Probable posttraumatic stress disorder in a sample of urban jail detainees

This study examined the nature and extent of probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among men in a substance abuse treatment program in a large urban jail. Specifically, it explored the prevalence of probable PTSD and other psychiatric problems among jail detainees, the types of trauma detainees experienced during different phases of their lives, and how those experiences might have contributed to the development of probable PTSD. Results showed that psychiatric problems were quite serious; nearly one-quarter of the sample reported previous psychiatric hospitalization, and nearly 10% were being currently treated with psychiatric medication. In addition, 21% of the sample met the criteria for probable PTSD, a rate five times greater than that in the general population. The current study suggests that the presence of probable PTSD among male detainees should be incorporated into the creation and implementation of jail-based behavioral healthcare services, including screening, assessment, and clinical interventions. Furthermore, in-custody drug treatment programs should adopt trauma-informed strategies for all program participants as the expected standard of care.     

Intergenerational transmission of longevity is not affected by other familial factors: evidence from 16,905 Dutch families from Zeeland, 1812-1962

ABSTRACT

Studies have shown that long-lived individuals seem to pass their survival advantage on to their offspring. Offspring of long-lived parents had a lifelong survival advantage over individuals without long-lived parents, making them more likely to become long-lived themselves. We test whether the survival advantage enjoyed by offspring of long-lived individuals is explained by environmental factors. 101,577 individuals from 16,905 families in the 1812–1886 Zeeland cohort were followed over time. To prevent that certain families were overrepresented in our data, disjoint family trees were selected. Offspring was included if the age at death of both parents was known. Our analyses show that multiple familial resources are associated with survival within the first 5 years of life, with stronger maternal than paternal effects. However, between ages 5 and 100 both parents contribute equally to offspring’s survival chances. After age 5, offspring of long-lived fathers and long-lived mothers had a 16-19% lower chance of dying at any given point in time than individuals without long-lived parents. This survival advantage is most likely genetic in nature, as it could not be explained by other, tested familial resources and is transmitted equally by fathers and mothers.     

Caregiving and quality of life

ABSTRACT

The increase in life expectancy for adults with learning disabilities has extended the caring role for their parents. This study examined the experiences of older parents who provide long-term care for their adult children with learning disabilities and how they conceptualise their quality of life. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 27 older parent carers from four London boroughs and were analysed using framework technique. Findings indicate that most parents appraised their quality of life positively and reported benefits, despite the challenges they had to negotiate daily. The benefits from caregiving, more so in later life, were: a connected family from shared caregiving; a sense of belonging; purposeful living; a reciprocal relationship with their adult children; and personal transformations from providing care that improved their quality of life. The challenges that participants regularly encountered were: multiple losses (sleep, career, identity and friends); the added stress of the government’s Personalisation Agenda of caring services; struggles for access to services; searching for a diagnosis; worry about future care and fear of abuse when carers are unable to continue in their role; unhelpful attitudes of health and social care professionals; and a lack of empathy from friends as well as the public towards people with learning disabilities. Caregiving and quality of life are inextricably linked and the difficulties that parents experienced were mainly associated with socio-structural barriers, rather than their children’s disabilities. Importantly, the findings inform the practice of social workers and others who support this unique group of carers by providing new insights into how caring impacts on quality of life over time and how best these parents’ needs can be met. This study makes a specific contribution to understanding the lived realities of older carers and extends current conceptualisations of caregiving and quality of life among older people.     

Introduction: disability,partnership, and family across time and space

ABSTRACT

Notions of family life and romantic partnership, like notions of disability, have been culturally constructed and socially produced over historical time, and our understandings of these notions are being continually challenged and re-negotiated across time and space. Policies, institutions, and cultural practices across the globe have brought about changes to the construction of the family and to the rights and inclusion of disabled people in private and public life. This special issue brings together a collection of studies from different countries and time periods to explore the interplay between disability, romantic partnerships, and family life across the individual lifetime and between generations. With this interdisciplinary collection, we seek to merge disability research and research on family and partnerships through a life course lens. This offers unique insights and opportunities to interconnect historical and cultural location and changing social institutions with individual and family experiences. This introduction presents the eight studies in the collection and discusses them within a life course frame that views disabled people’s roles as partners, spouses, and members of a family. In so doing, it engages in an analysis of (dis)similarities concerning how family dynamics, romantic relationships, and disability have developed over time and in different spaces.     

日常生活史的神话认知与表达——以《山本》为例

在新作《山本》中，中国当代作家贾平凹集中展现了作为一种认知与表达方法的神话对日常生活史的介入，从而为神话与历史的辩证关系提供了一种新型观照视角。与其他作家着力于创造意识形态属性明显的集体性或个体性神话不同，贾平凹试图还原神话在人类日常生活史中的本真状态，突出其作为人类知识与思想来源的背景作用，以及以“互渗”形式促成人与万物实现互联的重要特质。作为一种方法的神话，也体现于其通过具有神性特质的人物设置，构建日常生活的神话空间，继而形成一个整体性的稳定神话系统。贾平凹在《山本》中不仅表现了神话视阈中日常生活的和谐流动，也展现了现代革命与权力神话对传统神话时空的侵蚀、压制、重组，以及由此引起的日常生活的断裂，作家借此探讨了传统神话由生而灭的历史过程。神话视角的切入，使贾平凹获得了神话视阈的观照，并在日常生活的漫流中发现神秘与朴实兼具的现实生命质感，重塑了一段亦真亦幻的历史。     

美好生活的社会保护水准:社会政策体系中基本生活需要标准的建构

基本生活需要保障是我国不断满足人民美好生活需要的基础。构建基本生活需要标准,关键在于瞄准相对贫困目标、构建福利认证标准和消除社会排斥状态。基于人类需要理论和国外基本需要战略等相关研究,应以民生保障、适度普惠、多维满足和防止伤害等为具体目标,建构起具有中国特色的基本生活需要标准。这一标准分为最低标准和适当标准两个层次,包括收入、医疗、教育、住房和照料五个维度的货币指标和非货币指标。以"美好生活"为核心的新时代社会政策体系要在全面性与协调性、主动性与精准性、适度性与发展性三个方向着力保障人民基本生活需要,从消除绝对贫困走向解决相对贫困。     

Description of the peasants’ sexual behavior in August Wilhelm Hupel’s Topographical Messages in the context of the history of the Estonian family

The aim of this article is to introduce the work of August Wilhem Hupel, a Baltic German author of the 18th century. The article focuses on the sections in his most voluminous work Topographische Nachrichten von Lief- und Ehstland (1774–1782) that describe Estonian peasants’ sexuality. Hupel’s writings belong to the sources of the history of the Estonian family, a field that has been rediscovered at the beginning of the 21st century. Thanks to the work of Marika Mägi and Nils Blomkvist, a new paradigm for research in this field has been opened up. This article adheres to that paradigm.     

Imagining the modern city: Miyamoto [Chūjō] Yuriko in Moscow and London, 1927–1930

After her life-changing sojourn in the Soviet Union and Europe in the late 1920s, Miyamoto [Chūjō] Yuriko (1899–1951) devoted herself to the cause of communism. Her ideological conversion was rooted in the context of the modern city – in particular, Moscow and London – and the close interrelation between literary and filmic modernism and the modern city is evident in two key articles she wrote during her time abroad. In this article I will analyse how Yuriko represented her profoundly political experience and interpretation of two cities embodying alternative, opposed modernities – communism and capitalism – through modernist literary techniques and the new artistic technology of film.     

Verbal Ability and Persistent Offending: A Race-specific Test of Moffitt’s Theory

Theoretical questions linger over the applicability of the verbal ability model to African-Americans and the social control theory hypothesis that educational failure mediates the effect of verbal ability on offending patterns. Accordingly, this paper investigates whether verbal ability distinguishes between offending groups within the context of Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy. Questions are addressed with longitudinal data spanning childhood through young-adulthood from an ongoing national panel, and multinomial and hierarchical Poisson models (overdispersed). In multinomial models, low verbal ability predicts membership in a life-course-persistent-oriented group relative to an adolescent-limited-oriented group. Hierarchical models indicate that verbal ability is associated with arrest outcomes among White and African-American subjects, with effects consistently operating through educational attainment (high school dropout). The results support Moffitt’s hypothesis that verbal deficits distinguish adolescent-limited- and life-course-persistent-oriented groups within race, as well as the social control model of verbal ability.     

Young and armed: a cross-sectional study on weapon carrying among adolescents

The purpose of this study was to identify empirically, for the first time in France, the prevalence of adolescent weapon carrying with particular focus on the contribution of a broad range of social bonding, strain, social learning, and sociodemographic predictors. A multivariate logistic regression model was conducted using a backward elimination procedure to identify the significant predictors of weapon carrying controlling for age, gender, and SES in a sample of 12,706 French youth aged 11–19 years. Results revealed that the odds of weapon carrying increased among adolescents who suffered from past victimization, who had a negative relationship with their mother, and who repeated a grade at school. Moreover, holding pro-delinquent beliefs and having delinquent peers also increased the odds of weapon carrying. Our findings highlight the importance of the interpersonal and social context when examining the determinants of weapon carrying and showed a unique contribution of components of social bonding, strain, and social learning in weapon carrying among adolescents.