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Deals with the position paper presented to the President's Committee on Health Education in Boston, Massachusetts on January 6, 1972 concerning health promotion in the U.S. Basis of the health promotion recommendations of the paper; Importance of having a massive consumer health education effort; Establishment of state health education training centers.

Health planning in this paper is considered as a developmental process in which different types of planning appear at different times. These types are discussed and the place in the complex health care system developing in the United States is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictions that measles would be eradicated through vaccination have not been fulfilled. The reasons for this failure are analyzed in this paper, and the possibilities for successful action against measles are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following six papers examine a broad range of disease processes and relevant social conditions, such as urban living, social disorganization, poverty, socioeconomic status, and emotional conflict and instability, and show that much illness and death is caused, directly and indirectly, by social and personality factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1960's and continuing into the 1970's, the charge that birth control and abortion are integral elements of a white genocidal conspiracy directed against Afro--Americans has been heard with increasing frequency and stridency in black communities. The genocide theory finds greatest acceptance among spokesmen for black nationalist and black revolutionary groups, but suspicion of family planning programs is not limited to them. An analysis of black leadership opinion on birth control is provided in this paper. The black debate over the desirability of population limitation is traced back approximately fifty years. It began with a dispute between those blacks who believed that in sheer numbers there was strength and those blacks, such as W. E. B. DuBois, who argued that among human races, as among vegetables, quality and not quantity counted. An appreciation of the sexual exploitation of the chattel slave in the ante-bellum period, which did not end with emancipation, is also essential to an understanding of the roots and rationale of the genocide notion which arc the foci of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern pluralist societies, notably Great Britain and the United States, there has been a growth of full-time expert agencies officially empowered to implement legitimation in particular institutions or sectors of society. Thus control of the family is variously the responsibility of genetic, marriage and child guidance counsellors as well as "generic" social workers, doctors, teachers and so on. In this paper, authors attempt to show how several official agents doctors, social workers, voluntary associations for the disabled and also family and friends may act to redefine the situation of parents with disabled children so that they may continue to appear as "good" parents acting in accordance with the prescriptions of the official morality of child-rearing or making appropriate use of its rhetoric. Medical science was presented as based on a "disease model," the distinctive nature of its explanations deriving from their being conceptualized in terms of the structure and functioning of the body. Secondly, parents' ideology, though expressed in common-sense terms, was shown as grounded also in various scientific legitimations.

The community health center has been viewed by many Americans as an important mechanism for the improvement of health of the urban poor. The millions of dollars allocated for a relatively small percentage of the population, however, has led to some criticisms of the concept. This paper deals with factors influencing the cost of dental services in a community health center and an analysis of several existing programs. The major factors affecting the cost effectiveness of the clinics appear to be the (1) broken appointment rate, (2) age distribution of the population served, (3) mixture of services rendered, and (4) additional community services rendered. Programs which have low broken appointment rates and which treat both adults and children seem to maintain a higher revenue-cost ratio. This ratio was in the range of 0.78 to 1.10 for the three dental programs studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hospitalized mental patients are increasingly being discharged into the community. Yet, despite the construction of hundreds of community mental health centers, readmission rates continue to rise. This paper analyzes the reasons for this problem and provides suggestions for its solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the training and performance of paramedical personnel in family planning services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convergence of concern with population growth, poverty, improvement of medical care delivery, and women's rights has prepared the way for a comprehensive program for fertility control in the United States. This paper discusses the content of a comprehensive program and what it entails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the paper on the research on sociological aspects of health. The report will describe these experiments and, in addition, will present in some detail the major steps of the study that are important to an understanding of the methodological aspects. The methodology of the current statewide health survey is actually a part of an extensive and varied research effort which is now being made in the sociology of health and health care throughout the U.S. The major purpose of the survey was to ascertain the extent of unmet need for medical attention by use of the symptoms approach among a representative sample of the population in Michigan. Other purposes were to obtain information about the availability and use of medical services, methods of paying for health care, attitudes regarding physicians and medical care, and the attributes and characteristics of people which might be related to all three of these areas.

This paper considers certain relationships between prices, costs, capacity utilization, and resource allocation in such an industry-- hospitals. This is not a complete analysis of the hospital industry. Rather, it is an examination of but two aspects: the structure of room prices and the instability of demand. Under competitive conditions, prices in an industry consisting of profit-maximizing firms will equal marginal private costs in the short run and also average full costs in the long run. If private costs equal social-opportunity costs, the industry behavior will be optimal in the Pareto sense, given the existing resources, state of technology, and distribution of income. Hospitals typically offer patients choices of accommodations in private rooms, semiprivate rooms or wards. In hospitals, as elsewhere, consumers are likely to have their choices influenced by relative prices. While there is frequently no effective price differential between semiprivate and ward facilities, there is a differential between prices of semiprivate and private rooms to a Blue Cross patient.

ABSTRACT There are two basic explanations of price discrimination in medicine. The traditional explanation is that the American Medical Association enforces sufficient price discipline to apply the theory of a price-discriminating monopolist. Members of the AMA explain price discrimination by the operation of a charity. This paper develops a charity-competition model in which price discrimination emerges as a consequence of utility maximization by the individual doctor and the necessity of market equilibrium. It is shown that the charity model is more consistent with available empirical evidence than is the monopoly model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a paper recommended to the U.S.-Mexico Border Public Health Association meeting regarding the health problems of children of migrant families. Historical, social and economic considerations about the issue; Discussion on how to improve the health care of the migrant children; Role of the local physician in the administration of specific health measures.

In the course of a study of the medical profession in Soviet society undertaken as part of a larger project on the Soviet Social System by the Russian Research Center, it was decided to tap former Soviet citizens' attitudes as patients toward the Soviet system of medical care and the Soviet physician. Refugees were asked to fill in a medical questionnaire in Russian. Two-thirds of these were administered in Munich and the rest, in New York. There can be no question but that the use of refugees as informants presents methodological problems. Disaffected people are hardly the type to give the West an objective picture of Soviet society. Moreover, there is often a suspicion that refugees tend to flatter Western inquirers by telling them what they think will please them, rather than the truth about the Soviet system. The present paper is limited to delineating certain meaningful patterns within the sample at hand. Finally, as will be seen below, if it is assumed that the refugee sample was strongly and consistently biased against the Soviet Union and its institutions, or that it consistently tended to flatter the U.S. and its institutions. then this assumption is certainly not borne out by the evidence.

This paper presents the historical, social, and economic concepts underlying the framing of Title XVIII of Public Law 89-97; the mechanics involved in implementing the medicare program; and the health services rendered medicare beneficiaries during the first year of operation. Attention is also directed to present and future contributions of the medicare program as a stimulant to the growth of the Nation's health care system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some findings from a sample survey dealing with bases of choice between Blue Cross-Blue Shield Comprehensive Plan and Community Health Association group practice plan by auto workers in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Two independent probability samples were drawn to represent the choice groups, and different sampling rates were utilized to equalize sample sizes for group comparisons. Analysis focuses on such factors as selectivity in the type of people who are drawn to group practice; differences in desire for extension of coverage: and association of choice with frequency and intensity of perceived features of health plans. A major conclusion of the study is that most persons selected their plan on the basis of pragmatic and specific rather than ideological and general criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental health legislation in California brought about radical changes in commitment procedures. This paper describes the strains mental health personnel experienced in implementing the new law and proposes ways to manage such strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on effectiveness of social work in meeting mental health needs. Psychiatric social workers in large numbers work closely with psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and others in the treatment of the ill. With regard to detection of those becoming ill and community activities to promote mental health, the total social work profession is focally and extensively involved. The concern of this paper, after noting the size and nature of the problem, is to suggest some ways of increasing social work's effectiveness in dealing with it. A few nationwide statistics will serve to indicate the size of the problem of treating the mentally ill. Figures for 1958 show that of the 6,786 hospitals of all types in the United States, 518 are psychiatric. In any year, the mental hospitals care for about 1,070,000 different persons, there are also upward of 60,000 patients in institutions for the mentally retarded. Social workers can extend the social dimensions in mental health work by discreetly extending their own roles to include those of consultant and educator. Even concepts of mental illness and mental health are changing, with accentuation of social factors. The ill or maladjusted person is seen as a product of social and societal forces as well as of organic pathology or intrapsychic conflicts.

What changes in public health nursing service in the home have taken place as result of crisis situations in various American cities? This paper based on mail questionnaire responses presents some tentative answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with questions of interest to all health workers concerned with the delivery of services to isolated areas. How far can the experience of Latin American countries be applied to parts of the United States is the central theme is the question raised, and information is presented which should be known to more health workers in our country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses problems encountered by health workers and ghetto-minority patients in their relations with each other and how they may be handled. The problems are seen in a practical way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of the satisfactory results that can be obtained when local health departments communicate and cooperate with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the second part of the paper on tuberculosis (TB) program and the channel for patient/consumer advocacy on Alumni-Patient Council that was organized to help TB patients in the U.S. It explores the role and goal of patients/consumers group in the delivery of health services, the onset of different mode of treatment for tuberculosis, and the representation of the voice of patients/consumers group over the method of treatment for tuberculosis. The role of patients/consumer group in health services is deemed necessary in improving the effectiveness of the country's health care delivery system.

The article presents news and announcements related to the field of sociology that appeared in the February 1967 issue of the journal "American Sociologist." American Orthopsychiatric Association will be holding its 44th annual meeting on March 20-23, 1967 in Washington, D.C. The American Public Health Association has invited contributed papers for the Medical Care Section Program of its 95th annual meeting. The Arkansas Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, University of Arkansas, and Arkansas State Rehabilitation Service offers a symposium on "Effective Interpersonal Relationships that Produce Behavior Change." The Department of the Army has established a Personnel Research Division within the Directorate of Personnel Studies and Research. Association of Specialist Libraries has formed a Criminology Group to bring together those concerned with documentation in the field of criminology. The Sociological Consultants Group of North Attlehoro, Massachusetts, an interdisciplinary firm of behavioral scientists is providing research and consultation services for the analysis of human behavior for industrial, commercial, and civic purposes.

The article presents the first part of the paper on a tuberculosis (TB) program and the channel for patient/consumer advocacy on Alumni-Patient Council in the U.S. It offers information about the history of the Council and discusses the purpose of its creation. The Council was organized in 1967 with the help of a social worker and a small group of tuberculosis patients from Herman Kiefer and Maybury Sanatoria. It was aimed to share patient's knowledge about tuberculosis and to create a better program for its treatment. The patients/consumers group was able to change health service programs by educating themselves about their rights, dignity and major role in the delivery of health services.

The article discusses the issues concerning the training and deployment of social work manpower in the U.S. Manpower problems involved in providing health and medical care services to the total population of the country has, for the first, been recognized by health professionals, the consumers of services and policy-makers. Another concern in the country's health system is the significant changes in the organization and structure of the health and mental health services, which will have great impact on the ultimate delivery of service.

The article offers information on the challenges faced by the American Public Health Association on the development of the association's Medical Care Section in the U.S. On November 10, 1948, the American Public Health Association's Governing Council voted to approve the petition requesting the establishment of a Medical Care Section. In 1972, the association expanded their health services because of the changes on their needs and demands. In 1920, the association created a committee to study the municipal health departments and determine the extent of variation on the health services and procedures offered in a specific community.

The article describes the process of development of a new career program for paraprofessionals in a metropolitan area health department in the U.S. The Allegheny County Health Department in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity program trained the paraprofessionals to identify health, social, and economic needs of the clients and to deal with the problems or make appropriate referrals. The program is an approach to reorganize social services to meet the needs of the clients more appropriately and to provide more realistic means of entry into the community.

The article focuses on the development of neighborhood health center approach to health care delivery in the U.S. The neighborhood health centers have proliferated under a variety of federal grant-in-aid programs and private sources of support. It was mentioned that neighborhood health center approach demands an increasing emphasis on cost-effective management of neighborhood health centers and increased revenue generation activities. In addition, changes in federal health service funding policies have necessitated a reevaluation of sources of future support for neighborhood health centers.

Presents several letters to the editor. Comment on the two "planning" articles "The Application of a Model for Health Care Service in a Rural Setting," by Rhesa L. Penn and "Changing State Laws Regulating Health Manpower," by Steven Mosow, published in the January 1973 issue of the "American Journal of Public Health"; Discussion of an article related to the lactose intolerance in the nonwhite population, published in the November 1972 issue of the "American Journal of Public Health"; Focus on the association between abnormal lactose tolerance tests and milk rejection in Negroes.

The article makes an attempt to derive statistically the pattern of consumption associated with a stationary population in the U.S. and compares it with that of a society characterized by a growing population. While this line of inquiry will not resolve all issues associated with the impact of the cessation of population growth upon the economy it should shed some light on the extent of economic adjustments required, were population growth to cease. The important conclusion to be drawn is that the age and size variables affect relative consumer spending in contradictory ways. For twelve of the 23 categories of consumer expenditure the impact of ageing associated with the stationary population is opposite to the impact of the reduction in the size of the spending units. There are only five categories of consumer expenditure in which both the age and size shifts associated with the movement from a growing to a stationary population would tend to increase the relative importance of this item in the overall pattern of consumer behaviour. These categories are "other shelter," "owned dwelling," "medical care," "reading" and "other expenditure."

The article presents information on various activities of the American College Health Association (ACHA) in the U.S. The first general session of the Forty-first Annual Meeting of the ACHA was started with the presentation of the paper "Modern Problems in Medical Ethics." A joint meeting of the ACHA's Committee on Tuberculosis, Section on Clinical Medicine and Section on Nursing Service was conducted on April 24, 1963. The second council meeting of the ACHA was held on April 25, 1963.

The idea of a medical care price index based on the average costs of treatment of specific illnesses rather than on prices of selected items of medical care as is the Bureau of Labor Statistics medical care price index has been in the air for quite a while. This paper has a twofold purpose, first to explore if it was feasible to estimate average costs of treatment of specific illnesses and second if it was feasible, to estimate the average costs of treatment of a number of illnesses in two different periods and compare their cost changes with the price changes indicated by the medical care price index. Data on treatment and costs were collected from the medical histories and financial records of Palo Alto Medical Clinic and of Palo Alto-Stanford Hospital where patients of Palo Alto Medical Clinic physicians are treated when they need hospitalization. Many physicians have maintained that the medical care price index has overstated the increase in costs by not taking account of changes in treatment, citing the decline in the average length of hospitalization as their main evidence.

The article presents a discussion on medical care programs in United States. Authors point out problems related to medical care. These problems have been need of more knowledge of causes of various illnesses and need for adequate local public health services for low income groups. Requirement for additional health personnel physicians, dentists and nurses in order to provide adequate health care to all. Moreover other health facilities are needed, many people cannot pay or have difficulty in paying for the health services. There is need for adequate prepayment coverage available to all at costs which they can afford. The growth of medical knowledge and specialization, coordination among specialists, and the arrangements are required, whereby a patient in a single illness consults several specialists each practicing solo has many disadvantages. More group practice among physicians in and out of hospital, closer co-ordination between physicians and hospitals, and more co-ordination among hospitals is also a need.

Examines whether physician supply is adequate to meet some desired health care delivery capacity in Portland, Oregon. National health care goals; Utilization of outpatient and inpatient physician services; Physician output rates; Physician supply and demand disequilibrium.

The author discusses the method of peer review in trying to control the quality of health care, specifically dental care. Attention is given to the means by which this is done, problems encountered, and the potential uses of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of nursing on the improvement of health care delivery in the U.S. It was mentioned that the government has to develop national goals for nursing and nursing education in terms of our national need for health care. The government has made political and economic reform for the substantial improvement in nursing salaries. In addition, the American Nurses Association initiated a national study of nursing and nursing education in order to improve the country's health care system.

The article discusses the primary objective of the workmen's disability income system in the U.S. which is to provide a back up of the source of family income in cases where earnings are interrupted because of the employee's disability. The workmen's compensation is a program which offers benefits such as cash or medical care to victims of work-connected injuries. The injured employee may be paid in several ways such as public income-transfer programs or through private supplements like workmen's compensation, sick-leave pay or payments under a private insurance program. Although the workmen's compensation program was acclaimed to be an excellent way to deal with industrial injuries, it has been fired with controversy.

Whether there is a shortage of physicians is an issue which has been widely debated in recent years. Examining the economic position of physicians in relation to the rest of society, the author of this study finds that there has been a significant rise in the relative income of physicians, along with a search for less costly substitutes for their services, and concludes that a shortage does currently exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As this note is being written, a proposal to provide health insurance to retired workers under Social Security—the Forand bill—is being vigorously debated. Although health care for such workers involves some special considerations, the arguments of the proponents of this bill and the massive support being marshalled for its passage are symptomatic of general concern over voluntary health insurance. The dilemma threatening the survival of many of these voluntary programs is that costs tend to outstrip their ability to provide the quantity and quality of health care demanded by the groups they serve. In this discussion, the authors attempt to identify the major problems currently at issue in voluntary health insurance and to describe and appraise some administrative innovations that have been made in a few instances to control costs and improve the quality of medical and hospital care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]