Sexual Assault Policies and Consent Definitions: A Nationally Representative Investigation of U.S. Colleges and Universities

ABSTRACT

Campus sexual assault (SA) policies and sexual consent definitions have not been widely studied. The study team conducted a nationally representative review of college and university websites (n = 995), assessing the prevalence of publicly accessible online policies and definitions and examining associations with school characteristics. A content analysis was performed on a subsample (n = 100) of consent definitions. Most schools (93.0%) had an SA policy and consent definition (87.6%) available online. Schools were more likely to have a policy or consent definition if they were large (≥5,000 students), public, or had a female enrollment of ≥33%. Detail and comprehensiveness of definitions varied. Findings highlight opportunities for schools—especially small schools, private schools, and those with more male students—to increase access to SA policies and consent definitions.     

Bending the health cost curve: the promise and peril of the Independent Payment Advisory Board

Underlying today's and the future's health-care reform debate is a consensus that America's health-care financing system is in a slow-moving but deep crisis: care appears substandard in comparison with other advanced industrial countries, and relative costs are exploding beyond all reasonable measures. The Obama Administration's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) attempts to grapple with both of these problems. One of ACA's key instrumentalities is the Independent Payment Advisory Board-the IPAB, designed to discover and authorize ways to reduce the rate of growth of Medicare and other categories of health spending. The IPAB is a peril. Expert boards to perform regulatory tasks in the interest of efficiency and social goals always run a high risk of being captured by the industry they are supposed to regulate. Even should it succeed at its task of reducing the rate of growth of Medicare spending, who is to say that the reductions will not come at a heavy cost in reduced quantity and effectiveness of medical care? But the IPAB also has promise. The need for a better process than our current specialist-driven one to assign value to the medical services provided by Medicare is great. The bellwether status of Medicare payment systems means that commercial insurance consumers and payors would also benefit mightily from bringing more coherent, technocratic, and cost-effectiveness oriented logic to this process. And the current system of relative Medicare reimbursement rates is, in the judgment of many, currently well out of whack. We quail when we consider the magnitude of the tasks the IPAB faces--even its initial task. Nevertheless, we remain optimistic that this administrative agency will manage to bend the long-run healthcare cost curve and moderate future price increases.     

A Qualitative Study Exploring Mothers’ Perceptions of Child Neglect

This research explores the experiences and perceptions of mothers receiving services for child neglect. Incidents of child neglect are reaching alarming rates in the United States, now representing 78% of all child maltreatment reports. Although risks factors associated with child neglect are well known, there continues to be uncertainty about how to proceed in assessing and intervening with families. The epistemological stance of constructivism and the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism guided the qualitative methods of this research. Four overarching themes emerged focused on daily struggles, protecting my child, feeling trapped, and mutual trust. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Suicide by fire in a car trunk: a case with potential pitfalls

We present an unusual case in which an adult female committed suicide by fire while enclosed in the trunk of her vehicle. A finding of suicide was reached only because several key investigative facts were uncovered. Without these discoveries the case may still remain open as a suspicious death. Fire is rarely used as a mechanism of suicide in Western culture, and, as such, similar cases should be reported to advance our recognition of this phenomenon.