The Psychosocial Well-Being of African Refugees in Winnipeg: Critical Stressors and Coping Strategies

Using a photovoice approach, this study explores stressing factors for African refugees after resettlement in Canada and the strategies they adopt to cope. The study used a purposive sampling procedure to recruit 15 participants (8 women and 7 men). Participants took part in a three-phase process of picture taking, one-on-one interviews, and focus group discussions on the selected pictures. Thematic analysis was applied to analyze the data. Identified stressors included social relationship ruptures, lack of understanding of the new culture, unemployment, and navigating unfamiliar laws and regulations. Coping strategies and recommendations for policies and best practices are discussed.     

Simultaneous screening and quantitation of 18 antihistamine drugs in blood by liquid chromatography ionspray tandem mass spectrometry

A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method is presented for the simultaneous screening and quantitation of 18 antihistamine drugs in blood samples. Sample pretreatment involved liquid-liquid extraction of the basic antihistamines followed by a second extraction of the acidic antihistamines. The recoveries were 43-113% for basic drugs and 23-66% for acidic drugs. The combined extracts were run by LC on C(18) reversed phase column using acetonitrile-ammonium acetate mobile phase at pH 3.2. The mass spectrometric analysis was performed with a triple stage quadrupole mass analyzer. Screening was performed using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) and any compounds tentatively identified as antihistamine drugs were then automatedly verified by their Product Ion Spectra in a subsequent MS/MS run.Quantitation was based on the MRM data from the screening step. In validation tests, the method showed good linearity at the relevant concentrations. The attained limits of quantitation varied between 0.0005 and 0.01mg/l in blood and were lower than the therapeutic concentrations (C(max)). The limits for identification by Product Ion Spectra were also lower than C(max), except for clemastine, which has exceptionally low concentrations in blood. The intra-assay relative standard deviations were better than 10% and the inaccuracy varied between 39% for levocabastine and 5% for cyclizine, the majority of the values being <20%.     

Are Children with Disabilities and Long-term Illnesses at Increased Risk of Disciplinary Violence?

This study examined the association between disability status and the risk of disciplinary violence at the hands of parents. The data consist of a nationally representative sample of 12–13 and 15–16-year-old Finnish school children (n = 13,459). These representative data were collected by the Police College of Finland. The results show that having a visual impairment, mental health problems, learning and/or memory difficulties, or another chronic illness, such as asthma, is associated with an increased risk of disciplinary violence. Children with multiple disabilities were significantly more likely to be targets of disciplinary violence. These findings suggest that children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to maltreatment.     

The reliability of police employee counts: Comparing FBI and ICMA data, 1954-2008

Researchers commonly use secondary data counts of police employees from police agencies. There has been some concern with using such data, yet there have been no published systematic assessments of their reliability.

Purpose

This paper compares the reliability of annual counts of police officers and civilians from the FBI's Police Employees data to those in the International City/County Management Association's (ICMA) Municipal Year Book reported for 38 large city police agencies between 1954 and 2008.

Methods

We use bivariate correlations and visual analyses of line charts to demonstrate the reliability of these two datasets, examining in particular situations in which inaccuracies emerged.

Results

Overall, both data sets record accurate counts of police employees, but there is some evidence of reporting irregularities. These irregularities manifest themselves as either city/agency-specific or temporally-bounded reporting errors.

Conclusions

Although reporting errors are rare in these data, future researchers should consider the potential impact of reporting errors for certain years and agencies.