While the literature on fear of crime is not wholly consistent, results generally indicate that blacks, women, and the elderly are the groups most fearful. In those instances where race, gender, and age have been simultaneously taken into account, studies have generally assumed that the relationships are additive. However, the gerontological literature suggests that age ofen interacts with other status characteristics in producing quality of life differences. Multiple regression techniques are used on survey data from eight Chicago neighborhoods to assess whether or not the effects of age, race, and gender on fear of crime are interactive. Findings indicate that significant interactions are present, and the relevance of these findings are discussed in terms of actual and perceived risks of victimization and of subcultural interpretations of crime and fear of crime.

No abstract

No abstract

This paper provides a review of the scholarly and applied literature published between 1970 and 1993 on health and health care access problems among racial and ethnic minority group members living in rural U.S. areas. Results on the distribution of specific illnesses and diseases, and utilization of medical services are summarized for two major minority groups—African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Findings generally document the expected pattern of rural and minority disadvantage. A review of the conceptual and methodological limitations of existing research suggests that research does not yet permit any clear understanding of the underlying structures and processes that give rise to racial health disparities. Very little is known about the health of rural minorities living in some areas of the country, for example, the west north central United States (Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota).

Data from a representative sample of 1,070 married Protestants and Catholics were used to examine the relationship between religious homogamy and marital happiness. Although couples may vary in the extent to which they share religious views (e.g., beliefs, values), previous research has treated religious homogamy as a dichotomy; a couple is either homogamous or it is not. A partial explanation for this is that few studies have gone beyond the broad divisions of Protestant, Catholic, and Jew. In the present study religious bodies were classified on the basis of doctrine and ritual, yielding six categories: Baptist, Calvinist, Catholic, fundamentalist, Lutheran, and Methodist. These categories were then used to develop a measure of estimated “religious distance” or degrees of heterogamy. This measure was used to test the hypothesis that the larger the religious distance or disparity, the greater the likelihood of unhappiness with the marriage. The hypothesis was supported by the data.

Research doctoral graduates represent an institution's finest students. They are also the ones most likely to become tomorrow's world leaders. As the most prestigiousand the most international-of academic degrees, the PhD prepares leaders for careers in academia and research but also and increasingly for a broad range of careers in other sectors (including business, industry, the nonprofit sector, and government) and across international settings.

Previous research on aging among minority populations seems to indicate that racial minorities suffer double jeopardy in terms of objective conditions such as income or housing, but are at least as well off as older whites in terms of subjective well-being. In order to explore reasons for this apparent anomaly, multiple regression analysis was performed predicting life satisfaction with a variety of social interaction variables. Results indicate that frequency of contact with church-related friends is the critical factor in accounting for race differences in well-being. We suggest three plausible explanations for this finding: (1) the church is the hub of a "moral community" in a Durkheimian sense; (2) the church reflects a "community of faith" in which members sharing a common belief exert a positive impact on each other's sense of well-being; or (3) the black church in the South forms a focal point of the community, serving as a pseudo-extended family, particularly for the aged.

This paper examines rural/urban differences and trends in mental health during the farm crisis of the 1980s in a large panel sample from a midwestern state. A community research perspective, which attributes differences to life styles, culture, and community context, is contrasted with an economic stress perspective, which focuses on individual differences in economic circumstances as determinants of rural‐urban differences in mental health. Survey samples from 1981, 1986, and 1989 are used to examine differences among seven categories of community type. Multiple regression analysis of the trend and panel data provide support for both the individual economic distress and community context models.