Access to health care and social protection

In France, the access to healthcare has been conceived as a social right and is mainly managed through the coverage of the population by the National Health Insurance, which is a part of the whole French social security scheme. This system was based on the so-called Bismarckian model, which implies that it requires full employment and solid family links, as the insured persons are the workers and their dependents. This paper examines the typical problems that this system has to face as far as the right to healthcare is concerned. First, it addresses the need to introduce some universal coverage programs, in order to integrate the excluded population. Then, it addresses the issue of financial sustainability as the structural weakness of the French system--in which healthcare is still mainly provided by private practice physicians and governed by the principle of freedom--leads to conceive and implement complex forms of regulations between the State, the Social security institutions and the healthcare providers.     

Transforming mental health care for children and their families

In April 2002, the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health was created by executive order to study the mental health care delivery system in our nation and to make recommendations for improvements so that individuals with serious mental disorders can live, work, learn, and fully participate in their homes and communities. In its report, "Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America," the commission provided strategies to address critical infrastructure, practice, and research issues. This article focuses on the work of the commission's Subcommittee on Children and Families, describing its vision for mental health service delivery for children and providing suggestions for strengthening community-based care for youths with or at risk of behavioral health disorders. Training, research, practice, and policy implications for psychologists are discussed.     

Touch and technology: Two paradigms of patient care

Technology violates human dignity only to the extent that its use reduces persons to the moral status of objects. The prevalence of technology in health care is an extension of the scientific paradigm, in which the body is reduced to an object void of subjectivity. The empathie paradigm, in contrast, is based upon the moral primacy of subjectivity. Empathic touch-as distinct from instrumental and philanthropic touch-establishes a clinical relation of intersubjectivity, affirming in patients the dignity and worth that morally distinguish persons from objects.An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 15th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Nursing Service Administrators of the American Hospital Association; San Diego. California, October 27–29, 1982.     

Action-based versus cognitivist perspectives on socio-cognitive development: culture,language and social experience within the two paradigms

Synthese - Contemporary research on mindreading or theory of mind has resulted in three major findings: (1) There is a difference in the age of passing of the elicited-response false belief task...     

Understanding equality in health care: a Christian free-market approach.

This paper examines the arguments presented by the Roman Catholic Bishops in their 1993 Pastoral Resolution, Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Protecting Human Life, Promoting Human Dignity, Pursuing the Common Good, concerning health care reform. Focusing on the meaning of equality in health care and traditional Roman Catholic doctrine, it is argued that the Bishops fail to grasp the force of the differences among persons, the value of the market, and traditional scholastic arguments concerning obligatory and extraordinary health care. To attempt to equalize the distribution of health care would be ruinous. A more traditional understanding of Christian thought reveals an acceptance of inequality in health care distribution and a bias against using the secular state to coerce a solution to such concerns for social justice.     

Online professionalism: social media, social contracts, trust, and medicine

The AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) has initiated an important discussion on medical professionalism and the use of social media by issuing thoughtful and practical guidance for physicians and medical students. The implications of online activities for trust in the profession, as well as for trust between patient and doctor, however, will need further exploration as digital life expands and evolves.     

Catholic social justice and health care entitlement packages.

This paper explores the implications of Roman Catholic teachings on social justice and rights to health care. It argues that contemporary societies, such as those in North America and Western Europe, have an obligation to provide health care to their citizens as a matter of right. Moral considerations provide a basis for evaluating concerns about the role of equality when determining health care entitlements and giving some precision to the widespread belief that the right to health care requires equal entitlement to health care benefits.     

Living the vision: health care, social justice and institutional identity.

This paper will examine the topic of identity in Roman Catholicism from the perspective of topics contained in or absent from mission statements of 25 Catholic health care institutions. In particular, I will look at these from the perspective of social justice as well as how this and other topics such as human dignity, sanctity of life, stewardship, pastoral care and the likelihood of mergers with other institutions will affect the healing ministry of Catholic health care providers. The article will conclude that there are three key dimensions to Catholic health care: leadership in advocating reform of the current health care system, care for the marginalized and under-insured, and the provision of pastoral care in all institutions.     

Infant day care: A social and psychological perspective on mental health implications

A review of infant group daycare programs abroad and in the USA leads to the conclusion that the degree of industrial and technological development is a major determinant of infant daycare practices. In the USA a culture gap exists between the middle class providers and the predominantly poor and non-caucasion recipients of the service. Difficulties in implementing programs, especially in transmitting child development information to parents stem from these basically different orientations. Some suggestions are made that may lead to more effective communication and collaboration between families using daycare personnel.     

Understanding the role of social support in trajectories of mental health symptoms for immigrant adolescents

This longitudinal study of 286, urban residing, first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents examined the degree to which acculturative stress is related to the developmental trajectories of mental health problems and the role of social support in this process. Participants were recruited when they entered 10th grade and two additional waves of data were gathered at 12-month intervals. Using individual growth curve modeling, the results show significant decline in internalizing mental health problems during the high school years. At the same time, greater exposure to acculturative stress predicted significantly more withdrawn/depressed, somatic, and anxious/depressed symptoms. Additionally, social support moderated the relation between acculturative stress and anxious/depressed symptoms. Gender and generation status differences were found only at baseline (10th grade).     

The social context of trust: The role of status

The current paper examines how status, a universal feature of organizational life, affects people’s initial trust in others. In three experiments – which employ a range of status manipulations and trust measures – we consistently observed that the possession of high status led individuals to trust others more. In addition, our results help shed light on why this occurs. Namely, mediation analyses illustrated that having status alters how we perceive others intentions, such that the belief that others have positive intentions toward us (i.e., benevolence) accounted for the relationship between status and trust. These findings contribute both to our knowledge of the contextual features which impact trust and provide insight into the psychological consequences of status.     

Models of human social behavior and their application to health psychology

Abstract

Theoretical models popular in the health domain differ in level of generality. Some were developed to deal with any human social behavior and then applied to health psychology, others were specifically designed to deal with health-related issues. Content-specific theories, such as the health-belief model and the perceptual-cognitive approach, outline in detail factors relevant for our understanding of health-related beliefs and actions. In contrast, it is only in the course of empirical research that content-free models, such as social cognitive theory and the theory of planned behavior, obtain the specific information required for understanding. Their advantage lies in their applicability across behavioral domains. Whether content-specific or content-free, the major utility of models developed to date has been to organize and communicate knowledge about health-related behavior. Few profound insights have as yet resulted from their application, with the possible exception of the recognition that self-regulation, and especially self-efficacy, plays a major role in all aspects of health, illness, and recovery.     

Public health, public trust and lobbying

Each year, infection with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) leads to millions of abnormal Pap smears and thousands of cases of cervical cancer in the US. Throughout the developing world, where Pap smears are less common, HPV is a leading cause of cancer death among women. So when the international pharmaceutical giant Merck developed a vaccine that could prevent infection with several key strains of HPV, the public health community was anxious to celebrate a major advance. But then marketing and lobbying got in the way. Merck chose to pursue an aggressive lobbying campaign, trying to make its new vaccine mandatory for young girls. The campaign stoked public mistrust about how vaccines come to be mandated, and now it's not just Merck's public image that has taken a hit. The public health community has also been affected. What is the lesson to be learned from this story? Public health communication relies on public trust.