A global disability indicator

Disability is difficulty performing roles and activities due to health problems. It is largely experienced by older persons as they accumulate progressive chronic conditions. To measure functional status of individuals and populations, contemporary surveys include sets of detailed items about disability. Little effort has gone into developing global indicators of disability that cover the concept briefly but well. A global disability indicator is a compact and inexpensive device for public health surveillance and scientific study of disablement. I present and critique items that have been used in North American surveys. Good candidates are selected for methodological study. Both laboratory-based cognitive studies and large-scale statistical studies are recommended; the first will reveal meanings of items and responses and the second, items' systematic structure and prediction ability. The ultimate goal is to identify one or a few fine indicators for widespread inclusion in population health surveys.     

PARENTS,PEERS, PERCEIVED PRESSURE,AND ADOLESCENT SELF-CONCEPT: IS A DAUGHTER A DAUGHTER ALL OF HER LIFE?

Data collected in 1981 from 316 high-SES junior and senior high students suggest support for traditional perspectives regarding sex-differentiated self-esteem. While a significant proportion of the variance in self-esteem level is predicted by perceived approval and support from family for both girls and boys in junior high school, high school females and males drawn from the same community differ substantially. Cues of family approval continue to predict a large proportion of the variance in high school girls' self-concept, but are no longer significant for high school boys. Acceptance by friends is an important element for males at all school levels, and accounts for a small but significant proportion of the variance in high school but not junior high school girls' self-esteem scores. Daughters may not "be daughters' all of their lives, but our data suggest that young females still going to school and living at home are much more dependent on family approval and support than are young males in the same situation.     

Postnatal Effects of Prenatal Insult

Exogenous agents may perturb development during the embryonic period and adversely affect the formation of organs. However, adverse effects on development are not limited to the embryonic period nor are the manifestations restricted solely to outright gross structural malformation, but may instead be expressed as a decrement or abberration of postnatal function. Susceptibility to altered development may extend well into the postnatal period. Studies of functional parameters in several organ systems have demonstrated the broad-based susceptibility, subtlety of expression and potential of long-lasting effects of altered development assessed by physiologic assays. Adverse effects on functional development, whether in the CNS, reproductive, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, respiratory, or immune systems, etc., merit continuing investigation. From the viewpoint of risk estimation and hazard detection, evaluations of postnatal functional parameters may be relevant for several reasons. First, such parameters may serve as low-dose triggers. Second, they may be useful as a focal point for epidemiological studies. Finally, a more thorough understanding of the degree and magnitude of such postnatal functional deficits is needed since an adverse maternal effect may be transient, considered acceptable, or unperceived, but the effect on the conceptus may be permanent and severe. The immune and respiratory systems are discussed as two examples of how subtle and protean adverse effects on functional development may be.     

Child Welfare Workers' Adoption of Decision Support Technology

Child welfare workers must process complex information in deciding to refer clients to appropriate mental health services. Decision support systems have been demonstrated in other fields to be an important tool, yet little research has been done in child welfare. This study focused on the adoption of a specific decision support system into child welfare practice. Quantitative analysis was used to demonstrate the diffusion of innovation process among a sample of state child welfare workers, while qualitative analysis was used to explain the facilitators and barriers to decision support systems adoption. Results indicate that for decision support systems to be widely adopted in child welfare practice, they should be integrated into the referral system and include workers' knowledge and experiences with referral resources. For successful adoption, decision support systems need to respect the natural logic and flow of worker interaction as well as organizational constraints.     

What Narrows the Stepgap? Closeness Between Parents and Adult (Step)Children in Germany

Using data from the German Family Panel (pairfam) based on 11,746 intergenerational family relationships, the present study examined differences in parental closeness across relations with multiple, coresidential, and non‐coresidential adolescent and adult children. Replicating previous research in a multilevel analysis across families, the authors found a strong positive effect of biological descent on closeness in comparison to adoptive and steprelations; this parental favoritism toward biological offspring was partly explained by selection via parental resources and attitudes. Supplemental within‐parent fixed effect analyses suggested that the relative disadvantage of stepchildren was offset by longer duration of the stepparent–stepchild relationship, lower household income, fewer children in the household, and high parental affirmation of familism.