Newsbriefs

UM News
School of Nursing receives federal grant to study Hispanic health issues

The School of Nursing and Health Studies received a $7 million five-year grant from the National Institute of Health to fund a National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The center will be known as “El Centro” and will promote investigations into health issues that disproportionately affect Hispanics.

“Few scientific studies have considered how factors such as culture or ethnicity impact differences that exist in the incidence, prevalence and burden of specific diseases evidenced by specific populations,” said Nilda P. Peragallo, dean of the school, in a press release. “El Centro seeks to change this and improve the health and lifespan of all Hispanics, the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the U.S.”

In addition to promoting research through grants, the nursing school has also modified the curriculum and simulation laboratories to improve the school’s academic standing and recover from probation.

Elsewhere
Study shows boyfriends do more housework than husbands

By Jen heine
The Review (U. delaware)

(U-WIRE) NEWARK, Del. – Live-in boyfriends do more housework than husbands according to an international survey conducted in 28 nations. While some men take on more responsibilities, women are doing more housework overall.

Shannon Davis, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at George Mason University and co-researcher of the study, stated in an e-mail message that marriage brings out established roles in men and women.

“This traditional context is supportive of sex-typed responsibilities for household tasks (men [are] seen as more responsible for bread-winning and women [are] seen as responsible for the care of the home),” Davis said.

Davis and other scientists used the Family and Changing Gender Roles III Survey to come to their conclusions, using more than 17,000 people worldwide who were all living with a significant other or were married.

Bahira Sherif Trask, associate professor of individual and family studies at the university, stated in an e-mail message that people act differently when they are co-habiting than when they are married.

“The historical context of marriage makes it harder, but not impossible, for couples to enact their egalitarian beliefs,” Davis said.

Trask said she thinks co-habiting couples are still in a dating stage of their relationships.

“Living together is more like a form of dating-you are still getting to know each other, it is still a trial period, you are putting on a ‘good face,'” Trask said.

Trask said men’s views of gender responsibilities are changing. Research shows men consider the job prospects of their wives now, unlike in the past.

“The new generation of men are being raised and socialized by moms who are in the workplace,” she said. “They look at work and provider responsibilities differently.”

She said it is important to study gender roles in households because more couples in the United States are living together without being married.

“If we want to understand the ways that marriage is changing, we need to understand how cohabitations work as relationships,” Davis said.

Etc.

With 50,000 plastic bottles thrown out at each football game, the university added green recycling bins to the parking lots and student entrances at the Orange Bowl for last Saturday’s game against FIU. Although a recycling announcement was made during halftime, most students said they were not aware of the initiative.