ABSTRACT
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased attention to the critical mathematical literacy of citizens in the United States and around the world. A statistically and mathematically literate society is crucial for ensuring that citizens are able to sift through political rhetoric to maintain life-saving procedures such as social distancing and other infection dampening efforts. Additionally, recent civil unrest due to the disproportionate killings of Black men by police provokes investigation into the public's mathematical literacy. In this paper, we investigate adolescent students' critical mathematics consciousness and mathematics literacy as they reason through two interview tasks on the coronavirus and police shooting data. Drawing on Frankenstein's program of Critical Mathematics Education, we introduce an analytic framework for documenting the critical mathematics consciousness of adolescent students. We interviewed fifteen 14- to 16-year-old students as they solved five tasks designed to elicit their critical and ethical mathematical awareness. Our findings indicate that students exhibit very little critical mathematics consciousness in the context of the police problem but show awareness that data can be presented in ways that manipulate the public's emotions in the coronavirus problem. We conclude the paper with a discussion of implications for designing future instruction to support students' growth in critical mathematics consciousness.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The outcomes of pharmacist-managed diabetes care services in a community health center were studied. METHODS: Eligible patients were over age 18 years and had a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Patients were randomly assigned by the clinical pharmacist and nurse to the intervention group (n = 76) or control group (n = 73). Patients in the intervention group were enrolled in a pharmacist-managed diabetes care program. Patients in the control group received the standard diabetes care. The primary endpoint was reduction in glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA(1c)); secondary outcome measures included weight loss, an improved body mass index, decreased blood pressure, and an improved lipid panel. Quality-of-life measures (health level, satisfaction, impact, worry about disease, and worry about social and vocational issues) were also assessed. RESULTS: Demographic differences between groups were not remarkable. Mean HbA(1c) levels fell significantly (p < 0.05) from baseline to nine months in both groups. A difference of 1.0 was reported between the groups' HbA(1c) levels (95% confidence interval, 0.08-1.78; p < 0.05). Satisfaction level improved from 63.7 to 77.4 in the intervention group, which was significant when compared with the control group, whose satisfaction score improved from 57.0 to 63.4 (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who received pharmacist-managed diabetes care demonstrated improved HbA(1c), systolic blood pressure, and low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol levels and quality-of-life measures and met treatment goals more often than patients receiving standard care.
