Widow Of Man Research Articles

Social inequalities in heat-attributable mortality in the city of Turin, northwest of Italy: a time series analysis from 1982 to 2018

BackgroundUnderstanding context specific heat-health risks in urban areas is important, especially given anticipated severe increases in summer temperatures due to climate change effects. We investigate social inequalities in the association between daily temperatures and mortality in summer in the city of Turin for the period 1982–2018 among different social and demographic groups such as sex, age, educational level, marital status and household occupants.MethodsMortality data are represented by individual all-cause mortality counts for the summer months between 1982 and 2018. Socioeconomic level and daily mean temperature were assigned to each deceased. A time series Poisson regression with distributed lag non-linear models was fitted to capture the complex nonlinear dependency between daily mortality and temperature in summer. The mortality risk due to heat is represented by the Relative Risk (RR) at the 99th percentile of daily summer temperatures for each population subgroup.ResultsAll-cause mortality risk is higher among women (1.88; 95% CI = 1.77, 2.00) and the elderly (2.13; 95% CI = 1.94, 2.33). With regard to education, the highest significant effects for men is observed among higher education levels (1.66; 95% CI = 1.38, 1.99), while risks for women is higher for the lower educational level (1.93; 95% CI = 1.79, 2.08). Results on marital status highlighted a stronger association for widower in men (1.66; 95% CI = 1.38, 2.00) and for separated and divorced in women (2.11; 95% CI = 1.51, 2.94). The risk ratio of household occupants reveals a stronger association for men who lived alone (1.61; 95% CI = 1.39, 1.86), while for women results are almost equivalent between alone and not alone groups.ConclusionsThe associations between heat and mortality is unequal across different aspects of social vulnerability, and, inter alia, factors influencing the population vulnerability to temperatures can be related to demographic, social, and economic aspects. A number of issues are identified and recommendations for the prioritisation of further research are provided. A better knowledge of these effect modifiers is needed to identify the axes of social inequality across the most vulnerable population sub-groups.

Guilt after the loss of a husband to cancer: Is there a relation with the health care provided?

Background. Feelings of guilt are common after bereavement. We investigated whether feelings of guilt after the loss of a husband to cancer are associated with the health care provided at the time close to and at the moment of death. Materials and methods. The study population consisted of 506 widows of men who died of prostate cancer in 1995 or of urinary bladder cancer in 1995 or 1996 at the ages 45–74 years. We collected information on the received health care at the time of the husband's death from the widows, through a postal questionnaire. Results. Widows who perceived that their husbands did not get enough pain relief had an increased relative risk of 1.7 (95% CI 1.1–2.8), for guilt feelings, compared to widows who felt that their husbands had adequate pain relief. If a widow considered her husband being exposed to less satisfactory care or treatment, she had an almost two-fold increased relative risk, 1.9 (95% CI 1.2–3.1), for guilt feelings after the husband's death, compared to a widow who thought that satisfactory care or treatment was provided. Discussion. Feelings of guilt after bereavement may occur in response to the perception of inadequate health care during the last months and at the actual moment of death of the significant other.

Women and property in early modern England: A case‐study

The operation of the English Common Law governing the ownership and inheritance of property seems to offer compelling proof of the utter subjection of women: a woman inherited property only if she had no brothers, on marriage she surrendered all personal estate and control of her real estate, while married she could not sue, obtain credit or sign a contract in her own name, or write a will without express permission from her husband, and if he died before her she was entitled to only so much of his estate as had been reserved to her by jointure (commonly about IO per cent of the compounded value of her own marriage portion) or was voluntarily devised to her in his will. Add to this a vignette of Sir Edward Coke, the doyen of the Common Law, tying his daughter to the bedpost and having her whipped until she agreed to marry a lunatic who happened to be a brother of the current royal favourite, and any discussion of women and property in early modern England seems likely to induce profound depression. This gloomy prospect derives from studies of the application of the Common Law in the family settlements of gentlemen and landowners. In her book Women and Property in Early Modern England Amy Louise Erickson has discerned a little more warmth and sunlight elsewhere on the scene. She examines wills, inventories and administration accounts to uncover much broader patterns of property distribution among more ordinary families. Daughters inherited on a remarkably equitable basis with their brothers, although girls usually inherited personal property and boys more often real property. In general widows were the principal beneficiaries of their husband's wills, and the widows of intestate men enjoyed at least as many benefits as widows of men who made wills, in terms of moveable goods. At the ordinary social level, primogeniture did not dominate the distribution of property.1 Erickson's work is based almost entirely on wills, inventories and the probate accounts tendered to the ecclesiastical courts. Estimates of the proportion of the populace of early modern England who left wills vary from less than 5 per cent up to at most 45 per cent, but she has also been able to trace some instances of how the ecclesiastical courts divided up the estates of those who died intestate. She recognizes the importance of Chancery records, but apart from some preliminary counting in one division, consigns them to the too time-consuming basket. In conclusion, while recognizing a gap between legal prescription and observable reality, she argues against any 'celebratory' account of legal history:

Women in the American Revolution

W AR was very real to the women of the Revolutionary period. Along the extended frontier there hung a perpetual threat of Indian incursions with their attendant acts of savagery. On the coast and by navigable rivers the British fleet and army kept the inhabitants in an intermittent state of alarm. In the interior sporadic fighting and foraging raids left their victims shaken and impoverished. Yet with the exception of those whom the exigencies of war forced to become refugees, women generally remained at home ministering to the needs of their households, assuming their absent husbands' responsibilities, meeting as best they could the inevitable wartime scarcities, taking over jobs compatible with their physical limitations and conventions, and longing always for the return of their men and for peace. As if loneliness and sorrow were not enough, war brought privation and destitution to many wives and widows of men in the military service. Even before the continental currency started on its disastrous toboggan slide, soldiers' pay had not been uniform, prompt, or sufficient, despite various bounties offered to encourage enlistments. As there was no general provision for allotments to dependents of fighting men, the latter were often forced to see their loved ones become objects of local charity. Neither were widows and orphans of fighting men adequately or uniformly pensioned, with the result that many of them had to petition the government for relief.' When the full month's pay of an officer was required to meet his traveling expenses for one day, how could bereaved dependents exist on the half pay allotted them by a law which had no general application until 1780, five years after the outbreak of hostilities? 2