Addressing the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Examining Micro- and Macro-Level Variables that Affect School Disengagement and Subsequent Felonies (Susan McCarter, Kailas Venkitasubramanian, Katherine Bradshaw)

We examine the School-to-Prison Pipeline by identifying individual legal and extra-legal variables and school-level factors that predict juvenile/criminal justice involvement using 2006-2012 matched data from the education and justice systems. The role of school disengagement is also assessed, measuring unexcused absences that follow suspensions in the previous academic year.The findings suggest that addressing the school-to-prison pipeline will require focus on more than individual-level behaviors (school disengagement and school-based offenses) and attention to the impact of extra-legal variables and systemic implicit bias.

Status: In Press (Journal of Social Service Research)

The impact of key workplace breastfeeding support characteristics on job satisfaction, breastfeeding duration, and exclusive breastfeeding among healthcare employees. (Victoria Scott, Yhenneko J. Taylor, Cecily Basquin, Kailas Venkitsubramanian)

We examine the association between key workplace breastfeeding support characteristics, job satisfaction, and breastfeeding outcomes among healthcare employees. We find that Organizational and managerial support are key aspects of workplace lactation support that may positively impact job satisfaction, rates of exclusive breastfeeding and duration of exclusive breastfeeding among female healthcare employees. This intersection of outcomes salient for the business community and public health practitioners highlights opportunities for collaborations to improve workplace and breastfeeding outcomes.

Status: In Press (Breastfeeding Medicine)

Effect of privatization and inland infrastructural development on India’s container port selection dynamics ( Kailas Venkitasubramanian, Jean-Claude Thill)

We present insights on how the privatization of Indian ports is altering the market share of containerized shipments across two key Industrial corridors of India. Using bill of lading dataset, we implement a binary multi-level discrete port choice model that measures the multidimensional attributes that inform the systematic differences in container shipment transport characteristics between the major government ports and private ports in India. The analysis shows that the private port of Mundra has non-trivial effects on the hinterlands of otherstate-owned ports. This research offers important markers of port selection in developing economies such as India.

Status: Under Review

Employee Job Satisfaction at Florida at For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Hospitals (Elena Platonova, Kailas Venkitasubramanian, Michael Thompson, James Studnicki)

We investigate whether employee job satisfaction differs at For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Florida hospitals and how organizational characteristics mediate this relationship.We test a flexible structural equation model to understand the relationship
between hospital ownership and employee job satisfaction. The model incorporates both observed and latent (unobserved) variables and estimates relationships simultaneously.

Status: Under Review

Heterogeneous effects of Disability and Deprivation on Online Learning Performance – A mixture modeling approach (Kailas Venkitasubramanian, Florence Martin, Doris Bollinger)

We study how disability and socio-economic deprivation affect learning performance in higher education. We quantify unobserved heterogeneity using finite mixture models and show differential effects of disability and deprivation on student performance.

Status: Working Paper

Intersectionality of human values and social attitudes on subjective well-being (Kailas Venkitasubramanian, Jean-Claude Thill)

We research human life satisfaction a.k.a subjective well being and how foundational human values and attitudes towards society and economy interact in determining the levels of self-reported subjective well-being.

Status: Working Paper

Interactive Effects of Health awareness and general literacy on maternal and child health outcomes – Evidence from South Asia (Monika Sawhney, Kailas Venkitasubramanian )

Using the DHS dataset on health, we study whether specific health knowledge and awareness supersede the effect of general literacy in determining maternal and child health outcomes in South Asian countries. We model the multivariate relationships of a set of key health outcomes in India and Bangladesh.

Status: Working Paper

Gender and STEM higher Education – Examining gender differences in engagement and performance in STEM online courses (Florence Martin, Kailas Venkitasubramanian, Doris Bolliger)

We empirically examine the aspects of gender gap in learning performance and engagement in STEM courses leveraging a large micro-dataset that tracks student activity within online courses. We seek to bring contours of gender differences in learning outcomes and processes that will add to the discourse surrounding STEM education at-large and perceptions about gender differences in training and occupation.

Status: Working Paper

Examining factors affecting support for breastfeeding in media (Victoria Scott, Anna Thorpe, Kailas Venkitsubramanian, Zara Jillani)

We investigate the trends and factors affecting support for breastfeeding in media. We create a unique dataset of breastfeeding support by collecting and analyzing newspaper articles on breastfeeding between 2007 and 2016. We model the regional and temporal variation of support with special focus on changes after the Affordable Care Act.

Status: Working Paper

Impact of health and hygiene education in rural households in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral, Pakistan (Nahida Khudadad Kailas Venkitsubramanian)

We evaluate a targeted intervention on improving household and environmental sanitation in selected villages in Northwest Pakistan and model the factors impacting the magnitude of change.

Status: Working Paper

Does rejection sensitivity affect the severity of substance abuse? Evidence from North Carolina (Christie Nelson, Kailas Venkitasubramanian)

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is cognitive-affective processing disposition that undermines how one relates to the world. Prior rejection experiences are hypothesized to lead people to form insecure working models of relationships that set the stage for how they behave in their subsequent relationships and orientation to the world. RS has been correlated to poor quality of adult attachment. Although attachment-related processes have been linked to both adult RS and adult problematic substance use, there is yet to be a determination of the link between RS and substance use in adults. We investigate this link. 

Status: Working Paper

Soil respiration and methane emissions along freshwater tidal wetland gradient (Allan, C.J., Farley, B, Venkitasubramanian, Najaf, K, P, and Trettin, C)

Status: Working Paper