Consideration of Background Exposures in the Management of Hazardous Waste Sites: A New Approach to Risk Assessment

The current approach to health risk assessment of toxic waste sites in the U.S. may lead to considerable expenditure of resources without any meaningful reduction in population exposure. Risk assessment methods used generally ignore background exposures and consider only incremental risk estimates for maximally exposed individuals. Such risk estimates do not address true public health risks to which background exposures also contribute. The purpose of this paper is to recommend a new approach to risk assessment and risk management concerning toxic waste sites. Under this new approach, which we have called public health risk assessment, chemical substances would be classified into a level of concern based on the potential health risks associated with typical national and regional background exposures. Site assessment would then be based on the level of concern for the particular pollutants involved and the potential contribution of site contaminants to typical background human exposures. While various problems can be foreseen with this approach, the key advantage is that resources would be allocated to reduce the most important sources of human exposure, and site remediation decisions could be simplified by focussing on exposure assessment rather than questionable risk extrapolations.     

The location of ethnic and racial groups in the United States

The distinctive regional and urban locational patterns of thirty-three ethnic groups in the United States are analyzed from two different perspectives. First, who are the numerically important groups in each region? Second, from the perspective of the groups themselves, where are they spatially concentrated? We hypothesize that the forces generating distinctive ethnic locational patterns are strongest at the time of the initial settlement; thus the longer a group has been present in the United States, the less geographically concentrated it will be. This is found to be true for most ethnic groups except blacks and American Indians, whose specific social and political situations explain their particular concentrations. However, the early settlement patterns still affect the ethnic makeup of various areas of the nation, even though the concentrations have diminished over time. Moreover, although the 1975–1980 patterns of internal migration (analyzed through a Markov Chain model) are tending to reduce some of the distinctive geographic concentrations in the nation, this will still not fully eliminate distinctive ethnic concentrations. Groups differ in their propensities to leave or enter each area in a way that reflects the existing ethnic compositions of the areas. Thus even with the massive level of internal migration in the nation, there is no evidence that the substantial ethnic linkage to region is disappearing.     

The Entrepreneurial Tendencies of Managers: a Research Note

In this study associations are sought between certain biographical, family, personality and career variables and the likelihood that managers will develop their own business venture. Results, based on an analysis of questionnaires completed by 194 managers, reveal that ownership of a business by self or parents together with certain personal characteristics predispose managers towards business founding. Contrary to expectations, job and career frustration does not incline managers towards proprietorship.     

Demography of disaster: Population estimates after hurricane Andrew

Hurricane Andrew blasted through the southern tip of Florida in August 1992, damaging or destroying tens of thousands of homes and forcing hundreds of thousands of persons to move at least temporarily to different places of residence. The hurricane not only disrupted the lives of many Floridians, but destroyed the statistical basis for producing local population estimates in South Florida as well. These estimates are used for many types of decision-making, from the distribution of state revenue-sharing dollars to choosing sites for fast-food restaurants. This article describes the estimation problems created by the hurricane and how those problems were resolved through the use of existing data sources and the collection of new types of data. It closes with a discussion of several conceptual, methodological and procedural issues that will have to be faced in virtually any attempt to estimate the demographic consequences of natural disasters.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Miami, Florida, USA.     

Projection and Misperception in Couples Treatment

Projective identification is discussed as an interpersonal mechanism involved in distortions of perceptions and communications. Several case illustrations are presented to show how this mechanism manifests itself in relatively healthy, though neurotic, couples. A treatment approach based on correction of the perceptual distortions is suggested as a model for short-term counseling with such couples.     

Employee Work Attitudes: The Subtle Influence of Gender

Using the construct of job satisfaction, this study examined work attitudes of 286 females and 416 males employed in 27 female-owned and 29 male-owned small businesses in three industries: construction, manufacturing, and distribution. Job satisfaction scores (dependent variables) were analyzed with regard to the interaction of owner employee gender. Demographic and job-related variables were also considered. The gender-moderated results are discussed in terms of methodological implications for conducting research regarding work attitudes.     

Principles for Conduct of Pest Risk Analyses: Report of an Expert Workshop

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) have focused attention on risk assessment of potential insect, weed, and animal pests and diseases of livestock. These risks have traditionally been addressed through quarantine protocols ranging from limits on the geographical areas from which a product may originate, postharvest disinfestation procedures like fumigation, and inspections at points of export and import, to outright bans. To ensure that plant and animal protection measures are not used as nontariff trade barriers, GATT and NAFTA require pest risk analysis (PRA) to support quarantine decisions. The increased emphasis on PRA has spurred multiple efforts at the national and international level to design frameworks for the conduct of these analyses. As approaches to pest risk analysis proliferate, and the importance of the analyses grows, concerns have arisen about the scientific and technical conduct of pest risk analysis. In January of 1997, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA) held an invitation-only workshop in Washington, D.C. to bring experts in risk analysis and pest characterization together to develop general principles for pest risk analysis. Workshop participants examined current frameworks for PRA, discussed strengths and weaknesses of the approaches, and formulated principles, based on years of experience with risk analysis in other setting and knowledge of the issues specific to analysis of pests. The principles developed highlight the both the similarities of pest risk analysis to other forms of risk analysis, and its unique attributes.     

Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations in Three Protracted Conflicts: Structures,Resources and Ideology

Guided by organizational and social movement theories, this study compares the structures, resource bases, ideologies, and strategies of nongovernmental organizations engaged in peace and conflict resolution (P/CROs) in three regions with extended violent conflicts: Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine. Qualitative content analysis techniques are used to analyze 27 detailed case reports. We analyze the funding patterns and structural attributes of the P/CROs in our sample, with particular attention to how they obtain fiscal resources and membership in spite of the risks they may experience. We then explore the degree of formalization among P/CROs over time and, finally, we examine the ideological frames that P/CROs use and how these frames relate to their tactics. Throughout the analysis we pay attention to how the political context of each region influences P/CRO behavior.