Research on persistent pain in late life: current topics and challenges

Older women often experience pain in their daily lives. This article provides an overview of topics addressed in the geriatric pain research published between 1999 and 2004. New areas of emphasis of research have emerged such as the recognition of body mass and weight as a factor in persistent pain, while other areas have expanded, including the focus on pain among elders with cognitive impairments and the use of alternative treatment approaches. Understanding of pain in late life is hindered by study samples that lack diversity, treatment approaches that are narrowly focused, and a lack of attention to quality of life issues.     

THE ANALYSIS OF OUTLYING DATA POINTS USING ROBUST REGRESSION: A MULTIVARIATE PROBLEM-BANK IDENTIFICATION MODEL*

Because the eight largest bank failures in United States history have occurred since 1973 [24], the development of early-warning problem-bank identification models is an important undertaking. It has been shown previously [3] [5] that M-estimator robust regression provides such a model. The present paper develops a similar model for the multivariate case using both a robustified Mahalanobis distance analysis [21] and principal components analysis [10]. In addition to providing a successful presumptive problem-bank identification model, combining the use of the M-estimator robust regression procedure and the robust Mahalanobis distance procedure with principal components analysis is also demonstrated to be a general method of outlier detection. The results from using these procedures are compared to some previously suggested procedures, and general conclusions are drawn.     

Care proceedings and parents with learning difficulties: comparative prevalence and outcomes in an English and Australian court sample

This paper presents and contrasts the findings from two independent but comparable court studies in England and Australia of care proceedings involving parents with learning difficulties. Significant differences between the two jurisdictions were found in both prevalence and outcomes, with a much higher proportion of cases showing in the England sample, with many more children being returned home to live with their parents in Australia, and with far more children being placed out‐of‐home and outside the family network in England. We explore the reasons for these differences and discuss the implications of the findings.     

Variations in Child Care by Grandparents During the First Three Years

Routine child care by grandparents was examined for 1,229 children who were participants in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care. Four groups were identified: extended full‐time care, extended part‐time care, sporadic care, and no routine care during the first three years. The odds of sporadic child care by grandparents were higher when mothers were relatively young and worked nonstandard hours. The odds of extended full‐time grandparent care versus extended part‐time grandparent care were higher for mothers of color and mothers with more extensive full‐time employment. All types of grandparent care were more likely when a grandparent lived in the household. These findings suggest that grandparent care is heterogeneous and may occur in response to different family circumstances.     

Gender and Sexuality in Discourses of Managerial Control: The Case of Women Miners

Mining scholarship has focused chiefly on capital developments, labour relations, changing technology, and global markets, ignoring the equally critical aspects of gendered organizations and their role in shaping the subjectivities of workers and managers. This article probes how gender and sexuality organize a mine site through organizational design and productivity management. It looks behind the rhetoric of equal opportunity, glamour mining and human resource techniques to explore the sexual politics of employing women as miners. In particular it scrutinizes the discourses of masculinity that produce ‘the woman miner’ in a context where the barriers between work and personal life are particularly mobile and highly contested. Equally crucially, it recounts some of the ways in which women have mobilized against systemic male dominance and privilege. The workplace in question is the world’s largest gem mine of its kind, a state–of–the–art computerized operation set in the remote Australian outback.     

Biosocial Perspectives on the Family

New theoretical models conceptualize families as systems affected by, and effecting change in, reciprocal influences among social, behavioral, and biological processes. Technological breakthroughs make noninvasive assessment of many biological processes available to family researchers. These theoretical and measurement advances have resulted in significant increases in research on family processes and relationships that integrate knowledge from the fields of behavioral endocrinology, behavior genetics, and, to a lesser degree, evolutionary psychology. This review covers a broad spectrum, including the topics of parenthood, early child development, adolescent and middle child development, parent‐child relations, courtship and mate selection, and the quality and stability of marital and intimate relations. Our intention is to introduce, by example, the relevance of the biosocial approach, encourage family researchers to consider the application of these ideas to their interests, and increase the participation of family researchers in the next generation of studies.     

Emerging Patterns of Care Management: Arrangements for Older People in England

One of the key objectives of the community care legislation, implemented in the UK in 1993, was the development of care management systems. Subsequent studies based on limited samples of local authorities have indicated that there is much variation in the forms and types of arrangements being developed. This paper explores whether typologies of care management arrangements for older people can be discerned through the analysis of a series of key indicators. Data were drawn from a survey of all English local authorities, undertaken as part of the PSSRU study: Mapping and Evaluation of Care Management Arrangements for Older People and Those with Mental Health Problems. Care management arrangements were categorized using a limited number of key indicators chosen on an empirical and an a priori basis. This resulted in the formulation of six categories of care management arrangements for older people, within which approximately 80 per cent of local authorities could be included.     

Helping parents by working with their children in individual child therapy

The paper describes a small scale pilot process and outcome study that was undertaken at the University of York. The study is based on accounts of treatment interventions with children conducted by trainee play therapists studying on the University's programme in non‐directive play therapy. These are being used to develop a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of non‐directive play therapy as an intervention for distressed and maltreated children. The focus of this paper is on one finding of the study, namely that play therapy undertaken with individual children, in addition to bringing about improvements in the children's problems, may improve their parents’ parenting behaviour if they are appropriately involved in the therapy. The paper describes the cases and their outcomes at a 6‐month follow‐up. It illustrates the finding of changes in parenting behaviour through three case studies, and discusses the kinds of changes, possible reasons for them, and necessary practice requirements if these changes are to take place. The paper concludes that engaging parents in a broadly collaborative effort may be facilitated by a primary initial focus on their children.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Contextual Exposure to Peers with College Educated Parents and Students' College Enrollment

Students with college educated parents are more likely to attain higher levels of education than students of parents with lower levels of education. Past research has explained this favorable outcome as the result of advantageous placement and greater availability of educational resources. Using data from Add Health and AHAA, we find evidence that exposure to students of college educated parents at the school level and within courses increase the likelihood of four year college enrollment even after controlling for family background, achievement, and placement. We also found that exposure to students of college educated parents has especially strong positive effects on college enrollment for students whose own parents do not have a college degree. These findings suggest that greater exposure to students of highly educated parents at the school level and within courses partially explains the favorable educational attainment of students with college educated parents.