Beyond legal coverage: Assessing the performance of social health protection

A frequently used indicator to measure social health protection performance is the extent of population coverage as stipulated in national legislation. However, this indicator does not provide meaningful information on performance in terms of effective access to benefits that are available, affordable and of acceptable quality, not least for the poor and workers in informal economies. This article proposes a new approach to measuring performance by applying a set of relevant indicators in an analytical framework for assessing the performance of social health protection. The approach allows policy‐makers to conclude from comparisons among groups of countries facing similar challenges. Preliminary results include comprehensive information on deficits that need to be addressed when striving for effective universal coverage. With further refinement, the suggested approach could become a standard assessment tool for measuring performance.     

A new family of multivariate heavy-tailed distributions with variable marginal amounts of tailweight: application to robust clustering

We propose a family of multivariate heavy-tailed distributions that allow variable marginal amounts of tailweight. The originality comes from introducing multidimensional instead of univariate scale variables for the mixture of scaled Gaussian family of distributions. In contrast to most existing approaches, the derived distributions can account for a variety of shapes and have a simple tractable form with a closed-form probability density function whatever the dimension. We examine a number of properties of these distributions and illustrate them in the particular case of Pearson type VII and t tails. For these latter cases, we provide maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters and illustrate their modelling flexibility on simulated and real data clustering examples.     

A cross-cultural examination of the relationship between ages at menarche,marriage, and first birth

Recent work with samples of black and white urban American women showed a clear behavioral sequence relating age at menarche to age at first intercourse to age at first birth. This paper shows that the linking of ages at menarche, intercourse, marriage, and first birth is a pattern which occurs in very diverse cultures. We present confirmatory data from the United States, Belgium, and Pakistan, and from Malay and Chinese women in Malaysia. We interpret our findings as indicating a biological process leading to (a) social interpretations of readiness for reproduction, and (b) persisting biological differences between early and late maturing women.     

Examining the Effects of Feedback Accuracy and Timing on Skill Acquisition

ABSTRACT

Feedback involves providing information about past performance and indicating how to improve future performance. Although the literature contains numerous examples of feedback as an effective method for improving performance across a range of organizational settings, much remains unknown about the specifics of how feedback acts to change behavior. This study evaluated the combined effects of feedback accuracy (100%, 80%, 20%) and timing (feedback following each trial or after a block of 25 trials) on skill acquisition in undergraduate students when presented with a computerized match-to-sample task that required participants to learn the names of shapes. Results reveal that feedback accuracy had a significantly greater effect on performance than the timing of the feedback.     

Evaluation: Clinical results and research methodology

The favorable results of two major research reports-Progress on Family Problems by Beck and Jones and a series of studies ofDepressed Patients by Weissmanet al.—are reviewed for the purpose of comparing the methodologies of these studies with that of other well-known research reporting casework treatment to be noneffective. A number of the latter studies are critically examined for their use of social norms rather than client-oriented indicators of improvement, inadequate measuring devices, failure to select appropriate areas of measurement, inappropriate generalization from narrow study populations, overconcentration on delinquents, predelinquents, and multiproblem families, inadequate attention to motivation, inappropriate hypotheses, and serious errors in statistical procedures and in the selection of control groups.     

Group Therapy with Couples in Conflict

This article describes a psychoanalytically based time limited model of couples group therapy, using live clinical material to illustrate the process and flow of therapy. Because of the pre-therapy clear agreement regarding number of sessions, it is important that the contract be adhered to by all parties, underscoring issues of reliability regarding commitment and fostering completion. Critical themes such as dependence and independence rapidly become focal issues in treatment. Mirroring, reflecting, confronting, supporting and interpreting are among the treatment techniques utilized. A heterosexual co-therapy team is recommended as the optimal therapeutic pair for group leadership.     

A Diaclectic Approach to Family Therapy and Practice: Selectivity and Synthesis

In this article, a case is made for transcending any one model or theory, or any reliance on particular techniques as a panacea. Instead, new integrations of intuitive understanding, which represent the artistry of healing, and of scientific knowledge of various theories, in a spontaneous and therefore unique responsiveness to the specific family requesting help are sought. In this way, the most growth oriented and change producing therapeutic environment is created.