Risky Sexual Behaviors and Pregnancy Outcomes in Young Adulthood Following Substantiated Childhood Maltreatment: Findings From a Prospective Birth Cohort Study

Childhood maltreatment is associated with a range of adverse mental and physical health outcomes, including increased rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) later in life. However, the impact on risky sexual behaviors and pregnancy outcomes has not been adequately studied. This is particularly true for physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. We examined associations between prospectively substantiated childhood maltreatment and reports of risky sexual behaviors by men and women, as well as selected pregnancy outcomes in women. We followed up 3,081 (45.7% female) participants from the Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy, a prospective Australian birth cohort study. Using logistic regression, we examined the association between substantiated childhood maltreatment from birth to 14 years, and self-reported risky sexual behaviors and youth pregnancy outcomes at the 21-year follow-up. In adjusted analyses, children who had experienced multiple childhood maltreatment exhibited more risky sexual behaviors than their nonmaltreated counterparts. In specific models, those exposed to each form of childhood maltreatment, independent of co-occurring forms of childhood maltreatment, had an increased likelihood of risky sexual behaviors, particularly an early sexual debut and, for women, youth pregnancy. Neglect was also associated with multiple sexual partners, and emotional abuse with higher rates of miscarriage. There was no difference between men and women in how different forms of childhood maltreatment predicted risky sexual behaviors in young adulthood. All forms of substantiated childhood maltreatment, including multiple substantiations, were associated with risky sexual behavior in both sexes as well as higher rates of youth pregnancy in women. Moreover, emotional abuse persistently predicted miscarriages in young adult women. Understanding the association between childhood maltreatment and risky sexual behaviors and youth pregnancy outcomes may help suggest preventive strategies.     

Service(s) Marketing Research: Developments and Directions

This paper outlines the development of research in the domain of service(s) marketing from its birth as an area of academic study in the 1960s/1970s to the current time. It identifies four phases of development. Phases 1–3 relate to the period before 2004, which focuses on the development of service(s) marketing. In Phase 4, a greater focus on the concept of service (singular) – defined as the application of knowledge and skills – has resulted in developments and directions in service research that offer a different perspective through which to view more general marketing. This different perspective has explicit implications also for wider business and management research. The paper summarizes current research in this domain, which coalesces around three broad perspectives, namely, the service‐dominant logic of marketing, technology and service, and transformative service research. It concludes by outlining likely trends for service research into the future. Three interrelated directions are suggested: research on service in a changing context; research responding to academic schools of thought; and research responding to consumer trends.     

Diet of Florida coyotes in a protected wildland and suburban habitat

Coyotes (Canis latrans) arrived to Florida (USA) in the 1960s and are currently found throughout most of the state. The purpose of this study was to determine if the diet of Florida coyotes differed between suburban and wildland habitat types or across seasons. Fresh coyote fecal samples were collected from wildland and suburban habitats in Pinellas County, Florida (USA; 27°54′N, 82°41′W) from May 2005 to March 2007. Diet items in the 49 wildland and 71 suburban samples were identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level by gross morphological characteristics and medullary configurations of dorsal guard hairs. A Poisson regression was utilized to determine the main and interactive effects of habitat and season on the number of different food items per sample. Coyotes in the wildland habitat had greater diet diversity than suburban coyotes. In addition, anthropogenic waste was recovered over twice as often from coyote fecal samples collected in the suburban habitat. In the wildland habitat, vegetative matter (96%), Insecta (53%), and Rodentia (45%) were recovered most often, as opposed to berries (56%) and Lagomorpha (32%) in the suburban habitat. In both habitats, vegetative matter, berries, and Lagomorpha were recovered most often from coyote fecal samples, whereas Odocoileus virginianus, Lagomorpha, and berries varied the most between wet and dry seasons. This study suggests that as urbanization increases, diet diversity for the coyote will likely decrease and consumption of anthropogenic items will likely increase. As a result of this, human–coyote conflicts may become more common—particularly in counties, like Pinellas, that are undergoing urbanization.     

Jokers wild: the importance of humour in the maintenance of organizational culture

Humour may have a number of different effects within organizations, but it is usually manifested in one of two major‘joke forms’: standardized/canned or situation/spontaneous. Using examples of each from fieldwork conducted in a large manufacturing bakery, it is argued that both forms depend for their effect on their appositeness to the‘joke in the social structure’Both forms share the capacity to enable the reversal, within the humorous framework, of problematic social relations, patterns of control, or customary mystifications. Humour may be used to create ambiguity or to promote closure: its impact on the organizational culture will depend on the extent to which the symbolic transformations achieved within its boundaries can be transposed into material,‘real-world’relationships.     

Parent and Child Therapy: An Attachment‐Based Intervention for Children With Challenging Problems

Parent and Child Therapy (PACT) is an attachment‐based intervention for children aged between 4 and 12 years old experiencing emotional and behavioural problems. It is appropriate for distressed parent—child relationships which have not responded to systemic family therapy. PACT seeks to reframe parent—child relationship distress using narrative techniques and experiential tasks based on the concept of supported looking. Therapy occurs in parallel for parent and child using a one‐way screen. PACT improves parents' reflective capacity and sensitivity, and for the child's sense of security in her primary attachment relationship. An outline of the four stages of PACT is presented along with a case study to illustrate the course of PACT. Finally, we discuss the dissemination of PACT within a busy child and adolescent mental health service and outline our plans for future outcome evaluation.     

The relative autonomy of the state and the origins of British welfare policy

This paper assesses the relative influence of organizational vs. class power in affecting the timing and the shape of the British welfare reforms of 1908–1911. Rather than viewing these reforms as either the outcome of the direct pressure of business or as an internal response from a newly bureaucratized state to solve social problems, this analysis finds more evidence for a perspective that emphasizes the more indirect, more mediated class biases inherent in the British state as setting the context within which action on welfare reform occurred. Specifically, I argue that state managers used their newly developed organizational capacity to shape the Liberal reforms according to their own purposes but these purposes were limited by several class-based factors. The historical conclusions point to a synthesis of the relative autonomy approaches to the capitalist state advanced in the neo-Marxist work of Poulantzas, Offe, and Block.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1988 meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.