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This paper attempts to explain the higher psychological distress and psychological vulnerability of women and the unmarried as a function of greater exposure to uncontrollable life events (including network events) and perceived lack of control over life circumstances. Panel data on a sample of 1,106 adult heads of household living in Chicago provide measures of relevant variables. Contrary to expectation, event exposure is inconsistently associated with gender and marital status; instead, exposure depends on the types of roles held by individuals. Although group members at higher risk of disturbance perceive less control over their lives, these perceptions neither singly nor jointly with event exposure, explain gender or marital status differences in psychological distress or in vulnerability to negative events in general. In light of these findings, the utilities of a "common stress" and a "unique stress" approach for explaining status differences in symptoms are contrasted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although considerable evidence shows that residential segregation is deleterious to the health of African Americans, findings regarding segregation and health for Hispanic Americans are inconsistent. Competing hypotheses regarding the effects of neighborhood segregation on health are tested with data from Puerto Rican and Mexican American residents of Chicago. Multilevel analyses reveal that segregation is associated with more health problems for Puerto Rican Americans but not for Mexican Americans. In addition, the relationship between segregation and health was conditioned by generational status for Mexican Americans: Second- or later-generation Mexican Americans living in highly segregated neighborhoods had better health than first-generation Mexican Americans in such neighborhoods. These findings reveal that residential segregation has differential effects across Hispanic groups and suggest that a high degree of contact with Mexican Americans promotes health by facilitating flow of informal health resources and social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from the 1984 Illinois Comparative Health Survey are used to examine whether the poor have adopted a consumer orientation toward professional health services in view of the reduction of financial barriers and clear signs of increased physician utilization. It was found, however, that lower-status persons stand as more or less passive recipients of such services. with a significantly greater tendency to invest responsibility for their own physical health in the health-care delivery system itself. Yet there was a general lack of difference with respect to health lifestyles involving food habits, emphasis on appearance, sports and exercise, smoking, and alcohol use. A culture-of-medicine thesis was found to provide a stronger explanation of this situation than a culture-of-poverty perspective. Medicine and the mass media have promoted the practice of a healthy lifestyle, but have not encouraged consumerism in the physician-patient relationship. Consequently, it appears that where social institutions provide positive sanctions, self-management and consumerism seems to grow for the poor; but where negative sanctions exist, consumerism does not seem to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]