Showing papers in "Social Science & Medicine in 2005"

TL;DR: The results underscore the need for using validated, multi-item measures of experiences of racial discrimination and suggest the EOD may be one such measure that can be validly employed with working class African Americans and Latino Americans.

TL;DR: Nine areas for improvement in measuring patient-centered communication are proposed: developing theory-based operational definitions of PCC, clarifying what is being measured, validating of instruments, and examining pathways and mediators of links between PCC and outcomes.

TL;DR: It is argued that much of the most needed 'structural HIV prevention' is unavoidably political in that it calls for community actions and structural changes within a broad framework concerned to alleviate inequity in health, welfare and human rights.

TL;DR: Results suggest that the health behaviors and acculturation hypotheses may help to at least partially explain the Latino mortality paradox, and indicate that the observed differences between Latinos and non-Latino whites, as well as the effects of accULTuration on health behaviors, varied across men and women.

TL;DR: It is argued that peoples' resistance to medicine taking needs to be recognised and that the focus should be on developing ways of making medicines safe, as well as identifying and evaluating the treatments that people often choose in preference to medicines.

TL;DR: A review of 45 studies on the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model published from 1986 to 2003 showed that the extrinsic ERI hypothesis has gained considerable empirical support.

TL;DR: This paper presents discussions and experiences of help seeking and its relation to, and implications for, the practice of masculinity amongst a diversity of men in Scotland, as articulated in focus group discussions.

TL;DR: Although it is unlikely to supplant the role of trusted peers and adults, the internet has found an important place among adolescents' repertory of health information sources.

TL;DR: It is concluded that meta-narrative review adds value to the synthesis of heterogeneous bodies of literature, in which different groups of scientists have conceptualised and investigated the 'same' problem in different ways and produced seemingly contradictory findings.

TL;DR: It is found that social capital, a complex and compound construct, can be both an asset and a liability with respect to mental health of those in receipt of and those providing services and other interventions.

TL;DR: Examination of health disparities between white and black adults and whether the SES/health gradient differs across the two groups in the USA provides evidence for the continuing significance of both race and SES in determining health status over time.

TL;DR: It is suggested that in developed countries, weight gain prevention efforts might best be focused on those who are most socioeconomically disadvantaged, particularly those in lower status occupations.

TL;DR: Patterns of internet use for health information among those with and without stigmatized illnesses are examined to suggest that the internet may be a valuable health communication and education tool for populations who are affected by stigmatized conditions.

TL;DR: Preliminary evidence suggests that early intervention with the patient and their carer could prevent later development of psychological distress in both members.

TL;DR: It is argued that social capital is multifaceted and its relationship with health is complex and that socio-economic factors are of relatively greater importance in determining health.

TL;DR: Ethnographic and interview data from the forum provides evidence that participants share information and support each other as they use Xenical, and in the process emerge as 'expert patients' in relation to their body shape and its treatment.

TL;DR: It is concluded that the all of the preference-based utility measures that were evaluated appear to adequately discriminate across levels of RA severity.

TL;DR: This paper identifies a number of mechanisms that might give rise to the expected outcomes that are currently implicit within the design of the intervention and hypotheses specified within the trials evaluating the use of HRQoL measures in clinical practice and examines how far current clinical practice matches these mechanisms.

TL;DR: Investigating the psychosocial consequences of AIDS orphanhood in a rural district in Uganda and to identify potential areas for future interventions found high levels of psychological distress in orphans suggest that material support alone is not sufficient for these children.

TL;DR: The relationship between household food insufficiency and respondents' meeting the diagnostic screening criteria for major depression remained highly significant even when controlling for factors known to confer increased risk of depression and time invariant unobserved heterogeneity.

TL;DR: It is suggested that pet ownership provides potential opportunities for interactions between neighbours and that further research in this area is warranted, and social capital is another potential mechanism by which pets exert an influence on human health.

TL;DR: In this paper, the sociopolitical and physical environment, amenities, and indicators of economic deprivation and affluence were measured in neighbourhoods in the UK, and their relationship with self-rated health was investigated using multilevel regression models.

TL;DR: This work investigates inequality and inequity in the use of general practitioner consultations, outpatient visits, day cases and inpatient stays in England with a unique linked data set that combines rich information on the health of individuals and their socio-economic circumstances with information on local supply factors.

TL;DR: The findings underline the importance for effective carer support and health promotion of early identification of carers, monitoring high risk groups, timing appropriate interventions, and targeting resources.

TL;DR: Neighbourhood characteristics are related to physical inactivity and contribute to neighbourhood socioeconomic inequalities inPhysical inactivity is investigated and the increased probability of almost never walking, cycling and gardening in leisure time in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods was partly mediated by a poorer general physical design in these neighbourhoods.

TL;DR: It is argued that the promotion of incident reporting must engage with more than the ubiquitous 'culture of blame' and instead address the ' culture of medicine', especially as it relates to the collegial and professional control of quality.

TL;DR: Results indicate mixed support for the Healthy Immigrant Effect, with the native- and foreign-born neither more nor less likely to rank their health as fair or poor, but results from the proportional hazards model indicated that thenative-born were at lower risk to transition to poor health.

TL;DR: A number of simple interventions including question prompt sheets, audio-taping of consultations and patient decision aids have been shown to facilitate involvement in decision-making in patients with advanced cancer.

TL;DR: This paper addresses the distinctive nature of participatory action research in relation to ethical review requirements and draws from community-based experiences in mental health promotion research with immigrant and culturally diverse youth to illustrate the ethical advantages and challenges of applying a PAR approach.

TL;DR: A conceptual framework for studying how urban living affects population health is presented, based on the assumption that urban populations are defined by size, density, diversity, and complexity and that health in urban populations is a function of living conditions that are in turn shaped by municipal determinants and global and national trends.