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Cross-national comparative analysis of tobacco control strategies can alert health advocates to how opportunities for public health action, types of action, and probabilities for success are shaped by political systems and cultures. This article is based on case studies of tobacco control in the United States, Canada, Britain, and France. Two questions are addressed: (a) To whom were the dangers of smoking attributed? and (b) What was the role of collective action--grassroots level organization--in combating these dangers? Activists in Canada, Britain, and France moved earlier than the United States did to target the tobacco industry and the state. Locally based advocacy centered on passive smoking has been far more important in the United States. The author concludes that U.S.-style advocacy has played a major role in this country's smoking decline but is insufficient in and of itself to change the corporate practices of a wealthy and politically powerful industry.

Increasing evidence indicates that sex workers use condoms less consistently with regular (i.e., non paying) partners than with clients. Few studies have examined the extent to which these 2 categories are mutually exclusive. In an ethnographic study of women's sex work in Antananarivo, Madagascar, we examined how the meaning of women sex workers' sexual relationships could shift among 3 different forms of sex work. Condom use was less likely in forms in which the distinction between client and lover (sipa in Malagasy) was fluid. For many sex workers, therefore, relationships they understood to be intimate imparted the greatest health vulnerability. It is important to examine the influence of the meaning of sexual relationships on condom use for HIV prevention. Policy implications for HIV prevention work with sex workers are considered. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2007.118422)

Objectives. This article explores the social context of the migration-related HIV epidemic in western Mexico. Methods. Data collection involved life histories and participant observation with migrant women in Atlanta and their sisters or sisters-in-law in Mexico. Results. Both younger and older women acknowledged that migrant men's sexual behavior may expose them to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Younger Mexican women in both communities expressed a marital ideal characterized by mutual intimacy, communication, joint decisionmaking, and sexual pleasure, but not by willingness to use condoms as an HIV prevention strategy. Conclusions. Migrant Mexican women's commitment to an illusion of fidelity will hinder HIV prevention initiatives targeted toward them. Furthermore, the changing meanings of marital sex may make it harder to convince young couples to use condoms as an HIV prevention strategy. If the chain of heterosexual marital HIV transmission is to be interrupted in this community, prevention programs must target men.

This article examines family planning and fertility-related behavior with sterilization as its outcome. The authors argue that sterilization events are generally influenced by parity, and most individuals have long-term fertility-related goals.

This book is likely to be read in different ways by different audiences: by demographers as a somewhat intemperate attack on themselves and their discipline; by anthropologists as confirmation of [...]

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In this article we examine the transformation over the past two decades of public health as a policy arena in France from a backwater of little interest to politicians, bureaucrats, the media, and the public into a central preoccupation of the state. Recent dramatic health crises (the scandal over HIV-contaminated blood, mad cow disease, etc.) have substantially raised the political profile of (and corresponding state investment in) public health in France, offering opportunities and incentives for political actors not traditionally associated with public health to enter the field and challenging more traditional actors to galvanize themselves and compete for this newly attractive policy terrain. We use the occasion of the passage of a public health law in 2004, labeled by its proponents as the "first" public health law in one hundred years, to show how, in a context of national struggle to contain both risks and costs, "public health"--chameleonlike--has taken on various meanings and forms to serve highly conflicting political interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a theory-based approach to the understanding of social change and illustrates that theory with examples from the history and politics of public health. Based in large part on the work of anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (see in particular his Islands of History published in (1985) William Sewell Jr. has proposed an 'eventful sociology.' In this work 'event' is a term of art meaning occurrences in human affairs that result in social change. Sewell's approach and that of Charles Tilly are in many respects complementary, a major difference being Sewell's far greater emphasis on meaning and interpretation by engaged actors as essential to understanding of how historical processes unfold. In this paper I further elaborate Sahlins' and Sewell's ideas, first by showing their connection with concepts that may be more familiar to sociologists and, second, by examining the contingent character of social change. Drawing on my own research on the history of public health, I argue that the transformation of 'happenings' into events and of events into meaningful social change are highly contingent on the social and political context within which these events occur. More generally, I hope to show that 'eventful' sociology is an exciting and productive approach to sociological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kuwait is a high fertility country where the average number of desired children still exceeds 5. However, fertility behaviour is beginning to show a noticeable change and the current TFR is about 4.2 children. In order to understand the decline in fertility, the impact of perceived benefits and costs of children on Kuwaiti women's desired and achieved fertility is analysed. Data from a nationally representative survey of Kuwaiti households held in 1999 are used. Bivariate analyses show that the mean desired number of children is significantly higher among those who rank higher on the perceived value of children, and lower among those who are concerned about the cost of raising children. Achieved fertility (children ever born) shows a similar pattern. In the multivariate analysis, however, large family values emerge as the only significant predictor of (higher) desired as well as achieved fertility, net of the respondent's demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The sociocultural, economic and political contexts that shape the mother's perceptions of the benefits and costs of children are analysed and it is concluded that the need for children as social and national capital is currently the most important driving force behind fertility desires and behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social movement has become institutionalized as a form of political action. The aim of this article is to evaluate the possibilities presented by this form as a strategy to bring about universal health insurance in the United States. I draw on the work of social movement theorists, on the substantial body of empirical research on health-related social movements, and on relevant comparative work from Canada to develop a template for this evaluation. Using that template I compare the failed campaign for President Bill Clinton's health insurance plan with a recent, more successful campaign in the state of New York. I conclude that the keys to success are, first, a broad-based coalition that combines an ideologically and/or grievance-motivated grass roots with financially and politically well-endowed mainstream organizations; second, a "master frame" that resonates with the American people; and, third, a political window of opportunity. The prospects for such a conjunction are not hopeless, but they are not high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizes a framework drawn from social movement and related sociological theories to compare two such movements, the smoking/tobacco control movement and the gun control movement. Identification of specific social movement idealogies and actions that could facilitate achievement of movement's health policy goals; Factors associated with the success of health-related social movements.