Programs that serve transition-age youth with serious mental health conditions typically reside in either the child or the adult system. Good service provision calls for interactions among these programs. The objective of this research was to discover programmatic characteristics that facilitate or impede collaboration with programs serving dissimilar age groups, among programs that serve transition-age youth. To examine this "cross-age collaboration," this research used social network analysis methods to generate homophily and heterophily scores in three communities that had received federal grants to improve services for this population. Heterophily scores (i.e., a measure of cross-age collaboration) in programs serving only transition-age youth were significantly higher than the heterophily scores of programs that served only adults or only children. Few other program markers or malleable program factors predicted heterophily. Programs that specialize in serving transition-age youth are a good resource for gaining knowledge of how to bridge adult and child programs.
Half of U.S. drinking water comes from aquifers, and very shallow ones (<20 feet to water table) are especially vulnerable to anthropogenic contamination. We present the case of Holliston, a Boston, Massachusetts suburb that draws its drinking water from very shallow aquifers, and where metals and solvents have been reported in groundwater. Community concerns focus on water discolored by naturally occurring manganese (Mn), despite reports stating regulatory aesthetic compliance. Epidemiologic studies suggest Mn is a potentially toxic element (PTE) for children exposed by the drinking-water pathway at levels near the regulatory aesthetic level. We designed an integrated, community-based project: five sites were profiled for contaminant releases; service areas for wells were modeled; and the capture zone for one vulnerable well was estimated. Manganese, mercury, and trichloroethylene are among 20 contaminants of interest. Findings show that past and/or current exposures to multiple contaminants in drinking water are plausible, satisfying the criteria for complete exposure pathways. This case questions the adequacy of aquifer protection and monitoring regulations, and highlights the need for integrated assessment of multiple contaminants, associated exposures and health risks. It posits that community-researcher partnerships are essential for understanding and solving complex problems.
Bruce Grindal played an instrumental role in the Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA), which he helped found in 1974 at an American Anthropological Association meeting in Mexico City. He became the editor of The Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly (AHQ) in 1976, a journal that eschewed traditional ethnographic writing, and celebrated and encouraged storytelling in anthropology. Poems, narratives, fictions, and short essays that were rejected as "not anthropology" by other journals found a home in AHQ. In this oral history interview, Bruce recalls the history of the SHA and the challenges it faced in its early days in gaining acceptance by other anthropologists. In his attempts to legitimize humanistic anthropology, he challenged the materialist and postmodernist anthropological paradigms of the time through a series of scathing articles that publicly challenged what he regarded as the "overly analyzed digested mystification" of reality. This oral history interview covers the periods from 1976 to 2005 at the 30th anniversary of the founding of the SHA and touches upon philosophical musings and highlights from Bruce Grindal's career. [Humanistic anthropology, Society for Humanistic Anthropology, oral history, Bruce Grindal]The jester, like the gadfly, exists to challenge and occasionally outrage the priestly purveyors of mystification and nonsense that masquerade in the name of truth. Humanistic anthropology must never become wholly respectable. It must be able to mutter "bullshit" whenever the appropriate occasion arises. [Grindal 1993:46] bs_bs_banner
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