PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Ruth E Malone

Publications and source records attributed to Ruth E Malone.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

Distal nursing.

This paper considers the spatial dynamics of nurse-patient relationships within hospitals, primarily in the USA, under conditions of organizational restructuring, and situates them within social theoretical perspectives on space. As a human practice to which relationship is considered essential, nursing depends upon sustaining an often taken-for-granted proximity to patients. But hospital nursing, I argue in this paper, is increasingly constrained by spatial-structural practices that disrupt relationship and reduce or eliminate such proximity. Three kinds of proximity are threatened: physical, narrative, and moral. Examining these proximities through a place-space lens suggests that nursing is increasingly "distal" to patient care. There are potentially dangerous implications in this loss of proximity.

Ethics, Institutional↗
PubMed2003

Altria means tobacco: Philip Morris's identity crisis.

Philip Morris Companies, the world's largest and most profitable tobacco seller, has changed its corporate name to The Altria Group. The company has also embarked on a plan to improve its corporate image. Examination of internal company documents reveals that these changes have been planned for over a decade and that the company expects to reap specific and substantial rewards from them. Tobacco control advocates should be alert to the threat Philip Morris's plans pose to industry focused tobacco control campaigns. Company documents also suggest what the vulnerabilities of those plans are and how advocates might best exploit them.

Consumer Advocacy↗
PubMed2003

The outing of Philip Morris: advertising tobacco to gay men.

OBJECTIVES: This case study describes the events surrounding the first time a major tobacco company advertised in gay media. METHODS: We analyzed internal tobacco company documents, mainstream newspapers, and the gay press. RESULTS: Philip Morris was unprepared for the attention its entry into the gay market received. The company's reaction to this incident demonstrates that its approach to the gay community both parallels and diverges from industry strategies toward other marginalized communities. CONCLUSIONS: The tobacco industry's relationship to the gay community is relatively undeveloped, a fact that may provide tobacco control advocates an opportunity for early intervention. The gay community's particular vulnerabilities to the industry make development of gay tobacco control programs crucial to reducing gay smoking prevalence and industry presence in the community.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Tobacco industry surveillance of public health groups: the case of STAT (Stop Teenage Addiction to Tobacco) and INFACT (Infant Formula Action Coalition).

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study was to describe how the tobacco industry collects information about public health groups. METHODS: Publicly available internal tobacco industry documents were reviewed and analyzed using a chronological case study approach. RESULTS: The industry engaged in aggressive intelligence gathering, used intermediaries to obtain materials under false pretenses, sent public relations spies to the organizations' meetings, and covertly taped strategy sessions. Other industry strategies included publicly minimizing the effects of boycotts, painting health advocates as "extreme," identifying and exploiting disagreements, and planning to "redirect the funding" of tobacco control organizations to other purposes. CONCLUSIONS: Public health advocates often make light of tobacco industry observers, but industry surveillance may be real, intense, and covert and may obstruct public health initiatives.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Economism, efficiency, and the moral ecology of good nursing practice.

The free-market rhetoric dominating health-policy discussions today frames health-care goods and services as commodities that consumers will or will not buy at a given price. Health-care systems are being redesigned and hospitals restructured with a view to increased efficiency and productivity. Drawing on the experiences of clinical nurses in the United States, this paper shows how the application of economism to nursing may severely disrupt the ecology of good practice, leading to difficulties in meeting minimal standards of nursing care and severely constraining the acts of compassion called for by the human experiences of illness, loss, and death. Concerns about moral responsibility and conflicts between institutional and nursing goals are described. Increasing mistrust of health-care systems on the part of practitioners, patients, and families suggests that it is time to attend closely to the moral ecology of caring practices.

Economics, Nursing↗
PubMedDate not supplied

High school journalists' perspectives on tobacco.

How issues are covered in the media is an important factor in influencing public opinion, policy, and individual behavior. During the 1990s, the tobacco control movement developed a youth focus, prompted by research showing that most adult smokers begin tobacco use as teens. However, concern has been raised that this youth focus has derailed the overall goal of achieving a smoke-free society. Numerous studies have analyzed tobacco coverage and documented the impacts of media messages on youth. To learn how tobacco is covered in a medium primarily produced by and for youth, we conducted an analysis of tobacco coverage in high school newspapers. High school newspapers, like other media, communicate social messages through both content selection and framing. We surveyed a national sample of high school journalists and conducted content and frames analyses of tobacco articles (n = 257) from their publications. The most commonly used frame was "kids" (46%), followed by "killer" (31%), "nonsmokers' rights" (10%), and "choice" (5%). "Kids"-framed articles were less likely to mention health effects and less likely to be favorable toward tobacco control policies than "killer"-framed articles. In addition, many "kids" articles included "resistance statements" congruent with viewing tobacco use as rebellion and/or independence. Lack of a consistently used frame has been identified as a barrier to effective tobacco control. Tobacco control media advocacy should focus on developing frames that are easily communicated, consistently used, and compatible with the developmental tasks of adolescents. Youth journalists should also be included in media advocacy efforts.

Adolescent↗