The relevance of personal characteristics in health care rationing: what the Australian public thinks and why.

This article examines the preferences of the general public in Australia regarding health care resource allocation. While previous studies have revealed that the public is willing to give priority to particular groups of patients based on their personal characteristics, the present article goes beyond previous efforts in attempting to explain these results. In the present study, there was strong support among respondents for giving "equal priority" to people regardless of their personal characteristics. However, respondents did reveal a preference for married patients over single, for children over adults, for carers of children and the elderly, sole breadwinners, and good community contributors. Further, they would give a lower priority to those perceived as "self-harmers"­smokers, individuals with unhealthy diets, and those who rarely exercise. Variation in the answers according to broad economic and social beliefs across seven different categories ("factors") influenced the pattern of the public's attitudes towards rationing. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) indicated that most of the items in our survey are associated with seven factors that explain or capture much of the variation. These relate to a patient's avoidance of self-harm behaviors (Safe Living), their Life Style (diet, exercise, etc.), their contribution to the community through caring for others (Caring), their talents (Gifted), their sexual behavior (Sexuality), their age and marital status (Family), and whether they are an Australian citizen or employed (Citizen). The strength of social preferences­e.g., how strongly respondents would "discriminate" against a recreational drug user or preference a person with a healthy diet­is related to the particular class of preferences.

[A review of the transformation of American higher medical education in the early 20th century].

This paper has a review of the transformation of American higher medical education in the early 20th century, which is signalized by the publication of Flexner report in 1910. At the same time, the author also has an analysis on the whole event. The experience of its success or failure is summarized in order to give references to the reform of Chinese higher medical education.

The yearbook for folk and youth games: a neglected source in German sports history.

The article deals with the founding circumstances of German sport associations. It argues from a sociological point of view bringing together the structural changes of modern society and the development of youth as a societal group of its own. The author holds that the beginning of the German sport movement was closely connected to the phenomenon of group building processes furthered by the Central Board for Furthering Folk and Youth Games, a social initiative whose activities have been underestimated by sporthistorians as well as sportsociologists. In the organisation's publication organ The Yearbook for Folk and Youth Games many of the elements were first outlined which characterize German sport associations until today.

Generic health measurement: past accomplishments and a measurement paradigm for the 21st century.

Generic health surveys have been proposed for use in increasingly diverse applications and populations. This paper describes the history of generic tools in the past 30 years and suggests a more modern measurement platform for advances in the 21st century. Many generic tools lack the precision required for effective health care decision making. A meaningful goal for the next era of development of generic measures should be the generation of equiprecise measurement for generic health concepts. Equiprecise tests yield measures of equal precision at all levels of the underlying construct. Equiprecise measurement can be achieved through conjoint use of computerized-adaptive testing as the survey platform and item response theory as the measurement theory.

Criticisms of the psychopathological interpretation of witch hunts: a review.

The psychopathological interpretation of the European witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, which has been prominent in histories of psychiatry, contends that demonology overwhelmed psychiatry in the late middle Ages, with the result that the mentally ill were executed by the thousands as witches. The author reviews the criticisms and contrary evidence that have been brought to bear on this paradigm in the past 20 years, including critiques of its data collection and interpretation, historical evidence which has failed to support its contentions, and questions about its implicit approach to the history and philosophy of science.