Barbara Laymon

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Faculty member at Bowen Center for the Study of the Family

Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST) has long been used as a lens for understanding congregational dynamics, but both Bowen theorists and social scientists have complained that its use is limited by the lack of a valid and reliable measure of its central concept, differentiation. The present study took the first steps in developing such an instrument...

The influential nature of family relationships on individual and collective functioning among family members within and across generations impacts health. A framework which considers how the Social Determinants of Health impact the context for the life of the family is an important step towards conceptualizing a broader range of variables related t...

The research goal was to describe local health department community health improvement plans and hospital implementation strategies, assessing the extent to which they address the social determinants of health. In 2014, we used a grounded theory approach to conceptualize the extent of social determinant efforts in a purposive sample of improvement...

This study examined individuality and togetherness and the influence of spirituality on these constructs from a Bowen Family Systems Theory perspective. Data for 160 adults ages 18-65 were included in the sample, originally collected for a study of spirituality and religiosity in work recovery.A weak and non-significant correlation between individu...

The strengthened requirement for nonprofit hospitals to complete a community health needs assessment and implementation plan in the Affordable Care Act, concurrent with a new voluntary accreditation process for local health departments that requires collaborative community health assessments and community health improvement plans, have led to a res...

While Healthy People 2020 is a federally led initiative, its successful implementation relies on its uptake at the local level. In partnership with the US Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, NACCHO has worked with local health departments to integrate Healthy People 2020 into their health plan...

Using the data from the National Association of County and City Health Officials’ (NACCHO) 2010 Profile of Local Health Departments (LHDs) our study investigates whether or not infrastructural characteristics of LHDs were associated with completion of community health assessment (CHA). Our results show that local and shared LHD governance, greater...

The Healthy People 2020 framework, a national agenda that communicates a vision for improving health and achieving health equity, provides an opportunity for assessing the health of each community as well as the health of the nation as a whole. It includes a set of specific, measurable objectives with targets to be achieved over the decade, with ob...