High Life Satisfaction: Exploring the Role of Health,Social Integration and Perceived Safety among Mexican Midlife and Older Adults

We sought to investigate the relationship of high life satisfaction with important physical health, mental health, social integration and perceived safety factors among midlife and older Mexican adults. We examined 2,200 midlife and older adults (aged 50–101 years) from the Mexican arm of the Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) and used binary logistic regression models to identify key factors associated with high LSA. Our final logistic regression model revealed self-rated health, affect, interpersonal activities and perceived safety on street to be significantly associated with high life satisfaction. Results from this study add to the nascent literature on subjective well-being of midlife and older Mexicans. Although social work with older adults is not well established in Mexico, researchers and practitioners should collaborate on the development and implementation of social worker-led strategies for prevention and intervention to enhance well-being among midlife and older Mexicans.     

“工具性”色彩的淡化：一种新健康观的生成与实践以绍兴醴村为例

国内学术界目前还鲜有以医学社会学作为理论视角来探讨当下的医疗、疾病与健康问题。本文基于长三角一个村庄的调查材料,试图从医学社会学角度来讨论当地村民从新中国成立前至今“健康观”的变迁过程。通过新旧健康观的描述与对比,文章主要考察了新健康观变化的内容与动力。村民日益赋予健康以一种崇高的价值,健康观中原有的“工具性”色彩正逐渐淡化。由现代化过程所带来的经济发展与生活水平的提高是新健康观生成的最大动力,而国家在其中的直接作用则非常微小。本文认为,健康观是观察现代化的一个角度,也是考察国家与农民关系的一个新窗口。     

Differential Impacts of Stressful Life Events and Social Support on the Mental Health of Mainland Chinese Immigrant and Local Youth in Hong Kong: A Resilience Perspective

Based on a resilience perspective, this study attempted to explorethe risk and protective factors influencing the mental healthof immigrant and local youths in Hong Kong. A structured questionnairewhich consisted of The Chinese Adolescents Life Events Checklist,The Perceived Satisfaction of Social Support Scale and The BriefSymptoms Inventory was used. Two hundred and ten local and immigrantyouths between the age of 15 and 20 were individually interviewedby the trained interviewers. Contrary to our hypotheses, thefindings revealed that immigrant youth had better mental healthand similar levels of stress than local youth. Moreover, peersupport was found to exert a strong impact on the mental healthof immigrant youth. While ‘Interpersonal relationshipdifficulties’ was identified as a common risk factor facedby local and immigrant youths, immigrant youth faced additionalrisk factors in relation to a change to a new school and parentalconflicts. On the other hand, endurance of hardship, socialcompetence and peer support were considered as the protectivefactors that might be associated with better mental health inimmigrant youth. The implications of this study included: toadopt a resilience perspective to understand the protectivemechanisms that enhance the mental health of immigrant youth;to develop a national strategy to build up the interpersonalrelationship skills of youth in a society; and to organize specificprogrammes to strengthen the peer system and tackle parentalconflicts in immigrant youths.