‘It’s good being part of the community and doing the right thing’: (Re)problematising ‘community’ in new recovery-oriented policy and consumer accounts

The renewed focus on ‘recovery’ in alcohol and other drug policy over the last decade has been subject to sustained international attention and academic critique. However, little scholarly work has addressed how new recovery discourse has harnessed the ideals of community participation and cohesion and how people who use drugs, the targets of such proposals, experience these injunctions. Analysing the two most recent Australian National Drug Strategies – in which new recovery has featured – and interviews with people who inject drugs, I draw on Bacchi’s problematisation approach to make visible the politics of community in new recovery. My analysis demonstrates that there has been a shift in the way new recovery is framed from recovery through community reintegration and reconnection to recovery through ‘evidence-based’ treatment. However, community endures as an important dividing practice that targets people who regularly use drugs as dependent, unproductive and marginal to social life, while also claiming to be the solution to the disorder attributed to alcohol and other drug use. In the second half of this article, I draw on people’s accounts of regular drug use and recovery to explore the ‘lived effects’ of these problematisations and to pursue a critical practice of thinking otherwise. I argue that these accounts disrupt and contest the problematisations and promises underpinning recovery through community reintegration by: 1) drawing attention to the way in which the boundaries of community exclude inclusion for people who use drugs, and emphasising people’s already existing social relationships; 2) making present hitherto silenced and unproblematised barriers to social connection; and 3) critiquing the normative fantasies of healthy society and citizenship that underpin recovery. In concluding I consider the politics of appeals to community in new recovery-oriented policy, and suggest the need to foreground consumer accounts in problematisation-oriented analyses in order to better contest authoritative enactments of drug ‘problems’ that bear little resemblance to the challenges people face.     

The role of weight bias and role-modeling in medical students’ patient-centered communication with higher weight standardized patients

ObjectivePatients with obesity may experience less patient-centered care. We assessed whether medical students’ implicit/explicit weight-related attitudes and perceptions of normative attitudes are associated with patient-centered care for patients with obesity.MethodsThird and fourth year medical students (N = 111) at one medical school completed a survey and participated in a patient care scenario with a standardized patient with obesity. Encounters were coded for patient-centered behavior. Predictors of patient-centered behaviors were assessed.ResultsStudent perceptions that negative attitudes about patients with obesity are normative in medical school were significantly associated with poorer patient-centered behaviors, including lower attentiveness (b=?0.19, p = 0.01), friendliness (b=?0.28, p < 0.001), responsiveness (b=?0.21, p = 0.002), respectfulness (b=?0.17, p = 0.003), interactivity (b=?0.22, p = 0.003), likelihood of being recommended by observers (b=?0.34, p < 0.001), and patient-centeredness index scores (b=?0.16, p = 0.002). Student reported faculty role-modeling of discrimination against patients with obesity predicted lower friendliness (b=?0.16, p = 0.03), recommendation likelihood (b=?0.22, p = 0.04), and patient-centeredness index score (b=?0.12, p = 0.03).ConclusionsNegative normative attitudes and behaviors regarding obesity in the medical school environment may adversely influence the quality of patient-centered behaviors provided to patients with obesity.Practice implicationsEfforts to improve patient-centered communication quality among medical trainees may benefit from intervention to improve group normative attitudes about patients with obesity.     

Stigma rises despite antiretroviral roll-out: A longitudinal analysis in South Africa

Stigma is a recognised problem for effective prevention, treatment, and care of HIV/AIDS. However, few studies have measured changes in the magnitude and character of stigma over time. This paper provides the first quantitative evaluation in Africa of the changing nature of stigma and the potential determinants of these changes. More specifically, it evaluates the dynamic relationship between stigma and (1) increased personal contact with people living with HIV/AIDS and (2) knowing people who died of AIDS. Panel survey data collected in Cape town 2003 and 2006 for 1074 young adults aged 14–22 years were used to evaluate changes in three distinct dimensions of stigma: behavioural intentions towards people living with HIV/AIDS; instrumental stigma; and symbolic stigma. Individual fixed effects regression models are used to evaluate factors that influence stigma over time. Each dimension of stigma increased in the population as a whole, and for all racial and gender sub-groups. Symbolic stigma increased the most, followed by instrumental stigma, while negative behavioural intentions showed a modest increase. Knowing someone who died of AIDS was significantly associated with an increase in instrumental stigma and symbolic stigma, while increased personal contact with people living with HIV/AIDS was not significantly associated with any changes in stigma. Despite interventions, such as public-sector provision of antiretroviral treatment (which some hoped would have reduced stigma), stigma increased among a sample highly targeted with HIV-prevention messages. These findings emphasise that changes in stigma are difficult to predict and thus important to monitor. They also indicate the imperative for renewed efforts to reduce stigma, perhaps through interventions to weaken the association between HIV/AIDS and death, to reduce fear of HIV/AIDS, and to recast HIV as a chronic manageable disease.     

Social stigma for adults and children with epilepsy

Summary   For many people with epilepsy, the continuing social reality of their condition is as a stigma. Epilepsy stigma has three different levels; internalized, interpersonal, and institutional. While there have been documented improvements in public attitudes towards epilepsy, the remnants of "old" ideas about epilepsy continue to inform popular concepts resulting in a difficult social environment for those affected. The social and quality of life problems arising from a diagnosis of epilepsy can represent greater challenges than are warranted by its clinical severity. The relationship between stigma and impaired quality of life is well documented. Tackling the problem of stigma effectively requires that all three of different levels at which it operates are systematically addressed.     

医疗服务过程中艾滋病相关的耻辱与歧视

人类免疫缺陷病毒/艾滋病(HIV/AIDS)相关的耻辱与歧视已成为目前HIV/AIDS防治工作的最主要问题之一,特别是在医疗卫生服务过程中更引起了研究者和全社会的重视。本文对国内外卫生服务过程中HIV/AIDS相关的耻辱与歧视的现状、造成的影响以及目前的对策进行了概述,并对其原因进行了初步分析。     

Sleep Problems among Mothers of Youth Stopped by the Police

Police stops are the most common form of criminal justice exposure in the USA, and are particularly common among urban youth, with 23% of them reporting a stop by the age of 15. While recent work has begun to illuminate the health impacts of police stops for these youth, little is known about the health consequences of youth police contact for the mothers of youth stopped by the police. The current study employs data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a sample of urban, at-risk youth and their families. Multivariate logistic regression models are conducted to examine the link between youth police stops and sleep difficulties among mothers. Additional analyses examine whether the features and consequences of police stops are associated with sleep difficulties among mothers. The findings indicate that mothers with youth who have experienced police stops are more than twice as likely to report both depression- and anxiety-related sleep difficulties compared to their counterparts. Furthermore, stops with certain features—including those characterized by intrusiveness, high trauma, and high stigma—emerged as consistently significant predictors of maternal sleep difficulties. The findings suggest that mothers who are vicariously exposed to police contact via their children are a vulnerable group. Given the non-random distribution of police contact across the population of youth, with police contact concentrated among children of color, the findings suggest that police contact may exacerbate racial inequalities in sleep, which may itself contribute to racial disparities in broader mental and physical health outcomes.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11524-021-00518-1.     

Stigma in place: Black gay men's experiences of the rural South

Black gay men (MSM) in the rural United States South are inequitably burdened by stigmatization and the HIV epidemic. Drawing from twelve oral history interviews with middle-aged and older Black gay narrators from rural North Carolina, this research explores the impact of sexual marginalization and the HIV epidemic on lived experiences of the rural South. Despite describing increasingly empowered views of HIV and sexual health, narrators expressed persistent difficulty managing social determinants of HIV vulnerability—sexual stigma and disconnection from LGBTQ collectivity. Narrators reported better managing sexual marginalization over their lifetimes in urban settings and places outside of the South such as New York (NY). This research suggests stressful structural and interpersonal experiences of stigma may define lived experiences of particular settings.     

PLIF手术部位早期感染的危险因素

【摘要】 目的 探讨HIV感染者/AIDS患者的病耻感水平并分析其影响因素及其与生活质量相关性。方法 采用一般资料调查表、社会影响量表（SIS）及SF36量表对2016年10月~2017年11月在北京佑安医院性病艾滋病门诊复诊的278例门诊HIV感染者/AIDS患者进行问卷调查并分析。结果 HIV感染者/AIDS患者病耻感标准化总分为(6690±1277) 分,不同婚姻状况、文化程度、月收入、有无稳定住所、HIV感染时间、感染途径的患者病耻感水平比较差异具有统计学意义（P＜005）。患者在情感职能、心理健康维度与SIS总分及各维度得分均呈负相关(均P＜005)。多元回归分析显示,有无稳定住所、感染时间、感染途径、情感职能及心理健康均与HIV感染者/AIDS患者病耻感相关。结论 HIV感染者/AIDS患者的病耻感水平受多种因素的影响,并与生活质量、情感职能及心理健康方面呈负相关,应引起临床医护人员的重视。     

西红花提取物对大鼠血小板聚集、软脑膜血流量和离体兔主动脉条的作用

经实验证明西红花提取物ＸＨＨ－１的小鼠灌胃ＬＤ５０大于１０ｇ／ｋｇ，毒性很小。ＸＨＨ－１的五个浓度（０．５、１、２、３、４ｍｇ／ｍｌＰＲＰ）均能显著地对抗由ＡＤＰ引起的大鼠体外血小板聚集，并缩短血小板最大聚集时间。ＸＨＨ－１浓度为４、８、１２ｍｇ／ｍｌ时，对ＫＣｌ引起的离体兔主动脉血管平滑肌的抑制作用与对照组相比都有非常显著的统计学意义。大鼠静注１０ｍｇ／ｋｇＸＨＨ－１后１０ｍｉｎ，软脑膜血流量增加５４％，２０ｍｉｎ时仍维持在相近水平，灌胃给药２５０ｍｇ／ｋｇ后３０ｍｉｎ。软脑膜血流量同给药前相比增加了３９％，至６０ｍｉｎ仍维持这一水平，均有显著统计学差异。