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Results for “Social Control, Formal”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1989

The primary prevention of alcohol problems: a critical review of the research literature.

The research evaluating the effects of programs and policies in reducing the incidence of alcohol problems is critically reviewed. Four types of preventive interventions are examined including: (1) policies affecting the physical, economic and social availability of alcohol (e.g., minimum legal drinking age, price and advertising of alcohol), (2) formal social controls on alcohol-related behavior (e.g., drinking-driving laws), (3) primary prevention programs (e.g., school-based alcohol education), and (4) environmental safety measures (e.g., automobile airbags). The research generally supports the efficacy of three alcohol-specific policies: raising the minimum legal drinking age to 21, increasing alcohol taxes and increasing the enforcement of drinking-driving laws. Also, research suggests that various environmental safety measures reduce the incidence of alcohol-related trauma. In contrast, little evidence currently exists to support the efficacy of primary prevention programs. However, a systems perspective of prevention suggests that prevention programs may become more efficacious after widespread adoption of prevention policies that lead to shifts in social norms regarding use of beverage alcohol.

Accidents, Traffic↗

PubMed1992

Value issues in biomedical science: public concerns and professional complacency.

Biomedical research was once an unquestioned good, and generous funding for a short time allowed researchers to work on whatever interested them. Two contradictory pressures have changed this. As costs have risen and economic rationalism has become politically dominant, governments, private corporations and granting agencies have increasingly demanded compliance with their own priorities, instrumental values and performance criteria. On the other hand, social and ethical critics have characterized biomedical research as being out of touch with real health needs and community values and as being an agent of social control that entrenches the power of a technocratic hegemony. The profession has largely acquiesced in bureaucratic and corporate intervention in exchange for continued funding, and assumed that social concerns could be allayed by 'top down' paternalistic education of the public. However, this response tends to add weight to the criticism that biomedicine is an agent of social control. What is needed is a spirited defence of the value of independent scholarship and research that is not limited to science but includes the humanities. Equally important is a process of community education in which scientists not only transmit their knowledge and enthusiasm to the public, but themselves become open to the social and ethical concerns of the community.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1989

The social control of human biomedical research: an overview and review of the literature.

Social control mechanisms have become an important element of human medical research in the United States. At first largely intraprofessional, controls over human experimentation have moved increasingly in the direction of externally developed, bureaucratically administered, and formally sanctioned rules. This paper examines intra- and extraprofessional methods of control over biomedical science and reviews available research assessing their effectiveness in promoting researcher adherence to high ethical standards concerning the use of human subjects. Research suggests that intraprofessional controls (including medical training, peer influence, ethical codes, and disciplinary boards), are, on their own, inadequate to ensure investigator ethicality. However, studies examining external controls over biomedical research (government regulations, institutional review boards, judicial and state law), also suggest that extraprofessional regulations are often ineffective. Further study of both forms of scientific social control is needed, as well as research examining their interactive effects on investigators' ethical attitudes and practices.

Education, Medical↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Drug abuse in Africa.

Apart from cannabis abuse in northern and southern Africa and khat chewing in north-eastern Africa, the history of drug abuse in Africa is relatively short. The abuse of drugs in Africa is nevertheless escalating rapidly from cannabis abuse to the more dangerous drugs and from limited groups of drug users to a wider range of people abusing drugs. The most common and available drug of abuse is still cannabis, which is known to be a contributing factor to the occurrence of a schizophrenic-like psychosis. The trafficking in and abuse of cocaine and heroin are the most recent developments in some African countries that had had no previous experience with these drugs. Efforts should be made to design and implement drug abuse assessment programmes to determine the real magnitude and characteristics of the problem and to monitor its trends. A lack of funds and a shortage of adequately trained personnel have made it difficult to implement drug abuse control programmes. In addition to formal drug control involving the implementation of legislation, there is an informal system of drug abuse control operating through the family, church, school, neighbourhood and work environment, as well as healthy recreational activities. It is suggested that efforts in African countries should be directed towards strengthening not only the formal drug control system but also informal control in order to compensate for the insufficient funds and the shortage of personnel trained in implementing formal drug control measures. It is very likely that the drug problems in African countries will worsen in future unless more effective measures are implemented to arrest the current situation.

Africa↗

PubMed1973