“Contrary to All the Other Shit I’ve Said”: Trans Men Passing in the South

Qualitative Sociology - This article examines the influence of geographic location on trans men’s desire to pass in the southeastern United States. Through 51 in-depth interviews with trans...     

Role of workplace safety: a revisit of the relationship between job satisfaction and employment status

This study evaluated the relationship between employment status (i.e., part- and full-time) and job satisfaction, with the focus on the moderating roles of perceived injury risk and injury incidence. The results found that the level of job satisfaction for full-time workers was about the same regardless of the level of injury risk they perceived. In contrast, job satisfaction of part-time workers was significantly higher when they perceived low injury risk rather than high injury risk. The findings also supported the potential adverse impact of injury incidence and injury risk on job satisfaction for both part- and full-time workers. This study highlighted the importance of understanding both workplace safety and job satisfaction when attempting to understand the differences between part-time and full-time workers.     

The future of refugee flows and policies

"The number of forced migrants...is estimated today to exceed 40 million [worldwide]. The changed international climate of the 1990s...has shifted the focus from the asylum and resettlement countries to the countries of origin: there is today a greater willingness to intervene in other countries' affairs either to avert the creation of new flows of focused migrants or to assist internally displaced populations, and there is the expectation of large-scale voluntary returns of refugees in asylum. This article discusses these and other policy issues concerning forced migration in this new international environment."     

Evaluating a private foundation's health program

Public policy decisions in health are increasingly difficult and expensive. Although there will never be enough information available, private foundations can help to bridge the most important gaps in knowledge. Larger foundations may also wish to respond to those who doubt the value of foundation activities. This article reviews the experiences over the past eight years of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in employing evaluation and related social research procedures in the planning and implementation of a major philanthropic effort to improve the health and medical care of Americans. Discussed are the still evolving Foundation evaluation framework, the unanticipated problems in undertaking specific evaluations, and the substantive findings of some of the studies.     

Assessing right to die attitudes: a conceptually guided measurement model

This article discusses the current status of research regarding the assessment of attitudes toward euthanasia and other right to die constructs with a focus on conceptual and methodological issues hindering advancement in this area. Two models are presented: a conceptual model for differentiating the various right to die constructs, and a measurement model to guide scale development and refinement. The conceptual model defines the right to die constructs as a function of locus of decision and locus of action. Health status and age are hypothesized as important factors that in some instances are defining attributes in right to die constructs and in other instances are factors influencing people's attitudes toward the right to die. The measurement model considers the importance of construct specificity, individual characteristics, and conviction in the assessment of right to die attributes. An extant euthanasia attitude scale is presented and evaluated in terms of the models to demonstrate how they may be useful for advancing attitude research in this important area.     

Adaptive changes in gait of older and younger adults as responses to challenges to dynamic balance

The study proposed to identify balance strategies used by younger and older adults during gait under proprioceptive, visual, and simultaneous proprioceptive-visual challenges. Participants ambulated under 4 conditions: consistent, noncompliant surface; inconsistent, compliant surface (C); consistent, noncompliant surface with vision obscured (NCVO); and inconsistent, compliant surface with vision obscured (CVO). Balance adaptations were measured as changes in gait velocity, cadence, and gait-stability ratio (GSR). Participants were 5 younger (mean age = 27.2) and 5 older (mean age = 68) healthy adults. Significant age differences were found for GSR (p = .03) on all surfaces. Older adults adopted a more stable gait pattern than younger adults regardless of the challenge presented by surface. Significant condition differences were found for velocity (p < .001) and cadence (p = .001). All participants exhibited significantly decreased velocity and increased cadence on surfaces C and CVO. Gait speed and cadence did not significantly change in NCVO. Younger and older adults exhibited similar adaptive balance strategies, slowing and increasing steps/s, under proprioceptive and proprioceptive-visual challenges to dynamic balance.     

Major League Baseball Players' Life Expectancies*

Objective. We examine the importance of anthropometric and performance measures, and age, period, and cohort effects in explaining life expectancies among major league baseball (MLB) players over the past century. Methods. We use discrete time hazard models to calculate life tables with covariates with data from Total Baseball, a rich source of information on all players who played in the major league. Results. Compared to 20‐year‐old U.S. males, MLB players can expect almost five additional years of life. Height, weight, handedness, and player ratings are unassociated with the risk of death in this population of highly active and successful adults. Career length is inversely associated with the risk of death, likely because those who play longer gain additional incomes, physical fitness, and training. Conclusions. Our results indicate improvements in life expectancies with time for all age groups and indicate possible improvements in longevity in the general U.S. population.     

Forecasting Mortality: A Parameterized Time Series Approach

This article links parameterized model mortality schedules with time series methods to develop forecasts of U.S. mortality to the year 2000. The use of model mortality schedules permits a relatively concise representation of the history of mortality by age and sex from 1900 to 1985, and the use of modern time series methods to extend this history forward to the end of this century allows for a flexible modeling of trend and the accommodation of changes in long-run mortality patterns. This pilot study demonstrates that the proposed procedure produces medium-range forecasts of mortality that meet the standard tests of accuracy in forecast evaluation and that are sensible when evaluated against the comparable forecasts produced by the Social Security Administration.     

Voluntarism, self-help and rural community development: Some current approaches

Within the last decade or so, there has developed an increased concern for the welfare of rural communities and for individuals within such communities. At the same time there has emerged a parallel concern for environmental matters, concerned with conservation of species and habitat and the protection of cherished landscapes and amenities. Both sectors of rural concern have been characterised by debate about the means of delivery of policies and programmes in their respective areas and, in particular, about the balance between state action and the activities of the private sector. A common thread running through such debates has been the role of what is loosely called the ‘voluntary sector’, that is the complicated mix of individuals and organisations, local and national, which involve themselves in effort, not for direct payment nor as a routine of work, but because of feelings of commitment, belief and ideology.This paper is concerned with just one aspect of this sector — that which involves social and community aspects of the lives of rural dwellers in the English countryside. Despite this restricted field, there is an attempt to see things within a broader socio-political context, such that rural voluntarism and rural self-help can be assessed not only against a wider picture of volunteering generally but also placed within a political framework, both national and local. Voluntarism and self-help cannot exist independently of the world around them, yet the very process of facing up to the wider political realities creates problems of accountability and control to the extent that some would dismiss the voluntary sector as ineffective at best or the tool of vested interests at worst.