Social science & medicine
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Social science & medicine · Oct 2015
Developing gender: The medical treatment of transgender young people.
Situating the contemporary medical treatment of transgender young people--children and adolescents--in the longer history of engagement between transgender activists and the medical community, this article analyzes the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's (WPATH) Standards of Care (SOC) concerning the medical treatment of transgender young people. It traces how the SOC both achieves medical treatment for children and adolescents and reinforces a normative gender system by cleaving to a developmental approach. Without rejecting the value of developmentally-based medical treatment for now, it offers some preliminary thoughts on queer theory's valuation of developmental failure as a potential future alternative to an emergent medico-technological transgender normativity.
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Social science & medicine · Sep 2015
Comparative StudySeven key investments for health equity across the lifecourse: Scotland versus the rest of the UK.
While widespread lip service is given in the UK to the social determinants of health (SDoH), there are few published comparisons of how the UK's devolved jurisdictions 'stack up', in terms of implementing SDoH-based policies and programmes, to improve health equity over the life-course. Based on recent SDoH publications, seven key societal-level investments are suggested, across the life-course, for increasing health equity by socioeconomic position (SEP). We present hard-to-find comparable analyses of routinely collected data to gauge the relative extent to which these investments have been pursued and achieved expected goals in Scotland, as compared with England and Wales, in recent decades. ⋯ Although Scotland did not choose independence on September 18th, 2014, it could still (under the planned increased devolution of powers from Westminster) choose to increase investments in the underperforming categories of interventions for health equity listed above. However, such discussion is largely absent from the current post-referendum debate. Without further significant investments in such policies and programmes, Scotland is unlikely to achieve the 'healthier, fairer society' referred to in the current Scottish Government's official aspirations for the nation.
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Social science & medicine · Aug 2015
Overweight and obesity prevalence among Indian women by place of residence and socio-economic status: Contrasting patterns from 'underweight states' and 'overweight states' of India.
Evidence from developing countries demonstrates a mixed relationship of overweight/obesity with socioeconomic status (SES) and place of residence. Theory of nutrition transition suggests that over the course of development, overweight first emerges among rich and urban people before spreading among rural and poor people. India is currently experiencing a rapid rise in the proportion of overweight and obese population especially among adult women. ⋯ On the other hand in 'underweight states' overweight and obesity have remained socially segregated and increasing strongly among urban and richer section of the population. The rate of rise of overweight and obesity has been higher in rural areas of 'OW states' and in urban areas of 'UW states'. Indian policymakers thus need to design state-specific approaches to arrest the rapid growth of overweight and its penetration especially towards under-privileged section of the society.
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Social science & medicine · Aug 2015
Smokeless tobacco use in India: Role of prices and advertising.
Although the primary form of tobacco use worldwide is cigarette smoking, the large majority of users in India consume smokeless forms of tobacco. There is little evidence on the role of policy-related factors in shaping the demand for smokeless tobacco (ST) in India. This study evaluates the relationship between two such factors, prices and advertising, and ST use in India, using data on 67,737 individuals from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) India 2009. ⋯ We do not find strong direct evidence on the economic substitutability or complementarity of smoked and smokeless products. However, the positive association between former smoking and current smokeless use may point to temporal substitutability at the individual level. The findings have implications on the relative effectiveness of policy tools across genders in India - increasing the prices of ST products may discourage ST use particularly among men, and advertising restrictions may play a relatively larger role in the consumption behavior of women in India.
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Social science & medicine · Jul 2015
Playing doctor: Simulation in medical school as affective practice.
Simulated patient encounters, in which a trained layperson role-plays a patient, have become increasingly important in medical education. One such type is the gynecological teaching associate (GTA), who teaches medical students how to perform the pelvic examination using her own body. ⋯ This paper uses the theoretical framework of the medical habitus to understand the role of emotion in medical student socialization. It argues that simulation is an example of affective practice: any rehearsal of techniques or styles of expressing, experiencing, or managing emotion that reshape the body's capacity to feel.