Guest editorial

Statistics and Computing -     

Empirical Comparison Between Capability and Two Health-Related Quality of Life Measures

The Investigating Choice Experiments Capability Measure (ICECAP) is a new preference-based measure of the extent to which a person is able to achieve attributes or capabilities related to the quality of life. Conceptually, it differs from health-related quality of life (HRQoL) as the focus is upon the ability or capacity to achieve as distinct from the current experience of the attributes. The objective of this study was to explore the empirical relationships between capability as assessed by the ICECAP for Adults (ICECAP-A) and HRQoL as assessed by the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL)-8D and the five-level EuroQol Five Dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D). To compare these measures, the study employed self-reported survey data from the healthy public and from seven disease areas in five countries. Results indicate that, despite their conceptual origins, the ICECAP-A is strongly associated with the AQoL-8D and that the clear distinction between capabilities and HRQoL found in other studies is attributable to the use of the EQ-5D in the comparison and the weaker association between the EQ-5D and ICECAP-A. The suggestion that ICECAP-A should be included in evaluation studies along with a HRQoL instrument is more persuasive when the instrument is the EQ-5D. The case for its inclusion with other HRQoL instruments requires further research and evaluation.     

The dark arts of good people: How popular culture negotiates ‘spin’in NBC's The West Wing1

This paper argues that the popular American TV series The West Wing provides, within popular culture, a sympathetic and realistic view of the work of the political ‘spin doctor’. This enterprise is sociolinguistically interesting because of the extensive range of metalinguistic and metacommunicative reflection which it involves. The West Wing centres its storytelling within the world of the spin doctor, thus making such characters central to the narrative: further, it constructs them as likeable, virtuous characters who are also clever. Their cleverness is a matter of sociolinguistic performance expressed in dialogue which displays their professional writing craft skills and their spontaneous witty badinage.     

The dilemma of essentiality in homosexual theory

A close examination of the literature on homosexuality reveals a long history of definitional crises in which the central consideration has been the maintenance of a belief in homosexuality as a state of being. This paper asks what, if anything, can be considered essential to the homosexual category. To answer this question, various approaches to homosexuality in the literature have been examined: as a general state of being (the person), as a state of desire (sexual orientation), as a form of behavior (sexual acts), and, more recently, as a personal identification (sexual identity). In addition, the interrelationships of these categorizations are explored.     

The relationship between training availability and social workers' ability to treat problem drinkers

An explanatory cross sectional investigation was employed to assess how well master's level social work (MSW) programs in the State of New York prepare students for practice with problem drinkers. Five hundred and fifty questionnaires were mailed to members of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). A non-probability sample, consisting of 41 male and 48 female respondents (n = 89), was obtained. Fewer than 3% of the sample reported the completion of an alcohol related course as a degree requirement. Field placement completion was totally overlooked as a degree requirement. Findings imply that clients with alcohol problems are at risk of going untreated due to the lack of training social workers receive while completing their MSW programs and their subsequent inability to diagnose problem drinkers.     

THE ELUSIVE QUEST FOR ‘THOSE MOST IN NEED’

It seems plausible to argue that scarce resources such as social security payments should be targeted to those most in need, and that income should play a large role in defining need. Even though some aspects of targeting, such as whether to have tapered means tests or not, are obviously political in nature, it may appear that at least the identification of ‘those most in need’ in terms of income is largely a technical exercise. The argument of this article is that even the measurement of income is only partly a technical exercise.¹ It is also a highly problematic and political one that will always lead to understandable resentment on the part of the ‘nearly poor’, that is, those who are excluded by policy decisions regarding components of the scale by which income is assessed. We illustrate this with an example of a hypothetical family payment where those who are classified as ‘poor’ and ‘nearly poor’ on one income-scale are classified otherwise on a plausible alternative scale. It does not follow that targeting of payments on the basis of income should be abandoned. But it does suggest that all targeting should be recognised for the blunt political instrument that it is, and that its status as a precise technical tool for achieving greater efficiency be regarded with less confidence than is currently fashionable.     

Public duty and private prejudice: sexualities equalities and local government

Rather than critiquing social institutions and practices that have historically excluded lesbians and gay men, as did earlier social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, since the 1990s the politics of sexuality has increasingly been about demanding equal rights of citizenship. These citizenship demands have, at least to a degree, been answered via a raft of recent legislation in the UK including the Adoption and Children Act 2002, Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and by associated changes in policy making and practice that emphasize ‘Equality and Diversity’. In this article we consider how the implementation of sexualities equalities policies is related to processes of privatization and individualization. This is illustrated by using sexualities equalities work in local government as a case study to indicate how processes of change and resistance are aided by these processes. The article draws on findings from a study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equalities initiatives in local government in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which examined the views of those who now have a public duty to implement recent legislative and policy shifts and are obliged to develop equalities initiatives concerning ‘sexual orientation' and ‘gender reassignment’.