Nativity and Self‐Assessed Health among Pre‐Retirement Age Hispanics and Non‐Hispanic Whites1

Economic, social and familial resources are known to influence subjective health assessments. We examine the salience of nativity in determining how these resources influence self‐assessed health using a large, nationwide sample of Hispanic and non‐Hispanic white adults. The results indicate that while education, accumulated assets and marital status benefit the physical and emotional health of the native and foreign‐born, family resources and income are significant only for the native‐born. English language proficiency is a significant protective factor for both groups and is especially protective for immigrants. These surprising findings call into question previous studies stressing the positive role of the family in maintaining immigrant health.     

Towards more productive industrial relations

The author suggests that a critical factor in bringing about an overall improvement in the UK's economic performance is an improvement in Industrial Relations—with the aim of achieving levels of productivity which match the best in the world. The article asks how this is to be done; what has gone wrong; and, more importantly, what can be done to improve the situation in the future.     

Planning and health care—The approach in a reorganized NHS

From April 1974, National Health Service authorities have been merged to provide integrated and comprehensive services. The reorganization policies place considerable emphasis on the need for management and planning but planning for health services is not well developed. Ambiguous operational objectives and obscured criteria for effectiveness are not the most promising basis for planning. Nevertheless, a commendable beginning is to be made on planning comprehensively through a systematic annual review of Government health service policies and planning and programming procedures for health authorities. The outlines of the system are described and the prospects for success and further development are considered.     

TOR pathway: linking nutrient sensing to life span

Recent studies point to an emerging role for the TOR (target of rapamycin) pathway in the regulation of life span. In this Perspective, we discuss the possibility that this pathway is an important modulator of nutrient-dependent changes in life span. Additionally, we discuss the interactions between the TOR and insulin-like signaling pathways as well as the key downstream processes that TOR regulates.     

Characteristics of effective providers of marital and family therapy in rural mental health settings

Characteristics of effective providers of marital and family therapy (MFT) in rural mental health settings were investigated. The survey sample included 74 members of the National Association for Rural Mental Health who, through a modified Delphi process, created a composite picture of effective MFT providers. The findings yielded six major rank-ordered characteristics of effective MFT providers in rural mental health settings, with effective skills in MFT ranked first. Rural community understanding, appreciation and participation ranked second. Specific competencies contributing to each major characteristic were also identified and are discussed. Recommendations for use of this information are provided.     

Everything I needed to know about medical management I learned in acting school

Some people are doctors. Some people play them on TV. Brian Meltzer could probably do both. A physician executive at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Meltzer relies on skills he learned in acting school to help manage business decisions. In the first of several essays for The Physician Executive, Meltzer explains how acting can help you become a better leader.     

Conditional Generalized Liouville Distributions on the Simplex

Liouville and generalized Liouville distributions on the simplex have been proposed for modeling compositional data and have been shown to be free from the extreme independence structure that characterizes the Dirichlet class. In this article, generalized Liouville distributions are shown to be rich enough to distinguish some lesser modes of independence as well. Unfortunately, it is noted that the applicability of the Liouville family will be limited, owing to the lack of invariance with respect to the chosen fill-up value. As an alternative, a new family of simplex distributions is proposed, one that admits invariance with respect to choice of fill-up value, as well as the ability to differentiate among many forms of independence.