The print media and aging policy: how differential coverage of Medicare Catastrophic led congress astray

This article examines the role of the print media in covering complex policy issues. Two models of journalism are considered. "Pack journalism" predicts that print media coverage will be highly consistent in content due to the reliance by those in the media on the same sources of information. In this article, another model--"Beltway journalism"--is proposed. It implies that coverage by the print media indigenous to the Washington, D.C. area (inside the Beltway) will diverge from that of other print media, presenting a potentially distorted view of the world to policymakers in Washington. Using the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as possible indicators of the two models, aging policy is addressed through a case study of newspaper coverage during passage and repeal of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. Findings suggest that Congress was unduly influenced by the way that Medicare Catastrophic was framed in the Washington Post, lending credence to the Beltway journalism model. By paying insufficient attention to the way Medicare Catastrophic was being framed by sources of print outside the Beltway area, lawmakers allowed themselves to assume a grassroots-level understanding of the issue and support for the bill, both of which turned out to be illusory.     

The new health care civilization: integration of physician land and manageria

Changes occurring in health care demand that physicians expand their professional knowledge and skills beyond the medical and behavioral sciences. Subjects absent from traditional medical education curricula, such as the economics and politics of health care, practice management, and leadership of professional organizations, will become important competencies, particularly for physicians who serve in management roles. Because physicians occupy a central role in planning and allocating medical care services and other health care resources, they must be better prepared to work with other health care professionals to create a new civilization, even if this means leaving the cloistered domain of "physician land" to serve as interface professionals between the delivery of medical services and the management of health care. Our research findings and conclusions strongly suggest that economic, management, and leadership competencies need to be incorporated into the professional development of physicians, especially in postgraduate and continuing education curricula.     

The new illegal immigration in Japan, 1980-1992

"This article presents some of the latest available figures on illegal immigration in Japan, a process that did not assume significant proportions until the mid-1980s. It also discusses briefly the latest developments around 'immigration' policy--more precisely, the law on the entry and exit of aliens."     

Women's income generation activities in Merowe Province,Northern State,Sudan

Merowe province in rural northern Sudan has been divided into three local government council areas: Merowe, Karima, and Ed Debba. A government program was instituted to increase the welfare of residents and food production. A baseline survey of 490 respondents was conducted in order to ascertain how illiterate women viewed development in the area and to provide useful information for program design and implementation. Women from 24 villages were administered questionnaires, observed in their daily activities, and engaged in discussion in a local meeting place. Discussions were also held with members of the local Popular Committee. Demographic information was very sketchy about age, and 48% had no formal education in writing and reading. General reading and writing skills of the remainder were very poor. There were 500 female children and 502 male children, and the sex ratio varied among the 3 council areas. 52% were married and 14% were divorced or widowed and living with relatives. The average monthly income was from Ls. 700 to Ls. 3000 based on reports from only 59.3% of respondents. Most of the women had skills in food processing and 25.7% were skilled in handicrafts. Water was obtained primarily from local wells and not decontaminated before use. Pit latrines were the standard. One bathing facility was available in the compound for the entire council area. Health units were either in each village or within 20-30 minutes walk. Child mortality was 4.3% in Merowe province. 77 children 0-5 years old died out of a total of 1002 live births. Life expectancy was 41-50 years for women and 61-70 years for men. Cleanliness and healthful eating were observed. 58% owned no land; plots were under 5 feddans and usually half a feddan. 92.1% had no bank account and 90% had no experience with loans. 70.2% were indifferent about involvement in an income generation program. 26% were interested in part-time participation. Only 3.9% desired full-time participation. 8.6% said they wanted raw materials to produce handicrafts, and 21% said they wanted cash to raise livestock. 28.4% had radios. 80.4% lacked any farm equipment. 7.6% owned an electric pump and 7% had an ox plough. A program could be offered after lunch and coordinated with other activities after 4 P.M. at a local center. The population would have to be oriented to business and income generation would have to be planned very carefully.     

Ropes course training for youth in a rural setting: “At first I thought it was going to be boring ...”

Outdoor structured activities, such as Ropes Challenge Courses, are typically utilized as interventions for youth coming from urban settings. Evaluation of such programs is scanty at best. In this instance, the course experience is used as a prevention tool for high risk youth in a remote, rural setting of high unemployment, alcohol problems, and low income. The authors discuss the effectiveness of this approach, and the intended and unintended consequences for the rural community at large. The evaluation design relies on extensive qualitative methodology as well as quantitative methods to capture the unique nature of this rural project.     

Freud's “Anna O.”: Social work's Bertha Pappenheim

The story of Anna O. has loomed large in psychoanalytic history, but few social workers know that the young woman, who was so influential in the development of Freud's thinking, became a pioneer social worker in Germany. The story of the transformation of the troubled young woman, who was actually Joseph Breuer's patient, is the focus of this paper. In addition, some of the facts of the case are discussed as social constructions. Anna O./ Bertha Pappenheim participated in the creation of the talking cure and eventually went on to be a leading feminist, developer of social programs for women, and social reformer.     

“Consumer Confidence” Indexes as social indicators

Consumer Confidence Indexes can be sensibly used in economic and social research conducted in theoretical and methodological framework of social indicators research. They are good predictors of other attitudes, such as voting preferences. Voting preferences are determined much more strongly by expectations of changes in economic conditions than by evaluations of present situation. On the other hand, Consumer Sentiment Indexes — irrespective whether they concern future or present times — are correlated more strongly with leading than with coincident indexes of economic cycles. That proves very important role of predictions, expectations and hopes in attitude formation.     

Nondictatorially independent pairs

Suppose that social welfare function f satisfies the Pareto condition and has complete and transitive values. On a domain satisfying the free quadruple property, if the outcome set X has m< outcomes, then the set of pairs of distinct alternatives on which f satisfies both independence and nondictatorship contains at most the fraction 2/m of all pairs. On a domain satisfying the free six-tuple property, if X is a subset of Euclidean space then the set of pairs on which f satisfies both independence and nondictatorship has Lebesgue measure zero.Campbell's research was financed by the National Science Foundation, grant SES 9209039.     

Economic integration and labor flows: stage migration in farm labor markets in Mexico and the United States

"This article examines the probable effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on migration from Mexico to the United States, disputing the view that expansion of jobs in Mexico could rapidly reduce undocumented migration. To the extent that NAFTA causes Mexican export agriculture to expand, migration to the United States will increase rather than decrease in the short run. Data collected in both California and the Mexican State of Baja California show that indigenous migrants from southern Mexico typically first undertake internal migration, which lowers the costs and risks of U.S. migration. Two features of employment in export agriculture were found to be specially significant in lowering the costs of U.S. migration: first, working in export agriculture exposes migrants to more diverse social networks and information about U.S. migration; second, agro-export employment in northern Mexico provides stable employment, albeit low-wage employment, for some members of the family close to the border (especially women and children) while allowing other members of the family to assume the risks of U.S. migration."     

"SECRET BALLOTS" AND SELF-REPORTS IN AN EXIT-POLL EXPERIMENT

A controlled exit-poll experiment on Election Day (November3, 1992) shows that refusals to answer questions and other evasiveforms of responding were significantly lower when respondentswere given a self-administered "secret-ballot" questionnairethan when they were interviewed face-to-face. While there weresome suggestive interactions of this mode-of-data collectioneffect with age and sex, and with the partisan atmosphere ofthe precinct in which the interviews were conducted, they wereborderline in significance, inconsistent in pattern, or difficuitto interpret. More important, comparisons with official electionreturns (the truth) indicated that the secret-ballot techniquewas more accurate than were face-to-face interviews in estimatingthe final outcome on the most socially sensitive of three self-reportedvotes: a vote for or against a tax levy for elderly services.Using a genuine secret ballot in the tradition of the olderGallup preelection polls can thus increase the validity of self-reportsin exit polls today.