Living the life : prostitutes and their health

This dissertation is based upon research among 120 female prostitutes in "Northeast", an urban area just outside a major city along the east coast of the United States. Northeast is one of the most densely populated areas in the United States (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1980). The area is characterized by a high rate of poverty. Business and political officials reported as early as in 1967 that the area had the nation's highest percentage of substandard housing, the highest crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest rate of venereal diseases and of infant mortality. Also reported was the high number of drug users and related problems (Hayden, 1967). The black population in this area is disadvantaged in many respects. At the end of the 1960s this led to race riots supported by civil rights groups. Following these riots many whites moved from the city to the suburbs and businesses abandoned the central business districts. As a consequence, urban development, which was primarily controlled by whites, was interrupted and most neighborhoods were transformed into nonwhite urban ghettos. Northeast faced economic decline since 1970. The majority of the population still lives in neighborhoods with many burned, deteriorating and boarded-up houses. It is in these areas, comparable to "inner-city ghetto's", where one finds drug copping zones (buying zone) and prostitution "strolls" (street zone). Northeast has four main prostitution strolls, two in areas with a largely black population and two in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods. On these strolls most of the prostitutes working are black and Hispanic. The "strolls" are located near transfer stations for truck drivers and near important traffic routes. Northeast also has a few bordellos, with mainly Hispanic prostitutes, and escort services in which white women predominat

Initial Smoking Experiences and Current Smoking Behaviors and Perceptions among Current Smokers

. Purpose. We examine early-onset cigarette smoking and how, if at all, it is related to subsequent smoking practices. Methods. From 2004 to 2007, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 485 adult cigarette smokers residing in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Data analysis involved a multivariate analysis to determine whether age of smoking onset was related to current smoking practices when the effects of gender, age, race, marital/relationship status, income, and educational attainment were taken into account. Results. The mean age for smoking onset was 14.8, and more than one-half of all smokers had their first cigarette between the ages of 12 and 16. Most people reported an interval of less than one month between their first and second time using tobacco. Earlier onset cigarette smoking was related to more cigarette use and worse tobacco-related health outcomes in adulthood. Conclusions. Early prevention and intervention are needed to avoid early-onset smoking behaviors. Intervening after initial experimentation but before patterned smoking practices are established will be challenging, as the interval between initial and subsequent use tends to be short

Will HIV Vaccination Reshape HIV Risk Behavior Networks? A Social Network Analysis of Drug Users\u27 Anticipated Risk Compensation

Background An HIV vaccine could substantially impact the epidemic. However, risk compensation (RC), or post-vaccination increase in risk behavior, could present a major challenge. The methodology used in previous studies of risk compensation has been almost exclusively individual-level in focus, and has not explored how increased risk behavior could affect the connectivity of risk networks. This study examined the impact of anticipated HIV vaccine-related RC on the structure of high-risk drug users\u27 sexual and injection risk network. Methods A sample of 433 rural drug users in the US provided data on their risk relationships (i.e., those involving recent unprotected sex and/or injection equipment sharing). Dyad-specific data were collected on likelihood of increasing/initiating risk behavior if they, their partner, or they and their partner received an HIV vaccine. Using these data and social network analysis, a post-vaccination network was constructed and compared to the current network on measures relevant to HIV transmission, including network size, cohesiveness (e.g., diameter, component structure, density), and centrality. Results Participants reported 488 risk relationships. Few reported an intention to decrease condom use or increase equipment sharing (4% and 1%, respectively). RC intent was reported in 30 existing risk relationships and vaccination was anticipated to elicit the formation of five new relationships. RC resulted in a 5% increase in risk network size (n = 142 to n = 149) and a significant increase in network density. The initiation of risk relationships resulted in the connection of otherwise disconnected network components, with the largest doubling in size from five to ten. Conclusions This study demonstrates a new methodological approach to studying RC and reveals that behavior change following HIV vaccination could potentially impact risk network connectivity. These data will be valuable in parameterizing future network models that can determine if network-level change precipitated by RC would appreciably impact the vaccine\u27s population-level effectiveness

Technological Revolutions and Debt Hangovers: Is There a Link?

Abstract The Great Recession, the Great Depression, and the Japanese slump of the 1990s were all preceded by periods of major technological innovation. In an attempt to understand these facts, we estimate a model with noisy news about the future. We find that beliefs about long run income adjust with an important delay to shifts in trend productivity. This delay, together with estimated shifts in the trend of productivity in the three cases, are able to tell a common and simple story for the observed dynamics of productivity and consumption on a 20 to 25 year window. Our analysis highlights the advantages of a look at this data from the point of view of the medium run

Dust Devil Sediment Transport: From Lab to Field to Global Impact

The impact of dust aerosols on the climate and environment of Earth and Mars is complex and forms a major area of research. A difficulty arises in estimating the contribution of small-scale dust devils to the total dust aerosol. This difficulty is due to uncertainties in the amount of dust lifted by individual dust devils, the frequency of dust devil occurrence, and the lack of statistical generality of individual experiments and observations. In this paper, we review results of observational, laboratory, and modeling studies and provide an overview of dust devil dust transport on various spatio-temporal scales as obtained with the different research approaches. Methods used for the investigation of dust devils on Earth and Mars vary. For example, while the use of imagery for the investigation of dust devil occurrence frequency is common practice for Mars, this is less so the case for Earth. Modeling approaches for Earth and Mars are similar in that they are based on the same underlying theory, but they are applied in different ways. Insights into the benefits and limitations of each approach suggest potential future research focuses, which can further reduce the uncertainty associated with dust devil dust entrainment. The potential impacts of dust devils on the climates of Earth and Mars are discussed on the basis of the presented research results

The Limits of Social Capital: Durkheim, Suicide, and Social Cohesion

Recent applications of social capital theories to population health often draw on classic sociological theories for validation of the protective features of social cohesion and social integration. Durkheim’s work on suicide has been cited as evidence that modern life disrupts social cohesion and results in a greater risk of morbidity and mortality—including self-destructive behaviors and suicide. We argue that a close reading of Durkheim’s evidence supports the opposite conclusion and that the incidence of self-destructive behaviors such as suicide is often greatest among those with high levels of social integration. A reexamination of Durkheim’s data on female suicide and suicide in the military suggests that we should be skeptical about recent studies connecting improved population health to social capital