Penn State Altoona is a commonwealth campus of The Pennsylvania State University and it is located in Logan Township, Pennsylvania. It is one of four full-fledged four year institutions in the Commonwealth Campus network. The full-time student count was 3,645 in 2015.
Examining concern regarding opioids is highly salient given the risk such drugs present to the public. Relatedly, there is a need to understand the experiences of those who have family members struggling with substance use disorder (SUD), particularly opioid use disorder (OUD). Drawing on Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) survey data, this study explores four research questions. First, what proportion of respondents believe that the U.S. is experiencing an opioid crisis? Second, what factors are associated with this concern? Third, what percent of respondents have family members who are dependent on substances, including prescription pain pills, heroin, and fentanyl? Fourth, what percentage of respondents have experienced worsening mental health, financial situations, and relationships due to addiction, and what variables are associated with these conditions? Most of the sample (53%) expressed concern about the opioid problem. Greater concern was evident across women, members of the LGBT community, lower income respondents, and those who have had familial experiences with SUD/OUD. Approximately 30% of the public had a loved one with SUD/OUD and about 5% reported a personal SUD/OUD history. A majority of participants with a history of self and/or familial drug addiction disclosed that this experience has had an adverse impact on their own mental health (70.7%), their family's financial situation (58.1%), and their relationship with their family (74.9%). The extent of these harms varies by specific factors, which may derive from stigma variation, the impact of differential criminalization, and inequities across service access, as well as socio-demographic characteristics. Implications are discussed.
Guided by traumagenic dynamics and evolutionary-developmental (e.g., life history) frameworks, this study examines whether developmental stage and sexual victimization group status (e.g., childhood, adolesces, adulthood, or multiple victimizations across developmental stages) are associated with different risk profiles (e.g., sexual attitudes and behaviors) using data from 932 women’s online self-report surveys. 344 (37%) women experienced unwanted vaginal penetration during their lives (32 childhood only, 78 adolescence only, 118 adulthood only, and 116 multiple stages). ANOVAs with Dunnet T3 posthoc tests and multinomial logistic regressions predicting victimization group revealed significant between-group differences for age of menarche, age of first consensual intercourse, mental health, sociosexuality (SOI-R), and posttraumatic sexual behavior (PTSBI-W). Results demonstrate the need for developmentally informed prevention and treatment policies.
Airport security involves one of the most ubiquitous identity checks individuals face, and yet there is very little research devoted to the experiences of transgender (trans) people with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This study attempts to examine the broad experiences of individuals who identify as trans with TSA. It uses the U.S. Transgender Survey (2015) data to gain a better understanding of what interactions members of the trans/non-binary community TSA entail and to what extent physical presentation impacts those experiences. Further, this study uses item response theory-based analysis to better characterize the commonality and severity of experiences trans individuals are exposed to, particularly when their physical appearance reads as ambiguous. Implications for future research and policy regarding gender-affirming care are considered.
The objectives of this study were to analyze the prevalence of firearm safety training and secure gun storage practices among American gun owners. We used nationally-representative survey data to estimate the impact of previously untested predictors of secure firearm storage. Findings show that older gun owners, gun owners living in metropolitan statistical areas, and low-SES gun owners are less likely to use secure firearm storage methods. Gun owners who receive formal, informal, or both forms of safety training are more likely to store firearms securely than those who receive no training. Additionally, results indicate that state-level secure gun storage laws have little influence on gun owners’ use of mechanisms to securely store their firearms. Findings suggest that firearm safety training has a demonstrable impact on improving gun owners’ use of secure firearm storage mechanisms.
