Project description:Social justice is consistently upheld as a central value within the nursing profession, yet there are persistent inconsistencies in how this construct is conceptualized, further compounded by a lack of empirical inquiry into how nurses enact social justice in everyday practice. In the current context in which structural inequities are perpetuated throughout the health care system, and the emergency department in particular, it is crucial to understand how nurses understand and enact social justice as a disciplinary commitment. This research examines how nurses' talk and institutional texts discursively construct social justice within the institutional context of the emergency department, and how such discourses shape the enactment of social justice within nursing practice. Guided by Iris Marion Young's theorizing of distributive and systemic social justice paradigms, this Foucauldian discourse analysis draws on emergency department nurses' talk (N = 25 interviews) and institutional documents (N = 27) as key texts that visibilize dominant and excluded discourses of social justice within the institutional context of the emergency department, and implications for how social justice is enacted through nursing practices. This analysis identified one overarching discursive pattern, in which social justice was discursively constructed through a hegemonic distributive paradigm, yet also resisted through nurses' conceptualization and enactment of a systemic social justice paradigm that facilitated their recognition and remediation of inequities. This central discursive pattern is explored through three exemplars of nurses' enactment of social justice as resistance: triage, harm reduction, and care planning. Findings from this analysis demonstrate that while a hegemonic distributive paradigm has dominated conceptualizations of social justice within nursing, a re-construction of social justice through a systemic paradigm may guide nurses in enacting practices that remediate inequities in health and health care.
Project description:BackgroundIn recent decades, increasing social and health inequalities all over the world has highlighted the importance of social justice as a core nursing value. Therefore, proper education of nursing students is necessary for preparing them to comply with social justice in health systems. This study is aimed to identify the main factors for teaching the concept of social justice in the nursing curriculum.MethodThis is a qualitative study, in which the conventional content analysis approach was employed to analyze a sample of 13 participants selected using purposive sampling method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect and analyze the data.ResultsAnalysis of the interviews indicated that insufficient education content, incompetency of educators, and inappropriate education approaches made social justice a neglected component in the academic nursing education. These factors were the main sub-categories of the study and showed the negligence of social justice in academic nursing education.ConclusionResearch findings revealed the weaknesses in teaching the concept of social justice in the nursing education. Accordingly, it is necessary to modify the content of nursing curriculum and education approaches in order to convey this core value. Since nursing educators act as role models for students, especially in practical and ethical areas, more attention should be paid to competency of nursing educators, specially training in the area of ethical ideology and social justice.
Project description:IntroductionDigital health, the use of apps, text-messaging, and online interventions, can revolutionize healthcare and make care more equitable. Currently, digital health interventions are often not designed for those who could benefit most and may have unintended consequences. In this paper, we explain how privacy vulnerabilities and power imbalances, including racism and sexism, continue to influence health app design and research. We provide guidelines for researchers to design, report and evaluate digital health studies to maximize social justice in health.MethodsFrom September 2020 to April 2021, we held five discussion and brainstorming sessions with researchers, students, and community partners to develop the guide and the key questions. We additionally conducted an informal literature review, invited experts to review our guide, and identified examples from our own digital health study and other studies.ResultsWe identified five overarching topics with key questions and subquestions to guide researchers in designing or evaluating a digital health research study. The overarching topics are: 1. Equitable distribution; 2. Equitable design; 3. Privacy and data return; 4. Stereotype and bias; 5. Structural racism.ConclusionWe provide a guide with five key topics and questions for social justice digital health research. Encouraging researchers and practitioners to ask these questions will help to spark a transformation in digital health toward more equitable and ethical research. Future work needs to determine if the quality of studies can improve when researchers use this guide.
Project description:Two studies explored the relationship between political ideology and endorsement of a range of moral principles. Political liberals and conservatives did not differ on intrapersonal or interpersonal moralities, which require self-regulation. However differences emerged on collective moralities, which involve social regulation. Contrary to Moral Foundations Theory, both liberals and conservatives endorsed a group-focused binding morality, specifically Social Justice and Social Order respectively. Libertarians were the group without a binding morality. Although Social Justice and Social Order appear conflictual, analyses based on earlier cross-cultural work on societal tightness-looseness suggest that countries actually benefit in terms of economic success and societal well-being when these group-based moralities co-exist and serve as counterweights in social regulation.
Project description:Because biodiversity loss has largely been attributed to human actions, people, particularly those in the Global South, are regularly depicted as threats to conservation. This context has facilitated rapid growth in green militarization, with fierce crackdowns against real or perceived environmental offenders. We designed an undergraduate course to assess student perspectives on biodiversity conservation and social justice and positioned those students to contribute to a human heritage-centered conservation (HHCC) initiative situated in Uganda. We evaluated changes in perspectives using pre- and postcourse surveys and reflection instruments. Although the students started the course prioritizing biodiversity conservation, even when it was costly to human well-being, by the end of the course, they were recognizing and remarking on the central importance of social justice within conservation. We present a framework for further integration of HHCC approaches into higher education courses so as to conserve the integrity of coupled human and natural systems globally.
Project description:Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) prevention has focused on modifying individual behavioural risk factors, especially bedsharing. Yet these deaths are most common among poor and marginalized people in wealthy countries, including U.S. Blacks, American Indians/Alaskan Natives, New Zealand M?ori, Australian Aborigines, indigenous Canadians, and low-income British people. The United States now has the world's highest prevalence of SUID/SIDS, where even Whites' SIDS prevalence now approaches that of the M?ori. Using public databases and the literature, we examine SUID/SIDS prevalence and the following risk factors in selected world populations: maternal smoking, preterm birth, alcohol use, poor prenatal care, sleep position, bedsharing, and formula feeding. Our findings suggest that risk factors cluster in high-prevalence populations, many are linked to poverty and discrimination and have independent effects on perinatal outcomes. Moreover, populations with the world's lowest rates of SUID/SIDS have low income-inequality or high relative wealth, yet have high to moderate rates of bedsharing. Employing syndemics theory, we suggest that disproportionately high prevalence of SUID/SIDS is primarily the result of socially driven, co-occurring epidemics that may act synergistically to amplify risk. SUID must be examined through the lens of structural inequity and the legacy of historical trauma. Emphasis on bedsharing may divert attention from risk reduction from structural interventions, breastfeeding, prenatal care, and tobacco cessation. Medical organizations play an important role in advocating for policies that address the root causes of infant mortality via poverty and discrimination interventions, tobacco control, and culturally appropriate support to families.
Project description:There is considerable evidence that the experience of justice is associated with perceived legitimacy of authority, but there has been no research about this association when considering past rather than current fairness. Based on the fairness heuristic theory, we tested the hypothesis that interpersonal justice trajectories positively affect perceived legitimacy of the authority; we also tested whether social class moderated this effect. Community residents (N = 111; 54 women) rated the authority's fairness on 16 consecutive weeks and rated perceived legitimacy on the 16th week. The results of latent growth modeling showed that the trajectory of interpersonal justice scores leading up to the final week significantly predicted perceived legitimacy, regardless of the current experience of interpersonal fairness. Tests of moderation showed that the legitimacy perceptions of individuals of lower subjective social class were significantly affected by interpersonal justice trajectories, whereas this was not the case among individuals of higher subjective social class. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for research on perceived legitimacy and justice, as well as their implications for understanding social class.
Project description:The purpose of this study was to evaluate how well a Faculty First-Year Seminar incorporated criminal justice health (CJH) and substance use disorder (SUD) content. Students completed a survey during the first and last classes of the semester, evaluating their level of knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding SUD in criminal justice (CJ) involved persons. Answers to both open-ended and close-ended questions were evaluated. Students reported significantly higher confidence in course content after the semester compared with baseline. Findings indicated students' increased confidence in knowledge of CJH in individuals with SUD, and of CJ policy and advocacy. Social justice course content can be successfully developed and evaluated for nursing curricula.
Project description:Inequities have a profound impact on the health and development of children globally. While inequities are greatest in the world's poorest countries, even in rich nations poorer children have poorer health and developmental outcomes. From birth through childhood to adolescence, morbidity, mortality, growth and development are socially determined, resulting in the most disadvantaged having the highest risk of poor health outcomes. Inequities in childhood impact across the life course. We consider four categories of actions to promote equity: strengthening individuals, strengthening communities, improving living and working conditions, and promoting healthy macropolicies. Inequities can be reduced but action to reduce inequities requires political will. The International Society for Social Paediatrics and Child Health (ISSOP) calls on governments, policy makers, paediatricians and professionals working with children and their organisations to act to reduce child health inequity as a priority. ISSOP recommends the following: governments act to reduce child poverty; ensure rights of all children to healthcare, education and welfare are protected; basic health determinants such as adequate nutrition, clean water and sanitation are available to all children. Paediatric and child health organisations ensure that their members are informed of the impact of inequities on children's well-being and across the life course; include child health inequities in curricula for professionals in training; publish policy statements relevant to their country on child health inequities; advocate for evidence-based pro-equity interventions using a child rights perspective; advocate for affordable, accessible and quality healthcare for all children; promote research to monitor inequity as well as results of interventions in their child populations. Paediatricians and child health professionals be aware of the impact of social determinants of health on children under their care; ensure their clinical services are accessible and acceptable to all children and families within the constraints of their country's health services; engage in advocacy at community and national level.