This dissertation interprets the images and archival records of Project Documerica, the Environmental Protection Agency's photography project that ran from 1971 to 1977. Directed by Gifford Hampshire, a former National Geographic editor, Documerica was modeled on 1930s Farm Security Administration photography, which had helped establish the documentary genre through iconic images of Depression-era America. Whereas the FSA had shown the human costs of the Dust Bowl, Documerica aimed to reveal the natural and social costs of the environmental crisis. Vocal public environmental concern made Documerica appealing to EPA officials, and this new agency's still-forming bureaucracy enabled Hampshire's ambitious plan to remount an FSA-style initiative. Documerica's mission included: creating a “visual baseline” of the U.S. environment from which future progress could be measured; documenting the EPA's successes in ameliorating the crisis; chronicling the environmental movement, including non-activist Americans in relationship to their environment, broadly defined; and compiling a visual encyclopedia of American life in the 1970s, as the FSA had done in the 1930s. The urge to revive a national, FSA-style undertaking expressed widespread nostalgia for a mythic American past in the 1970s, an era fraught with social upheaval over Civil Rights and Vietnam. In its time, Documerica failed to achieve recognition comparable to the FSA's, and folded prematurely. Yet its 22,000 images, housed at the National Archives, nonetheless provide a complex portrait of the U.S. during a moment of significant cultural transition. This dissertation interprets Documerica's photographs, its bureaucratic struggles, and its nostalgia in the context of the massive social, political, and economic shifts of the 1970s. In particular, it examines Documerica's focus on the post-industrial landscape, exploring why the project emphasized the changing aesthetics of the built environment as much as threats to the natural environment. The dissertation centers on visual conceptions of American small towns, cities and suburbs in six specific series by photographers Ken Heyman, Danny Lyon, Yoichi Okamoto, Kenneth Paik, Suzanne Szasz, and Arthur Tress. Encapsulating Documerica's central preoccupation with preservation, these images of architectural and social environments evince the era's deep-seated anxieties about fragmentation, degradation, suburban sprawl, urban decline, and proliferating car culture.

In this investigation, the age and racial characteristics of older inner-city neighborhoods within seven Texas cities are examined. More specifically, a general thesis is developed which suggests that residentially integrated neighborhoods near the core of the city contain a relatively older white population and younger black residents.

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Background/Objective: Massage therapy has moderate empirical support for enhancing immunological functioning. This study examined the effects of massage on 144 inner-city HIV/AIDS-positive men/women. It was hypothesized that adults electing massage would have greater improvement in immune functioning compared to adults declining massage. This study has Temple IRB approval. Methods: 48 HIV/AIDS-positive adults who elected to receive one or more massage sessions from the licensed massage therapist at Congreso were compared to 96 sex-matched HIV/AIDS-positive adults who declined massage over one year. Pre/Post massage CD4+ counts were measured as proxies for immune functioning. Mean immune functioning change was compared between the massage and control group to identify differences Pre/Post the massage/control window and within the massage group to test for dose-dependent effects. Results: No significant differences in age, education, race/ethnicity, language, income, mental health or substance-abuse history were found between the massage and control group. The massage group had lower immune functioning at baseline (394.5±279.7) compared to control group (467.3±283.8); however, this 16.9% difference in baseline mean CD4+ counts between the two groups was non-significant (p=0.23). ANOVA analyses found no difference in CD4+ change (Post-Pre) between the groups (p=0.70). Further ANCOVA analyses found the effects of massage on mean CD4+ counts non-significant after adjusting for baseline differences (p=0.75). However, the trends were in the hypothesized direction with an increase of 36.9 (±148.6) in CD4+ counts for the massage group compared to an increase of 22.5 (±183.4) in the control group. The presence of a dose-dependent effect within the massage group was also non-significant (p=0.95). Pre/Post differences among subjects who received only one massage were found significant (p=0.04), but not for subjects receiving more than one massage (p=0.51). Conclusion: These trends highlight that massage therapy effects may be an important non-pharmacological modality to complement standard-of-care to improve or sustain immune functioning. / Epidemiology

This study measured the effects of reading aloud informational books to fourth and sixth grade students in the inner city.

The problem of this investigation was to examine the effects of three selected group guidance procedures on the interpersonal relationships of twelve through fifteen-year old inner-city youth.

Housing requisition (Fangwu Zhengshou) is defined as the power to take residents’ property for public use by the state. Between 1995 and 2010, one million residential units were relocated from the inner city of Shanghai to the outskirts of the city or suburban counties. Historically, residents have been excluded stakeholders in large-scale urban renewal in post-reform China. Starting in 2011, Shanghai requires residents to vote on property takings for inner-city renewal. In March 2013, residents voted down the Block 59 project in the North Bund area in Shanghai, which marks the first housing requisition project for inner-city redevelopment rejected by residents in Shanghai. This research illustrates how citizen participation frames or structures the relocation decision-making and whether participation matters. This dissertation investigates four lines of inquiry: 1) How are housing requisition regulations and negotiations shaped at the district level in Shanghai? 2) What roles do the state and local authorities play, and how is this associated with urban redevelopment regimes under neoliberal governance? 3) Do the more “participatory” approaches to housing requisition for urban redevelopment address power relations and conflicts among local groups in different districts? If so, how? 4) What strategies do residents use to negotiate inner-city redevelopment? I utilize qualitative methods to recognize the complexities of citizen participation in urban renewal in Shanghai, and to develop an understanding of the dynamics of citizen participation and governance structures. The 2011 regulations provide a more transparent, open and interactive process for community residents directly affected by housing requisition projects. However, the term “public interest” is ambiguously defined under the 2011 regulations. Findings suggest that state-led participation in housing requisition is a tool for the government authorities to facilitate economic growth through requisition and strengthen the legitimacy for requisition among the relocated residents. The shift of compensation from counting the number of people in a household to considering the size and value of the apartment illustrates the shift from a social welfare approach to a market approach. The participation schemes promote fairness in a certain way that people who hold out for more compensation lose the power.

The republic of South Africa has a “health for all” policy, regardless of nationality and residence status. However, challenges still exist for non-nationals and little is known regarding migrants’ maternal healthcare experiences. This study explores the maternal healthcare experiences of migrant Zimbabwean women living in Johannesburg, South Africa. It focuses on the lived experiences of women aged 18years and above, who engaged with the public healthcare system in Johannesburg during pregnancy and childbirth. A desk review of the literature was undertaken. The theoretical framework in this study draws from three concepts (1) the Social determinants of health framework (WHO 2010), (2) the Access to healthcare framework (McIntyre, Thiede and Brich 2009) and (3) the “three-delays (Nour 2008). Primary data was collected through the use of open-ended semi-structured interviews with a sample of 15 migrant Zimbabwean women who have been in Johannesburg for a minimum of 2 years, and have attended and given birth or are currently attending antenatal care in inner city Johannesburg. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse data since it helps to extract descriptive information concerning the experiences of Zimbabwean women in Johannesburg and to construct meaning in order to understand their perceptions and opinions about the healthcare system in the city. Although the findings indicate that documentation status is not a key issue affecting access to healthcare during pregnancy and delivery, a range of other healthcare barriers were found to dominate, including the nature of their employment, power relations, language, and discrimination(generally) among others. Language was singled out as the major challenge that runs throughout the other barriers. More interestingly the participants raised their desire of returning home or changing facilities within the Public sector or to private institutions in case of any further pregnancy. This study concludes that the bone of contention is on belongingness, deservingness and not being able to speak any local language, that runs through the public health care institutions and this impact on professionalism and discharge of duties.