Women's empowerment and the development research agenda: a personal account from the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The case of women radium dial painters - women who tipped their brushes while painting the dials of watches and instruments with radioactive paint - has been extensively discussed in the medical and historical literature. Their painful and abhorrent deaths have occupied the interest of physicians, lawyers, politicians, military agencies, and the public. Hardly any discussion has concerned, however, the use of those women as experimental subjects in a number of epidemiological studies that took place from 1920 to 1990. This article addresses the neglected issue of human experimentation in relation to the radium dial painters. Although women's medical examinations have been classified as simple, routine measurements of radiation burden on the body and presented as a great offer to humanity, for more than fifty years those women had been repeatedly used as experimental subjects without proper consent. I argue that through this case it becomes obvious that the issue of defining what counts as human experimentation shifts from an epistemological to a serious ethical and political question, concerning the making of scientific knowledge while issues of gender related to this process are also discussed.
Tacrolimus is increasingly used as a baseline immunosuppressant after renal transplantation. This multicentre study assessed health-related quality of life and symptom experience in renal transplant patients on tacrolimus-based therapy, using the SF-36 and Euroqol 5 dimensions (EQ-5D) and the 'modified transplant symptom occurrence and symptom distress scale', respectively. Symptoms of depression were assessed with the short form of the Beck Depression Inventory and physical activity with the Baecke questionnaire. Overall, 350 patients with a median post-transplant status of 16.7 months were enrolled. Results revealed that patients experienced lower SF-36 scores than the general population, except in terms of bodily pain. Univariate and multivariate analyses demonstrated that a higher degree of depressive symptoms and female gender were consistently related to a health status perceived as being worse and a higher rate of symptom experience. These findings are in accordance with previous quality-of-life reports that assessed patients under various immunosuppressive therapies. Therefore, interventions, including the screening and treatment for depression and the addressing of gender-specific issues, can enhance quality of life.
"When capital and labor markets are imperfect, choice sets narrow, and parents must choose how to ration available funds and time between their children. One consequence is that children become rivals for household resources. In economies with pro-male bias, such rivalries can yield gains to having relatively more sisters than brothers. Using a rich household survey from Ghana [the 1988-1989 Ghana Living Standards Survey], we find that on average if children had all sisters (and no brothers) they would do roughly 25-40% better on measured health indicators than if they had all brothers (and no sisters)."
Like many developing countries, Nepal has adopted a community-based conservation (CBC) approach in recent years to manage its protected areas mainly in response to poor park-people relations. Among other things, under this approach the government has created new "people-oriented" conservation areas, formed and devolved legal authority to grassroots-level institutions to manage local resources, fostered infrastructure development, promoted tourism, and provided income-generating trainings to local people. Of interest to policy-makers and resource managers in Nepal and worldwide is whether this approach to conservation leads to improved attitudes on the part of local people. It is also important to know if personal costs and benefits associated with various intervention programs, and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics influence these attitudes. We explore these questions by looking at the experiences in Annapurna and Makalu-Barun Conservation Areas, Nepal, which have largely adopted a CBC approach in policy formulation, planning, and management. The research was conducted during 1996 and 1997; the data collection methods included random household questionnaire surveys, informal interviews, and review of official records and published literature. The results indicated that the majority of local people held favorable attitudes toward these conservation areas. Logistic regression results revealed that participation in training, benefit from tourism, wildlife depredation issue, ethnicity, gender, and education level were the significant predictors of local attitudes in one or the other conservation area. We conclude that the CBC approach has potential to shape favorable local attitudes and that these attitudes will be mediated by some personal attributes.
This article reports on the development of a new questionnaire designed to assess the propensity for sexual excitation and sexual inhibition in women: The Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women (SESII-W). The theoretical model underlying this research, the Dual Control Model, postulates that sexual response depends on a balance between excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms and that individuals vary in their propensity for excitation and inhibition. This study describes the development and initial validation of the SESII-W in a sample of 655 women (M age, 33.9 years). Factor analysis identified eight factors and two higher-order factors: one related to sexual excitation and one to sexual inhibition. The measure demonstrated good test-retest reliability and discriminant and convergent validity. Our data underscore that a number of factors affect women's sexual arousal and these appear to be related to opposing processes of sexual excitation and sexual inhibition. Theoretical issues, possible gender differences, and the value of using qualitative data to inform questionnaire development are discussed.
Current social developmental theories of drug use often incorporate mediation processes, but it is generally unknown whether these mediation processes generalize across ethnicity and gender. In the present study, we developed a mediation model of substance use based on current theory and research and then tested the extent to which the model was moderated by gender and ethnicity (African American, European American, and Hispanic American), separately for 8th and 10th graders. The respondents were adolescents from the 1994, 1995, and 1996 cohorts of the Monitoring the Future (MTF) project, which conducts yearly in-school surveys with nationally representative samples. Multi-group, structural equation modeling (SEM) results indicated much similarity across gender and ethnicity for school success and time spent with friends as partial mediators of risk taking and parental involvement on drug use (controlling for parental education). However, there were some differences in the magnitude of indirect effects of parental involvement and risk taking on substance use for 8th-grade African American girls. Discussion focuses on the potential success of prevention efforts across different ethnicities and gender that target parent-child relationship improvement and risk taking, and considers possible culture- and gender-specific issues.
In the study this article explores, the meaning of gender identity for religious and secular Jewish and Arab women in Israeli society is examined. The study focuses on how Israeli women, rank gender identity, relative to other identities like being Jewish/Arab, being Israeli/Palestinian, religious or secular, of a certain ethnic group, and political identity. It examines the characteristics of gender identity and the attitudes that are associated with it. The analysis shows that the hierarchies of identities are different for religious and secular Jewish and Arab women, and that this is related to having different sociopolitical attitudes (e.g., Women's social and political involvement, social obedience, social influence). Thus, the hierarchy of identities and the sociopolitical attitudes of religious women indicate a more consensual acceptance of the social order than the hierarchy of identities and the sociopolitical attitudes of secular women, especially among Arab women.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
A broad review is made of the economic, social and political developments that accompanied the 20th century demographic transition in the developed industrialized societies of Europe and North America and their implications for older people, emphasizing changes in work patterns, the position of women, family and household structures. The denigration of older people is not new, but there is greater consciousness of the disadvantaging aspects of ageist expressions. The different stages of economic development and family systems and norms in developing societies now undergoing the demographic transition in Asia and elsewhere are likely to make the lives of older people there very different from those experienced during the transition period in Europe.
Research bearing on the issue of gender differences in patient-provider communication is discussed, and recommendations for future research and for patient education and counseling are offered. Based on limited available evidence, women appear to receive more health care communications and more health information than men, possibly due to women's superior general communication skills. Provider gender may also affect the communication process, and congruence between patient and provider gender could produce more effective communication under some circumstances.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Qualitative research was conducted in South Africa to determine perceptions about intra-vaginal microbicides in order to better understand the socioeconomic, cultural and structural contexts for the support of future introduction of this new HIV prevention method. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted at community, health service, and policy levels of inquiry. The main study site was a black working class urban area close to Cape Town. "Desperation" in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, rape, sexual coercion and unplanned consensual sex emerged as major reasons to support microbicides, while concerns about the partial effectiveness of microbicide protection and its hypothetical nature elicited a more cautious approach. Other key findings included the likelihood that microbicides would be "mainstream", the possible impact on sexual practices and gender norms, issues of condom substitution/migration and potential avenues for education and distribution. We found that microbicides have the potential to meet diverse needs beyond that suggested by prior research. This included a desire for products that could protect against HIV infection following rape, sexual coercion and unplanned sex, and the finding that a wider range of people than previously suggested would potentially use microbicides. The challenge for microbicide introduction will be to develop products that can meet diverse needs not only in South Africa, but also in the broader global context.
Gastrointestinal disorders are among the most common disorders for which women seek medical attention. Most gastrointestinal diseases in women are not inherently different from those that occur in men. There are several disorders, however, that occur more frequently or manifest themselves differently in women. This article reviews common gastrointestinal disorders affecting women. The pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, management, and gender-specific issues of gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are discussed.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.