Depression and unemployment: Panel findings from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area study

Studies that have found an association between unemployment and psychological depression often fail to establish the direction of causal influence. Analyses of Epidemiologic Catchment Area panel data revealed that of employed respondents not diagnosed with major depression at first interview, those who became unemployed had over twice the risk of increased depressive symptoms and of becoming clinically depressed as those who continued employed. Although the increase in symptoms was statistically significant, the effect on clinical depression was not, possibly because of the low power of the test. The reverse causal path from clinical depression at Time 1 to becoming unemployed by Time 2 was not supported. The unemployment rate in the respondent's community at time of interview was not related directly to psychological depression but appeared associated indirectly with depression via its impact on the risk of becoming unemployed. Implications for policy and further research were discussed. The research described in this paper was supported by Grant #5 RO1 AA08379-02 from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The authors appreciate the suggestions provided by members of the Consortium for Research Involving Stress Processes sponsored by the W. T. Grant Foundation and by two anonymous journal reviewers.     

An advocacy intervention program for women with abusive partners: Six-month follow-up

Presented the 6-month follow-up findings of an experimental intervention designed to provide postshelter advocacy services to women with abusive partners. The intervention involved randomly assigning half the research participants to receive the free services of an advocate, 4 to 6 hours per week, for the first 10 weeks postshelter. One hundred forty-one battered women were interviewed about their experiences immediately upon their exit from a domestic violence shelter: 95% of the sample were interviewed 10 weeks thereafter (postintervention), and 93% were successfully tracked and interviewed 6 months later. At the 6-month follow-up, participants in both groups reported increased social support, increased quality of life, less depression, less emotional attachment to their assailants, and an increased sense of personal power. Although women in both groups reported some decrease in physical abuse over time, there were no statistically significant differences between those with and those without advocates, and abuse continued to be a problem for many women. Those who were still involved with their assailants continued to experience higher levels of abuse and had been more economically dependent upon the men prior to entering the shelter. Women who had worked with advocates continued to report being more satisfied with their overall quality of life than did the women in the control group. The authors thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Thanks also to all present and past staff of the Community Advocacy Project, who helped in data collection and analyses. This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant 1R01 MH 44849.     

My place,your place,and no place: Behavior settings as a risk factor for HIV-related injection practices of drug users in Baltimore,Maryland

Information is sparse on the social context of illicit drug injection behaviors and their relationship to HIV infection. This study examined relationships between injection settings, injecting with others, and HIV risk behaviors of sharing needles and not cleaning contaminated needles in a sample of 630 inner-city injecting drug users in Baltimore, MD. Through open-ended interviews, five primary settings of injection behavior were identified. These settings included one's own, friends' and mother's residence, shooting galleries, and semipublic areas. Most participants reported injecting in their own residence (92%) and friends' residence (86%) in the prior 6 months. In a multiple regression analysis, injecting at friends' residence, in shooting galleries, and in semipublic areas and frequency of injecting with others were significantly associated with frequency of sharing uncleaned needles, “slipping” (i.e., failure to disinfect shared needles), and not always cleaning used needles before injecting. Results suggest that interventions may benefit from targeting settings as well as behaviors to reduce the spread of HIV. This research was supported by grants DA04334, DA05911, DA06313, and DA08985 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.     

Accounting for macro-level causation

By a macro-level feature, I understand any feature that supervenes on, and is thus realized in, lower-level features. Recent discussions by Kim have suggested that such features cannot be causally relevant insofar as they are not classically reducible to lower-level features. This seems to render macro-level features causally irrelevant. I defend the causal relevance of some such features. Such features have been thought causally relevant in many examples that have underpinned philosophical work on causality. Additionally, in certain typical biological cases, we conceive of causally relevant features at various compatible levels of analysis. When elaborated, these points make a strong prima facie case for macro-level causal relevance. However, we might abandon both the philosophical guideposts and the corresponding explanatory practice in the special sciences were we convinced that no reflective philosophical account could provide for the causal relevance there supposed. I show that such drastic measures are not necessary, for we can make sense of macro-level causal relevance by drawing on Paul Humphreys' recent work in ways suggested by the concrete examples considered here.Some of the work on this paper was undertaken at the 1991 NEH Summer Seminar on Causality, directed by Paul Humphreys. I wish to thank my fellow participants, and Paul Humphreys, John Tienson, and Terry Horgan for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

Three years follow-up of panic disorder patients: A naturalistic study

Forty Danish panic disorder patients participating in a placebo controlled study of alprazolam and imipramine (The Cross National Collaborative Panic Study, Phase II) were followed up by a telephone interview three years later, with essentially the same battery of evaluation procedures applied at baseline, end of study, and follow-up. The main finding was that panic disorder is a chronic disorder, but fluctuating in form and severity in the course of time. Twenty-five percent of the patients no longer fulfilled the DSM-III criteria for panic disorder, but had substantial disability due to a variety of symptoms, including panic attacks at infrequent rate, generalized anxiety symptoms, affective symptoms, and phobic avoidance behavior. Nearly three fourths of the patients were under treatment at follow-up. Benzodiazepines were the drugs most often prescribed, usually in combination with supportive psychotherapy. It was concluded that the different types of treatment offered were insufficient. Variables predicting panic disorder or substantial disability at 3-years follow-up were few.     

Repairing the reticulated model of scientific rationality

InScience and Values (1984) and other, more recent, works, e.g. (1987a, 1987b, 1989a, 1989b, 1990), Larry Laudan proposes a theory of scientific debate he dubs the reticulated model of scientific rationality (Laudan, 1984, pp. 50–66). The model stands in sharp contrast to hierarchical approaches to rationality exemplified by Popper (1959), Hempel (1965), and Reichenbach (1938), as well as the conventionalist views of rationality defended by Carnap (1950), Popper (1959), Kuhn (1962), and Lakatos (1978). Ironically, the model commits some of the same errors Laudan finds in hierarchicalist and conventionalists approaches to scientific rationality. This paper will show that the model can be fixed by recognizing that criteria of goal assessment have no privileged status. These rules are best viewed as simply rules of rationality (or rules of scientific method) by another name.     

Making sense: The work of Eugene Gendlin

This and the following papers were presented at a symposium organized by David M. Levin honoring the work of Eugene Gendlin at meetings of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, Boston, October, 1992.     

Cross-cultural perspectives on aggression in women and girls: An introduction

In this introduction to the papers in the special issue of Sex Roles on female aggression, I emphasize the range and variety of our subject and the need for a multiplicity of perspectives. In the work of the eleven authors contained in this volume we can see the utility of both relativist and universalists frameworks. I discuss the problems with identifying aggression and violence cross-culturally and underline the importance of incorporating other perspectives into our theories. I also discuss the potential advantages and shortcomings of phrasing our questions about women's and girls's aggression in terms of sexual difference.     

The more (men), the less merry: Social density,social burden,and social support

Sex Roles - Two questionnaire studies in rural Georgia examined how social and spatial density were related to social burden and social support. Results from the first study, which had 116 female...