CBOs’ Capacity and Resilience on Serving Older AA and NHPI Adults During the Pandemic

Community-based organizations (CBOs) are essential settings for older Asian American (AA) and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (NHPI) adults for accessing culturally and linguistically appropriate services and connecting with and support each other. This study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CBOs’ ability to serve older AA & NHPI adults. This mixed methods study (survey and semi-structured interviews) used a sequential exploratory design. We recruited 65 leaders and staff members from 40 CBOs serving older AA & NHPI adults nationally. Descriptive analysis was conducted with the survey data followed by thematic analysis of the interview data. Many CBOs were impacted by the increased demands for services (80%) and created new services (75%) while experiencing programming disruption (69%), decreased staffing (55%), and loss of revenue (38%). Some CBOs temporarily closed their organizations (38%), while others closed permanently (3%). To remain in operation, many CBOs (65%) increased their online presence, hired staff (52%), and recurred to financial reserves (20%). The semi-structured interviews identified four themes: 1) CBOs resourcefulness to acquire and share resources, 2) technology as a connector for CBOs and an isolator for older adults, 3) heightened racial discrimination against Asians, and 4) emergence of multi-level resilience (personal/ community/organizational). CBOs experienced disruption in their operation, and heightened racial discrimination during the pandemic. Yet, CBO’s ability to remain resilient was critical to continue to provide key programs for older adults. Future studies may want to examine evolving needs of CBOs as they adjust to new public health challenges during the pandemic.

Rethinking Security: An Analytical Study to Explore the Correlation Between Military Expenditure and Human Security in Arms Importing (Developing) States

ABSTRACT The following research seeks to identify a correlation between increasing military expenditure and the simultaneous changes observed in the levels of human security in arms importing states under the world military order. Identification of such trends is needed because leaders use the narrow understanding of security in terms of military strength to justify the higher global military expenditure. However, it is also understood that growing military expenditure increases insecurity amongst states. This paradox excludes consideration of other factors that impact human lives and need to be secured. The research uses case studies analyzed with quantitative data and analysis to determine any correlation between the two variables - military expenditure and human security. It is found that in arms importing states, there is generally an inverse proportionality, causing a negative correlation between military expenditure and human security. Therefore, higher military expenditure causes a drop in human security in importing states due to various structural factors of the global arms hierarchy. This illustrates a need to rethink the understanding of security to include other factors of human security: economic, political, personal, community, health, food, and environmental security for a holistic security approach to human lives in contemporary security studies. KEYWORDS: arms control, security studies, military expenditure, international order, global arms trade, human security, humanitarianism, neo-imperialism, militarism, world military order

Arjen turvallisuus ja muuttoliikkeet

This book approaches contemporary migration to Finland from the perspective of everyday security, presenting an alternative view to theories that examine the links between migration and security from the perspective of securitisation. By treating everyday security as a theoretical concept and as empirical lived reality, the book foregrounds migrants’ experiences of (in)security, as well as the perceptions of individuals and groups whose lives are touched by migration. Empirical studies investigate the ways in which security is produced at various levels, transnationally, and in multiple locations where encounters between long-term residents and newcomers occur, highlighting the roles of the welfare state, civic society, and the media. The book explores how everyday security is constructed between interdependent actors on personal, community and societal levels, concluding that the production of everyday security is a mutually beneficial, yet at times painstaking, process for all participants.

The Right to ‘Have a Say’ in the Deinstitutionalisation of Mental Health in Slovenia

In a time when the deinstitutionalisation of mental health services has become a global and European platform and one of the main forms of care provision, a theme such as the transition of care from large institutions down to a more personal community level care might seem outlived, but the fact is that in some European countries the discussion has revolved for almost 35 years around the most basic question concerning the closure of large, asylum‐type mental health institutions. In this article, I provide a historical overview and analysis of deinstitutionalisation processes in the field of mental health in Slovenia from mid‐1980s onwards, interpreted in terms of achievements and gaps in community‐based care and in user participation in these processes. It demonstrates some of the innovative participatory practices and their potential to transform services. A thematic data analysis was used to analyse the data collected from various primary (a focus group) and secondary sources (autobiographies, newspaper articles, round table reports, blogs) that all bear witness to the different periods of deinstitutionalisation and the user perspective in it.

Sex Disparities in Sudden Cardiac Death

The overall incidence of sudden cardiac death is considerably lower among women than men, reflecting significant and often under-recognized sex differences. Women are older at time of sudden cardiac death, less likely to have a prior cardiac diagnosis, and less likely to have coronary artery disease identified on postmortem examination. They are more likely to experience their death at home, during sleep, and less likely witnessed. Women are also more likely to present in pulseless electrical activity or systole rather than ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. Conversely, women are less likely to receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation or receive cardiac intervention post-arrest. Underpinning sex disparities in sudden cardiac death is a paucity of women recruited to clinical trials, coupled with an overall lack of prespecified sex-disaggregated evidence. Thus, predominantly male-derived data form the basis of clinical guidelines. This review outlines the critical sex differences concerning epidemiology, cause, risk factors, prevention, and outcomes. We propose 4 broad areas of importance to consider: physiological, personal, community, and professional factors.

The Influence of Course Community and Personal Community Support on Learner Engagement in Online Courses

Borup, Graham, West, Archambault, and Spring (2020) theorized that a student’s level of engagement in an online course is influenced by course community support and personal community support, with both factors helping a student to achieve a level of engagement that is not possible independently. In other words, an individual student’s ability to engage in an online course can be explained by the kinds of community a student finds within a course and their social support from friends, family, and community as they take the class. The purpose of this study is to understand to what extent course community support and personal community support influence learner engagement. Students who have recently completed an online course were surveyed on their level of engagement in the course, experience of the course community of inquiry, and their level of personal social support. The survey responses were used in a stepwise multiple regression analysis to create a model that explains to what extent course community and personal community explain variations in learner engagement. The results are significant in that they help course designers, instructors, and university support staff understand the interaction between course community, personal community, and learner engagement. That understanding could be used to design both online course content and intervention strategies to maximize learner engagement.

Political Trust Influences the Relationship Between Income and Life Satisfaction in Europe: Differential Associations With Trust at National, Community, and Individual Level

Background: A high level of well-being is associated with personal, community and national income, as well as personal, social and political trust. How these measures relate to each other within and between countries and within and across structural levels of society is largely unknown. To study this, we propose a three-layer nested socio-structural model. Each layer (individual, community, country) contains a measure of income, trust and satisfaction.Method: With this model, we analyzed data from two waves of the European Social Survey (ESS, 2006, 2012) in 19 countries (N = 72,461; weighted N = 73,307) with multilevel techniques. Indicators were personal, community, and national income; personal, social and political trust; and personal life satisfaction, social and political satisfaction.Results: Personal life satisfaction was associated with all income and trust variables. Greatest effect on personal life satisfaction, came from the national level, including political trust and income. However, 2/3 of the variance in personal life satisfaction came from income, that is personal, community and national. Within each socio-structural level, satisfaction was associated with income, but significantly modified by trust. When income and trust at all three levels were included, there was a significant association of the national layer on the social layer, and of the social layer on the individual layer as to the income–personal life satisfaction relationship. Consistent with the “the buffer hypothesis,” all three forms of trust acted as a buffer against the effect of personal income on life satisfaction. Low-trust countries had strong income–personal life satisfaction associations and the moderating role of trust was also stronger. High- and medium-trust countries had no such associations. Likewise, direct associations between political and personal trust were much stronger in the low-trust countries.Conclusion: The model presented in this study provides authorities with a framework for policies that will improve the general well-being of their population. Trust and income strongly influence personal life satisfaction. Money is the most important. However, trust forcefully dampens the effect of income. Politicians who want to enhance their population's personal life satisfaction, should raise the levels of trust in their electorate.

Race and Gender Intersectionality and Education

When recognizing the cultural political agency of Black women and girls from diverse racial and ethnic, gender, sexual, and socioeconomic backgrounds and geographical locations, it is argued that intersectionality is a contributing factor in the mitigation of educational inequality. Intersectionality as an analytical framework helps education researchers, policymakers, and practitioners better understand how race and gender intersect to derive varying amounts of penalty and privilege. Race, class, and gender are emblematic of the three systems of oppression that most profoundly shape Black girls at the personal, community, and social structural levels of institutions. These three systems interlock to penalize some students in schools while privileging other students. The intent of theoretically framing and analyzing educational problems and issues from an intersectional perspective is to better comprehend how race and gender overlap to shape (a) educational policy and discourse, (b) relationships in schools, and (c) students’ identities and experiences in educational contexts. With Black girls at the center of analysis, educational theorists and activists may be able to better understand how politics of domination are organized along other axes such as ethnicity, language, sexuality, age, citizenship status, and religion within and across school sites. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework is informed by a variety of standpoint theories and emancipatory projects, including Afrocentrism, Black feminism and womanism, critical race theory, queer theory, radical Marxism, critical pedagogy, and grassroots’ organizing efforts led by Black, Indigenous, and other women of color throughout US history and across the diaspora.

Resilience in the age of COVID-19

SUMMARYResilience is broadly defined as the ability to bounce back from adversity or trauma. Recent advances in resilience research have shifted away from merely describing individual characteristics towards focusing on the complex interactions between individuals and their dynamic personal, community and cultural contexts. It is clear that resilience involves both neurobiological and cultural processes. Neurobiological contributions include genes, epigenetics, stress-response systems, the immune system and neural circuitry. Culture helps to elucidate collective systems of belief and accepted positive adaptations. Importantly, resilience can also be affected by evidence-based interventions and deliberate practice on the part of the individual. This review seeks to understand resilience as a complex and active process that is shaped by neurobiological profiles, developmental experiences, cultural and temporal contexts, and practical training. It uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a case example to better understand individual and group responses to tragedy. We suggest practical recommendations to help populations around the world cope and recover from the global threat of COVID-19.

Meaning-Making Through Creativity During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an abrupt change in routines and livelihoods all around the world. This public health crisis amplified a number of systemic inequalities that led to populations needing to grapple with universally difficult truths. Yet some individuals, firms, and countries displayed resilient and creative responses in coping with pressing demands on healthcare and basic sanity. Past work has suggested that engaging in creative acts can be an adaptive response to a changing environment. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to describe how entities at the personal, community, and national levels cultivated and expressed creativity in an effort to make meaning during COVID-19. By overlaying the Four C model of creativity on such responses, we aim to (a) to connect mini, little, Pro, and Big creative behaviors with our attempts to make meaning of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and (b) to suggest how engaging in creative expression can be used to guard against the adverse consequences of this outbreak. Acknowledging that this time has been and continues to be distressing and filled with uncertainty, we propose some ways of making sense of current events by applying original thinking across domains. Further, we propose how engaging in creativity can serve to buffer against the negative effects of living through the pandemic.