Challenges of Safe Motherhood: Program and Policy Recommendations

ABSTRACT

This article synthesizes the major findings from research and case studies on safe motherhood and focuses on best practices and changes in public policy. Many factors that negatively influence safe motherhood can be ameliorated—and have been in numerous societies through education, access to resources, public–private partnerships, and grassroots efforts. A model identifying the interrelationship of variable is provided. Policy recommendations are discussed.     

Analyzing the Impact of Bonding and Bridging Social Capital on Economic Well-Being: Results from Canada's General Social Survey

In this study we analyze nationally representative data from Canada's General Social Survey to investigate how various indicators of bonding and bridging social capital are associated with economic well-being and how the magnitude of their associations compare with each other. Our findings suggest that several dimensions of bonding social capital, including knowing neighbors well enough to ask favors of them and providing assistance to others, are positively associated with economic well-being. The study's indicators of bridging social capital were also linked to increases in the participants’ economic well-being. When comparing the associations of bonding and bridging social capital we ascertained that bridging social capital in the form of group membership, including Internet group membership and participation in groups, had a more robust association than any of the indicators of bonding social capital. We consider the implications of the study's findings in light of a technologically-advanced yet volatile economy.     

Increasing spiritual diversity in social work discourse: a scientific avenue toward more effective mental health service provision

The costs associated with mental disorders are substantial, yet treatment efficacy is still in its infancy. Drawing from key concepts in the philosophy of science literature, this paper argues that increasing spiritual diversity in social work discourse represents one important avenue to increase the effectiveness of mental health service provision. Toward that end, the role that cognitive diversity plays in scientific advancement is discussed. Demographic data is related suggesting most social workers hold secular values and, consequently, secular perspectives enjoy a privileged status in professional discourse. The effects of the lack of spiritual diversity are delineated on disciplinary discourse, interventions, and service provision. Islam is used as an example to illustrate how effectiveness can potentially be augmented by incorporating the voice of Muslims and other people of faith into disciplinary discourse.     

Secure Body Attachment and the Prevention of Eating Disorders: A Case Application

Drawing on attachment theory, the author explores the particular physical presence of the body as a significant aspect of the attachment relationship between two people, most notably between two females (the mother and the daughter). Recognizing the nature of one’s body attachment as a protective and a risk factor provides a greater understanding of the potential for resilience, as well as the presence of vulnerability in relationship to one’s body. Through a case application, the author argues that without a model of secure attachment to the body, a female is more likely to develop an attachment to cultural ideals as an extension of primary relationships and at the expense of her own body, moving her from exposure to action in the form of an eating disorder.     

Protecting the Public's Health in An Era of Bioterrorism: The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act

During the fall of 2001, public health law scholars at the Center for Law and the Public's Health at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities were asked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a series of national partners to develop the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA). The MSEHPA provides a series of modern powers for states to consider in responding to catastrophic public health emergencies, including bioterrorism events. Since December 2001, provisions based on the MSEHPA have been introduced in nearly 40 states and passed in 20. Underlying the development of the act is a long-standing debate between legal and ethical scholars and law- and policymakers as to the appropriate ways to balance individual and communal rights. The drafting challenge was to create a comprehensive model law that provides adequate powers to protect the public's health while also respecting individual and group rights. The MSEHPA empowers public health agents with broad authority and simultaneously limits the exercise of power in time, duration, and scope to accomplish communal goals of abating serious public health threats. Coercive public health powers, particularly isolation and quarantine, are exercised on a temporary basis, only so long as are reasonably necessary and only among persons who justifiably may pose a risk to others because of their contagious conditions. Individual rights to contest the coercive use of public health powers, even during an emergency, are secured.     

How Living Wage Legislation Affects U.S. Poverty Rates

I investigate how living wage legislation affects poverty. I find evidence that living wage ordinances modestly reduce poverty rates where such ordinances are enacted. However, there is no evidence that state minimum wage laws do so. The difference in the impacts of the two types of legislation conceivably stems from a difference in the party responsible for bearing the burden of the cost.

Exploring issues of children as actors in social research

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus among childhood researchers on the concept of children's agency, or children as social actors, within research. The argument for the focus on children as ‘agents’ has commonly critiqued an earlier dominant tradition of research, whereby children had been positioned as passive objects of investigation, with their capacity for social agency largely ignored.This paper provides a theoretical and methodological exploration of the concept of children's agency in the research process. The authors outline conceptual developments that have contributed to the increased focus on children's agency and discuss how this focus has influenced research methods, both in terms of counting children in and researching collaboratively with them. Key elements of a methodological framework for promoting children's agency in collaborative research are outlined and some of the contextual obstacles to the implementation of this framework are discussed, in particular those encountered in attempting to ‘balance power relations’ between adults and children. The facilitation by adults of children themselves as researchers is identified as a possible way forward.The paper concludes with a brief discussion on the extent to which the acknowledgement of children's agency in research may lead to more inclusive policy practices.     

Employee absence,age and tenure: A study of nonlinear effects and trivariate models

Multiple regression techniques were used to explore the nature of the relationships between age, tenure and absence in 2417 British local government workers drawn from three work groups. The data were collected from organizational records and included measures of both non-certified absence and medically certified absence. Linear and curvilinear associations among age, tenure and absence were examined. The possible moderating or mediating role of tenure in the relationship between age and absence was subsequently analysed. The data revealed linear relationships between age and absence that were negative for non-certified absence and positive for certified absence. In contrast, curvilinear relationships were found between tenure and absence that were U-shaped for noncertified absence and inverse U-shaped for certified absence. Tenure was found to moderate but not to mediate the relationship between age and absence. The implications of the results are discussed in the context of the changing age and career paths of the workforce, and of methodological issues in absence research.     

Augmented likelihood for incorporating auxiliary information into left-truncated data

Lifetime Data Analysis - Time-to-event data are often subject to left-truncation. Lack of consideration of the sampling condition will introduce bias and loss in efficiency of the estimation. While...