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Article

Behavioral Interventions to Reduce and Prevent Racial Bias  

Nicole Farmer, Alyssa Baginski, and Talya Gordon

Unlike other public health crises, attention to the role of prevention in racial bias has not predominated. Most human actions, including racism, are informed by unconscious thoughts. Behavior-change interventions seek to understand facilitators and barriers to human action and antecedent unconscious thoughts, which are guided not only within an individual but also in interpersonal and societal environments. Current behavioral interventions on implicit and explicit racial bias can identify gaps and opportunities in the literature to evaluate operational definitions of behavior and bias, discuss psychological and neurobiological processes involved in racial bias, that may provide insight into prevention. Furthermore, a focus on public health–based interventions which integrate behavioral science foundations may assist to develop adaptable, accurate, and effective interventions across global communities. Based on the literature results discussed, the benefit for the field of public health may be to inform future studies and create a multilevel, behavioral-based framework to prevent or mitigate racial bias behaviors..

Article

Preterm Birth: Epidemiology, Risk Factors, Pathogenesis, and Prevention  

Xiaojing Zeng, Wen Jiang, Xiaoqing He, and Jun Zhang

Preterm birth is a significant global public health issue. It is defined by the World Health Organization as infants born alive before 37 completed weeks of gestation. The preterm birth rate varies significantly across countries and regions. Globally, an estimated 13.4 million babies were born preterm in 2020 (i.e., 1 in 10 babies worldwide was preterm birth). It is the leading cause of under-5 child mortality worldwide, and preterm infants are particularly vulnerable to respiratory complications, feeding difficulty, poor body temperature regulation, and high risk of infection. Both genetic and nongenetic factors (exposome factors) contribute to the risk of preterm birth. Social and behavioral factors, medical and pregnancy conditions, and environmental exposures are common nongenetic risk factors for preterm birth. Individuals from certain ethnic and racial groups, in low- and middle-income countries, or with a low socioeconomic status are at an increased risk of having preterm birth, and social determinants of health are the root causes of these factors. Existing pregnancy complications, history of preterm birth, and other medical conditions are also common risk factors. Environmental exposures such as air pollution, climate change, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been increasingly realized as potential risk factors for preterm birth. Various pathological events in different feto-maternal systems have been reported to be involved in the development of preterm birth. Immunopathogenesis plays a pivotal role, and both pathogenic and nonpathogenic inflammation can induce preterm birth. Oxidative stress, decidual hemorrhage and vascular lesions, uterine overdistension, and cervical insufficiency have all been proposed to contribute to the pathophysiology of preterm birth. Prevention strategies for preterm birth include primary prevention aimed at the modifiable risk factors at the individual and societal levels and therapeutic approaches using pharmaceuticals and mechanical interventions, such as progesterone and cervical cerclage. A comprehensive approach is still needed to reduce the global disease burden of preterm birth.

Article

Enemy Penology  

Susanne Krasmann

When Guenther Jakobs introduced the concept of “enemy criminal law” (Feindstrafrecht), or enemy penology, into the legal debate, this was due to a concern with the increasingly anticipatory nature of criminalization in German legislation in the last decades of the 20th century. Against the backdrop of a series of terror attacks in the West and the ensuing debates on how to deal with the dangers and threats of the new millennium, Jakobs’s theory gained new momentum in Germany’s public discourse and beyond. As it seems, the author himself turned the concept into a device for political intervention, declaring the notion of the enemy as indispensable for dealing with certain extreme crimes and notorious offenders, not only to prevent future crime and avert harm from society but also, and most notably, to preserve the established “citizen criminal law” (Bürgerstrafrecht): the enemy is the one to be isolated and excluded from the system. Enemy criminal law may be a peculiar legal concept. The logic of enemy penology, however, leads us to some more fundamental insights into the conundrums of liberal political thinking and attendant legal conceptions. It requires us to think about the enemy as a liminal figure that points to the preconditions and the paradoxes of our legal system. The history of criminology attests to the discipline’s struggle with penal law’s inherent limitations. And if we live today in times where exception and rule, internal security and external security, and military and police concerns increasingly overlap and intermingle in the face of ever new threats, the notion of enemy penology helps us to critically reflect on the mechanisms that drive these transformations.

Article

Alcohol Abuse and Drug Use in Sport and Performance  

Matthew P. Martens

Issues associated with athletics, alcohol abuse, and drug use continue to be salient aspects of popular culture. These issues include high-profile athletes experiencing public incidents as a direct or indirect result of alcohol and/or drug use, the role that performance-enhancing drugs play in impacting outcomes across a variety of professional and amateur contests, and the public-health effects alcohol abuse and drug use can have among athletes at all competitive levels. For some substances, like alcohol abuse, certain groups of athletes may be particularly at-risk relative to peers who are not athletes. For other substances, participating in athletics may serve as a protective factor. Unique considerations are associated with understanding alcohol abuse and drug use in sport. These include performance considerations (e.g., choosing to use or not use a certain substance due to concerns about its impact on athletic ability), the cultural context of different types of sporting environments that might facilitate or inhibit alcohol and/or drug use, and various internal personality characteristics and traits that may draw one toward both athletic activity and substance use. Fortunately, there are several effective strategies for preventing and reducing alcohol abuse and drug use, some of which have been tested specifically among athlete populations. If such strategies were widely disseminated, they would have the potential to make a significant impact on problems associated with alcohol abuse and drug use in sport and athletics.

Article

Dangel, Richard  

Charles H. Mindel

Richard Dangel (1949–2021) was a researcher, practitioner and spokesman for the prevention and treatment of child and sexual abuse. He practiced one on one with abused children and later developed treatment practice model that allowed organizations to identify and prevent abuse in their own organizations.

Article

Vehicle-Related Causes of Flood Fatalities  

Andrew Gissing, Kyra Hamilton, Grantley Smith, and Amy E. Peden

Vehicle-related flood incidents represent a leading cause of flood fatalities, as well as resulting in an additional health system and emergency services burden. A large proportion of these deaths are preventable and represent an area of collaboration across a range of fields, including emergency services, disaster preparedness, floodplain management, public health, and road safety. The nature of the risk is exacerbated by increases in the frequency and severity of flood events in a warming climate and further urbanization. The nature of vehicle-related flood incidents is multidimensional, consisting of flood hazard, behavioral, vehicle, and road-related factors. Equally, strategies required to reduce the incidence of vehicles entering floodwater must be multidimensional, giving consideration to behavioral, regulatory, structural, and emergency response measures. Such an approach requires the involvement of a diverse range of stakeholders.

Article

Substance Use and Misuse: Adolescents  

Sehun Oh and Daejun Park

Adolescence—typically defined as ages between 10 and 19—is a period of physiological and socio-behavioral development. Characterized by an imbalance in the neurological development that governs the reward/emotion pathways and cognitive functioning as well as a shift toward more complex dynamics in their social environments, adolescents exhibit a unique vulnerability to substance use/misuse. Also importantly, adolescent substance use/misuse has a long-lasting impact on a wide array of current and future development and well-being, including neuropsychological growth, other risky behaviors, and behavioral health outcomes. The costly and long-lasting consequences of adolescent substance use/misuse underscore the importance of early identification and intervention (both prevention and treatment) to promote adolescents’ healthy development. Despite the overall decline over the past decades in the United States, a large proportion of adolescents continues to engage in substance use/misuse, raising public concerns. With the increasing roles of peers and communities as well as the continued importance of family in substance use initiation and persistent use, an effective intervention approach must account for the influences of these multilevel systems by touching on modifiable determinants at the individual, family, peer, school/community, and macro levels. Furthermore, the ever-changing landscape of substance use/misuse in the United States, such as cannabis legalization, the increasing need for culturally responsive treatment, and the introduction of new technology, need to be considered to guide future directions for effective prevention and treatment.

Article

Recruiting Opinion Leaders for the United Kingdom ASSIST Programme  

Jo Holliday, Suzanne Audrey, Rona Campbell, and Laurence Moore

Addictive behaviors with detrimental outcomes can quickly become embedded in daily life. It therefore remains a priority to prevent or modify these health behaviors early in the life course. Diffusion theory suggests that community norms are shaped by credible and influential “opinion leaders” who may be characterized by their values and traits, competence or expertise, and social position. With respect to health behaviors, opinion leaders can assume a variety of roles, including changing social norms and facilitating behavioral change. There is considerable variation in the methods used to identify opinion leaders for behavior change interventions, and these may have differential success. However, despite the potential consequences for intervention success, few studies have documented the processes for identifying, recruiting, and training opinion leaders to promote health, or have discussed the characteristics of those identified. One study that has acknowledged this is the effective UK-based ASSIST smoking-prevention program. The ASSIST Programme is an example of a peer-led intervention that has been shown to be successful in utilizing opinion leaders to influence health behaviors in schools. A “whole community” peer nomination process to identify opinion leaders underwent extensive developmental and piloting work prior to being administered in a randomized trial context. Influential students were identified through the use of three simple questions and trained as “peer supporters” to disseminate smoke-free messages through everyday conversations with their peers. In response to a need to understand the contribution of various elements of the intervention, and the degree to which these achieve their aim, a comprehensive assessment of the nomination process was conducted following intervention implementation. The nomination process was successful in identifying a diverse group of young people who represented a variety of social groups, and whom were predominantly considered suitable by their peers. The successful outcome of this approach demonstrates the importance of paying close attention to the design and development of strategies to identify opinion leaders. Importantly, the involvement of young people during the development phase may be key to increasing the effectiveness of peer education that relies on young people taking the lead role.

Article

School Violence  

Gordon Capp, Hadass Moore, Ronald Pitner, Aidyn Iachini, Ruth Berkowitz, Ron Avi Astor, and Rami Benbenishty

School violence can be understood as any behavior that is intended to harm other people at schools or near school grounds. This may include bullying and victimization, or more severe forms of violence involving weapons. To respond effectively to school violence, school personnel and leaders must understand the influences on their schools that come from individuals, the surrounding community, and cultural and political spheres. Careful and ongoing assessment of the needs of any given school is also a prerequisite to effective intervention. The severity of violence, the exact location of violent acts, and how different groups on a school campus experience violence are all key details to understanding and measuring problems. With this information, schools are then able to choose intervention programs that will utilize a whole-school approach. Sometimes, existing Evidence Based Programs can address the needs of a particular school and surrounding community. Other times, schools need to either modify existing interventions or create their own to address the particular forms of violence that exist in their schools and communities.

Article

Gambling in Sport and Performance Psychology  

Loredana A. Marchica and Jeffrey L. Derevensky

With the gambling market continuously shifting and evolving, one form of gambling has uninterruptedly remained a staple in most cultures. Sports wagering has been and remains one of the most popular forms of gambling, especially among males. With the increase in the gambling market, sports wagering has also grown into the online gambling and fantasy sports wagering markets. These escalations in popularity have brought substantial revenue to sports wagering operators and have influenced government officials, policymakers, legislation researchers, the media, and the general public. There are two major groups of issues that surround sports wagering: sports wagering as an economic and tax-generating entity and the integrity of the game. More recently, a concern over problem gambling from a public health perspective has evolved. It is equally important that these issues be considered when creating or changing legislation around sports wagering.

Article

Violence and Health  

Maria Cecília de Souza Minayo and Saul Franco

Violence is a problem that accompanies the trajectory of humanity, but it presents itself in different ways in each society and throughout its historical development. Despite having different meanings according to the field of knowledge from which it is addressed and the institutions that tackle it, there are some common elements in the definition of this phenomenon. It is acknowledged as the intentional use of force and power by individuals, groups, classes, or countries to impose themselves on others, causing harm and limiting or denying rights. Its most frequent and visible forms include homicides, suicides, war, and terrorism, but violence is also articulated and manifested in less visible forms, such as gender violence, domestic violence, and enforced disappearances. Although attention to the consequences of different forms of violence has always been part of health services, its formal and global inclusion in health sector policies and guidelines is very recent. It was only in 1996 that the World Health Organization acknowledged it as a priority in the health programs of all countries. Violence affects individual and collective health; causes deaths, injuries, and physical and mental trauma; decreases the quality of life; and impairs the well-being of people, communities, and nations. At the same time, violence poses problems for health researchers trying to understand the complexity of its causes, its dynamics, and the different ways of dealing with it. It also poses serious challenges to health systems and services for the care of victims and perpetrators and the formulation of interdisciplinary, multi-professional, inter-sectoral, and socially articulated confrontation and prevention policies and programs.

Article

Firearm Injuries and Public Health  

Linda Dahlberg, Alexander Butchart, James Mercy, and Thomas Simon

An important function of public health is to prevent injuries or to lessen their impact when they occur. An estimated 251,000 people worldwide die each year from a firearm-related death and many more suffer nonfatal injuries with consequences that can last a lifetime. Firearm injuries, which include those that are intentionally self-inflicted, unintentional, or from an act of interpersonal violence, are heavily concentrated in the Americas, driven largely by firearm homicides. Firearm-related deaths and injuries disproportionately impact males and younger populations and are associated with factors such as access, substance use, adverse childhood experiences, involvement in high-risk social networks, drug trafficking, density of alcohol outlets, and neighborhood and social disadvantage. While progress is being made to understand firearm injuries and how to effectively prevent them, much more needs to be done to improve the availability and timeliness of data; apply the knowledge that is generated to effectively reduce firearm-related injuries, deaths, and costs; strengthen the scientific infrastructure; and move countries closer to achieving the violence-related targets in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Article

Anxiety Disorders in Children and Young People  

Cathy Creswell, Sasha Walters, Brynjar Halldorsson, and Peter J. Lawrence

Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders among children and young people, affecting an estimated 6.5% of children and young people worldwide. Childhood anxiety disorders often persist into adulthood if left untreated and are associated with a significant emotional and financial cost to individuals, their families, and wider society. Models of the development and maintenance of childhood anxiety disorders have underpinned prevention and treatment approaches, and cognitive behavioral treatments have good evidence for their efficacy. Ongoing challenges for the field include the need to improve outcomes for those that do not benefit from current prevention and treatment, and to increase access to those who could benefit.

Article

Infectious Diseases Among Migrant Populations  

Silvia Declich, Maria Grazia Dente, Christina Greenaway, and Francesco Castelli

Increasing human mobility, of which migration is a component, is a key driver of microorganism circulation. Migration is a minor component of all human mobility, with most movement due to international tourism, travel for work, business, or study, and military operations abroad. Migration flows from southern low-income countries to the industrialized north have steadily increased as a consequences of a complex array of distal and proximal factors such as economic inequality, climate change, political turbulence, war and persecution, and family reunification. This has raised concerns about the potential transmission and reintroduction of microorganisms and infectious diseases into high-income host countries from migrants with asymptomatic infections such as tuberculosis, HIV, viral hepatitis, malaria, Chagas disease, and arboviral infections. These factors contribute to the mounting hostile attitude sometimes observed in receiving countries and deserve careful scientific assessment to inform policies and interventions. The available evidence does not support the hypothesis that migrants constitute a relevant infectious public health risk for the local population, although careful epidemiological surveillance is mandatory, especially where competent vectors for specific infection are present in the destination area, where certain diseases may potentially be introduced or reintroduced. The greatest risk of infectious diseases is to the migrants themselves due to increased risk of exposure within their own communities and from the burden of undetected and untreated infections caused by marginalization and poor living conditions. The health conditions vary at the different stages of settlement and interventions need to be tailored accordingly. In the early arrival phase the main health concerns are psychological, traumatic, and chronic conditions. Crowded unhygienic living conditions often experienced by migrants in reception camps coupled with low vaccination rate may facilitate the transmission of respiratory or gastrointestinal infections or vaccine-preventable diseases. After resettlement, undetected infections and the lack of access to health care due to social marginalization may lead to the reactivation or progression of infections such as tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, HIV, and chronic helminthiasis. These outcomes could be prevented through screening and treatment and would benefit both migrants and the host populations. Pretravel interventions that increase the awareness of the possible infectious risks in their countries of origin are critical to decrease travel-related infection among visiting friends and relatives, especially those traveling with children. Migrant-friendly health systems that ensure prompt access to diagnosis and treatment, regardless of legal status, are the best interventions to limit the burden and transmission of infections in this population.

Article

Modeling Chronic Diseases in Relation to Risk Factors  

Pieter van Baal and Hendriek Boshuizen

In most countries, non-communicable diseases have taken over infectious diseases as the most important causes of death. Many non-communicable diseases that were previously lethal diseases have become chronic, and this has changed the healthcare landscape in terms of treatment and prevention options. Currently, a large part of healthcare spending is targeted at curing and caring for the elderly, who have multiple chronic diseases. In this context prevention plays an important role, as there are many risk factors amenable to prevention policies that are related to multiple chronic diseases. This article discusses the use of simulation modeling to better understand the relations between chronic diseases and their risk factors with the aim to inform health policy. Simulation modeling sheds light on important policy questions related to population aging and priority setting. The focus is on the modeling of multiple chronic diseases in the general population and how to consistently model the relations between chronic diseases and their risk factors by combining various data sources. Methodological issues in chronic disease modeling and how these relate to the availability of data are discussed. Here, a distinction is made between (a) issues related to the construction of the epidemiological simulation model and (b) issues related to linking outcomes of the epidemiological simulation model to economic relevant outcomes such as quality of life, healthcare spending and labor market participation. Based on this distinction, several simulation models are discussed that link risk factors to multiple chronic diseases in order to explore how these issues are handled in practice. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Article

The Economics of Smoking Prevention  

Philip DeCicca, Donald S. Kenkel, Michael F. Lovenheim, and Erik Nesson

Smoking prevention has been a key component of health policy in developed nations for over half a century. Public policies to reduce the physical harm attributed to cigarette smoking, both externally and to the smoker, include cigarette taxation, smoking bans, and anti-smoking campaigns, among other publicly conceived strategies to reduce smoking initiation among the young and increase smoking cessation among current smokers. Despite the policy intensity of the past two decades, there remains debate regarding whether, and to what extent, the observed reductions in smoking are due to such policies. Indeed, while smoking rates in developed countries have fallen substantially over the past half century, it is difficult to separate secular trends toward greater investment in health from actual policy impacts. In other words, smoking rates might have declined in the absence of these anti-smoking policies, consistent with trends toward other healthy behaviors. These trends also may reflect longer-run responses to policies enacted many years ago, which also poses challenges for identification of causal policy effects. While smoking rates fell dramatically over this period, the gradient in smoking prevalence has become tilted toward lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals. That is, cigarette smoking exhibited a relatively flat SES gradient 50 years ago, but today that gradient is much steeper: relatively less-educated and lower-income individuals are many times more likely to be cigarette smokers than their more highly educated and higher-income counterparts. Over time, consumers also have become less price-responsive, which has rendered cigarette taxation a less effective policy tool with which to reduce smoking. The emergence of tax avoidance strategies such as casual cigarette smuggling (e.g., cross-tax border purchasing) and purchasing from tax-free outlets (e.g., Native reservations in Canada and the United States) have likely contributed to reduced price sensitivity. Such behaviors have been of particular interest in the last decade as cigarette taxation has roughly doubled cigarette prices in many developed nations, creating often large incentives to avoid taxation for those who continue to smoke. Perhaps due to the perception that traditional policy has been ineffective, recent anti-smoking policy has focused more on the direct regulation of cigarettes and smoking behavior. The main non-price-based policy has been the rise of smoke-free air laws, which restrict smoking behavior in workplaces, restaurants, and bars. These regulations can reduce smoking prevalence and exposure to secondhand smoke among nonsmokers. However, they may also shift the location of smoking in ways that increase secondhand smoke exposure, particularly among children. Other non-tax regulations focus on the packaging (e.g., the movement towards plain packaging), advertising, and product attributes of cigarettes (e.g., nicotine content, cigarette flavor, etc.), and most are attempts to reduce smoking by making it less desirable to the actual or potential smoker. Perhaps not surprisingly, research in the economics of smoking prevention has followed these policy developments, though strong interest remains in both the evaluation of price- and non-price policies as well as any offsetting responses among smokers that may undermine the effectiveness of these regulations. While the past two decades have provided fertile ground for research in the economics of smoking, we expect this to continue, as governments search for more innovative and effective ways to reduce smoking.

Article

Reforming the Engagement of Schools With Unaccompanied Homeless Children  

Catherine Robinson

Homelessness, with poverty and housing inaccessibility as its underlying structural drivers, has an enduring presence in all Western nations. While governments traditionally focus on supporting adults, families, and youth out of homelessness, increasingly attention is being turned to the significant number of children under 18 years who experience homelessness alone without an accompanying parent or guardian. Unaccompanied children commonly leave home early against the backdrop of family conflict and breakdown, domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse, and neglect. They may sleep rough without shelter, couch-surf between extended family members, friends, and acquaintances, and access those youth refuges that will accommodate them. Without access to the consistent care of a parent or guardian, unaccompanied homeless children experience unique personal, systemic, and structural vulnerabilities that, without adequate developmentally appropriate intervention, will result in a range of physical, psychological, social, and educational harms. Schools, as the sole universal statutory service for children, can be central in the immediate safeguarding of children and their referral to services for additional supports. Schools can also offer a pathway into lifelong learning, employment, and community connectedness that is crucial to reducing poverty and enabling wellbeing and social inclusion. As such, schools have a key role to play in responding to unaccompanied homeless children by ensuring equitable access to education and engaging with the international shift toward child and youth homelessness prevention and early intervention. Research consistently suggests school-based programs are key to identifying children at risk, preventing homelessness, and improving learning outcomes for those who do experience homelessness. At a minimum, schools can intervene in educational harms, such as low attainment and early school leaving, that are associated with high mobility, a lack of support, cumulative trauma, and stigma. Addressing administrative and practical barriers to homeless children’s school access and attendance, implementing trauma-informed practice, and increasing awareness of homelessness are essential starting points. Further, the trend of articulating child wellbeing as a shared, cross-sector goal has increasingly created opportunities for schools, in collaboration with social services, to become innovative homelessness prevention and early intervention hubs that strengthen children’s outcomes.

Article

School-Based Family Counseling  

Brian A. Gerrard and Gertina J. van Schalkwyk

School-based family counseling (SBFC) is an integrative systems approach to helping children succeed academically and personally through mental health interventions that link family and school. SBFC may be practiced by any of the mental health approaches and is best viewed as a supporting approach to traditional mental health disciplines. An important precursor to SBFC was the guidance clinics attached to schools that were developed by the psychiatrist Alfred Adler in Vienna in the 1920s. A core assumption in SBFC is that the two most important institutions in the life of a young child are the family and the school and that an effective way to help children is by mobilizing both family and school resources. SBFC has eight strengths: school and family focus, systems orientation, educational focus, parent partnership, multicultural sensitivity, child advocacy, promotion of school transformation, and interdisciplinary focus. Despite its early origins, SBFC remains a new approach that challenges traditional mental health disciplines that focus on either school or family, but not both. There is moderate evidence-based support (EBS) for the effectiveness of SBFC, but further research is needed on different approaches to SBFC.

Article

Bullying in School and Cyberspace  

Jane Timmons-Mitchell, Ivette Noriega, and Daniel J. Flannery

For students, bullying is a significant problem, especially in middle school: up to half of students are involved, either as a bully, a victim, or a bystander. The effects of bullying range from negligible to very severe, including individual psychological difficulties as well as consequences for criminogenic behavior. Theories to explain multidetermined bullying behavior include ecological as well as family-based approaches. Bullying must contain the following elements: unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or groups of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. This definition describes traditional bullying, in which a person or persons can be seen to be engaged in bullying behavior. Since the late 1990s, cyberbullying has been on the rise. Traditional bullying and cyberbullying differ in the following ways: (a) cyberbullying often means the victim does not know who the bully is; (b) cyberbullying is not a discreet incident; it can be preserved in cyberspace indefinitely; (c) anger rumination, anxiety, depression, and suicidality are more prevalent among cyberbully victims; (d) cyberbullies can exhibit decreased empathy for others relative to traditional bullies; and (e) longitudinal research has found some support that cyberbullies may develop delinquent behaviors in adulthood. Bullying affects a significant proportion of students, between 18% and 31% of students in the United States are likely to be involved in traditional bullying, whereas rates of cyberbullying involvement are close to 59%. Any participation in bullying can affect youth negatively. Being either a bully or a victim can lead to depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. Being a perpetrator of bullying and cyberbullying may also increase the likelihood of criminal activity in young adulthood. According to the path analytic model of juvenile delinquency, it is likely that association with delinquent peers and parenting style are related to bullying behavior. Prevention and intervention programs have had some positive effects. Prevention and intervention efforts should concentrate on universal dissemination of effective strategies, including that cyberbullies are not really anonymous. Family and school-based interventions can strengthen adult support while encouraging programs that teach children to respect each other, promoting prosocial development. For traditional bullying, school climate programs in primary school have shown positive effects. Interventions for traditional bullying that are based in family therapy have shown success. Due to the novelty of cyberbullying, few intervention studies are available as yet. Efforts to prevent cyberbullying include setting up anonymous tiplines in schools and sharing up-to-date technological advances with parents so that they can implement those blocks that are available. Finally, there are no specific federal laws in the United States addressing bullying; however, federal regulations do exist to provide frameworks for anti-discrimination laws pertaining to protected classes. Although there are no explicit federal regulations that address bullying, state and local policies have been key components in addressing bullying issues. There has been some evidence that suggest that anti-bullying laws and policies in schools may decrease bullying perpetration. Countries including New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden have passed specific laws to address bullying, while some countries apply laws created to address other infractions to include bullying.

Article

Child Labor  

Usha Nayar, Priya Nayar, and Nidhi Mishra

The paper presents a global scenario of child labor by placing the issue in a historical context as well as comparing current work in the field. It specifically explains the psychosocial, political, and economic determinants of child labor and the prevalence of different forms as well as its magnitude in the different regions of the world. It features innovative programs and actions taken against child labor by local governments, civil societies, and United Nations bodies—mainly the International Labor Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund. The paper also highlights multilateral collaborations among the UN and other international agencies that stand against child labor in general and the employment of children in hazardous conditions. It illustrates the cooperation among local governments, civic organizations, and child-rights movements that have brought gradual changes over the decades toward ending child labor. Further, it suggests that social work, relevant professional schools, and associations working in various disciplines should be engaged in research-based advocacy and find innovative solutions to control child labor.