Do taboo trade-offs explain the difficulty in valuing health and social interventions?

Persistent anomalies in the results of willingness to pay studies, despite improvements in measurement technique, challenge the assumption in economics that all sources of value are commensurable. Two sources of incommensurability have been identified: interdimensional incommensurability, which refers to the cognitive difficulty that people encounter when trying to assign a monetary value to health; and constitutive incommensurability, which arises when some forms of trade-off are regarded as ‘taboo’. In this paper we explore whether the notion of taboo trade-offs might explain some of the difficulties experienced in health-related willingness to pay studies.     

In sickness but not in health: self-ratings, identity, and mortality

Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative populations, with relatively little progress toward understanding the information processing that individuals use to arrive at these ratings. With subsamples of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS) data for respondents with circulatory system disease (N = 3,709) and respondents with no diagnosable disorders (N = 1,127) at baseline, we test the idea that individuals with experience of chronic disease of the circulatory system will have more predictive self-ratings of health than healthy individuals. Poor or fair self-rated health increased the adjusted hazard of all-cause mortality for respondents with circulatory system disease, but not for respondents who were healthy. Additional analyses confirm that poor or fair self-rated health is particularly predictive for respondents with self-reported history of circulatory system diagnoses and perception of symptoms, but not for respondents without symptoms or diagnoses prior to the NHANES physical exam.     

Introduction: moving youth participation forward

Given the emerging interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in youth participation, it is important to examine and assess carefully the promise and challenges of youth engagement.     

The impact of childhood abuse and neglect on adult mental health: a prospective study

This paper examines the impact of three types of victimization in childhood--sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect--on lifetime measures of mental health among adults. In contrast to research that relies on retrospective recall of childhood victimization, this work uses a prospective sample gathered from records of documented court cases of childhood abuse and neglect in a midwestern city around 1970. These subjects were interviewed about twenty years later. In addition, this research compares outcomes of the 641 members of the abuse and neglect group with a matched control group of 510 persons who did not have documented cases of abuse or neglect. The results indicate that men who were abused and neglected as children have more dysthymia and antisocial personality disorder as adults than matched controls, but they did not have more alcohol problems. Abused and neglected women report more symptoms of dysthymia, antisocial personality disorder, and alcohol problems than controls. After controlling for stressful life events, however, childhood victimization had little direct impact on any lifetime mental health outcome. This research indicates the importance of adopting an approach that places childhood victimization in the context of other life stressors and of prospective changes over the life course.     

Levels of analysis,theoretical orientations and degrees of abstraction

This article suggests that what often appear to be fundamental conflicts of opinion among sociologists regarding appropriate levels of analysis and theoretical orientations are much less problematic when considered in terms of differences in degrees of abstraction. The critical factor in the compatibility of various levels of analysis and theoretical orientation is the use of degrees of abstraction by the researcher. The impact of this issue on sociological knowledge and some of its applications are examined. Pat Lauderdale is professor of justice and adjunct professor of law at Arizona State University and is completing a book on social conflict and disputes. Steven D. McLaughlin is the director of Battelle’s Health and Populations Research Center in Seattle and presently is conducting research on adolescent fertility and educational attainment. Annamarie Oliverio has completed graduate work in political science and criminology at Simon Fraser University and currently is working on her doctoral dissertation at Arizona State University.     

Returns vs. Endowments in the Earnings Attainment Process for Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Men and Women1

Abstract Three explanations typically are offered for differences in earnings: (1) individuals have different levels of human capital and hold different jobs (endowments differ), (2) rewards to human capital and job characteristics differ (returns differ), and (3) some combination of differences in endowments and returns explain variations in earnings. We argue that the structure of labor markets in nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas differs from that in metropolitan (metro) areas such that returns, as well as endowments, vary. These variations in returns favor metropolitan workers, explaining the predominant portion of the metro/nonmetro earnings gap. We examine the earnings differences for metro and nonmetro men and women in both 1977 and 1987, showing that returns outweigh endowments in explaining that gap for both men and women, although their importance decreases over the ten-year period. Research to improve our understanding of how differences in labor market structure produce differential returns has begun and may yield yet another avenue for action for policymakers interested in reducing metro/nonmetro inequalities.     

Screening Networks: shared agendas in feminist and disability movement challenges to antenatal screening and abortion

This paper identifies common ground in feminist and disability movement concerns with the social and ethical implications of antenatal screening and abortion. By examining the frameworks used by particular authors within each area, I argue that they both can and do have a shared agenda, which is focused on the social values that are embedded in antenatal screening and promote abortion as the obvious choice to the diagnosis of a congenital condition. It is important to develop some kind of shared agenda in order to construct theoretical and methodological approaches, which pay equal attention to pregnant women (disabled and non-disabled) and disabled people. To aid the development of such an agenda I draw on Actor Network Theory (ANT), which focuses on analysing the role of sociotechnical networks in securing particular social values and moral worlds. The issue for both disability studies and feminism is what kind of screening networks produce moral worlds that promote abortion, shape women's choices and express discrimination against disabled people?     

Nonstandard Employment in the Nonmetropolitan United States*

Abstract We examine the prevalence of nonstandard employment in the nonmetropolitan United States using the Current Population Survey Supplement on Contingent Work (1999 and 2001). We find that nonstandard work is more prevalent in nonmetropolitan than in central city or suburban areas. Logistic regression models controlling for sociode‐mographic and work characteristics, show that nonmetropolitan workers experience higher odds of nonstandard employment than central city or suburban workers. Variations in industrial and occupational structures in nonmetro and metro areas do not explain residential differences in nonstandard work. We also estimate the odds of employment in each of the three components of nonstandard work: contingent work, part‐time, and varied hour work. Nonmetropolitan workers are more likely than central city and suburban workers to be employed in contingent or varied hour work. The benefits and wages of nonstandard work are lower than for standard work across residence areas. The results highlight the importance of understanding nonstandard work and the components of nonstandard work, particularly when considering the nature of work across industries, occupations, and residence.     

Rural policy into the 1990s — Self help or self deception

Self help has increasingly become a popular policy option in the search for solutions to the problems of deprivation in rural Britain, although there is little evidence to suggest that this approach has ever been the subject of vigorous analysis or evaluation.Although a number of arguments have been advanced in support of self-help policies, such justifications often owe more to popular imagery than to any objective or robust evaluation of a range of policy alternatives. Indeed, this paper suggests that many of these supporting arguments are based on false images of the structure of rural society and of the real causes of rural deprivation.Despite a growing volume of objective evidence which emphasises the limitations of self help policies, however, the paper argues that they will continue to proliferate because they have now become a powerful factor on the legitimation of the social and economic policies of central and local government in Britain. They have also become a powerful legitimising force for a growing number of rural statutory and non-statutory agencies whose existence depends to varying degrees on the political and financial support of central and local Government.