The Relationship Between Urinary Tract Infections and the Collegiate Academic Calendar

Abstract

College students believe that they are more likely to be ill during examination periods than at other times in the academic year. We in the health service hypothesized that urinary tract infections are not affected by the demands of the academic calendar.

During a 4-year study, the university health service obtained urine culture data prospectively from 456 patients who had a total of 508 episodes of urinary tract infections. Each year, the number of urinary tract infections decreased during both midterm and final examination periods, but rebounded to higher-than-average levels in the second week following the midterm examination period, as well as during the second week of the second (spring) semester, immediately after the mid-winter recess. Mean duration of symptoms was 34 hours (range, from 12 to 60).

Urinary tract infections were less common during examination periods, when students were preoccupied with academic responsibilities, but such infections increased in frequency in the period immediately after examinations, when sexual intimacy was resumed or when sexual intercourse with a new partner began. Urinary tract infections in college women, the study indicated, are primarily related to sexual intercourse, and susceptibility is only indirectly affected by the demands of the academic calendar.     

Adolescent attitudes and beliefs about sexual behavior

Four hundred and fifty-one teenagers responded to a sexual attitude survey. Results focus on attitudes and values related to sexual activity and to parental and school involvement and responsibility for sex education. Findings are reported as they relate to six important sexual decisions: to have intercourse or not? to have children or not? to use contraceptives or not? to have an abortion or not? to give the baby up for adoption or not? and to marry or not? Lack of communication, feelings that parents were unaware of their teenagers' sexual behavior, and uncertainty and confusion about their sexual feelings also surfaced.     

Care for all: 10 reforms that could save the system

The many problems of medical care in the United States have been stated and restated. These problems have evolved over the years and cannot be attributed to one or even a few causes. Most proposals for change are for single problems and their remedy will not produce meaningful reform, much less stop medical inflation. Today's problems are yesterday's solutions. There are 10 reforms that, if accomplished, could bring fairness, cost accountability, and financial controls to the health care system, while retaining competition and choice.     

High quality private long-term care insurance: can we get there from here?

The private long-term care insurance market has undergone rapid change in the last several years. Although the quality of policies has generally improved, problems remain. Consumer protection issues include the lack of adequate inflation protection features, how activities of daily living are measured, potentially high lapse rates and lack of nonforfeiture values, how home care benefits are defined, and the appropriate loss ratio standards. The concerns of consumer and elderly advocates about the quality of private long-term care insurance have prompted congress to consider the need for federal intervention. While there are numerous approaches that the federal government could take, mandatory standards substantially higher than the current model standards of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners may prove the most effective in improving the quality of policies on a nationwide basis.     

Noisy Winter: The DDT Controversy in the Years before Silent Spring

Abstract In this paper, we examine three unanticipated findings from a social constructionist analysis of popular media coverage of the pesticide DDT from the years 1944 to 1961. The first unanticipated finding was the early (1945) appearance of negative or cautionary claims in the media source examined, the New York Times. Second, while negative or cautionary claims about the pesticide did constitute a minority voice during this time period, it was nonetheless a persistent voice. The third unanticipated finding was the predominance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the State Agricultural Experiment Stations among those claimsmakers initially cautioning potential users about unintended and potentially deleterious impacts. The concept of "routine monitoring mechanisms" is introduced to explain this third finding. We conclude by considering the potential impact of this coverage on the subsequent development of the controversy.     

Electronic distribution of public assistance benefits: System performance and stakeholder opinions

Several states have conducted pilot projects to test the feasibility of using electronic banking techniques to deliver public assistance benefits. These systems establish electronic account balances which recipients access through the use of a debit card at terminals such as bank automatic teller machines or transaction authorization machines like those that validate credit card charges. The present study examines the first test of a comprehensive electronic benefit transfer (EBT) system for multiple benefit programs, a pilot project for cash and food stamp programs conducted by the state of Maryland in the city of Baltimore. Surveys examined the issues perceived by the three primary sets of stakeholders:

• 1. 

  1. representatives of government, including social service workers (n = 47) and key state personnel;

• 2. 

  2. two-thirds of the participating retailers (n = 110); and

• 3. 

  3. benefit recipients (n = 882).All stakeholder groups were generally favorable regarding EBT. However, some subgroups were less favorable: small store operators were less favorable than larger ones and cash recipients were more favorable than food stamp participants. Understanding these opinions requires a closer examination of the meaning and use of public assistance programs by all participants.

     

Perceptions of sources of sex education and targets of sex communication: sociodemographic and cohort effects.

As part of a larger survey study on young adult sexuality conducted over a 17-year period at a Midwest U.S. university, more than 6,000 college students completed questions on the sources of their sex education and the degree to which they have communicated about sex with various types of individuals. Participants reported receiving more sex education from peers and media than from parents (and mothers more than fathers). Respondents also reported communicating more about sex with peers than with parents or any other categories of individuals. Differences were found in the degree of sex education from various sources and in communication with various targets based on gender, ethnic background, and social class. Furthermore, changes were found over the 17-year period. More recent cohorts of students perceived that they received more sex education from media, peers, and professionals, and communicated more about sex with professionals, relative to earlier cohorts.     

Calling Social Work

New Labour has promoted the use of information and communicationtechnology. Call centres are a key development in this strategyand are now in use for accessing social services. In officialpolicy, the use of call centres is presented as an aspect ofattempts to change the relationship between service users andthe purchasers and providers of services. In contrast, we suggestthat the use of call centres in social care does little to shiftthe balance of power. Call centres bring together four dimensionsof New Labour discourse: learning from the private sector, cuttingcosts, technology and consumerism. Three issues emerge fromtheir development: the undermining of social work’s senseof place; the circumscribing of service user participation;the rationalization of social workers. The call centre servesas a signifier of what, it is claimed, the combination of NewLabour’s consumerism and technology can achieve. Thissignification disguises call centres’ properties of efficiency,calculability, predictability and control. Contrary to the rhetoricthat accompanies them, call centres may be curtailing serviceuser participation, as well as delimiting the social work role.Accordingly, their use has important, but as yet largely unresearched,implications for service users and social workers.