Self-rated health and barriers to healthcare in Ukraine: The pivotal role of gender and its intersections

The ongoing health crisis in the Ukraine has persisted for 48 years with a clear division of gender-based outcomes as seen in the decline of male life expectancy and stagnation of female longevity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in self-rated health and system barriers to health care applicable to gender and its intersections because of the differing negative health outcomes for men and women. Intersectionality theory provides an analytic framework for interpreting our results. Utilizing a nationwide sample of the Ukrainian population (N = 1908), we found that low socioeconomic status (SES) women rate their health worse than men generally and any other socioeconomic group. Yet women also face the greatest barriers to health care until older ages when the ailments of men cause them to likewise face the obstacles. In reviewing the barrier to health care scale, one barrier—that of health care services being too expensive—dominated the responses with some 52.5 percent of the sample reporting it. Consequently, the greatest problem in Ukraine with respect to health reform reported by the population is the out-of-pocket costs for care in a system that is officially free. These costs, constituting some 40 percent of all national health expenditures, affect women and the aged the most.     

Family relationships and social competence during late adolescence

Data from a large sample of late adolescents was used to examine associations between family relationships (reported closeness to parents and siblings) and perceived social competence. Significant positive relationships were found between family bonds and the social competence measures, which included social self-esteem, instrumentality, expressiveness, shyness, and degree of satisfaction/ease in same- and opposite-sex peer relationships. There was no evidence of differential effects of sibling versus parent relationships upon adolescent social competence.This project was supported by NIMH Grant 5 R01 MH34570.Received Ph.D. from Northwestern University.     

Telephone crisis intervention skills: a simulated caller paradigm

Counseling skills were evaluated in a telephone counseling service for Vietnam veterans. Thirty simulated crisis calls were made to telephone counselors by experienced clinical psychologists. The counselors' responses were rated on dimensions that indexed general counseling skills, knowledge of veteran needs, and provision of appropriate advice. Whereas the majority of callers demonstrated adequate counseling skills, many lacked knowledge of veterans' posttraumatic stress, common veteran terminology, and the nature of veterans' experiences. The findings suggest that telephone counseling services that target specific populations should employ comprehensive training to ensure that counselors possess adequate and relevant knowledge about callers and their presenting problems. The simulated caller paradigm appears to be an effective paradigm for training and evaluation of telephone counselors.     

Fussing about the Forum: Categories and Definitions as Stakes in a Professional Competition

This article seeks to show the way that professional competition, including academic competition, about the definitions and categories of dispute resolution transforms the field of business disputing. It draws on extensive interviews and focuses on two case studies. The first is "international commercial arbitration," and the second is the ADR movement, especially "mediation," in the United States. In each case, the article shows that there is competition about what can legitimately be termed arbitration or mediation; that there is competition more generally for the business of business disputing; that the competition is not played on a level playing field; that competitors compete in terms of the symbolic capital that they have to offer, which is changing over time and in relation to what others possess; and that the (always provisional) results are important for transforming the "rules of the game" for governing business transactions. The internal transformations in the field of business disputing also take place in close conjunction with transformations that can be seen as outside, above all, the international restructuring of business relations in the 1970s and 1980s.