The Relationship of Adverse Childhood Experiences to PTSD,Depression, Poly-Drug Use and Suicide Attempt in Reservation-Based Native American Adolescents and Young Adults

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with numerous risk behaviors and mental health outcomes among youth. This study examines the relationship between the number of types of exposures to ACEs and risk behaviors and mental health outcomes among reservation‐based Native Americans. In 2011, data were collected from Native American (N = 288; 15–24 years of age) tribal members from a remote plains reservation using an anonymous web‐based questionnaire. We analyzed the relationship between six ACEs, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, physical and emotional neglect, witness to intimate partner violence, for those <18 years, and included historical loss associated symptoms, and perceived discrimination for those <19 years; and four risk behavior/mental health outcomes: post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depression symptoms, poly‐drug use, and suicide attempt. Seventy‐eight percent of the sample reported at least one ACE and 40 % reported at least two. The cumulative impact of the ACEs were significant (p < .001) for the four outcomes with each additional ACE increasing the odds of suicide attempt (37 %), poly‐drug use (51 %), PTSD symptoms (55 %), and depression symptoms (57 %). To address these findings culturally appropriate childhood and adolescent interventions for reservation‐based populations must be developed, tested and evaluated longitudinally.     

Social Contexts and Building Social Capital for Collective Action: Three Case Studies of Volunteers in the Context of HIV and AIDS in South Africa

Social capital is increasingly conceptualised in academic and policy literature as a panacea for a range of health and development issues, particularly in the context of HIV. In this paper, we conceptualise social capital as an umbrella concept capturing processes including networks, norms, trust and relationships that open up opportunities for participation and collective action that allow communities to address issues of common concern. We specifically outline social capital as comprising three distinct forms: bonding, bridging and linking social capital. Rather than presenting original data, we draw on three well‐documented and previously published case studies of health volunteers in South Africa. We explore how social contexts shape the possibility for the emergence and sustainability of social capital. We identify three cross‐cutting contextual factors that are critical barriers to the emergence of social capital: poverty, stigma and the weakness of external organisations' abilities to support small groups. Our three case studies suggest that the assumption that social capital can be generated from the ground upwards is not reasonable. Rather, there needs to be a greater focus on how those charged with supporting small groups—non‐governmental organisations, bureaucracies and development agencies—can work to enable social capital to emerge. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Representations of Mental Health Among Middle‐Aged Urban Chinese Men

Little is understood by the ideas that urban Chinese population holds about mental health. Insufficient research and recognition of mental illnesses, and a dearth of social resources for mental health support and promotion limit understandings of how daily life stresses restrict the quality of life of China's urban population. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 15 middle‐age urban men, we map out men's accounts of how they battle to cope with the demands of everyday social, political, and familial pressures. The study reveals that the representations of mental health are shaped by notions of control over emotions, adherence to Confucian philosophy, familial obligations, and the need to demonstrate social obedience and conformity. Data also suggest that the participants represent stable family support along with healthy social interactions as important enabling factors of positive mental health, whereas pressures of modernity are regarded as significant disruptive factors in mental health. The theory of social representations guides the process as well as analytic interpretations of this research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of intertrial interval and instructional format on skill acquisition and maintenance for children with autism spectrum disorders

We replicated and extended the study by Koegel, Dunlap, and Dyer (1980) by examining the effects of 3 intertrial‐interval (ITI) durations on skill acquisition in 2 children with autism spectrum disorders. Specifically, we compared the effect of short (2 s), progressive (2 s to 20 s), and long (20 s) ITIs on participants’ mastery of tacts or intraverbals presented in massed‐trial and varied‐trial instructional formats. We also measured (a) stereotypic and problem behavior during the ITI, (b) maintenance of skills, and (c) responding to novel adults and settings. Results showed that short ITIs in a varied‐trial format produced the most efficient acquisition of skills; however, most ITI durations produced more efficient skill acquisition in a varied format compared to a massed format. The trial format and ITI duration associated with the lowest levels of stereotypic and problem behavior during the ITI and responding during maintenance and novel adult and setting probes differed across participants.     

Still standing out: children's names in the United States during the Great Recession and correlations with economic indicators

Continuing a long‐standing trend in the U.S. Social Security Administration database of first names (N = 358 million), American parents were less likely to choose common names for their children between 2004 and 2015, including the years of the Great Recession (2008–2010). These trends were similar in California (severely affected by the recession) and Texas (less affected). Over a longer time period (1901–2015), cyclical economic indicators were either not correlated with common names (e.g., stock market performance) or worse economic times predicted fewer common names. The results are consistent with increasing individualism, with limited support for the idea that economic threat leads people to embrace uniqueness and no real support for the idea that economic deprivation leads to more communal name choices.     

Pathways maintaining physical health problems from childhood to young adulthood: The role of stress and mood

Objective: Poor physical health in childhood is associated with a variety of negative health-related outcomes in adulthood. Psychosocial pathways contributing to the maintenance of physical health problems from childhood to young adulthood remain largely unexamined, despite evidence that factors such as negative mood and stress impact physical health.

Design: The current study tested the direct and indirect effects of ongoing health, chronic stress, health-related chronic stress, and depressive symptoms at age 20 on the link between health problems in childhood and young adulthood (age 21) in a longitudinal sample (n = 384).

Main Outcome Measures: The hypotheses were tested using a multiple mediation path analysis framework; the primary outcome measure was a composite index of health status markers in young adulthood.

Results: The proposed model provided an adequate fit for the data, with significant total indirect effects of the four mediators and significant specific indirect effects of health-related chronic stress and depressive symptoms in maintaining health problems from childhood into young adulthood.

Conclusions: Health problems are maintained from early childhood into young adulthood in part through psychosocial mechanisms. Depressive symptoms and health-related chronic stress have significant, unique effects on the relationship between health problems in early childhood and young adulthood.     

Twenty Years Post‐genocide: The Creation of Mental Health Competence among Rwandan Survivors Through Community‐based Healing Workshops

Twenty years after the genocide, many Rwandans still suffer from the psychological wounds of the past. The country's mental health agenda is based on individualised and psychiatric approaches that help some but cannot be provided on a large scale. Further, many reconciliation initiatives have been based on public testimonies, which have been shown to be potentially re‐traumatising, leading to calls for small‐scale community‐based approaches to healing, which constitute a middle way between individualised and public approaches. Drawing on the concept of ‘mental health competence’ (Campbell and Burgess, 2012), this study evaluates one such approach: the Life Wounds Healing workshops offered by the African Institute for Integral Psychology. Twenty‐one semi‐structured interviews were conducted with former workshop participants, staff members and the institute's founder to investigate their views on how these workshops can help genocide survivors. The results suggest that the workshops succeed in creating mental health competence by establishing a safe social space for people to open up, increasing people's critical understandings of the processes of pain — and potential for healing — that informs behaviour change, generating bonding social capital and offering participants' income‐generating possibilities. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.