Gender Differences in the Path From Sexual Victimization to HIV Risk Behavior Among Homeless Youth

ABSTRACT

Experiencing sexual victimization prior to becoming homeless is common among homeless youth and is associated with increased HIV risk behavior. This study examined mediating variables that underlie this association, adding to the understanding of gender differences in these paths. Participants were homeless youth in Los Angeles recruited through service access centers who completed a computerized self-administered interview in English or Spanish using an iPad. Findings indicate a high presence of sexual victimization across both genders. Female participants experienced posttraumatic stress disorder and subsequent engagement with exchange sex, whereas male participants were primarily involved in substance use risk pathways. Results indicate paths in the association between sexual victimization and HIV risk behavior differ between male and female homeless youth. Gender-specific, mental-health-informed interventions targeting sexual risk reduction are warranted.     

The Economic Impact of Health Policy Interventions

The rapid aging of the U.S. population, increases in the absolute prevalence of chronic diseases, and the associated rise in the proportion of the GNP expended on medical care all indicate the need for methods to accurately forecast future health care expenditures for specific chronic diseases. Additionally, if these methods are biomedically realistic, they can be used to evaluate the economic implications of specific prevention strategies designed to reduce chronic disease incidence, prevalence, and mortality. Projection strategies that are not biomedically realistic, such as models that assume that risks for demographic subgroups do not change over time (e.g., "static component" models), though possibly accurate over the short run, are not suitable for assessing the long term effects of specific proposed health policy interventions which are designed to alter risks.
In this paper we present a strategy for forecasting health care costs which is based on a model that represents the natural history of a chronic disease in terms of a preclinical state, a clinical state, case fatality rates, cures, and the implications of exogenous medical factors. Using this model we project that the treatment costs associated with respiratory cancer in the white male population of the U.S. may undergo a two-thirds increase in real dollars over the period 1977 to 2000. About one-half of this increase is due to a demographic shift to an older population structure, with the remainder due to higher respiratory cancer incidence rates in younger cohorts. Alteration of certain parameters of the model to simulate various interventions suggests that about three-quarters of the cost of this disease could be eliminated, though realization of any significant part of this savings would require a lengthy phase-in period.     

Descriptive Analysis of the Individual Migratory Pathways According to Environmental Typologies

This study tests the influence of environmental changes on migration in Burkina Faso. It describes individual migratory pathways in the 1960–1999 period in Burkina Faso, using environmental typologies of origins and destinations based on rainfall variations and land degradation. The study links data from a national longitudinal (retrospective) survey with fine resolution rainfall data and land degradation data. Results suggest that environmental factors influence, but in different ways, both the probability to out-migrate and the selection of a destination once the migration decision has been made. Migration seems to be more influenced by a slow-acting process such as land degradation than by episodic events such as droughts.     

Baseball in Cuba

While futbol (soccer) has long been the favorite sport in most of Latin America, baseball holds sway in the circum-Caribbean region in countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. It is perhaps surprising that revolutionary Cuba, with its strong anti-American foreign policy, should continue to hold dear this sport that was born and nurtured in the United States. Yet Fidel Castro himself, who regularly issues anti-Yankee attacks, is also proud of demonstrating his skill with the bat andglove. Eric Wagner gives us a valuable overview of the development of baseball on the island, Cuba's singular success in international competition and the game's role in contemporary Cuba. With this background and analysis, it is easy to see why the revolutionary government has not tampered with a sport that is so firmly rooted as a popular national pastime. Regarding baseball in Cuba after 1959, Wagner discusses how it has become an integral part of the new social system in factories, villages, towns, urban neighborhoods and schools. Competition is fierce on both the local and national levels because of its wide appeal among the popular classes, who brought baseball with them when they assumed power in 1959. It is likely to continue to play an essential role in the country's socioeconomic integration.     

More on insurance as a Giffen good

In this article, we generalize the Hoy and Robson (1981) analysis and provide a necessary and sufficient condition for insurance not to be a Giffen good. The condition gives a bound for the variation of absolute risk aversion that permits the wealth effect to be always dominated by the substitution effect.     

„Coaching“ durch die Führungskraft — eine kritische Betrachtung

?Leadership Coaching“ — A critical discussion?Leadership Coaching“ comes into vogue again. It is possible that cutting down the expenses for HRM (and specially for counsultants) reinforces this trend. Therefore it is again time to discuss the question about the main differences between “leadership coaching” and coaching by professionals. Consultations by the superior can be helpful, however there are distinct differences to the professional coaching.