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Biomedical subjects

S J Kunitz

Publications and source records attributed to S J Kunitz.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Alcohol use among migrant laborers in western New York.

A survey of alcohol use among 217 Black and Haitian migrant agricultural workers was conducted in 13 camps in three counties of upstate New York. The orienting hypothesis stated that older, unattached men account for much of the drinking on migrant camps and that older, unattached men have experienced a variety of personal troubles as a result of their drinking. The results of the survey were found to support the initial hypothesis. In camps composed primarily of family groups, social control mechanisms were found to be more highly developed than in camps composed primarily of unattached, isolated men. It was also found that this difference in degree of social control was reflected in differences of drinking behavior. It is suggested that the mechanization of agriculture has become a self-reinforcing process that results in a proportional increase in the use of the homeless and troubled as a source of low-cost agricultural labor.

Black or African American↗

Surgical fertility regulation among women on the Navajo Indian reservation, 1972-1978.

Changes in the rates of induced abortions, bilateral tubal ligations, and hysterectomies on the Navajo Indian Reservation have been examined for the years 1972-1978. While the incidence of abortions and tubal sterilizations is still considerably lower among Navajo women than among the total United States population of women, it has risen, especially among those in the prime of the reproductive cycle, i.e., ages 20-34. The rate of hysterectomy has not changed substantially. Regression analyses performed on the data indicate that the utilization of surgery for fertility regulation in women on the Navajo Reservation, unlike other surgical procedures, is not affected by access to hospitals which provide surgery. Rather measures of involvement in the wage work economy are of primary importance. Those areas of the Reservation having the highest levels of such involvement exhibit the highest rates of such surgery.

Abortion, Induced↗

The recruitment, training, and distribution of physicians in Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia has developed a form of communism very different from that found in other communist nations, yet it has faced problems of health manpower distribution not unlike those existing in other countries, both communist and non-communist. Recruitment and training patterns are in some respects similar to those found in the United States: medical students tend to come from high-status, urban families and specialization has increased very dramatically over the past thirty years, in marked contrast to the pattern in the United States. Moreover, though there are continuing discrepancies in physician distribution among urban and rural communes and developed and underdeveloped republics and provinces, these differences are not widening as they have in the United States when similar regional units are observed. It is suggested that physician distribution has been controlled more effectively in Yugoslavia than in the United States, in large part because of the control over available positions exercised by health workers and representatives of social insurance and other institutions.

Communism↗

Health care and workers' self-management in Yugoslavia.

The form of communism developed in Yugoslavia since the early 1950s--called workers' self-management--has been of interest to many westerners concerned with the ideas of participatory democracy and workers' self-management. Yugoslavia's economic growth and general openness toward the West have encouraged many people to visit and to investigate the health care system as well as other aspects of the society. It is generally said that self-management is responsible for the remarkable successes that Yugoslavia has achieved. This paper suggests, on the other hand, that many of the successes achieved in the health care system are attributable largely to the fact that self-management is not allowed to work as freely as it does in other sectors of the economy.

Communism↗