefit to vulnerable research participants is inconsistent with the principle of social justice that undergirds much of the rationale for conducting health disparities research.     

Religion, Social Capital, and Health

Religion??s association with better physical health has been partially explained by health behaviors, psychosocial variables, and biological factors; but these factors do not fully explain the religion?Chealth connection. In concert with the religion and health literature, a burgeoning literature has linked social capital with salubrious health outcomes. Religious organizations are recognized in the social capital literature as producers and facilitators of social capital. However, few studies have examined the potential mediating role of social capital in the religion?Chealth relationship. Thus data from the 2006 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey were analyzed for 10,828 adults. The composite unstandardized indirect effect from religion to social capital onto health was significant (???=?0.098; p?<?0.001). The unstandardized direct pathway from religion to self-reported health (???=?0.015; p?=?0.336) indicated that social capital is a mediator in the religion?Chealth relationship. Among the demographic variables investigated, only age and income had a significant direct effect on self-reported health.     

Explaining Social Disparities in Mathematical Achievement: The Role of Motivation

This study examined the role of motivation as a mediator of the relationship between parents' socio‐economic status (SES) and children's standardized test achievement in math. We employed a one‐year longitudinal approach using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 and a follow‐up exam in 2004. The sample consisted of N = 6020 German students (mean age 15.5 years, SD = .55) who continued school after Grade 9 (PISA 2003) and were in Grade 10 at the time of PISA 2004. Children completed measures related to their parents' SES, math‐specific self‐concept, task‐specific and global self‐efficacy, and interest, intelligence and mathematical competence. We found a small to moderate correlation between parents' SES and children's achievement. All motivational constructs partially mediated the relationship between father's SES as well as a family index for SES (economic, social, and cultural status) and children's mathematical competence, but only math‐specific self‐concept and self‐efficacy were significant mediators for mother's SES. Even when simultaneously considering the mediating effect of children's intelligence and prior achievement, the mediation effects of motivation remained significant. These results are important for our understanding of educational equality. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Social Dominance Orientation,Gender, and Increasing Educational Exposure1

Using a large panel sample of undergraduates, we measured the social dominance orientation (SDO) scores of men and women once a year across a 4½‐year period. Employing repeated‐measures ANOVAs, we found that, even after controlling for the character of students' academic majors (hierarchy enhancing or hierarchy attenuating), males showed significantly higher SDO scores than did females across the entire college career. The data are discussed in terms of the invariance hypothesis within social dominance theory.     

Depression and Approach Motivation: Differential Relations to Monetary,Social, and Food Reward

Depression is associated with blunted reward functioning. It remains unknown, however, whether depression is linked to diminished motivation to approach reward across categories of reward stimuli, or if depression is differentially related to approach motivation. The current study tested associations between depression and behavioral approach motivation to specific reward stimuli (i.e., money, social, food reward). In a two-visit study, university females (N = 122, M _age = 18.67) completed measures of depression and three behavioral approach motivation tasks (completed across visits). Differential findings emerged across behavioral reward tasks. Specifically, depressive symptoms were associated with decreased motivation to approach monetary and social reward but increased motivation to approach food reward. Results suggest a category-specific conceptualization of depressive symptomatology in relation to behavioral approach motivation, whereby women with elevated symptoms may be less likely to approach certain rewards, but more likely to approach others.     

Ways of Studying Religion,Spirituality, and Aging: The Social Scientific Approach

SUMMARY

This paper presents an overview of methods of research most commonly used in research in the field of aging, religion and spirituality. It discusses the reasons for doing research and the applicability of findings to practice, providing a guide to practitioners in becoming discerning consumers of research in this field. The paper also provides examples of research in this field, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.     

Racial, Cultural and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Mental Health: Toward Theory and Research at Community Levels

We need to further develop theoretically informed, empirically grounded bodies of knowledge on how community structures, norms, and processes operate in local communities and how they affect human well-being, especially in culturally diverse and ethnic minority communities. Scholars pursuing this agenda will benefit from population thinking which focuses attention on human aggregates and on equilibrium processes and social and community mechanisms of change. They will benefit too from considering a promising body of theory and research on social capital. Community level knowledge has profound intervention-related implications at policy levels: such knowledge figured prominently in initiatives associated with 2.5 million residents leaving poverty neighborhoods during the decade 1990–2000. It continues to figure in crucial policy debates and provides a knowledge base on which future federal reports, like 2001s Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity—A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, can draw.This article is based on the address delivered as the recipient of the 2004 Division 27 Award for Distinguished Contribution to Theory and Research in Community Psychology