Overcoming fieldwork challenges in urban health research in developing countries: a research note

With rapid growth in the global urban population over the next two decades, health will increasingly have an urban bias. The picture of public health is particularly complex in African cities, where rates of urbanisation, poverty and inequity are high. This paper identifies the main data collection problems encountered within a panel study in low‐income areas of Johannesburg, with special emphasis on sampling, access and partnerships. The paper will be of relevance to anyone considering research in the cities of developing countries, especially in Africa.     

Concession bargaining and unions: Impacts and implications

The characteristics of concession bargaining relating to management behavior, information disclosure, intraunion activity, and union member attitudes are formulated and briefly described, followed by an exploration of the impact of the experience on and the implications for unions. The analysis suggests that union solidarity, union leader credibility, and union effectiveness have been negatively affected. Concession bargaining appears to lead to more difficulty in administering unions, a further decline in union image, an emphasis on adversarial relations with management, and the potential use of new tactics in collective bargaining. The authors express appreciation to Dr. Donald McPherson, Dr. Antone Aboud, and Commissioner Joseph Biondo, FMCS, for helpful comments.     

The impacts of accessible service delivery on front‐line helping relationships in child welfare

This paper presents the results of a study comparing the impacts on helping relationships of locating front‐line child protection service providers in central locations or in accessible school and neighbourhood service delivery sites. Creating easier access to front‐line child protection service providers, fostering more positive community perceptions of child welfare services, improving client and service provider satisfaction with helping relationships and services, and increasing families' willingness to ask for help were core objectives at the accessible sites. Using a quasi‐experimental outcome design, file reviews and qualitative interviews with service providers and parents, this study presents evidence that accessible sites had substantial success in achieving these objectives when compared with central service delivery locations.     

Post-adoption service need and access: Differences between international,kinship and non-kinship foster care

Post-adoption services are important to bolster a family's commitment to their adopted children, thus avoiding potential problems following adoption finalization. It is vitally important to assess post-adoption services in an effort to ensure families are provided with effective supports for successful family functioning. Few investigators have assessed service needs and access according to adoptive family type. This study focuses on international, foster care kin and foster care non-kin adoption types. Utilizing the National Survey of Adoptive Parents, this research investigated twelve post-adoption services. Two comparisons were made with respect to whether, according to the adoptive parents, post-adoption services were received or not received: 1) international and foster care non-kin adoptive families; and 2) foster care kin and foster non-kin adoptive families. International non-kin families were more likely to indicate they discussed post-adoption services than foster care non-kin families, particularly among those who were white, had adopted boys, had no other children in the home, and whose socio-economic background was lower. When comparing foster care non-kin families with kinship families, non-kin families tended to receive more desired services than kinship families, with kinship families indicating less need for services. Policy efforts and program design need to focus on reaching out to families and developing effective post-adoption services based on the expressed needs of families.     

The quality of evaluations of foster parent training: An empirical review

A comprehensive literature review was undertaken to identify published evaluations of foster parent training programs (pre-service, in-service single session, and in-service multi-session). Results of the review of the literature revealed that few evaluations have been conducted on the preservice training programs most widely used and the results are mixed at best in the evaluations conducted. Moreover, the best evaluations of in-service training were for the programs least likely to be offered to foster parents: multi-session programs. Taken together, the results point to gaps in the knowledge base and directions for future research.     

THE POWER OF NORMALISATION: FOUCAULDIAN PERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN HEALTH CARE PRACTICES

Foucault's analysis provides social and political insights into the way that contemporary health care practices in Australia have been, and are being, constructed. His notion of discourse provides a useful starting point to analyse the taken-for-granted nature of reality that is so hegemonic in many health care practices. An analysis of discourse reveals the panoptic tendencies inherent in the Australian health care system. The notion of panopticism calls into question some very fundamental assumptions about the relationship between power, knowledge and truth. At the core of such panopticism are disciplinary techniques which promote normalisation. The examinations carried out by health care professionals, the case notes that are subsequently developed, along with an associated proliferation of diagnostic tests and procedures resulting in the production of the docile body, are symptomatic of the process designed to restore normalisation.     

American Indian intermarriage

An analysis of intermarriage patterns with data from the Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1980 Census shows that there is considerably more intermarriage between Indians and whites than between blacks and whites. Indians who live in traditional Indian areas are more likely to be endogamous than those who live in areas where Indians have not traditionally lived, though Indians in traditional Indian areas are also more likely to be married to whites than are Indians in nontraditional Indian areas (after adjustments are made to take into account the number of men and women in the different racial groups). The results also indicate that endogamous American Indians are poorer and less educated than any other type of couple, including endogamous black Americans.     

Using MSD prevention for cultural change in mining: Queensland Government/Anglo Coal Industry partnership

Queensland Mining has a strong focus on safety performance, but risk management of health, including Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) continues to have a lower priority. The reliance on individual screening of workers and lower level approaches such as manual handling training is part of the coal mining 'culture'. Initiatives such as the New South Wales and Queensland Mining joint project to develop good practice guidance for mining has allowed for a more consistent message on participatory ergonomics and prevention of MSD. An evidence based practice approach, including the introduction of participatory ergonomics and safe design principles, was proposed to Anglo American Coal operations in Queensland. The project consisted of a skills analysis of current health personnel, design of a facilitated participatory ergonomics training program, site visits to identify good practice and champions, and a graduated mentoring program for health personnel. Early results demonstrate a number of sites are benefiting from site taskforces with a focus on positive performance outcomes.     

After adoption: dissolution or permanence?

Results are presented on the whereabouts of 516 adopted children, based on a random sample of children adopted from placement in New York City in 1996. Data from interviews with adoptive parents were augmented by information from adoption subsidy records and state child tracking files, as well as interviews with caregivers of children whose adoptive parents were deceased. There were few dissolutions, but postadoption service needs were many.     

Methods for genetic dissection of complex traits

In this Perspective, the author responds to a recent SAGE KE Perspective. An alternative view of the benefits of quantitative trait loci mapping as a way to understand the molecular mechanisms of life-span determination is presented.