Intuitive Toxicology: Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risks

Human beings have always been intuitive toxicologists, relying on their senses of sight, taste, and smell to detect harmful or unsafe food, water, and air. As we have come to recognize that our senses are not adequate to assess the dangers inherent in exposure to a chemical substance, we have created the sciences of toxicology and risk assessment to perform this function. Yet despite this great effort to overcome the limitations of intuitive toxicology, it has become evident that even our best scientific methods still depend heavily on extrapolations and judgments in order to infer human health risks from animal data. Many observers have acknowledged the inherent subjectivity in the assessment of chemical risks and have indicated a need to examine the subjective or intuitive elements of expert and lay risk judgments. We have begun such an examination by surveying members of the Society of Toxicology and the lay public about basic toxicological concepts, assumptions, and interpretations. Our results demonstrate large differences between toxicologists and laypeople, as well as differences between toxicologists working in industry, academia, and government. In addition, we find that toxicologists are sharply divided in their opinions about the ability to predict a chemical's effect on human health on the basis of animal studies. We argue that these results place the problems of risk communication in a new light. Although the survey identifies misconceptions that experts should clarify for the public, it also suggests that controversies over chemical risks may be fueled as much by limitations of the science of risk assessment and disagreements among experts as by public misconceptions.     

Liability in child welfare

Child welfare workers and agencies are vulnerable to lawsuits. Recent court rulings have more clearly defined the liability of workers. The distinguishing variable is custody. Children injured while in the custody of the state are entitled to sue for damages. Children injured by their parent, even if under the supervision of a child welfare agency, are not entitled to claim a violation of their 14th Amendment rights. These cases are reviewed and strategies designed to minimize vulnerability are offered.     

An uncertain future: children of mentally ill parents.

Research reports the uncertain outcome of variables affecting the life of a child of an MI parent. Nurses must avoid stereotyping children before assessment; they are to be in the forefront in assessing self-care skills and deficits to guide planning individual interventions for children and MI parents. Long-term research theory-based interventions will enhance mental health in high-risk children and families.     

Diagnosis and therapy of male gamblers in a university psychiatric hospital

From 1980 to mid-1990 fifty-one gamblers were evaluated and treated at the psychiatric university hospital of Homburg/Saar in Germany. All were men with a mean age of 33.7 years. Gambling had lasted 5.2 years on average. Most patients were motivated to undergo therapy by members of their family. The majority of them had been in psychotherapeutic treatment before. Thirty-six of the 51 patients had committed punishable acts including fraud and embezzlement and, in 7 cases, robbery. The sample could be divided into three clinical subgroups. The first group consisted of patients with severe psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness or organic brain disorder. Patients of the second group suffered from serious personality disorders. Those of the third group showed deep-rooted problems in their current relationships.This article is an extension of the special issue on Gambling in Europe edited by Iver Hand, M.D.     

Rates of pathological gambling in publicly funded outpatient substance abuse treatment

Rates of problem or probable pathological gambling were assessed in substance abusers seeking outpatient treatment in a publicly funded outpatient substance abuse treatment program. The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) was administered to 467 consecutive admissions at three different sites. Problem gamblers comprised 6.2 percent of the total (n=29), and 4.5 percent scored as probable pathological gamblers (n=21). These rates are two and one-half times greater than would be expected according to a recent state survey using the SOGS. Implications for assessment and treatment of problem gambling are discussed.The author expresses his appreciation to John Ramsay and the staff of Epoch Counseling Center for data collection; to Les Franklin for computational analysis; and Dr. Rachel Volberg for providing supplemental data from her Maryland State Gambling Survey.     

The Ecology of Family Guidance in Low-Income Mexican-American and European-American Families*

This two-part study applied an ecocultural perspective to socialization of daily and long-term goals in low-income Mexican-American and European-American families with children in third, fifth, and seventh grades. The first part of the study examined family members' participation and parents' socialization goals and guidance strategies for their children's daily household chores and homework activities. The second part of the study examined parents' long-term aspirations and guidance strategies for their children's educational, vocational, and moral development. For daily activities, results showed that in Mexican-American families both parents and siblings played important roles, whereas in European-American families parents were the primary socialization agents. As predicted, in both groups parents' expertise influenced their guidance strategies. Finally, Mexican-American and European-American parents differed in their relative endorsement of gender, relational, and self-reliance goals for household chores. For long-term goals, parents in both groups held high educational, vocational, and moral aspirations for their children. However, some parents of seventh-graders had lower educational and vocational aspirations than those of fifth- and third-graders. Although expertise consistently influenced Mexican-American parents' guidance strategies, the pattern for European-American parents was mixed. The discussion highlights between- and within-group differences in daily and long-term socialization practices with an emphasis on resources and vulnerabilities in the families.     

The U.S. legalization program: a preliminary final report

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 made 4 types of aliens eligible to receive legalization benefits: 1) those who resided "continuously" in the US since January 1, 1982; 2) those who had worked in the US perishable-crop agriculture for 90 "man-days" in specified time periods (Special Agricultural Workers [SAWS]); 3) those who were in the US since before January 1, 1972; and 4) those classified as Cuban/Haitian entrants and who had been in the US since January 1, 1982. Estimates of the number of aliens eligible for legalization, not including SAWS, ranges from 1.834 million to 2.56 million. Estimates of undercounts of undocumented aliens are 10% for those who entered before 1975 and 37.5% for those who arrived after 1975. Other refinements in the estimates of undocumented aliens include adjustments for 1) ethnic group and location, 2) the growth of the undocumented population between the census date and the legalization eligibility date under IRCA, and 3) emigration and deportation rates. Out of the 1,581,800 applicants entered into the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) computers (from a total of 2.15 million applicants) as of May 20, 1988, 73.7% were Mexican nationals. Only 5 other countries contributed more than 1%: El Salvador (6.5%), Haiti (2.3%), Guatemala (2.2%), the Philippines (1%), and Colombia (1%). The Mexican percentage was unexpectedly high, perhaps because the legalization had been much more successful in the Southwest than anywhere else in the country. Reasons that Mexicans have a higher legalization participation rate than other nationalities include 1) the distant eligibility date; 2) ethnic differences among non-Mexican nationalities; 3) particularly in the northeast, fears of exposing one's illegal status to INS; 4) the difficulty of information reaching ethnic communities, 5) the reluctance of those already undergoing the naturalization process to risk the legalization process; and 6) the reluctance of employees to admit employment of undocumented aliens. In the end, more than 90% of applicants are expected to be granted temporary resident alien status (and about 70% of agricultural workers), for a total of more than 2 million people. Researchers estimate that 2.5 - 3 million more persons remain in an undocumented status in the US.     

Enrich marital inventory: a discriminant validity and cross-validation assessment

To assess the validity and clinical utility of the marital inventory ENRICH, a discriminant validity study was conducted using a national sample of 5039 married couples. The sample was randomly split in order to form a cross-validation group. ENRICH is a multidimensional scale and two types of analysis were conducted to assess the value of these various scales. Results from discriminant analysis indicated that using either the individual scores or couples' scores, happily married couples could be discriminated from unhappily married couples with 85–95% accuracy. These results were cross-validated with a second sample. Using regression analysis, it was clearly demonstrated that background factors account for little of the variance in discriminating happy from unhappily married couples compared to their relationship dynamics, i.e., scale scores. All ENRICH scales except equalitarian roles proved significant, indicating the validity of a multidimensional inventory.