bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A systematic review: Identifying the prevalence rates of psychiatric disorder in Australia’s Indigenous populations
Authors: Black Emma B , Ranmuthugala Geetha , Kondalsamy-Chennakesavan Srinivas , Toombs Maree R , Nicholson Geoffrey C , Kisely Steve
Published: February 2015

Objective:

This review aimed to draw on published literature to identify the prevalence rates of psychiatric disorders in Australia’s Indigenous populations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Method:

A systematic review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) model was conducted using the following electronic databases: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, and Informit Indigenous and Health Collections. Studies were included for analysis if they were empirical quantitative studies reporting prevalence rates for any psychiatric disorder in Indigenous people.

Results:

Of the 1584 papers extracted by the search strategy, 17 articles met the eligibility criteria and were reviewed in detail. Methodology, sampling strategy and study design varied greatly across these 17 studies. Prevalence rates varied by disorder and are as follows: major depressive disorder (4.3–51%); mood disorders (7.7–43.1%); post-traumatic stress disorder (14.2–55.2%); anxiety disorders (17.2–58.6%); substance dependence (5.9%–66.2%); alcohol dependence (21.4–55.4%); and psychotic disorders (1.68–25%). While the number of studies on community-based Indigenous populations was limited, available evidence suggested that prevalence rates are higher in prison populations compared with community-based studies.

Conclusions:

It was identified that there is limited evidence on the occurrence of psychiatric disorders for Indigenous people in the general community. More research in this area is essential to provide accurate and reliable estimates and to provide a baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of programs aimed at reducing the high mental health burden experienced by Indigenous Australians. Future research needs to ensure that standardised and validated methods are used to accurately estimate the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among Indigenous Australians.
The capacity to refuse psychiatric treatment: A guide to the law for clinicians and tribunal members
Authors: Ryan Christopher , Callaghan Sascha , Peisah Carmelle
Published: February 2015

Objective:

In some Australian states clinicians and mental health tribunal members are already required to assess a person’s decision-making capacity before involuntary treatment can be applied. Professionals in other jurisdictions will likely soon be required to do the same as mental health law reform in most Australian jurisdictions makes the assessment of decision-making capacity a central component of the process of providing unconsented psychiatric treatment. We provide a guide to the legal issues around the capacity to refuse psychiatric treatment to assist with this task.

Method:

We review the legislation in the four Australian states most advanced in the mental health law reform process and use examples from clinical practice and the common law to describe how decision-making capacity should be assessed by these statutory standards.

Results:

Clinicians and tribunal members will primarily be required to judge whether a person with mental illness can understand the information relevant to the treatment decision and whether he or she can use or weigh that information to come to a decision. A person with a mental illness is presumed to have capacity, but that presumption can be rebutted. Capacity is specific to the decision at hand and cannot be determined by the nature of the decision made.

Conclusions:

The information provided should assist clinicians and tribunal members to make determinations of decision-making capacity around treatment refusal in the context of mental illness.
Effects of Differentiated Reading on Elementary Students’ Reading Comprehension and Attitudes Toward Reading
Authors: Shaunessy-Dedrick Elizabeth , Evans Linda , Ferron John , Lindo Myriam
Published: February 2015

In this investigation, we examined the effects of a differentiated reading approach on fourth grade students’ reading comprehension and attitudes toward reading. Eight Title I schools within one urban district were randomly assigned to treatment (Schoolwide Enrichment Model–Reading [SEM-R]) or control (district reading curriculum) conditions. Treatment teachers implemented SEM-R as a supplement to the district curriculum for 1 academic year, whereas control teachers used the district curriculum. Based on multilevel analyses of students’ posttest reading comprehension scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills ( n = 358) and attitudes toward reading as measured by the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey ( n = 429), no statistically significant differences in students’ attitudes toward reading were found, but SEM-R students had significantly higher scores on the comprehension posttest compared with the students in the control schools.
Three-dimensionally woven glass fiber composite struts: characterization and mechanical response in tension and compression
Authors: Malcom Adam J , Aronson Mark T , Wadley Haydn NG
Published: February 2015

Three-dimensionally woven E- and S2-glass fiber textiles have been used in the past to create delamination-resistant corrugated core sandwich panels. During subsequent out-of-plane loading, the E-glass composite core struts and S2-glass composite faces are subjected to either compressive or tension loads. This study has investigated the relationships between the three-dimensional fiber architecture, fiber properties and the mechanical response of representative samples of the core and faces. Using X-ray computed tomography and optical microscopy to characterize the three-dimensional fiber architectures, it is found that the in-plane warp and weft fibers suffer significant off-axis displacement (waviness) due to their interaction with through thickness z-fiber tows. The consequence of this fiber waviness on the relationships of the in-plane tensile and compressive mechanical properties, along with fiber type, fiber volume fraction, and strut aspect ratio are experimentally investigated. The large initial misalignment angle of the warp and weft fiber tows results in a strut compressive strength that is substantially lower than its tensile strength due to compressive failure by either elastic or localized fiber microbuckling. Simple micromechanical models are used to relate the compressive strength of the three-dimensional woven composite struts to strut aspect ratio, fiber volume fractions in the three directions and the three-dimensional fiber architecture.
Exposure to Violence, Ethos of Conflict, and Support for Compromise
Authors: Canetti Daphna , Elad-Strenger Julia , Lavi Iris , Guy Dana , Bar-Tal Daniel
Published: February 2015

Does ongoing exposure to political violence prompt subject groups to support or oppose compromise in situations of intractable conflict? If so, what is the mechanism underlying these processes? Political scholarship neither offers conclusive arguments nor sufficiently addresses individual-level forms of exposure to violence in the context of political conflict, particularly the factors mediating political outcomes. We address this by looking at the impact of exposure to political violence, psychological distress, perceived threat, and ethos of conflict on support for political compromise. A mediated model is hypothesized whereby exposure to political violence provokes support for the ethos of conflict and hinders support for compromise through perceived psychological distress and perceived national threat. We examined representative samples of two parties to the same conflict: Israelis ( N = 781) and Palestinians from Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank ( N = 1,196). The study’s main conclusion is that ethos of conflict serves as a mediating variable in the relationship between exposure to violence and attitudes toward peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Labour relations policies in multinational companies: A three-country study of power dynamics
Authors: Lévesque Christian , Bensusán Graciela , Murray Gregor , Novick Marta , Carrillo Jorge , Gurrera Ma. Silvana
Published: February 2015

It is generally assumed that multinational companies will, to some extent at least, adapt their practices to host country environments. However, recent work suggests that this process of adaptation is yet more complex and uneven. It is our contention that subsidiary policy on labour relations is not simply the product of adaptation from and to home and host institutional environments but is in fact shaped by the multiple power relations that characterize multinational company subsidiaries. This three country comparison between Argentina, Canada, and Mexico shows that a policy of strong engagement with trade unions requires the presence of actors that can mobilize power resources. It is when both management and workers have power resources that subsidiaries are more likely to develop a policy of strong engagement with trade unions.
The pressure of wildcat strikes on the transformation of industrial relations in a developing country: The case of the garment and textile industry in Vietnam
Authors: Cox Anne
Published: February 2015

Focusing on seven organizations, one from Hong Kong, three South Korea, and three Taiwan, operating in the garment and textile industry, this paper argues that the transformation of the Vietnamese industrial relations system has had very limited impact on the nature and capacity of trade unions. At the workplace level, the ‘race to the bottom’ has led to violations of labor rights. In this context, unofficial worker representatives (UWRs) have emerged and gained significant power to coordinate large scale strikes across firms and inter-provinces. This paper provides a clear profile of UWRs and shows that the bottom-up pressure created by wildcat strikes has influenced labor legislation and improved working conditions. The unofficial representation mechanism in Vietnam presents a unique example where an effective representation mechanism can be achieved without the presence of ‘input legitimacy’. Furthermore, this paper argues that rapid industrialization and social transformation coupled with the increasing structural power of capital have escalated labor conflicts and strikes in Vietnam. It underlines the importance of involving workers and their representatives, be it official or unofficial, in the process of change and transition.
Interrogating Creative Theory and Creative Work: Inside the Games Studio
Authors: Thompson Paul , Parker Rachel , Cox Stephen
Published: February 2015

The expansion of creative and cultural industries has provided a rich source for theoretical claims and commentary. Much of this reproduces and extends the idea that autonomy is the defining feature of both enterprises and workers. Drawing on evidence from research into Australian development studios in the global digital games industry, the article interrogates claims concerning autonomy and related issues of insecurity and intensity, skill and specialisation, work–play boundaries, identity and attachments. In seeking to reconnect changes in creative labour to the wider production environment and political economy, an argument is advanced that autonomy is deeply contextual and contested as a dimension of the processes of capturing value for firms and workers.
Common Core State Standards for Students With Gifts and Talents
Authors: VanTassel-Baska Joyce
Published: February 2015

As many states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), teachers can look to these standards as a framework for supporting students with gifts and talents. Differentiation of curriculum and instruction to address the CCSS will be necessary to meet the unique learning needs of learners with high ability and those with gifts and talents. This article provides background information about the CCSS and guidelines to align differentiated tasks with the unique needs of students with gifts and talents within the framework of the English language arts (ELA) CCSS.
Criticism of Drinking as Informal Social Control: A Study in 18 Countries
Authors: Joosten Jan , Knibbe Ronald A. , Derickx Mieke , Hradilova-Selin Klara , Holmila Marja
Published: February 2015

The focus is on informal control of drinking, indicated by criticism of people in the social network on someone's alcohol consumption. Country and gender differences in the extent drinkers suffering from typical symptoms of heavy or prolonged alcohol use report informal control from others (reactive informal control), and country and gender differences in the extent comments on someone's drinking are (also) directed at those who do not suffer from these symptoms (proactive informal control) were studies. Data from 18 general population surveys, selected from an integrated dataset on drinking and drinking-related factors including more than 35 countries. Results show that men suffering from typical symptoms of heavy or prolonged alcohol use are more likely to be criticized than equivalent women (reactive control). Irrespective of gender, reactive informal control is more prevalent in poorer countries and in countries with a high proportion of abstainers. Concerning proactive control, among women a larger part of criticism appeared to be directed at those who (as yet) do not suffer from symptoms typical for heavy or prolonged alcohol use. There is a lot of variation between countries in pro-active informal control. This variation is only weakly related to prosperity of a country but not to its proportion of abstainers.
Rethinking Acculturation: A Study of Alcohol Use of Korean American Adolescents in Southern California
Authors: Cook Won Kim , Hofstetter C. Richard , Kang Michelle , Hovell Melbourne F. , Irvin Veronica
Published: February 2015

Given the considerable variability in drinking practices among Asian American groups, the generalizations that suggest an increase in their alcohol use associated with acculturation need to be questioned. Also, the experience of children of immigrants growing up in the United States may be much more complex than a focus on acculturation can capture. Informed by the theory of segmented assimilation, this study addresses two research questions: (1) Is acculturation associated with alcohol use of Korean American adolescents? and (2) What other social, economic, and cultural forces influence their alcohol use? Survey data were collected from 202 adolescents of Korean descent. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that acculturation was not a significant predictor of most measures of alcohol use, while peer influence, scholastic achievement/ aspirations, and current smoking were predictive. Gender and social class were unrelated to drinking. Findings suggest focusing research on an integrative approach to understanding drinking in complex social, economic, and social contexts may be useful.
Comparison of Heroin-Assisted Treatment and Abstinence-Oriented Residential Treatment in Switzerland Based on Patient Characteristics
Authors: Gerlich Miriam G. , Schaaf Susanne , Gross Corina Salis , Uchtenhagen Ambros
Published: February 2015

Patients who entered heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) (n = 220) or abstinence-oriented residential treatment (AORT) (n = 982) in Switzerland in 2005/06 were compared. Patients entering HAT were older, spent more time in prison and had more previous treatment attempts, but AORT patients had more often unsafe injections. Self-referrals were more frequent for HAT, referrals by court for AORT. Social conditions improved in both patient groups compared to patients entering 10 years ago. Average age at entry increased, particularly in HAT. Heroin as primary substance of abuse has decreased in AORT, mainly in favor of cocaine. Conclusions for other countries engaging in HAT are: HAT leads to a new balance among treatment approaches. AORT must be better adapted to the needs of nonopioid and younger addicts, while HAT takes care of older clients with more health problems and former crime involvement. Referral practice should consider this situation.
Local Drug Use Epidemiology: Lessons Learned and Implications for Broader Comparisons
Authors: Buxton Jane A. , Mehrabadi Azar , Preston Emma , Tu Andrew ,   The Canadian Community Epidemiology Network on Drug use (CCENDU) Vancouver-Site Committee
Published: February 2015

The Canadian Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (CCENDU) Vancouver-site committee is comprised of representatives from national/provincial/local health and enforcement agencies. It collects, collates and interprets recent local data relating to major drug use to produce regular reports exploring Vancouver data with provincial and national comparisons. Meetings of committee members allow identification of current concerns, inform the data and broaden the context for the members. The seventh Vancouver site report since 1996 was published in July 2007. Data trends are explored with input from committee members; changes in data collection and definitions are clarified. The committee strives to share the knowledge with health authorities, policy makers, agencies and the public.
Tracking Trends of Alcohol, Illicit Drugs and Tobacco through Morbidity Data
Authors: Buxton Jane A. , Tu Andrew W. , Stockwell Tim
Published: February 2015

Despite various national and provincial tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug surveys in Canada, tracking trends and patterns of use is difficult. These surveys often target specific populations and are prone to sampling or respondent bias. This article describes a feasibility study to provide alcohol-, illicit drug- and tobacco-related morbidity using hospital separation data. Hospital episodes for diseases and conditions wholly or partially attributable to alcohol, illicit drugs, and tobacco by health authority, age group, sex, and specific ICD-10 codes for British Columbia (BC) were obtained. The most responsible diagnosis statistics were combined with aetiologic fractions for each ICD-10 code to estimate the total burden of substance use by health authority. Hospital admissions attributable to alcohol and tobacco each cause approximately 3 and 5 times respectively, that attributable to illicit drugs. The ongoing analysis of morbidity data will be used to inform the health authorities, and to assist policy makers in creating and evaluating policies.
Unlocking Patterns of Alcohol Consumption in British Columbia Using Alcohol Sales Data: A Foundation for Public Health Monitoring
Authors: MacDonald Scott , Zhao Jinhui , Pakula Basia , Stockwell Tim , Martens Lorissa
Published: February 2015

Alcohol sales data provide a more accurate indication of alcohol consumption than alternative methods such as population surveys. This information can be used to better understand epidemiological issues related to alcohol consumption, policy development and evaluation. Official sales records were collected for the 28 regional districts of British Columbia (BC) for 2002–2005, while homemade alcohol was estimated from survey data. Alcohol consumption rates were found to vary across geographic regions, by season, and with population level demographics. Government stores were the largest source of alcohol consumption in BC, accounting for 45.1% of total alcohol consumption in 2004. U-Brews/U-Vins accounted for 4.0%, private liquor stores accounted for 27.5% of the total, and homemade alcohol made up 4.3% of total alcohol consumption. Analysis also revealed that the average alcohol concentration in wines (12.53%) and coolers (6.77%) has been underestimated by Statistics Canada. The feasibility of developing this type of alcohol monitoring system is examined. Finally, implications for the development of targeted public health initiatives and future research are discussed.
The Canadian Recreational Drug Use Survey: Aims, Methods and First Results
Authors: Duff Cameron , Michelow Warren , Chow Clifton , Ivsins Andrew , Stockwell Tim
Published: February 2015

In late 2006, pilot research was initiated in two western Canadian sites (Vancouver and Victoria) to systematically monitor patterns and trends in three specific illicit drug user populations: club and rave party attendees, adolescent street involved injection and non-injection drug users, and adult injection drug users. These sentinel groups were selected because of elevated rates of alcohol and other drug use within these populations and contexts, and the high levels of associated risks and harms. Drawing from international monitoring and surveillance systems, novel research instruments were developed for each population and were administered in face-to-face interviews at each study site. This paper presents an overview of the broad research methodology for the “high risk” monitoring research as well as select findings for the “club drug” sample. The piloted research design yielded high quality data, particularly in relation to recent patterns of drug use behaviour (items on drug use “yesterday” and “last weekend”). The success of these novel items highlights the value of the present study and its relevance for similar studies across the country.
Tools for Policy and Prevention: The Australian National Alcohol Indicators Project
Authors: Chikritzhs Tanya
Published: February 2015

Alcohol is a leading cause of preventable death, disease, and disability in Australia. The National Alcohol Indicators Project (NAIP) is funded by the Commonwealth Government of Australia to monitor and report on trends in alcohol consumption and related harms across states and communities with special emphasis on the wide dissemination of information and evaluation of policy change. Using aetiologic fraction and surrogate methods, the NAIP has established a minimum set of reliable indictors of alcohol-related harms for monitoring and evaluation purposes, including: alcohol-attributable deaths and hospitalizations; police-reported road crash and violent offences related to alcohol intoxication; alcohol sales data, and national alcohol consumption surveys. The NAIP uses a range of strategies for maintaining policy-relevant outputs that are both scientifically rigorous and readily accessible by non-researchers, including: a range of dissemination modes which potentially appeal to diverse audiences (e.g. bulletins, submissions, journal articles); proactive communication of outputs to potential audiences; timely response to key stake-holder information needs; and a strong commitment to capitalizing on opportunities for alcohol policy evaluation at local, state, and national levels.
The Australian Illicit Drug Reporting System: Monitoring Trends in Illicit Drug Availability, Use and Drug-Related Harm in Australia 1996–2006
Authors: Hall Wayne , Degenhardt Louisa
Published: February 2015

We describe trends in illicit drug use revealed by the Australian Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) between 1996 and 2006. We begin by briefly outlining the rationale, development, and testing of the IDRS, which integrates information from: interviews with a sentinel population of injecting drug users (IDU); key experts in health and law enforcement; and indicators that include information on drug purity and price, plus indicators of drug-related harm, such as fatal and nonfatal overdoses. These sources of information are critically discussed at annual meetings of researchers, policy makers and practitioners in the field. We describe what the IDRS has revealed about the use of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, and injected pharmaceutical preparations (opioids and benzodiazepines) over the period 1996–2006. We also illustrate how IDRS data can be combined with pharmaceutical prescription data to evaluate the effectiveness of policies designed to reduce benzodiazepine injecting. We also very briefly describe recent experience with monitoring trends on “dance party” drug use that extends the methods of IDRS by combining data from interviews with party drug users, key experts, and leading indicators of drug use.
Addiction Medicine and Addiction Psychiatry in America: Commonalities in the Medical Treatment of Addiction
Authors: Freed Christopher R.
Published: February 2015

Two competing medical disciplines treat addiction in the United States: addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry. Addiction medicine seeks recognition from the American Board of Medical Specialties whereas addiction psychiatry holds this high-level medical status, a mission that suggests a substantive distinction between addiction medicine physicians and addiction psychiatrists that does not exist. As this article shows, leading addiction medicine physicians and addiction psychiatrists agree on the definition of addiction and that drug treatment is an “art” which requires a multimethod approach. Despite this extensive accord, addiction medicine physicians and addiction psychiatrists draw sharp distinctions between addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry to serve historical, economic, and professional interests, revealing the importance to both disciplines of recognition from the American Board of Medical Specialties and thus jurisdiction over the medical treatment of addiction.
Beyond Disorder, Danger, Incompetence and Ignorance: Rethinking the Youthful Subject of Alcohol and other Drug Policy
Authors: Moore David
Published: February 2015

In Australia, as in other parts of the Western world, “binge drinking” and the use of amphetamine-type stimulants among young adults have become high-profile issues in media, policy and research discourses. In these discourses, young adults are frequently characterized as being disordered, dangerous, incompetent, or ignorant, and as either victims of their own “risky” alcohol and other drug consumption or as threats to society as a result of this consumption. In this article, I compare such representations of young alcohol and other drug users with the findings of three qualitative research projects conducted in the Australian cities of Perth and Melbourne. In contrast to media, policy and research discourses, these projects suggest that in their drinking and other drug use practices, young adults are far from disordered, dangerous, incompetent, or ignorant. These findings, which are consistent with previous qualitative research from Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe, suggest the need to rethink the youthful subject of alcohol and other drug policy.
Notions of Injecting Drug Users' Candidacy for Hepatitis C Treatment: Conflicting Provider, Patient, and Public Health Perspectives
Authors: Coupland Heidi , Maher Lisa
Published: February 2015

Uptake of hepatitis C treatment by injecting drug users (IDUs) remains low and little is known about factors influencing treatment uptake by ethnic minority groups. The influence of notions of “candidacy” on “accomplishing” access to antiviral treatment are explored using data from an ethnographic study. Fieldwork and in-depth interviews were conducted with 72 Indo-Chinese IDUs. Cultural contexts, everyday realities of drug use and marginalization, and disengagement from the health system produced notions of candidacy in participants' local worlds. Among the minority assessed for treatment, adjudications of candidacy were perceived to be influenced by power dynamics. Demonstrating abstinence from drug use was understood to be central to establishing legitimate claims for candidacy, suggesting conflicting provider, patient, and public health perspectives. Further research is needed to identify drivers of institutional notions of candidacy and determine ways to ensure these do not produce discriminatory practices and policies that exclude and disadvantage particular groups.
Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS) of People Who Inject Drugs: Assessing RDS Assumptions and Requirements
Authors: Paquette Dana M. , Bryant Joanne , De Wit John
Published: February 2015

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a relatively new form of sampling hidden populations. RDS has the ability to produce valid population estimates, provided that certain assumptions are met. This study examined whether an RDS survey of people who inject drugs (PWID) conducted in South East Sydney was able to meet the assumptions and requirements necessary to produce valid population estimates. From November 2009 to March 2010, 261 participants were recruited in 16 waves. While the method's requirements and assumptions were largely met, an apparent lack of random recruitment and the low proportion of coupons returned were sources of concern. This study shows that RDS can be used successfully in Australia as a means of recruiting PWID. However, more work is needed to confirm the soundness of the assumptions on which the calculation of valid population estimates are based.
Exploring the Temporal Association between Young People's Alcohol Consumption Patterns and Violent Behavior
Authors: Lightowlers Carly
Published: February 2015

Alcohol consumption patterns such as binge drinking have routinely been associated with interpersonal assault amongst young people. Examining how drinking patterns are temporally associated with violent behavior during adolescence and young adulthood further develops an understanding of this relationship. This study employs data from the Offending Crime and Justice Survey in England and Wales, offering insight into young people's drinking and offending behavior. A cross-sectional model examines the extent to which binge drinking is associated with the likelihood of committing assault in the same year. An earlier measure of binge drinking (in the previous year) was subsequently used to examine the influence on later violent behavior. Evidence that the pattern of drinking is associated with violent offending, as well as a contemporaneous association between binge drinking and violence in the same year, supports the existing literature in the field and suggests that frequent acute intoxication is a temporally proximal risk factor for the increased propensity of committing interpersonal assault offenses. However, there is no evidence found in the current study to suggest that earlier measures of binge drinking frequency are associated with increased propensity for later violent offending. Furthermore, current findings do not suggest that the association between binge drinking and the propensity for violence is moderated by gender, thus suggesting interventions aimed at reducing violent offending ought to address binge drinking in both males and females.
Differences in Trouble per Liter of Different Alcoholic Beverages —A Global Comparison with the GENACIS Dataset
Authors: Room Robin , Ferris Jason , Bond Jason , Greenfield Thomas K. , Graham Kathryn
Published: February 2015

Different alcoholic beverages are seen as causing more or less trouble, with spirits historically often seen as the most troublesome. Differences in “trouble per liter” could reflect differences in the beverages themselves (e.g., faster effect of stronger beverages, additives/contaminants in informal beverages), or could reflect characteristics of those drinking each beverage. Using two alternative definitions of beverage choice and measures of personal and social consequences of drinking, the article examines trouble per liter among beer, wine, and spirits drinkers in 19 different societies represented in the GENACIS dataset. There is no general pattern that holds across cultures of more or less trouble being associated with a particular beverage type. Wine seems to be less associated with trouble than beer or spirits in a number of societies, but there are counterinstances in other societies. There is no overall trend across cultures in comparing trouble associated with beer and with spirits. In a number of societies, drinkers with no predominant beverage report more problems than those mainly drinking beer or wine. Controlling for gender and age reduces the tilt towards less trouble from wine drinking, particularly for social consequences of drinking.
Relationships of Alcohol Use and Alcohol Problems to Probable Anxiety and Mood Disorder
Authors: Mann Robert E. , Ialomiteanu Anca R. , Chan Vincy , Cheung Joyce T.W. , Stoduto Gina , Ala-Leppilampi Kari , Wickens Christine M. , Rehm Jürgen
Published: February 2015

We examine the effects of alcohol consumption and problem drinking on probable anxiety and mood disorder (AMD). Data were taken from the 2000–2006 CAMH Monitor (N = 15,653) general population survey of Ontario adults. Scoring 4+ on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire defined probable AMD, as suggested by recent research. Logistic regression showed that respondents with alcohol problems had significantly increased odds of probable AMD, but those reporting moderate daily alcohol consumption (up to 2 drinks) had decreased odds of probable AMD compared to abstainers. These data replicate other recent research in suggesting that the relationship between alcohol and adverse psychological states, such as psychological distress and probable anxiety and mood disorder, may not be monotonic. Several ways in which selection bias could account for these findings are discussed, as well as other possible causative mechanisms.
Individualized Control of Drinkers: Back to the Future?
Authors: Room Robin
Published: February 2015

In recent years, Anglophone countries are increasingly resorting to individualized control of drinkers. Thus, the Australian Northern Territory government has implemented legislation for electronically verifiable identification that must be checked against a list of adults prohibited from purchasing alcohol. For another example, alcohol-purchase banning orders were instituted in England and Wales by the Blair government. This article considers the earlier history of such individualized drinking controls, particularly in the alcohol-control regimes of the 1920s-1960s, which succeeded prohibition regimes, or were set up in response to prohibition movements. Questions addressed include: what were the rationales of such individualized controls, how were they enforced, why were they largely abandoned, and what evidence is available on their effects? The present-day resurgence of individualized controls is interpreted as the path of least resistance for politicians who need to be seen to do something about alcohol problems without substantially impinging upon the alcohol market.
Golden Chocolate Olive Tobacco Packaging Meets the Smoker You Thought You Knew: The Rational Agent and New Cigarette Packaging Legislation in Australia
Authors: Dennis Simone
Published: February 2015

Claims made about the effectiveness of new Australian plain cigarette packaging legislation reveal key assumptions about the smoker: her/his rationality can be reached by increasingly hardhitting and/or targeted intervention. Abandoning the restrictive frame of the rational smoker returns to an anthropology concerned with understanding how, rather than why, smoking figures in the lives of those who smoke.
Teasing Apart the Roles of Gender and Alcohol in Drinking Consequences Using an Event-Level Analysis
Authors: Dumas Tara M. , Wells Samantha , Tremblay Paul F. , Graham Kathryn
Published: February 2015

The objective was: to assess gender differences in university students' likelihood of experiencing negative drinking consequences across the first academic year, controlling for amount of alcohol consumed on each occasion; also to assess whether the relation between amount consumed and experiencing the consequence is moderated by gender. On weekly assessments over 26 weeks, first-year university students (N = 265; 177 women; Mage = 18.48) recorded number of drinks consumed and negative drinking consequences experienced each day. A greater percentage of men experienced at least one drinking consequence. However, when analyses focused on drinking occasions controlling for consumption, women were at greater risk for experiencing many drinking consequences including unplanned sex, injury, and memory lapses. Further, the likelihood of experiencing unprotected sex increased with greater alcohol consumption for women but not for men. A greater focus on risks for women is needed in understanding and preventing negative drinking consequences.
Opiate Substitution Treatment: Poisoned Bodies and the History of Substitution
Authors: Walmsley Ian
Published: February 2015

The practice of substituting one drug for another has arguably become a taken-for-granted feature of contemporary responses to heroin dependency in Britain. Substitute prescribing has, however, recently come under attack from various commentators both inside and outside of the drug treatment system. The general tone of the argument is that problem drug users who are dependent upon heroin are entering the drug treatment system and are simply being “parked on methadone.” In order to shed new light on this particular drug treatment intervention, this article will use the genealogical method to map out the historical conditions from which it became rational and necessary for medical experts to govern the heroin-dependent body through the practice of substitute prescribing. The principal thesis of this article is that substitute prescribing can be understood as an outcome of a convergence between the discursive fields of poisoning and addiction during the latter half of the 19th Century. This way of thinking and acting upon the heroin-dependent body as a poisoned object has had a lasting and significant impact upon the way we think about and respond to heroin withdrawal through the practice of substitute prescribing.
Crack Pipe Sharing in Context: How Sociostructural Factors Shape Risk Practices among Noninjection Drug Users
Authors: Ivsins Andrew , Roth Eric , Benoit Cecilia , Fischer Benedikt
Published: February 2015

With the increasing prevalence of crack use in Canada in the previous decade, crack pipe sharing has emerged as a public health concern, implicated in the transmission of blood- and saliva-borne infections. Drawing on qualitative research with crack users in Victoria, Canada, participants' narratives of sharing pipes demonstrate how risk practices are shaped by social, structural, and environmental factors. Three main themes emerged: sharing pipes with friends and partners; economic motivations for sharing pipes; and the rules and etiquette of crack pipe sharing. Based on these themes we demonstrate that despite conventional views of drug equipment sharing as “bad behavior,” in the lived experience of our participants sharing pipes is a rational and functional activity. Ramifications of these findings are considered in light of future public health programs featuring the dissemination of health information and distribution of safer crack pipe kits.
Authenticity and Diversity: Enhancing Australian Hepatitis C Prevention Messages
Authors: Winter Rebecca , Fraser Suzanne , Booker Norman , Treloar Carla
Published: February 2015

Despite two decades of prevention activities and education, rates of hepatitis C infection remain high among people who inject drugs. In this article we draw on the findings of an extensive review of the content of print hepatitis C prevention materials circulating in Australia, examining these data in light of Petraglia's (2009) theory of “authenticity” in social marketing. We identify three main areas in which resources could be redesigned: closer attention to language and terminology, a critical engagement with common concepts of the individual, and more acknowledgement of the role of social and structural factors in shaping injecting practice. To achieve a stronger sense of authenticity, and in turn become more equitable and efficient, future resources could address these issues using insights from social marketing literature.
Rationalities of Choice and Practices of Care: Substitution Treatment in Denmark
Authors: Bjerge Bagga , Nielsen Bjarke , Frank Vibeke Asmussen
Published: February 2015

As in many Western countries, notions of active, free, and self-managing citizens have become key concerns in Danish social policies. This article describes how these key concerns have made their inroads into laws and guidelines for delivery of social welfare services and how these laws and guidelines are intended to be implemented in social work practices. In the first part of the article, we analyze how policies envision drug users as active, free and self-managing citizens. In this view, citizens are assumed to have the desire to become more involved in their treatment and to choose the goals of their own treatment. In the second part, we focus on how this rationale changes under actual conditions of social work practice. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among social workers and drug users, we show how their daily encounters are not based on the presumption of individual choice. Rather, the life situations and problems of drug users conflict with the predominant idea that drug users are self-managing citizens who should be “empowered.” Instead, we argue that daily treatment encounters are not so much about individual choice and self-management, but rather, about improving the overall situation of drug users.
A Comparison of Two Case-Crossover Methods for Studying the Dose-Response Relationship between Alcohol and Injury
Authors: Bond Jason , Cherpitel Cheryl J. , Ye Yu , Borges Guilherme , Chou S. Patricia , Chun Sungsoo , Sovinova Hana , Gmel Gerhard
Published: February 2015

This study compares dose-response injury risk estimates for two control periods defined as the same 6-hour period the week prior and the set of all non-sleeping 6-hour periods over the past year. Dose-response injury risk estimates for the multiple match controls are generated via the application of a maximum-likelihood approach. Injury risk associated with any (i.e., 1 drink or more) drinking 6 hours prior to injury was similar for the two control choices (last week and usual frequency). For 1–4 drinks, risk estimates were similar across control period definitions; for 5+ drinks, risk using the week prior as the control was nearly double that using the past 12 months as the control. Although studies with smaller n-sizes may benefit from the increase in precision from the use of the multiple control periods, results indicate that heavy drinking injury risk estimates should be used with caution.
“Crack Ends it all?” A Study of the Interrelations between Crack Cocaine, Social Environments, Social Relations, Crime, and Homicide among Poor, Young Men in Urban Brazil
Authors: Ursin Marit
Published: February 2015

In this article, actor network theory is used to explore the consumption of crack cocaine in street settings. The article is based on multiple periods of fieldwork over several years among young men in Salvador, Brazil. The contribution of the article is three-fold. First, it explores how two different socio-spatial contexts — the poor favela communities and the street settings located in a middle-class neighborhood — mediate and are mediated by crack use. Second, it examines how social relations are reconfigured, in the eyes of the users, after the arrival of the drug. Third, based on the users' accounts, it examines the causality between crack use, street crime, and homicide often emphasized in public discourse and medical research. By focusing on the complex processes in which crack use, street crime and homicides are embedded, the article problematizes such causalities and demonstrates the numerous actants involved, such as legal income-generating possibilities and public safety for crack consumers in the favelas and on the streets.
Immoral, Deviant, or Just Normal: Drunk Drivers' Narratives of Drinking and Drunk Driving
Authors: Fynbo Lars
Published: February 2015

Contemporary research often relates driving under the influence (DUI) to alcohol addiction and young drunk drivers, in particular, to social deviance. Based on qualitative interviews with 25 convicted drunk drivers, this article studies the relationship between drinking and DUI. The article focuses on three different categories of drunk drivers. In the first, drunk drivers consider addiction to be the main cause of DUI. In the second, they position themselves within subcultural groups often engaged in using illicit drugs, alcohol, and DUI. Both of these categories agree with conceptions of DUI as resulting from alcoholism or social deviance. However, the interviews also revealed a third type of relationship between drinking and DUI. Interviewees in this third category rejected the other two relationships by dissociating themselves from alcoholism and social deviance. Instead, they described themselves and their relationship between drinking and DUI as normal. The article thus concludes that while some drunk drivers view themselves in line with popular conceptions of DUI, others distance themselves from these associations so as to present themselves as normal.
Storytelling in Drug Treatment
Authors: Andersen Ditte
Published: February 2015

Professionals who provide drug treatment to young people regularly encounter what they conceive to be inauthentic client claims, that is, claims not in accordance with reality. Earlier research demonstrates how authenticity remains a key concern within drug treatment, but it has not sufficiently explained how professionals account for and distinguish between different types of inauthenticity. Building on the sociology of storytelling, this study opens up the category of inauthenticity through a narrative analysis and makes a novel contribution by identifying the following three distinctive stories that professionals activate to make sense of inauthenticity: (1) professionals routinely refer to what this study labels the story of institutional conformism, portraying institutionalized clients who have developed a habit of saying the “right” things rather than the “real” things, (2) in the somewhat taboo story of ulterior motives, clients are interpreted as making inauthentic claims because they want to obtain something externally from drug treatment (e.g., avoid prison or work training programs), and (3) the story of disorders explains inauthenticity as a result of pathology. The study illuminates how professionals assert narrative control through storytelling and how specific stories carry specific consequences and may ultimately contribute to the exclusion of some clients from treatment.
“I Just Drink for That Tipsy Stage”
Authors: Zajdow Grazyna , MacLean Sarah
Published: February 2015

Many young adults aim for a state of tipsiness, where control is not abandoned when they drink alcohol; however, this level of intoxication is very difficult to get right. Interviews conducted with 60 drinkers aged 18–24 years in Melbourne, Australia, indicate that few counted standard drinks and most spoke of attending to bodily signs that they had had enough and should not drink more. This strategy was ineffective for a small proportion of interviewees who never felt too drunk. To understand young adults’ efforts to manage intoxication, we use Mol and Law’s notion of excorporation. The partial nature of intoxicated self-control led young adults to arrange to be in settings where external restraints to drinking would operate. Alcohol policy should acknowledge the mosaic and embodied nature of self-control for young adults in the nighttime economy and focus on the development of settings where drinking and associated harms are minimized.
The Sell Decision: An Argument for Judicial Restraint
Authors: DeMier Richart L. , Sarrazin Robert G.
Published: February 2015

When considering the issue of involuntary medication for the purpose of competency restoration treatment, judges have sometimes dictated that only certain medications or dosages are authorized. This commentary proposes that judges should recognize treatment as a fluid process and authorize (or fail to authorize) that process of treatment. When treatment is authorized, specific psychiatric decisions are best made by psychiatrists.
Federal Courts' Interpretations of Sell v. U.S.
Authors: Baecht Lea Ann Preston
Published: February 2015

In Sell v. U.S. (2003), the Supreme Court ruled that a trial court must make certain findings before authorizing the involuntary administration of antipsychotic medication for the sole purpose of rendering a nondangerous mentally ill defendant competent to stand trial. Unfortunately, the language of the Sell decision left many issues unclear. The present article highlights the areas of confusion and reviews the subsequent federal court decisions related to these areas.