Changes in the group defined as severely mentally ill: five years after the mental health-care reform in Sweden

A mental health-care reform was implemented in Sweden in 1995. The objective of this study has been to investigate whether, five years after the reform, there were any changes in the group of persons considered to be severely mentally ill. To estimate the number and needs of severely mentally ill persons, a survey was made in 1995/96 and again in 2000/2001, using the same definition of 'severely mentally ill', and the same interview form used on both occasions. Needs were assessed using the Camberwell Assessment of Need. In the 1995/96 survey, 602 individuals were identified as severely mentally ill. In 2000/2001, the number was 828. Those surveyed in 2000/2001 had, on average, fewer unmet needs. The results indicate that one reason for the difference in the size of the groups was that the way the concept of severely mentally ill was interpreted had changed.     

Social work programmes in the social democratic welfare regime

In this article we examine the emergence of social worker training in the Nordic countries and discuss the possible effects that the social democratic welfare regime has had on such training. We also discuss the development in recent decades of the academisation of the training and the establishment of social work as a subject of research and teaching. The early history of social worker education is based on archival material, national inquiries and secondary sources. Our presentation of the recent history of social work education is based on the responses to a questionnaire sent to teachers of social work in 33 Nordic social work programmes, and on a survey of course syllabi and prospectuses. It is also based on the reading lists for the social work courses in these programmes.     

On Property and Exploitation

The authors contend that what can legitimately be owned in a free society is only rights to physical property, not to the value thereof. You are thus free to undermine the value of our property by underselling us, by inventing a new substitute for our property, etc. But you cannot legitimately physically agress against our property, even if its value remains constant despite your efforts. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Generating random weak orders and the probability of a Condorcet winner

We present an algorithm for generating a random weak order of m objects in which all possible weak orders are equally likely. The form of the algorithm suggests analytic expressions for the probability of a Condorcet winner both for linear and for weak preference orders. Received: 6 April 2000/Accepted: 31 January 2001     

China's health insurance system in transformation: Preliminary assessment, and policy suggestions

As long ago as the 1980s, in tandem with its gradual implementation of market economy reforms, the Chinese central government also began to introduce changes in the field of social security as part of a move away from the dominant principle of state provision towards a greater espousal of the insurance principle. For demographic reasons, but also in an effort to get the private sector to pay a greater share of the cost, the intention was that future social security should be shaped in a way which combined universal, pay-as-you-go basic provision with individually funded supplementary provision. While the first half of the 1990s saw the establishment of a broadly uniform system of basic pensions, the 1998 attempt to introduce a general system of basic health insurance has not yet proved comprehensively successful, even for the population of the towns and cities, despite the success of pilot projects. This article, based on wide-ranging field studies, seeks to assess progress to date and future prospects for success, from a Chinese and an international perspective. Consideration is given to the situation of both the urban and rural populations.