Underlying and multiple causes of death related to smoking

Although smoking has been linked to various causes of death, there is no systematic account of the underlying and multiple cause-of-death distributions associated with various smoking statuses. We analyze such patterns by age and gender for the USA in 1986. Our study is based on a one-percent random sample of decedents 25 and over in the USA for whom survey data from informants were linked to death certificate data. Smoking is related to several underlying causes of death, the most common being circulatory diseases. Lung cancer is less prevalent than circulatory diseases or other cancers among ever smokers. Multiple medical conditions are common for both smokers and nonsmokers, but particular combinations vary among persons with different smoking statuses. Former smokers who quit soon before death and were under frequent medical care are most likely to have had lung cancer. Amount of smoking is tied to variations in cause-of-death patterns. Differences by age and gender are not substantial, although other cancers appear frequently for both smokers and non-smokers among women. The distribution of medical causes of death for ever smokers is not radically different from that of never smokers. However, differences in cause patterns are seen when smoking statuses are detailed by amount of smoking and timing of quitting. These similarities and differences in cause patterns must be related to the fundamental fact that the average smoker will die earlier than the average nonsmoker. Such findings should especially influence programs for diseases whose links to smoking have been underestimated.     

Serving elders in greatest social and economic need: the challenge to the Elderly Nutrition Program

The federally funded Elderly Nutrition Program is mandated to serve elders in greatest social and economic need. Yet researchers have concluded that the program underserves certain groups of elders, including those who are socially impaired and homeless and members of ethnic and other minority groups. This paper reviews the issues involved in serving elders in greatest social and economic need and suggests that reaching all of these elders with program services is not only a laudable goal but also, based on innovative models briefly described, is clearly achievable.     

High-risk families: the unequal distribution of infant mortality in nineteenth-century Sweden

An analysis of infant mortality (based on 133,448 births) in two regions, Sundsvall and Skellefte?, in north-eastern Sweden during the nineteenth century shows that infant mortality was highly clustered with a relatively small number of families accounting for a large proportion of all infant deaths. Using logistic regression, two important factors were found to be associated with high-risk families: (i) a biological component evidenced by an over-representation of women who had experienced stillbirths, and (ii) a social component indicated by an increased risk among women who had remarried. The results strengthen the argument for using the family rather than the single child as the unit of analysis. The clustering of infant deaths points to the need to re-evaluate our interpretations of the causes of infant mortality in the past.     

Nationhood and the national question in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Eurasia: An institutionalist account

Conclusion The Soviet nationality regime, with its distinctive and pervasive manner of institutionalizing nationhood and nationality, has transmitted to the successor states a set of deeply structured, and powerfully conflicting,expectations of belonging. Successor state elites, with their deeply institutionalized sense of political ownership and entitlement, see the polities that bear the names of their nation — above all the territory and institutions, but also, with some ambivalence, the population as well — as their own, as belonging, in a fundamental sense, to them. National minorities, above all Russians, with their institutionally supported, basically ethnocultural understanding of nationhood, see themselves as belonging, in a deep if not exclusive sense, to an external nation; this cannot help but color and qualify, even if it does not exclude, their belonging to the would-be nation-state in which they live, and of which they (or most of them) hold citizenship. Russian state elites, finally, whose national self-understanding was not in the Soviet period embedded in, and is now only very imperfectly contained by, the institutional and territorial frame of the Russian Federation, see the Russian minorities in the non-Russian successor states as belonging, in an ill-defined yet potent sense, to the emerging Russian state. These deeply rooted and powerfully conflicting expectations of belonging — interacting, of course, with conflicts of interest engendered by state-building, regime change, and economic restructuring — will make the dynamic interplay between non-Russian successor states, Russian minorities, and the Russian state a locus of refractory, and potentially explosive, ethnonational conflict in coming years.     

The internal migration and spatial redistribution of the foreign-born population in the United States: 1965-70 and 1975-80

"This article examines the importance of place of birth [for] the internal migration and spatial redistribution patterns of the foreign-born population in the United States during the 1965-70 and the 1975-80 periods, relying principally on the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for our input data. The diverse nationalities are aggregated into eight different regions of origin: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Rest of South and Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, Canada and the Rest of the World. First, the regional distribution of these eight groups at the 1970 and 1980 censuses are examined. Next, the spatial redistribution of the foreign-born population and its changes over time are studied...." This paper was originally presented at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America.     

Effects of Customized Balance Exercises on Older Women Whose Balance Ability Has Deteriorated With Age

Falls represent a major public health problem for older adults, and loss of balance (LOS) abilities is one of the primary causes of falls. Previous studies have shown that balance training is effective in improving physical function and decreasing risk of falls. However, little attention has been given specifically to balance training in older adults with very poor balance. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a 12-week customized balance exercise program on LOS for community-dwelling older women with poor balance ability. Twenty-four older women with poor balance (composite maximum excursion [MXEcomp] score of less than 70% based on Limits of Stability) were divided into an exercise group and control group. After 12 weeks of balance exercises, mean MXEcomp improved (p < .05) from 58.6% to 79.0% in the exercise group. EPEcomp (composite endpoint excursion), RTcomp (composite reaction time), SVcomp3 (composite sway velocity on thick foam with the eyes open), UG (up and go) also improved, but the functional reach and other static balance indexes did not change. These results indicated that balance training allows older adults with poor balance to improve dynamic balance ability and potentially reduce risk for falls.     

But it’s not all about the sex: mothering,normalisation and young learning disabled people

This paper is about mothering, young learning disabled people, their sexualised and relationship lives and normalisation – not through the lens of the disabled person, but via a mothers perspective and theoretical discussion. As a mother who has a learning disabled daughter, a feminist and an academic my own mothering experience, my Ph.D. research and social theory are woven throughout this paper with the intention of opening up debate about sex, intimacy and normalisation, and how these impact upon young learning disabled people. I suggest that the relationship between sex, reproduction, intimacy and intellectual impairment and a project to decipher what it means to be human in all its dirty glory are also part of the discourse that needs to be discussed experientially and theoretically. So much so that the messy world within which we all live can be variously and differently constructed.