The Mental Health of 13–17 Year-Olds in Australia: Findings from the National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being

The prevalence of 3 mental disorders (Depressive Disorder, Conduct Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), the prevalence of mental health problems, and rates of health-risk behaviours among those with problems, along with patterns of service utilisation, are reported for 1490 adolescents aged 13–17 years in Australia. Mental disorders were assessed using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV completed by parents. Parents and adolescents also completed standard questionnaires designed to assess mental health problems, health-risk behaviours and service use. On the basis of parent reports, 13% of adolescents were identified as having mental health problems, while 19% were identified as having problems on the basis of adolescent reports. Many of the adolescents with mental health problems also had problems in other areas of their lives. Only 31% of those identified by parents as having mental health problems and 20% of adolescents who identified themselves as having problems, had attended a professional service during the 6 months prior to the survey. School counselling was the service most frequently attended. Clinical and population health interventions must take into account the presence of co-morbid problems and low rates of health service usage reported amongst adolescents with mental health problems.

GC-IRD studies on regioisomeric ring substituted methoxy methyl phenylacetones related to 3,4-methylenedioxyphenylacetone

The methoxy methyl phenylacetones share an isobaric relationship (equivalent mass but different elemental composition) to the controlled precursor substance 3,4-methylenedioxyphenylacetone (3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl-2-propanone; 3,4-MDP-2-P). The ten ring substituted methoxy methyl phenylacetones are resolved by capillary gas chromatography on a modified cyclodextrin stationary phase. All ten regioisomeric ketones eluted before the controlled precursor substance 3,4-methylenedioxyphenylacetone. The vapor phase infrared spectra generated from the capillary column effluent clearly differentiated 3,4-MDP-2-P from the various methoxy methyl phenylacetones. Additionally the methoxy methyl phenylacetones provide unique individual infrared spectra. Infrared absorption frequencies and patterns confirmed the relative position of the methoxy-group and the acetone side-chain for the regioisomeric ketones.     

On Biehl's Defense of Bookchin's Immanent Dialectic

Stephen G. Bunker. Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985.

Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn: The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon. Harper Perennial, New York, 1990.

Chico Mendes: Fight for the Forest: Chico Mendes in His Own Words. (Additional material by Tony Gross). Latin American Bureau, London, 1989; distributed in U.S. by Monthly Review Press.     

Local government in Europe: Retrenchment,restructuring and British exceptionalism

This article compares the strategy of British governments towards elected local government following the onset of fiscal stress in the mid‐1970s with those of two other western European countries with a unitary system of government: France and Sweden. The conclusion reached is that, notwithstanding different national configurations of central‐local government relations and the distinctiveness of the British strategy, there are similar policy and institutional outcomes in each case. In so far as such outcomes are taking place irrespective of the party political or ideological complexion of governments, they are consistent with a neo‐Fordist interpretation of local government restructuring.