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The purpose of this present study was to validate a foreign military identity measure in a U.S. sample of military-affiliated individuals including Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets, current military service members, and U.S. Armed Forces veterans across branches. Participants (n = 166) came from national ROTC programs, student-veteran programs, national veteran organizations across the United States, and active-duty service members, accessed via snowball sampling from veteran associates. An altered version of the Norwegian Professional Identity Scale (NPIS) was administered as part of a larger project investigating factors that contribute to well-being in military service members. Overall, the data produced an acceptable model fit when the measure was trimmed from 34 items to 10. Further analysis revealed improved model fit with correlated errors between two items, which I hope can be replicated and utilized for future scholars seeking a U.S.-based measure of military identity. Occupational identity has the potential to predict a variety of important social factors such as cohesion, well-being, job performance, and resilience. As such, I hope that further validation of the altered NPIS will result in a more accurate measure of identity among military-affiliated samples. Implications for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over all OECD healthcare systems, we identify increasing similarities and common trends, especially with regard to the role of the state. Yet two countries, the USA and Canada, have ‘parted at the crossroads’ since the 1960s and therefore are quite frequently cited as examples for the opposite trend, i.e. for divergence. According to our position, it is far from evident that this trend has still been dominant in the past 15 years. In our contribution, we show that the USA and Canada have become more similar regarding the role of the state in financing, service provision and the regulation of healthcare systems. Furthermore, the article investigates potential explanations. We find that a most influential explanatory factor is the healthcare system itself, its deficiencies and functional requirements as reflected in the specific system type. As the system types of the USA and Canada vary, so too do their adaptive responses to problem pressure. By systematically acquiring non-system-specific elements, i.e. characteristics which were originally less developed or completely absent, the systems grow more similar and therefore converge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author ponders on various event fostering collaborations within the field of audiology. He describes the ambiance of the meetings of the New York State Speech and Hearing Association. He comments on the annual meetings of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the American Academy of Audiology (AAA) in 2008.