An Investigation of Indoor Air Contamination in Residences Above Dry Cleaners

An investigation of residences located above dry cleaning facilities was conducted to determine whether indoor and outdoor air concentrations of the dry cleaning solvent tetrachloroethene (perchloroethylene, PCE) were elevated compared to residences not near a dry cleaning facility. Data were also collected on the dry cleaners' operating conditions and equipment. Significantly elevated levels of PCE were found in the indoor air of each of six apartments located above dry cleaners compared to control residences for both day and night samples. The PCE concentrations in outdoor air near the dry cleaners were also significantly elevated compared to control locations and were lower than the concentrations measured indoors. The type of dry cleaning machine was significantly associated with the concentration of PCE found in the apartment above. A strong correlation was also found between the day and night PCE levels in the study apartments.     

Temporary migration: a case study of Florida

Most migration statistics in the United States focus on changes in permanent residence, thereby missing temporary moves such as the daily commute to work, business trips, vacations, and seasonal migration. In this paper, we analyze temporary migration streams in Florida, focusing on moves that include an extended stay. Using several types of survey data, we examine the characteristics of non-Floridians who spend part of the year in Florida and Floridians who spend part of the year elsewhere. We develop estimates of the number, timing, and duration of temporary moves and the origins, destinations, characteristics, and motivations of temporary migrants. This study presents the most comprehensive analysis yet of temporary migration in Florida and provides a model that can be used in other places. It also points to a serious shortcoming in the US statistical system, namely, the lack of information on temporary migration streams. We believe the American Community Survey provides an opportunity to remedy this problem.     

Integrating Barriers to Caucasian Lesbians' Career Development and Super's Life‐Span,Life‐Space Approach

Researchers and practitioners do not fully understand the nature and extent of actual and perceived barriers in lesbians' career development (S. L. Morrow, P. A. Gore, & B. W. Campbell, 1996). In this study, 10 lesbian women, ages 42 to 64 years, were interviewed and asked to identify barriers to career development due to sexual identity. Integration of sexual orientation in D. E. Super's (1990) Life‐Span, Life‐Space approach is proposed.     

Homeward bound: the circular migration of entertainers between Japan and the Philippines

One feature of globalization is the growing number of temporary labour migrants, but their experience of settlement does not always fit the dominant perspective of transnational migration. Unlike transnational migrants, circular migrants tend not to be equally entrenched in home and host societies, but instead hold feelings of greater affinity for the home society. They engage in repeated short periods of work abroad, an example being migrant Filipina entertainers in Tokyo, Japan. This article describes the settlement of these circular migrants and demonstrates how it is a process of returning to the home society that entails limited integration in the host society; they are routinely segregated in time and space. Migrant Filipina entertainers start thinking about their departure almost as soon as they arrive, and their departure is marked by a carefully‐planned ceremony, or sayonara party. Questioning the assumption in the literature that circular migrants will eventually become permanent residents, in this article I call for the formulation of new theoretical frameworks that better capture the qualitatively distinct experiences of circular migrants.     

The relative impact of demographic change on future social expenditure increases: an example from Cyprus

"Taking the case of Cyprus, the authors examine the likely implications for social expenditure, under various scenarios of benefit and cost increases, of projected population changes up to the year 2020. The increased expenditure resulting solely from demographic changes could be easily absorbed if unit costs remain unchanged or rise no faster than overall productivity, but not if recent rapid increases in unit costs and in services continue."     

Credit and authorship practices: educational and environmental influences

A survey on credit issues of academic chemists in U.S. Ph.D.-granting institutions was conducted. The respondents rated 15 criteria for authorship of scientific publications; core intellectual contributions received the highest ratings although making a single suggestion that was essential to the successful completion of the project was rated very low. Acquisition of data was also rated highly. The respondents rated eight potential influences on their own "policy" toward giving credit; doing what "seems to be the right thing" was the highest rated influence followed by graduate educational experiences; professional society or other responsible conduct of research (RCR) institutional policies were rated, by far, the lowest.     

Understanding social factors and inequalities in health: 20th century progress and 21st century prospects

The development of social epidemiology and medical sociology over the last half of the 20th century, in which Leo Reeder played a central role, transformed scientific and popular understanding of the nature and causes of physical health and illness. Viewed in the early 1950s as shaped almost entirely by biological processes and medical care, physical health and illness are now understood to be as much or more a function of social, psychological, and behavioral factors. Utilizing a stress and adaptation conceptual framework, social epidemiology has identified a broad range of psychosocial risk factors for health, most notably: (1) social relationships and support; (2) acute or event-based stress; (3) chronic stress in work and life; and (4) psychological dispositions such as anger/hostility, lack of self-efficacy/control, and negative affect/hopelessness/pessimism, with new risk factors continuing to be identified. However, proliferation of risk factors must be balanced by conceptual integration and causal understanding of the relationships among them, their causes, and consequences. One source of such integration and understanding has been the rediscovery of large and persistent socioeconomic and racial-ethnic disparities in health. Socioeconomic position and race/ethnicity shape individuals' exposure to and experience of virtually all known psychosocial, and well as many environmental and biomedical, risk factors, and these risk factors help to explain the size and persistence of social disparities in health. Improving the socioeconomic position of a broad range of disadvantaged socioeconomic and racial-ethnic strata constitutes a major avenue for reducing exposure to and experience of deleterious risk factors for health, and hence for improving the health of these groups and the overall population. This in turn requires better understanding of the macrosocial forces that influence the socioeconomic position of individuals.