Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2015, International Development Studies (International Studies)

Well performing health systems are critical for effectively managing population health. The WHO (2015) acknowledges that policies are a means to an end, the ultimate end being a population's access to quality health care. This study adopted the WHO (2007) system's thinking framework, utilizing leadership and governance, service delivery, and health financing in the analysis of the 2004 and 2011 NHPs of Nigeria and Botswana respectively, and the 2009 NSHDP of Nigeria. Document, thematic and content analysis were utilized in analyzing the documents, and the codes were drawn from the WHO's methodology for monitoring the building blocks of health. Results indicate the need to revise the 2004 NHP for Nigeria, to consider current determinants of health. There are existential gaps between the policy documents and actual situation on ground. More so, there are differences in the way the systems thinking framework was adopted by the NSHDP and the 2011 NHP.

Committee: Gillian Ice (Committee Chair) Subjects: African Studies; Health

Bachelor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2010, School Of Interdisciplinary Studies - Interdisciplinary Studies

Using examples from community nutrition, this project shows that health is best understood through an ecological systems model. Furthermore, this model contains both an ethical and epistemological imperative to generate health-related knowledge through participatory action research. First the ecological systems model of health is simultaneously described and illustrated with examples from nutrition. This model is one that understands individual well-being as the result of complex interactions within and among nested systems of environmental influence. Thinking about health this way acknowledges the impact of stress, social support, membership in community organizations, the built environment, agricultural subsidies, genetically modified organics and more on the health outcomes of individuals. Also, this model of health highlights a number of the positive, multi-level effects that could come about if local food systems were comprehensively integrated into nutrition assistance programs. The analysis next examines the implications of such a model that acknowledges the agency of individuals to impact both their physical health and larger systems of which they are a part. These elements of ecological systems theory demand research that is both participatory, so that the divisions between researchers and subjects are renegotiated, and action-oriented, so that research actively works for systemic change. Finally, my work evaluating the Oxford Farmers Market Uptown's (OFMU) Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) federal food assistance program is presented as a case-study. Using Empowerment Evaluation (EE), a participatory research technique, to identify and address barriers toward using EBT at OFMU, it became clear that OFMU could provide nutritious, affordable, and culturally appropriate foods to low-income members of the Oxford community, given more targeted advertisement and outreach. EE provided flexible and effective tools for evaluation but fell short of comprehensively i (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Chris Wolfe PhD (Advisor); William Newell PhD (Committee Member); Kathleen Johnson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Public Health

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Antioch Seattle: Counselor Education & Supervision

This study examines the lived experience of the perinatal population to understand how they can be supported from the lens of different ecological systems and what counselors can do to better serve people with uteruses during their perinatal experience. Furthermore, this study aims to utilize an inclusive framework for capturing the perinatal experience of people with uteruses and to explore barriers and facilitators to care through an ecological systems framework. Fifteen participants who have experienced infertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, stillbirth, and postpartum were recruited through various means throughout the United States. Thematic analysis was used, with semi-structured interviews and photovoice, to gather and analyze participant narratives through oral and visual means in two phases. The first phase resulted in eight themes: (1) social and cultural influences, (2) navigating transitions and changes, (3) support networks and resources, (4) discrimination and stigma, (5) advocacy and empowerment, (6) mental health and well-being, (7) interactions with medical systems, and (8) impact of systems and policies. The themes identified in phase two were: (1) meaning making, (2) the emotional impact of perinatal experiences, (3) navigating roles and identities, (4) pressure and expectations, (5) advocacy and empowerment, (6) social support and community, (7) prevalence of infertility and miscarriage, and (8) challenges in healthcare. Implications of this study indicate a need for collaborative, interdisciplinary communication among providers interacting with the perinatal population and perinatal mental health competency training. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Committee: Stephanie Thorson-Olesen (Committee Member); Angela Mensink (Committee Member); Katherine Fort (Committee Chair) Subjects: Counseling Education; Counseling Psychology; Developmental Psychology; Education; Gender; Health; Health Care; Higher Education; Mental Health; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Psychology; Psychotherapy; Public Health; Public Policy; Therapy

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2023, Electrical Engineering

As electrical transmission and distribution cabling ages, they are prone to expensive and dangerous failure. The dangers and cost of these failures motivated the development of a machine learning based method for the health monitoring of several different cable types. Utilizing impedance measurements of the cabling, machine learning methods were used to develop software that reports on the health of the cable. With the impedance data from cables, various datasets representing cables in varying conditions were created. These datasets were used as the basis of multiple machine learning methods. By comparing many machine learning methods, a decision tree based method was chosen as the most likely method to be accurate and easily deployable to an embedded sensing system. With machine learning, the health condition of the cables was able to be correctly identified with high accuracy. A similarity between the issue of cable health and that of DC transit system health was identified. DC transit systems create expensive and possibly dangerous faults as they age, and while a DC transit system is substantially different from a typical cable the similarities in their fault modes prompted research into extending the methods developed here to apply to a DC transit system. Thus, a third rail train system was modeled. The model was used to test machine learning methods for the identification of faults that may occur in such a system. Machine learning proved quite capable of correctly identifying various faults, such as leakage currents, short circuits, and increasing impedance due to outages that might occur in a third rail system. The work with the third rail serves to extend the capabilities of the machine learning methods into an entirely new class of problems.

Committee: Nghi Tran (Committee Member); Jose Alexis De Abreu-Garcia (Committee Member); Yilmaz Sozer (Advisor) Subjects: Electrical Engineering

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Engineering and Applied Science: Mechanical Engineering

In modern manufacturing setups, linear motion systems are extensively used for producing straight-line motion with positional control. Applications such as computer numerical control (CNC) machining, precision laser printing, moving multi-axis robots, etc., feature linear motion systems. These systems, however, are susceptible to degradation and develop faults over prolonged usage. Structural health degradation of different system components gives rise to increased mechanical and thermal loads along with increased vibrations. This degradation eventually restricts the ability of linear motion systems to deliver the required quality of performance in terms of positional accuracy, precision, and reliability. Determining the location of degradation is important for maintaining the system's components in a healthy state of operation. Furthermore, identifying the type and location of the faults generated through the degradation of one or more components is also instrumental for conducting repairs/replacements before the systems fail to deliver the required performance. Hence there is a need to develop prognostics and health management (PHM) methodologies capable of location-specific condition monitoring and location-specific fault classification. Data signals collected from motion controllers and external sensors are used to train machine learning algorithms that consider healthy state signals as the baseline and quantify the deviation of new signals from this baseline in terms of health indicators (HI). In this thesis, a PHM methodology is proposed for developing system health indicators (HI) using self-organizing maps and principal component analysis. Data preprocessing steps of signal extraction, signal segmentation, feature extraction, feature selection, and data normalization are followed by training baseline models for health indicators. These HI are then evaluated over signal data with unknown health, to monitor the gradual degradation of the linear motion system. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jay Lee Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jonathan Tan Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jing Shi Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Mechanical Engineering

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Medicine: Clinical and Translational Research

Background: Learning health networks are thought to improve outcomes by enabling all stakeholders to collaborate in the common goal of improving health and care. An important mechanism of action is creation and sharing of resources so that more people can get what is needed, when it's needed, to act in ways that improves health and health care. We hypothesize that as patients and families engage at a high-level in the network, resources are created. Methods: We evaluated the relationship between resources and engagement in ImproveCareNow, a pediatric inflammatory bowel disease learning health network. We counted patient and family directed resources from imporvecarenow.org, newsletters, and community conferences from August 2017 to December 2021 and used existing behavioral indicators of engagement to track the number of highly engaged patients and families during this time period. Results: Both resources and patient and family engagement increased in ImproveCareNow. There is an association between new resources and new high-level engagement with a cross-correlation of 0.38 at a 1-month lag. This cross-correlation is not significant when excluding community conference sessions. A mean(±sd) of 17.2±8.8 patients and family members were highly engaged in the network per new resource. Conclusions: New resource production and new high-level patient and family engagement are associated in a learning health network, and community conferences are an important factor in the association. Networks need to have many highly engaged patients and family members for new resource production. Further study is needed to determine ways in which individual patients and family members act to produce resources over time.

Committee: Scott Langevin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael Seid M.D. (Committee Member); David Hartley Ph.D. M.P.H. (Committee Member) Subjects: Medicine

PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

Cancer epidemiology has a long history of applying geographic thinking to address long-standing place-based disparities. This dissertation adds new knowledge to geospatial approaches to social determinants of cancer outcomes. It establishes a framework consisting of three dimensions in evaluating, identifying, and prioritizing spatially heterogeneous risk factors of cancer outcomes. The first dimension is protection. Using a space-time statistic, the first study evaluated whether a non-spatial healthcare policy, Medicaid expansion, has offered protection targeting spatially vulnerable populations against adverse cancer outcomes such as breast cancer late-stage diagnosis. The second dimension is phenotype. Using a classification and regression tree, the study disentangled how risk factors of late-stage breast cancer diagnosis were conceptualized and capsulized as phenotypes that labeled groups of homogenous geographic areas. It provides a novel angle to uncover cancer disparities and to provide insights for cancer surveillance, prevention, and control. The third dimension is priority. Using a geographic random forest along with several validation methods, the study emphasized the importance of the competing effect among risk factors of cancer mortality that are specific to geographic areas. The findings from this study can be used directly for priority settings in addressing the most urgent issues associated with cancer mortality. This dissertation demonstrated that geographic methodologies and frameworks are useful and are imperative to cancer epidemiology.

Committee: Jay Lee (Committee Chair); Jun Li (Committee Member); James Tyner (Committee Member); Xinyue Ye (Committee Member) Subjects: Epidemiology; Geographic Information Science; Geography; Health; Health Care; Health Care Management; Oncology; Public Health; Public Policy; Statistics

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Higher Education (Education)

Student mental health is a concern across all sectors of postsecondary education as today's college students are presenting to campus with higher amounts of psychopathology than ever before. In 2019, the NASPA Vice President for Student Affairs Census found that student mental health was ranked the number one issue by 750 chief student affairs professionals at both two and four-year public institutions (Anderson, 2019). Social workers are one of the largest groups of mental health professionals in the country (Council on Social Work Education, 2014), though very few social workers are employed in the college and/or university setting (Salsberg et al., 2017). This research aimed to explore the functions that persons with social work degrees are playing on college campuses and see how their social work training informs their work on campus and within student affairs roles. The study's findings show that while persons with social work degrees are employed in a variety of different roles on campuses, they have a common approach to their work. The themes noted include a holistic approach to student support, addressing basic needs concerns, supporting student mental health, and engaging in program development. Additionally, the participants noted that social work training including competency-based education, field placement requirements, and the social work code of ethics help guide in guiding their work on campus. Lastly, it was discovered that higher education does not understand the social work profession. This study considers the ways that non-counseling center staff, specifically those with social work degrees, are using their knowledge, skills, and experiences to support students outside of the traditional college counseling center environment. We have likely hit the end of the road in our ability to address student mental health issues with individual counseling. The systematic approach that is ingrained into the social work profession is necessary. The findings f (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Laura Harrison (Advisor) Subjects: Higher Education; Social Work

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2020, Leadership and Change

Across the United States, each state has a public mental health system that is designed to support children and youth with emotional and behavioral challenges. This is critically important as recent estimates show that one in six children in the United States has a diagnosed mental health condition (Whitney & Peterson, 2019). The design and structure of these systems vary by state, but consistent across them is the presence of a state-designated leader who is faced with an array of constraining factors that influence their behavior and shape the resulting system. This study describes the experience of leaders in children's mental health administration and how they define, interpret, and perceive their current environments; the constraining factors that impact them, such as decline, instability, risk, politics, policy, and random events; and the strategies they engage in to achieve their goals. Using narrative inquiry, this study captures the experiences of ten leaders engaged in state-level children's mental health system reform. These stories paint a rich picture of the complexity of leading change in public sector environments where there is dynamic interplay across people, politics, and policy and offer new insights into effecting change in complex systems. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/.

Committee: Jon Wergin Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Holloway Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sharon Hodges Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Health Care; Health Care Management; Management; Mental Health; Organizational Behavior; Public Administration; Public Policy; Social Research; Social Work; Systems Design; Welfare

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2018, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Mental health issues among school-aged children are a growing concern and subject of intervention and prevention studies nationwide. While several implementation and service delivery models exist for school-based mental health services (SBMHS) they are often localized, population or program specific, and do not adequately address the issues related to stigma. Building on Cook and Kilmer's 2012 article integrating community psychology principles and systems of care values, a review of the literature is conducted to identify issues and barriers from stigma in current school-based and mental health service delivery. Key guidelines and specific considerations are presented to address identified limitations and augment the current implementation models for collaborative SBMHS through the practical application of community psychology principles. The creation and function of a coalition in the spirit of collaboration uniquely provided by partnering systems of care & community psychology principles is a central component. While the main focus and application of these objectives is at the micro and exosystem levels for change, the local community and school, school district and state, they can also be integrated at the macrosystem level for initiatives, legislation, and policy changes.

Committee: Jane Harmon-Jacobs Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Mark Russell Ph.D., ABPP (Committee Member); Jamila Brown Psy.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; School Counseling

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2017, Individual Interdisciplinary Program

Chagas disease (CD) is caused by a protozoan parasite called Trypanosoma cruzi found in the hindgut of triatomine bugs. The most common route of human transmission of CD occurs in poorly constructed homes where triatomines can remain hidden in cracks and crevices during the day and become active at night to search for blood sources. As a neglected tropical disease (NTD), it has been demonstrated that sustainable control of Chagas disease requires attention to structural conditions of life of populations exposed to the vector. This research aimed to explore the conditions under which health promotion interventions based on systemic approaches to disease prevention can lead to sustainable control of Chagas disease in southern Ecuador. Using Healthy Homes for Healthy Living (HHHL) as reference, I conducted an ethnographic grounded theory study to answer the following research questions: RQ1. What are the factors that contribute or limit sustainable control of Chagas disease in the communities of Chaquizhca, Bellamaria and Guara under the model proposed by HHHL? RQ2. In what ways, if so, can these factors be addressed in order to scale up the model to other homes in these communities? The first three chapters of this document develop the proposal that was approved for this dissertation. They provide a general overview of the theoretical and methodological foundations that articulate this research as an interdisciplinary endeavor. The literature review is extended in Chapter 4 through a systematic review that looked at communication approaches applied to NTD`s eradication, elimination and control programs. This systematic review established that behavior change through health education is the most common goal pursued through communication actions, but no major differences in media, messages and strategies can be observed for the specific infectious diseases studied (Guinea worm, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease). More complex approaches to comm (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Benjamin Bates Ph.D (Committee Co-Chair); Mario Grijalva Ph.D (Committee Co-Chair); Tania Basta Ph.D (Committee Member); Kamile Geist Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Health; Public Health

DNP, Walsh University, 2015, Nursing

The complexity of the health care system poses challenges to patients and staff alike. Advanced technologies and processes are designed to keep patients safe but the human aspects of care are variables to consider. Those variables can include delays in recognizing patient decompensation, miscommunication between caregivers, or failures to act. Adjuncts to care that can predict patient decompensation, clinical outcomes, and severity of illness are known as early warning scoring systems. In an effort to standardize these systems, the Royal College of Physicians established the National Early Warning Score in 2012. The purpose of this study was to establish inter rater reliability of the National Early Warning Score by comparing Registered Nurses and Patient Care Assistants practicing in a long term acute care hospital.

Committee: Karen Gehrling PhD (Committee Chair); Judy Kreye PhD (Committee Member); Barbara Moran MBA, BSN (Committee Member) Subjects: Nursing

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Public Health

Background: Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a hardy and extremely virulent multidrug resistant organism that has been a major cause of hospital acquired infections ever since its discovery in the 1960's. It has severe consequences such as causing increased hospital length of stay, economic burden, morbidity, and mortality. MRSA prevention strategies have been advocated by national and international organizations which have been successful in reducing the burden of healthcare-associated MRSA. However, MRSA has been increasing in the community settings and this is an alarming and poorly understood rend because these infections occur in populations that have no known risk factors. In order to develop successful control strategies for this emerging threat. In order to develop successful control strategies for this emerging threat, it is important to understand the epidemiology, risk factors and links associated with community associated MRSA so that new and novel prevention strategies, using existing resources and cutting edge technology, can be developed. Methods: A cross sectional observational study design was used. The aims were accomplished by leveraging and utilizing the existing infrastructure of the OSUMC Information Warehouse, the Ohio State Health Network, and the OSUMC Microbiology Laboratory. Specific aim 1 was to develop an infection control collaborative and an innovative cross institutional platform, using existing information technology resources and infrastructure, for use as an electronic health information exchange between multiple hospitals spread across a large geographic area. Specific aim 2 was to estimate the proportion of community associated MRSA cases among all MRSA cases in rural community hospitals, and to identify the risk factors associated with community associated MRSA. Logistic regression was used to examine risk factors for community MRSA strain. Lastly, specific aim 3 was to identify patterns of intra-facility a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kurt Stevenson MD, MPH (Advisor); Philip Binkley MD, MPH (Committee Member); Melanie Brodnik PhD (Committee Member); Amy Ferketich PhD (Committee Member); Shu-Hua Wang TM & MPH (Committee Member) Subjects: Bioinformatics; Epidemiology; Public Health

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2010, Epidemiology and Biostatistics

This dissertation explores the application of Critical Realism Theory (CRT) to immigrant health research, by proposing “The Open System Conceptual Model of Immigrant Health”, as a tool for conducting health research in volunteer (non-refugees, non-asylum seekers) immigrants. Quantitative epidemiological health research related to The Hispanic Paradox in Mexico-born U.S. adult immigrants provides examples of the applicability of the proposed multi-theory conceptual framework. Two studies demonstrate the Hispanic Paradox on sleep health outcomes: lower risk of short habitual sleep time, insomnia, and sleep related daily functional impairments in Mexico-born U.S. immigrants, as compared to the general U.S. population, to their U.S. born Mexican-American counterparts, and/or Latino U.S. immigrants counterparts. One study explores “Proportion of Lifetime in Immigration” (PLI) as a measure of the “experience in immigration” effect, in addition to age effects, in cohort analysis. The theoretical grounding of “The Open System Conceptual Model of Immigrant Health” predicts PLI as being significantly correlated with the age at immigration, the decade at the time of arrival to the U.S., but not with the participant age. The significance of the conceptual framework and the results of these studies are presented and further epidemiological and health policy implications are proposed.

Committee: Duncan Neuhauser PhD (Committee Chair); Susan Redline MD, MPH (Committee Member); Siran Koroukian-Hajinazarian PhD (Committee Member); Kingman Strohl MD (Other) Subjects: Epidemiology; Health; Health Care; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Public Health

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2022, Industrial and Systems Engineering

Human societies are themselves tangled layered networks of human, biological, and technological systems. In the last decade alone, these networks have experienced massive shock events in the form of natural disasters, infrastructure failures, and pandemics. These events will only continue and will likely include unexpected new forms of shocks in the future. Researchers across disparate disciplines have recently begun to investigate resilience in society, and how our built systems contribute to or degrade it, but there has not yet been an attempt to field a system informed by resilience research in a relevant real-world setting. This paper describes an effort to bolster the capabilities of public health work by using resilience engineering principles to generate a new extra-organizational capability amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This new capability attempts to engage the public as a part of a societal scale team engaged in a joint activity to identify positive COVID-19 cases. Our work reveals insights about is required to generate new non-standard capabilities for the benefit of society. These, in turn, reveal some of the dynamics of a society enduring a critical disruption, which future work into societal resilience will need to consider to be successful.

Committee: David Woods (Committee Member); Michael Rayo (Advisor) Subjects: Engineering; Experiments; Industrial Engineering; Public Health; Sociology; Systems Design; Systems Science; Technology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Computer Science and Engineering

Commodity passive RFID system consisting of the reader and battery-free RFID tags proliferates the internet-of-things applications (e.g., indoor localization, gesture recognition and assets tracking) due to its low cost and small form factor. In this thesis, we propose three human-centered RFID sensing systems (i.e., RFDiaper, Tago and Allergie) for healthy diapering, safe vehicle-pavement interaction and relative vehicular localization respectively. In RFDiaper, we leverage the coupling effect between the tag and diaper to sense the diaper wetness and identify urine pH value, using twin-tag framework to eliminate the multipath effect. In comparison to the sensor based diaper wetness sensing systems, RFDiaper is low-cost that can sense the diaper wetness and identify the urine pH value simultaneously. To mitigate the other factors (e.g., dynamic environment) on diaper wetness detection and urine pH identification, we propose a novel design with twin tags attached on the diaper. In Tago, we attach RFID tag and reader's antennas at the front end of the vehicle to sense the road surface conditions for safe driving, which is different from the advanced sensor (e.g., Lidar and camera sensors) or smartphone-based road surface sensing systems. To eliminate the impact of dynamic environment and strength the backscattered signals from the road surface, we propose a novel design by cancelling out the line-of-sight reflection from the tag body. As a result, the backscattered signals from the road surface can be analysed to sense the bumps or potholes on the road surface. In Allergie, we also leverage the commodity passive RFID system, which will be attached on our vehicle to predict the approaching direction of the nearby vehicles. Specifically, we attach four tags at the four corners of our vehicle, which will be used to predict the approaching direction of the nearby vehicle (i.e., from left to right at left, from right to left at left, from left to right a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kannan Athreya (Advisor); Zhiqiang Lin (Committee Member); Yingbin Liang (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Engineering; Computer Science; Electrical Engineering

Master of Science in Environmental Science, Youngstown State University, 2021, Department of Physics, Astronomy, Geology and Environmental Sciences

Although frequently overlooked or omitted, ecosystem services provide an environment for the survival of life on earth, including humans. Soil is a critical compartment for ecosystem services composed of solids, gasses, water, and micro and macro flora and fauna. Soil functions include water holding capacity, nutrient holding and cycling, support for microbial life, carbon capture, and other many other unseen benefits. Within society a main use of soil is agriculture for growth of food, fiber, and other necessities for civilization. Agricultural practices can consist of different techniques, two common categories are conventional and conservation methods. Conventional tillage utilizes turning of the soil to prepare the seedbed and remove unwanted plants. In conservation methods the use of no tillage or reduce tillage is used, where the soil is minimally disturbed, and the seeds are inserted into small slits or openings. Aggressive tillage can affect soil ecosystem function and limit the quality of soil health by decreasing porosity, reducing microbial processes, and increasing erosion. Seven farm fields in Trumbull County, OH, were sampled to investigate the connection between agricultural method and soil quality characteristics that contribute to overall soil health and productivity. Composite soil samples consisting of 2.5 cm soil cores separated into top 15 cm layer and bottom layer were evaluated for organic matter, bulk density, soil texture, plant available phosphorus, pH, total nitrogen, salinity, and percent porosity using standard methods. The data composed of 32 samples, with 16 samples from the top layer and 16 from the bottom layer. The fields were ranked one to four, with a ranking of one indicating conventional methods to ranking of four with the highest amount of conservation practices applied. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, mean comparison, one-way ANOVA, Principal Component Analysis, and backwards linear regressions using S (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Felicia Armstrong PhD (Advisor); Colleen McLean PhD (Committee Member); Albert Sumell PhD (Committee Member); Lee Beers MS (Committee Member) Subjects: Agricultural Economics; Agricultural Education; Agriculture; Agronomy; Earth; Economic Theory; Environmental Economics; Environmental Education; Environmental Health; Environmental Philosophy; Environmental Science; Environmental Studies; Soil Sciences; Sustainability

Master of Science in Engineering, Youngstown State University, 2021, Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020. Many countries and economies were greatly affected, including the United States of America. Many people were greatly affected causing them to go into critical care resulting in some eventual fatalities. Some of the factors that could have led to the widespread of infections can be attributed to the socio-demographic determinants, including gender, race/ethnicity, income, urban-rural location, access to healthcare and age. This study is aimed at exploring and examining patterns of COVID-19 infections by considering age, gender, health insurance coverage, race/ethnicity and income factors. Data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (HSS), the COVID tracking Project, and the U.S. Census Bureau (USCB) were used in this study. A Bayesian Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) model was used to explore the association between COVID-19 infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths, and socio-demographic variables using Open BUGS for the states of Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky. At the beginning of March 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases reported by the CDC for the USA was 123,498 infections.

Committee: Nazanin Naderi PhD (Advisor); Peter Kimosop PhD (Committee Member); Hojjat Mehri PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Geographic Information Science; Health Care; Industrial Engineering; Social Research; Statistics

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

Scholars have recently noted that work stress paradoxically requires more and predicts less recovery from that stress. As a result, the people who most need to recover from work stress have the most difficulty doing so. This recovery paradox is both practically pressing and theoretically underexplored. The present study aims to clarify the timing of this paradox (i.e., whether it is the result of daily stress, chronic stress, or both), its underlying mechanisms, and potential solutions. Taking an integrated resource theory and decision-making theory approach, the current model positions personal resources (i.e., energy and negative affect) and leisure decision-making as key mechanisms explaining the recovery paradox. The role of chronic work stress and leisure habits in these processes are also explored. Diary data was collected from working adults (N=83 participants) twice per day, after work and before bed, over the course of two work weeks (N=693 survey days). Multilevel analyses did not support the original model focused on the mechanisms of depleted energy, unsystematic leisure decision-making, and low leisure mental and physical activeness; however, an alternative model was supported, connecting work stress to poor recovery via negative affect, unsystematic leisure decision-making, and low leisure diversity (i.e., low variety in types of leisure activities). Leisure diversity and physical activity were identified as strategies that seem to facilitate recovery even, and perhaps especially, for the highly stressed. Overall, the present results suggest that the recovery paradox (a) manifests quickly but is exacerbated by chronic work stress, (b) may be explained by affective and decision-making mechanisms, and (c) may be combatted with diverse and physically active leisure. These findings provide theoretical detail to the recovery paradox, a new and key observation in the work stress recovery literature, and provide practical recommendations for stressed workers (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Clare Barratt (Committee Co-Chair); Margaret Brooks (Committee Co-Chair); Joseph Furgal (Other); Scott Highhouse (Committee Member); Dara Musher-Eizenman (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2020, Industrial and Systems Engineering

In modern complex adaptive systems, the coordination of diverse, coordinated agents creates successful performance under nominal conditions and increases the system's ability to gracefully extend itself to accommodate challenges at and beyond its formal performance boundaries. Critical to the coordination of these cognitive units are the strategies they utilize to choreograph their joint activity. This choreography can only be understood as a continuous flow of agents navigating the tradeoffs of increasing and decreasing their participation in the joint activity. However, it is non-trivial and unclear from the literature how agents navigate these interdependent trade-offs. We aimed to reveal patterns in how people increase or decrease their participation in joint activity. We performed a combination of observations and semi-structured story elicitation interviews with participants in seven different units in a tertiary care medical center. Twenty-two clinicians, including physicians, pharmacists, and nurses, participated in an observation and/or interview. In the observations we focused on how participants increased and decreased their participation to care for a variety of patients. Then, primed by the observations, we utilized open-ended semi-structured interview questions to elicit (a) additional details about the observed interactions and (b) additional unobserved stories about increasing and decreasing participation in an interaction. We iterated through five rounds of coding to reveal patterns in the 140 collected stories. Our observations revealed that a combination of a clinician's perceptions of risk potential, their assessment of situation coverage, the presence of common ground, and the potential for future problems generally explained decisions regarding increasing and decreasing participation. In addition to increasing and decreasing participation, our observations revealed the importance of situation monitoring and a form of participation, prolo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael F. Rayo (Advisor); David D. Woods (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Care; Industrial Engineering; Systems Design