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Now that the threat of infectious disease is under control among the Native American population, the prevalence of chronic disease and occupational illness has become the focus of concern, particularly in relation to associated mortality and morbidity. This analysis addresses the issue of disability as caused by chronic illness, accidents and occupational illness among native populations and provides prevalence estimates of disability as measured by functional and activity limitations. The analysis also provides a description of the socioeconomic situation among Native Americans with various impairments and limitations. Compared to whites, blacks and persons of other races, Native Americans report the highest levels of impairment and functional and activity limitations. Overall, 32% report some type of limitation. As for those of all other races, the rates of prevalence increase with age and are associated with low levels of education and income. However, the rates among the youngest age group of Native Americans are greater whether examining physical limitations or task/activity limitations. Logistic regression analysis indicates that when controlling for all the characteristics commonly associated with limitations and impairment, race continues to be a predictor of both physical and task/activity limitations, with Native Americans 29% more likely to report some form of limitation.

The mid-1990s marked a paradigm shift in the way physical activity is promoted, and walking is now considered the most suitable type of physical activity for widespread promotion. Accurate measurement underpins public health practice, hence the aims of this chapter are to: (1) provide a typology for the measurement of walking; (2) review methods to assess walking; (3) present challenges in defining walking measures; (4) identify issues in selecting instruments for the evaluation of walking and (5) discuss current efforts to overcome measurement challenges and methodological limitations. The taxonomy of walking indicates that secondary purpose walking is a more complex set of behaviours than primary purpose walks. It has many purposes and no specific domain or intensity, may lack regularity, and therefore poses greater measurement challenges. Objective measurement methods, such as accelerometers, pedometers, smartphones and other electronic devices, have shown good approximation for walking energy expenditure, but are indirect methods of walking assessment. Global Positioning System technology, the ‘Smartmat’ and radio-frequency identification tags are potential objective methods that can distinguish walkers, but also require complex analysis, are costly, and still need their measurement properties corroborated. Subjective direct methods, such as questionnaires, diaries and direct observation, provide the richest information on walking, especially short-term diaries, such as trip records and time use records, and are particularly useful for assessing secondary purpose walking. A unifying measure for health research, surveillance and health promotion would strongly advance the understanding of the impact of walking on health.

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is an occlusive atherosclerotic disease that affects blood vessels and reduces blood flow in the lower limbs. It is estimated that around 200 million people worldwide suffered from it, with a significant number of older people affected. Walking is one of the first-line therapeutic measures for intermittent claudication (IC) in patients with PAD. Supervised Exercise Therapy (SET) programs effectively increase walking distances, however, remain an underutilized tool because they are not readily available in most clinical centres, are extremely expensive, and patient participation is low mainly due to socioeconomic constraints. Home-based Exercise Therapy (HBET) programs are an effective and low-cost alternative to improve both the functional capacity and quality of life (QoL) of patients with IC, as they are performed in the patient’s area of residence and not in the hospital. The WalkingPad program conciliated a smartphone app – the WalkingPad app – with behaviour change intervention to increase walking distances and decrease walking impairment as well to improve QoL at 6 months.

National estimates of persons with disability are of great importance since they inform policy and program development. However, accurate estimation depends on accurate measurement, and disability measurement is still evolving. Using data from the 1994–1995 National Health Interview Survey and Disability Supplement, this study examines the relationship between functional and activity limitations and equipment use in order to characterize the influence of environmental factors on disability measurement. Our findings highlight the challenging methodologic issues related to measuring a concept of disability that reflects person–environment interactions.

This chapter reviews and integrates recent research on curiosity. We discuss potential costs and benefits of curiosity, both hedonic and motivational. In particular, we examine the Pandora effect, the teasing effect, and the motivating-uncertainty effect.

Health promotion and rehabilitation models of care are valuable for persons with chronic health conditions, but when these individuals are dependent on a life-maintaining technology, such as kidney dialysis, a cure-oriented model may dominate the system within which they receive care. Providers can preserve their monopoly over expert treatment knowledge by defining the key care issues, by limiting patients’ access to expert knowledge, and by discrediting the patient as a responsible actor. Multiple care paradigms can benefit patients with chronic conditions, however, empowering the patient-actor to collaborate with the clinician to maximize functioning and well-being as well as patient survival.

This study explores the social, biological, and genetic determinants of depression in later life. It adds complexity to the idea that later life depression is a natural outgrowth of vascular impairment, antagonistic pleiotropy, or compromised neuroanatomical structures, arguing instead for the importance of education as a fundamental cause.

The study uses the NAS-NRC Twin Registry of World War II Veterans. The use of twins permits the exploration of gene-environment interplay. A recent survey instrument associated with the registry contains numerous indicators of health, including a measure of depression.

The results show that education has a strong negative relationship with depression among those in their 70s and early 80s. Although this relationship is partly explained by lower rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes among the well-educated, the relationship between education and many common physical illnesses is quite small. Most people of this age experience at least one chronic illness. The relationship between education and depression is explained, instead, by how education reduces impairments in activities of daily living. These impairments are not an inevitable outgrowth of declining health. The well-educated are better able to moderate the impact of poor health on daily functioning. Moreover, the well-educated are able to avoid the otherwise strong genetic risks for depression in later life. Gene × environment models show a high heritability for later life depression on average, but also reveal that this heritability declines with increasing education. Among those with a four-year college degree, the heritability of depression is very small.

These patterns are interpreted in light of compensatory gene × environment interactions, which emphasize the importance of especially enriched environments for overcoming genetic risk.

As sociologists we all try to make a contribution to our field. Having completed our comprehensives and dissertations we have read in depth in several areas, have focused on an area that interests us, and have learned the research process whether it uses quantitative or qualitative methodology. We all make our contributions available to the field, but occasionally one among us makes a startling discovery, has an unusual idea or a way to approach a problem, starts examining a new problem at just the right moment, or has an insight into a specific conceptual problem with unusual alacrity. A few among us combine all that skill and happenstance and lead the way into new sociological insights, new areas of research and provide a notable foundation or advancement to an area of knowledge. Saad Nagi is one of those contributors with vision, insight, and skill to see ahead of his time. This paper attempts to bring together in one place his major contributions to the disability knowledge base in sociology.

The approach used in this paper is an in depth review of all of Nagi’s published works in the area of disability. The published literature is grouped into the five areas in which Nagi made major contributions, including major research of the Social Security Disability Insurance process; development of a framework for the disability process; epidemiological definitions and research; development of a coherent set of disability measures; and an examination of the social problem, policy, and program process as developed and practiced in this country.

Nagi made a large and significant contribution in all the areas listed above and much of the measurement, and process examination is still relevant and useful in current research. His framework is still the basis for the very newest models of disability which dominate disability research today.

Researchers need to go back to find Nagi books and articles written in the 60s, 70s, and 80s to ground their work in the originals rather than to take the interpretations of others on this material. The ICF and the Social Model did not originate in Europe alone, but much of the work began in the states in the early 60s with the work of Nagi, Haber, and others and should not be overlooked or ignored.