Healthy Outlook Division of Health, Health Policy and Health Services of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Spring 2010 Inside this issue: Statement from Co-Chair 1 News of Note! 2 Nominations 3 Conference Announcement 3 2010 SSSP Conference 4 2010 Grad Student Paper Competition 4 2010 SSSP Conference Hotel 5 Conference Announcement and CFP 6 Statement from the Co-Chair Debi Street Dear Colleagues and Friends of the Division: Edna A Viruell-Fuentes (division Co-Chair) and I look forward to seeing you at the 60th SSSP Annual Meeting in Atlanta from August 13-15, 2010. The sessions that Health, Health Policy and Health Services Division members have organized provide a platform for enlightenment about many issues important to our Division. We hope you plan to join us at the meeting and engage in this year’s theme: Social Justice Work. As you received the last newsletter, we were holding our collective breath, waiting to see if a year of political wrangling could produce a framework for health care reform. Now we know its outline, although the devil (as always) will be in its implementation details. The bill that President Obama signed into law is an important political and symbolic step towards reforming health care in ways that ensure the right to access for all Americans. We could argue that the President made the pragmatic choice to prevent the perfect getting in the way of the good, as he and other political leaders brokered the compromises that produced health care reform legislation. How far will its implementation honor the legislative intent? That depends. Much that will change is slated for four years in the future. In the meantime, vested interests in the health care industry, the state of the national economy, how citizens vote in the next few election cycles, and other influences will determine what we finally achieve. So what now can we do to give health care reform its best chance to succeed? I expect that question will be fodder for many lively conversations among Division members in Atlanta this summer. I personally invite each of you to join us, to reconnect with colleagues and friends (and make new ones) and to discuss audacious strategies about how we can help keep this window of opportunity open until real change occurs. Our annual meeting provides a safe and collegial environment where we can inform and inspire one another. Taking SSSP President JoAnn Miller’s charge seriously means we can roll up our sleeves and try to get some social justice work done. And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, we can hatch some nefarious plots based on our knowledge about health care and our passion for social justice, and conceive ways to help smooth the path toward meaningful health care reform. This year, many things seem possible. Please accept our invitation to join us in Atlanta. It should be an exciting meeting. Debi 1 News of Note! Stephen J. Morewitz, Department of Nursing and Health Sciences, California State University, East Bay, assisted in securing a Kaiser Permanente-funded Pioneer Wellness Challenge grant to encourage health promotion activities among first-year residential freshmen and was appointed a University Scholar presenter at San Jose State University for the spring 2010 semester, where he presented a lecture on his book Death Threats and Violence. New Research and Clinical Perspectives (New York: Springer, 2008). This book was featured in the March 25, 2010 issue of the San Jose State University Spartan Daily. Dr. Morewitz was also featured in the February 2010 issue of the American Sociological Association’s Footnotes for his work in forensic sociology. CONGRATULATIONS! Please let us know about new positions, books, successful dissertation defenses, or anything else you would like to share with division members! Please send News to: Miranda Waggoner waggoner@brandeis.edu Member Publications Jones, Jackie H. and Linda Treiber’s article “Concierge Medicine: The Perfect Storm? Implications for Nurse Practitioners” was published (2010) in The Journal for Nurse Practitioners 6(2):109-114. Laura S. Lorenz’s book, Brain Inury Survivors: Narratives of Rehabilitation and Healing, has been published (2010) by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. (Boulder, CO). The book enters the world of three brain injury survivors through their photographs and stories and evokes survivor achievements and challenges in coping with their brain injuries and changed lives. This work tackles systemic problems that undercut the quality of medical and social support for brain injury patients worldwide, and describes a new approach to improving care for people living with brain injury. Laura S. Lorenz and Bettina Kolb’s article “Involving the public through participatory visual methods” was published (2009) in Health Expectations 12:262-274. This article compares experiences in Morocco and the US to involve local residents and brain injury patients in health research through the use of the participatory visual methods photo-elicitation and photovoice. Frank Young and Kris Merschrod published an article entitled Child Health and NGOs in Peruvian Provinces, October 24, 2009, in Social Indicators Research online. The article contains an analysis of the role of NGOs with respect to health and reports regression results that link rural locations and female headed households to higher percents of (health) vulnerability and chronic malnutrition. Medical facilities did not predict. The NGO factor predicted lower percents of vulnerable children, net of the other factors. Spring 2010 Page 2 Division Nominations We are soliciting nominations for the position of Co-Chair for the Health, Health Services and Health Policy Division. Co-Chairs serve overlapping two year terms, and are jointly responsible for: developing the Division program (identifying sessions and organizers) for the annual meeting; running the Division business meeting at the annual meeting; working with the newsletter editor to assure publication of the annual newsletter; and other Division business. Self nominations are acceptable! Names of nominees must be submitted to the Executive Office no later than June 1, so please contact us soon if you wish to nominate someone, or to nominate yourself. If you are interested in learning more or in nominating yourself or another individual for this rewarding position, please contact Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes at eviruell@uiuc.edu for further information. Current Co-Chairs: Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes Division Co-Chair University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Latina and Latino Studies Program eviruell@uiuc.edu Debra Street Division Co-Chair The State University of New York at Buffalo dastreet@buffalo.edu Conference Announcement “A Time for Change: Restructuring America’s Health Care System,” Cornell University ILR School’s upcoming international health care conference, will be held in NYC on May 11 and 12, 2010. For registration information, see: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/events/healthCare/index.html Small group discussions, new concepts and practices and networking on: Creating Integrated Delivery Systems Engaging the Workforce Using Technology to Improve Patient Care Keynote Speakers David Skorton, M.D., President of Cornell University Jay Crosson, M.D., Kaiser Permanente, Vice Chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission Featured Speakers John August (Coalition of Kaiser Unions), Christine Bamford (NHS Wales), Amy Edmundson (Harvard), Suzanne Gordon (Author), John Kenagy (Author), Rob Mechanic (MIT), Steve Spear (MIT), Paul Starr (Princeton), union and management leaders and researchers from the US and Europe. For more information, please contact: Steven King at healthcareconf@cornell.edu Spring 2010 Page 3 2010 SSSP Conference, Atlanta, August 13-15, 2010 The preliminary program will be released on May 10 and will be detailed in the summer edition of Healthy Outlook! 60th Annual Meeting Registration The Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, 165 Courtland Street NE, Atlanta, GA 30303 **Program Participant Deadline: Program participants must preregister by May 31, 2010 See the SSSP site at http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/354/fuseaction/ssspconf.portal to find the registration form and for more information about registering for the Annual Meeting. If you are responsible for registering multiple individuals, you must complete the registration process for each individual. If you experience any problems while registering, please contact sssp@utk.edu Graduate Student Paper Competition Deadline: May 1, 2010 The Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division invites all graduate students to apply for this annual paper award competition. The paper should be related to the broad Division interest, including health and illness, health policy, and health services. The paper submission should not exceed 30 double-spaced pages and should be prepared for anonymous review (with the author specified on a title page but not referred to in other parts of the text). Current graduate students and recent graduates (who received their degrees after January 2009) may submit a paper if it was written while still a student. Papers based on theses or dissertations are acceptable. (Please do not submit the thesis or dissertation itself.) Co-authored papers are acceptable as long as all the listed authors are current graduate students. Double submission to other SSSP award competitions will be disqualified. The award recipient will be required to present the winning paper at the 2010 SSSP Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA. Thus it is strongly recommended that an abstract of the paper be submitted to any Health Division session organizer or the roundtable organizer by the January 31st deadline. The recipient will receive a monetary prize of $100, student membership to SSSP, SSSP conference registration, and a ticket to the SSSP awards banquet. Send an electronic copy of the paper (in Word format) and a cover letter identifying your graduate program to: Professor Elizabeth Ettorre, e.ettorre@liverpool.ac.uk Spring 2010 Page 4 The SSSP Conference Hotel The Sheraton Atlanta GROUP: THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS DATE: August 10 – August 18, 2010 RATES: $165 per night (standard single/double/triple/quadruple) Rate is exclusive of 15% tax and subject to change without notice Hotel: Our 765 room property located in the heart of downtown amid the top cultural, entertainment, sports and tourist attractions is Atlanta’s 6th largest meeting and convention property. More than $50 million has recently been invested upgrading all its meeting and conference spaces and $20 million in guest room and architectural enhancements. This has propelled the Sheraton Atlanta’s evolution from an unpretentious property into a stylishly designed, energy efficient, environmentally responsible, 21st century hotel. Guestrooms: The Sheraton Atlanta is spending $20 million on a capital improvement and enhancement program encompassing all facets of the 760 guest room and conference center hotel. All rooms feature a spacious desk area with task lighting, telephones with data ports and plenty of personal comforts. And, to make your experience even more convenient, we added in-room video, bill review and check-out. But we didn’t forget the little things either, like making sure you have a complimentary weekday newspaper. You also will have access to high speed internet for only $9.95 per/day. Reservations: To book, modify or cancel a reservation go to: http://www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/sssp2010. You can also call the hotel directly during the hours of 9:00am-5:30pm (EST) 404-659-6500 or Central Reservations department at 800-833-8624 (24hrs). When you call to make your reservation please give the name of the group to ensure you are given the correct room rate. Each reservation must be guaranteed with a credit card and will be charged one night room and tax when you book your reservation. Check in is at 3:00pm and check-out is at noon. There must be a 72 hour notice for cancellation prior to arrival. Any cancellation made after this will forfeit one night room and tax. Cut-off Date: Reservation must be confirmed by July 21, 2010 at 12:00am (EST) to guarantee a room rate of $165.00. Reservations made after July 21st or after the room block is filled are subject to non-availability and rate increase. 165 Courtland Street NE. Atlanta, GA 30303, United States Phone: (404) 659-6500 http://www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/sssp2010 Spring 2010 Page 5 Conference Announcement and Call For Papers University of New Hampshire THE XII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL STRESS RESEARCH will be held November 13-15, 2010 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at the Sheraton Harborside Hotel. The International Conference on Social Stress has become an important conference for scholars working in the area of stress and health and a major forum for sharing new research that incorporates components of the stress process. The stress conferences, sponsored by the University of New Hampshire, are held approximately every two years and attract the leading scholars in the field. The conference is being organized and directed by Professors Heather Turner, Karen Van Gundy, and Catherine Moran in the Department of Sociology at UNH. The 2010 conference will feature Dr. John Mirowsky and Dr. Sarah Rosenfield as keynote speakers. Previous keynote speakers have included Ronald Kessler, Bruce Dohrenwend, Leonard Pearlin, Howard Kaplan, George Brown, Robert Weiss, Michael Rutter, Hamilton McCubbin, Peggy Thoits, R. Jay Turner, Carol Aneshensel, Elizabeth Meneghan, Bruce Link, Blair Wheaton, James House, Allan Horwitz, William Avison, Linda George, and Jane McLeod. The final program for the 2010 conference will be based on the content of submissions. Sessions involving the following themes are likely: childhood/adolescent adversity; stressors across the life course; work and unemployment stressors; stress in family contexts; gender and stress; race, ethnicity and culture; traumatic and catastrophic stressors; and neighborhood contexts of stress. We invite you to submit either a complete paper or an extended abstract. In the case of abstracts, you must provide sufficient information for evaluation of the substance and scientific merit of the paper. To be considered for presentation, papers (or extended abstracts) must be received by May 14, 2010. Further information regarding the conference is posted on our website: http://www.unh.edu/stressconference Printed copies or PDFs of papers/abstracts are acceptable. Send all papers and abstracts to: Dr. Catherine Moran Conference Coordinator Department of Sociology Horton Social Science Center University of New Hampshire Durham, NH 03824 clmoran@ unh.edu Spring 2010 Page 6