Search

The study discussed in this article examined the relationship between depression symptomatology and functional impairment among white and African American elderly people and investigated the effect of race, religiosity, and social support on this relationship. Study results indicate that although African American elderly people were more impaired in the performance of activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) than white elderly people, they did not experience higher levels of depression. However, African Americans did report significantly higher levels of religiosity and social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the phenomenon of ‘solitary drinking’, considering whether Anglo, African American and Mexican American male regular drinkers differ in the propensity to drink in solitary contexts and whether such differences may help to explain observed ethnic variation in patterns of heavy drinking. Further, the paper considers whether apparent relationships between solitary drinking and drinking patterns are explained by individual personality characteristics such as social isolation and/or by endorsement of ‘escape drinking’ motives. Data were analysed from a random community sample of 481 adult male regular drinkers in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Contingency table and logistic regression analyses indicated that initially observed ethnic differences in high quantity and high maximum drinking were largely eliminated by controls for education, escape motives and solitary drinking. Ethnic variation in the role of solitary drinking was suggested as well, with solitary drinking more strongly related to high quantity consumption, in particular, among African Americans than among Mexican Americans. The nature of the observed interactions suggests that fundamental differences between Anglos and African Americans in the roles of solitary drinking and escape drinking motives may underlie seemingly similar frequent, lower quantity drinking patterns in these groups that appear more frequently than among Mexican American males. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents information on the efforts of a organization in AIDS control. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, the Xchange Point is a nonprofit community-based AIDS services organization founded in 1996 as a street-based outreach and SEP. Trained community health outreach workers have conducted street-based, roving outreach in four areas of Cleveland on a weekly basis since the program's inception. A substance abuse services has been the rise of the harm-reduction model and non- abstinence-based services. Harm reduction is based on the suppositions that drug use will continue to exist for most users and that safer use is always possible. The first syringe exchange program (SEP) was established in the U.S. in 1988 in Tacoma, Washington. There is strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of SEPs with regard to decreased HIV- infection rates, decreased incidence of sharing of injection equipment, and increased frequency of the disinfection of injection equipment.