Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Unlike alcoholics, who encounter a fairly universal level of access to their drug of choice, problem gamblers are confronted by an extremely diverse array of community-specific gambling environments in America today. As such, sociological perspectives will prove to be vital in developing effective treatment policies for this population. In Las Vegas, problem gamblers find themselves in the most mature gambling environment ever created, and treatment of this population presents a unique challenge. This paper will discuss the author’s role in the development of the non-profit Problem Gambling Center in Las Vegas, as well as the organization's reception among policymakers, the gaming industry, and the community itself. It will also present a “clinical sociological” model that has been developed to help patients with their extra-psychological problems.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Rationale: While the medical literature has previously shown an association between maternal depression and poor pediatric asthma outcomes in children, it has not yet addressed the causal question of whether treating maternal depression leads to an improvement in child health management in the case of a chronic disease such as asthma. There are in fact many reasons (e.g., poor social networks) why we might find maternal depression in the same households with poor child health management, and most of these would not be expected to change with the treatment of depression.

Objectives: The objective of this paper is to compare asthmatic children whose mothers are offered treatment for depression with asthmatic children whose mothers are not offered treatment for depression to determine whether there is evidence of improvements in child health management following the offer of treatment.

Methodology: This project uses Florida Medicaid Claims data. A concern with these data is that mothers are not randomized into a depression diagnosis. In particular, child health utilization can positively affect the probability that maternal depression is identified by a physician. Because this could bias the results of a direct pre-post analysis, I use an instrumental variables technique that uses differential propensities to diagnose depression among primary care physicians to predict whether a child’s mother is diagnosed.

Results: OLS results suggest no improvement in child health management with the offer of depression treatment. But these results likely confound women who are diagnosed for depression precisely because their children have high health care utilization with women who are diagnosed for reasons unrelated to their child’s health. The high health care utilization (that is unrelated to maternal depression) of the former group can swamp the possible improvements of the latter group. Using the instrumental variables strategy to predict which mothers are likely to be diagnosed with depression, I find a reduction in ER visits for asthma care in the post-diagnosis period. I also estimate an overall reduction in total asthma spending in the post-diagnosis period.

Conclusion: These results suggest that in the case of mothers of asthmatic children, improving the ability of primary care physicians to detect depression could yield a cost offsets from better asthma management. Further research is necessary to determine whether similar benefits are present in the case of other chronic childhood diseases.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper argues that the concept of expatriate politics—how countries treat their citizens who reside abroad, whether permanently or temporarily—can improve our understanding of how states react to globalization and transnationalism. In order to develop a comprehensive conceptualization of the most important dimensions of expatriate policies, provide evidence that such policies appear to have become increasing common, and develop some initial hypotheses to explain the trend, the paper presents the results of a survey of the people responsible for implementing them: consular officials.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Background and Aims: In cultures where infants sleep separately from mothers relatively early, there is a high incidence of emotional attachment to comforting blankets and toys found in the crib. Here we explore the strength of the uniqueness of these objects as opposed to properties in a paradigm where we convince children that we can produce identical copies. We found that when young children were offered perfect copies of their infant transitional objects, they tended to refuse them, insisting on the originals. This suggests the early emergence of sentimental reasoing where children treat there attachment objects as unique individuals.
Methods: Two groups of 4-year-olds were identified as either having infant transitional objects or favourite objects. The criteria for having an transitional object was that they had to regularly sleep with the object and have had it for at least one third of their life. The control group were children with favourite objects that did not fit the transitional criteria. Parents were asked to evaluate the level of attachment with questionnaires. The experimental procedure involved a conjurer’s trick where we convinced children that we could make identical copies of objects using a special copying machine. Children were given the opportunity to choose originals or copies of items to take home.
Key Results: The two groups differed significantly on parental ratings of attachment to transitional and favourite objects, (distress on losing object, possessiveness and emotional attachment to object). In the experimental procedure, all children were convinced by the visual illusion. When offered the choice of dupliate experimenter’s toy, both groups had a preference to take home the copy. When it came to the child’s own object, all of the control group allowed their object to be copied and 62% chose the duplicate. In contrast, three of the attached children refused to allow the experimenter to copy their object at all and only 29% of the remaining 17 children (X = 3.97, d.f. = 1, p < .05) selected the duplicate.
Conclusions: Children’s attachment to transitional objects is based on unique identity and not the properties or kind of the object. This reasoning is an early and spontaneous example of the same value that adults place of sentimental possessions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study focuses on sentencing patterns in a set of capital punishment eligible cases in the state of North Carolina. Victim-offender relationship is of particular interest. A series of logistic regression models are compared to determine the predictors of jury-imposed punishments for cases involving intimate partners and cases involving non-intimate partners (family, acquaintances, and strangers), while controlling for a variety of others factors that influence that decision. The first model shows that the covariates that predict a death sentence are operating differently for intimate partner homicides compared to non-intimate partner homicides. To partial out the effects, another logistic regression model is estimated that includes the family, acquaintance, and stranger relationship as separate dummy variables and the intimate partner relationship as the reference category. Analysis reveals that intimate partners are not treated more leniently than other offenders; however, death sentencing among intimate partners is predicted by different factors than death sentencing for other victim-offender relationships. To further analyze these indicators four logistic regression models are compared to determine the covariates that predict a death sentence for each victim-offender relationship. Results show that the covariates operate differently for each victim-offender relationship.