For several decades now the role of public memory in shaping the present has occupied the attention of scholars across the humanities. From Holocaust studies to architecture, literature and visual culture, colonialism, and queer theory, students of the subject are seeking to explain how and to what ends we avail ourselves of the past. Among
Derived from the Greek verb paskhein, meaning to be in a certain condition, to experience, or to suffer, pathos is one of the three principal sources of rhetorical proof along with ethos and logos. Typically translated into English as “emotion,” pathos is a key term in the ancient debate between philosophy and rhetoric because it
This description of rhetoric in Africa will focus on two primary tendencies, namely, the valorization of the virtues of classical antiquity on the one hand, and the highlighting of an ethos of cosmopolitanism and the politics of the private on the other. These two disparate discursive operations are often complementary and give a deeper meaning
Rhetoric, argument, and persuasion come together in the study of argumentation. According to a handbook definition, argumentation is a verbal, social, and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint by advancing a constellation of propositions justifying or (in case the standpoint is negative) refuting the proposition expressed in
This article presents an overview of recent rhetorical studies by scholars from universities in Central and South America, where there is a renewed interest in this field. Generally, rhetorical studies in Central and South America are concerned with the main theoretical notions of literary criticism in antiquity; the application of such notions to the analysis
A basic sociological assumption is that human behavior is patterned, not random. Such patterns form social structures or stratifications that reflect the persistent and regularized social relations that the patterns facilitate. The social stratification made possible by these hierarchies affects life chances, resources at our disposal, and relations of inequality in the distribution of social
Rhetoric and dialectic are closely related theories of (and trainings in) persuasion. They have some distinct bodies of doctrine (e.g., the topics of invention and the enthymeme belong to dialectic; the theory of disposition and the figures of speech to rhetoric) but over time they have also overlapped and annexed each other’s territory. Theorists today
Common linguistic habits render information as an attribute of messages or data, or as the purpose of human communication – as if information were an objective entity that could be carried from one place to another, purchased, or owned. This conception is seriously misleading. Gregory Bateson (1972, 381) defined information as “any difference which makes
Information science (IS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with “facilitating the effective communication of desired information between human generator and human user” (Belkin 1978, 58). IS became established as an academic discipline with the creation of the American Society for Information Science in 1937 (now abbreviated ASIS&T) and the UK Institute of Information Scientists in
Harold Adams Innis (1894 –1952) was a Canadian economic historian turned communication theorist, whose research focused on the role of the medium in communication processes. His work – historical in method and ecumenical in scope – demonstrated the centrality of communications in social, political, and cultural development. Together with his junior colleague, Marshall McLuhan, he
The term interaction is used in diverse social-scientific as well as natural-scientific fields of inquiry to identify a pattern of reciprocal influence or exchange among two or more entities. In physics, scientists have identified such fundamental mechanisms as gravity and magnetism by which particles exert mutual influence on one another. In communication studies and textbooks
Interactivity is a relatively new, evolving, and still elusive concept in the study of communication, most frequently associated with new digital media technologies. The concept’s elusiveness may result from the common use of the term to identify a loosely defined bundle of attributes rather than a single attribute or phenomenon. At its core, interactivity refers
Intermediality refers to the interconnectedness of modern media of communication. As means of expression and exchange, the different media depend on and refer to each other, both explicitly and implicitly; they interact as elements of particular communicative strategies; and they are constituents of a wider cultural environment. Three conceptions of intermediality may be identified in
The term “knowledge interests” (Erkenntnisinteresse) was coined by German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas in his work Knowledge and Human Interests (Habermas 1968/1987). Habermas distinguished three kinds of knowledge interests constitutive for particular object domains and their scientific investigation. According to him, the interest of control through prediction is constitutive of the natural sciences
Harold Dwight Lasswell (1902–1978), American political scientist with a specific interest in the symbolic aspects of politics, is considered one of the founders of mass communication research in the United States. Although his wide-ranging and prolific writings on theoretical and methodological issues regarding politics, personality, and culture remained rather peripheral to communication research, his approach
Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (1901–1976), Vienna-born sociologist, influenced by Ernst Mach, Henri Poincaré, and Albert Einstein, and intellectually close to the Vienna Circle of logical positivism, called himself a “European positivist.” He was the founder of modern empirical sociology and a major figure in twentieth-century American sociology. His contributions to the study of communication grew out
Linguistics is the study of language. Because linguists disagree on the scope of “language,” definitions of linguistics have varied. Descriptively, the study of language has gone from a search for relationships between specific languages to current interest in the biological bases for language and in language use. Methodologically, linguistics has changed from an empirical discipline
Pest control workers treat residential and commercial properties with chemicals and mechanical traps to get rid of rodents, insects, and other common pests. They may work for a pest control company, lawn or landscaping firms, or own and operate their own company. Pest control workers make periodic visits to their clients’ properties to make sure
Personnel specialists, also known as human resources professionals, formulate policy and organize and conduct programs relating to all phases of personnel activity. Labor relations specialists serve as mediators between employees and the employer. They represent management during the collective-bargaining process when contracts with employees are negotiated. They also represent the company at grievance hearings, required
Personal trainers, often known as fitness trainers, assist health-conscious people with exercise, weight training, weight loss, diet and nutrition, and medical rehabilitation. During one training session, or over a period of several sessions, trainers teach their clients how to achieve their health and fitness goals. They train in the homes of their clients, their own
People who do not have the time or the ability to go shopping for clothes, gifts, groceries, and other items use the services of personal shoppers. Personal shoppers shop department stores, look at catalogs, and surf the Internet for the best buys and most appropriate items for their clients. Relying on a sense of style
Personal chefs prepare menus for individuals and their families, purchase the ingredients for the meals, then cook, package, and store the meals in the clients’ own kitchens. Approximately 9,200 personal chefs work across the United States and Canada. They cook for busy families, seniors, people with disabilities, and others who do not have the time
Periodontists are dentists who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting the gums and bone that support the teeth. They perform thorough clinical examinations, measuring the depth of gum pockets and checking for gingival bleeding, and may do tests to find out which types of bacteria are involved. Periodontal surgery may be needed
Although perfusionists, formerly known as cardiovascular perfusionists, are not well known to the general public, they play a crucial role in the field of cardiovascular surgery. They operate what is known as the “heart-lung machine.” The perfusionist is responsible for all aspects of the heart-lung machine whenever it becomes necessary to interrupt or replace the
Pedorthists design, manufacture, fit, and modify shoes and other devices aimed at lessening pain or correcting foot problems. Pedorthists design and fit special therapeutic footwear for a patient as prescribed by a physician. This process involves making clay impressions of the patient’s feet, modifying the mold to make special footwear, choosing the correct materials, and
Pediatricians are physicians who provide health care to infants, children, and adolescents. Typically, a pediatrician meets a new patient soon after birth and takes care of that patient through his or her teenage years. There are nearly 27,000 pediatricians employed in the United States. Pediatrician Career History Children became the focus of separate medical care
Parole is the conditional release of a prisoner who has not served out a full sentence. A long-standing practice of the U.S. justice system, parole is granted for a variety of reasons, including the “good behavior” of a prisoner, as well as overcrowding in prisons. Prisoners on parole, or parolees, are assigned to a parole
The principle of catastrophism states that all of the Earth’s surface features and topography were produced by a few great catastrophes throughout history. These catastrophes were thought to have been so enormous in scale that no ordinary process could have initiated and supernatural forces had to be invoked. However, this was the philosophy of scientists
L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza was born on January 25,1922, in Genoa, Italy, and is variously referred to as a pioneering population geneticist, the founder of genetic anthropology, the person who brought together modern genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and history, and one of the most distinguished geneticists in the world. He received an MD degree from the University
In the broadest sense, cave art is identical to rock art. In a narrow sense, it is painting on cave walls, ceilings, remote and hard-to-reach places; it is defined as nonmobile or monumental in contrast to small transportable objects like statuettes, bone engravings, and so on. Origin and Evolution of Cave Art The earliest displays
Courtney B. Cazden is an educational sociolinguist at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Since the 1970s, she has been a key figure in the ethnography of schooling, focusing on children’s linguistic development (both oral and written) and the functions of language in formal education, primarily but not exclusively in the United States. Combining her
Cebid refers to Cebidae, a family of New World monkeys distributed throughout Latin America. The family consists of three extant (living) subfamilies and eight genera that have been in South America since the Oligocene (about 3 million years ago). Cebids have long hairy tails used for counterbalance. Some species have semiprehensile tails, which are hairless
Celtic Europe is that part of the Eurasian continent under the influence of the Celtic language family, a subset of the Indo-European group of languages. In very early Classical times, this included most of the European subcontinent west of a line running roughly between the modern cities of Gdansk, Poland, and Odessa, Ukraine, and north
Cercopithecines are primates that make up one of the two major groups of Old World monkeys. All Old World monkeys are members of a single primate family, Cercopithecidae, and so are referred to collectively as “cercopithecids.” The family consists of two distinct subfamilies, Colobinae (“colobines”) and Cercopithecinae (“cercopithecines”), which separated about 14 million years ago.
Napoleon Chagnon is biosocial professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Chagnon was born in 1938 in Port Austin, Michigan. He earned his PhD in anthropology at the University of Michigan in 1966. There, he studied unilineal cultural evolution under Leslie A. White. Chagnon tested White’s assertions that
Chanting is an important linguistic act that is part of many secular and religious practices throughout the world. Many political rallies, sporting events, collective religious services, and private religious devotions involve some form of chanting. In general, chanting is distinct from other speech activities by having a unique rhythmic structure, by having distinctive stress and
The Chachapoya Indians, often described in popular media as Peru’s ancient “Cloud People,” inhabited the Andean tropical cloud forests between the Maranon and Huallaga River valleys prior to their rapid cultural disintegration after the Spanish conquest in AD 1532 (see Figure 1). In anthropology and in the popular imagination, the Chachapoya represent the quintessential “lost
It is a commonplace to observe that the healthcare delivery system in the US is in crisis: costs are high and rising rapidly, the quality of care is inadequate along important dimensions, and the delivery system is rife with inefficiencies and waste. What is less commonly acknowledged is that many of the prominent strategies for
Labor supply has been a well-studied topic in the labor economics literature (Killingsworth, 1983; Pencavel, 1986; Killingsworth and Heckman, 1986; Blundell and MaCurdy, 1999). As the key clinical decision-makers, physicians provide an essential input into the production of health care for their patients. Understanding the determinants of physician labor supply has important implications for the
A market is generally defined as a set of firms or individuals selling similar (or at least partially substitutable) goods or services to a given set of consumers. Under some basic conditions, competitive markets yield Pareto optimal outcomes (The First Optimality Theorem). As a result, policymakers and regulators have generally favored competition and prohibited and
There has long been an aspiration to invest in promoting health, preventing ill health, and reducing health inequality. This aspiration can be realized through a wide variety of public health interventions, including not only screening, vaccination, and other preventive activities undertaken by healthcare professionals but also a broad range of fiscal and social programs and
Public health, unlike medicine, is not about doctors treating individual patients. Public health is about population health. It is a collective social effort to promote health and prevent diseases – both communicable and noncommunicable – and disability that involves population surveillance, regulation of determinants of health (such as food safety and sanitation), and the provision
Recent work in economics suggests that adverse health shocks experienced in utero can have long-lasting effects. Studies have linked fetal health to a variety of outcomes in adulthood, such as schooling, labor market activity, and mortality. These studies have also identified a broad array of ‘nurture shocks,’ including ambient pollution levels, infectious disease, and mild
Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms, such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, or fungi. For almost any infectious human disease, what one person does about it affects the probability that other people get infected. Some infectious diseases spread from person to person through direct physical contact as in the case of sexually transmitted infections. People
The idea of paying people to engage in healthy activities, and to refrain from unhealthy ones, gained some traction in the health policy discourse in several developed and developing countries toward the end of the 2000s. The concept itself is simple and is informed by one of the most basic features of standard economics, the
In recent years, it has become increasingly common for children to be enrolled in preschool education programs for one or more years before the traditional starting age for primary school. According to data from the World Bank, during 2010, 48.3% of preprimary-age children were enrolled in school, a rate that was just 34.1% a decade
There is an established ‘healthy public policy’ agenda concerned with the social determinants of health, which recognizes that nonhealth sectors of public policy often have greater impacts on population health and health inequalities than health sector policies. This political agenda has been promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) since the 1980s (see Box 1)
While organized Satanism includes quite small groups, social scientists have studied Satanism mostly as the subject matter of juvenile deviance and social panics. Satanism may be defined as the adoration of the figure known in the Bible as the Devil or Satan. Its first incarnation was in the circle operating at the Versailles court of
Scientology, or officially the ”Church of Scientology,” was founded by adherents of Lafayette Ron Hubbard (1911-86) in 1954, but the movement behind Scientology dates back to Hubbard’s publication of the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health in 1950. Dianetics was a therapeutic system which Hubbard claimed could cure psychosomatic illness. Dianetics can be
Although the term sect has played a role in both political sociology and the study of social movements at the hands of many Marxians as well as such early sociologists as LeBon, Sighele, Park, and Simmel, its primary continuing application has been among sociologists of religion in the context of church-sect theory. The dominance of
Secularization is a term used by sociologists to refer to a process by which the overarching and transcendent religious system of old is reduced in modern functionally differentiated societies to a subsystem alongside other subsystems, losing in this process its overarching claims over these other subsystems. This is the original meaning, but this process has
Although there is no widely accepted definition of Shintoism even among Japanese scholars, the term could be defined tentatively as a Japanese traditional religious system based on so called “Shinto.” Shinto is generally believed to be indigenous to Japan. The term was coined by the combination of two words from Chinese -shin, originally from the
Religion and spirituality are enduring aspects of the human condition. Some of the earliest human records were accounts of the spirituality and religious culture of the day. Religion and spirituality have also fueled human conflict for thousands of years. Our concern here is how religion and spirituality interact with aging: how aging affects religion and
Taoism takes its name from the concept of Tao, or Way. In Chinese, the word “Tao” (or dao in hanyu pinyin) is made up of two components, one depicting a human head, the other a motion verb meaning to pass, go through, or walk. The earliest and most important work on Taoism is a short
Initially an American phenomenon, televangelism refers to the use of television for Christian missionary outreach, of an evangelical fundamentalist type, usually incarnated in a single leadership figure, which became particularly prominent in the 1970s as a result of shifts in broadcasting policies regulated by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1960. Prior to
The modern conception of theology as both a faithful and rational or scientific way of talking about God dates from the Christian Middle Ages. Theology as a term is rooted in Greek philosophy, which consisted of three parts: the mythology of the gods, theology as a form of philosophy of nature, and political theology as
The word totemism denotes in a broad sense the complex of beliefs concerning the existence of a sort of kinship between a human group, or a single individual, and an animal or a plant serving as an emblem of this link. This relationship implies a range of rituals and taboos, especially alimentary and sexual ones
Explanatory statistics is also called inferential statistics or statistical induction and deals with inferences about the population from the characteristics of a random sample, i.e., with making (probability) statements about usually unknown parameters of a population. For instance, when taking a random sample (e.g., n = 1,000) of television viewers from the population of all
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a statistical technique that allows tests of complex relationships between large numbers of variables. The term “structural equation modeling” is closely related to terms like covariance structure analysis, causal modeling, or path analysis. According to Kline (2005), the main characteristics of SEM are as follows. First of all, there has
Surveys are one of the standard forms of collecting data on individuals. The process is uniquely suited to the collection of knowledge, attitudes, and opinions, but there are many circumstances where it is the only way to obtain information about behaviors as well. Surveys are sometimes distinguished from polls because they are more likely to
In psychology, psychometric tests are standardized data collection methods. To provide significant and interpretable results in an empirical study, a test must meet specific requirements that are laid down by test theory. Only if these preconditions are given can reliable and valid conclusions be drawn with respect to the “real” value of a person’s trait
The basic medium of interpersonal and mass communication is text. Analyzing text helps in understanding the meanings of mass media messages and their potential effects, observing strategies and developments of rhetoric, identifying rules and structures of social communication, etc. Thus text analysis, comprising all kinds of qualitative and quantitative techniques of media content, discourse, and
Time-series analysis is a statistical procedure for describing the characteristics of one time series (e.g., a trend) or predicting the future development of one time series (forecasting), but it can also be used to analyze the impact of an event on a single time series (intervention analysis) and to analyze the correlations between two or
Triangulation is a metaphor for research strategies that employ different methods, theories, or data sources in order to capture social reality in a comprehensive manner, reflecting appropriately the multifaceted nature of social objects. While all research approaches in themselves have certain shortcomings, a combination of several approaches may compensate for one another’s weaknesses and provide
In logic, validity is an attribute of the form of an argument that cannot lead from true premises to false conclusions. For example, “all A are B; some A are C; therefore some B are C” is a valid form. A common way to evaluate the validity of arguments is by treating it as a
The category of arrangement (Greek oikonomia, taxis; Latin dispositio) in classical rhetoric includes both the “natural” ordering of the parts of a speech and the changing or truncating of that order to adapt to specific circumstances. While it may also embrace the ordering of premises in arguments, those concerns are fully treated under invention rather
As rhetoric originally was closely tied to the oral presentation of a speech, delivery, understood as the best management of voice and body, was naturally of interest to the art. Thus, in the traditional rhetorical system, the so-called rhetorical canon, delivery made up the fifth and last part (Greek hypokrisis, Latin actio or pronuntiatio). Of
Heron of Alexandria (first century ad) was the first chronicler of a peculiar mechanism capable of holding the flame of oil lamps steady. Later, similar mechanisms were found in water clocks. In the eighteenth century, they reappeared in the regulator of Watt’s steam engine, which drove industrial production. Since 1910, engineers have called them servomechanisms.
Deduction, induction, and abduction are three basic forms of inference that inform the methodologies of communication research as well as other fields and disciplines. Whereas the most familiar forms are inference from a general principle or law to individual instances (deduction), or from several instances to a law (induction), abduction is an equally important constituent
As a common term in English, discourse means any extended verbal communication, such as Jesus’s discourse with the people (John 6: 22 –71) or, “The Disinherited Knight then addressed his discourse to Baldwin” (Scott, Ivanhoe). Discourse is lengthy but targeted speech between individuals or between an individual and a group. As a theoretical term, it
Derived from anthropological research, emic and etic describe two broad approaches to analyzing language and culture. The emic–etic duality has influenced the ways in which fields as diverse as personality psychology, consumer behavior, organizational science, and intercultural communication study cultural systems. The terms also refer to distinctive research strategies, particularly in the context of ethnographic
Fiction is intuitively understood and widely used, both in the public at large and among specialists of literary theory, to refer to a representation not committed to the truth. Yet, the concept is as difficult to define technically as it is easy to recognize. Unlike lies, fiction is not deceptive, and unlike honest error, it
Functionalism regards society as an interdependent and self-regulating social system tending toward equilibrium. The goal of functional analysis is to establish to what extent the parts (subsystems) contribute to the functioning of the system as a whole. With functionalism, the theoretical emphasis moves from causes to consequences. No effort is made to derive a given
The English term “genre” derives – via French – from the same Latin root as “general,” “genus,” “gender,” “genesis,” “generate,” “genius,” and “gene.” Etymologically, then, it is bound up with the idea of generating complex configurations from a basic underlying pattern. The concept of genre is important to communication research because it designates not only
Jürgen Habermas (born 1929 in Germany) is one of the leading philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. He has had and continues to have a decisive influence on communication theory and research internationally through his work on the public sphere and his theory of communicative action, as well as his theory of
“Hermeneutics” comes from the name of the Greek messenger god, Hermes – the patron of travelers, rogues, liars, and thieves. As the carrier of messages between gods and mortals, Hermes had to be fluent in both of their idioms. It was his task to build and maintain an interpretive bridge between alien worlds. Since he
For more than a century, two forms of explanation have been used in the social sciences: nomothetic and idiographic. These two kinds of explanation embody major differences in scientific logic, research methods, and even understandings of how the world is constituted. The differences are so stark that they appear to some scholars to be unbridgeable
Physicians diagnose, prescribe medicines for, and otherwise treat diseases and disorders of the human body. A physician may also perform surgery and often specializes in one aspect of medical care and treatment. Physicians hold either a doctor of medicine (M.D.) or osteopathic medicine (D.O.) degree. Approximately 567,000 M.D.’s and D.O.’s are employed in the United
Photojournalists shoot photographs that capture news events. Their job is to tell a story with pictures. They may cover a war in central Africa, the Olympics, a national election, or a small-town Fourth of July parade. In addition to shooting pictures, they also write captions or other supporting text to provide further detail about each
Photography instructors teach students of all ages how to shoot pictures, develop film, make prints, and evaluate finished photos. They work in high schools, teaching students the basics of shooting and printing black-and-white photography. They also teach at the college level, leading more advanced classes in shooting techniques, color film developing and printing, art history
Photographic laboratory workers develop black-and-white and color film, using chemical baths or printing machines. They mount slides as well as sort and package finished photographic prints. Some of these laboratory workers are known as darkroom technicians, film laboratory technicians, and developers. There are 32,000 photographic process workers and 54,000 photographic processing machine operators employed in
Photographers take and sometimes develop and print pictures of people, places, objects, and events, using a variety of cameras and photographic equipment. They work in the publishing, advertising, public relations, science, and business industries, as well as provide personal photographic services. They may also work as fine artists. There are approximately 129,000 photographers employed in
Pharmacy technicians provide technical assistance for pharmacists and work under their direct supervision. They usually work in chain or independent drug stores, hospitals, community ambulatory care centers, home health care agencies, nursing homes, and the pharmaceutical industry. They perform a wide range of technical support functions and tasks related to the pharmacy profession. They maintain
Pharmacists are health professionals responsible for the dispensation of prescription and nonprescription medications. They act as consultants to health practitioners and the general public concerning possible adverse drug reactions and interactions, and may also give advice relating to home medical supplies and durable health care equipment. The role of the pharmacist has evolved into that
Pharmaceutical industry workers are involved in many aspects of the development, manufacture, and distribution of pharmaceutical products. Pharmaceutical operators work with machines that perform such functions as filling capsules and inspecting the quality and weight of tablets. Pharmaceutical supervisors and managers oversee research and development, production, and sales and promotion workers. Pharmaceutical sales representatives sell
Petroleum technicians work in a wide variety of specialties. Many kinds of drilling technicians drill for petroleum from the earth and beneath the ocean. Loggers analyze rock cuttings from drilling and measure characteristics of rock layers. Various types of production technicians “complete” wells (prepare wells for production), collect petroleum from producing wells, and control production.
Pet shop workers, from entry-level clerks to store managers, are involved in the daily upkeep of a pet store; they sell pets and pet supplies including food, medicine, toys, carriers, and educational books and videos. They work with customers, answering questions and offering animal care advice. They keep the store, aquariums, and animal cages clean
A burial mound is an area of land that has been set aside to bury the remains of a human, an animal, or artifact. It is not to be confused with a grave, where the body lies beneath the surface of the ground. Instead, it rests above the surface, covered with soil, gravel, and sand
Cannibalism is defined as the ingestion of members of one’s own species. As used in zoology, it refers to species that prey on their own kind. In anthropology, it is used specifically to refer to the eating of humans by humans. Around the 16th century in English-speaking countries, the term cannibalism began replacing the Latin-derived
Radiocarbon is the best-known radiometric dating technique due to its successful application to problems in human history and prehistory for over 50 years. Willard Libby’s development of the technique in the late 1940s permitted relative time to be sorted radio-metrically in archaeological contexts in a manner that eclipsed the more traditional relative dating methods that
The Cardiff Giant hoax involved a large stone figure, advertised as a petrified giant man. The Giant is of anthropological interest both as a classic example of a hoax and as a source of insight regarding the interaction of popular and scientific conceptions of human prehistory. On October 16, 1869, workers digging a well on
The Caribs are a group of native peoples in the Lesser Antilles, after whom the Caribbean Sea was named. They are thought to have originated in the Orinoco River Basin of Venezuela and spread northward into the Antillean chain of islands. They spoke languages in the Carib family indigenous to South America, which are now
During the 1930s, C. Ray Carpenter carried out the first modern studies of free-ranging primates. In its scope, duration, systematic data collection, and revelations about the naturalistic behavior of primates, his research went far beyond all previous studies, such as those by Bingham, Nissen, Zuckerman, and Marais. Although his 1931 doctoral dissertation was on the
The mother of the 20th-century environmentalist movement, Rachel Carson shed light upon the scientific as well as philosophical misconceptions embraced by Western society about humanity’s relationship with the ecosystem. During an era in which the practices of science went almost unquestioned, Carson made known to all the hazardous effects of pesticides in her then-controversial book
There have been a number of momentous findings as a result of consistent and diligent archaeology efforts. However, certainly one of the most impressive and important of those findings is the excavation relating to the tomb of Tutankhamun due to the energetic efforts of Howard Carter, an individual who not only discovered a historical entity
The term caste comes from the Portugese casta (breed, lineage) and was coined by Portuguese travelers to India in reference to the social, economic, and religious system they witnessed. The traditional Hindu term is varna, and its earliest meanings include color, covering, tribe, and species. The caste system is easily the most controversial aspect of
The concept of categorical imperative is one of the most important notions of Kant’s practical philosophy. This concept falls under the Kantian project of the foundation of morality. To be precise, Kant does not attempt to create a new morality, but to propose a new formulation of it. From this point of view, the categorical
Many European countries have social health insurance where citizens cannot choose between different providers for basic coverage. While Germany and the Netherlands have only recently introduced policies giving citizens the freedom to choose their own health plan, this has been a long-standing feature of the Swiss health care model. The assumption is that competition to
Publicly funded systems are often characterized by limited budgets and free-of-charge (or highly subsidized) access to healthcare. These two features often translate into an excess demand which generates a waiting list. Patients may have to wait for a significant time before accessing health care. Waiting times generate dissatisfaction for patients as they postpone benefits from
Dentistry is the field of medicine that is concerned about diseases of the teeth and other tissues and bone structures in the oral cavity. It is different to a degree from other medical services in its product attributes, market characteristics, and the level of government involvement. Although dental disease is not completely predictable, it is
Despite their common medical school training and their shared title of ‘physician,’ there are many differences between physicians who enter different fields of medical practice. The most obvious difference is the variation in knowledge set and patient population that comes with each specialty. For example, pediatricians take care of children, whereas geriatricians take care of
Learning by doing is viewed as an important determinant of success for many professions requiring high skill. Over the years, researchers have come to realize that teams and firms can also exhibit learning by doing. Even in cases where annual output does not increase over time, a firm can experience reductions in unit costs or
The nursing workforce in the US is comprised of both professional nurses and nonprofessional workers. Professional nurses typically complete nursing education in a hospital-based diploma program, community college or university and are registered and licensed by the state to practice nursing. Professional nurses also include advanced practice nurses (APRNs) who are registered nurses (RNs) that
An efficient system of medical malpractice liability law should induce physicians to supply precautionary medical treatments as long as the benefits exceed the costs. In practice, the US malpractice system may deviate from this ideal along two dimensions. First, it may create incentives to supply cost ineffective treatments based on fear of legal liability –
In recent years there has been a surge in interest in models of imperfect competition in the labor market, and monopsony in particular (Boal and Ransom, 1997; Bhaskar et al., 2002; Manning, 2003; Ashenfelter et al., 2010; Manning, 2011). The term ‘monopsony’ was introduced by Joan Robinson in her 1933 book The Economics of Imperfect
Nurses’ unions are widespread in the developed world. In the European Union, 90% of Denmark’s nurses are members of a union (Danish Nurses’ Organization, 2009), and in the UK, nurses (along with teachers and other professional workers) have the highest union density of any occupation (Metcalf, 2005). Organized labor for the nursing profession is prominent
Many developed countries require occupational licenses for everyone from surgeons to interior decorators. Licensing in effect creates a regulatory barrier to entry into licensed occupations, and thus results in higher income for those with licenses. However, licensing is assumed to protect the public interest by keeping incompetent and unscrupulous individuals from working with the public.
Orthodoxy is a major branch of Christianity, represented by the Eastern Orthodox Church, with an unbroken continuity to the apostolic tradition and a claim to be the depositor of the authentic Christian faith and practice. Today, the Orthodox Church consists of the ancient patriarchates (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antiochia, Jerusalem) and various national autocephalous churches. The Patriarchate
An important intellectual shift has taken place in the sociology of religion as many of its longest held theoretical positions, passed down from the founders of the field, have been overturned. These changes have been so dramatic and far-reaching that Warner (1993, p. 1044) identified them “as a paradigm shift in progress,” an assessment that
The word Pietism is applied to that religious awareness that developed from within Protestantism, in particular in the seventeenth century. It constituted neither a unified theological tendency nor a structured orientation. This awareness expresses a desire for a more intense and practical expression of piety, which has been articulated throughout the ages and in a
Religion refers to a system of beliefs, rites, forms of organization, ethical norms, and feelings about the divine which help human beings to transcend and make sense of life. Popular religiosity is the equivalent of the religion of the common people, or popular piety, the way common people live their religion. It contrasts with official
The evolutionary character of theories of primitive religion is present in the sociological literature from the beginning. It is evident, for example, in the writings of the so called founding father of sociology, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who believed that religion originated in fetishism or the worship of inanimate things, then developed into polytheism which in
Of the 2 billion Christians in the world today, Protestants make up about a quarter, while Roman Catholics represent a little over a half. If Protestant Christendom appeared in the sixteenth century within European Latin Christianity and represented a number of fractures within it, then it would be wrong to associate modern Protestantism with western
It is interesting to note, especially for the consequences within the fields of the social sciences in general and of sociology in particular, that the term cult shares the same Latin root as the term culture: the recognition of man’s dependence upon the divine, which he expresses in acts of adoration, supplication, and thanksgiving, forms
The field of ritual studies has expanded dramatically over the past 20 years. Rituals are analyzed in anthropology, sociology of religion, religious studies, and theology, and also in the study of literature, philosophy, theater, political science, and education, especially from the perspective of performance theory (Schechner 1977). Many disciplines have taken different theoretical approaches to
The Latin word sacer, from which the term sacred is derived, denotes a distinction between what is and what is not pertaining to the gods. In not a dissimilar fashion, the Hebrew root of k d sh, which is usually translated as “Holy,” is based on the idea of separation of the consecrated and desecrated
Sacrifice is a ritual practice that includes the removal of goods (objects, vegetables, animals, human beings) from profane use or their destruction in relation to a supernatural sphere, but not necessarily with an offer or dedication. Sacrifices that involve the killing of a victim and the shedding of blood are called blood sacrifices. The issue
The essence of scientific research is explaining and predicting relationships among variables. Two or more variables co-vary and are related if their values systematically correspond to each other. In other words, as one value increases or decreases, the other value consistently or systematically increases or decreases. For example, researchers might observe the amount of Internet
Linguistically, the word “reliability” occurs in contexts of relying on something, for example, on one’s tools, someone else’s service, given measuring instruments, or data. In the conduct of science, the reliability of data is an important bottleneck for the construction of theories or scientific conjectures, and for giving reasonable advice. Data usually are the primary
As the field of ethics addresses the philosophical foundations for standards of behavior and treatment of others when personal, social, and professional values conflict, social science researchers in general and communication researchers in particular are required to consider ethical implications of their work. Ethics is a process of deliberation that helps illuminate the dimensions and
In many social empirical studies subjects are provoked by situational conditions to exhibit reactive behavior patterns. From these reactions (e.g., marking point 5 on a seven-point rating scale), the kind and the strength of the subjects’ behavioral dispositions (e.g., beliefs, personality traits or states, emotional feelings) may be inferred. For reliable and valid conclusions to
Nonrandom sampling, also called “nonprobabilistic” or “nonprobability sampling,” is any sampling method in which the process that determines whether a member of the population is selected for inclusion in the sample is guided by a nonchance or nonrandom process. Such nonrandom processes can include the investigator choosing who to include in the sample, advertising a
One of the bigger tasks the communication researcher faces is obtaining the data to answer the research question or test the hypothesis that motivated the research in the first place. In the field of communication, data comes primarily from two sources – human beings, or some media form (which, it could be argued, ultimately are
In communication research scales are used to assess the intensity or the strength of personal variables like traits, states, attitudes, feelings, and so on. A rating is based on a statement expressing a perception, an attribution, or an attitude toward something that is presented to the subject. He or she is asked to indicate the
Empirical communication and media research attempts to translate reality into data by means of measurement. To insure reliability and validity, this process is guided by rules. In the case of quantitative research, the rules tend to be standardized in order to keep results comparable across different instances of measurement. These standardized measurements can make use
The social desirability bias is a major response set that is possibly active when data are collected in empirical social studies with interviews, psychometric tests, or questionnaires in particular. This tendency interferes with the “true values” of the subjects’ traits or states that are to be assessed and puts a systematic bias onto the measured
The original purpose of statistics was collecting data for government and administration. Thus, the term is used for, e.g., employment data or for censuses in general that provide data (statistics) about a population or nation. Scientifically, the term stands for different forms of presenting empirical data in charts, diagrams, or tables as well as for
Roland Barthes (1915 –1980) was a French philosopher, semiotician, and literary and media theorist. Over three decades, he produced articles and monographs concerned with the general problem of how different systems of communication operate. His activity spanned the periods in which authors who are identified with structuralism, and then those identified with poststructuralist and postmodernist
Cognitive science is the study of mind, and is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses psychology, philosophy, computer science, education, neuroscience, anthropology, and linguistics. The intellectual origins of the field can be traced back to the 1950s, when researchers first began to use formal mathematical representations and computational structures to model theories of mind. Cognitive science
The word “communication” is descended from the Latin noun communicatio, which meant a sharing or imparting. From the root communis (common, public), it has no relation to terms such as union or unity, but rather is linked to the Latin munus (duty, gift), and thus has relatives in such terms as common, immune, mad, mean
Communicology is a tradition in the human sciences studying discourse in all of its semiotic and phenomenological manifestations of embodied consciousness and of practice in the world of other people and their environment. Since the foundational work during the 1950s by Jürgen Ruesch in Semiotic Approaches to Human Relations (1972), and by Ruesch and Gregory
Constructivism refers to the philosophical perspective that human beings actively participate in creating their psychological selves and social worlds. Translated to the social sciences, where it is often known as “social constructivism” or “constructionism,” Constructivism is commonly considered to be a paradigm of its own, with epistemological tenets and methods of inquiry that contrast sharply
Critical rationalism is, first of all, the solution proposed by Karl Popper to the epistemological problem of the growth of knowledge. Second, it has come to be one description of the method by which science progresses. And, third, it has become an ideological position which both continues the project of the Enlightenment and celebrates the
The phrase “critical theory” was first promoted by the German philosopher and sociologist, Max Horkheimer, in a 1937 essay, “Critical and traditional theory.” An astute academic entrepreneur, he devised it to promote the approach to studying society and culture that he and his colleagues had been developing at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt
Cultivation theory, developed by George Gerbner and his colleagues, proposes that television viewing makes an independent contribution to audience members’ conceptions of social reality. The central hypothesis guiding cultivation research is that the more time people spend watching television, the more their beliefs and assumptions about life and society will be congruent with the most
Cultural studies is a recent, innovative, and interdisciplinary project that has had a significant presence in the field of communication since the late 1970s, as well as in other humanities and social sciences. Cultural studies is concerned with describing and intervening in the ways in which texts, discourses, and other cultural practices are produced within
Since at least the nineteenth century, culture has been one of the most difficult, richly connotative concepts to define. While it is widely accepted that its roots are to be found in the Latin verb colere, among whose associated meanings is “to cultivate,” this has been all but forgotten in ordinary language. Being a web
Political scientists study the structure and theory of government, usually as part of an academic faculty. They are constantly seeking both theoretical and practical solutions to political problems. They divide their responsibilities between teaching and researching. After compiling facts, statistics, and other research, they present their analyses in reports, lectures, and journal articles. Political science
Political columnists write opinion pieces about politics and government for publication in newspapers and magazines. Some columnists work for syndicates, which are organizations that sell articles to many media at once. Political writers express, edit, promote, and interpret ideas and facts about politics and government in written form for newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and
Police officers perform many duties relating to public safety. Their responsibilities include not only preserving the peace, preventing criminal acts, enforcing the law, investigating crimes, and arresting those who violate the law but also directing traffic, community relations work, and controlling crowds at public events. Police officers are employed at the federal, state, county, and
Podiatrists, or doctors of podiatric medicine, are special-treating disorders and diseases of the foot and lower leg. The most common problems that they treat are bunions, calluses, corns, warts, ingrown toenails, heel spurs, arch problems, and ankle and foot injuries. Podiatrists also treat deformities and infections. A podiatrist may prescribe treatment by medical, surgical, and
Plumbers and pipefitters assemble, install, alter, and repair pipes and pipe systems that carry water, steam, air, or other liquids and gases for sanitation and industrial purposes as well as other uses. Plumbers also install plumbing fixtures, appliances, and heating and refrigerating units. There are approximately 561,000 plumbers and pipefitters working in the United States.
Plastics engineers engage in the manufacture, fabrication, and end use of existing materials, as well as in the development of new materials, processes, and equipment. The term, plastics engineering, encompasses a wide variety of applications and manufacturing processes. Depending on the processes involved, plastics engineers develop everything from the initial part design to the processes
Plasterers apply coats of plaster to interior walls, ceilings, and partitions of buildings to produce fire-resistant and relatively soundproof surfaces. They also work on exterior building surfaces and do ornamental forming and casting work. Their work is similar to that of drywall workers, who use drywall rather than plaster to build interior walls and ceilings.
Pilots perform many different kinds of flying jobs. In general, pilots operate an aircraft for the transportation of passengers, freight, mail, or for other commercial purposes. There are approximately 106,000 civilian aircraft pilots and flight engineers employed in the United States. Pilot Career History The age of modern aviation is generally considered to have begun
Physics is a science dealing with the interaction of matter and energy. Physicists study the behavior and structure of matter, the ways that energy is generated and transferred, and the relationships between matter and energy. They perform experiments and analyze the products or results of those experiments. They may teach, oversee scientific projects, or act
Physician assistants (PAs) practice medicine under the supervision of licensed doctors of medicine or osteopathy, providing various health care services to patients. Much of the work they do was formerly limited to physicians. There are approximately 59,000 physician assistants employed in the United States. Physician assistants are fairly recent additions to the health care profession.
The primate order is composed of a group of species that differs very little in its morphological structure but varies quite dramatically in its behavioral patterns. Researchers in the fields of chemistry, biology, neurology, psychology, and medicine have found that behavior is a cognitive mechanism that is processed in the brain. It has been found
Brazil is a republic of the South American continent, a major industrial country, producing aircraft, armaments, automobiles, nuclear power, and steel as well as many consumer commodities. In addition, Brazil is mineral rich in gold, iron ore, aluminum, bauxite, manganese, mica, and other minerals, including precious stones. Brazilian agrocorporations export bananas, coffee, cotton, oranges, sugar
Henri (known as Abbé) Breuil began his lifetime study of prehistory when, toward the end of the 19th century, this young discipline developed a systematic methodology and established itself on a scientific foundation. According to all accounts, Henri Breuil was one of the great pioneers of prehistory, perhaps even the “father of prehistory” (as the
Anthropologists have long recognized that marriage exists cross-culturally. Even though all human groups across the globe practice some type of marriage, there is a great deal of variation to be found in its meaning and form. One central way marriage varies from one culture to another pertains to whether or not explicit marital economic transactions
An eminent anthropologist of Inuit society, Jean L. Briggs (1929-) has been at the forefront of change and innovation in her discipline in many respects. At a time when it was uncommon for women to conduct prolonged and intensive fieldwork in isolated and extreme environments, she conducted fieldwork in Alaska, the eastern and central Canadian
The great Italian philosopher Giordano Filippo Bruno (1548-1600) was born in Nola, in the Campania. As a young scholar, he studied philosophy and literature in Naples, and later theology at the Monastery of San Domenico Maggione. He had a tenacious memory and extraordinary intellect. In 1572, Bruno took the vows of priesthood. Yet in 1576
Martin Buber, a German-born Jewish philosopher and Zionist, made meaningful contributions to the fields of existential philosophy and philosophical anthropology during a long and productive scholarly career. Buber is best known for his conception of human relationships as “I-Thou” and “I-It,” a distinction that was a common theme throughout all of his works. Early in
The founder of Buddhism is Gautama Buddha Shakyamuni. He was born as a royal prince in 624 BC in a place called Lumbini, which was originally in northern India but is now part of Nepal. Shakya is the name of the royal family into which he was born, and Muni means “able one.” His parents
Fr. Eugene Buechel S.J. was a German Jesuit who labored as a missionary among the Lakota (Sioux) of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations in southwestern South Dakota. Although not formally trained as an anthropologist, he made important contributions to knowledge of the Oglala and Sicangu bands through his friendship with many Lakota people and
Ruth Bunzel was born in New York City into an intellectual Jewish family. She graduated as a history major from Barnard College in 1918. In 1920, she became Franz Boas’s research assistant and secretary in the anthropology department at Columbia University, a position funded by the wealthy social psychologist and feminist Elsie Clews Parsons. This
Heterogeneity in hospital costs has often been used to convince citizens and policy makers of the extent of inefficiency in hospital care provision. Classification of hospital stays into diagnosis related groups (DRGs) has made it possible to place patients into groups that are supposed to be medically homogenous and to compare the cost of stays
The existence of duplicate private health insurance (DPHI), which is observed in many countries with a National Health Service (NHS), is paradoxical at first sight. NHSs are usually characterized by universal coverage of every resident, large and comprehensive benefit packages, very low copayments or free care at the point of delivery, progressive tax financing, and
Dispensing medical drugs is a profession that combines the particularities of a professional service and retail industry. The focus here is on retail pharmacy, leaving aside the special character of hospital pharmacies. First, pharmacists are responsible for a range of professional services including offering advice and assistance to those receiving their medication. Pharmacists are responsible
Dual practice among doctors, which the literature often refers to as dual (or multiple) job-holding among health workers, is a phenomenon that can be observed in most countries with both public and private health care systems. The term ‘multiple job-holding’ is defined as working simultaneously in more than one paid job. Any worker can hold
In most countries, private health care insurance is provided by managed care organizations (MCOs). They appeared in the late 1990s as an alternative to the traditional fee-for-service health insurance contract. Their main role is to administer and manage the provision of health care services to their clients within a general objective of cost containment in
In its World Health Report 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) advocates in favor of a central role for primary care in health care systems. The WHO defines the specific features that should characterize primary care to ensure improved health and social outcomes: person-centeredness, continuity, comprehensiveness, and integration. Person-centeredness is about adapting medical advice to
In many countries, residents choose a health plan or sickness fund through which to receive health insurance benefits. These choices are regulated and at least partially paid for by governments and employers. Collective financing of health care redistributes the burden of cost from the sick to the healthy and from the poor to the rich.
Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics, such as gender, race, age, and behavior, to price or structure insurance policies. Risk classification potentially has undesirable consequences, including adverse effects on distributional equity. In dynamic settings, risk classification can also increase classification risk, which refers to the risk that an individual faces of being
Since the 1990s an increasing number of European countries permit periodic consumer choice of insurer in their social health insurance schemes (e.g., Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Russia). It can be hypothesized that such consumer choice provides the insurers with effective incentives for efficiency and innovation. However, an
Specialists have a unique position in the health system as they provide health-care services to patients and so are agents of patients, but in addition, they provide patients to, and order services from, other health-care providers (e.g., hospitals) and so are agents of other health-care providers as well. In the economics literature this situation is
Use of the English term “Hinduism” (and its equivalents in various European languages) to designate certain aspects of the cultural traditions of Hindus anywhere is commonplace, but it is relatively recent and not wholly unproblematic. The idea that the Hindus must have a “religion” comparable to Christianity and worthy of study originated with British administrators
The birth of Islam coincided with radical change in the anthropological and sociocultural situation of Arab populations which, in about the seventh century CE, had already been affected by strong social tensions and by a number of important religious upheavals. If pre-Islamic societies are generally to be considered as poly theistic, the presence, since the
Judaism is one of the world’s oldest religions, characterized by a belief in one God (monotheism), a belief that the Torah is the source of divine knowledge and law, and that the Jews, because the Torah was given to them after other peoples turned it down, have an obligation to be a light unto the
The French Constitution defines France as a “République laïque’ a lay republic, and the French generally consider laicism to be a ”French exception.” This aspect of singularity was recently reinforced with the passing of a law in March 2004 banning ostentatious religious signs in public schools. But it is impossible to simplify laicism in terms
Rodney Stark and Laurence Iannaccone (1997) noted that, despite their millions of members, until recently Jehovah’s Witnesses failed to attract the attention of most sociologists of religion (Beckford 1975 is one of the rare book length studies). The difficult access to their international archives was a factor, together with a general under evaluation of non-mainline
Magic is complex and difficult to define. Generally, it refers to ritual activity – usually without institutional supports – the execution of which, through words and actions considered powerful, intends to automatically induce changes of various types. There are good (white magic) or bad (black magic) aims relating to various human and natural events (health
If we use Durkheim’s classic division of suicides into egoistic, altruistic, and anomic (Le Suicide, 1897), martyrdom is an altruistic suicide. According to Durkheim, those who consciously sacrifice their lives for a supreme ideal (religious, political, or moral) demonstrate not only a profound faith in the ideal, but also strong commitment to a group (be
The term millenarianism, and its alternatives millennialism and chiliasm, are derived from the last book of the Christian Bible, Apocalypse (or Revelation), in which the prophet John recounts his vision of a thousand year godly kingdom, the return of Christ, and the end of time itself (20:1-7). In the social sciences, the term is applied
A myth is a story that has a parallel structure linking the past to the present and suggesting directions for the future. A myth may be a cautionary tale, as in the urban myths that teenagers tell about the dangers inherent in parking on dark side roads. A myth may also be a moral tale
The term new religious movements has been employed to refer to a number of distinguish able but overlapping phenomena, not all of which are unambiguously new and not all of which are, by at least some criteria, religious. There have, of course, always been new religions – Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam all started off
The term “online research” refers to two different concepts which are often confused: (1) applying online methods in social research, and (2) social research of online phenomena. The first part of the article sketches the most important empirical methods and their online version. The second part briefly illustrates how selected online phenomena or research questions
Operationalization is the process of translating abstract things into concrete, measurable variables. It is one of those things that is more easily said than done. It is quite simple to explain to someone the purpose and importance of operational definitions for variables and even to describe how operationalization generally takes place. But a researcher will
A people-meter is an electronic device that records when media are being used and who is using them. It is the preferred method of audience ratings companies that provide “third-party” estimates of audience size and composition to various clients, and the principle means of national television audience measurement around the world. People-meters are constantly being
Psychophysiology is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes. For example, where psychologists are interested in why we like a certain TV program, physiologists are interested in the input–output of the cardiovascular system. A psychophysiologist attempts to link the two approaches. The study of the interface of mind and body is what makes psychophysiology
The term “public opinion polling” generally refers collectively to both the representative survey method and to the institutes that specialize in employing this method, particularly to commercial survey institutes. Other terms commonly employed in this context are: “public opinion research,” “survey research”, or simply, if somewhat confusingly, “public opinion.” The term “demoscopy” (Greek: “observation of
Qualitative methodology includes a variety and diversity of methods, procedures, and research designs. All kinds of qualitative methods have in common that their main research aim is a deeper understanding of the research object. Therefore, they are nonstandardized tools that can be adapted flexibly to every kind of research object, which can better be called
The results of polls tell us how many people intend to vote for a certain political party, watch TV more than four hours a day, or favor a certain TV program. We call methods of collecting and analyzing such data “quantitative methodology” because individuals’ attributes are counted in large numbers. One can count not only
A rating, as the term is most often used in media industries, is an estimate of the size and demographic composition of a radio, television, or Internet audience. Such metrics are of enormous importance to advertiser-supported media because they set the value of the time used to run commercial messages. The larger and more desirable
Readership research employs empirical methods to investigate print media usage, focusing mainly on magazines and newspapers that appear periodically. Of primary importance in this context are readership analyses that ascertain findings on print-media coverage (reach or cumulative audience) and readership structure (composition of readership to describe print-media target groups). These methods are supplemented by reception
Real-time rating (RTR) methods – also called “real-time response” or “continuous response measurement” (CRM) – collect judgments or evaluation data from a subject during media exposure. While questionnaires provide data about the outcome of a perception (e.g., television viewing), RTR focuses on the process of viewing. Besides the application to academic questions of reception research
In a world of finite resources, growing populations, expanding democracy among weak nations, and expanding opportunities for communication across geographic boundaries, disagreements are inevitable. Disagreements might be about the distribution or conservation of resources, about status, power, or differences among various groups within the population, about the history of past interactions, or about a myriad
Social marketing is a tool or framework that “relies on multiple scientific disciplines to create programs designed to influence human behavior on a large scale” (Smith 2006, 138). It traces its roots to an article written in the 1950s by the sociologist G. D. Wiebe, who “expressed concern that marketing was not being applied to
In all societies, social critics challenge unequal distributions of wealth, power, and privilege, effects of social policy, and cultural change or transgression. Aggrieved groups may organize to pursue their shared beliefs and interests. If they are unable to obtain satisfaction by petitioning legitimized political, economic, and cultural institutions they may take to the streets. Social
Social networks are the interpersonal relationships people have with friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, and others they may come into contact with directly or via media communications. Social network analysis is used to understand these social relationships and how they help explain individual and social behavior (Scott 2000; Wasserman & Faust 1994). Social networks are studied
What people choose to do, the behaviors they enact or refrain from enacting, is guided by a number of factors, including their own dispositions, the situational context in which they find themselves, the social roles they take on, and their interpersonal relationships. The study of how people’s behaviors are guided, in part, by social norms
Tailored messages are formal individual messages in which the content and/or style of the materials have been created based on data specific to the individual. Tailoring is distinguished from targeting, in that targeting refers to audience segmentation and development of group-specific messages, whereas tailoring involves individual-specific assessment and feedback driven by that assessment. Individual computerized
Uncertainty has been an important concept in communication theory for many decades. Understanding how people respond to uncertainty in developing relationships and in intercultural encounters has been the foundation of a large body of interpersonal communication research. This work has demonstrated complex relationships between communication, information seeking, and the management of uncertainty. Recent theory building
Communication theory is heir to classic issues in the history of ideas. If philosophy has traditionally asked how human knowledge of reality may be possible, communication theory addresses the media, modalities, and messages by which humans exchange, reflect on, and enact different perspectives on reality. Revisiting a number of key epistemological, ethical, and political issues
Modern research methods for communication and social change reflect a tension between collecting data at the individual level while making inferences at macro-levels such as health-care systems, communities, and nations. This tension becomes more palpable when measuring the concerns of historically underserved, difficult-to-reach populations, those suffering the greatest inequalities in access to information, civic participation
In the context of communication studies, aesthetic theory may be defined as the attempt to understand people’s enjoyment of certain forms of communication – such as stories, movies, music, dance – that are apparently attended to for their own sake, despite their lack of any ostensible instrumental value. Although this type of enjoyment can be
Production assistants perform a variety of tasks for film, television, and video producers and other staff members. They must be prepared to help out everywhere, ensuring that daily operations run as smoothly as possible. Some production assistants may perform substantive jobs, such as reviewing scripts, but others may primarily run errands. They must be willing
Process servers are licensed by the courts to serve legal papers, such as summonses, subpoenas, and court orders, to the parties involved in legal disputes. People served may include witnesses, defendants in lawsuits, or the employers of workers whose wages are being garnished by court order. Corporations can be served through their statutory agents (representatives)
Press secretaries, political consultants, and other media relations professionals help politicians promote themselves and their issues among voters. They advise politicians on how to address the media. Sometimes called “spin doctors,” these professionals use the media to either change or strengthen public opinion. Press secretaries work for candidates and elected officials, while political consultants work
Preschool teachers promote the general education of children under the age of five. They help students develop physically, socially, and emotionally, work with them on language and communications skills, and help cultivate their cognitive abilities. They also work with families to support parents in raising their young children and reinforcing skills at home. They plan
Precision metalworkers are skilled crafts workers who produce the tools, dies, molds, cutting devices, and guiding and holding devices used in the mass production of a variety of products. Tool makers produce precision tools for cutting, shaping, and forming metal and other materials. They also produce jigs and fixtures—the devices for holding the tools and
Precision machinists use machine tools, such as drill presses, lathes, and milling machines, to produce metal parts that meet precise specifications. They combine their knowledge of metals with skillful handling of machine tools to make precision-machined products. There are approximately 370,000 precision machinists employed in the United States. The modern era of producing metal parts
Power plant workers include power plant operators, power distributors, and power dispatchers. In general, power plant operators control the machinery that generates electricity. Power distributors and power dispatchers oversee the flow of electricity through substations and a network of transmission and distribution lines to individual and commercial consumers. The generators in these power plants may
Pop/rock musicians perform in nightclubs, concert halls, on college campuses, and at live events such as festivals and fairs. They also record their music for distribution on CDs, audiocassettes, and the Internet. A pop/rock musician usually performs as a member of a band comprised of instrumentalists and vocalists. The band may perform original music or
Polygraph examiners use polygraph equipment and techniques to determine whether individuals have answered questions truthfully or dishonestly. Polygraphs, often called “lie detectors,” are instruments that measure and record certain nonvoluntary body responses that are affected by the individual’s emotional state. To judge whether the subject has answered all the questions truthfully, the examiner compares the
Political speechwriters prepare speeches for individuals in the political arena. They write for politicians in all branches of government, from the local and state level to the national level, including the president of the United States. History is filled with politicians who were renowned as great orators. But what about those who helped them write
Considered the “father of physical anthropology,” the famous German physiologist, anatomist, and naturalist began his lustrous academic career at the University of Jenna. Perfecting his studies in literature, rhetoric, and natural history (archaeology), Blumenbach finished his remaining medical studies at the University of Gottingen. Under the auspices of Heyne and Buttner, Blumenbach was offered the
Franz Boas, considered the “father of American anthropology” and the architect of its contemporary structure, helped revolutionize the consciousness and conscience of humanity by fighting against 19th-century colonial Anglo-American ethnocentrism and racism and championing 20th-century cultural relativism, tolerance, and multicultural awareness. Boas stands among the last of the great Renaissance minds. Born in Minden, Westphalia
The bonobo (Pan paniscus) belongs to the Pongidae family of the Primate order and is restricted to the central Zaire basin, south of the Zaire River in Africa. They live in forested areas and are often called “pygmy chimpanzees.” They are closely related to common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) but are not necessarily smaller. Bonobos spend
Jacques Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Perthes was born September 10,1788, in Rethel, France. Considered in France as the “father of prehistory,” Boucher de Perthes worked from 1825 as a custom officer in Abbeville, like his father did, until 1853, when he was 65. From then until 1860, he embarked on six big trips to Africa
French philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist, and public intellectual, Pierre Bourdieu rose from the relative obscurity of provincial France to become one of the most influential thinkers in the social sciences. His most famous work, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, was named one of the 20th century’s 10 most important works of sociology
Dr. Charles Loring Brace is a paleoanthropologist best known for his research on controversial topics such as cultural and biological impacts on dental reduction in modern populations, the fate of the Neandertals, and the biological race concept. He is curator of biological anthropology for the Museum of Anthropology, and professor of anthropology at the University
A form of arboreal locomotion among primates in which the animal progresses using the forelimbs only. The animal swings below branches using alternate left and right handholds while the body undergoes 180° rotation to the opposite side. This type of locomotion is observed to varying degrees among hominoid primates but is especially characteristic of the
Hailed as one of the founders of scientific archaeology, Robert Braidwood (1907-2003) is credited with a multitude of discoveries and novel research methods, including the use of interdisciplinary teams to study the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agriculture-based civilization. Through a series of important excavations in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, Braidwood and his
Cognitive thought processes that arise from consciousness are depicted as being an exclusive human characteristic. Reflected in the metaphysical views from Aristotle (384-322 BCE) to Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the philosophical implications for our species result in an unbridgeable chasm between our species and the rest of the animal kingdom. These geocentric and anthropocentric depictions of
The human brain is by far the most intriguing, complicated, and highly organized organ in the human body. Furthermore, the human brain is far more complex then all other known creatures, stars, galaxies, and planets in the universe. It is no wonder that research on the human brain has been an extremely daunting and challenging
The problem of risk-based sorting often referred to as risk selection, and the use of risk adjustment to offset it are central concepts in health economics. After briefly defining risk selection and risk adjustment, this article provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical literatures that analyze these concepts. The issues covered here touch on
This article examines empirical models in health economics and health services research aimed at providing causal inference regarding the effect of a particular variable (the causal variable – X) and outcome of interest (Y). Such models are typically used to explain (predict) past (future) economic behavior, test an economic theory, or evaluate a past or
The Concept Of Social Health Insurance Unlike private health insurance (PHI), ‘social’ health insurance (SHI) is characterized by three distinguishing features: Compulsory membership, at least for the great majority of the population. Community rating, i.e., premiums unrelated to individual risk. Open enrollment, i.e., even if the insurance market is competitively structured, an applicant cannot be
Insurance markets in the US traditionally have been regulated at the state level. This tradition was reinforced by the 1945 McCarran–Ferguson Act, which exempted the business of insurance from federal antitrust oversight as long as the individual states regulated the insurance business. Much of the early health insurance regulation related to reserve requirements and sales
This article explores the economic theory and evidence regarding supplementary private health insurance in countries with national health insurance systems. It defines voluntary health insurance for the purpose of the article, and classifies the different roles played by voluntary private health insurance. It will then examine the economic literature on voluntary private health insurance, beginning
Introduction Supplemental Insurance In many countries with public health insurance coverage, individuals have the option to purchase additional coverage from private health insurers to supplement public coverage. This additional coverage can either duplicate public coverage or fill in gaps (supplement) in the public plan, such as covering services outside the public benefit package or filling
Introduction The US healthcare system has widely acknowledged problems with cost, quality, and access. Medical spending is higher than that in any other country, at 17.6% of GDP in 2009, and rising at a rapid rate; such a cost trajectory is unsustainable. Meanwhile, quality is often lacking, and lags behind that of many other nations
This overview starts by giving a brief introduction to the economic theory of advertising, including a short presentation of the two main models of advertising and discussion of how advertising affects market outcomes in light of these two models. These theoretical underpinnings are then used to discuss the causes and potential effects of advertising in
Health care purchasers and regulators often make comparisons between providers on indicators of quality. In this article the rationale for such comparisons is described, the options for this form of monitoring are considered and how this type of evaluation has evolved over time is outlined. Then, using a recent example of a quality program that
A range of specific policies designed to increase both patient choice and hospital competition has been introduced in, amongst other countries, England, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands. A primary concern arising from such reforms is the effectiveness of hospital competition to provide improvements in quality, responsiveness, and efficiency. Theory would suggest that if hospital
Sociology, especially in its classic works, provides analytic perspectives for understanding specific ecclesiastic religious phenomena (i.e., churches and church-oriented religions). But long before the birth of sociology – in its contemporary empirical version – modern philosophy, both Continental and Atlantic, was deeply engaged with the ecclesiological question (Olivetti 1992). This philosophical attention attributed special theoretical
Civil religion refers to the cultural beliefs, practices, and symbols that relate a nation to the ultimate conditions of its existence. The idea of civil religion can be traced to the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau’s On the Social Contract (1762). Writing in the wake of the Protestant–Catholic religious wars, Rousseau maintained the need for
It is widely acknowledged that Confucianism has a dominant influence in Chinese culture. But what is religion in the Chinese context? Chinese scholars writing in Chinese generally see Confucianism (ruxue or rujia thinking) as a school of Chinese philosophy, and the question of whether Confucianism is a religion or not does not arise. Western scholars
The connection between consumption and religion has been investigated by a wide range of scholars. Topics examining this relationship include: the rise of capitalism and the nature of modern capitalism, competition among religious organizations for religious consumers, the consumption of religious goods and services, as well as consumption as a secular religion. In The Protestant
The term cult has become, since the latter part of the twentieth century, one of the most controversial concepts in the social sciences. The term was originally employed by scholars of religion to signify a system of activities centering on an object of worship, but the concept has been gradually changed by sociologists to identify
The term denomination was innovated in the late seventeenth century by those groups of Christians in England who dissented from the established Church of England, but considered themselves loyal to the British state and recognized the monarch as having rights with respect to the Church of England. In 1702, specifically, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregationalist clergy
The modern study of religion and economics begins with Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith applied his economic analysis to several aspects of religion that researchers since developed with quantitative research. Smith’s fundamental contribution to the study of religion was that religious beliefs and activities
Accounts of Hinduism have predominantly been approached via literary and textual avenues, through which its ancient, philosophical, abstract, and transcendent features are highlighted. Even ethnographic accounts of Hinduism have been dominated by attention to the Sanskritic and Brahmanic elements derived from such a scriptural, elitist grounding. Such foci are limited because of the neglect of
Roughly speaking, fundamentalism is a label that refers to the modern tendency – a habit of the heart and mind (Marty & Appleby 1991, 1993a, 1993b, 1994, 1995) – to claim the unerring nature of a sacred text and to deduce from that a rational strategy for instrumental social action. The final goal is to
Concepts of health and illness in human society originated from traditional religious views about life and death. One of the first sociologists to study religion was Emile Durkheim, who found that distinctions between ideas about the sacred and profane were connected to notions of health and illness. Religious views of the sacred body, for example
The term “interview” allows for several definitions. In this article, all forms of the socioscientific interview – also called survey – are dealt with. The interview – along with content analysis and observation – is one of the three basic empirical instruments of data collection. It is defined as a planned and systematic situation in
At first sight, a scientific interview resembles a common conversation, a qualitative interview even more so than a standardized one. Unlike a day-to-day conversation, however, such an interview takes place in an artificial situation, follows specific rules, and is conducted to reach a predefined goal. An open-ended interview can be conducted for two different reasons.
Quantitative surveys are usually comprised of standardized interviews that are conducted using a questionnaire. The term “standardization” describes the predetermination of the course of the interviews. In a fully standardized questionnaire each respondent is presented with the same stimulus, i.e., an equal question. Therefore, the reaction (i.e., the answer) is comparable to that of another
For many inquiries in the field of communication research, the analysis of change is of great value. Classic diffusion research in the communication sciences deals with the diffusion of information in society, and it is important to know the dynamics of the diffusion process, as well as the factors that influence it. Media research considers
Thinking about measurement brings to mind an old adage, “If it exists, it is measurable.” However, in research, we tend to go beyond that adage, saying “If it exists, it must be measurable” (Leedy 1997). Most researchers will likely agree that measurement is a pillar of social and behavioral sciences research (Guilford 1954). What Is
Meta-analysis is a set of methods and statistical analyses for summarizing the findings of an existing empirical literature. As the name implies, it is a study of studies. It provides a way to do a quantitative literature review that involves cumulating effects across studies. The purpose of a meta-analysis is to ascertain if the findings
The term “network” denotes a central concept in the social sciences. The underlying idea of a structure that consists of elements (sometimes also called points, nodes, or vertices) and their relations (called lines, edges, arcs, or connections) has been used to illustrate and explain such diverse things as human action, information exchange in communication processes
Nielsen is a name synonymous with television audience measurement throughout much of the world. Today, it is associated with a family of services that provide estimates of the size and composition of media audiences, loosely referred to as Nielsen ratings. Those numbers are essential to the operation of commercial media, since they constitute a currency
A class of data analysis procedures for statistical hypothesis testing that, unlike parametric statistical analysis, makes no assumptions about the sampling distribution of a statistic being evaluated, nonparametric statistical analysis is also called distribution-free statistical analysis. The two terms have a slightly different meaning but are frequently used interchangeably. While nonparametric statistical inference is not
Observation is a very “natural” way of gathering data and information – probably everybody can identify situations where humans are scrutinizing their surroundings. Selltiz et al. note: “We are constantly observing – noticing what is going on around us . . . ; as long as we are awake, we are almost constantly engaged in
Media literacy has been defined as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts” (Christ & Potter 1998, 7). This definition is widely accepted, although many alternative and competing conceptions also exist. As the subject of academic research, educational initiatives and communication policy (Potter 2004), research reflects enduring tensions
Message discrimination is a self-report measure of media exposure. In survey interviews, respondents are asked to recall information about a particular topic that they have encountered in various media in the recent past. For example, respondents might be asked, “What have you seen or heard on television about family planning in the last month?” Open
In persuasion research, the concept of resistance generally refers to audiences withstanding attempts to change their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. Resistance, however, can actually be conceptualized in multiple ways. For example, it can be thought of as simply an outcome of a persuasive attempt (i.e., no change in attitude in the face of a persuasive
Planned social change is the result of an intervention by a change agent (an individual or organization that seeks to induce change) in order to transform the nature of human communities, most often as a response to some perceived problem such as health risks, environmental crises, political instability, economic hardships, underdeveloped infrastructures, and recovery from
The main objective of prevention is to avoid diseases by reducing risks that may negatively affect health. The prevention approach complements the health promotion approach. While prevention intends to avoid disease and reduce risks, health promotion focuses on resources that sustain the opportunity of healthy living. Even though the two concepts are sometimes used synonymously
The theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a general theory of behavior that was first introduced in 1967 by Martin Fishbein, and was extended by Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (e.g., Fishbein & Ajzen 1975; Ajzen & Fishbein 1980). Developed largely in response to the repeated failure of traditional attitude measures to predict specific behaviors, the
When considering how the lessons learned from science can be used by those audiences who might benefit from them, the term “research dissemination” (Lomas 1993) has been coined to focus on the active process by which information gleaned from science is actively communicated to those audiences who are thought to be most likely to benefit
Risk communication is a field of communications research that is used by a variety of professionals, including public relations and other professionals involved in purposive communications in government and the private sector. Risk communication can be defined as a process that increases the selectivity of the perception and communication of decision consequences. The decision consequences
One definition of risk communication is “communication with individuals (not necessarily face-to-face) that addresses knowledge, perceptions, attitudes, and behavior related to risk” (Edwards & Bastian 2001, 147). In the public health arena, we often hear about the dangers of poor lifestyle habits (e.g., smoking, drinking, not exercising, failure to vaccinate or screen for cancer) or
The concept of secular social change in health communication studies emanates from the findings of quasi-experimental community and group randomized trials of health promotion campaigns. Specifically, many longitudinally designed intervention studies have discovered that outcome variables of interest (e.g., knowledge, beliefs, behaviors) often show changes over time trending in the same direction both in the
Public relations (PR) specialists develop and maintain programs that present a favorable public image for an individual or organization. They provide information to the target audience (generally, the public at large) about the client, its goals and accomplishments, and any further plans or projects that may be of public interest. PR specialists may be employed
Public opinion researchers help measure public sentiment about various products, services, or social issues by gathering information from a sample of the population through questionnaires and interviews. They collect, analyze, and interpret data and opinions to explore issues and forecast trends. Their poll results help business people, politicians, and other decision makers determine what’s on
Psychiatrists are physicians who attend to patients’ mental, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. They try to help people function better in their daily lives. Physiatrists generally specialize by treatment methods, based on their chosen fields. They may explore a patient’s beliefs and history. They may prescribe medicine, including tranquilizers, antipsychotics, and antidepressants. If they specialize in
Psychiatric technicians work with mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or developmentally disabled people. Their duties vary considerably depending on place of work, but may include helping patients with hygiene and housekeeping and recording patients’ pulse, temperature, and respiration rates. Psychiatric technicians participate in treatment programs by having one-on-one sessions with patients, under a nurse’s or counselor’s
Psychiatric nurses focus on mental health. This includes the prevention of mental illness and the maintenance of good mental health, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. They care for pediatric, teenage, adult, and elderly patients who may have a broad spectrum of mentally and emotionally related medical needs. In addition to
Protestant ministers provide for the spiritual, educational, and social needs of Protestant congregations and other people of the community. They lead services, perform religious rites, and provide moral and spiritual guidance to their congregation members. Ministers also help the sick and needy and supervise the religious educational programs of their church. Protestant ministers also have
Property and real estate managers plan and supervise the activities that affect land and buildings. Most of them manage rental properties, such as apartment buildings, office buildings, and shopping centers. Others manage the services and commonly owned areas of condominiums and community associations. Approximately 361,000 property and real estate managers are employed in the United
Property and casualty insurance agents and brokers sell policies that help individuals and companies cover expenses and losses from such disasters as fires, burglaries, traffic accidents, and other emergencies. These salespeople also may be known as fire, casualty, and marine insurance agents or brokers. There are approximately 30,000 property and casualty insurance agents and brokers
Professional athletic teams compete against one another to win titles, championships, and series; team members are paid salaries and bonuses for their work. Team sports include football, basketball, hockey, baseball, and soccer. The Olympic Games are generally credited as being the first instance of organized sports. Historians believe that they actually began as early as
In contrast with amateur athletes who play or compete in amateur circles for titles or trophies only, professional athletes participate in individual sports such as tennis, figure skating, golf, running, or boxing, competing against others to win prizes and money. The origin of the first recreational activity—or sport—is not known. It can be assumed, however
The Scientific Study of the Distribution of Animals and Plants Animal and plant species are not global in distribution; nor are they distributed at random around the globe. Their ranges are constrained by part events and by past and present environments; so we can speak, in broad terms, of historical and ecological biogeography, though these
Bioinformatics has been defined as the mathematical, statistical, and computational methods that are directed toward solving various biological problems by using DNA, amino acid sequences, and other related biological information. Inherently, the field of bioinformatics is dependent on computer technology to store, retrieve, analyze, and actually predict the composition and structure of biomolecules, for example
Biological Anthropology Definition Biological anthropology is concerned with the origin, evolution and diversity of humankind. The field was called physical anthropology until the late twentieth century, reflecting the field’s primary concern with cataloging anatomical differences among human and primate groups. Biological anthropology is one of the four subfields of anthropology, together with archaeology, linguistic anthropology
Biological anthropology is the study of human biological variation and its genetic and environmental causes within the framework of evolution. The roots of physical anthropology, the name usually given to this subfield of anthropology until recently, lie in the 19th century. However, there was no university-based training in the subfield until well into the 20th
Biomedicine is the name given to a form of western professional medicine that asserts that illness is largely caused by deviations from universal biological norms. For most of the past century, this approach to medicine has been the standard for evaluation of all other approaches, whether popular or professional. Biomedicine assumes that illness and medical
Biometrics is a statistical study of biological observations and phenomena, which can be implemented to provide automated methods that can be utilized to identify an individual based on physiological and behavioral characteristics. Examples of features that can be measured include facial variations, fingerprints, hand geometry, handwriting, iris and retinal differences, and voice. The ability to
Among living primates, only humans are bipedal. It is not certain when this unique feature emerged, but it must have been before the 3.6 million-year-old Laetoli footprints were made. Although the prints were not made by completely modern feet, they are unequivocally the prints of bipeds. They are the impressions of feet that lacked a
Canadian anatomist and paleontologist Davidson Black received a degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1906, and continued with graduate work at the University of Manchester, England. After receiving his education, Black was employed as an anatomy instructor at Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio, until the onset of World War
Blombos Cave is located on the extreme southern coast of South Africa, nearly 200 miles east of Cape Town. This site, overlooking the Indian Ocean, has revealed evidence of modern human behaviors existing 75,000 years ago. For decades, archaeologists believed that modern Homo sapiens evolved almost 150,000 years ago but did not develop “modern” skills
Distinguished by particular cell membrane surface antigens (protein markers) on red blood cells (RBCs), there have been over 35 different blood groups identified thus far. Although these include groups such as MNSs, Duffy, Lewis and so on, the ABO and Rh blood groups play the most significant role in blood transfusions. The frequency and stability
Introduction There is an enormous literature evaluating and comparing health insurance systems around the world, which this article attempts to synthesize while emphasizing systems in developed countries. The authors’ approach is to provide an overview of the dimensions along which health insurance systems differ and provide immediate comparisons of various countries in tabular form. To
Introduction The US, like the Netherlands and Switzerland, among other nations, relies primarily on private health insurance to finance and reimburse for medical care. In fact, approximately 64% of the nonelderly US population enrolled in private health insurance plans in 2011. This figure is down dramatically from its height of 76% in the mid-1970s. Some
What Is Microinsurance? Microinsurance does not have a single accepted definition. However, two well-known sources provide high-level definitions and describe salient traits that help establish what microinsurance is and what it is not. These are introduced in this section and used throughout this article to anchor the discussion. Dror and Jacquier’s seminal work coined the
Long-term care is a sector of the healthcare industry that is growing in importance with the aging of populations around the world. In the United States, according to the Congressional Budget Office, expenditures on long-term care totaled US$135 billion in 2004 and are expected to double in several decades. People with long-term care needs generally
This article addresses the general topic of ‘managed care,’ which Kongstvedt, author of the standard reference on the topic, has characterized as ‘‘…..regrettably nebulous’’ but ‘‘…. at the very least,….is a system of health care delivery that tries to manage the cost of health care, the quality of that care, and access to care. Common
A number of countries mandate that individuals purchase health insurance, a policy referred to as mandatory health insurance (MHI). It requires that all or a large part of the population purchase health insurance, which covers a substantial part of healthcare costs. This article reviews the reasons for this policy, considers issues in implementing MHI, and
What Is Medicare? The US Medicare program began in 1965 to address issues of access to care for three groups of Americans: the aged, the disabled, and people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease). (The Medicaid program, also begun in 1965, covers low-income Americans.) Enrollees in Medicare
The term ‘moral hazard’ is surely one of the most controversial in the field of health economics. Although it would seem that the connotation must be pejorative – immorality is certainly implied if one is prey to the hazard (Dembe and Boden, 2000) – it is commonly used to describe a much more benign situation
Private health insurers play a large role in providing financial protection against the high cost of medical care in the United States. In 2010, approximately 64% of the overall US population had some form of private health insurance. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) project that aggregate private health
As compared to public insurance systems, private systems face a unique set of market problems that have occupied a central position in health economics research. These ethical and efficiency problems that arise in market transactions plague national insurance systems to a much lesser degree and involve different solutions. This article first considers the reasons why
African religions are based on oral cultures. They represent the old tradition surviving within a context deeply influenced by monotheistic religions, mainly Christianity and Islam, not only through their various denominations but also by supporting the attack of modern secularism. To propose a definition of religion with reference to the oral African cultures is no
Already used by Stahl in 1707 in his work Theoria medica vera (True Medical Theory) to denote, in the medical field, the theory that identifies the soul with the life principle, in anthropology animism refers to Tylor’s concept of religion, which he expounded in Primitive Culture (1871). In anthropology the term animism has also been
Anti-Semitism (also anti-Semitism) consists of hostility or hatred directed at Jews. Anti-Semitism may be manifested as prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory actions toward Jews because of their racial, ethnic, and/or religious heritage, as well as perceptions about their economic standing or political power. History records many incidences of anti-Semitism, culminating in the attempted genocide perpetrated against
The concept of asceticism shows the unity of efforts through which an individual desires to progress in his moral, religious, and spiritual life. The original meaning of the term refers to any exercise, physical, intellectual, or moral, practiced with method and rigor, in hopes of self-improvement and progress. Notwithstanding the great flexibility that characterizes the
An atheist is one who does not believe in the existence of God or who denies God’s existence. The difficulty of defining atheism results from the whole range of nuances that the concept appears to subsume. Whether it results from active denial or whether it derives from a real or supposed vacuum, whether it is
Popular dictionaries define the term belief in the following general terms: (1) a feeling of certainty that something exists or is good; (2) an opinion about which one feels sure. While the concept of belief is not, therefore, immediately associated with a religious context, it does not exclude it. When the ‘‘certainty that something exists’’
Buddhism is a neologism, created in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century CE, from the Sanskrit word buddha, literally the awakened one. It is derived from an epithet attributed to Siddharta Gautama, born in Northern India – one of the dates accepted by scholars for his life being 563–483 – once gained the
Catholicism, along with Orthodoxy and Protestantism, is one of Christianity’s three principal branches and statistically the most important. Today’s use of the term is a recent, secularized means of referring to the Catholic Church, whose head is the pope and whose headquarters are in the Vatican City in Rome. The word Catholicism is a latecomer
Movements usually referred to as ‘‘charismatic’’ developed within Protestant and Catholic Christianity from the mid twentieth century, and especially the 1960s. Protestant versions are sometimes called ‘‘neo-Pentecostalism’’ and the Catholic movement was initially styled ‘‘Catholic Pentecostal,’’ highlighting connections with the broader Pentecostal movement. Charismatic Christianity is usually considered to include: (1) renewal movements within established
As a basic description, Christianity is the religious faith grounded on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Beyond this point, the scholarly understanding of that concept has been the object of much discussion in modern times, particularly in the realm of the social sciences. In an attempt to put some order into the
By no means all method textbooks discuss document analysis because there is disaccord as to whether this is an independent technique or whether it merely aims to apply different methods to a particular investigation material. There is also controversy as to what has to be understood by “document.” Used in a wider sense as a
Election research has played a decisive part in the development of the methods of survey research from the beginning. More than market and media research, election research has awoken, in a special way, the curiosity and the ambition of researchers, and thus strongly affected empirical social research. It is significant that the breakthroughs of both
Our understanding of several communication phenomena has benefited extensively from informative reports of “natural” experiments. Natural experiments are infrequently detailed in the social and behavioral sciences, however, because they result only when naturally arising circumstances make it possible to separate and examine typically confounded phenomena. Like field experiments, natural experiments occur in venues where the