Community violence and PTSD in selected South African townships

Given the high rates of crime in South Africa's townships, nonpolitical violence out-side the home and its psychological impact on women were investigated within two samples, the primary a help-seeking sample and the secondary a community sample. In the help-seeking sample, two thirds of the women reported having experienced several traumatic events outside the home. Those women displayed a median of 9 PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms, with nearly half meeting all criteria for PTSD. In the community sample, 40 women of color were interviewed at a community festival for women, and again two thirds reported having experienced several traumatic events outside the home during the previous year. These women displayed a median of 8.8 PTSD symptoms, with none meeting all criteria for PTSD. South Africa's distinctive culture of violence is discussed as context for understanding issues of community violence and PTSD among women in its minority townships.     

Maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy and life-course-persistent offending

Evidence exists documenting the relationship between maternal cigarette smoking and offspring criminal behavior. Although efforts to understand this relationship in a theoretical framework have only recently emerged, attempts made have been grounded in Moffitt's developmental taxonomy of antisocial behavior. Specifically, maternal cigarette smoking is generally viewed as a potential disruption in the offspring's neuropsychological development, which is subsequently associated with life-course-persistent offending. Using a birth cohort of 987 African Americans, the authors extend previous research by empirically assessing, prospectively, the link between maternal cigarette smoking and life-course-persistent offending while using different operationalizations of Moffitt's offending categorization. The authors' findings offer some support for the relationship between maternal cigarette smoking and life-course-persistent offending, which is dependent on how this concept is operationalized.     

A shot in the arm for the military: consent to immunisation against biological warfare agents

The risk to Britain's Armed Forces from Biological Warfare (BW) is low but without protection their use would be devastating. Available protective measures include immunisation. The Government owes a legal duty of care to Servicemen to provide protection against a range of hazards, including those of BW. The State also owes Servicemen a duty of care to allow free and informed consent or free and informed refusal to medical procedures, including immunisation. However, refusal by key personnel to accept BW immunisation could degrade operational capability. Resolution between these two, potentially conflicting, duties of care may be controversial. To override a soldier's expressed interests would rank society's needs higher than those of the individual. Yet there are circumstances, such as exposure of Servicemen to BW used by an aggressor, where this would be ethically acceptable. The State's interests, combined with the best interests of the Servicemen, provide adequate ethical argument for both occupational immunisation (where it is an entry criterion for the Armed Forces) and mandatory immunisation (where disciplinary action may be taken against the non-compliant). Historically, both approaches have been used for public health immunisations and the legal framework already exists for both.     

Has Legislative Television Changed Legislator Behavior?: C-SPAN2 and the Frequency of Senate Filibustering

Using data from 1959–1998, this studyexamines the impact of legislativetelevision (C-SPAN2) on the number offilibusters in the United States Senate. As previous work has suggested, theinstitutional rules of the federallegislative branch of government in theU.S. often allow for politicalgrandstanding and posturing, and theseactivities are enhanced with the presenceof television cameras on the legislativefloor. Like those previous studies, thepresent work builds a theoretical modelwherein political services are consideredsearch/experience goods, and serviceproviders (federal legislators) areexpected utility maximizers who areconcerned with promoting their policypreferences and their re-electionprospects. Poisson model estimates suggestthat the presence of legislative televisionhas worked to increase the filibuster countin the Senate. As a result, such posturingand positioning on the issues by incumbents(in front of television cameras) is costlyfor challengers to replicate and likelycontributes to lower turnover rates in thelegislative branch.     

An Investigation of Personality Traits in Relation to Adolescent School Absenteeism

We examined the Big Five personality traits of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Openness, as well as four narrower traits of Aggression, Optimism, Tough-Mindedness, and Work Drive in relation to absences from school for middle- and high-school students. Participants were 248 seventh grade students, 321 tenth grade students, and 282 twelfth grade students. Most of the Big Five absence correlations were significant in the expected direction at all 3 grade levels. While Aggression, Optimism, Work Drive were significantly related to absences, only Work Drive added incremental variance to the prediction of absences beyond the Big Five traits. Study results were generally similar across grade levels. Findings were discussed in terms of dispositional absenteeism, the generalizability of the Big Five trait model, and the utility of more narrowband traits. Implications were drawn for early identification of absence-prone students and the precedent role of personality variables in school absence research on the effects of other variables, programs, and interventions.     

The changing association between prenatal participation in WIC and birth outcomes in New York City.

We analyze the relationship between prenatal WIC participation and birth outcomes in New York City from 1988-2001. The analysis is unique for several reasons. First, we have over 800,000 births to women on Medicaid, the largest sample ever used to analyze prenatal participation in WIC. Second, we focus on measures of fetal growth distinct from preterm birth, since there is little clinical support for a link between nutritional supplementation and premature delivery. Third, we restrict the primary analysis to women on Medicaid who have no previous live births and who initiate prenatal care within the first four months of pregnancy. Our goal is to lessen heterogeneity between WIC and non-WIC participants by limiting the sample to highly motivated women who have no experience with WIC from a previous pregnancy. Fourth, we analyze a large sub-sample of twin deliveries. Multifetal pregnancies increase the risk of anemia and fetal growth retardation and thus may benefit more than singletons from nutritional supplementation. We find no relationship between prenatal WIC participation and measures of fetal growth among singletons. We find a modest pattern of association between WIC and fetal growth among U.S.-born Black twins. Our findings suggest that prenatal participation in WIC has had a minimal effect on adverse birth outcomes in New York City.     

PUBLIC POLICY AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS: TEACHER EDUCATION, 1960–1972*

Abstract: This is a case study of some aspects of teacher education policy formation in Australia. Between 1960 and 1972 the States sought to obtain from the national government specific purpose grant-aid for the training of their teachers, in addition to that already provided indirectly by grants to the States for their universities. The national government gave way, step-by-step, to this pressure, but “imposed” the broad condition of corporate “autonomy” for grant-aided tertiary educational institutions, instead of State departmental “control” of teacher training. The paper also considers what perspectives are suggested by this case study for the development of theories of public policy in the Australian federal system of government.