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This qualitative study investigates senior ranking policemen’s perceptions, perspectives, and experiences with policewomen. More specifically, the level of awareness that senior ranking policemen have regarding the barriers and challenges encountered by policewomen, and what police organizations are doing to address the barriers and challenges. Data were generated through in-depth semi-structured interviews with nine senior ranking policemen from two police organizations within Canada. The overall methodological approach in this study was qualitative and used a process of analytic analysis informed through grounded theory (Saldaña, 2011). The research findings reveal that Canadian police organizations are gendered worksites, where policewomen continue to encounter daily organizational challenges, thereby restricting their full participation and overall wellness, within police organizations. Despite the many challenges and barriers for policewomen, the senior ranking policemen remain hopeful that policewomen will have more parity, equality, and equity in the years ahead. My study separates itself from past research on gender and policing as my study is Canadian based, with most of the previous studies being done in other parts of the world. In addition, my study separates itself as it the only one that has drawn upon the National Institute of Justice Report (Starheim, n.d.) and their subsequent 30x30 initiative, while centering senior ranking policemen’s experiences and perspectives in relation to gender equality and gender equity issues. / Graduate

Healthcare equality may seem attainable to most people, but the LGBTQ+ community is not among them. The type of care currently being received by the LGBTQ+ community has caused their reluctance to seek care. According to the last census, the LGBTQ+ population is about 12% of the United States population, so a lack of competent and holistic care for this community creates a massive safety concern. This study aimed to investigate the effect of teaching LGBTQ+-centered care to nursing students via simulation studies. A pre-/post-test design was used with a convenience sample of pre-licensure nursing students at a large Southeastern university (n=19). The Gay Affirmative Practice (GAP) scale measured attitudes about LGBTQ+-centered care pre- and post-education. Personal relationships with the LGBTQ+ community were also explored as a potential factor related to comfort with providing care. A significant difference was found for learners' Gay Affirmative Practice (GAP) scores from the pre- to post- simulation event, with post-test scores higher (µ = 135.37, SD 17.08) than baseline (µ = 126.42, SD = 17.59, p = 0.002). No significant association was found for those having a personal relationship and the pre-to post-test score change for the GAP (r=0.383, p = 0.106). This study can help other nursing programs, or other programs for health care professionals in general, build strong curriculums to help create change for this community.

No description available.

Health disparities are preventable differences in health status and outcomes that adversely affect certain populations, and are generally attributable to unjust social or environmental influences. Mitigating health disparities is crucial toward preventing unnecessary and avoidable human suffering, and as such there has been a significant increase in health disparities research and funding. However, existing health disparities publications are geographically-constrained to specific institutions or populations, and often rely on disease definitions that cannot be easily applied elsewhere. While more recent publications have begun identifying differences utilizing larger datasets, for most diseases, differences in prevalence, age of onset, and time to diagnosis differences remain unstudied and unknown. This dissertation leverages informatics solutions built atop observational health datasets to enable high-throughput, reproducible assessments of disparities across subgroups, conditions, and datasets. In the first aim, this dissertation examines the literature to identify how health disparities in disease diagnosis are measured, computed, and reported. It then proposes an iterative approach for generating fair phenotype definitions that are more inclusive of subgroups of interest by utilizing algorithmic fairness measurements translated to epidemiological measures. In the second aim, this dissertation conducts large-scale characterizations of disease diagnosis patterns across subgroups (gender and race), conditions, and datasets. In particular, this dissertation conducts a prevalence-based assessment of disease diagnosis by computing prevalence differences, risk ratios, and age of onset differences across diseases and datasets. The dissertation then conducts a scalable assessment of time to diagnosis differences across 122 disease phenotypes. Finally, in the third aim, this dissertation moves from quantifying differences to identifying disparities in diagnosis. To do so, the dissertation applies a framework for causal fairness to decompose observed time to diagnosis differences into direct, indirect, and spurious effects. In conclusion, this dissertation's primary contributions are providing a systematic, scalable approach for identifying health differences and then quantifying health disparities at-scale across large-scale observational health datasets. The dissertation (1) proposes an iterative approach for systematically assessing the fairness of phenotypes used in observational health research, (2) systematically characterizes differential patterns of disease diagnosis across diseases and observational datasets, and (3) causally decomposes differences into quantifiable effects that suggest the presence of potential health disparities.

This study explores how 30 long-term lesbian couples, who have lived together 15 or more years, conceptualize and practice equality within their partnerships. Verbal pictures of each couple provide a sense of who they are, how they met, and what is important to them. Dialogue about the egalitarian nature of their relationships and how they practice equality permeates this analysis. These couples practice an interdependent power based on a high degree of mutuality and joint responsibility for the relationship. They share many common values, particularly the value of equality. By comparing and contrasting the personally constructed equalities of these couples, the socially constructed meanings of equality become visible. Equality is not something they see themselves striving to achieve; instead, equality is a result of how they practice money and power. / Ph. D.

This dissertation studies how equal employment (EEO) programs changed ongoing personnel processes of a police organization. It uses an institutional approach of sensemaking, which treats personnel processes as interpretive systems to examine the effects of EEO on personnel processes and the idea of managing diversity. The research employs the case study methodology to examine personnel processes of the Pennsylvania State: Police (PSP) . This organization has operated under a federally monitored affirmative action decree since 1974. Findings confirm that EEO and affirmative action altered PSP personnel processes. Change was resisted, but nonetheless did occur slowly because of powerful and persistent constitutional/legal and political demands on the organization. This environment-organization interplay resulted in ideals of EEO and employment rights penetrating PSP personnel processes. In 1972 personnel processes reflected organizational characterizations to include unquestioned authority, seniority, and regimented structure, which clashed with EEO ideals. By 1993, EEO ideals of equality, equity, and fairness prevailed. The implementation of EEO policies provided for a more representative workforce in police organization. As more minorities and women enter the organization, the need to manage diversity arises. The data shows that managing diversity lacks the institutional imperative to bring about change to management and administrative behaviors as EEO did. If managing diversity becomes a desirable practice in the PSP, its institutions must incorporate its value of differences in light of EEO. This value would factor into setting goals, monitoring progress, and evaluating results of each employee. Theoretically, this practice would give the PSP the means to recognize differences when rewarding or remediating performance yet still honor constitutionally and politically mandated ideals of EEO. / Ph. D.

Yes

Luck egalitarianism is the view that justice requires that we hold people accountable for the choices that they make but not the circumstances that they find themselves in. My aim in this thesis is to reject luck egalitarianism. My argument builds on the recent critique of luck egalitarianism by Elizabeth Anderson. Anderson rejects luck egalitarianism in favor of a view she calls "democratic equality." The aim of democratic equality is to create a community in which citizens relate to one another as equals. This requires, among other things, that we provide citizens with the necessary capabilities and functionings needed in order for them to function as free and equal citizens. In this thesis I argue that Anderson's critique of luck egalitarianism, although successful against the standard luck egalitarian view, does not undermine a weaker version of luck egalitarianism. This position — which I call moderate luck egalitarianism — claims that we ought to apply the choice/circumstance distinction always and only when doing so does not compromise the aims of democratic equality. This is because it is always unfair, according to luck egalitarians, when some people are worse off than others through no fault of their own. Since Anderson's view does not correct for this, we need to combine the aims of democratic equality and luck egalitarianism in the name of fairness. I argue, however, that this is not necessary. Not all inequalities that are the result of people's unchosen circumstances are unfair or unjust; inequalities in income and wealth are unfair only to the extent that they inhibit the ability of individuals to function as free and equal citizens. Thus, luck egalitarians have given us no reason to conjoin the aims of democratic equality and luck egalitarianism: democratic equality suffices. / Master of Arts