Search

There is a growing interest in quality of life (QoL) as an integrated approach to addressing key social, environmental and economic determinants of health. The University of Saskatchewan’s Community-University Institute for Social Research (CUISR) has examined the process and results of a multi-stakeholder approach to the ongoing sustainability of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan as a healthy city with an improving and a more equitably distributed QoL. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, this research has examined QoL across three locales in Saskatoon—representing Low, Middle and High socio-economic status neighbourhoods. Two large telephone surveys were conducted with residents of the city in 2001 and 2004. This paper presents the major findings from these two surveys according to four overarching research questions posed by the CUISR QoL team. The questions relate to a number of QoL issues including the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, place related measures, aspects influencing excellent or very good QoL in Saskatoon and feelings of a strong sense of place. The paper also assesses the changes in the results of the four questions between 2001 and 2004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates linear structural models using LISREL and employs MIMIC models to find out factors determining child health in Pakistan. A distinction has been made in permanent and transitory health states that lend support to Grossman’s (1972) stock and flow concepts of health. The paper addresses the issue of health unobservability and finds out that latent variables using MIMIC models best represent underlying child health states. To overcome problems of poor income data, factor analysis is applied to extract measures of housing and durables as indicators of socio-economic well-being of children in Pakistan. The results of the study show that child health states, both permanent and transitory, are affected significantly by factors such as parental education, socio-economic conditions, and health care variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can social indicator research improve understanding of community health as well as inform stakeholders about the assets disadvantaged communities have for coping with disparities? This paper describes the development and evolution of the Partnership for Assessment of Communities (PAC) and its best practices for social indicator research. The PAC will be of interest to researchers across multiple disciplines for a number of reasons. First, PAC is a working model of best practices for multidisciplinary scholarly inquiry. Second, it has developed an integrated model of quantitative and qualitative methodology to define and measure community health as compared to traditional quality-of-life indicators. Third, it serves as an example of 'action research,' in that the findings have the potential to make an impact on community stakeholders and policy outcomes in the greater Central San Joaquin Valley of California, a region characterized by deep social and economic disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The weightings of the four component indicators of the UNDP’s Human Development Index HDI appear to be arbitrary and have not been given justification. This paper develops a variant of the HDI, calculated to reflect peoples’ revealed evaluations of education and the productivity of work. The resulting Calibrated human Development Index CDI has a simpler structure, places greater weight on life expectancy and lesser weight on education. It is validated by high correlation with life evaluations from the World Values Survey. The CDI ranks countries much like the HDI. More importantly, its provenance permits it to be used to assess specific policies, regulations, safety standards, life-saving interventions and health-care alternatives. The CDI is a unified tool for policy evaluation and decision support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodology for making cross-national comparisons is an area of increasing interest in social and public health related research. When studying socio-economic differences in health outcomes cross-nationally, there are several methodological issues of concern, especially when data is derived from self-reported questionnaires. Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (Currie et al. ) is a WHO cross-national study using school samples. HBSC provides comparable data, and thereby a unique opportunity to study associations between social indicators and health outcomes within an international perspective. In 2001/02 data was collected from a total of 162,323 children in 32 countries (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA.). Studies of social inequalities requires that a comparable measure of socio-economic position (SEP) is in use. HBSC has developed a proxy for social position measuring material wealth, the Family Affluence Scale (FAS). This paper studies FAS and whether it is comparable across population subgroups defined by country, age and gender. Initial analysis revealed that an item measuring perceived family wealth was a valid FAS item. Including this item in the FAS score will improve the reliability of FAS. Graphical log-linear Rasch models (GLLRM) showed that FAS contain differential item functioning (DIF) with respect to country, age, and gender as well as local dependency (LD) between items. During the analysis, test equating techniques where used to adjust for the test bias generated by DIF. We recommend that the equated scores are used whenever FAS is included as a variable. This study suggests that HBSC-FAS should contain five items (additional item: perceived family wealth) when analysing data from HBSC 2001/02, and furthermore that each country should adjust for the DIF or make use of the converted FAS scores provided. If using FAS as a proxy for social position at an international level, it is not advised to compare the absolute levels of FAS, but weigh the scale by ridit transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing interest in quality of life as an integrated approach to addressing key social, environmental and economic determinants of health. The University of Saskatchewan’s Community-University Institute for Social Research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (grant #410-2004-0669) has examined the process and results of a multi-stakeholder approach to the ongoing sustainability of Saskatoon, Canada as a healthy city with an improving and a more equitably distributed quality of life. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, together with GIS technology, this research has examined the quality of life across three locales in Saskatoon—representing Low, Middle and High socio-economic status in both 2001 and 2004. The participatory action research approach used in this work ensures the value of the outputs to the stakeholders. Given the strong recognition of the importance of interfacing policy, research and community, and the growing impatience with the limited application of research findings to social and health practices and policies, this project has undertaken four major knowledge translation/transfer strategies, above and beyond the traditional academic channels: (1) engagement of local media on a consistent basis, (2) implementing community policy forums to ensure continued community readiness and uptake, (3) facilitation of and successful functioning of a steering committee, and (4) employment of an action researcher to operate as a policy entrepreneur. This paper will review and discuss each of these strategies and outline the evaluative research being done to document the success of these strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends and further validates the quality-of-life/ community-healthcare model and measures developed by Rahtz and Sirgy (2000). The quality of life (QOL) model is based on the theoretical notion that community residents' satisfaction with healthcare services available within their community affects community quality of life and life satisfaction. This study extends the model and, in keeping with past research, posits that the bottom-up spillover from community QOL to life satisfaction is greater for those individuals with low personal health satisfaction, lower income, and old age. Data were collected from 1094 community residents in the East-Coast area of the United States. The results provide good support of the new model. Managerial implications and applications for the new model are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]