Social Mechanisms Research Articles

Catastrophic costs incurred by tuberculosis affected households from Thailand's first national tuberculosis patient cost survey.

Tuberculosis (TB) causes an economic impact on the patients and their households. Although Thailand has expanded the national health benefit package for TB treatment, there was no data on out-of-pocket payments and income losses due to TB from patients and their household perspectives. This national TB patient cost survey was conducted to examine the TB-related economic burden, and assess the proportion of TB patients and their households facing catastrophic total costs because of TB disease. A cross-sectional TB patient cost survey was employed following WHO methods. Structured interviews with a paper-based questionnaire were conducted from October 2019 to July 2021. Both direct and indirect costs incurred from the patient and their household perspective were valued in 2021 and estimated throughout pre- and post-TB diagnosis episodes. We assessed the proportion of TB-affected households facing costs > 20% of household expenditure due to TB. We analyzed 1400 patients including 1382TB (first-line treatment) and 18 drug-resistant TB patients (DR-TB). The mean total costs per TB episode for all study participants were 903 USD (95% confident interval; CI 771-1034 USD). Of these, total direct non-medical costs were the highest costs (mean, 402 USD, and 95%CI 334-470 USD) incurred per TB-affected household followed by total indirect costs (mean, 393 USD, and 95%CI 315-472 USD) and total direct medical costs (mean, 107 USD, and 95%CI 81-133 USD, respectively. The proportion of TB-affected households facing catastrophic costs was 29.5% (95%CI 25.1-34.0%) for TB (first-line), 61.1% (95%CI 29.6-88.1%) for DR-TB and 29.9% (95%CI 25.6-34.4%) overall. This first national survey highlighted the economic burden on TB-affected households. Travel, food/nutritional supplementation, and indirect costs contribute to a high proportion of catastrophic total costs. These suggest the need to enhance financial and social protection mechanisms to mitigate the financial burden of TB-affected households.

Factors Influencing Perceptions of Trust in Data Infrastructures

Trust is an essential pre-condition for the acceptance of digital infrastructures and services. Transparency has been identified as one mechanism for increasing trustworthiness. Yet, it is difficult to assess to which extent and how exactly different aspects of transparency contribute to trust, or potentially impede it in cases of overwhelming complexity of the information provided. To address these issues, we performed two initial studies to help determining the factors that influence or have impact on trust, focusing on transparency across a range of elements associated with data, data infrastructures and virtual research environments. On one hand, we performed a survey among IT experts in the field of data science focusing on quality aspects in the context of re-using and sharing open source software, assessing issues such as the need for documentation, test cases, and accountability. On the other hand, we complemented this with a set of semi-structured interviews with senior researchers to address specific issues of the degree of transparency achievable with different approaches. They include, for example, the amount of transparency we can achieve with approaches from explainable AI, or the usefulness and limitations of data provenance in determining the suitability of data for reuse and others. Specifically, we consider mechanisms on three levels, i.e. technical, process-oriented as well as social mechanisms. Starting from attributes of trust in the “analogue world”, we aim to understand which of these can be applied in the digital world, how they differ, and what additional mechanisms need to be established, in order to support trust in complex socio-technological processes and their emergent results when the traditional approaches cannot be applied anymore.

Individuals lack the ability to accurately detect emotional piloerection.

Piloerection (e.g., goosebumps) is an essential thermoregulatory and social signaling mechanism in non-human animals. Although humans also experience piloerection-often being perceived as an indicator of profound emotional experiences-its comparatively less effective role in thermoregulation and communication might influence our capacity to monitor its occurrence. We present three studies (total N = 617) demonstrating participants' general inability to detect their own piloerection events and their lack of awareness that piloerection occurs with a similar frequency on multiple anatomical locations. Self-reported goosebumps were more frequent than observed piloerection. However, only 31.8% of self-reports coincided with observable piloerection, a bias unrelated to piloerection intensity, anatomical location, heart-rate variability, or interoceptive awareness. We also discovered a self-report bias for the forearm, contradicting the observation that piloerection occurs with equal frequency on multiple anatomical locations. Finally, there was low correspondence between self-reports of being "emotionally moved" and observed piloerection. These counterintuitive findings not only highlight a disconnect between an obvious physiological response and our capacity for self-monitoring, but they underscore a fascinating divergence between human and non-human species. Although piloerection is vital in non-human organisms, the connection between piloerection and psychological experience in humans may be less significant than previously assumed, possibly due to its diminished evolutionary relevance.

Abstinence for the sake of modest success: a Chinese anti-masturbation group’s path to individualisation

ABSTRACT Based on three-month online participant observation in “Jie Se Ba,” a male-dominated pornography abstinence forum with 6 million users, this article explores how low-status men in China recode the requirements of Chinese individualisation by using China’s traditional ethics in order to make individualisation accessible to themselves. I examine their aspirations as desiring selves, their means of self-mastery and the community culture they have established. Due to a lack of financial power, educational background, and cultural resources, members of this group disengage from mainstream desires for financial success and middle-class-style self-fashioning practices. Instead, by appropriating traditional Chinese sexual ethics, they set more modest family-centred aspirations and adopt jiese, or masturbation abstinence, as a means of practicing self-mastery to build their striving selves. In their efforts to integrate themselves into Chinese individualisation, they accept and express a set of conservative gender-sex and familial ethics. This article argues that such a situation is caused, at root, by a social mechanism within Chinese individualisation that restricts, excludes and stigmatises low-status groups.

Modeling Residents’ Mega Sport Event Social Value: Integrating Social and Economic Mechanisms

Social value is the difference between monetized social impacts and related economic investments. Stimulating positive social value is a leading concern and focus for sport event stakeholders. However, insights on this socioeconomic phenomenon have concentrated on social or economic mechanisms, not both, and are siloed to host city residents, largely overlooking nonhost city residents central to events. Thus, we integrated social and economic mechanisms to examine host city and nonhost city residents’ mega sport event social value. Data from 1,880 Canadians revealed varying social values (Vancouver and Provincial = negative; Venue-City = neutral; National = positive). Applying a reverse contingent valuation method, findings confirmed the need to integrate (monetized) social and economic mechanisms to calculate social value. Testing an augmented social exchange theory model, findings highlight residents’ perceptual ambivalence to social impacts and the importance of income to estimate social value. Stakeholders should effectively leverage events for social impacts and reconsider event public funding allocation policies.

A qualitative study identifying the potential risk mechanisms leading to hospitalization for patients with chronic lung disease

BackgroundCare management programs for chronic lung disease attempt to reduce hospitalizations, yet have not reliably attained this goal. A key limitation of many programs is that they target patients with characteristics associated with hospitalization risk but do not specifically modify the mechanisms that lead to hospitalization. Research QuestionWhat are the common mechanisms underlying known patient-level risk characteristics leading to hospitalizations for acute exacerbations of chronic lung disease? Study Design and MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study of patients admitted to the University of Pennsylvania Health system with acute exacerbations of chronic lung disease between January and September 2019. We interviewed patients, their family caregivers, and their inpatient and outpatient clinicians about experiences leading up to the hospitalization. We analyzed the interview transcripts using triangulation and abductive analytic methods. ResultsWe conducted 69 interviews focused on the admission of 22 patients with a median age of 66 years (interquartile range 60 to 70), of whom 16 (73%) were women and 14 (64%) were Black. We interviewed 22 patients, 14 caregivers, 19 inpatient clinicians, and 14 outpatient clinicians. We triangulated the available interview data for each patient admission and identified the underlying mechanisms of how several known patient characteristics associated with risk actually led to hospitalization. These mechanisms included limited capacity for home management of acute symptom changes, barriers to accessing care, chronic functional limitations, and comorbid behavioral health disorders. Importantly, many of the clinical, social, and behavioral mechanisms underlying hospitalizations were present for months or years prior to the symptoms that prompted inpatient care. InterpretationCare management programs should be built to target specific clinical, social, and behavioral mechanisms that directly lead to hospitalization. Upstream interventions that reduce hospitalization risk are possible given that many contributory mechanisms are present for months or years before the onset of acute exacerbations.

Alternative currencies, community support and social cohesion: why the Okinawan moai (模合) is closer to an informal social policy mechanism than to a standard ROSCA

To challenge the notion of the Okinawan moai as a Rotating Saving and Credit Association, this article provides a short overview of the practice before reflecting on an interesting pattern. While moai has been phased out in most of Japan, it persists in some areas where, incidentally, life expectancy is higher than the rest of the country (and of much of the rest of the world). Expanding upon the idea that moai’s main function is social rather than economic makes it possible to suggest the existence of alternative currencies that, although less tangible than money, have a major role in the people’s lives, create mutual dependency and ultimately enhance people’s wealth, intended here to refer not to economic wealth but also in a more inclusive or socially mediated manner including social relations, happiness, a sense of protection and so on.

Building a systems-thinking community workforce to scale action on determinants of health in New Zealand

This article describes findings from the evaluation of Healthy Families New Zealand (HFNZ), an equity-driven, place-based community health initiative. Implemented in nine diverse communities across Aotearoa New Zealand, HFNZ aims to strengthen the systems that improve health and well-being. Findings highlight local priorities and the social mechanisms important for reorienting health and policy systems towards place-based communities. Lessons include the importance of local experience in putting evidence into practice; the strength of acting with systems in mind; the need for relational, learning, intentional, and well-resourced community organisation; examples of how to foster place-based ‘community-up’ leadership; and how to enable responsiveness between communities and the policy system. A reconceptualisation of scaling is offered, which recognises that relationships in social systems are salient, and that ‘communities’ are nested and relative to each other.

Adding experiments to the classical survey-interview mix: A three-method design for supporting micro-to-macro explanations in sociology

The aim of this programmatic article is to spell out a three-method design for supporting micro-to-macro explanations based on social mechanisms. In this design, the experimental method is called on to strengthen the explanatory basis of the common survey-interview mix, against the background of growing interest in causal inference and experimentation across the social sciences. The proposal is articulated through the specific problem of the contribution of discrimination (micro process) to the generation of inequalities in mental health (macro outcome) between culturally stigmatized and non-stigmatized groups (macro predictor). The article motivates the research problem and the three-method design, offering a detailed discussion of the limitations of survey-based measures of perceived discrimination. Drawing on the literature on mixed methods, the relationships between the survey, the interview-based study and the field experiment are analyzed in terms of triangulation, development, and complementarity. The broader applicability of the proposed three-method design is illustrated with examples from the distinct fields of civic engagement and labor market inequalities.

State Youth Policy in Recruitment System of Political Leader

The article contains the results of a study, the aim of which was to identify the role of youth policy in the system of recruiting political leaders. In the text, the authors analyze the features of the formation and stages of development of youth policy as a part of state policy aimed at supporting young people and realizing their interests. The article describes existing programs and projects designed not only to support young people, but also to help identify, develop and support their political potential and, consequently, the formation of youth political leadership in Russia. The paper presents the results of an expert survey conducted by the authors in 2023, the aim of which was to determine the features of state youth policy as a tool for the formation and identification of the leadership potential of youth, as well as the integration of its representatives into the country’s political elite through the system of recruiting youth political leaders. As a result, the authors came to the conclusion that recently there has been an evolution of state youth policy in the indicated manner. It acts as the primary mechanism of socialization in the field of political leadership, providing opportunities for building a career in various fields of activity, including in the field of public policy and public administration. At the same time, as a result of the study, the authors came to the conclusion about the fragmented nature of its implementation, expressed in the difference between the declared and actual levels, which meanwhile makes it possible to build career trajectories and social elevators for a certain category of young people, forming the first level of the pool for recruiting political leaders.

An experimental-causal-chain design to explore three mechanisms linking economic inequality and crime

Scholars have proposed several underlying mechanisms to explain the relationship between economic inequality and crime. However, these mechanisms have not been empirically tested. This study empirically tests the causal paths offered by three salient mechanisms through which economic inequality may affect crime: negative emotions, social distance, and social resistance. We applied a randomized controlled trial with an experimental-causal-chain design in two studies. In Study 1 we manipulated economic inequality and examined its effect on both the mediating variables and crime, operationalized as cheating behavior. In Study 2 we manipulated the mediating variable found to be associated with economic inequality in Study 1 (social resistance), and examined its effect on cheating. Our findings support the social resistance mechanism, while there is no evidence supporting the negative emotions (operationalized here as anger) and social distance mechanisms. These findings suggest that economic inequality breeds crime by producing perceptions of discrimination and alienation, leading individuals to actively express their dissatisfaction through crime.

Has the Household Old-Age Burden Affected Farm Household Incomes? Evidence from a Survey of Chinese Farm Households

Income increase is an important way to achieve comprehensive human development and to escape from poverty, and the growing aging problem in rural China poses a challenge to farm household income increase. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of China’s rural old-age burden on farm household income, this paper empirically examines the impact and mechanism of household old-age burden on farm household income based on the data from the 2023 micro-farm field survey of China’s Henan Province, utilizing linear regression modeling and mediation effect modeling, filling the research gaps in the related fields. The results of the study found that, firstly, family old-age burden has a significant impact on the income of farm households, and that the heavier the family old-age burden, the lower the total income of farm households. Secondly, from the results of the heterogeneity of the impact, the poorer the health condition, the greater the negative impact of family old-age burden on farm household income. Old-age burden has a greater impact on high-income farm households than on low-income farm households, and old-age burden has a significant impact on the income of part-time farm households, while the impact is not significant on purely farm and non-farm households. Thirdly, the heavier the household old-age burden, the more unfavorable it is to the non-farm employment of farm households, thus affecting the income capacity of farm households. Finally, corresponding countermeasures and recommendations are put forward in three areas, namely, the continuous improvement of the social old-age security system, the realization of the function of the social old-age mechanism as an old-age pocket for key special groups, and the improvement of the social flexible employment mechanism.

A Study on the Status of Present Financial Inclusion Policy in the Districts of the State of West Bengal, India

Introduction: The convergence of financially excluded population towards mainstream formal financial institutions through proper accessibility, affordability and usage of services is crucial, to eradicate the dependence on informal money lenders, and to help the vulnerable and poor people to come out of the vicious debt cycle. As India aims to achieve inclusive growth, it has worked upon removing barriers from the path of gaining complete ‘Financial Inclusion (FI)’ through the policy called, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). This has helped in translating Jan Dhan (wealth of people) to Jan Suraksha (security of people) through insurance and pension schemes, with the objective of building a global social security mechanism for every citizen. Objective: To analyse the status of the FI scheme (PMJDY) in the 23 districts of the state of West Bengal. Research Methodology: This research work will evaluate the effects of the current FI schemes, on the lives of the citizens of the state of West Bengal, which has 23 districts in total. To investigate about the inclusiveness in the financial system of those 23 districts, District FI Index (FII) has been developed, by considering some indicators for sub-indices as well as for composite index, that are clubbed under three dimensions, namely, accessibility, availability and usage of bank offerings. Earlier literature focused on savings and deposit accounts as a variable to compute FI whereas this study bridges the gap and considers only PMJDY scheme-based accounts to evaluate the present status of the scheme in the state. Findings and Conclusion: It is observed that Kolkata has secured the highest place in FII whereas other districts have shown relatively low FI. The state still has a long distance to travel in terms of achieving a complete FI but it has the capability of travelling at a faster rate due to well-developed banking infrastructure. Thus, to make the FI scheme effective, a developed and accessible banking structure is a pre-requisite. The success of this scheme in bringing the deprived and vulnerable section into the fold will not only increase savings and investment but also contribute to strengthening the human capital of the country.

Tiebout, Coase and urban scaling

AbstractA growing body of urban research takes a natural science perspective on systems of cities as self-organising human clusters. From a systems perspective, this work, particularly the growing number of city scaling studies, introduces a determinism to studies of city size, efficiency and performance that may not sit well with regional science and urban economic planning models. It finds that agglomeration economies seem to follow regular scale-free power laws that reflect competitive dynamics within an entire interacting human system of cities and that a city’s performance is therefore statistically bounded by the whole system. Where does this leave empirical models of individual city performance and behavioural models of urban political economy that underpin them? The paper links two seminal economic models of the 20th century that were motivated to demonstrate the possibility of preference revelation for the ‘unpriceables’ that give cities their value. Tiebout’s and Coase’s models of social order both concern natural clustering principles, governed by voting with feet, voice and price. Voting with feet is a much more animalistic social ordering mechanism than voting with voice and the paper introduces the idea of scale-free Tieboutian models—natural science models of revealed preference for local public expenditure.

Modelling social and societal mechanisms as decision tools for sustainable infrastructures production for common good concern in developing countries: CGC–APDC

ABSTRACT Generally organised in various association forms, population of developing countries gather their different efforts to set up infrastructures and useful constructions for their well-being. Understanding how they carry out construction projects makes possible to identify components of process used for their development. This paper’s aim is to formulate a new organisational model including all those populations’ means and facilitates individual’s participation for common good infrastructures through a managing tool. To achieve this aim, proposed model takes into account social, economic, technical matters. In fact, it builds a strategy to organise all means, contributions and efforts to rise up large-scale project with individual’s characteristics and involvement. It strives Social and Solidarity Economy and organises communities’ efforts for a general growth. With CGC – APDC process proposed, populations become real vectors of construction and it enables them to boost the development of their community while improving the projects quality and relevance.

Social Engineering Attacks and Counter Measures: A Comprehensive Analysis

Social engineering attacks represent a significant threat to individuals, organizations, and society at large. This research paper provides a comprehensive analysis of social engineering attacks, their methodologies, impacts, and countermeasures. By examining various case studies and real-world examples, this paper aims to enhance understanding of social engineering techniques and equip readers with effective strategies to mitigate such threats. Additionally, emerging trends and future directions in social engineering defense mechanisms are explored to anticipate and address evolving challenges

Quality of life of people living with chronic hepatitis B: The role of social support system.

People living with chronic hepatitis B (PLCHB) are recommended to follow a lifelong monitoring regimen and face increased risk of liver cancer. Additionally, PLCHB frequently encounter stigma and discrimination, and relationship disruptions because of their chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Social support plays a key role in coping with chronic illnesses; however, this is inadequately assessed for PLCHB. This study aims to assess the physical, social, and mental impacts of living with CHB, the strategies PLCHB utilize to cope with their disease, and how social support-or lack of-impacts their journey with hepatitis B. The study was promoted through the Hepatitis B Foundation social media platforms, interested individuals filled-in a form expressing their interest to participate. The researcher conducted 24 telephone interviews in English, with PLCHB ≥18 years of age residing in the United States (U.S.) and Canada. Questions focused on the lived experiences of CHB and explored social support mechanisms that helped PLCHB. PLCHB experience a wide range of impacts (physical, social, and mental) that negatively affect their quality of life. Participants reported that receiving social support from their close network of individuals, hepatitis B community, or healthcare providers positively influenced their perspective on their future health and helped them adhere to treatment. The physical, social, and mental impacts of living with hepatitis B significantly affect the quality of life of PLCHB, calling for more research to document these impacts, and design integrated care models to address them. Social support appears to play an essential role in helping PLCHB cope with their disease and should be further studied.

Implementation processes of social network interventions for physical activity and sedentary behavior among children and adolescents: a scoping review

Implementation processes of social network interventions for physical activity and sedentary behavior among children and adolescents: a scoping review

Cultural Frames of Deviance. Muslim Religiousness and Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Violent Control of Female Behavior

ABSTRACT Using a survey of a culturally and religiously diverse students in Germany, we investigate the influence of Muslim religiousness on violence-accepting gender role orientations. We argue that the religious frame of “fornication” (zinā) defines deviance and refers to a cultural frame of order between and within clans in non-state societies, namely the “culture of honor.” Muslim religiousness has a robust effect on violence-accepting gender role orientations, controlling for culture of honor and confounders. Results of cross-level interactions indicate a social influence on these attitudes, which we interpret as a social proof mechanism: the higher the share of religious Muslims in a school class-context, the higher the acceptance of violent-accepting attitudes. We also show that Muslim religiousness tends to increase the accordance with violent control of females within the family. We argue that according to the religious-cultural frame of a divine order, zinā is interpreted as a violation of a sacred norm and thus as deviant.

Epidemiological approaches to multivariable models of health inequity: A study of race, rurality, and occupation during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeMethods for assessing the structural mechanisms of health inequity are not well established. This study applies a phased approach to modeling racial, occupational, and rural disparities on the county level. MethodsRural counties with disparately high rates of COVID-19 incidence or mortality were randomly paired with in-state control counties with the same rural-urban continuum code. Analysis was restricted to the first six months of the pandemic to represent the baseline structural reserves for each county and reduce biases related to the disruption of these reserves over time. Conditional logistic regression was applied in two phases—first, to examine the demographic distribution of disparities and then, to examine the relationships between these disparities and county-level social and structural reserves. ResultsIn over 200 rural county pairs (205 for incidence, 209 for mortality), disparities were associated with structural variables representing economic factors, healthcare infrastructure, and local industry. Modeling results were sensitive to assumptions about the relationships between race and other social and structural variables measured at the county level, particularly in models intended to reflect effect modification or mediation. ConclusionsMultivariable modeling of health disparities should reflect the social and structural mechanisms of inequity and anticipate interventions that can advance equity.