Electronic health records: international, structural and legal perspectives

The EHR is a database record that incorporates a patient's health care details from conception to death and which can be distributed over a number of sites or aggregated at a particular source. This article describes the function and concept of the EHR by relating it to other medical information technologies, parallel changes in health care delivery, and a holistic health information model. The article compares the progress that Europe, Australia and the United States have made in the journey towards EHR implementation and concludes by highlighting some of the costs, barriers and consequences associated with the transition to a comprehensive EHR system.     

Impact of higher alcohol prices on alcohol-related attitudes and perceptions of suburban,middle-class youth

This study investigated the potential effects of alcohol price increases on alcohol-related attitudes and perceptions of youth. Data were collected through a survey of high school students conducted after the federal excise taxes on alcohol beverages were increased in January 1991. Survey data lend support to previous research showing that higher alcohol prices contribute to lower alcohol consumption by youth, as well as to a decrease in related problems such as driving while intoxicated. Survey data also suggest that a price of around $7.50 for a six-pack of beer or a four-pack of wine coolers would discourage purchases by youth. Further studies are called for to substantiate and to expand on these findings with more diverse adolescent populations.Received M.P.H. in health education from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Research interests are alcohol-impaired driving, alcohol taxation, and other alcohol policy issues. To whom correspondence should be addressed.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from Syracuse University. Research interests are impaired driving, adolescent risk taking, substance abuse, and health threat perception.Received M.S. in counseling from Bowie State University. Research interests are alcohol and drug abuse prevention, history of alcohol and drug abuse, and alcohol-impaired driving.The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the organizations with which they are affiliated. Computer time for this research was supported through funds from the Computer Science Center at the University of Maryland at College Park.     

Ideology and candidate evaluation

How does the expressed political ideology of voters influence their evaluation of presidential candidates? The classic answer to this question is provided by the spatial theory of electoral choice in which utility for a candidate is a function of the proximity between the voter and candidate positions on the liberal-conservative continuum. We have argued elsewhere that spatial theory, while intellectually appealing, is inadequate as an empirical model of mass behavior. We have developed a directional theory of issue voting that we believe provides a more realistic accounting of how specific policy issues influence utility for a candidate. Directional theory is based on the view that for most voters issues are understood as a dichotomous choice between two alternative positions. While ideology is widely understood as a continuum of positions, the directional model can be applied to the relationship between ideology and candidate evaluation. In this paper we compare the two theories using National Election Study data from 1972 to 1988. The results tend to favor the directional model over the traditional proximity model. We conclude by briefly tracing out the implications of this finding.     

Criminal justice faculty and criminal justice students: A case for the missing data

This article reviews the most current criminal justice education research. It examines the interrelationship between the work of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, the Joint Commission on Criminology and Criminal Justice Education and Standards, and the National Advisory Commission on Higher Education for Police, and describes and compares some of their more important findings. Discussed are types of criminal justice programs; characteristics of criminal justice faculty, particularly in terms of earned academic degrees; agency work experience; commitment to research and teaching; types of criminal justice curricula, as typified by certain educational philosophies; and criminal justice students. Although this article notes several areas with which future research might become fruitfully involved, the area in need of most immediate attention, and the area that current research has all but ignored, is the criminal justice student.     

Civic Engagement in the Twenty-First Century: Toward a Scholarly and Practical Agenda

We understand civic engagement to mean people participating together for deliberation and collective action within an array of interests, institutions and networks, developing civic identity, and involving people in governance processes.