It has been established that much of the disparity in health outcomes between blacks and whites can be explained by accounting for education and income. Once education and income have been taken into consideration, research has found racial disparities in health outcomes for low-income populations are small, and in some cases no longer significant. For middle and upper income populations, however, a significant racial disparity in health outcomes persists even after accounting for education and income. Seeking to explain this variation, I analyze the literature concerning health disparities, race and class, the prevalence and distribution of black physicians, and issues and trends surrounding physician-patient communication and discrimination. I find that black physicians tend to be concentrated in low-income, minority-dense areas, therefore, the likelihood of a black middle or upper class person seeing a doctor of their same race may be less than that for lower class blacks. I hypothesize that doctor-patient racial concordance, and the associated possibility of diminished communication and cultural hurdles endured by black patients visiting a black doctor, may explain some of this variation in the magnitude of racial health disparities along the education/income spectrum, explaining the larger racial health disparities in middle and upper-income populations. Using data from the 2006 Commonwealth Fund Health Care Quality Survey (N=1591), I conducted bivariate (chi-sq/t-tests) and step-wise multivariate, logistic regression statistical tests to explore if doctor-patient racial concordance affects the self-rated health of American adults. This analysis showed concordance as a significant predictor of self-rated health in the unadjusted model, but not in the full model. Simply put, concordance is a significant predictor of self-rated health, but not independent of socioeconomic factors. My modeling is consistent with the literature in showing education and income as the most significant predictors of health status.

The present study aimed to expand on previous research that explains when affect can influence subsequent judgments in an incongruent way. It also investigated a context where a negative emotion may have been maintained in order to achieve a subsequent goal. Participants in a guilt, shame, and control condition visualized past events. Those in the guilt and shame condition wrote about a time when they committed a moral transgression and were instructed to write an apology letter to a person they hurt. They then rated themselves on a number of interpersonal traits as a way to measure self-enhancement. I hypothesized that those in the guilt condition would self-enhance on interpersonal traits as a result of feeling guilt, which is a repair-focused emotion that has been shown to benefit interpersonal relationships. I also hypothesized that participants in the guilt condition would express a desire to maintain their feelings of guilt as a strategy to help them write an apology letter. The present findings do not support my hypotheses.

Epidemiological data suggest that alcohol use and related problems have increased among college women. The current study examined psychosocial predictors of risk drinking in a sample of college women (N=360), whether race moderated this relationship. Potential predictors included: daily smoker; premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptom severity; age at first alcohol use, negative affect, parental history of alcohol problems and minority status. Analyses found that somatic PMS symptom severity score, age of first alcohol use, daily smoking, age of first alcohol use and non-minority status were related. Findings suggest that minority group membership was associated with low risk drinking, while somatic PMS severity scores were associated with high-risk alcohol use among White women. While further research is needed, current study findings suggest that screening college women for somatic symptoms of PMS and alcohol use may identify women at greater risk of developing alcohol use disorders.

This study examined the relationship among social workers who were engaged in traditional social work practice and non-traditional social work practice. One hundred and forty two (142) survey participants were selected for the study utilizing non­ probability convenience sampling. The survey participants were composed of members of the Georgia Chapter of National Association of Social Workers who were either currently working or retired from the field of social work. The survey questionnaire was developed for the purpose of exclusive use of this study and employed the four point Likert Scale. The findings of the study revealed that regardless of the practice settings social workers showed little distinction in their adherence to social work mission, values, foundational knowledge and use of social work skill sets. The findings also indicated that social workers were accepting (85.8%) of non-traditional social work settings despite 65.7% of participants identifying themselves as traditional social workers in the study

The major focus of my dissertation will be the use of benchmarking and best practices as a guide for program and curriculum development in social work. The case study method of research, with an emphasis on the development of the Addiction Studies Program at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, provided the focal point for this research. A critical part of this problem; Program development is an ongoing necessity in social work. In order to meet the ever changing needs of our society, effective programs need to be developed. Yet, social workers often do not have the expertise or time to research even the nuts and bolts of each program they wish to develop. Hence, a method is needed to help them develop reliable and effective programs without requiring them to undergo extensive research and experimentation to determine the most effective programs to implement. One method to guide development of new programs is benchmarking which can be briefly defined as a continuous learning process that can lead to a discovery of best practices, which can be used to improve quality within an organization (Hafner, 2004; Kristensen, 2003). It was hypothesized that benchmarking best practices can result in effective social work program development and implementation

The objective of this study was to establish the presence of a relationship between stress factors and the incidence of child abuse. The study was secondary analysis of descriptive statistics provided by the Georgia Department of Human Resources and the u.s. Department of Commerce. The sample consisted of seven-hundred, fifty identified Black perpetrators of child abuse and it was drawn from Fulton and DeKalb counties, State of Georgia. The null hypothesis presented in this study was that poverty was the best predictor of child abuse in Black families. The null hypothesis was rejected based on the fact that over 50% of the sample population was identified as being poor according to the national poverty line, which made poverty a negligible factor . The factors that are significant predictors of child abuse in Fulton and DeKalb counties, State of Georgia, in ranked order, are: l) marital status and 2) education. The study was designed to determine if there was a relationship between the incidence of child abuse in Black families and stress factors.

The purpose of this comparative/descriptive study was to examine the level of stress and degree of life satisfaction among women with HIV/AIDS and non HIV – positive women of African American descent. The dependent variables were measured through the use of two scales: Index of Clinical Stress (ICS) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). A sample of thirty (30) African American women agreed to participate in the study. Fifteen of the women were HIV-positive. Simple descriptive statistics and t-tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicate that although there was no statistical difference found in the level of stress between women with HIV/AIDS and non HIV-positive women, the non HIV-positive group showed a higher stress score than the HIV-positive group. There was, however, a statistical significant difference in the degree of life satisfaction between the two groups indicating that the HIV-positive women were more satisfied with their lives than the non HIV-positive women.

This quantitative cross-sectional research study examined the relationship between anxiety and sleeping habits among African American undergraduate college students living on campus at a private southeastern university in the U.S, The study also determined if there are statistically significant differences between undergraduate freshmen and sophomores as it pertains to levels of anxiety and sleeping habits. Participants consisted of fifty-five freshmen and sophomore males and females at a private southeastern university, who currently live on campus. Results of the Pearson's correlations determined that the there is a statistically significant correlation between levels of anxiety and sleeping habits among African American college students living on campus. Results of the independent-! test determined that there is no statistically significant difference between freshmen and sophomores in regard to levels of anxiety and sleeping habits.

This study examined the impact incarceration poses on the family's mental health status. The study was conducted using cross-sectional design. The sample, which was selected using convenience sampling method, included 30 participants who are over 18 years old and identified as having an incarcerated family member. The current study sought to determine two things: (1) if family members had higher levels of discontentment or mental distress due to their loved one's incarceration and (2) the impact of the loved one's sentence length on the family member's mental health status. Results indicated that levels of mental distress were higher in nieces and/or nephews than their levels of discontentment. Results also revealed the longer the sentence length, the higher the levels of discontentment and mental distress of their family member. Furthermore, limitations and implication will be presented.

This quantitative study examined the impact of father absenteeism on the socio­ emotional development of 71 African-American female students at two undergraduate colleges in the Southeastern region of the U.S. All participants were administered a 28 item anonymous, online survey comprised of various questions from the following scales: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES) and Ryffs Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWB). In addition, participants were asked socio-demographic questions in regards to their age, ethnicity, current year of college, and whether their father was present. Participants whose father was absent also specified the reason for father absenteeism (Death, Prison, Divorce, Unknown, or Other). The independent t-Test (p=.104) and One-Way ANOVA (p=.796) revealed that there was no statistically significant differences between the groups with regard to levels of socio-emotional development. The results starkly contrast previous research and holds implications for social work that the information gained can help explain why some females are less affected by father absenteeism.