<p> The tenets of representative bureaucracy suggest that the composition of the bureaucracy should mirror the people it serves including women in order to influence the name, scope, and implementation of public policies. Women account for the largest segment of the workforce and have attained more education and advanced education than men. Although there have been steady increases in executive leadership positions, management positions, professional and technical positions in most occupations, women are still underrepresented in mid-to-upper management in male-dominated occupations. When women are under-represented in mid-to-upper levels of management in government, there are implications regarding representative bureaucracy. </p><p> Through the use of qualitative methods, this study examined the career progression experiences of women who were successful in reaching mid-to-upper levels of management in male-dominated occupations in state government. Specifically, the study explored how women perceive various occupational factors including their rates of participation, experiences, gender, roles within the bureaucracy, interactions with their coworkers, leaders and organizational policies, personal influence, and decision-making abilities. </p><p> The findings revealed that women experience various barriers to career progression in male-dominated occupations, but find mechanisms to navigate obstacles imposed by the negative consequences of tokenism. The findings indicate that although women have been successful in reaching mid-to-upper level management in male-dominated occupations, they do so in institutions, regional, district, field or offices with fewer overall employees where they have less opportunity to have influence on overall agency-wide policy decisions. The decision-making power is limited to implementation strategies of agency-wide policies within their smaller domains or geographical area of responsibility.</p>

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

<p> This study investigates how heterosexual young people understand and manage risks related to meeting sexual partners online in the United States. The purpose of this study is to help inform the development of culturally-appropriate sexual risk communication and health promotion messages for young people by linking public health knowledge of adolescent sexual health and eHealth with anthropological theories of risk. With qualitative data from two rounds of semi-structured interviews and two group interviews with university students in central Florida, this study shows how young people experience and prioritize more social-emotional risks in meeting online-to-offline sexual partners compared to physical risks. The prominence of these social-emotional risks implies the need for more health promotion messages that incorporate both physical and social-emotional health risk communication.</p>

The primary intent of this thesis is to assess what role the traditional rulers will play in the new federal plan of the government of Nigeria. An attempt has been made to bring to the fore how the role of traditional rulers has changed greatly be tween the period 1800 to 1978. These changes became imperative because of the social, economic and political developments of Nigeria, which dictate that traditional rulers should not participate directly in partisan politics as was hitherto the case. The paper examines the recent demand for the abolition of the institution of traditional rulers. However, the examination shows that the majority of Nigerians still want the services of traditional rulers as leaders of the various communities, who represent symbols of unity. The results point to the fact that whatever party comes into power, it will need the assistance of traditional rulers to serve as a link between the government and the masses. The existence of large scale illiteracy and lack of effective means of direct communication between the government and the people justify the link provided by the traditional rulers. The relationship between the traditional rulers and government should be supplementary, advising the government when that advice is needed. In their areas, they should be the custodians of the customs and tradition of their people. In times of national crisis, traditional rulers collectively will use their fatherly influence and mediate between the varying factions and avert complete anarchy in the country. The main sources of information were Nigerian newspapers which included the New Nigerian, the Daily and Sunday Times, and the West Africa weekly publication. Also, a wide variety of secondary information, books, periodicals, reports and unpublished materials was used.

There are several implications for policy and social work practice concerning planned physical activity levels for women 18-64 years old. This study examines the relationship between planned physical activity, social support, and sedentary behavior choices among women as articulated by the U.S. Surgeon General under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 2010. This study is based on the premise that a large percentage of women are not involved in physical activity. A quantitative method was used to focus on planned physical health beliefs and behaviors from the view of women. One hundred fifty eight (N=l 58) survey participants were selected for the study utilizing non-probability convenience sampling. The survey participants were composed of women and men. The survey questionnaire utilized the Planned Physical Activity Index (PPAI) and a four point continuum Likert scale. The study benefits social work practitioners, law makers, educators, and administrators by emphasizing the importance of policy and how planned physical activity, social support, and sedentary behavior choices for women. Results suggest the majority of the women were not involved in planned physical activity as articulated by the U.S. Surgeon General’s report, Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation (2010), under the Affordable Care Act, 2010.

This study analyzed whether African American students in the Atlanta University Center schools were knowledgeable about public health policies and programs concerning abused and neglected children. Two hundred and one (201) participants were selected utilizing convenience sampling. The study surveyed males and females of which 91% were African American students. A survey questionnaire was utilized to collect data. The findings of the study indicated that a majority or 57.2% of the students were not knowledgeable about public health policies for abused and neglected children. However, a majority of the students indicated that they were knowledgeable about public health problems and programs for this population. A majority or 84.1% indicated that they were not abused and neglected as children, but a significant percentage or 15.9% indicated that they were abused and neglected. When the chi square test for significance was applied, the null hypothesis was accepted indicating that there was no statistically significant evidence at the .05 level of probability that the students were abused and neglected when they were children.

<p> Mexico's innovative health reforms have attracted scholarly attention beyond its own borders, making it a valuable case to study how countries set priorities. This dissertation examines the multifaceted topic of priority setting through a multidisciplinary approach: each of the three papers of this dissertation employs one of three disciplinary perspectives: historical, quantitative or normative. The dual focus on mental health and HIV--two highly stigmatized diseases with almost opposite histories of prioritization--further underscores the social and historical aspects of health priority setting. Paper 1, "Outrage and Evidence: Julio Frenk and the Politics of Mental Health Advocacy in Mexico, 1968-2006," examines the recent history of mental health advocacy efforts in Mexico. Tracing the career of Julio Frenk, a contemporary global health leader as well as Mexico's Minister of Health from 2000 to 2006, demonstrates that mental health advocacy moved from a focus on human rights abuses to a statistical-based advocacy that emphasized the burden of mental illness. Paper 2, "Beyond Universal Treatment Access: A Multi-level Study of Mental Health Care in Public HIV Clinics in Mexico," represents the first study of the availability and usage of mental health services among HIV+ individuals in Mexican HIV clinics. This paper uses multi-level modeling of a cross-sectional survey from Mexico's National Institute of Public Health to explore factors associated with patients receiving mental health care. The results indicate that clinic-level factors account for much of the observed variation in mental health care for HIV+ individuals. Paper 3, "'What Magic is there in the Pronoun `My'?' The Role of Patient and Disease Advocates in Public Deliberations about Priority Setting for Health Policy," analyzes the risks and benefits of recent, and often controversial, attempts by countries like Mexico to include this specific class of stakeholder in public deliberation for health. Patient participation does bring the risk of bias due to their partiality. However, by drawing on deliberative democratic theory, this paper argues that such partiality confers epistemic advantages to deliberation, such that, if certain procedural and substantive constraints are met, the benefit of their participation may offset the risks.</p>

<p> Mass notification systems exist to provide rapid notification to members of the public during emergency situations. Since the middle of the 20^th century, these systems have evolved to incorporate a variety of different communications methods as technology has advanced. While local governments have used mass notification systems for many years, institutions of higher education generally only began using such systems following the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. This study attempted to examine trends relating to mass notification systems and to identify differences in how they have been implemented both in local government and in higher education. While the study was not able to identify statistically valid results due to low response rates, it appears that such differences do exist and further research in this area is needed.</p>

<p> This dissertation studies refugee resettlement in the U.S. and develops a framework for understanding a city's capacity for employing refugees who resettle in the U.S. The study exposes the tension between the humanitarian mission of the U.S. Refugee Program and the objective of immediate employment after arrival. </p><p> The research questions include: 1) How do contextual factors in the destination city relate to refugee employment outcomes? 2) How might deeper consideration of the relationship between city factors and refugee economic outcomes inform policy making in refugee resettlement program? </p><p> A framework derived from the literatures on urban policy and refugees explores how place-based factors influence initial refugee employment with an embedded comparative case study research design (3 cases, 6 units each). Interview data and 2010 employment outcomes stratified by country of origin and English ability collected on-site in 2011, in addition to public data sets from the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics were analyzed. By comparing outcomes of refugees with similar demographic profiles across 3 cities, the research design explores how local policies, attitudes of the receiving community, economic opportunities, ethnic networks, and refugee resettlement organizations influence refugee employment outcomes. </p><p> The study finds that when comparing pairs of cases, higher refugee employment rates 8 months after arrival are associated with higher relevant job availability and accessibility in the metropolitan area. Job availability is characterized by lower unemployment, a larger low skill job market, a smaller ratio of refugees to metropolitan area population, resettlement agency outreach to employers, larger co-national communities, linguistic clusters in places of employment, a higher percentage of English speakers in the linguistic group, and Right-to-Work policies. The focus on place-based factors fills a gap in previous refugee literature with a general theory about how the local context of U.S. cities interact with refugee employment. The findings have implications for the U.S. Refugee Program's allocations strategy, terms of cash assistance, outcome measurement, and funding structure. Recognizing the employment capacity of a city for refugees enables program administrators to anticipate the cost implications of resettling refugees in that city.</p>

This thesis covers how global mercury emissions are effecting the Great Lakes region, specifically focusing on Minnesota. Minnesota is sensitive to mercury due to its abundant waters and love of fishing. Establishing state regulation and diversifying the State's economy only addresses a small percentage of emitted mercury prominent in Minnesota. Therefore, Minnesota must look to and promote out of State regulation to significantly decrease mercury exposure.