South European Healthcare Systems under Harsh Austerity: A Progress–Regression Mix?

This article addresses the question of whether the economic crisis provides a politically opportune time to drastically curtail public healthcare in South Europe or whether, instead, there are signs of longer-term reform strategies for potentially balancing fiscal targets with the quest for enhanced value and health outcomes, when eventually growth resumes. After a brief examination of the profile of healthcare systems in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain prior to the crisis, we comparatively assess the mix of retrenchment, restructuring and recalibration strategies. The effects of the austerity-driven reforms on current (and expected) health outcomes are also briefly analysed. We conclude with reflections on the future of public healthcare in South Europe.     

My Heroine

Desire is forced to maintain itself in this space between reality and pleasure, this frontier that power jealously controls with the help of innumerable frontier guards: in the family, at school, in the barracks, at the workshop, in psychiatric hospitals and, of course, at the movies (Guattari 1996a Guattari , Félix (1996a) , ‘A Cinema of Desire’ , trans. from the French by David L. Sweet , in Félix Guattari , Soft Subversions , ed. Sylvère Lotringer , New York : Semiotext(e) , pp. 143 – 54 . [Google Scholar]:144).     

Black geographies of struggle and pleasure in Nona Faustine’s White Shoes

In Nona Faustine’s photo series of self-portraits, White Shoes, the artist’s body becomes the agent in exposing the instability of racialized historical geography. Faustine revisits New York City’s landmarks to address what is missing or made invisible: a slave ship, a fugitive woman’s rebirth, or African burial grounds. Making herself visible where she is supposed to remain invisible, she highlights the unacknowledged connection between national wealth, nationalism, geography, and black labor. She discloses the topography of her travels as a changeable terrain, where one slips from the national iconic to ambiguous and finally, to the sacred. I suggest that Faustine doesn’t seek to democratize the extant historical maps, but to shift the terms of reading the city’s geography. She lifts the boundaries between the polarized pathways of knowing – the secularized and the sacred, the living and the dead, the verifiable and the missing. This shift is also made possible by the medium of photography and a feminist turn towards pleasures in one’s body. As Faustine comes to terms with the psychic and cultural inheritance of the diaspora, she moves from the collective body of pain towards black women’s pleasure in their own bodies without purging the history of sexual trauma.     

Sleep Quantity and Problems as Mediators of the Eveningness-Adjustment Link during Childhood and Adolescence

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Chronotype, or morningness/eveningness, has been associated with adjustment in both children and adolescents. Specifically, eveningness has been linked to...     

Gender differences in European volunteer rates

The main goal of this research is to identify the reasons for gender differences in European volunteer rates in different types of voluntary organisations. To that end, we focus in volunteer rates at individual and national levels. We have drawn our data from the European Values Survey (EVS, 1999 and 2008). We have employed Logit models carrying out independent estimations for the individual likelihood of working as a volunteer for four categories: social awareness, professional, education and social justice. We have carried out independent estimations and we have also repeated estimations by gender subsamples. Our main result is that social factors might be even more relevant for decisions to volunteer than individual socio-economic factors. Specifying the peer group as much as possible allows better control of social variables. For example, studying the female volunteer rate is more relevant to control for the female national NGO membership rate than the total national rate. We also highlight important gender differences. For example, education is positively correlated with decisions to volunteer for both genders in all categories, but the educational effect is stronger for men in relation to professional activities and stronger for women in relation to social awareness and social justice activities.     

Maternal Acceptance as a Moderator of the Relation Between Threat to Self Appraisals and Mental Health Problems in Adolescents from Divorced Families

Appraisals about the implications of stressful events that are evaluated as involving a threat to self (negative self-evaluation, negative evaluation from others, rejection by others) have been shown to place youth at risk for the development of mental health problems. This longitudinal study tested a protective-stabilizing interactive model, in which high maternal acceptance was predicted to mitigate the prospective relation between threat to self appraisals and change in adolescents’ mental health problems six months later. Participants were 89 adolescents from divorced families ages 10–12 and residential mothers. Adolescents reported on threat to self appraisals from the most stressful event experienced in the past month. Mothers and youth reported on maternal acceptance and mental health problems. Multiple regression analyses provided support for the protective effects of maternal acceptance on adolescents’ mental health problems. Intervention implications are discussed. Ana Brown is a pre-doctoral fellow in prevention research (NIMH 2 T32 MH18387–19) and doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Research interests include the study of children’s appraisals and responses to stressful events in the prevention of mental health problems. Sharlene Wolchik is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Her research focuses on identifying risk and protective factors for children whose parents have divorced. She also has designed and evaluated the efficacy of preventive interventions for children from divorced families and children who have experienced parental bereavement. Jenn-Yun Tein is a research associate professor and Co-Director of the Research Methodology Core of the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Her research interests include analyses of mediation and moderation of preventive interventions as well as applications of methodology and statistics in prevention research. Irwin Sandler is a Regents’ Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. His research interests focus on understanding resilience for children exposed to stress and on the development, evaluation and dissemination of programs to promote resilience and prevent mental health problems for children in stress.     

Population genetics of nine short tandem repeat loci: allele frequency distribution in a Brazilian population sample

Gene and genotype frequencies in relation to the D3S1358, vWA, FGA, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, D5S818, D13S317, and D7S820 loci were determined in a sample of 290 unrelated individuals (204 Caucasians and 86 mulattoes) living in the city of S?o Paulo, Brazil. The sex test Amelogenin was also performed in all subjects from our sample, revealing the expected sex in all instances. Allele frequency data obtained from the analysis of these samples were in the usual range of other population groups with similar racial background. In the sample of Caucasian individuals, panmictic proportions were ruled out in relation to TPOX and CSF1PO loci, but only in the latter was the overall frequency of heterozygotes significantly less than expected. In the sample of mulattoes, Hardy-Weinberg proportions were rejected in relation to FGA and CSF1PO loci, but in no instance were the overall numbers of heterozygotes different from the corresponding expected ones under panmixia. Taking into account all this and also the number of tests performed, the degree of genetic heterogeneity of Brazilian populations, and the critical level reached by the significant results (1% < alpha<5%), the departures from panmixia here observed can be considered to be negligible in altering significantly biologic relationship odds calculated under the assumption of random matings.