3 results
Psychotic symptoms in mass shootings v. mass murders not involving firearms: findings from the Columbia mass murder database
- Gary Brucato, Paul S. Appelbaum, Hannah Hesson, Eileen A. Shea, Gabriella Dishy, Kathryn Lee, Tyler Pia, Faizan Syed, Alexandra Villalobos, Melanie M. Wall, Jeffrey A. Lieberman, Ragy R. Girgis
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- Journal:
- Psychological Medicine / Volume 52 / Issue 15 / November 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 17 February 2021, pp. 3422-3430
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- Article
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Background
Mass shootings account for a small fraction of annual worldwide murders, yet disproportionately affect society and influence policy. Evidence suggesting a link between mass shootings and severe mental illness (i.e. involving psychosis) is often misrepresented, generating stigma. Thus, the actual prevalence constitutes a key public health concern.
MethodsWe examined global personal-cause mass murders from 1900 to 2019, amassed by review of 14 785 murders publicly described in English in print or online, and collected information regarding perpetrator, demographics, legal history, drug use and alcohol misuse, and history of symptoms of psychiatric or neurologic illness using standardized methods. We distinguished whether firearms were or were not used, and, if so, the type (non-automatic v. semi- or fully-automatic).
ResultsWe identified 1315 mass murders, 65% of which involved firearms. Lifetime psychotic symptoms were noted among 11% of perpetrators, consistent with previous reports, including 18% of mass murderers who did not use firearms and 8% of those who did (χ2 = 28.0, p < 0.01). US-based mass shooters were more likely to have legal histories, use recreational drugs or misuse alcohol, or have histories of non-psychotic psychiatric or neurologic symptoms. US-based mass shooters with symptoms of any psychiatric or neurologic illness more frequently used semi-or fully-automatic firearms.
ConclusionsThese results suggest that policies aimed at preventing mass shootings by focusing on serious mental illness, characterized by psychotic symptoms, may have limited impact. Policies such as those targeting firearm access, recreational drug use and alcohol misuse, legal history, and non-psychotic psychopathology might yield more substantial results.
2.1 - Improving job quality in low-paid jobs: care workers in the US
- Edited by Sophia Parker
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- Book:
- The Squeezed Middle
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 07 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2013, pp 49-60
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Summary
Around the seminar rooms of London and Washington, there is much talk about the need for an industrial strategy to support sectors of the economy with the most potential for employment growth. Often, the focus of these discussions is infrastructure investment and green jobs. Below the surface, however, is a nagging concern on the part of policymakers about the sharp decline in the employment-to-population ratio of men in their prime working years. Although this development preceded the recent recession, it was greatly exacerbated by it.
In part, the decline can be explained by the dominance of women in the US industries exhibiting the strongest growth in payroll employment in the years prior to the downturn – education and health services. Even as the recession led to a collapse of employment in the rest of the economy, privately provided education and health services added 844,000 jobs. Between December 2007 and April 2011, employment in education and health services increased by 7% as the sector added more than 1.3 million jobs. Home health care jobs alone grew by 20%. Overall, paraprofessional jobs in health care are predicted to grow three times faster than all other occupations in the years to come.
These jobs are unattractive to men because of the very low wages paid – too low to support a family – but also because of cultural stereotypes. The marginalised status of occupations in paraprofessional health care in terms of wages, benefits and employment law protections is a legacy of the politics of race and gender in the US as it applied to work performed in what was viewed as the domestic sphere. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, domestic work was viewed as women's work – good marital training for women – and outside the sphere of production. In the New Deal of the 1930s, the economic interests of the South shaped the legal framework surrounding domestic service. Unwilling to expand the political or economic power of African- Americans and seeking to maintain an inexpensive supply of labour, Southern politicians worked to exclude domestic service (and farm labour) from the New Deal labour reforms.
3 - Modular Production: Improving Performance in the Apparel Industry
- Edited by Casey Ichniowski, Columbia University, New York, David I. Levine, University of California, Berkeley, Craig Olson, University of Wisconsin, Madison, George Strauss, University of California, Berkeley
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- Book:
- The American Workplace
- Published online:
- 01 February 2010
- Print publication:
- 24 April 2000, pp 62-80
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Summary
Introduction
In the apparel industry, module and bundle production are two distinct methods of work. The module system is a team-based strategy that relies on the involvement of multi-skilled workers. In contrast, the progressive bundle system is a traditional approach to production that is based on the accumulation of in-process inventories and in which work is highly fragmented and “deskilled”.
Our study differs from other studies of work organization because it uses a unique multi-level research design. Our conclusions are based on data and information obtained from several sources, including company records and interviews with corporate officials; plant, human resource, and training managers; and union officials (for the two unionized plants). In each plant, we also interviewed a random sample of approximately 100 employees, stratified by occupation. These half-hour interviews were conducted by telephone after work hours. The data presented in this chapter are from four U.S. plants of two companies in the basics segment of the apparel industry.
In the next section, we briefly review the literature on the effects of human resource innovations on performance. We then provide a brief overview of the apparel industry. After discussing our research design, we examine the extent of workplace transformation across our sample of plants. In the following section, we present a variety of performance data, and conclude with a discussion of the causes of differences in performance.
Theoretical Issues
In the past ten years there has been a wide variety of research on the effects of human resource innovations on firm performance (Eaton and Voos, 1992; Levine and Tyson, 1990; MacDuffie, 1995).
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