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- Palm, Anna, 1969-
(författare)
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Studies on routine inquiry about violence victimization and alcohol consumption in youth clinics
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Objectives: Violence victimization is common in youth, and the association between victimization and ill-health is well established. Youth is also the period when alcohol risk drinking is most prevalent. At youth clinics in Västernorrland, Sweden, a randomized controlled intervention was conducted examining health outcomes and risk drinking after implementing routine inquiry about violence victimization and alcohol consumption.Methods: Participants in the intervention group underwent routine inquiry about violence victimization and alcohol consumption. Victimized participants received empowering strategies and were offered further counseling. Risk drinkers received motivational interviewing (MI). All participants answered questionnaires about sociodemography and health at baseline, at 3 months and at 12 months. Of 1,445 eligible young women, 1,051 (73%) participated, with 54% of them completing the 12-month follow-up. Males were excluded from the quantitative analysis owing to the low number of male participants. Fifteen research interviews examining the experience of routine inquiry were conducted.Results: Violence-victimized young women reported more ill health than non-victimized women did. This was especially evident for those who had been multiply victimized. There were no differences in health outcomes between the baseline and the 12-month follow-up for the intervention group and for the control group. Of the victimized women in the intervention group, 14% wanted and received further counseling. There was a significant decrease in risk drinking from baseline to follow-up, but no differences between the MI group and the controls. There was a large intra-individual mobility in the young women’s drinking behavior.In interviews, the participants described how questions about violence had helped them to process prior victimization. For some, this initiated changes such as leaving a destructive relationship or starting therapy. The participants considered risk drinking in terms of consequences and did not find unit-based guidelines useful.Conclusion: Violence victimization, especially multiple victimization, was strongly associated with ill health in young women. Routine inquiry about violence and subsequent follow-up led to a high degree of disclosure but did not improve self-reported health. However, victimized participants described talking about prior victimization as very helpful. Participants viewed risk drinking in terms of consequences rather than in quantity or frequency of alcohol, which may render unit-based drinking guidelines less useful when addressing risk drinking in youth.
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| 2. |
- Vargas, Sergio C., 1989-
(författare)
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Vacua in String Theory : de Sitter Space and Stability in Flux Compactifications
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Our understanding of cosmology has evolved radically in the last decades. Current models demand the presence of dark energy in our universe and the most favored candidate behind this component is a small positive cosmological constant that characterizes a de Sitter (dS) spacetime. Simultaneously, theoretical physicists have stood up to the challenge of building a consistent theory of quantum gravity and string theory has raised as a strong contender.In this thesis we present some explorations within supergravity, a low energy limit of string theory, studying non-supersymmetric vacua, its stability, and the possibility of finding dS.We study the landscape of flux compactifications to produce dS with non-geometric fluxes. We find precise analytic procedures to find perturbatively stable dS near supersymmetric and no-scale Minkowski in a potential derived from type IIB compactifications. We also provide analytical evidence of naked singularities being produced in supergravity backgrounds after the introduction of anti-Dp-branes, at both vanishing and finite temperature.In order to study the problem of semi-classical stability, we explore compactifications with anti-de Sitter as external space. We argue that truncations to closed-string-sector excitations of non-supersymmetric theories may be non-perturbatively protected by the existence of globally defined fake-superpotentials if they are perturbatively stable, a reasoning that goes in line with the standard positive energy theorems.We find that non-supersymmetric solutions tend to manifest modes with masses under the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound once the open-string-sector is explored while supersymmetric solutions remain stable. We see this as a hint in the nature of the instabilities predicted by the weak gravity conjecture.
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| 3. |
- Blom, Helena, 1970-
(författare)
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Violence exposure among Swedish youth
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- BackgroundViolence is a global public health problem and violence among youth is a matter of high priority. Adolescence and young adulthood are important periods for the foundation of future health. Youth victimization may have serious health consequences, making it important to address the occurrence and socio-medical context for possible interventions against violence.AimsTo analyze prevalence, risk patterns and gender differences in emotional, physical, sexual, and multiple-violence victimizations and the associations between violence victimization and sexual ill health, sexual risk behaviors and mental health in Swedish youth.MethodsA cross sectional study using two samples, a national sample from nine youth health centers in Sweden and a population-based sample from a middle-sized Swedish city. The questionnaire included standardized instruments addressing violence exposure (NorAQ), socio-demographics, mental and sexual ill-health and sexual risk behaviors, alcohol and substance use. Proportions and crude and adjusted odds ratios with a 95% CI were calculated.ResultsA total of 2,250 young women and 920 men, aged 15-23, answered the questionnaire at the youth health centers. In upper secondary school, 1,658 women and 1,589 men, aged 15-22, answered the questionnaire.High prevalence rates with gendered differences both in rates and in co-occurrence of different types of violence were found. Women were more often exposed to emotional violence and sexual violence than men, while men were more often physically victimized. For both women and men, violence victimization before the age of 15 was strongly associated with all types of violence victimizations during the past year.Strong associations were found between multiple-violence victimization and poor mental health in both genders. Among the sexually experienced students, consistent associations between lifetime multiple-violence victimization and various sexual ill-health and sexual risk behaviors were found in both genders, except for non-contraceptive use.ConclusionsHigh prevalence of violence victimization in youth and strong associations between victimization, especially multiple victimization, and poor mental and sexual health were found. This needs to be recognized and addressed in social and medical settings.
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