Although causal theories of aging differ considerably across disciplines, the common denominator in published papers on the health and function of the aged is to be found in the methods section. The instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), used to determine the independence of the aged living in the community, are utilized both at a clinical and population level. While there has been a cross-disciplinary need for a scale to measure sub-populations, many scholars have been reticent to use the existing IADL items across geographical backgrounds. The results of this study, which surveys 236 physicians from 11 different cultures on the importance of individual IADL items, suggests the IADL may be useful as a universal measure of function.
The central questions to be addressed by this paper concern the factors responsible for the continued presence of tuberculosis in cities: What are the socio-economic mechanisms that allow some populations to continue to harbour the mycobacterium? The historical literature provides information about conditions that tend to reoccur from one century to the next: TB has been harboured in marginal populations, that were poor, lived in crowded cities, and were burdened by other parasites and psycho-social stress. Our cultural knowledge of TB over the centuries, however, has not been cumulative. Death, chronic illness, deviance, and poverty are the value·laden emotional issues which are marginalized along with the individuals that they affect.Understanding TB as a 'disease' requires an acknowledgement that 'disease' is a concept that involves more than the presence and action of biological agents of infection; it also involves social and cultural responses to, and interpretations of, that contamination and its effects on the individual.
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