Browsing by Author "Carlson, Joan"

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    International service learning in post-war Croatia: Capacity building for social work profession
    (20th Biennale International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD) Symposium, Zagreb, Croatia, 2017-07) Luca Sugawara, Carmen; Carlson, Joan; Makki Alamdari, Sara; Vukoviæ-Èoviæ, Sanja
    Building on a strong partnership with University of Zagreb, Department of Social Work, and a local community organization serving a post-war community in the Osijek and Vukovar region, in 2011, the Indiana University School of Social Work developed an international service-learning course that aims at strengthening social work students’ competencies to work with post-war communities. This study examines learning outcomes of a five-year study abroad experience in post-war Croatia. All 49 students who completed the International Service-Learning course in the past five years were emailed and invited to participate in this study. Drawing on a data set of 30 student respondents to a survey, and one focus-group of six students, the study examines key learning outcomes gained through participation in the program. For purposes of this study, four subscales were developed: (1) critical thinking/academic development, (2) cultural competence, (3) personal and leadership developments, and (4) civic participation/global mindfulness. Average scores for each subscale were calculated. The results show substantial improvement in learning outcomes as a result of taking the course in all subscales, especially in cultural competence (Mean=4.48, SD=0.55) and global mindfulness (Mean=4.38, SD=0.60). More specifically, through focus group data, we learn that international service-learning experiences become a powerful learning platform that goes beyond teaching students professional competencies, shaping their leadership skills, as well as positively influencing their roles as agents of change in their own communities. Preliminary results indicate that, through living in a post-war community even for a short time, and working with local Croatian organizations, students begin to confront their own realities and prejudicial notions, and become more inclusive of different views that question their personal assumptions, and prepare them to interact with refugees in Indiana and other parts of the world. More importantly, students appear to begin shaping a sense of pluralism, question their upbringing, and build on the ability to work in dissonant and unequal environments. The implications for practice, teaching and research are also explored.
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    Suicide Prevention Among College Students Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
    (JMIR Research Protocols, 2021-05-17) Xiao, Yunyu; Hinrichs, Rachel; Johnson, Nina; McKinley, Amanda; Carlson, Joan; Agley, Jon; Yip, Paul Siu Fai; School of Social Work
    Background: Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college-aged individuals worldwide and in the United States. Recent studies have identified preliminary evidence of widening disparities in suicidal behaviors across sex, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status among college students. Few systematic reviews and meta-analyses offer a comprehensive understanding of on-campus and off-campus suicide interventions, nor is collated information available for different types of screening, assessment, treatment, and postvention plans. Further challenges have been identified since the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for cost-effective and innovative interventions to address increased rates of suicidal behaviors among college students facing unprecedented stressors. Objective: This research protocol describes the first systematic review and meta-analysis to identify the most effective and cost-effective intervention components for universal and targeted (indicated and selected) suicide prevention among college students in a global context. Special attention will be placed on disparities in suicide prevention across sociodemographic subgroups, inclusive interventions beyond campus, global context, and intervention responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A sensitive search strategy will be executed across MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE, PsycINFO (EBSCO), ERIC (EBSCO), Cochrane Library, Dissertations and Theses Global (ProQuest), Scopus, Global Index Medicus, SciELO, African Journals Online, Global Health (CABI), and Google Scholar. Data extraction and evaluation will be conducted by three independent researchers. Risk of bias will be assessed. A multilevel meta-regression model and subgroup analysis will be used to analyze the data and estimate effect sizes. Results: The initial search was completed in December 2020 and updated with additional other-language studies in March 2020. We expect the results to be submitted for publication in mid-2021. Conclusions: Despite increasing rates of suicidal behaviors among college students, few preventative efforts have targeted this population, and fewer focus on factors that might place specific demographic groups at heightened risk. The impact of COVID-19 on suicidal behaviors among college students highlights and exacerbates the urgent need for rapid and effective interventions that might differ from traditional approaches. This equity-focused study will address these gaps and provide a valuable analysis of the effectiveness of suicide prevention programs and interventions. Findings will inform clinicians, researchers, policy makers, families, and organizations about evidence-based interventions for reducing the gaps in the suicide crisis among college students from different sociodemographic groups. Trial Registration: PROSPERO CRD42020225429; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=225429
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    Time-to-event modeling of subreddits transitions to r/SuicideWatch
    (IEEE, 2022) Liu, Xueying; Fang, Shiaofen; Mohler, George; Carlson, Joan; Xiao, Yunyu; Computer Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
    Recent data mining research has focused on the analysis of social media text, content and networks to identify suicide ideation online. However, there has been limited research on the temporal dynamics of users and suicide ideation. In this work, we use time-to-event modeling to identify which subreddits have a higher association with users transitioning to posting on r/suicidewatch. For this purpose we use a Cox proportional hazards model that takes as input text and subreddit network features and outputs a probability distribution for the time until a Reddit user posts on r/suicidewatch. In our analysis we find a number of statistically significant features that predict earlier transitions to r/suicidewatch. While some patterns match existing intuition, for example r/depression is positively associated with posting sooner on r/suicidewatch, others were more surprising (for example, the average time between a high risk post on r/Wishlist and a post on r/suicidewatch is 10.2 days). We then discuss these results as well as directions for future research.