Introduction: Population Perspectives on Sexual Minorities

Population scientists investigate a multitude of important issues surrounding demographic trends and change. Yet, sexual minorities—including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons—continue to represent an understudied group in population-based research. This has both social and political implications, as it hampers our ability to identify and locate where sexual minorities fall along the spectrum of issues typically investigated by demographers. This special issue includes important population-level studies aimed at understanding the demographic landscape for sexual minorities. Though not an exhaustive list, these include family organization, health disparities, educational attainment, and important implications for measurement and estimation. Perhaps more important, these studies also provide a roadmap that population scientists can use to help develop areas ripe for inquiry.     

Violence to Probation Staff: Patterns and Managerial Responses

This article examines the impact of violence perpetrated against probation officers. It presents empirical evidence based upon work carried out under the ESRC Violence Research Programme. It is argued that the managerial response to violence has been largely defensive and piecemeal. Professional responses to violence are context‐bound, while risk assessment is largely confined to the potential harm to the general public posed by offenders. The article concludes by arguing that more attention needs to be given to the evaluation of management responses to violence including appropriate training, and the greater organizational support for safety at work.     

Nationalism and community in North West Wales

This paper develops an explanation for the simultaneous surge in support of both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary nationalism in North West Wales. Close analysis of the way in which the concept ‘community’ is used within the process of political mobilisation provides the key to this understanding. By demonstrating that a number of social constructions of community co-exist within the same social space (in this instance. North West Wales), the paper contributes an added dimension to the understandings of community current within sociology. The paper identifies four social constructions of community, each relating to a different variant of Nationalist ideology. The capacity within the concept community to legitimate a locality simultaneously as a place of resistance and of conflict is demonstrated to be central to the explanation for the dual rise in nationalist support.     

Cross-National Sources of Health Inequality: Education and Tobacco Use in the World Health Survey

The spread of tobacco use from the West to other parts of the world, especially among disadvantaged socioeconomic groups, raises concerns not only about the indisputable harm to global health but also about worsening health inequality. Arguments relating to economic cost and diffusion posit that rising educational disparities in tobacco use—and associated disparities in health and premature mortality—are associated with higher national income and more advanced stages of cigarette diffusion, particularly among younger persons and males. To test these arguments, we use World Health Survey data for 99,661 men and 123,953 women from 50 low-income to upper-middle–income nations. Multilevel logistic regression models show that increases in national income and cigarette diffusion widen educational disparities in smoking among young persons and men but have weaker influences among older persons and women. The results suggest that the social and economic patterns of cigarette adoption across low- and middle-income nations foretell continuing, and perhaps widening, disparities in mortality.     

Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage and Adult Mortality: Insights for Racial and Ethnic Differences

While racial and ethnic differences in mortality are pervasive and well documented, less is known about how mortality risk varies by neighborhood socioeconomic status across racial and ethnic identity. We conducted a prospective analysis on a sample of adults living at or below 300% poverty with 8 years of the National Health Interview Survey (N = 159,400) linked to 11,600 deaths to examine the association between neighborhood disadvantage and mortality for non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and U.S.- and foreign-born Hispanics. Using multilevel logistic regression, we find that the probability of death from any cause for lower-income adults is higher in more-disadvantaged neighborhoods, compared to less-disadvantaged neighborhoods, but only for whites. The adjusted likelihood of death for blacks and foreign-born Hispanics is not associated with neighborhood disadvantage, and the likelihood of death for U.S.-born Hispanics is lower in more-disadvantaged neighborhoods. While future research and policy should focus on improving health-promoting resources in all communities, care should be given to better understanding why race/ethnic groups have differential mortality returns with respect to area-specific socioeconomic conditions.     

Neighborhood and social environmental influences on child chronic disease prevalence

We investigate how distinct residential environments uniquely influence chronic child disease prevalence. Aggregating over 200,000 pediatric geocoded medical records to the census tract of residence and linking them to neighborhood-level measures, we use multiple data analysis techniques to assess how heterogeneous exposures of social and environmental neighborhood conditions influence an index of child chronic disease (CCD) prevalence for the neighborhood. We find there is a graded relationship between degree of overall neighborhood disadvantage and children’s chronic disease such that the highest neighborhood CCD scores are found in communities with the highest concentrated disadvantage. After considering individual- and family-level characteristics, results show that higher levels of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage and air pollution exposure associate with higher risks of children having at least one chronic condition. Overall, our analysis serves as a comprehensive start for future researchers interested in assessing which neighborhood factors matter most for child chronic health conditions.     

Cancer Screening Utilization Among U.S. Women: How Mammogram and Pap Test Use Varies Among Heterosexual,Lesbian, and Bisexual Women

Existing research on cancer screening utilization among sexual minority women in the U.S. has mostly relied on non-random samples that combine lesbian and bisexual women into a single group. We respond to these limitations by examining the relationship between sexual orientation and cancer screening among a sample of U.S. women from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Our analytic sample includes 2273 lesbian, 1689 bisexual, and 174,839 heterosexual women interviewed in 15 U.S. states between 2000 and 2010. We examine two cancer screening measures: timely mammogram and pap tests, defined as having had a mammogram in the past 2 years for women aged 40 and older, and having had a pap test in the past 3 years for women aged 21–65. For mammogram, results showed that rates of timely use did not significantly differ by sexual orientation. However, lesbian and bisexual women report significantly lower rates of timely pap testing than heterosexual women. Logistic regression results on timely pap testing showed that lower pap test use for bisexual women is primarily driven by their poorer socioeconomic status relative to heterosexual women, while the significantly lower odds of timely pap testing for lesbian women were unaffected by control measures. Better understanding of cancer screening utilization disparities among lesbian and bisexual women is necessary to address morbidity and mortality disparities by sexual orientation.     

Liberal Chiefs or Illiberal Development? The Challenge of Engaging Chiefs in DFID's Security Sector Reform Programme in Sierra Leone

It is increasingly recognised that informal actors, including chiefs, are dominant providers of services and need to be factored into overwhelmingly state‐focused programmes. This article looks at the ability of the UK's Department for International Development to engage with the chieftaincy system in Sierra Leone through its security sector reform programme – a relationship which poses important political challenges.