Suchergebnisse

Camp Pain: Talking with Chronic Pain Patients. Jean E. Jackson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. 281 pp.

The Human Elder in Nature, Culture and Society. David Gutmann. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. 250 pp.

The relatively slim social science literature on drug treatment is reviewed. Attention is paid to the institutionalization of treatment at the meso (local community or clinic) level and the micro (client) level rather than to the more commonly examined macro (societal or national) level. The inter-penetration across these levels of ideologies and practices around drugs is revealed through discussion of the targeting of certain populations for treatment, methods of client control in treatment settings, and the client's view of treatment. In the literature, drug users are often presented as passive individuals, subject to various forms of restrictive social control in therapeutic settings. Their perspective on the processes or efficacy of treatment is rarely sought. The concept of drug treatment as necessarily beneficial to clients is questioned in this paper.

This article presents evidence of a "Latino oral health paradox," in which Mexican immigrant parents in California's Central Valley report having had better oral health status as children in Mexico than their U.S.‐born children. Yet little research has explored the specific environmental, social, and cultural factors that mediate the much‐discussed "Latino health paradox," in which foreign‐born Latinos paradoxically enjoy better health status than their children, U.S.‐born Latinos, and whites. Through ethnography, we explore the dietary and environmental factors that ameliorated immigrant parents' oral health status in rural Mexico, while ill preparing them for the more cariogenic diets and environments their children face in the United States. We argue that studies on the "Latino health paradox" neglect a binational analysis, ignoring the different health status of Latino populations in their sending countries. We use the issue of immigrant children's high incidence of oral disease to initiate a fuller dialogue between U.S.‐based studies of the "health paradox" and non‐U.S.‐based studies of the "epidemiological transition." We show that both models rely on a static opposition between "traditional" and "modern" health practices, and argue that a binational analysis of the processes that affect immigrant children's health can help redress the shortcomings of epidemiological generalizations.

HIV incidence among black men who have sex with men (BMSM) is at epidemic proportions. However, the vast majority of studies have focused on risk factors related to HIV infections with a dearth of research on resiliency and how BMSM maintain seronegativity. Using three focus groups ( N = 29) comprised of BMSM in New York City, this study explored psychosocial factors and practices related to maintaining seronegativity. Major themes included having spirituality and/or religious beliefs, access to social supports that held positive expectations, and having personal agency by engaging in seroadaptive harm reduction practices. Overall, findings highlight the importance of addressing HIV stigma, supporting the need for BMSM to be validated, and creating safe spaces that allow them to discuss the challenges related to remaining HIV-negative.