Incarcerated mothers and parenting

This paper describes as a primary prevention strategy, a parent-education program aimed at enhancing the parenting skills and knowledge of incarcerated women (the majority of whom were mothers). Data are presented which describe changes in program participants' self-evaluations, parenting attitudes, and expectations of children. Upon completing of the parenting program, few differences were observed for the various pre- and post-test measures. Specifically, the analysis indicated that participants' self-esteem improved slightly but that participants appeared to regress in such parenting attitudes as beliefs in the use of corporal punishment as a means of discipline. The need for further examination of the area of parenting attitudes and practices of incarcerated mothers is underscored.     

Stressful Childhood Experiences and Clinical Outcomes in People with Serious Mental Illness: a Gender Comparison in a Clinical Psychiatric Sample

Objective: This study examines stressful childhood experiences (SCE) including childhood abuse and family context in a cohort of 183 people diagnosed with serious mental illness (SMI) and compares gender specific rates of SCE and clinical outcome variables. Methods: 111 men and 72 women with SMI were interviewed regarding SCE and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, dissociative symptoms, risk for self-harm, and adult re-victimization. Results: Both genders endorse high rates of SCE. Cumulative SCE (the sum of seven SCE) are linked to increased levels of all four outcome variables after adjusting for demographic factors. Conclusions: The study addresses the need to assess cumulative SCE in a population with SMI and its effects on clinical outcomes in both genders.     

Legal Constraints on the Use of Race in Biomedical Research: Toward a Social Justice Framework

This article addresses three questions concerning the legal regulation of the use of race as a category in biomedical research: how does the law currently encourage the use of race in biomedical research?; how might the existing legal framework constrain its use?; and what should be the law's approach to race-based biomedical research? It proposes a social justice approach that aims to promote racial equality by discouraging the use of "race" as a biological category while encouraging its use as a socio-political category to understand and investigate ways to eliminate disparities in health status, access to health care, and medical treatment.