Browsing by Author "Flagg, Kenneth A."

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Contribution of wild foods to diet, food security, and cultural values amidst climate change
(2019-11) Smith, Erin; Ahmed, Selena; Running Crane, MaryAnn; Eggers, Margaret J.; Pierre, Mike; Flagg, Kenneth A.; Byker Shanks, Carmen
Wild foods are recognized to contribute to diet and food security through enhancing the availability of local, diverse, and nonmarket food sources. We investigated the contribution of wild foods to diet, food security, and cultural identity in a Native American[1] community in the context of climate change. Structured interviews were conducted with low-income residents of the Flathead Indian Reservation[2] in Northwestern Montana who participate in the federal Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, also known by participants as ‘Commodities.’ Responses to structured questions were analyzed for frequency, and open-ended responses were coded and analyzed to identify prevalent themes. Our analysis indicated that half of participants were food insecure. Approximately 28% of participants engaged in at least one wild food procurement activity, including hunting, fishing, and harvesting. On average, participants who engaged in one or more wild food procurement activities were more food secure than those who did not. Results highlight the multidimensional valuation of wild foods by participants including taste, freshness, nutritional quality, being a traditional community practice, and providing a sense of self-sufficiency. Climate change is perceived by participants to be adversely impacting wild food systems due to increased variability in seasonality and precipitation and increased incidences of wild fire. Findings point to the need for community-based strategies to strengthen wild food knowledge toward enhancing food sovereignty in Native American communities, in the context of climate change. [1] The term ‘Native American’ was determined to be the preferred term for referencing the Native American community in this study, based on consultation from our community advisory board. [2] The term ‘Flathead Indian Reservation’ was determined to be the preferred term for referencing the location in which this study was held, based on consultation from our community advisory board.
Let’s Talk Online Video Pilot Results
(Montana State University, 2017-03) Flagg, Kenneth A.; Schupbach, Jordan; Lin, Lillian
Background: Montana has the highest suicide rate in the nation, with 26 deaths from suicide per 100,000. To address this threat, young adults were recruited to perform community-based theatre projects about the importance of seeking professional help for depression and thoughts of suicide. This study examined the effectiveness of two short documentaries that were based on the Let’s Talk theatre intervention in reducing stigma of help-seeking. Methods: 87 students at a college in Billings, Montana were randomly assigned to two interventions and one control group during the 2016-17 school year. Self-administered questionnaires were completed by students in all groups at baseline and approximately 2 weeks after program implementation. Results: 38 students completed both the baseline and follow-up questionnaires (a 44% follow-up rate). Lower rates of self-stigma of seeking help (SSOSH) were observed among students in the longer format intervention group. For respondents in that intervention group, we estimate the mean SSOSH score decrease to be 4.16 (SE = 1.67) more than the mean score decrease for individuals in the control group (P = 0.017). There was no evidence that the students' race/ethnicity, grade, and gender altered the impact of the intervention on any of the outcomes assessed in this analysis. Conclusion: This study provides preliminary analysis of the intervention, but further evaluations are needed with a larger and more racially and socio-economically diverse sample. Let’s Talk continues to be a unique, narrative-based suicide prevention program with demonstrated effects on self-reported stigma of help-seeking in a study utilizing a randomized experimental design.
Modeling Partially Surveyed Point Process Data: Inferring Spatial Point Intensity of Geomagnetic Anomalies
(2020-06) Flagg, Kenneth A.; Hoegh, Andrew; Borkowski, John J.
Many former military training sites contain unexploded ordnance (UXO) and require environmental remediation. For the first phase of UXO remediation, locations of geomagnetic anomalies are recorded over a subregion of the study area to infer the spatial intensity of anomalies and identify high concentration areas. The data resulting from this sampling process contain locations of anomalies across narrow regions that are surveyed; however, the surveyed regions only constitute a small proportion of the entire study area. Existing methods for analysis require selecting a window size to transform the partially surveyed point pattern to a point-referenced dataset. To model the partially surveyed point pattern and infer intensity of anomalies at unsurveyed regions, we propose a Bayesian spatial Poisson process model with a Dirichlet process mixture as the inhomogeneous intensity function. A data augmentation step is used to impute anomalies in unsurveyed locations and reconstruct clusters of anomalies that span surveyed and unsurveyed regions. To verify that data augmentation reconstructs the underlying structure of the data, we demonstrate fitting the model to simulated data, using both the full study area and two different sampled subregions. Finally, we fit the model to data collected at the Victorville Precision Bombing range in southern California to estimate the intensity surface in anomalies per acre.
National Let’s Talk Online Video Pilot Results
(Montana State University, 2017-03) Flagg, Kenneth A.; Tran, Tan; Lin, Lillian
Background: Suicide is a leading cause of death for young adults in the United States. Although online messages have emerged as a new vehicle for suicide prevention efforts over the last decade, few have been systematically evaluated. This study examined the effectiveness of two suicide prevention videos – one from a community-based, narrative prevention program (Let’s Talk), and one from an established school-based curriculum (Signs of Suicide) in reducing stigma of help-seeking. Methods: 596 college students recruited from a national online panel by Qualtrics Survey Software were randomly assigned to two interventions and one control group during the 2017-18 school year. Self-administered questionnaires were completed by students in all groups at baseline and approximately 2 weeks after program implementation. Results: 291 students completed both the baseline and follow-up questionnaires (a 49% follow-up rate). Lower rates of self-stigma of seeking help (SSOSH) were observed among students in the SOS intervention group. On average, the mean SSOSH score of the participants in the SOS group decreased 1.76 more than those in control group (P = 0.0474) with 95% confidence interval from 0.02 to 3.50. There was no evidence that the sttudents' race/ethnicity, grade, and gender altered the impact of the intervention on any of the outcomes assessed in this analysis. Conclusion: This study provides preliminary analysis of the intervention, but further evaluations are needed with a larger and more racially and socio-economically diverse sample. SOS continues to be one of the only universal school-based suicide prevention programs to demonstrate significant effects of self-stigma of seeking help in a study utilizing a randomized experimental design.
Statistical Consulting and Research Services: Past, Present, and Future
(Montana State Univeristy, 2017-04) Flagg, Kenneth A.; Barbour, Christopher; Mack, Andrea; Schupbach, Jordan; Zhang, Huafeng
Statistical Consulting and Research Services (SCRS) is a group of statisticians at Montana State University (MSU) whose mission is to collaborate with domain experts across campus to improve the scientific research conducted at MSU and within the Montana University System. Since its inception, SCRS has grown at a tremendous rate and our statisticians continue to work with student and faculty researchers from a variety of scientific domains across the Montana University System. We present an overview of the history regarding how SCRS came to be, the services we perform, and the diversity of researchers that we collaborate with. We discuss the technical tools we incorporate in our workflow process and the steps we perform from the initial meeting to the final product. We will also highlight our vision moving into the future including what opportunities we see to continue improving the scientific research across the Montana University System, specifically highlighting the additional services we hope to provide here at MSU.
Visual sample plan and prior information: what do we need to know to find UXO?
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2016) Flagg, Kenneth A.; Writing Project Advisor: Megan Higgs
Military training and weapons testing activities leave behind munitions debris, including both inert fragments and explosives that failed to detonate. The latter are known as unexploded ordnance (UXO). It is important to find and dispose of UXO items that are located where people could come into contact with them and cause them to detonate. Typically there exists uncertainty about the locations of UXO items and the sizes of UXO- containing regions at a site, so statistical analyses are used to support decisions made while planning a site remediation project. The Visual Sample Plan software (VSP), published by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, is widely used by United States military contractors to guide sampling plan design and to identify regions that are likely to contain UXO. VSP has many features used for a variety of situations in UXO cleanup and other types of projects. This study focuses on the sampling plan and geostatistical mapping features used to find target areas where UXO may be present. The software produces transect sampling plans based on prior information entered by the user. After the sample data are collected, VSP estimates spatial point density using circular search windows and then uses Kriging to produce a continuous map of point density across the site. I reviewed the software's documentation and examined its output files to provide insight about how VSP does its computations, allowing the software's analyses to be closely reproduced and therefore better understood by users. I perform a simulation study to investigate the performance of VSP for identifying target areas at terrestrial munitions testing sites. I simulate three hypothetical sites, differing in the size and number of munitions use areas, and in the complexity of the background noise. Many realizations of each site are analyzed using methods similar to those employed by VSP to delineate regions of concentrated munitions use. I use the simulations to conduct two experiments, the first of which explores the sensitivity of the results to different search window sizes. I analyze two hundred realizations of the simplest site using the same sampling plan and five different window sizes. Based on the results, I select 90% of the minor axis of the target area of interest as the window diameter for the second experiment. The second experiment studies the effects of the prior information about the target area size and spatial point density of munitions items. For each site, I use four prior estimates of target area size and three estimates of point density to produce twelve sampling plans. One hundred realizations of each site are analyzed with each of the twelve sampling plans. I evaluate the analysis in terms of the detection rates of munitions items and target areas, the distances between undetected munitions items and identified areas, the total area identified, and other practical measures of the accuracy and efficiency of the cleanup effort. I conclude that the most accurate identification of target areas occurs when the sampling plan is based on the true size of the smallest target area present. The prior knowledge of the spatial point density has relatively little impact on the outcome.