News

December 15, 2015 •Social Sciences

While it may not be a surprise that the number of elderly inmates is growing in the United States, the pace of that growth and the complexity of the inmates’ health problems is posing new challenges to researchers, policymakers and correctional employees. 

A University of Colorado Boulder paper published online in the Journal of Aging and Health in November reported that the number of people in the U.S. inmate population aged 55 and older is expected to increase a remarkable 4,400 percent in the period from 1980 to 2030, far outpacing growth of older adults in the general population. According to the most recent available data, there are more than 124,900 prisoners aged 55 and older behind bars in the U.S. compared to just 8,853 in 1981.

The researchers found that the percentage of older adults with two or more chronic medical conditions also significantly increased over the previous decade. 

“The presence of multiple chronic conditions increases the complexity of disease management, and the combination of diseases presents challenges to healthcare systems both in improving quality of life and expenditures for an aging population,” said Kathryn Nowotny, lead author and a doctoral student in CU-Boulder’s sociology department at the time of the study. 

Nowotny pointed out that it costs an average of $34,000 per year to house a prisoner but that figure doubles to $68,000 per year for a prisoner who is 50 or older. Those same elderly inmates are at lower risk of repeat offenses than younger inmates.

Most research thus far has focused on the health of incarcerated adults in terms of a single medical condition or disease, she said.  

“In this paper we wanted to examine the presence of multiple chronic conditions along with other conditions including infectious disease, functional impairments and mental and behavioral health,” said Nowotny, soon to begin a post as assistant professor of sociology at Miami University.

Inmates have such worse physical and mental health outcomes than their peers in the general population that age 50 is used to define “elderly” as opposed to age 65 outside, according to the study. This is due to poor diet, stress and drug and alcohol abuse, as well as factors such as head trauma, poor health care, low educational attainment and socioeconomic status. 

But what surprised Nowotny most was the representation of veterans among the aging male inmate population the researchers studied. 

“When we looked at the health profiles and specifically the group of the most unhealthy inmates, half of them were veterans,” Nowotny said. “Given the time of data collection and the age of the inmates, it appears these are Vietnam War-era servicemen. It is something that warrants further attention.”

The paper also examined the ability of elderly male inmates to engage in daily living activities. The current study found that on average 12 percent of elderly inmates required an aid for daily living such as a cane or walker but that percentage is higher (24 percent) for the most unhealthy inmates. Previous research shows that 69 percent of inmates ages 50 and older said they struggled with at least one activity such as dropping to the floor for alarms, standing for count, getting to meals, hearing orders and climbing to a top bunk. 

The growth in the number of aging prisoners is the result of multiple trends, including the nation’s war on drugs and its harsher penalties for those arrested on drug charges. In fact, the majority of older adults in prison are serving sentences of 20 years or more for drug and other nonviolent crimes, Nowotny said.  

Nowotny said there are no consistent protocols from state to state to address the needs of aging inmates in the country that tops the global list for incarceration at 2.3 million. 

“Moving forward, as the population continues to age, we need to think about living environments for non-able-bodied people, and think about better integration of services in prison,” Nowotny said. 

The research was funded by the CU-Boulder Population Center and a National Institutes of Health predoctoral fellowship.

– See more at: http://www.colorado.edu/news/features/rapid-growth-elderly-inmate-population-raises-complex-policy-questions#sthash.NDPu8lnQ.dpuf

October 30, 2015 • Social Sciences, Outreach

If you’re not directly involved in the realm of natural and human-caused disasters, a small news item may have escaped notice last week: The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology’s publication of its first comprehensive community resilience planning guide.

But for Liesel Ritchie, associate director of the Natural Hazards Center at the Institute for Behavioral Science at CU-Boulder, the announcement marked an important milestone in helping policymakers and community leaders understand the importance of social science in disaster planning.

Ritchie became involved with the community resilience project as one of nine fellows one year ago. Her job was to provide valuable perspective on the social dimensions of disaster – something that had not previously been extensively covered in the guide.

The most recent Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems was created to help U.S. communities better withstand and rebound from the shocks of severe weather, earthquakes, and other natural and human-caused hazards.

“I helped to facilitate understanding of community processes and how different social institutions—including family, economic, government, health, education, community service, religious, cultural and media organizations—rely upon the built environment and infrastructure systems on a day-to-day basis,” Ritchie said.

She also highlighted resilience-related concerns specific to vulnerable populations, including the elderly, people living in poverty, racial and ethnic minority groups, people with disabilities and those suffering from chronic illness.

The guide was issued on the third anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, which killed 157 people in the U.S. and wreaked havoc and destruction from Maine to North Carolina. It is aimed at community leaders in both the public and private sectors, and lays out a practical six-step process that communities can follow to develop resilience plans to help them prepare for hazards, adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from disruptions.

“This work is important because it is one of the first resilience efforts to provide a systematic approach for communities to assess both their social institutions and built environment in a coordinated way,” Ritchie said.

The guide could prove useful to Colorado, a state that faces numerous hazards ranging from flooding to wildfires.

“Given the breadth of impact extreme weather is having on American lives and commerce, it is clear that we have to do more to mitigate its effects,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. “Improving local resilience efforts are a challenge that every city should address, and this planning guide can assist communities in developing preparedness plans to prevent hazards from becoming disasters.”

To access the guide, an FAQ, and an overview document called Guide at a Glance, go to http://www.nist.gov/el/resilience/guide.cfm. To read a feature story on the planning guide and other complementary NIST community resilience efforts, go to http://nist.gov/el/helping-to-build-a-nation-of-resilient-communities.cfm.

By Elizabeth Lock

John O’Loughlin, CU-Boulder professor of geography and faculty associate in the Institute of Behavioral Science, has become the first foreigner in more than 100 years to win the Semenov-Tyan-Shansky gold medal for research on Russia.

It is the highest research award of the Russian Geographical Society typically targeted toward Russian and, previously, Soviet scholars working in the area of the former Soviet Union.

“This honor is an unusual one because of the political sensitivities between the U.S. and Russia right now,” said O’Loughlin, whose research in 2014 was featured in a New York Times article.

O’Loughlin studies the political geography of the former Soviet Union including post-conflict relations among different ethnic groups in the north and south Caucasus Mountain region and de facto, or separatist, states.

“It’s very much field-based research on ordinary people living in these war zones and what they think and what their lives are now like,” said O’Loughlin.

Supported by continuous finding from the National Science Foundation, key to his 25-year body of work is the collaboration he’s been able to cultivate with Russian scholars. He also thinks it’s part of why he won the medal.

“I think it’s a signal that they don’t want to put off contact with foreign researchers and according to the president of the society, they want to encourage collaboration with foreign scholars,” said O’Loughlin. “This very much goes against what a lot of people think is happening in Russia, of increased control and isolation.”

The Semenov medal was personally presented to O’Loughlin by Sergey Shoigu, president of the society, at a formal banquet in honor of the 170th anniversary of the Russian Geographical Society in Moscow in late August.

“I actually was quite surprised by this whole thing,” O’Loughlin said.

Elizabeth Lock is an editor at the CU Office of News Services.

October 7, 2015 • CU Boulder News • Social Sciences

According to Beverly Kingston, the nation has the knowledge it needs to prevent youth violence, but "we have yet to put everything we know into action."

A new $6.2 million grant from the National Institute of Justice will help 32 Front Range middle schools do just that, said Kingston, director of the CU-Boulder Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence in the CU-Boulder Institute of Behavioral Science and the grant’s principal investigator.

“Schools and districts still lack the infrastructure and a roadmap to support their work," Kingston said. "We intend to provide those key supports.”

The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence will lead the new $6.2 million effort to promote school safety. 

The four-year grant will allow researchers to evaluate the feasibility and impact of the Safe Communities Safe Schools model whose goal is to reduce youth violence and problem behavior and increase pro-social behavior in select Colorado schools.

The initiative builds and improves upon the center’s original Safe Communities Safe Schools initiative launched in 1999 with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office after the Columbine High School shootings.

Middle school is a critical time to reinforce effective violence-prevention efforts because the risk of problem behavior, such as violence and suicide, dramatically increases with the onset of adolescence, Kingston said. 

The Safe Communities Safe Schools model features:

• • Engagement of a multidisciplinary school team and the development of key community partnerships committed to data-based decision-making, cultural responsiveness, fair and consistent disciplinary practices and school-wide change;
• • Implementation of an effective intelligence-gathering system to collect and interpret data points at the school pertaining to climate, attendance, discipline, bullying, violence, victimization and mental health issues; and
• • Development of an evidence-based, multi-tiered system of support including a school-wide approach to social and emotional learning and adequate staff capacity to identify and address student needs at all levels.

Under the grant, eight schools selected through an application process will be added each year.

Monica Fitzgerald, a clinical psychologist specializing in childhood trauma and socio-emotional development and project co-investigator, said the project is unique because it addresses school safety at the micro and macro levels.

“It takes an evidence-based holistic approach to building awareness and skills among administrators, teachers, students, families and school staff to tune in to students’ emotional and behavioral health and sensitively respond to youth who are struggling," Fitzgerald said.

The project will embed social and emotional programming into everyday school activities to teach students how to recognize and manage emotions, develop positive and caring relationships, solve problems effectively, behave ethically and avoid negative behaviors. The project also supports school staff to gain skills to recognize their reactions and emotions and learn stress reduction strategies.

As part of the project, Safe2Tell – a state-funded program run by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office that allows young people to report threats anonymously – will provide training to communities, students and educators to promote bystander reporting of safety concerns.

Co-principal investigators Sabrina Arredondo Mattson, Monica Fitzgerald and Kimberly Shipman, also researchers at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, will collaborate with a multi-disciplinary research team of experts and institutions. This includes Thomas Dishion, a psychology professor at Arizona State University, senior researcher Allison Dymnicki and principal researcher Elizabeth Spier of the American Institutes of Research, the Boulder-based PassageWorks Institute and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. 

“Middle school is a time when kids can really struggle,” Kingston said. “We want to help foster a nurturing climate that really supports kids so they can stay on track and reach their potential. This is way bigger than school safety. We are setting kids up for the lives they are supposed to lead. We are setting them up to thrive.”

– See more at: http://www.colorado.edu/news/features/school-safety-initiative-gets-62-million-infusion#sthash.IGlDLUuA.dpuf