Risk Perception Among Smokers: A Qualitative Study

The aim of this qualitative study is to identify the dimensions people used to assess the risk of smoking and then compare them with those used by health professionals in primary healthcare. Five discussion groups were conducted. The field work was carried out in Barcelona (Spain), from February 2005 to January 2006. Data were analyzed following a semantic‐thematic categorical content analysis (ACC‐ts). Results showed that people tend to employ stereotypical discourses when evaluating the risk of smoking. Similarly, they reassess the risk in the context of their life experience and incorporate new nuances to the arguments sustaining their behavior. Once this reassessment takes place, the decision to continue smoking emerges, and smokers come up with additional arguments justifying their habit (i.e., age, benefits related to costs). Professionals are aware of this process and its multidimensional nature. Nevertheless, their discourse loses this multidimensional feature when discussing the strategies they use at smoking cessation interventions. This qualitative study increases the understanding of various meanings that people attribute to their life experience. These assumptions may be useful for developing health practices that are closer to people. As a practical utility of these results, it would be interesting to apply a preliminary assessment of the different meanings that people attribute to smoking from their life context in risk communication.     

Performance and burnout in intensive care units

Abstract

The relationship between three different performance measures and burnout was explored in 20 Dutch Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) proved to be significantly related to nurses' perceptions of performance as well as to objectively assessed unit performance. Subjective performance measures relate negatively to burnout levels of nurses, whereas an objective performance measure relates positively to burnout. Furthermore, subjectively assessed personal performance (i.e. personal accomplishment) is more strongly related to burnout than subjectively assessed unit performance. A model test of the relationship between both types of subjective performance and burnout reveals that nurses' perception of unit performance is indirectly related to burnout through perception of personal performance. This model holds similarly for objectively well- and poor-performing ICUs.     

Phthalate Exposure Through Food and Consumers' Risk Perception of Chemicals in Food

Phthalates have been detected in various types of retail foods. Consumers' exposure to phthalates is common. Consumers are concerned about chemicals in food. Our aim was to investigate the relationships between consumers' exposure to phthalates through food, consumers' interest in a natural and healthy diet, risk perception of food chemicals, and consumers' diet patterns. We collected data through a mail survey in the adult Swiss-German population ( N  = 1,200). We modeled exposure to di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), and diethyl phthalate (DEP) based on a food frequency questionnaire and phthalate concentrations reported from food surveys. Using rating scales, we assessed risk perceptions of chemicals in food and interest in a natural and healthy diet. Higher risk perceptions and higher natural and healthy diet interest were associated with higher daily doses of DEHP, BBP, and DEP. No health risk from phthalates in food was identified for the vast majority of the population. Four consumers' diet clusters were discerned, with differences in phthalate exposure, risk perceptions, and interest in a natural and healthy diet. This study shows that even those consumers who express strong interest in natural food and low acceptance of food chemicals, and who try to make respective food choices, are exposed to contaminants such as phthalates.     

A note on closure of the ILR and DLR classes under formation of coherent systems

In this paper, we give the closure of the class of increasing likelihood ratio (ILR) life distributions under the formation of certain coherent systems with independent and identically distributed components, and particularly in k-out-of-n systems. Some possible definitions of its dual class (DLR) are discussed and results about the closure are given. Furthermore, we include examples which show that these two aging classes are not closed under formation of special coherent systems. This work has been supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Grants PB96-1105 and BFM2000-0362.     

Estimating Engel curves: a new way to improve the SILC-HBS matching process using GLM methods

Microdata are required to evaluate the distributive impact of the taxation system as a whole (direct and indirect taxes) on individuals or households. However, in European Union countries this information is usually distributed into two separate surveys: the Household Budget Surveys (HBS), including total household expenditure and its composition, and EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), including detailed information about households'' income and direct (but not indirect) taxes paid. We present a parametric statistical matching procedure to merge both surveys. For the first stage of matching, we propose estimating total household expenditure in HBS (Engel curves) using a GLM estimator, instead of the traditionally used OLS method. It is a better alternative, insofar as it can deal with the heteroskedasticity problem of the OLS estimates, while making it unnecessary to retransform the regressors estimated in logarithms. To evaluate these advantages of the GLM estimator, we conducted a computational Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, when an error term is added to the deterministic imputation of expenditure in the EU-SILC, we propose replacing the usual Normal distribution of the error with a Chi-square type, which allows a better approximation to the original expenditures variance in the HBS. An empirical analysis is provided using Spanish surveys for years 2012–2016. In addition, we extend the empirical analysis to the rest of the European Union countries, using the surveys provided by Eurostat (EU-SILC, 2011; HBS, 2010).     

The Balanced Worth: A Procedure to Evaluate Performance in Terms of Ordered Attributes

There are many problems in the social sciences that refer to the evaluation of the relative performance of some populations when their members’ achievements are described by a distribution of outcomes over a set of ordered categories. A new method for the evaluation of this type of problems is presented here. That method, called balanced worth, offers a cardinal, complete and transitive evaluation that is based on the likelihood of getting better results. The evaluation of each society is based on the probability of obtaining better results with respect to the others. The balanced worth is a refinement of “the worth” (Herrero and Villar in PLoS ONE 8(12):e84784, 2013.  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084784) that overcomes its excessive sensitivity to the differences, due to the presence of ties. We also discuss how this method can be applied for the case of heterogeneous populations and show how it can be applied in different contexts. An empirical example, regarding life satisfaction in Spain is used to illustrate the working of this method.     

Dairy Livestock Interventions for Food Security in Uganda: What are the Implications for Women's Empowerment?*

Women are increasingly the target of agricultural development programs aimed at reducing poverty and food insecurity, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Some feminist scholars argue that such efforts are driven more by concerns about the efficient use of resources than the rights of women and do little to transform gendered power relations. We examine how development interventions that target women affect household well-being, especially food insecurity, empower women, and transform gendered power relations. Our study uses the case of the Gates Foundation funded East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) program in Uganda. Our methods include the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index survey and in-depth interviews of women farmers and key informants, within the EADD program. We argue that the livestock sector provides critical insights into women's empowerment because livestock are not “socially neutral” in their gendered effects. Our study found that: (1) ownership of dairy cows enhanced important dimensions of women's empowerment and gender equity that benefited women and households; (2) women's labor responsibilities for dairy cows disempowered some women by increasing their time poverty and; (3) ownership of dairy cows provided a means for women to disrupt entrenched social norms related to gender roles within the household and agriculture.     

Population Structure and the Human Development Index

Social Indicators Research - This paper provides an alternative way of measuring human development that takes explicitly into account the differences in the countries’ population structures....     

Attitude towards career progression in Spanish dual-earner couples: A dyadic approach

This study addresses the relevance of gender roles and perceived gender discrimination against women in attitude towards career progression in heterosexual dual-earner couples. One hundred and thirty-nine wives and their husbands completed the questionnaires independently. From a dyadic data analysis, using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), we examined the actor and partner effect. The following findings were made: (a) an actor and partner effect of gender roles in husbands, (b) an actor effect of perceived gender discrimination in wives, and (c) an interaction effect between partner gender roles by actor professional status in wives. Overall, results showed that gender roles and perceived gender discrimination are useful factors in understanding couples’ interdependence in their attitudes towards career progression. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of traditional gender roles in perpetuating inequality between men and women and the relevance of perceived gender discrimination against women in attitude towards career progression.     

Portuguese translation and validation of the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale

The absence of a translated and validated instrument for measuring marital satisfaction in Brazil, the largest country in South America and fifth most populous country in the world, is a significant barrier for research and mental health service delivery. The purpose of this study was to translate and validate a marital satisfaction scale into Portuguese that would have both empirical credibility and cultural relevance in Brazil. A six-step serial approach was used to simultaneously translate and culturally validate the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale (RDAS). The translated instrument (RDAS-P) demonstrated good psychometric properties during field testing.