The inaccuracy of national character stereotypes

Consensual stereotypes of some groups are relatively accurate, whereas others are not. Previous work suggesting that national character stereotypes are inaccurate has been criticized on several grounds. In this article we (a) provide arguments for the validity of assessed national mean trait levels as criteria for evaluating stereotype accuracy and (b) report new data on national character in 26 cultures from descriptions (N= 3323) of the typical male or female adolescent, adult, or old person in each. The average ratings were internally consistent and converged with independent stereotypes of the typical culture member, but were weakly related to objective assessments of personality. We argue that this conclusion is consistent with the broader literature on the inaccuracy of national character stereotypes

Interns are from Venus, consultants are from Mars: differential perception among clinicians

OBJECTIVE: To test for the presence of sex-based differences in perception (the notion that men and women "think" differently, and that differences in perception are biologically based) among healthcare professionals. DESIGN: Prospective survey. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: 90 medical personnel at a tertiary care hospital in Newcastle, NSW. INTERVENTION: Healthcare professionals were shown two pictures that could be interpreted as depicting either a young or an old person, and a word that could be seen as geometric shapes. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The effects of sex, age, seniority, and specialisation in relation to the first impression of the image, the ability to change one's perception, and the speed of perception. RESULTS: Contrary to popular opinion, male physicians were more likely to perceive the older figures, and just as likely as women to be able to change their perception. Surgeons and junior staff were more likely to see, as well as being faster to form, an impression requiring abstract thought, and were more able to change their perceptions. CONCLUSIONS: Traditional sex stereotypes do not apply to medical personnel, but other age-based stereotypes, and professional rivalries (medical versus surgical) may have some empiric basis.

Finite element study on fracture patterns in human scaphoid wrist bone due to free fall

Scaphoid is one of the 8 carpal bones found adjacent to the thumb supported proximally by Radius bone. During the free fall, on outstretched hand, the impact load gets transferred to the scaphoid at its free anterior end. Unique arrangement of other carpal bones in the palm is also one of the reasons for the load to get transferred to scaphoid. About half of the total load acting upon carpal bone gets transferred to scaphoid at its distal pole. There are about 10 to 12 clinically observed fracture pattern in the scaphoid due to free fall. The aim of the study is to determine the orientation of the load, magnitude of the load and the corresponding fracture pattern. This study includes both static and dynamic finite element models validated by experiments. The scaphoid model has been prepared from CT scans of a 27 year old person. The 2D slices of the CT scans have been converted to 3D model by using MIMICS software. There are four cases of loading studied which are considered to occur clinically more frequently. In case (i) the load is applied at the posterior end at distal pole whereas in case (ii), (iii) and (iv), the load is applied at anterior end at different directions. The model is given a fixed boundary condition at the region which is supported by Radius bone during the impact. Same loading and boundary conditions have been used in both static and dynamic explicit finite element analysis. The site of fracture initiation and path of fracture propagation have been identified by using max principal stress / gradient and max principal strain / gradient criterion respectively in static and dynamic explicit finite element analysis. Static and dynamic impact experiments were performed on the polyurethane foam specimens to validate the finite element results. Experimental results such as load at fracture, site of fracture initiation and path of fracture propagation have been compared with the results of finite element analysis. Four different types of fracture patterns observed in clinical studies have been identified in this study.

O ser idoso estomizado sob o olhar complexo: uma proposta de gerontotecnologia educativa

Na presença da estomia, o idoso pode apresentar maior grau de complicações e dificuldades no processo de adaptação, talvez porque a estomia envolva significados que dizem respeito à auto-imagem e à presença/aumento de dependência. Resgatar a necessidade do autocuidado do idoso em relação à saúde é fundamental para que, no cuidado, se obtenha sua participação e mobilização diária quanto à formulação do processo educativo em saúde. Este estudo tem como objetivos identificar as características do idoso estomizado, atendido em um serviço de estomaterapia e propor uma gerontotecnologia educativa que venha a contribuir no cuidado de idosos estomizados, à luz da Complexidade, de Edgar Morin. Foi realizada uma pesquisa, com abordagem qualitativa, do tipo estudo de caso, tendo como local um serviço de estomaterapia, o qual possibilitou contato com fichas cadastrais e via telefone com os sujeitos e, depois, com o domicílio do idoso, no Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Os sujeitos do estudo totalizaram 4 (quatro) idosos, sendo três mulheres e um homem. Foram utilizados, como instrumento, o formulário e o ecomapa, e como técnicas, a entrevista, a observação assistemática e a gravação. Foram respeitadas as normas éticas. A análise dos dados deu-se por: 1) leitura exaustiva dos dados; 2) apresentação dos casos e seus ecomapas tendo como suporte a Complexidade de Edgar Morin; 3) redescoberta de conceitos, a priori, que ilustraram a visão do idoso com estomia: ser humano idoso estomizado complexo, saúde complexa do idoso estomizado, cuidado complexo ao idoso estomizado e sua família. Por fim, elaborou-se uma cartilha educativa, junto ao idoso, como facilitadora para o autocuidado. Quanto aos resultados, verificou-se que cada idoso estomizado está permeado por situações pontuais e, a partir disso, percebeu-se diferentes concepções recursivas e formas de enfrentamento na adaptação. A aceitação da mudança corporal e psicológica mostrou-se mais fácil, quando se verificou apoio familiar, instrução técnica anterior ou presença de pessoas conhecidas. O enfrentamento da doença e a possibilidade da morte são aspectos presentes para os idosos e que limitam suas atividades de vida diária. Assim, surgiram conceitos que contemplaram o ser humano em sua totalidade, com incertezas e significados. A visão que transcende a complexidade da estomia engloba um cuidado que busca integrar a família do idoso com estomia, estimulando-o ao autocuidado e ao acolhimento diário, reforçando a auto-estima, como estratégia de recomeço em meio a desafios permanentes: ser idoso e ter uma estomia. Lançar um novo olhar sobre a temática idoso estomizado é complexo, exigindo abordagem multidimensional das características que o envolvem. Acreditase que mudanças favoráveis poderão advir após implementação de um programa de educação em saúde que contemple a singularidade das questões que envolvem o idoso estomizado e suas necessidades.

Mind the gap! An exploration of the role of lifelong learning in promoting co-production and citizenship within social care for older people

Contemporary themes in public policy have emphasised co-productive approaches within both the access and provision of support services to older people. This paper provides a cross disciplinary exploration from its respective authors perspectives on social work and educational gerontology to examine the potential for lifelong learning and learning interventions from which co-production with those using social care services in later life might be better facilitated. Using an example from the UK, we specifically elicit how co-produced care can enhance the horizon of learning and learning research. The synthesis of ideas across these two disciplines could enrich understanding and provide essential levers for moving towards empowerment and emancipation by engaging with a more co-productive approach in social care for older people. (DIPF/Orig.)

Lifetime risk and projected population prevalence of diabetes

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: With incidence rates for diabetes increasing rapidly worldwide, estimates of the magnitude of the impact on population health are required. We aimed to estimate the lifetime risk of diabetes, the number of years lived free of, and the number of years lived with diabetes for the Australian adult population from the year 2000, and to project prevalence of diabetes to the year 2025. METHODS: Multi-state life-tables were constructed to simulate the progress of a cohort of 25-year-old Australians. National mortality rates were combined with incidence rates of diabetes and the RR of mortality in people with diabetes derived from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle study (a national, population-based study of 11,247 adults aged >or=25 years). RESULTS: If the rates of mortality and diabetes incidence observed over the period 2000-2005 continue, 38.0% (95% uncertainty interval 36.6-38.9) of 25-year-olds would be expected to develop diabetes at some time throughout their life. On average, a 25-year-old Australian will live a further 56 years, 48 of these free of diabetes. On average, a 45-year-old person with diabetes can expect to live 6 years less than a person free of diabetes. The prevalence of diabetes is projected to rise from 7.6% in 2000 to 11.4% by 2025. CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: If we maintain current diabetes incidence rates, more than a third of individuals will develop diabetes within their lifetime and in Australia there will an additional 1 million cases of diabetes by the year 2025.

Queensland requirements (old and new) for the appointment of a real estate agent

In Moneywood Pty Ltd v Salamon Nominees Pty Ltd 1 the High Court of Australia considered an appeal from the Queensland Court of Appeal in relation to the correct interpretation of s76 (1)(c) Auctioneers and Agents Act 1971 (Qld). In paraphrase, s76(1)(c) provides that a real estate agent shall not be entitled to sue for or recover any commission unless “the engagement or appointment to act as …..real estate agent ….. in respect of such transaction is in writing signed by the person to be charged with such…..commission…..or the person’s agent or representative” (“the statutory requirement”).

Drawing the line : the legal status and treatment of the 17-year-old accused in Queensland

Seventeen year olds who come into contact with the police in Queensland are classified as adults and are not afforded the protections available under the Youth Justice Act 1992 (Qld) (YJA). As with any other adult, their offences are dealt with under a raft of legislative provisions including the Criminal Code 1889 (Qld) (the Code), the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld) (PPRA) and the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld) (PSA). This article argues that this situation is unfair and contravenes international human rights agreements which Australia has ratified, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC). Article 1 of that Convention defines a child as a person under the age of 18. The youth offences legislation in Queensland only applies to those who have not yet turned 17. This article examines the effects of this anomaly in Queensland, focusing in particular on the pre-adjudication treatment of ‘17 year old adults’.

Drag på parnassen. Två sextiotalsstudier. : Del I: Medelklass med mänskligt ansikte. Medelklassradikalism i fyra romaner av Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus och Ulla-Lena Lundberg. Del II: Modernistdebatten. Sak, person och fält i en finlandssvensk litteraturdebatt år 1965.

The objective of my dissertation Pull (or Draught, or Moves) at the Parnassus , is to provide a deeper understanding of Nordic Middle Class radicalism of the 1960 s as featured in Finland-Swedish literature. My approach is cultural materialist in a broad sense; social class is regarded a crucial aspect of the contents and contexts of the novels and literary discussions explored. In the first volume, Middle Class With A Human Face , novels by Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus, and Ulla-Lena Lundberg, respectively, are read from the points of view of place, emotion, and power. The term "cryptotope" is used to designate the hidden places found to play an important role in all of these four narratives. Also, the "chronotope of the provincial small town", described by Mikhail Bakhtin in 1938, is exemplified in Kihlman s satirical novel, as is the chronotope of of war (Algeria, Vietnam) in those of Alopaeus and Lundberg s. All the four novels signal changes in the way general "scripts of emotions", e.g. jealousy, are handled and described. The power relations in the novels are also read, with reference to Michel Foucault. As the protagonists in two of them work as journalists, a critical discussion about media and Bourgeois hegemony is found; the term "repressive legitimation" is created to grasp these patterns of manipulation. The Modernist Debate , part II of the study, concerns a literary discussion between mainly Finland-Swedish authors and critics. Essayist Johannes Salminen (40) provided much of the fuel for the debate in 1963, questioning the relevance to contemporary life of the Finland-Swedish modernist tradition of the 1910 s and 1920 s. In 1965, a group of younger authors and critics, including poet Claes Andersson (28), followed up this critique in a debate taking place mainly in the newspaper Vasabladet. Poets Rabbe Enckell (62), Bo Carpelan (39) and others defended a timeless poetry. This debate is contextualized and the changing literary field is analyzed using concepts provided by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In the thesis, the historical moment of Middle Class radicalism with a human face is regarded a temporary luxury that new social groups could afford themselves, as long as they were knocking over the statues and symbols of the Old Bourgeoisie. This is not to say that all components of the Sixties strategy have lost their power. Some of them have survived and even grown, others remain latent in the gene bank of utopias, waiting for new moments of change.

Young at heart, old at work? Relations between age, (meta-)stereotypes, self-categorization, and retirement attitudes

The aims of this study were to examine how workers' negative age stereotypes (i.e., denying older workers' ability to develop) and negative meta-stereotypes (i.e., beliefs that the majority of colleagues feel negative about older workers) are related to their attitudes towards retirement (i.e., occupational future time perspective and intention to retire), and whether the strength of these relationships is influenced by workers' self-categorization as an “older” person. Results of a study among Dutch taxi drivers provided mixed support for the hypotheses. Negative meta-stereotypes, but not negative age stereotypes, were associated with fewer perceived opportunities until retirement and, in turn, a stronger intention to retire. Self-categorization moderated the relationships between negative age (meta-)stereotypes and occupational future time perspective. However, contrary to expectations, the relations were stronger among workers with a low self-categorization as an older person in comparison with workers with a high self-categorization in this regard. Overall, results highlight the importance of psychosocial processes in the study of retirement intentions and their antecedents.

'All Good Things Must Come to an End': Terminating Co-Ownership Under the 'Old' Partition and Sale Rules

Despite its benefits, co-ownership of land creates problems where relations between the parties
have soured, or one person simply wants to extricate themselves from this arrangement. The
remedies of compulsory partition and sale allow one joint tenant or tenant in common to terminate
co-ownership against the wishes of the others, by seeking a court order to this effect. Throughout
parts of the common law world, this has be en based on nineteenth century English legislation namely
the Partition Act 1868, the key elements of which remain in force in Western Australia,
South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. This article provides an up-to-date
analysis of the law on compulsory partition and sale as derived from the 1868 Act and analogous
provisions, drawing not only on Australian cases, but on frequently overlooked decisions from
courts in both parts of Ireland and in parts of Canada, as well as ‘old’ English judgments on the
1868 Act.

Emotional insecurity in the family and community and youth delinquency in Northern Ireland: A person-oriented analysis across five-waves

Background: Over one billion children are exposed worldwide to political violence and armed conflict. Currently, conclusions about bases for adjustment problems are qualified by limited longitudinal research from a process-oriented, social-ecological perspective. In this study, we examined a theoretically-based model for the impact of multiple levels of the social ecology (family, community) on adolescent delinquency. Specifically, this study explored the impact of children’s emotional insecurity about both the family and community on youth delinquency in Northern Ireland. Methods: In the context of a five-wave longitudinal research design, participants included 999 mother-child dyads in Belfast (482 boys, 517 girls), drawn from socially-deprived, ethnically-homogenous areas that had experienced political violence. Youth ranged in age from 10 to 20 and were 12.18 (SD = 1.82) years old on average at Time 1. Findings: The longitudinal analyses were conducted in hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), allowing for the modeling of inter-individual differences in intra-individual change. Intra-individual trajectories of emotional insecurity about the family related to children’s delinquency. Greater insecurity about the community worsened the impact of family conflict on youth’s insecurity about the family, consistent with the notion that youth’s insecurity about the community sensitizes them to exposure to family conflict in the home. Conclusions: The results suggest that ameliorating children’s insecurity about family and community in contexts of political violence is an important goal toward improving adolescents’ well-being, including reduced risk for delinquency.

New Meanings to Old Rituals : The Emergence of Mourning Rituals in Shiʿite Islam

This paper will discuss the emergence of Shiʿite mourning rituals around the grave of Husayn b. ʿAli. After the killing of Husayn at Karbala’ in 61/680, a number of men in Kufa feel deep regret for their neglect to come to the help of the grand­son of the Prophet. They gather and discuss how they can best make penitence for this crime. Eventually, they decide to take to arms and go against the Umayyad army – to kill those that killed Husayn, or be killed them­selves in the attempt to find revenge for him. Thus, they are called the Penitents (Ar. Tawwābūn). On their way to the battlefield they stop at Husayn’s tomb at Karbala’, dedicat­ing themselves to remorseful prayer, crying and wailing over the fate of Husayn and their own sin. When the Penitents perform certain ritual acts, such as weeping and wailing over the death of Husayn, visiting his grave, asking for God’s mercy upon him on the Day of Judgment, demand blood revenge for him etc., they enter into already existing rituals in the pre-Islamic Arab and early Muslim context. That is, they enter into rituals that were traditionally performed at the death of a person. What is new is that the rituals that the Penitents perform have partially received a new content. As described, the rituals are performed out of loyalty towards Husayn and the family of the Prophet. The lack of loyalty in connection with the death of Husayn is conceived of as a sin that has to be atoned. Blood revenge thus be­comes not only a pure action of revenge to restore honor, but equally an expression for true religious conversion and penitence. Humphrey and Laidlaw argue that ritual actions in themselves are not bearers of meaning, but that they are filled with mean­ing by the performer. Accord­ing to them, ritual actions are apprehensible, i.e. they can be, and should be filled with meaning, and the people who perform them try to do so within the context where the ritual is performed. The story of the Penitents is a clear example of mourning rituals as actions that survive from earlier times, but that are now filled with new meaning when they are performed in a new and developing move­ment with a different ideology. In later Shiʿism, these rituals are elaborated and become a main tenet of this form of Islam.

Second person : a point of view? The function of the second person pronoun in narrative prose fiction

This thesis looks at the functions and effects of the ‘second-person’ pronoun in narrative prose fiction, with particular focus on the fluidity and ambiguity of the mode that I will call Protean-'you.' It is a mode in which it is unclear whether the ‘you’ is a character, the narrator, a reader/narratee, or no-one in particular—or a combination of these—so that readers find ‘second-person’ utterances at once familiar and deeply strange. I regard the ‘second person’ as a special case of narrative ‘person’ that, at its most fluid, can produce an experience of reading quite unlike that of reading traditional ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narrative. Essentially, this unique experience comes about because Protean-‘you’ neglects to constitute the stable modes of subjectivity that readers expect to find within narrative textuality. These stable modes of subjectivity, modelled on what I will refer to as Cartesianism’s hegemonic notion of the self, have been thoroughly formalised and naturalised within the practices of ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narrative. The Protean-‘you’ form of ‘second-person’ narrative, conversely, is a mode of narrative discourse that puts readers in a place of doubt and uncertainty, its unsettling equivocations forcefully disrupting accustomed, mimetic explanations of narrative and denying us access to the foundational, authorising subject of classical Cartesian thought. Rather than founding a notion of ‘second-person’ narrative and narrative ‘person’ generally on Cartesianism's ‘self-ish’ logic of unified, privatised identity, I turn to C.S, Peirce's notion of the semiotic self and to developments in post-structuralist thought. Essentially, the conception of subjectivity underpinning my arguments is Peirce's proposition that the self is to be conceived of not as a cogito, but as a sign by which the conscious entity knows itself. It is a sign, moreover, that is constantly being re-read, reinterpreted, so that identity is never self-complete. This reconception of subjectivity is necessary because 1 will argue that the effects of Protean-‘you’ arise in some part from a tension between Cartesianism's hegemony and what philosophical pragmatism and post-structuralism glimpse as the actual condition of the human subject—the subject as dispersed and contingent rather than unified and authoritative. Most discussions of ‘second-person’ narrative conceive of the mode in terms of implicit communicative relations, in some measure instituting Cartesianism's notion of the intentionalist self at the centre of literary meaning. I contrast the paradigmatic address model that arises from this conception against a model that approaches the analysis of ‘second-person’ narrative modality in terms of a referential function, that is, in terms of the object or objects referred to deictically by the ‘second-person’ pronoun. Two principal functions of ‘second-person’ textuality are identified and discussed at length. The first is generalisation, which is rarely dissipated altogether, a situation that contributes to the ambiguities of the pronoun's reference in much ‘second-person’ fiction. The second principal function is that of address, that is, the allocutionary function. Clearly, although stories that continually refer to a ‘you’ can seem quite baffling and unnatural, not all ‘second-person’ narratives unsettle the reader. In order to make the ‘second person's’ outlandish narratives knowable and stable, we bring to bear on them in our habits of reading whatever hermeneutic frames, whatever interpretive keys, come to hand, including a large number of unexceptional forms of literary and ‘natural’ discourse that employ the ‘second-person’ pronoun. These forms include letter writing and internal dialogue (i.e., talking to one's self), the language of the courtroom, the travelogue, the maxim, and so on. In looking at the ways in which the radicalising potentials of ‘second-person’ discourse are contained or recuperated, I focus on issues of vraisemblance and mimesis. Vraisemblance can be described as the ‘system of conventions and expectations which rests on/reinforces that more general system of ‘mutual knowledge’ produced within a community for the realisation and maintenance of a whole social world’. All of the forms of the vraisemblable are already instituted within social, cultural relations, so that what vraisemblance describes is the way we fit the inscriptions we read-that is, the way in which we naturalise what we read-into those given cultural and social forms. I also look at the conventionalising and naturalising work done by notions of mimesis in explaining relations between the world, our being in it, and texts, proposing that mimesis provides a principle buttress by which the good standing of the metaphor of ‘person’ is preserved in traditional and pre-critical modes of analysis. Indeed, the critic’s recourse to ‘person’ is in some measure always an engagement with mimesis. Any discussion that maintains that mimesis is in some way productive of meaning-which this thesis in fact does-must identify mimesis as a merely conventional category within practices of reading and semiosis more generally, and at the very least remove that term from its traditional position of transparent primacy and authority. Some of the most interesting and insightful arguments about ‘second-person’ narrative propose that the ‘second person’s’ most striking effects derive from the constitution of an ‘intersubjective’ experience of reading in which the subject positions of the ‘you’-protagonist, reader-narratee and narrator are combined into a fluid and indeterminate multiple subjectivity. Notions of intersubjectivity frequently position themselves as liberating the reader from Cartesianism's fixed, authoritative modes of subjectivity, Frequently, however, they tend implicitly to reinstate Cartesianism's notion of the self at the centre of textual practice and subjectivity. I look at Daniel Gunn's novel ‘Almost You’, at length in this context, illustrating the constant overdetermination of the ‘you’ and the novel's narrating voice, and demonstrating that this overdetermination leaves the origin of the narrative discourse, the identity of the narrator, and the ontological nature of both principal protagonists utterly ambiguous. The fluidity and ambiguity of Protean-‘you’ in ‘Almost You’ is discussed in terms of ‘second-person’ intersubjectivity, but with a view to demonstrating the indebtedness by the notion of intersubjectivity to Cartesianism's hegemony of ‘person’. I then turn to a discussion of what might be a more ‘old fashioned’ if perhaps ultimately more far-reaching approach to the ‘second person’s’ often startling ambiguities. This is Keats's notion of negative capability, a capacity or quality in which a person ‘is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ I suggest that Protean-‘you’ texts will license all of the readings of ambiguity and fluidity proposed in my discussion of ‘Almost You’, but conclude that the instances of indeterminacy illustrate no more than that: the fluidity and deep ambiguity, and thus, finally, the lack of coherence, of Protean-‘you’ discourse. This has particular implications for how we are to consider readers’ experiences of narrative texts. More fundamentally, it has implications for how we are to consider readers as subjects. I suggest that unstable, ambiguous instances of ‘second-person’ narrative can tear the complex and systematic embroidery of ideological suture that unifies Cretinism’s experience or sense of subjectivity, leaving the reader in a condition of epistemological and ontological havoc. I go on to argue that much of the deeply unsettling effect of Protean-‘you’ discourse anises because its utterances explicitly gesture towards Cretinism’s notion of self. Protean-‘you’ involves a sense of address that is much more pronounced than we are accustomed to facing when reading literary narrative, alerting us to the presence of inscribed anthropomorphic subjects. At the very same time, protean-‘you’ leaves its inscribed subjects indeterminate, ambiguous. This conflict generates a tension between the anticipation of the emergence of speaking and listening selves and our inability to find them. I go on to propose that Protean-‘you’ narrative's lack of coherence is also to be understood as the condition of narrative actuality generally, but a condition that is vigorously mediated against by dominant practices of reading and writing, hocusing my discussion in this respect on the issue of narrative ‘person,’ I argue that narrative ‘person’ is constituted within texts as an apparent unity, but that it is in fact, produced as unitary solely within the practice of making sense, that is, Within our habits of reading, and so is never finally unified. I propose that this is the case for ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ modes no less than for the ‘second.’ Where ‘second-person’ narrative at its most radical and Protean differs from conventional ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narratives is the degree to which each has been circumscribed by practices of tantalization, containment and limit, and, in particular, Cretinism’s hegemony of ‘person.’ It may be that the most significant insights ‘second-person’ narrative has to offer are to be found within its capacity to reveal to the engaged reader the underlying condition of narrative discourse, and more generally, its capacity to reveal the actual condition of the human subject-a condition in which, exactly like its textual corollary of narrative ‘person,’ the self is glimpsed as thoroughly dispersed and contingent.

Socio-economic inequalities in mortality persist into old age in New Zealand : study of all 65 years plus, 2001-04

A number of studies have explored the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and mortality, although these have mostly been based on the working age population, despite the fact that the burden of mortality is highest in older people. Using Poisson regression on linked New Zealand census and mortality data (2001 to 2004, 1.3 million person years) with a comprehensive set of socioeconomic indicators (education, income, car access, housing tenure, neighourhood deprivation) we examined the association of socioeconomic characteristics and older adult mortality (65+ years) in New Zealand. We found that socioeconomic mortality gradients persist into old age. Substantial relative risks of mortality were observed for all socioeconomic factors, except housing tenure. Most relative risk associations decreased in strength with aging (e.g. most deprived compared to least deprived rate ratio for males reducing from 1.40 (95% CI 1.28 to 1.53) for 65-74 year olds to 1.13 (1.00 to 1.28) for 85+ year olds), except for income and education among women where the rate ratios changed little with increasing age. This suggests individual level measures of SES are more closely related to mortality in older women than older men. Comparing across genders, the only statistically significantly different association between men and women was for a weaker association for women for car access.