Anticipating the social consequences of AIDS: A position paper

Even conservative estimates of the future course of AIDS epidemic make clear that only a small fraction of people who ultimately will experience AIDS symptoms now have them and that the spread of the virus will continue for some time to come. This article focuses on the social consequences of the AIDS epidemic, some of which are beginning to be felt. I argue that sociologists have an important contribution to make anticipating the long range social consequences of AIDS. Intelligent planning is impossible without a reduction of uncertainty in what the future might hold. He currently is chair of the Methodology section of the American Sociological Association and vice-chair of the Board of the Directors of the Social Science Research Council. with research interests in gender, kinship, and biosocial science. Her concern for the AIDS epidemic flows from its being a major focus in an interdisciplinary course on human sexuality that she teaches. For the past two years at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, she has coordinated AIDS prevention programs for women and supervised the development of educational materials. For the past three years she has been actively involved in AIDS-related research.     

Long-Term Trends In Migratory Behavior In A Developing Country: The Case of Mexico

Comparable lifetime migration relationships are estimated for Mexico for 1950, 1960, and 1970. Moreover, migration flows from each state to every other state are separately examined for each year. A number of significant changes over time are evident in the responsiveness of Mexican internal migrants to various socioeconomic stimuli, and appreciable differences are also evident across space. Moreover, a threshold is observed such that up to about 340 miles higher origin earnings deter migration, but beyond this distance higher earnings actually encourage migration.     

Geographic compactness vs. race/ethnic compactness and other criteria in the delineation of legislative districts

Several criteria have evolved in law and tradition to constrain the delineation of Congressional and State and local legislative districts, such as population equality, geographic compactness, race/ethnic compactness, and integrity of political boundaries. Among the various criteria, I focus on compactness, and in particular, the legal and mensural aspects. Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, racial compactness has been employed more and more frequently as a primary criterion, and with reduced restraint compared with other criteria, except perhaps for population equality. In Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), the Supreme Court recognized racial/ethnic compactness and polarization in voting practices as prerequisites for newly established majority-minority districts. In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the Court reaffirmed the principle of geographic compactness as against racial compactness by noting that the shape of Cong. Dist. 12 of North Carolina was bizarre and that it was drawn solely on racial grounds. With this decision, race/ethnic compactness and, by extension, the broad interpretation of the Voting Rights Act have been put in conflict with geographic compactness as criteria. More recently, in Miller v. Johnson (1995), use of race as a predominant factor in district delineation, apart from compactness, was rejected. These developments should renew interest in and support for formal statistical guidelines in evaluating geographic compactness in redistricting plans. Many formulas for measuring compactness have been proposed and tested. Here the commonly used perimeter/circle measure and the circumscribed area/circle measure are compared by an examination of some simple geometric figures and 1990-Census-based C.D.'s. Some problems with these measures are noted, and a new measure, the CV/radii measure (the complement of the coefficient of variation of the radii of the district), is proposed and illustratively applied.     

Re-traumatization among adult women sexually abused in childhood: exploratory analyses in a prospective study

The current exploratory study examined a variety of risk factors related to re-traumatization, defined broadly, in a prospective sample of women who were sexually abused in childhood. Eighty women, who were part of a larger longitudinal study of the effects of child sexual abuse, were interviewed at three points in time: in childhood and at two points in early adulthood. Risk factors were measured at the second interview and used to predict reported trauma exposure between interviews two and three. Given theoretical arguments for differences in risk factors based on ecological context, analyses were conducted separately for married and unmarried women. Situational and intrapersonal risk factors such as homelessness and depression were predictive of re-traumatization risk while reported social support satisfaction was a protective factor. Reports of trauma exposure between interviews two and three were related to mental health symptoms.     

A New Measure of Quality of Work Life (QWL) Based on Need Satisfaction and Spillover Theories

A new measure of QWL was developed based on need satisfaction and spillover theories. The measure was designed to capture the extent to which the work environment, job requirements, supervisory behavior, and ancillary programs in an organization are perceived to meet the needs of an employee. We identified seven major needs, each having several dimensions. These are: (a) health and safety needs (protection from ill health and injury at work and outside of work, and enhancement of good health), (b) economic and family needs (pay, job security, and other family needs), (c) social needs (collegiality at work and leisure time off work), (d) esteem needs (recognition and appreciation of work within the organization and outside the organization), (e) actualization needs (realization of one's potential within the organization and as a professional), (f) knowledge needs (learning to enhance job and professional skills), and (g) aesthetic needs (creativity at work as well as personal creativity and general aesthetics). The measure's convergent and discriminant validities were tested and the data provided support to the construct validity of the QWL measure. Furthermore, the measure's nomological (predictive) validity was tested through hypotheses deduced from spillover theory. Three studies were conducted – two studies using university employees and the third using accounting firms. The results from the pooled sample provided support for the hypotheses and thus lent some support to the nomological validity to the new measure.     

Public Policy and the Displacement Effects of Casinos: A Case Study of Riverboat Gambling in Missouri

A critical issue in assessing the economic impact of casinos is whether gambling activity displaces consumer expenditure from conventional retail establishments. We test this hypothesis using industry-level, time series data for eleven counties in Missouri, a state that recently introduced riverboats. Our results are generally inconsistent with the displacement hypothesis. However, we do find evidence of substitution between gambling and other businesses in the entertainment and amusement sector. This conclusion lends credence to the view that gaming serves as a substitute for other forms of entertainment. Our results also imply that the search for displacement should probably be focused on activities that constitute the closest consumer substitutes. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications for state regulation of this new source of revenue.     

Are Adult Patients More Tolerant of Treatment Risks Than Parents of Juvenile Patients?

Understanding patient-specific differences in risk tolerance for new treatments that offer improved efficacy can assist in making difficult regulatory and clinical decisions for new treatments that offer both the potential for greater effectiveness in relieving disease symptoms, but also risks of disabling or fatal side effects. The aim of this study is to elicit benefit-risk trade-off preferences for hypothetical treatments with varying efficacy and risk levels using a stated-choice (SC) survey. We derive estimates of "maximum acceptable risk" (MAR) that can help decisionmakers identify welfare-enhancing alternatives. In the case of children, parent caregivers are responsible for treatment decisions and their risk tolerance may be quite different than adult patients' own tolerance for treatment-related risks. We estimated and compared the willingness of Crohn's disease (CD) patients and parents of juvenile CD patients to accept serious adverse event (SAE) risks in exchange for symptom relief. The analyzed data were from 345 patients over the age of 18 and 150 parents of children under the age of 18. The estimation results provide strong evidence that adult patients and parents of juvenile patients are willing to accept tradeoffs between treatment efficacy and risks of SAEs. Parents of juvenile CD patients are about as risk tolerant for their children as adult CD patients are for themselves for improved treatment efficacy. SC surveys provide a systematic method for eliciting preferences for benefit-risk tradeoffs. Understanding patients' own risk perceptions and their willingness to accept risks in return for treatment benefits can help inform risk management decision making.