Analysis of Competing Risks by Using Bayesian Smoothing

We consider the competing risks set-up. In many practical situations, the conditional probability of the cause of failure given the failure time is of direct interest. We propose to model the competing risks by the overall hazard rate and the conditional probabilities rather than the cause-specific hazards. We adopt a Bayesian smoothing approach for both quantities of interest. Illustrations are given at the end.     

Unmet Need for Family Planning in Developing Countries and Implications for Population Policy

Unmet need for family planning has been a core concept in international population discourse for several decades. This article reviews the history of unmet need and the development of increasingly refined methods of its empirical measurement and delineates the main questions that have been raised about unmet need during the past decade, some of which concern the validity of the concept and others its role in policy debates. The discussion draws heavily on empirical research conducted during the 1990s, much of it localized, in‐depth studies combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Of the causes of unmet need other than those related to access to services, three emerge as especially salient: lack of necessary knowledge about contraceptive methods, social opposition to their use, and health concerns about possible side effects. The article argues that the concept of unmet need for family planning, by joining together contraceptive behavior and fertility preferences, encourages an integration of family planning programs and broader development approaches to population policy. By focusing on the fulfillment of individual aspirations, unmet need remains a defensible rationale for the formulation of population policy and a sensible guide to the design of family planning programs.     

The success of protest groups: Multivariate analyses

This paper reviews earlier research and presents new analytical findings regarding the outcomes of social movements. Using the resource mobilization/management approach, empirical propositions that seek to explain protest group success or failure are tested. Based upon data gathered from a sample of 53 US protest groups, the causal models explained the majority of the variance in degree of success between these groups. Our findings indicate that protest groups which threaten to replace or destroy established groups are usually unsuccessful, and those having many strong alliances tend to be more successful than groups fighting alone. The use of violence does not greatly aid the prediction of group outcome because of the unpredictable, ambivalent reaction to violence by established groups.     

Care of the Elderly—A Project,a Protest,a Survey and a Plan

Rehousing of elderly people in Australia has generally not been preceded by research into the kind of assistance that is necessary. An example is given of how an attempt was made to discover the needs of the elderly disabled in a small country community. Assessment by observation of people at home revealed the need for assistance for them to stay where they were. Home Care organized from the district hospital is often a more appropriate answer to this problem than the building of expensive and unnecessary institutions.     

Bereavement: the Contribution of Phenomenological and Existential Analysis to a Greater Understanding of the Problem

Summary Theoretical approaches to grief and mourning have emphasizedthe instinctual and biological elements of a person's responseto bereavement. The behaviour of bereaved individuals has thereforebeen interpreted on the basis of these theoretical models. Thispaper argues that an appreciation of the social context in whichbereavement occurs leads to a fuller understanding of observedresponses in such a situation. It thus emphasizes the socialnature of individuals rather than their biological make-up andprovides a theoretical frame of reference in terms of whichthis may be understood. Such an analysis also has implicationsfor the kind of help which is seen to be appropriate to theneeds of bereaved people. It is suggested that social workersshould develop a greater understanding of this approach andthat, on the basis of this, they would then have a particularrole to play in relation to this area of need     

Medical Students' Attitudes and Opinions About Human Sexual Behaviour

In their professional capacities doctors are often confronted with clients who present with psycho-sexual problems. At the present time Australian medical students are provided with very little instruction in the areas of human sexual behaviour. This paper examines the attitudes and amount of information possessed by a cohort of second year medical students compared with groups of first and fifth year students; these attitudes and levels of information are then related to students' sex, religious affiliation, strength of religious conviction, where this is seen to be relevant. It is shown that some areas of ignorance exist. The paper concludes by outlining some aspects relevant to courses in human sexual behaviour.