Supporting Transgender College Students: Implications for Clinical Intervention and Campus Prevention

This study examines the experiences of transgender college students in coping with stress in comparison to their cisgender peers. Undergraduate and graduate students from 73 colleges, totaling 26,292 participants, of which 47 identified as transgender completed an online survey. Transgender students reported greater exposure to trauma and higher rates of suicidal experiences, as well as different precipitants to reported stressful periods and sources of support than their cisgender peers. Implications for individual and group counseling as well as outreach and prevention to better support transgender students are explored.     

MplusAutomation: An R Package for Facilitating Large-Scale Latent Variable Analyses in Mplus

MplusAutomation is a package for R that facilitates complex latent variable analyses in Mplus involving comparisons among many models and parameters. More specifically, MplusAutomation provides tools to accomplish 3 objectives: to create and manage Mplus syntax for groups of related models; to automate the estimation of many models; and to extract, aggregate, and compare fit statistics, parameter estimates, and ancillary model outputs. We provide an introduction to the package using applied examples including a large-scale simulation study. By reducing the effort required for large-scale studies, a broad goal of MplusAutomation is to support methodological developments in structural equation modeling using Mplus.     

Substitution of women for men faculty in higher education: Do relative salaries matter?

The paper provides quantitative estimates of the degree of substitutability between men and women faculty in higher education and examines the extent to which price (salary) differentials have played a role in altering the sex distribution in academe. Our results suggest uniformly low own-price elasticities with cross elasticities which differ by academic rank and sex. Further analysis is made of whether institutions of higher education have increased the proportion of females at the upper ranks due to salary factors. Our conclusion is that nonsalary factors appear to have been responsible for the changing sex distribution in academe.     

Differences on Bayley's infant behavior record for a sample of high-risk infants and their controls

3 groups of high-risk newborns and their controls were assessed at 92 weeks post-conceptional age using Bayley's Infant Behavioral Record (IBR). The 3 groups of high-risk infants were those who weighed 1,500 grams or less at birth and required no ventilator therapy, those weighing 1,500 grams or less at birth who required ventilator therapy, and newborns weighing more than 1,500 grams at birth who required ventilator therapy. Controls were healthy term infants matched for 7 socioeconomic and demographic variables. The first principal component of the IBR ratings for the 3 groups of high-risk infants and the controls were similar. All 3 groups of high-risk infants received less desirable IBR ratings on most items than their controls. In addition, there were some differences among high-risk groups; ventilated infants regardless of birth weight received the lowest ratings reflecting overall performance on the IBR, very low birthweight, ventilated newborns were more likely to receive ratings characterizing an overly active infant with a short attention span, and very low birth-weight, never-ventilated infants were most likely to be rated as happy but passive and delayed. The differences between the high-risk infants and controls in large part resulted from infants who were also delayed in terms of their mental and motor development.     

Remaining connected in the face of cyberbullying: Why social connectedness is important for mental health

It is well documented that cyberbullying can lead to adverse mental health outcomes. Separate research shows that higher levels of social connectedness may result in more positive mental health outcomes, however, the relationship between social connectedness and mental health in the face of cyberbullying is not yet fully understood. An online survey of 229 adolescents (aged 12–17 years) was conducted, and we examined experiences of cyberbullying, levels of social connectedness, depression, anxiety, and stress. Structural equation modeling suggested that social connectedness may act as a protective buffer against the negative mental health outcomes associated with cybervictimization. This paper highlights the fact that social connectedness plays an important role for young people, the more frequently they are victimized. The implications of these findings are far reaching and suggest that understanding the role of social connectedness may be crucial to interventions that seek to mitigate the effects of cyberbullying.     

Children in foster care: factors influencing outpatient mental health service use

OBJECTIVE: To determine factors influencing outpatient mental health service use by children in foster care. METHOD: Detailed survey and administrative data were collected on 480 children who entered long-term foster care in San Diego County from May 1990 through October 1991. These data were linked with claims data from Medicaid and San Diego County Mental Health Services information systems. A Poisson regression model was used to determine whether the following factors influenced outpatient mental health service use: age, race/ethnicity, gender, maltreatment history, placement pattern, and behavioral problems as measured by the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). RESULTS: Except for maltreatment history, all independent variables included in the multivariate regression model were statistically significant. The total number of outpatient mental health visits increased with age, male gender, and non-relative foster placements. Relative to Caucasians, visits were lower for Latinos, and Asian/Others, but comparable for African-Americans. Concerning maltreatment history, differences were only found in one category; children experiencing caretaker absence received fewer visits compared to children who did not experience caretaker absence. Children with CBCL Total Problem Scale T-scores of 60 or greater had significantly more visits than those with a score less than 60. CONCLUSIONS: Both clinical and non-clinical factors influence outpatient mental health service use by foster children. Limitations imposed by gender, race/ethnicity, and placement setting need to be addressed by child welfare policies. These finding suggest that guidelines are needed to systematically link children in foster care with behavioral problems to appropriate services.     

Having a Ball with Confidence Intervals

Confidence intervals are often misinterpreted. This article describes an activity which helps students understand what it means to have confidence in a Process.