Causes and outcomes in studies of fear of childbirth: A systematic review

Problem

Fear of childbirth negatively affects women during pregnancy and after birth.

Educational and employment outcomes of adults formerly placed in foster care: Results from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study

This study evaluated the intermediate and long-term effects of family foster care on adult functioning using a sample of 659 young adults from two public and one private child welfare agencies, case record reviews, structured interviews, and a survey response rate of 76%. Foster care alumni completed high school at a rate comparable to the general population, but a disproportionately high number of them completed high school via a GED. Alumni completion rates for postsecondary education were low. Consequently, many alumni were in fragile economic situations: one-third of the alumni had household incomes at or below the poverty level, one-third had no health insurance, and more than one in five experienced homelessness after leaving foster care. Two foster care experience areas were estimated to significantly reduce the number of undesirable outcomes in the Education outcome domain: positive placement history (e.g., high placement stability, few failed reunifications), and having broad independent living preparation (as exemplified by having concrete resources upon leaving care). For the Employment and Finances outcome domain, receiving broad independent living preparation (as exemplified by having concrete resources upon leaving care) was estimated to significantly reduce the number of undesirable outcomes.     

Principal Agency Theory and Health Care Utilization

This article uses a principal agent framework to examine the role that monitoring costs faced by an insurer have on health care utilization. We compare hospital lengths of stay for fee-for-service and capitated patients in low and high monitoring cost situations. Monitoring costs associated with a particular procedure are assumed to be high when there is large variation across patients in hospital lengths of stay. The empirical results indicate that differences in utilization between fee-for-service and capitated patients increase as monitoring costs increase. However, we do not find that fee-for-service reimbursement is used less in the difficult to monitor situations. (JEL I1 )     

Drifting down the gulf stream: navigating the cultures of disability studies

This paper explores the divergent theoretical developments in the UK and US disability studies and posits some explanations for these differing trajectories. History, politics, space, place and the search for identity have all played important roles. These emergent and hotly debated developments add a wealth of material to the epistemological project. The recent collections by Barnes et al. (2002) Disability studies today, and Snyder et al. (2002) Disability studies: enabling the humanities, will be used as pivotal works. However, the question remains as to what explanatory power discourses developed within western metropolitan national cultures have for exploring the experience of disability in cultures on the peripheries. This analysis is being undertaken by an English born academic, who has been living in Australia for over 20 years and has been keenly watching and participating in the transatlantic battles over the past decade.     

Traditional Gift Giving Among Pacific Families in New Zealand

The Pacific population in New Zealand is socially disadvantaged and over-represented in adverse social and health statistics. A cohort of 1,376 mothers of Pacific infants were asked about traditional gift commitments and the effect that these commitments had on the financial situation in their household. Sixty-two percent reported that they and/or their partner usually gave to their family or church, with 66.5% of this group giving to family in New Zealand, 58% to family in the Pacific Islands, and 75.9% to their church. Fifty-nine percent of these mothers reported that this gift commitment made their household financial situation more difficult. Factors significantly associated with gift giving are discussed, together with implications of these findings for Pacific families living New Zealand.     

Recovering from Illness or Recovering your Life? Implications of Clinical Versus Social Models of Recovery from Mental Health Problems for Employment Support Services

Although valuable research has been undertaken in the United States little is yet known about the processes engaged in by supported employment projects for people with mental health problems. The study reported here explored these processes using semistructured interviews with employment project clients, their project workers and workplace managers. Of five projects involved in the research, two exemplified radically different approaches, one implicitly underpinned by a clinical model of recovery and the other by a social recovery model. In this article we draw on data from the seven cases studied from these projects to describe the two approaches and to consider their strengths and limitations. We conclude that approaches based on the social recovery model hold more promise, although such approaches would be enhanced through greater liaison with mental health professionals. In addition, funding structures are required that take account of job retention rates, rather than placement rates alone.     

The sexual division of dieting: women's voices

This article reports the findings of focus group research on Australian women who have engaged in dieting practices to lose weight. There have been few qualitative sociological studies on dieting, despite it being a common practice among western women. From the empirical data in this study three distinct themes emerged: women participate in the perpetuation and reinforcement of the thin ideal; women clearly trade-off health in the pursuit of dieting to lose weight; and the dominant discourse of the thin ideal is not only mediated in various ways, but is also contested by a reverse discourse of size acceptance. A sociology of food and the body enables the discourses in the area of dieting women to be deconstructed, offering an insight into the gendered context of food, which has implications for the sociology of health and illness.