Can we make health IT safe enough for patients?

Health information technology (HIT) is widely believed to be an essential modality for improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and safety of healthcare, and has its adoption has been vigorously promoted. However, the safety of commercially available HIT systems has never been independently and rigorously assessed. This paper discusses critical issues to be considered in the development of safe and reliable HIT, and identifies a group of structural impediments that may slow or prevent the arrival of HIT that is actually safe enough for routine clinical use. It argues that this situation is analogous to NASA's promotion of the space shuttle not as an experimental, risky technology, but rather as a routine, ready-for-ordinary-use resource.     

Can a Diamond Ever Be Gay?

This article is a first-person narrative/reflection that explores the contradictions and paradoxes of a personal decision to marry in light of a political critique that recognizes and names the ways that marriage creates and replicates stultifying and restrictive notions of normalcy. The author grapples with her own ambivalences: support for the critique of marriage's power to define normal and its simultaneous marginalization of anyone living outside its construct on the one hand, and an understanding of the ways we remain deeply psychologically tied to the social structures that shape our own longings and desires. Within the context of a political movement to protect the rights of same-sex couples to marry, the author articulates a wish for a radically transformed culture that decouples social legitimacy and economic benefits from family structure or choices. Can a feminist queer activist and psychoanalyst have everything?     

Does output predict unemployment? A look at Okun's law in Greece

Using a dynamic specification of Okun's law, the authors examine the relationship between unemployment and output in Greece over the period 2000–12. While Granger causality tests indicate that real output is important to understanding future movements in unemployment, Okun's ratio is found to be 3:1, implying that a 1 per cent increase in unemployment was associated with a 3 per cent decrease in real output during the 13‐year period under study. Also, asymmetric analysis shows that the response of unemployment to real output is stronger during contractions of real economic activity than in expansionary periods.     

Under what conditions do lesbians disclose their sexual orientation to primary healthcare providers? A review of the literature

Under what conditions do lesbians disclose their sexual orientation to primary healthcare providers? A review of the literature was undertaken to answer this question and to provide insight into the ways healthcare professionals can play an active role assisting their lesbian patients in "coming out." Thirty empirical studies met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Collectively, these separate studies have found that a myriad of internal (patient attributes) and external (healthcare context, patient-provider relationship) factors influence disclosure. The discussion highlights the critical role of healthcare professionals in supporting disclosure.     

Self–care practices among social workers: do they predict job satisfaction and turnover intention?

ABSTRACT

The current health and mental health care delivery system in the United States strives to provide efficient quality care at a lower cost. This cost-effective approach and recent budget cuts have created new challenges for social workers. This study explores the relationships between self-care strategies, role stress, job autonomy, and job satisfaction and turnover intention. Four-hundred sixty-nine social workers were surveyed to assess multiple measures of self-care including professional support, professional development, coping strategies, and professional resilience, and their effects on job satisfaction and turnover intention. Role stress and job autonomy were also examined in relation to job satisfaction and turnover intention. The results supported the main hypotheses that claimed that self-care strategies are associated with both job satisfaction and turnover intention. The author discusses the important implications of these findings in education and training of both students and practitioners.     

The university as developmental space – a case for thinking differently?

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a sizeable increase in young people approaching University Counselling and Well-being Services for support in managing mental health difficulties with one research project suggesting an increase of demand upwards of 33%. Support is necessarily often targeted at those who present most ‘at risk’, but this ignores the potential positive impact that universities can have on promoting mental health for future generations, not least given that nearly half of all young people in the UK participate in Higher Education. Drawing on a case study of one UK undergraduate student, this paper will explore themes common to university students such as difficulties in transitioning from home, defensive-bonding in relationships and low self-esteem. The paper argues the need for universities and colleges to provide ongoing support for students who are ‘just about managing’ in order to enable them to flourish, both emotionally and academically.     

Do higher wages come at a price?

Using linked employer-employee data for Britain we find that higher wages are associated with higher job satisfaction and higher job anxiety. The association between wages and non-pecuniary job satisfaction disappears with the inclusion of effort measures whereas the positive association between wages and job anxiety remains strong and significant providing no support for a compensating differential explanation, but rather for a ‘gift exchange’ type of reciprocal behaviour. No support is found for the proposition that within-workplace wage differentials are a source of job anxiety.     

Putting social preferences to work: Can revealed preferences predict real effort provision?

This paper presents a model of real effort provision in conjunction with rational social preference theory to predict how individuals exert effort to replace an exogenously determined “state of the world” with a preferred social outcome. Binary dictator games and real effort tasks are used to examine whether individuals exert effort in a manner that is consistent with their revealed preferences. The analysis of controlled laboratory experiments suggest that while individuals’ effort provisions are generally consistent with the theory, those who reveal relatively pro-social preferences fail to procure their “preferred” outcomes too frequently when the state of the world is highly inequitable in their favor. Consideration is given to alternative theories, namely ego depletion and cognitive dissonance, as potential explanations of social outcomes. There is evidence to suggest that dictators, on average, experience ego depletion which leads to a reduction in pro-social behavior through time.     

Can we predict device use? An investigation into mobile device use in surveys

In this study, we investigate whether mobile device use in surveys can be predicted. We aim to identify possible motives for device use and build a model by drawing on theory from technology acceptance research and survey research. We then test this model with a Structural Equation Modeling approach using data of seven waves of the GESIS panel. We test whether our theoretical model fits the data by focusing on measures of fit, and by studying the standardized effects of the model. Results reveal that intention to use a particular device can predict actual use quite well. Ease of smartphone use is the most meaningful variable: if people use a smartphone for specific tasks, their intention to use a smartphone for survey completion is also more likely. In conclusion, investing in ease of use of mobile survey completion could encourage respondents to use mobile devices. This can foremost be established by building well-designed surveys for mobile devices.     

What does a motorcyclist look at while driving at urban arterials?

To design adequate measures for enhancing riders' safety, a necessary first step is to understand the riders' visual scanning strategies under different traffic conditions. This paper presents the preliminary analysis of eye tracking data collected by three riders in the Athens metropolitan area, riding along urban arterial motorways and along an undivided urban road. Apart from the fixation duration and location, the fixated road elements and specific objects were annotated and analysed. The mean duration of fixations was found to be higher on urban roads than on motorways for all traffic densities. Riding in the condition of restricted flow seems to be more demanding for the riders, since the mean duration of fixations was higher in restricted flow than in free or congested flow on motorway and also higher than in free flow on urban road. The riders' fixation locations differed between motorway and urban road, especially in the vertical plane. The analysis of fixated road elements and specific objects indicates the specific points of interest of riders in each case. Although results should be validated with data from more riders, they provide hints on direction of future research efforts to enhance riders' safety in urban environments.     

Can a Poll Affect Perception of Candidate Traits?

During presidential elections, poll results frequently are presentedin the news. Reporters use these polls to tell the public whatit thinks about the presidential candidates. We argue that pollingresults tell the public what it should think about the presidentialcandidates as well. This study outlines how a character traitthat is not usually used to assess presidential candidates wasput into play during the 2004 presidential campaign. By repeatedlyascribing "stubbornness" to incumbent president George W. Bush,Democratic challenger John Kerry may have prompted this trait’sinclusion in a Los Angeles Times summer 2004 survey. The poll’sevidence that the public saw Bush as more stubborn than Kerrythen produced an attribute agenda-setting effect that strengthenedthe link between that term and Bush. Using data from the NationalAnnenberg Election Survey, we argue that the news coverage ofthis Los Angeles Times poll increased the salience of the trait"stubborn" in assessing President George W. Bush during Juneof the 2004 presidential campaign.     

Can old age be given a public meaning?

Anti-ageism has done much to eliminate bias and stereotyping, but it has given us no positive vision of what old age might be. A shared interpretation of the physical and social realities of the elderly can enhance the lives of aging people and provide the foundations for public policy.