Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Sociology

With a high desired family size of 5 children (SSL and ICF Macro 2009), in a context of high fertility (Total fertility rate of 5.2 between 2005 and 2010), and a difference of less than a child for a period of three and a half decades (UN 2009; 2011), it is clear that Sierra Leone is among those countries that are experiencing stalled fertility decline. Stalled fertility decline has implications for high population growth and the potential to overwhelm existing child-related reforms. Using the 2008 Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Survey, a nationally representative cross sectional sample of 2,931 women aged 15 to 34 years, this study tests both the “economic” and “ideation/diffusion” theories on the desired family size by utilizing multivariate poisson regression analyses. The study finds support for both economic and ideation/diffusion theories, with exceptions. In addition to economic determinants such as household income, a woman's education, and occupation in agriculture, factors such as religion and child mortality, are all significant in determining desired family sizes. While a complete explanation is beyond the scope of this study, this study contributes to the existing literature on Sierra Leone by incorporating ideational/cultural/diffusion factors other than education in testing the demand for children and extending the sample to rural respondents.

Committee: Karen Guzzo Ph.D. (Advisor); Kelly Balistreri Ph.D. (Committee Member); Alfred DeMaris Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Studies; Demography; Families and Family Life; Sociology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Medicine: Biomedical Informatics

Last-minute surgery cancellation, also known as day-of-surgery cancellation (DoSC), represents a substantial wastage of hospital resources and can cause significant emotional and economic implications for patients and their families. However, only few existing studies attempted to predict risk of cancellation for individual surgical cases, hampering the development of efficient interventions in clinical settings. Also, we currently lack knowledge of actionable factors underlying DoSC and barriers experienced by families (e.g., poor transportation access). The objectives of this dissertation are to 1) identify key predictors and develop machine learning models to predict cancellation for individual surgery schedules, and 2) understand potential underlying contributors to pediatric surgery cancellation at geographic level. In Aim 1, five-year data sets were extracted from the electronic health record (EHR) at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). By leveraging patient-specific information and contextual data, a representative set of machine learning classifiers were developed to predict cancellations. Model performance was evaluated by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) using ten-fold cross-validation. The best performance for predicting all-cause cancellation was generated by gradient-boosted logistic regression models, with AUC 0.793 (95% CI: [0.778, 0.808]) and 0.741 (95% CI: [0.725, 0.757]) for the two campuses. Of the four most frequent individual cancellation causes, no show and NPO violation were predicted better than patient illness or patient/family refusal. Models showed good cross-campus generalizability (AUC: 0.725/0.735, when training on one site and testing on the other). Feature importance techniques were applied to identify key predictors. An online tool for predictive modeling was developed using R Shiny package. In Aim 2, a five-year geocoded data set was extracted from the CCHMC EHR and an equiv (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Surya Prasath Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Richard Brokamp Ph.D. (Committee Member); Danny T. Y. Wu (Committee Member); Jayant Pratap (Committee Member); Yizhao Ni Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Sciences

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Social Work

Although intimate partner violence cuts across all socioeconomic levels, empirical research consistently documents a connection between economic status and violence. Low-income and poverty are among the strongest, most consistent correlates of male-to-female domestic violence and most studies which include a measure of socioeconomic position consistently document a greater incidence of battering among those lower on such scales. Despite this extensive empirical evidence supporting a connection between socioeconomic status and intimate partner violence, there is a notable absence of a theoretical understanding of this relationship. Theories of domestic violence causation have not, to date, adequately incorporated economic variables. The purpose of this dissertation is to test hypotheses shaped by social exchange theory about the impact of economic indicators on the risk of violence against women in intimate relationships. The bargaining model predicts that violence would decrease when women's economic resources increase because, in gaining greater resources, women also gain more power. In contrast, resource theory warns that women's gain in resources could potentially spark a “backlash.” As women gain economic resources and become more economically independent, men may resort to violence to compensate for labor market difficulties and for frustrations when women outperform them. Using data from the third wave of the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey (n=1800), measures of economic status are examined with logistic regression. Following an intersectional approach (Crenshaw, 1991), the strength of these models is examined across racial and ethnic groups, with a particular emphasis on African American women. Results are consistent with the bargaining model from social exchange theory and support the notion that improving women's economic position should be pursued as one strategy to reduce the incidence and prevalence of violence against women. Although little (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Theresa Early (Advisor) Subjects: Social Work; Women's Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2009, Sociology

The major aim of this dissertation was to investigate how negative spillover shapes mental health status. Following the stress process model, this study also explored whether and how sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., race, gender, and age), family characteristics (i.e., length of marriage/cohabitation, spousal/partner support, and presence of children), socioeconomic resources (i.e., education, income, mortgage-payer status, renter status), and work characteristics (i.e., total work hours, job tenure, skill discretion, decision authority, coworker support, and supervisor support) moderate the relationship between negative spillover and mental health. Data were analyzed from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States 2004-06 (N=1,430) and the key outcome measures were depressive symptoms and anxious mood. With respect to depressive symptoms, the major findings indicated that negative work-to-family spillover increased symptoms. Other findings indicated that the deleterious effects of negative work-to-family spillover were moderated by gender and spousal/partner support, wherein men and individuals with higher levels of spousal/partner support experiences lower levels of depressed mood. While negative family-to-work spillover did not have main effects on depressive symptoms, this type of spillover was moderated by spousal/partner support, which acted as a protectant against spillover even in the case of high levels of negative family-to-work spillover. Similar to depressive symptoms, negative work-to-family spillover increased anxious mood. Moreover, the effect of negative work-to-family spillover on symptoms of anxiety was moderated by length of marriage/cohabitation. Lengthy married or cohabitating relationships reduced the impact of negative work-to-family spillover on anxious mood. Negative family-to-work spillover was not related to anxious symptoms; however, despite the lack of main effects, age did moderate the relationship between th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: C. André Christie-Mizell PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Mental Health; Social Psychology; Sociology