Canadian "medical necessity" and the right to health

In this article, Kathryn Garforth examines legal claims to health care in South Africa and Canada. Both countries face rising costs of health care that put a great strain on publicly funded systems, albeit in radically different contexts. Kathryn argues that despite these differences there are similarities in how litigants in South Africa and Canada have framed their claims to healthcare services, in how governments have responded, and in the factors courts have analyzed in reaching decisions. In South Africa, the leading case is Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) et al v Minister of Health et al, a constitutional challenge, while in Canada the relevant jurisprudence concerns the interpretation of the concept of medical necessity, articulated for the most part in non-constitutional cases.     

The IPV-WDA: Developing an Abusive Workplace Disruptions Assessment Using Item Response Theory

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive public health problem impacting millions of women, families, and employers each year. Abusive partners purposively sabotage survivors’ employment to maintain control over them. While previous scales have been developed to measure the impact of IPV on work and economic stability, the current study creates and pilot tests a technology-inclusive measurement of workplace disruptions for survivors of IPV. It was hypothesized that statistical analysis would produce subscales of poor workplace performance and employment instability. The 34-item Intimate Partner Violence and Workplace Disruptions Assessment (IPV-WDA) developed for this study is based on individual interviews with IPV survivors, consultations with expert scholars and advocates, and comparisons of items with existing measurements. The current study used item response theory (IRT-Rasch model) to develop and pilot test the IPV-WDA with a sample of intimate partner violence survivors (N?=?41) who had been employed while experiencing abuse. The IPV-WDA showed unidimensionality, high reliability, and validity, as well as items that ranged from common to severe experiences. All items provided unique information on survivors’ experiences of workplace disruptions indicating they should be retained. Based on findings of overall reliable and valid performance, the technology inclusive and comprehensive IPV-WDA should be used in future research. Specifically, researchers should prioritize using it with larger samples so that individual item findings can shape the conceptualization of abusive workplace disruptions and be the target of future intervention research.

     

Relationship of life events and social support with psychological dysfunction among adolescents

Relationships among major life events, perceived social support, and psychological disorder were assessed in a sample of older adolescents. Negative life events and satisfaction with social support were significantly and independently related to a range of psychological symptoms. Further, the relationship between negative events and disorder was moderated by gender, the types of events experienced, and anticipated change in the psychosocial environment. The importance of the use of standardized and psychometrically sound measures of life events, social support, and psychological disorder is highlighted.Received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1980. An assistant professor, he is currently investigating stress and coping among children and adolescents.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Vermont in 1985. An assistant professor, she is currently studying social support.Received Ed. M. from Harvard Universtiy. He is a doctoral student in clinical psychology interested in the role of social support in coping with stress during adolescence.Received her BA from the University of Vermont. She is a doctoral student in clinical psychology.     

The International Finance Corporation and the emerging market funds industry

Linking the world’s core equity markets with semi-peripheral and peripheral equity markets has been a fundamentally different process from linking core markets with each other. International financial institutions have played a larger role in core‐periphery equity market integration, and issues of corporate governance assume greater importance in the core‐periphery cases. Illustrating these differences, this article considers the creation of the Korea fund, one of the early country funds in an emerging market promoted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The case shows that increasingly sophisticated financial instruments, like country funds, alter the structure of the international financial system in such a way as to reposition governments in developing market economies with respect to their domestic financial systems; allow for some international capital inflows without loss of corporate control; and make diversification possible for a transnational class of investors. Moreover, the article proposes that international financial institutions like the IFC can alter the structural context of a particular market within which various financial actors later strike deals. In the light of the process of coalition building elaborated here, the article reserves a role for considerations of both multilateralism and a state’s position in the world system in a body of literature heavily concentrated on state-level political activity.     

Regulating Cannabis: A Comparative Exploration of Canadian Legalization

This article explores cannabis regulation in Canada and the United States and examines how recent legalization efforts have manifested differently in each country. Although some of these differences are explained by uncompromising constitutional structures, this comparative exercise examines each system's political choices. While emphasis is placed on the Canadian experience, this article seeks to inform and enhance policy and regulation in both countries in addition to highlighting inherent ethical issues.     

Parole release decisions revisited: An analysis of parole release decisions for violent inmates in a southeastern state

In an attempt to discover the major predictors of parole decision-making in one southeastern state, this study examined the cases of 762 inmates under the supervision of the Alabama Department of Corrections who were eligible for parole from June 1, 1993 through May 31, 1994. Of the 762 eligible inmates, only 138 (18 percent) were granted parole. Using parole disposition (granted or denied) as the dependent variable, this study investigated the offense, offender, and general parole variables and their impact on parole decisions. Logistic regression findings indicated that the strongest predictors of parole release decisions were the length of the original sentence assessed for the offense, the total number of felonies for which the inmate was serving time, and the warden and senior officers' recommendations. These variables, which were also significant at the bivariate level of analysis, explained approximately 47 percent of the variation in the dependent variable. A major concern of the study was the generalizability of the findings.