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Open Access Publications from the University of California

This series is automatically populated with publications deposited by UC Merced Department of Sociology researchers in accordance with the University of California’s open access policies. For more information see Open Access Policy Deposits and the UC Publication Management System.

Cover page of Getting by with a little help from friends and colleagues: Testing how residents social support networks affect loneliness and burnout.

Getting by with a little help from friends and colleagues: Testing how residents social support networks affect loneliness and burnout.

(2016)

OBJECTIVE: To determine how residents relationships with their sources of social support (ie, family, friends, and colleagues) affect levels of burnout and loneliness. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 198 physician-trainees in the universitys postgraduate medical education program. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Residents personal and work-related burnout scores (measured using items from the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory); loneliness (measured using a 3-item loneliness scale); and social support (assessed with the Lubben Social Network Scale, version 6). RESULTS: Of the 234 respondents who completed the Internet-based survey (a 22% response rate), 198 provided complete information on all study variables and thus constituted the analytic sample. Seemingly unrelated regression analyses indicated that loneliness was significantly (P < .01) and positively associated with both personal and work-related burnout scores. Greater friend-based and colleague-based social support were both indirectly associated with lower personal and work-related burnout scores through their negative associations with loneliness. CONCLUSION: Social relationships might help residents mitigate the deleterious effects of burnout. By promoting interventions that stabilize and nurture social relationships, hospitals and universities can potentially help promote resident resilience and well-being and, in turn, improve patient care.

Cover page of Conceptualizing Ethnicity: How Dimensions of Ethnicity Affect Disparities in Health Outcomes Among Latinxs in the United States.

Conceptualizing Ethnicity: How Dimensions of Ethnicity Affect Disparities in Health Outcomes Among Latinxs in the United States.

(2020)

Methods

Using regression methods to analyze data from the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, we examined how attributional and relational dimensions of ethnicity affect: 1) intragroup differences in Latinx mental and physical health status, as measured by feelings of worthlessness and self-rated health, respectively; and 2) intergroup differences between Latinxs and non-Hispanic Whites in these health outcomes.

Results

Latinxs have higher odds of feelings of worthlessness and lower odds of self-reporting good/excellent health compared with non-Hispanic Whites. Additionally, intragroup differences in health are observed among Latinxs, conditioned on attributional or relational dimensions of ethnicity.

Conclusion

Multidimensional measures of ethnicity that distinguish between characteristics associated with ethnicity (attributional) or race (relational) offer a nuanced explanation of health disparities by revealing aspects of ethnicity that shape health outcomes differently, contributing to the goals of health equity.

Cover page of Intersectional Differences in Segmented Assimilation: Skill and Gender in the Context of Reception

Intersectional Differences in Segmented Assimilation: Skill and Gender in the Context of Reception

(2015)

Purpose - Segmented assimilation theory predicts that contemporary non-white groups follow three patterns of assimilation: mainstream, downward, or delayed. Yet, the homogenous treatment and primacy of ethnicity resigns all group members to a similar fate. Whereas few studies of ethnic incorporation consider both the classed and gendered nature of the labor market, this study investigates the extent to which intersectional group differences within the highly stratified American economy shape segmented assimilation trajectories. Methodology/approach - This study introduces an intersectional approach to segmented assimilation theory. Using the 2000 census, this study examines how within group differences in skill and gender condition the hourly earnings, joblessness and self-employment participation outcomes of five ethnic minority groups from the first to the second generation, compared against US-born, non-Hispanic whites.Findings - Findings generally support the mainstream assimilation hypothesis for all groups; a downward assimilation trajectory among Chinese men only; and a delayed assimilation trajectory for low-skilled Filipinas and high-skilled Cuban men and women. This study reveals that intra-group differences in skill and gender shape divergent segmented assimilation trajectories among members of the same ethnic group. Originality/value - This study challenges the emphasis on and primacy of ethnicity in predicting segmented assimilation in favor of an intersectional approach that considers how multiple, interdependent, and intersecting dimensions of identity and not only ethnicity shape the process of economic incorporation among ethnic groups.

Cover page of The fiscal and human costs of immigrant detention and deportation in the United States

The fiscal and human costs of immigrant detention and deportation in the United States

(2017)

An extensive body of literature has analyzed the individual impacts and collateral consequences of mass incarceration. However, few studies explore the consequences of a parallel and overlapping system: mass immigration detention and deportation. The last 30 years witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of noncitizens detained in and deported from the United States. Individuals detained under immigration laws are held pending adjudication, often mandatorily, and without many basic constitutional protections. Immigrant detention and deportation impose severe burdens on immigrants and their households and levy significant costs to society—financially, as well as in terms of social capital and community well-being. Chiefly due to the difficulty in accessing noncitizens in the process of detention and deportation, this system has largely escaped sociological inquiry. This article provides a background for understanding the growth and consequences of detention and deportation in the United States. It reviews the literature on these immigration law enforcement programs and suggests topical and methodological directions for future research.

Cover page of Social, Human and Positive Psychological Capital in the Labour Market Re‐integration of People Deported to the Dominican Republic

Social, Human and Positive Psychological Capital in the Labour Market Re‐integration of People Deported to the Dominican Republic

(2021)

More than six million people have been deported from the United States since 1996. The Dominican Republic is one of the top ten countries to which deportees are sent. Most scholarship on deportation focuses on the challenges deportees face post-deportation. There is also a long history of scholarship on how migrants draw from social, human and financial capital to integrate into host societies. This article thus asks what forms of capital are useful for deportees’ re-integration and focuses on the forms of capital deportees draw from to survive in the aftermath of deportation. An analysis of 60 in-depth interviews with Dominican deportees reveals how deportees’ combination of limited human capital, fractured social capital and positive psychological capital assists in their re-integration. Results also show that access to employment is not only an important step in social and economic integration, but that it also helps deportees to achieve emotional stability.

Cover page of Intersectional environmental justice and population health inequalities: A novel approach

Intersectional environmental justice and population health inequalities: A novel approach

(2021)

Drawing on the traditions of environmental justice, intersectionality, and social determinants of health, and using data from the EPA's NATA 2014 estimates of cancer risk from air toxics, we demonstrate a novel quantitative approach to evaluate intersectional environmental health risks to communities: Eco-Intersectional Multilevel (EIM) modeling. Results from previous case studies were found to generalize to national-level patterns, with multiply marginalized tracts with a high percent of Black and Latinx residents, high percent female-headed households, lower educational attainment, and metro location experiencing the highest risk. Overall, environmental health inequalities in cancer risk from air toxics are: (1) experienced intersectionally at the community-level, (2) significant in magnitude, and (3) socially patterned across numerous intersecting axes of marginalization, including axes rarely evaluated such as gendered family structure. EIM provides an innovative approach that will enable explicit consideration of structural/institutional social processes in the social production of intersectional and geospatial inequalities.

Cover page of Analyzing the Military's Role in Producing Air Toxics Disparities in the United States: A Critical Environmental Justice Approach

Analyzing the Military's Role in Producing Air Toxics Disparities in the United States: A Critical Environmental Justice Approach

(2022)

Abstract: The negative environmental, health, and social effects arising from U.S. military action in communities both domestically and abroad suggest that the military represents an understudied institutional source of environmental injustice. Moreover, scholars and activists have long argued that the state is an active or a tacit contributor to environmental inequality, thus providing an opportunity to link U.S. military activity with approaches to the state developed under critical environmental justice. We build on these literatures to ask: Does the presence of domestic military facilities significantly increase carcinogenic risks from air toxics? And do communities of color face additional military-associated carcinogenic risks? Multilevel analyses reveal that locales in closer proximity to a military facility and those exposed to greater military technological intensity, independent of each other, experience significantly higher carcinogenic risk from air toxics. We find that proximity to military facilities tends to intensify racial and ethnic environmental inequalities in exposure to airborne toxics, but in different ways for Latinx and Black populations. These results highlight the role of the state in perpetuating racial and environmental expendability as reflected in critical environmental justice and represent an important expansion of nationwide environmental justice studies on contributors to environmental inequality.

Cover page of Staking Territory in the “World White Web”

Staking Territory in the “World White Web”

(2014)

Early scholarship on the Web suggested that, in an online world, physical markers of marginalization would be invisible and race would become obsolete. Instead, recent research indicates that the Web is a white space that grants easier access and greater power to white users than users of color. In fact, studies indicate that both overt and color-blind racism are circulated online. Still, optimistic scholars maintain hope that the Web can provide a space for meaningful discourse around race and, hence, promote the deconstruction of racism. In this study, we analyze 2,000 comments posted to YouTube forums to examine patterns of overt racism, color-blind racism, and dissent against racism. Logistic regression reveals that comments posted by users identifying as persons of color have greater odds of eliciting overt racist responses than comments posted by users not specifying a racial identity. In addition, users exhibit greater odds of dissenting against overt than color-blind racism—with qualitative themes suggesting some users mistake color-blind racism for dissent. Thus, we argue that both overt and color-blind racism play roles in maintaining white spaces online, with the former maintaining racial boundaries and the latter convoluting conversations about race and impeding the dismantling of racism.