IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks :: Browsing by Author "Leech, Tamara G.J."

Browsing by Author "Leech, Tamara G.J."

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"Are you accepting new patients?" A pilot field experiment on telephone-based gatekeeping and Black patients' access to pediatric care.
(Wiley, 2019-02) Leech, Tamara G.J.; Irby‐Shasanmi, Amy; Mitchell, Anne L.; Office of Equal Opportunity
STUDY OBJECTIVES: To determine whether name and accent cues that the caller is Black shape physician offices' responses to telephone-based requests for well-child visits. METHOD AND DATA: In this pilot study, we employed a quasi-experimental audit design and examined a stratified national sample of pediatric and family practice offices. Our final data include information from 205 audits (410 completed phone calls). Qualitative data were blind-coded into binary variables. Our case-control comparisons using McNemar's tests focused on acceptance of patients, withholding information, shaping conversations, and misattributions. FINDINGS: Compared to the control group, "Black" auditors were less likely to be told an office was accepting new patients and were more likely to experience both withholding behaviors and misattributions about public insurance. The strength of associations varied according to whether the cue was based on name or accent. Additionally, the likelihood and ways office personnel communicated that they were not accepting patients varied by region. CONCLUSIONS: Linguistic profiling over the telephone is an aspect of structural racism that should be further studied and perhaps integrated into efforts to promote equitable access to care. Future research should look reactions to both name and accent, taking practice characteristics and regional differences into consideration.
Beyond Collective Supervision of Youth: Informal Social Control, Pro-social Investment and Delinquency in Urban Neighborhoods
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2011-04-08) Leech, Tamara G.J.
The concentration of delinquency in certain neighborhoods represents a pervasive social inequality in the United States. Today, the distribution of urban delinquency is perhaps best described as “pockets of crime,” largely confined to urban blocks with unique characteristics (Jean 2007). An expansive amount of scholarship has addressed neighborhood responses to this persistent social issue, including collective neighborhood efforts to control rates of delinquency. It is generally accepted that to fully achieve social control of public space, neighborhoods must not only intervene in problem behavior, but must also socialize youth to avoid deviance (Bursick 1988). We currently have a strong body of research on neighborhood supervision and monitoring of delinquent behavior. Yet, we are left with a paucity of work on the association between delinquency rates and pro-social investment in youth at the neighborhood level. The purpose of this study is to begin to address these gaps in the literature by simultaneously investigating collective supervision of and pro-social investment in youth. The data for the analyses focus on one urban area in Indianapolis spanning 92 census block groups. The dataset combines census and county court data with 603 interviews of local residents. The results of the analysis indicate that the meaning of collective supervision and investment seems to be context - specific. Areas with high levels of supervision over youth have fewer incidents of relatively moderate forms of delinquency such as truancy, underage drinking, curfew violations, etc. However, this same connection between supervision and slightly more serious offenses (i.e. misdemeanors) is only evident in neighborhoods with strong collective pro-social investment in youth. Areas with high levels of this prosocial investment also experience fewer juvenile felony charges, but these same areas are weaker in the supervision of youth behavior. Overall, the analyses indicate that neighborhoods dealing with minor delinquency among youth may be able to deal with the problem by monitoring and intervening in adolescent behavior. However, investment in youth organizations, positive intergenerational relationships, and informal mentoring may be a more effective option for neighborhoods facing more serious forms of juvenile delinquency.
The Community Action Framework in Practice: An Illustration Based on the Ready by 21 Coalition of Austin/Travis County
(2011-08) Travis, Raphael Jr.; Leech, Tamara G.J.
The field of positive youth development has expanded focus from articulating and measuring desired manifestations of positive well-being to assembling the environmental conditions known to promote these desired outcomes. Evidence of the effectiveness of community-level efforts promoting positive youth development is still emerging, in particular theory-driven examples of community-driven youth development. This study examined the Community Action Framework, one theory-based community youth development model, through the experiences of the Ready by 21 Austin/Travis County coalition (RB21). The coalition connects youth-serving organizations and also regional coalitions, while promoting the positive development of area youth. Participant observation, interviewing, and archival strategies were integrated to capture information related to the complex and dynamic coalition. Results indicated that RB21 represents a practical and meaningful application of the Community Action Framework. Specific examples and recommendations are provided as guidance for other community level youth development efforts.
A Community Conversation on Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting Services: Networks of Support, Gatekeepers to Care, and Non-Compulsory Fathering in a Black Urban Community
(2014) Leech, Tamara G.J.; Adams, Elizabeth A.; Littlefield, Marci
This study employed Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methods to document needs and capacity around adolescent pregnancy and parenting in one predominately Black, low-income urban community. Using an iterative focus group method, we engaged 60 participants in a two-day community conversation. Quantitative data from an enrollment questionnaire and qualitative transcripts of the discussions are analyzed. Our results indicate that the community’s greatest capacity lies in a network of women. Men tend to participate in parenting more holistically once formal paternity is established. Neighborhood women typically introduce adolescents to prenatal care, so delays in revealing the pregnancy to them serves as a barrier to accessing prenatal care. Overall, participants want health agencies to uphold their formal social contracts with the community, but to entrust informal services to community members who have the necessary insight and expertise to deliver support and information that is usable in their social context.
Diversity in times of austerity: Documenting resistance in the academy
(2014-05) Moscowitz, David; Jett, Terri; Carney, Terri; Leech, Tamara G.J.; Savage, Ann
What happens to feminism in the university is parallel to what happens to feminism in other venues under economic restructuring: while the impoverished nation is forced to cut social services and thereby send women back to the hierarchy of the family, the academy likewise reduces its footprint in interdisciplinary structures and contains academic feminists back to the hierarchy of departments and disciplines. When the family and the department become powerful arbiters of cultural values, women and feminist academics by and large suffer: they either accept a diminished role or are pushed to compete in a system they recognize as antithetical to the foundational values of feminist priorities of social justice. Collaborative work to nurture diversity and interdisciplinarity does not register as individual accomplishment. This paper considers the necessity of this type of academic work to further the vision of a society committed to the collective values espoused by feminism and other areas in social justice.
Empowerment-Based Positive Youth Development: A New Understanding of Healthy Development for African American Youth
(2014-03) Travis, Raphael Jr.; Leech, Tamara G.J.
A shift occurred in research about adolescents in the general population. Research is moving away from deficits toward a resilience paradigm and understanding trajectories of positive youth development. This shift has been less consistent in research and practice with African American youth. A gap also exists in understanding whether individual youth development dimensions generate potential in other dimensions. This study presents an empowerment-based positive youth development model. It builds upon existing research to present a new vision of healthy development for African American youth that is strengths-based, developmental, culture-bound, and action-oriented. It emphasizes the relationship between person and environment, the reinforcing nature of developmental assets, and the necessity of a sense of community and community engagement for youth.
Everything's Better in Moderation: Young Women's Gender Role Attitudes and Risky Sexual Behavior
(2010-05) Leech, Tamara G.J.
Purpose This study examines the association between gender role attitudes and risky sexual behavior among young women. Previous studies have posed seemingly contradictory arguments: that either traditional attitudes or egalitarian attitudes are associated with riskier behavior. Methods Data are based on the children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, representing 520 sexually active 18–19-year-old women. Propensity radius matching was used to assess differences in rates of multiple sexual partners and sex outside of a committed relationship. Results Relative to moderate gender role attitudes, both egalitarian gender role attitudes and traditional gender role attitudes are associated with higher rates of risky sexual behavior. Both women with egalitarian role attitudes and those with traditional role attitudes have about a 10% higher prevalence of risky behavior compared to women with more moderate gender role attitudes. Conclusion Existing, seemingly contradictory contentions about the relationship between gender role attitudes and risky sexual behavior may be more coherent than they seem. By shifting focus from risk to protection, the results suggest that moderate gender role attitudes are protective against risky sexual behavior. Future studies should investigate the causal mechanisms and intervention implications of this protective relationship.
Moving Beyond "Risky Sex": Adolescent Sexual Resilience and Sexual Health in Young Adulthood
(2011-08-23) Cox, Mary L.; Leech, Tamara G.J.; Gronfein, William Philip; Goldfinger, Johnny
Sexual behaviors in adolescence establish the initial resources an individual carries into sexual relationships in adulthood. Current definitions of sexual resilience in adolescence are defined from a negative, risk-based lens. Resilience theory, more generally defined, considers both internal and external factors that promote adaptation to challenging situations. A direct, capital-based approach to studying adolescent sexual resilience has not been found in the extant literature and I propose that a new, more inclusive definition of sexual resilience in adolescence will be more strongly correlated with sexual health in young adults than the risk-based definition. This study creates mutually exclusive risk-based and capital-based measures of adolescent sexual resilience and examines their associations with sexual health outcomes in young adulthood. The data did not produce significant findings, yet descriptive results provide direction for future research. Research in this area is of critical importance as adolescence and young adulthood are unique life stages that involve significant development in areas that influence health, both short and long term. This research, through a proper resilience lens, will better guide adolescent sexual education to develop internal resources as well as provide adequate external resources for adolescents that promote better sexual health and agency outcomes in adulthood.
Political competition, relative deprivation, and perceived threat: a research note on anti-Christian violence in India
(2012) Bauman, Chad; Leech, Tamara G.J.
A preliminary subnational statistical analysis of violence against Christians in contemporary India, this article suggests that whereas the data provide very little support for simple, demographic explanations of this violence, they do more robustly support theories emphasizing the relative status of ethnic and religious minorities (vis-à-vis majorities) and the perception, among Hindus, that Christians (and other minorities) represent a threat to their numerical, political and economic strength.
The Potential of Community-Oriented Policing: A Report to the MidNorth Public Safety Committee
(2009-09-09T20:21:35Z) Drury, Benjamin; Leech, Tamara G.J.; Drury, Benjamin
This report assesses the academic literature on community-oriented policing (COP) in regard to three shared goals of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) and the MidNorth Public Safety Committee (MPSC): decreasing crime rates, limiting fear of crime, and increasing community empowerment. The report recommends specific strategies that can be integrated into IMPD’s community policing efforts. It also identifies the appropriate role for MPSC to play.

Browsing by Author "Leech, Tamara G.J."

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