Women and the Nobel Prize for peace

The Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded for over 100 years. While the formal criteria for selection have not changed, there has been an evolution in the kind of choices made. To better understand those choices I have grouped individual winners into five distinct categories. The two largest groups are national leaders working within the international legal system and peace activists. The other three are: opponents capable of exercising force who agree to stop using it; individuals pursuing justice, freedom and/or rights nonviolently as a prelude to peace; and those offering selfless service. Some winners have focused on ending conflict. This kind of peace is sometimes called `negative'. Others have sought a `positive' peace, one based on justice. While at least one woman falls into each of the categories, those which involve the application of law and/or force have only one woman each. Women are primarily peace activists. They won in ten of the seventy-one years that individuals won. Three won in the first fifty years. There was then a thirty-year hiatus, but since 1976 eight women have been winners. They vary in nationality, age and class, but in only one case did the individual work through well-established institutions. Most acted either as individuals or were founding participants in new organizations.     

Automated patient linking for electronic health record and child welfare databases

Abstract

There are 427,000 children in protective custody in the United States. A lack of integration between the child welfare data system and electronic health record systems complicates the communication of critical health history details to caregivers. We created and evaluated automated 10 custom algorithms linking these data. Deterministic matching was performed using combinations of first and last name, date of birth, and gender. If unmatched, a nondeterministic algorithm allowed for punctuation differences and letter transpositions. Of the children linked deterministically, 91.3% were linked. Of the ones undergoing nondeterministic matching, 71.3% were linked. Sharing integrated data is the first step in systematically improving health outcomes for children in protective custody. This approach represents an automatable and scalable solution that could help merge data from two disparate sources.     

Rendering Relations/Figuring Paint: The Work of Marlene Dumas in Measuring Your Own Grave

Measuring Your Own Grave is the title of a major U.S. midcareer retrospective of the work of Marlene Dumas that was on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in winter 2008/2009. The exhibition presented a vast body of figurative and portrait paintings as well as drawings, notebooks, writing, and collage. Dumas's concentrated work presents the viewer with particularly powerful images that remind one of the corporeal links between public and private life. The work challenges our particular ways of viewing and naming what we see. When looking at the others within her paintings, we are little able to escape looking too at ourselves. This article is an attempt to examine what in Dumas's work makes this so.     

A brief telephone interview to identify lesbian and bisexual women in random digit dialing sampling

Lesbian health research has most often relied on nonprobability samples that are biased and restrict generalizability. Random sampling could reduce bias, but requires development of a method for fast and reliable screening of a large number of women. We tested the feasibility of using a brief telephone interview to assess sexual attraction, behavior, and identity. Using Random Digit Dialing in a neighborhood of Boston with a high density of lesbian residents, we interviewed 202 women aged 18 to 59. Of the respondents, 33% reported some sexual attraction to other women, 20% reported sex with women since age 18, and 14% identified as a lesbian. The high level of cooperation with the study among eligible women (94%) and the high proportion of women who disclosed homosexual attraction, behavior, or identity show that it is feasible to use a brief screening questionnaire about sexuality of women over the telephone even without building special rapport with the respondents.     

Social Work Sense and Sensibility: A Framework for Teaching an Integrated Perspective

The divisions between ‘micro practice’ and ‘macro practice’ are often traced to historical splits between the originating strands of the social work profession. These splits have been reified in social work education and in institutional settings that largely focus on particular aspects of practice. We argue that this split has been overly polarized and, more importantly, disregards the science and ethics of social work—what we call the sense and sensibility of the profession. Science requires that we recognize the complexity of human activity; ethics require that we alleviate individual suffering and work to attack its root causes. Social work sense and sensibility interweave expectations that practice, policy, theory and research understandings must all be informed by, and inform, ethical social work practice. This bridging framework can help educators respond to calls for connecting all levels and types of social work practice.     

An Editorial Planning for Health Services

Abstract

The field of administration and management has undergone a steady evolution since its origin at the turn of the century. A perspective regarding that development is useful to the health service administrator. This paper examines and interprets selected writings in administration and management. The appropriateness of this open-communication model to medical settings is demonstrated and the application of this model to a specific student health service is described and discussed.     

Long-Term Care Preferences Among Older Adults: A Moving Target?

ABSTRACT

This study investigates long-term care preferences across three hypothetical scenarios and over one year of time among a sample of disabled older women receiving informal care (n?=?420). Unpaid or paid help in one's home was preferred, given scenarios of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) and activities of daily living (ADL) needs; nursing home care was most preferred for dementia care. While aggregate preferences for long-term care were relatively stable, there was considerable fluctuation in individuals' preferences over time, with just 52.5%, 44.4%, and 44.6% of participants retaining their initial first choice across IADL, ADL, and dementia scenarios, respectively. Implications of study findings are discussed.