Women's subjective and objective health over time : the role of psychosocial conditions and physiological stress responses

Today, health problems are likely to have a complex and multifactorial etiology, whereby psychosocial factors interact with behaviour and bodily responses. Women generally report more health problems than men. The present thesis concerns the development of women’s health from a subjective and objective perspective, as related to psychosocial living conditions and physiological stress responses. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies were carried out on a representative sample of women. Data analysis was based on a holistic person-oriented approach as well as a variable approach. In Study I, the women’s self-reported symptoms and diseases as well as self-rated general health status were compared to physician-rated health problems and ratings of the general health of the women, based on medical examinations. The findings showed that physicians rated twice as many women as having poor health compared to the ratings of the women themselves. Moreover, the symptom ”a sense of powerlessness” had the highest predictive power for self-rated general health. Study II investigated individual and structural stability in symptom profiles between adolescence and middle-age as related to pubertal timing. There was individual stability in symptom reporting for nearly thirty years, although the effect of pubertal timing on symptom reporting did not extend into middle-age. Study III explored the longitudinal and current influence of socioeconomic and psychosocial factors on women’s self-reported health. Contemporary factors such as job strain, low income, financial worries, and double exposure in terms of high job strain and heavy domestic responsibilities increased the risk for poor self-reported health in middle-aged women. In Study IV, the association between self-reported symptoms and physiological stress responses was investigated. Results revealed that higher levels of medically unexplained symptoms were related to higher levels of cortisol, cholesterol, and heart rate. The empirical findings are discussed in relation to existing models of stress and health, such as the demand-control model, the allostatic load model, the biopsychosocial model, and the multiple role hypothesis. It was concluded that women’s health problems could be reduced if their overall life circumstances were improved. The practical implications of this might include a redesign of the labour market giving women more influence and control over their lives, both at and away from work.

Allegory, It Happens: A Multi-Perspective Case Study of The Lord of the Rings

Allegory is not obsolete as Samuel Coleridge and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe have claimed. It is alive and well and has transformed from a restrictive concept to a concept that is flexible and can form to meet the needs of the author or reader. The most efficient way to evidence this is by making a case study of it with a suitable work that will allow us to perceive its plasticity. This essay uses J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a multi-perspective case study of the concept of allegory; the size and complexity of the narrative make it a suitable choice. My aim is to illustrate the plasticity of allegory as a concept and illuminate some of the possibilities and pitfalls of allegory and allegoresis. As to whether The Lord of the Rings can be treated as an allegory, it will be examined from three different perspectives: as a purely writerly process, a middle ground of writer and reader and as a purely readerly process. The Lord of the Rings will then be compared to a series of concepts of allegorical theory such as Plato’s classical “The Ring of Gyges”, William Langland’s classic The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman and contemporary allegories of racism and homoeroticism to demonstrate just how adaptable this concept is. The position of this essay is that the concept of allegory has changed over time since its conception and become more malleable. This poses certain dangers as allegory has become an all-round tool for anyone to do anything that has few limitations and has lost its early rigid form and now favours an almost anything goes approach.

Alcohol-Related Problems in Eastern Europe : A Comparative Perspective

This thesis investigates the association between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm in Eastern Europe. The main aim was to estimate to what extent changes in per capita alcohol consumption have an impact on different forms of alcohol-related mortality, and to put the results in an international comparative perspective. The thesis includes four papers; the first two papers use aggregate time-series analysis to assess how changes in per capita consumption affect rates in suicide mortality and fatal non-intentional injuries in several Eastern European countries, respectively. The third paper applies the same methodological approach to analyse the population-level relationship between alcohol and homicide in Russia and the U.S.. The fourth paper employs survey data to assess how the risk of experiencing alcohol-related problems in relation to volume of consumption in the Baltic countries compares to Sweden and Italy. The results of the first three papers suggests: (i) that changes in per capita consumption are significantly related to changes in mortality rates of suicide, non-intentional injuries and homicide in the countries under study; (ii) that the relationship is stronger for men than for women, and (iii) that the relationship tends to be stronger in the countries with more detrimental drinking patterns, e.g. Russia. The results of the fourth paper suggest that the risk of experiencing alcohol-related problems in relation to level of drinking in the Baltic countries is similar to the corresponding risk in Sweden, but considerably stronger than in Italy. In conclusion, the findings support the significance of a public health approach to alcohol-related problems in Eastern Europe, i.e., policy measures directed towards total alcohol consumption. In addition, strategies aimed at reducing the occurrence of binge drinking seem to have great potential for reducing alcohol-related harm and mortality in Eastern European countries.