Expression and ambivalence over expression of negative emotion:psychometric analysis in the Women's Health Initiative

Inhibition of emotional expression has been associated with the incidence and progression of breast cancer and other chronic illnesses. Others have theorized that it may not be repression itself, but rather ambivalence over the expression of emotions that is the important health-related factor. The Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a long-term, national study focusing on disease prevention among postmenopausal women, is unique in its assessment of expression and ambivalence of negative emotion in a large study sample of multiethnic, older women. Psychological factors such as expression of negative emotion and ambivalence about expression of emotion are also determined by social patterning. The current study examined the psychometric properties of the instruments used to measure each construct and variation across race/ethnicity and age. The analysis suggests that the scales can be used with confidence in diverse ethnic and age groups. Examining ambivalence about expression of negative emotion in future longitudinal research will further elucidate its role in predicting disease incidence and recovery, both important in reducing the public health burden of chronic disease.     

Measurement of the quality of family planning services

The quality of health services is a subject of increasing interest to health care providers and organizations responsible for financing and promoting health services. The importance of the client's perspective (and by inference, the perspective of potential clients, as well) is now well established, but efforts to define and measure quality have thus far been limited to the perspective of experts even when the experts claim to speak for the clients. In this paper we utilize family planning programs to explore issues of the quality of health services. We propose that a better understanding of the view of quality actually held by family planning program clients will clarify the influence of quality on the use of services, a clarity that has not been possible by looking at quality only as defined by providers, managers or experts. We review the literature on quality of services and identify the gaps in research that must be filled if a better understanding of what quality is and how it relates to service outcomes is to be obtained. A first step must be the research required to develop a set of measures of quality that reflects the multi-dimensional nature of quality, includes the clients' view of services in the definition of quality, and incorporates methodologies required to ascertain the true view of clients. Finally, we suggest that dimensions of quality identified as important for clients as a group will be more predictive of use of services than dimensions identified as important to providers.     

Defining and measuring poverty in the nonmetropolitan United States using the survey of income and program Participation

Because the poor historically have been more prevalent in nonmetropolitan than metropolitan areas in the United States, issues related to poverty (including its definition and measurement) are important to nonmetropolitan people. This study uses the unique monthly data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to define poverty in different ways. How poverty is defined affects both the measured extent of nonmetropolitan poverty and the groups who are included among the nonmetropolitan poor. Regardless of how poverty is measured, however, nonmetropolitan areas have disproportionately more poor than metropolitan areas. In addition, the nonmetropolitan poor are more likely to be white, aged, disabled, and members of married-couple households than the metropolitan poor under all definitions considered. None of the definitions examined is intrinsically superior. The choice of a definition to use depends largely on the research problem under consideration.     

THE BANK OF CANADA AS A DETERMINANT OF HEALTH

The Bank of Canada may be one of the most important determinants of health within the reach of government policy. Throughout its last three governorships, the Bank has pursued a staunchly anti-inflationary policy. Near zero percent inflation has helped to maintain unemployment levels above all but one of Canada's partners in the Group of Seven nations. Although debate continues, the bulk of the published literature supports a strong relationship between unemployment and ill health. Unfortunately, recent Governors have promulgated a mandate for the Bank that ignores its original mandate in the Bank of Canada Act, its influence on unemployment, and the human cost of sickness and premature death associated with unemployment. Federal monetary policy must take into account this human cost. Otherwise the myopic focus on a healthy economy in the short-run will compromise the goal of a healthy country in the long-run.     

Personal Versus Collective Quality of Life And South Africans' Evaluations of Democratic Government

In this paper, we examine the political consequences of quality of life, focusing on the link between perceived well-being and people's support for democratic government. We make two key distinctions. First of all, with regard to quality of life, we distinguish between assessments of personal, or household, quality of life, and assessments of collective (national, community) quality of life. Secondly, we follow David Easton in distinguishing between specific support (attitudes about specific leaders, parties and policies) and diffuse support (attitudes toward the political system in general). We find that personal quality of life is only weakly and inconsistently connected to specific or diffuse support. Perceptions of collective quality of life, however, are strongly related to both specific and diffuse support. Thus, South Africans are holding their government accountable to their perceptions of national well-being. Of greater concern, however, is that they also appear to be holding the democratic system accountable to such developments. Teaching people to distinguish between their evaluations of a specific government and their evaluations of the larger system of democratic government appears to be a key challenge confronting the development of a democratic political culture in South Africa.     

The domains of life satisfaction: An attempt to order chaos

While life satisfaction is commonly measured as an aggregate of individual life domains, the characterisation of such domains is uncertain. This study attempts to group 173 different domains names derived from the literature under seven headings as used by the Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale (ComQol). It was found that 68% could be classified in this way. Moreover, due to the repeated use of some domain names, the ComQol classification included 83% of the total reported data. The ComQol domain data did not differ from single-item global measures of life satisfaction and the within-study variance was lower using the ComQol rather than the original domains. A hierarchy of domain satisfaction was found which was dominated by the domain of intimacy. The other ComQol domains were quite tightly clustered within a range of 1.08 standard deviations. No difference was found between normative data and data gathered from people with a chronic medical condition, but people selected on psychiatric criteria had a lower life quality, most particularly in the domain of intimacy. It is concluded that life satisfaction, and therefore subjective well-being, can be economically and validly measured through the seven ComQol domains.     

Aggregate population and economic growth correlations: The role of the components of demographic change

The results of recent correlations showing a negative impact of population growth on economic development in cross-country data for the 1980s, versus “nonsignificant” correlations widely found for the 1960s and 1970s, are examined with contemporaneous and lagged components of demographic change, convergence-type economic modeling, and several statistical frameworks. The separate impacts of births and deaths are found to be notable but offsetting in the earlier periods. In contrast, the short-run costs (benefits) of births (mortality reduction) increase (decrease) significantly in the 1980s, and the favorable labor-force impacts of past births are not fully offsetting.     

Social indicators of youth development and educational performance: A programmatic statement

This paper argues for the use of social indicators, in conjunction with the traditional norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests, to assess the effects of local educational systems. A conceptual framework for the study of educational performance is presented, interrelating (1) personal resources invested by youth, (2) opportunities for development, (3) developmental behaviors, (4) educational system impacts, and (5) other contextual variables, which together affect (6) progress toward adulthood. Four types of variables and 15 content areas that should be monitored are described, with examples of social indicators for each. Procedures are presented for selecting variables, collecting time-series data, and analyzing and reporting the indicators, relying entirely on existing data sources. Appendices include a data base screening form, a statistic screening form, and a list of United States national, state, county, and city sources of time-series data relevant to youth development and educational performance.     

Birth control and the black American: A matter of genocide?

Demography - During the 1960’s and continuing into the 1970’s, the charge that birth control and abortion are integral elements of a white genocidal conspiracy directed against...