Risky Business: Breastfeeding Promotion Policy and the Problem of Risk Language

Over the past decades, the rhetoric surrounding breastfeeding promotion policy has been increasingly focused on couching formula feeding in terms of “risk” rather than, as had been the norm, focusing on the “benefits” of breastfeeding. We examine this major policy shift in breastfeeding promotion and public health efforts. Analyzing qualitative data collected from 214 expectant mothers exposed to differently worded breastfeeding promotion materials, we identify several overwhelming trends in evaluations of the materials by those women exposed to “risk” language. These trends, we argue, point to strategic and normative reasons to reconsider this policy shift to the language of risk.     

Mixed Methods – Stand der Debatte und aktuelle Problemlagen

While mixed methods research is already much advanced and institutionalized in textbooks, handbooks and its own journal on an international level, the German-language debate on mixed methods lags behind. Thus, this introductory paper starts with outlining the history and key concepts of mixed methods designs as well as the current state of the international debate. Next, we explain the aims and concept of this special issue as well as the crucial arguments of the single papers in the overall context of the special issues. Namely, the debate in this special issue of the Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie circles around the following four topics: philosophical, methodological and methodical foundations of mixed methods research; mixed methods designs and mixed methods sampling; modes of combining data and issues of validity; and process-oriented analysis, longitudinal analysis and evaluation. Based on the observations that, firstly, both the international social science research community and social problems are globalizing and, secondly, that social research itself is changing, especially by the increasing relevance of social media and big data, the paper concludes with suggestions for future research.     

Why do women continue to smoke in pregnancy?

Smoking during pregnancy not only impacts on the woman's health but that of her unborn child. Women most likely to continue smoking throughout pregnancy are generally of lower age, socio-economic status, level of education and occupational status. Women who continue to smoke during pregnancy often feel criticized by society. They feel guilt and personal conflict at not quitting. Lack of long-term positive outcomes from anti-smoking campaigns may result form ignorance surrounding socio-economically disadvantaged women's life circumstances. Current interventions often ignore the emotional and psychological stressors associated with pregnancy; they do not address the altered physiological processes that occur during pregnancy. A review of the literature pertaining to women who smoke throughout pregnancy is presented. Women want an individualised approach to smoking cessation advice, with health care workers having knowledge of the woman's social situation and viewpoints. This paper reveals that the woman's perspective has largely been ignored. Indeed health care professionals have attempted to manipulate women to stop smoking rather than engage in mutually respectful dialogue.     

Family Influence on Physical Health During the Middle Years: The Case of Onset of Hypertension

Using survival analysis for 367 married women and 340 married men, this article investigates (a) change in hazard rates and survival probabilities with age for the onset of hypertension and (b) the influences of stressful marital and parental relationships on the hazard rates and survival probabilities of hypertension. Hazard and survival plots show that the risk for hypertension increases during the middle years to maximum, then decreases with age for both men and women. Log‐logistic survival models demonstrate that although marital stress significantly increases the likelihood of earlier hypertension among these long‐time married men and women, parental stress increases the likelihood of earlier hypertension only for women. These models control for the effects of stressful work conditions, health behaviors, hostility, and education. Employing a longitudinal research design strengthens confidence in the findings. The findings demonstrate that stressful close relationships may be more important determinants of physical health than is generally assumed.     

Household decisions and equivalence scales

Considering an economy with a private good and a household good with a variable degree of publicness, we examine the consequences of two extreme decision rules: (1) the cooperative model, where households maximize the welfare of their members, and (2) the noncooperative model, where each household’s member maximizes her own utility. While publicness of the household good is necessary and sufficient for economies of size to exist and to increase with family size under cooperation, it is shown that this no longer holds in the absence of cooperation. On the other hand, the cooperative rule leads to less generous scales than the noncooperative one.      

Global stability of stochastic systems with Poisson distributed random time-delay

This paper gives global stability criteria for a controlled stochastic system with randomly distributed time-delay. The delay function is governed by a homogeneous Poisson process and is independent of the stochastic perturbation on the system. A delay-dependent gain controller is constructed and used to develop a stabilization criterion for the system. Based on the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional method and stochastic analysis theory, notions of stochastic stability are examined in terms of linear matrix inequality and global stability criteria derived.     

Distribution-neutral provision of public goods

The paper describes a normative approach to budget incidence, given the provision of a public good. The objective is to balance the budget by an income tax such that the budget is distribution-neutral. This property requires that every consumer’s net welfare gain, i.e. the benefit from consuming the public good and the tax burden in financing it, does not change the inequality inherent in the income distribution. The properties of the distribution-neutral tax are investigated and completely determined. The marginal willingness to pay for the public good is decisive for the degree of progression of the tax schedule. My co-author Georg Tillmann passed away in March 2006, much too soon. He was my friend, more than a colleague. I dedicate this paper to his memory.     

Editorial: Die Soziologie der Cultural Studies

Ohne Zusammenfassung Udo G?ttlich PD Dr., M. A., Vertretung einer Professur am Institut für Medien-und Theaterwissenschaft im Fachbereich II — Kulturwissenschaften und ?sthetische Kommunikation — der Universit?t Hildesheim im WS 2007/08. Leiter der Forschungsgruppe „Politik und Kommunikation“ am Rhein-Ruhr-Institut für Sozialforschung und Politikberatung der Universit?t Duisburg-Essen. Arbeits-und Forschungsschwerpunkte: Allgemeine Soziologie, Medien-, Kommunikations-und Kultursoziologie, Cultural Studies Approach, Theorie und Analytik der Medien-und der Popul?rkultur. Aktuelle Publikation: Die Kreativit?t des Handelns in der Medienaneignung, Konstanz 2006.     

Equivalence Scales Reconsidered

The paper proposes a new and normative approach for adjusting households’ incomes in order to account for the heterogeneity of needs across income recipients when measuring inequality and welfare. We derive the implications for the structure of the adjustment method of two conditions concerned with the way the ranking of situations is modified by a change in the reference household type and by more equally distributed living standards across households. Our results suggest that concern for greater equality in living standards conflicts with the basic welfarist principle of symmetrical treatment of individuals that is at the core of the standard equivalence scale approach.