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"MacLean, Sarah"
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Breast cancer on instagram: A descriptive study
Background: Breast cancer has an impact not only on those who are diagnosed, but also on their social network, creating an even greater need for the availability of reliable information and support. Methods: The purpose of this study was to document the content of posts on the highly popular social media platform, Instagram. Posts were garnered and analyzed from Instagram using the hashtag #breastcancer. Data were collected at three different points in time in 2018 and were then aggregated. Results: The most common attributes were highlighting an individual story (n = 76), discussing support for those with breast cancer (n = 75), discussing treatment (n = 55), or promoting an alternative treatment or product (n = 24). Posts that contained images of people were more likely highlight an individual story (P = 0.001) and discuss treatment (P = 0.046). Conclusions: Future research can focus on best practices for developing breast cancer-related information on social media.
Journal Article
Designing a trauma informed service to deliver trauma therapy with people experiencing homelessness: a qualitative study
Background
People who are homeless experience an increased prevalence of traumatic events, including childhood trauma, trauma related to being homeless, and structural trauma. It is important to consider trauma in the delivery of health services for this population. Using a trauma-informed care approach is one way to ensure that a service or program takes into consideration the effects of trauma. The aims of this study are to describe how best to design a service to engage people experiencing homelessness in a trauma-focused therapy as well as detail what trauma-informed care would look like in this setting.
Methods
We conducted a series of qualitative interviews about how to design a trauma-informed trauma therapy for people experiencing homelessness and their perspectives on different principles of trauma-informed care. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyze and report themes identified in the data.
Results
We conducted 12 in-depth interviews (8 women, 4 men) with people who were currently peer support workers with lived experience of trauma and homelessness. We identified themes to design a trauma-informed service including low-barrier access, communication strategies, meeting people’s needs, and how to engage and retain people in the service. We also identified themes related to how people with lived experience understand the principles of trauma informed care.
Discussion
The findings from this study provide insight and practical recommendations for designing and implementing a trauma-informed therapy tailored for people experiencing homelessness. The findings here shed light on the lived experience perspective of trauma-informed care principles, adding nuance to our understanding of what it means to be trauma-informed.
Journal Article
Health Information Seeking Behavior Among College Students
Individuals have a wide range of resources when searching for health topics. The aim of this research was twofold: (1) to identify and assess the resources college students use when exercising health information seeking behavior (HISB); and (2) to examine perceptions and behaviors regarding adoption of online tools. A questionnaire was developed to assess HISB in a sample of college students. Items pertaining to HISB were adapted from a Health Information National Trends Survey with permission from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health. During Spring 2018, 258 students in 9 sections of a personal health class at a public university in NJ completed the questionnaire. Students were most likely to often or always use the Internet for health information (n = 74%) over other sources. Females were more likely to use the Internet for health information (p = .030), to consult a health or medical professional (p = .042) and to confirm the health information they find with a health or medical professional (p = .028). Females also reported spending significantly more time on social media (mean 4.96 h/day) compared to males (4.00 h/day, p = .041). Non-white students were significantly more likely to often use the Internet to find health information (p = .039), while white students reported spending significantly less time on the Internet (p < .001) and on social media (p < .001). Future research is needed to understand motivating factors for HISB, and to tailor interventions accordingly to assure that college students who exhibit HISB have appropriate levels of e-health literacy.
Journal Article
The Sound of Danger: Threat Sensitivity to Predator Vocalizations, Alarm Calls, and Novelty in Gulls
The threat sensitivity hypothesis predicts that organisms will evaluate the relative danger of and respond differentially to varying degrees of predation threat. Doing so allows potential prey to balance the costs and benefits of anti-predator behaviors. Threat sensitivity has undergone limited testing in the auditory modality, and the relative threat level of auditory cues from different sources is difficult to infer across populations when variables such as background risk and experience are not properly controlled. We experimentally exposed a single population of two sympatric gull species to auditory stimuli representing a range of potential threats in order to compare the relative threat of heterospecific alarm calls, conspecific alarms calls, predator vocalizations, and novel auditory cues. Gulls were able to discriminate among a diverse set of threat indicators and respond in a graded manner commensurate with the level of threat. Vocalizations of two potential predators, the human voice and bald eagle call, differed in their threat level compared to each other and to alarm calls. Conspecific alarm calls were more threatening than heterospecfic alarm calls to the larger great black-backed gull, but the smaller herring gull weighed both equally. A novel cue elicited a response intermediate between known threats and a known non-threat in herring gulls, but not great black-backed gulls. Our results show that the relative threat level of auditory cues from different sources is highly species-dependent, and that caution should be exercised when comparing graded and threshold threat sensitive responses.
Journal Article
Adult low-risk drinkers and abstainers are not the same
Background
Alcohol consumption, even at low-levels, can not be guaranteed as safe or risk free. Specifically, the 2009 Australian National Health and Medical Research Council drinking guidelines recommend that adults should not drink more than two standard drinks on any day on average, and no more than four drinks on a single occasion. Nearly 40% of Australians aged 12 years and older drink alcohol but don’t exceed these recommended limits, yet adult low-risk drinkers have been largely overlooked in Australian alcohol survey research, where they are usually grouped with abstainers. This paper examines the socio-demographic profile of low-risk drinking adults (18+ years old), compared to those who abstain.
Methods
Data from the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey were used. In the past 12 months, 4796 Australians had not consumed alcohol and 8734 had consumed alcohol at low-risk levels, accounting for both average volume and episodic drinking (hereafter low-risk).
Results
Multivariate logistic regression results indicated that low-risk drinkers were more likely to be older, married, Australian-born, and reside in a less disadvantaged neighbourhood compared with abstainers. There was no significant difference by sex between low-risk drinkers and abstainers.
Conclusions
The socio-demographic profile of low-risk drinkers differed from that of abstainers. Combining low-risk drinkers and abstainers into a single group, which is often the practice in survey research, may mask important differences. The study may support improved targeting of health promotion initiatives that encourage low-risk drinkers not to increase consumption or, in view of increasing evidence that low-risk drinking is not risk free, to move towards abstinence.
Journal Article
Workplace Assessment Scale: Pilot Validation Study
First responders, such as police officers, paramedics, and firefighters are at an increased risk of experiencing negative mental health outcomes compared to the general population. This predisposition can partially be attributed to common occupational stressors, which may provoke strong feelings of betrayal and humiliation. The Workplace Assessment Scale (WAS) was developed as there is currently no appropriate measure to assess such feelings in the first responder population. Initial development of the WAS included a Betrayal Subscale and the Humiliation Subscale, each comprised of 5 Likert scale questions which ask participants to report the frequency at which they experience specific feelings associated with their workplace. This pilot validation study was conducted to determine if there is preliminary evidence to support a large-scale validation study. To determine this, we assessed the internal structure and the convergent, concurrent, and predictive validity of the WAS. Based on 21/22 (95%) participant responses, a factor analysis did not support the two-factor model we anticipated, with only one factor and seven items retained from the original version of the scale. However, the internal consistency of the remaining items was strong. The validity analysis found moderate convergent validity and weak predictive validity based on correlations between the WAS and other psychometric scales. Minimal concurrent validity was noted. Additional research is needed for further analysis and validation of the WAS.
Journal Article
Alcohol and the Constitution of Friendship for Young Adults
Friendship, sociologists suggest, is defined by institutionalized rules to a lesser degree than other important relationships. Hence it must be sustained through specific friendship-making practices. Social science literature tends to conceptualize friendship as enhancing the pleasures of alcohol use rather than as central to friendship production. This article examines alcohol as a technology in contemporary young adults' friendship-making. Interviews with 60 drinkers aged 18-24 years in Melbourne, Australia demonstrate that drinking builds intimacy, particularly when similar levels of intoxication are achieved. Fear in night-time entertainment precincts underlines trust in friends. To manage uncertainty about responsibilities involved in friendship, young adults negotiate how they will care for each other when they are drunk. Providing this care occasionally jeopardizes friendship, in different ways for women and men. Understanding the import of friendship-making in alcohol use helps explain the persistence of heavy drinking and suggest opportunities for harm reduction.
Journal Article
Increasing harms for bingo players: digitisation, commercialisation and regulatory inadequacy: a multi-site case study
Background
Bingo is often understood as a low-harm form of gambling. This view has been challenged by a growing body of literature identifying gambling harm to bingo players in a range of countries. In this study, we aimed to identify which conditions enabled, facilitated, intensified or mitigated gambling harm for bingo players in three populations in Victoria in the context of corporate, technological and regulatory changes.
Methods
Our qualitative study investigated experiences of bingo-related gambling harm in three populations in Victoria, Australia where bingo was popular and structural disadvantage common: Indigenous people in the east, Pacific people in the state’s north and older people on low or fixed incomes in the capital. Data was generated through interviews with 53 bingo players and 13 stakeholders as well as 12 participant observations of bingo sessions.
Results
We found that while bingo is overwhelmingly positive for many players, a minority of bingo players and their families experience notable harm. Harm was generated through traditional paper-based bingo games, new technologies such as tablet-based bingo and by the widespread tactic of placing bingo sessions in close proximity to harmful electronic gambling machines. Overall, the risk of harm to bingo players appears to be escalating due to commercial, technological and regulatory changes.
Conclusions
These changes can be better managed by regulators: reforms are needed to safeguard bingo’s distinct character as a lower-risk form of gambling at a time when it, and its players, are under threat. Significantly, we found that harm to bingo players is intensified by factors external to gambling such as racialised poverty and adverse life events. Strategies that recognise these factors and grapple with gambling harm to bingo players are needed.
Journal Article