Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Persons with severe mental illness all too commonly become “frequent flyers” in jails and prisons across the United States, and given the robust relationship between mental illness, substance abuse and repeat incarcerations (Mateyoke-Scrivner, Webster, Hiller, Staton, and Leukefeld 2003; Borum, Swanson, Swartz, and Hiday 1997; Steadman et al, 1998; Swartz et al., 1999), we choose to examine the issue more closely by comparing severely mentally impaired inmates and a randomized sample of non-mentally ill inmates on measures of re-incarcerations; substance abuse; time spent in punitive segregation; and loss of meritorious good time. Medical histories and the state prison database serve as the two sources for data collection, which occurred between November 2006 and July 2007. We find repeat incarcerations among male inmates (n=124are significantly higher for the mentally ill; although no clear differences emerge among our small sample of female inmates (n=30). Our research concurs with prior studies that show almost three-quarters of incarcerated adults have serious mental illnesses that co-occur with substantial histories of substance abuse (Abram and Teplin 1991; Abram, Teplin, and McClelland 2003; DHHS 2002; Broner et al, 2003; Drake, Mercer-McFadden, Mueser, McHugo, and Bond 1998; Charles, Abram, McClelland and Teplin 2003; Edens, Peters and Hills 1997; Peters, Kearns, Murrin, and Dolente 1992; RachBeisel, Scott, and Dixon 1999). Specifically, we find that crack/cocaine and alcohol mediate the relationship between mental illness and recidivism. Also our analyses show that mentally-ill female inmates are more likely to spend more time in punitive segregation and lose meritorious good time than both male and female inmates.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Abstract
The purpose of this report is to provide a better understanding of the interplay between medical illness and mental illness otherwise known to as comorbidity in a community. The basis of this study reflects information from DSM-IV criteria, which is otherwise pertinent to Axis –III medical disorders that are associated with mental illness. Data was collected through secondary analysis in Bexar County. Six types of medical problems associated with mental illness were assessed in Bexar County from three mental health clinics from January 2005 to October 2006. Sociological variables such as sex, age and race were also examined in this population. Overall the most common medical problems associated with mental illness are diabetes type II, diabetes type I, hypertension, obesity, hepatitis chronic and asthma.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: For the last forty years, medical sociologists have equated the study of illness with the study of chronic illness because they have sought to turn away from the Parsonian paradigm of illness, whose ‘sick role’, with its various limitations, hinged on acute illness, and because they have assumed that chronic illnesses are more disruptive than are acute illnesses, partly because the former last longer and often do not end at all. Interviews with 28 people aged 19-72 eliciting descriptions of subjects’ worst illness and injury episodes showed that they recall these as severe because they disrupted their bodies, social relationships and social settings and/or tacit assumptions about them. This points to the socially and phenomenologically disruptive nature of acute illnesses and injuries hitherto ignored in the sociology of illness literature. It also suggests that we revisit the experience of acute conditions – a move that, given the conceptual tools provided by the very literature on chronic illness that emerged from a rejection of the Parsonian paradigm, we can now make with a greater degree of sensitivity to how the experience of illness unfolds across a range of interactional contexts than was available during the first body of work on acute illness.

Publication Type: Paper/Poster Proposal
Abstract: Quantitative studies have provided insight into the needs and desires of those who are dying as well as those who care for the dying. Yet survey research with the terminally ill is particularly challenging. There are a number of ways for error or bias to occur while researching this population. This is a narrative description of the experience of developing and administering a theoretically-based survey instrument to measure suffering in terminally ill patients. The setting is a Veterans Administration hospital and outpatient clinic.

This paper will describe issues involved in instrument development and administration in relation to population definition, recruitment decisions in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) environment, interviewer characteristics, item order, and protections for this highly vulnerable population. It also suggests that participation in research protocols offers the terminally ill an opportunity for personal growth and contribution to the larger community . Research into quality of life and suffering at end of life is developing more sophisticated quantitative strategies. Understanding the specific challenges involved in survey development and administration with the terminally ill will further the research agenda for end-of-life studies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper discusses the incidence and causes of infertility in the United States and the access to infertility treatment, and particularly IVF, and argues that framing the problem of involuntary childlessness as a private and medical problem, rather than an issue with social causes and implications, masks important issues of social justice. This mischaracterization, in turn, reinforces the perception that family matters are the responsibility of the individual: whether or not one is able to conceive depends on one’s body.

We approach the issue of social justice by examining the proposal that states should mandate insurance coverage of infertility treatment in order to create greater equality of opportunity for those wishing to have children. Proposals to require insurance coverage for infertility treatment pose a dilemma for egalitarians. On the one hand, mandatory insurance suggests that everyone has a right to equal access to the means of family formation; it undercuts the attitude that the reproductive desires of the affluent are worthy of respect and those of the poor are not. On the other hand, focusing on insurance coverage of fertility treatment does nothing to address the unjust social structures that contribute to involuntary childlessness. Nor does it challenge US policy makers’ unwillingness to recognize government’s obligation to support efforts to maintain as well as to form families. Advocates for social justice must weigh carefully the pros and cons of joining campaigns for mandatory insurance coverage of assisted procreation, and must work to keep the underlying social causes of much involuntary childlessness squarely in the public eye.