Building bridges: the interface between adult mental health and child protection

Bringing together two distinct professional systems such as adult mental health and child protection challenges our strategies for making effective working together/working in partnership arrangements. And yet failures to make these arrangements increase the risk for children who may be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm as an outcome of their parents'/carers' mental health problems. This paper offers an analysis of the challenges inherent in bringing these systems together at the assessment interface, and offers some insights into the contribution each system can make to an integrated assessment process for children and their families. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preschool-aged children's responses to unfairness and subsequent sharing behavior in dyadic contexts

Recent research implicates the importance of social and contextual factors in children's fair behavior. Here, we explored the social and emotional influences that might contribute to fair behavior in young children. We examined 79 pairs of 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 158; 85 female; M = 4.3 years; Range = 3.03–5.54) in a naturalistic sharing interaction to measure their verbal, emotional, and behavioral responses to an unfair distribution of rewards, as well as their subsequent sharing behavior. Children who received fewer rewards responded verbally, behaviorally, and emotionally as predicted, protesting the unfair distribution. However, children who received more rewards either failed to notice their partner's responses, or they failed to consider these responses when given the chance to behave prosocially and correct the unfair distribution. The only cue that predicted prosociality was a negative affective response from the disadvantaged peer.     

The Gender Gap in Attitudes About Childlessness in the United States

Acceptance of childlessness has increased since the 1970s, with women reporting greater acceptance than men. Using the National Survey of Families and Households (1987 – 1988; N = 10,648) and the General Social Survey (1994; N =1,395), we examined this gender gap as it relates to both structural and sociocultural factors, including religion, gender attitudes, and other attitudes about gender and family. Women were more likely than men to hold positive attitudes about childlessness, and women’s less traditional attitudes about marriage, gender equality, and women’s employment only partially explained this difference. In the childbearing ages, positive attitudes were strongly related to intentions to remain childless and showed a greater gender gap at higher education levels. The findings highlight important differences in men’s and women’s experiences of family, work, and gender issues.     

Current Views on the Oral Bioavailability of Inorganic Mercury in Soil: Implications for Health Risk Assessments

Due to the presence of mercury at a number of major contaminated sites in the United States, the bioavailability of inorganic mercury in soil following ingestion has emerged as an important public health issue. Studies of the leachability/solubility of inorganic mercury in soil have shown that it is largely immobile, thereby suggesting that it will not be readily available for absorption in the gastrointestinal tract. Ignoring the effect of the soil matrix on decreasing bioavailability may result in a substantial overprediction of risks due to ingestion of contaminated soil. This paper discusses current knowledge about the oral bioavailability of inorganic mercury in soil and offers suggestions about how these data may be applied in human health risk assessment. Though precise estimates are not available, in vivo and in vitro estimates of the bioavailability of different inorganic mercury species in different matrices suggest that the bioavailability of mercury in soil is likely to be significantly less, on the order of at least three- to tenfold, than the bioavailability of mercuric chloride, the species used to derive the toxicity criteria for inorganic mercury. Because bioavailability can vary significantly with soil type, soil aging, the presence of co-contaminants and other factors, it is suggested that whenever the fiscal aspects justify a more precise estimate of bioavailability, site-specific estimates be developed. To develop a database for identifying a less expensive and more efficient method for estimating bioavailability, it is suggested that in vivo studies be conducted concurrently with in vitro studies. However, due to the lack of precision associated with the derivation of the most widely-used health guidance value for inorganic mercury (the US EPA RfD), additional work to address the uncertainties in the RfD is recommended.     

Efficiencies in Variance Estimation for Complex Survey Data

Data from complex survey designs require special consideration, with regard to variance estimation and analysis, because of design components that include unequal selection probabilities, stratification, and clustering. Using data from the National Medical Care Expenditure Survey, which is characterized by a complex survey design, four variance estimation programs are compared: SESUDAAN/RATIOEST, SUPERCARP, PSALMS, and HESBRR. The comparisons concentrate on program capabilities, computational efficiency, and user facility.     

The Evolution of a Contested Concept: A Meta‐Analysis of Social Capital Definitions and Trends (1988–2006)*

This paper offers a meta‐analysis that traces the contested meaning and use of social capital in sociological research over the last 18 years by focusing on journal article definitions. We identify six common definitions in use that closely correspond to the original—and in some cases, independent—formulations offered by Hanifan, Putnam, Coleman, Bourdieu, and Granovetter. Drawing from Kuhnian theory, we contend that these definitions illuminate deep divisions between those who understand social capital as a normative “cure‐all” ( Portes 1998 )—in the tradition of Hanifan, Putnam, and Coleman —and those who view it as a resource—in the tradition of Bourdieu and Granovetter—that may be used to create or maintain social inequality. The transition of social capital from preparadigm to paradigm status may potentially involve an integration of these approaches, but this will require greater consideration of power and inequality on the part of normative theorists, who are currently dominating the debate.     

Distinguishing the geographic levels and social dimensions of U.S. metropolitan segregation, 1960–2000

In this article, we assess trends in residential segregation in the United States from 1960 to 2000 along several dimensions of race and ethnicity, class, and life cycle and present a method for attributing segregation to nested geographic levels. We measured segregation for metropolitan America using the Theil index, which is additively decomposed into contributions of regional, metropolitan, center city-suburban, place, and tract segregation. This procedure distinguishes whether groups live apart because members cluster in different neighborhoods, communities, metropolitan areas, or regions. Substantively, we found that the segregation of blacks decreased considerably after 1960 largely because neighborhoods became more integrated, but the foreign born became more segregated largely because they concentrated in particular metropolitan areas. Class segregation increased between 1970 and 1990 mainly because the affluent increasingly clustered in specific metropolitan areas and in specific municipalities within metropolitan areas. The unmarried increasingly congregated in center cities. The main purpose of this article is to describe and illustrate this multilevel approach to studying segregation.     

A comparison of performance outcomes between the Minnesota Rate of Manipulation Test and the Minnesota Manual Dexterity Test

This study examined the performance outcomes between two tests of manual dexterity, the Minnesota Rate of Manipulation Test [1] and the Minnesota Manual Dexterity Test (1981). Even though the tests are constructed differently and are different versions of the Complete Minnesota Dexterity tests, both tests utilize the same instruction manual and the same normative data. The researchers measured 233 random participants at a Midwestern international airport and in the student center at a local university in Indiana. Each participant completed three trials of a subtest on both versions of the test. One sample t-tests on difference scores indicated statistically significant differences on outcomes of both subtest comparisons as well as overall test score differences (p < 0.000). These significantly different outcomes on the two tests illustrate the need to establish separate normative data on the latest version of the test, the Minnesota Manual Dexterity Test.