Integrating professional socialization and training for sociology graduate students

It is a curious contradiction that sociology, a discipline that includes in its subject matter socialization, norms, occupations, formal organization, the institution of education and the concept of the career does not necessarily prepare its products in a systematic and coherent manner to become trained professionals. Newly minted Ph.D.s must often learn by trial and error because we have left them adrift concerning how to conduct themselves as professional sociologists. Moreover, while these new Ph.D.s are usually trained well as scholarly researchers, many are not prepared for the non-research careers they will take as sociologists. When this happens, we sociologists, supposedly enlightened about such matters, have failed our students. This article is divided into two parts. The first is a critique of traditional graduate education in sociology. The second part plays off these criticisms by offering a coherent plan, consonant with the current and future possibilities for sociologists.     

Measurement of cumulative physiological dysregulation in an older population

The allostatic load framework postulates that an important pathway connecting the social environment with health involves biological responses to stressful stimuli and the subsequent dysregulation of interrelated physiological systems. We formulate a new measure for cumulative physiological dysregulation using a grade of membership model estimated with biodemographic data from a national sample of older Taiwanese persons. We investigate associations between the measure and physical, psychological, and cognitive function. The results provide insights into the relationships between a set of biological profiles and various health outcomes, identify limitations of earlier approaches, and underscore next steps in the development of improved for mulations of physiological dysregulation.     

How do the news media frame crises? A content analysis of crisis news coverage

The present study is a content analysis of crisis news frames found in 2006 crisis news coverage. A total of 247 news stories were analyzed to examine which of five news frames (attribution of responsibility, human interest, conflict, morality, and economic) and level of responsibility (individual and organizational level) were used by the media according to crisis type. While the attribution of responsibility frame was the most predominantly used in crisis news coverage, the use of each of the five frames depended on crisis type. The use of level of responsibility also varied by crisis type and was related to the five frames; individual level of responsibility was used more with morality, human interest, and attribution of responsibility frames. Implications and suggestions based on the results were discussed.     

Gender Differences in Adult Children's Support of Their Parents in Taiwan

This paper examines the patterns and determinants of four types of support provided by adult children to their parents, with particular attention to differences in the helping behaviors of sons and daughters. The data come from the 1989 wave of the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan. The analysis is based on 12,166 adult children from 2,527 families. We find that usually only one child in a family provides help with activities of daily living (ADLs) or instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), but for financial or material support the responsibility is likely to be shared among siblings. Sons generally carry the major responsibility for taking care of their older parents, and daughters fulfill the son's roles when sons are not available.     

Development of the PEARLS model (Particulate Exposure from Ambient to Regional Lung by Subgroup) and use of Monte Carlo simulation to predict internal exposure to 2.5 in Toronto.

Air pollution is a current and growing concern for Canadians, and there is evidence that ambient levels that meet current exposure standards may be associated with mortality and morbidity in Toronto, Canada. Evaluating exposure is an important step in understanding the relationship between particulate matter (PM) exposure and health outcomes. This report describes the PEARLS model (Particulate Exposure from Ambient to Regional Lung by Subgroup), which predicts exposure distributions for 11 age-gender population subgroups in Toronto to PM2.5 (PM with a median aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 microm or less) using Monte Carlo simulation techniques. The model uses physiological and activity pattern characteristics of each subgroup to determine region-specific lung exposure to PM2.5, which is defined as the mass of PM2.5 deposited per unit time to each of five lung regions (two extrathoracic, bronchial, bronchiolar, and alveolar). The modeling results predict that children, toddlers, and infants have the broadest distributions of exposure, and the greatest chance of experiencing extreme exposures in the alveolar region of the lung. Importance analysis indicates that the most influential model variables are air exchange rate into indoor environments, time spent outdoors, and time spent at high activity levels. Additionally, a "critical point" was defined and introduced to the PEARLS to investigate the effects of possible threshold-pathogenic phenomena on subgroup exposure patterns. The analysis indicates that the subgroups initially predicted to be most highly exposed were likely to have the highest proportion of their population exposed above the critical point. Substantial exposures above the critical point were predicted in all subgroups for ambient concentrations of PM2.5 commonly observed in Toronto after continuous exposure of 24 hours or more.     

Risk Factors,Parental Communication,Self and Peers’ Beliefs as Predictors of Condom Use Among Female Adolescents Attending Family Planning Clinics

This study examined the impact of risk factors, self and peers’ beliefs, and parental communication on condom use among 290 female adolescents who attended family planning clinics. The major findings showed that in addition to risk factors, self and peer beliefs about condom use and parental communication about birth control predicted actual condom use. Implications for social workers about the importance of encouraging communication between adolescents and their parents are discussed.     

A Multistate model of fecundability and sterility

This paper develops a multistate hazards model for estimating fecundability and sterility from data on waiting times to conception. Important features of the model include separate sterile and nonsterile states, a distinction between preexisting sterility and sterility that begins after initiation of exposure, and log-normally distributed fecundability among nonsterile couples. Application of the model to data on first birth intervals from Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and the Amish shows that heterogeneity in fecundability is statistically significant at most ages, but that preexisting sterility and new sterility are unimportant before age 40. These results suggest that sterility may not be an important determinant of natural fertility until later reproductive ages.     

Development and validation of a tool to improve physician identification of elder abuse: the Elder Abuse Suspicion Index (EASI)

This study aimed to develop and validate a brief tool for physician use to improve suspicion about the presence or absence of elder abuse. A literature review on elder abuse, obstacles to its identification, limitations of detection tools, and characteristics of screeners employed by physicians were used to generate elder abuse detection questions for critique by 31 doctors, nurses, and social workers in focus groups. Six resulting questions became the Elder Abuse Suspicion Index (EASI) administered by 104 family doctors to 953 cognitively intact seniors in ambulatory-care settings. Findings were compared to a recognized, detailed elder abuse Social Work Evaluation (SWE) later administered to participants by social workers blinded to the results of the EASI. The EASI had an estimated sensitivity and specificity of 0.47 and 0.75, usually took less than 2 minutes to ask, and 97.2% of doctors felt it would have some or big practice impact. This research is a first phase in the development and validation of a user-friendly tool that might sensitize physicians to elder abuse and promote referrals of possible victims for in-depth assessment by specialized professionals.