Social Science & Medicine最新文献

{"title":"The political economy of occupational health and safety regulation: The contentious path to criminalizing work-related deaths in South Korea","authors":"Juyeon Lee ,&nbsp;Erica Di Ruggiero","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118240","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118240","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the recent trend toward the criminalization of work-related deaths in South Korea through the lens of Bob Jessop's Strategic-Relational Approach, analyzing how structural constraints, contingent opportunities, and labor's strategic agency shaped the enactment of the 2021 Serious Accidents Punishment Act (SAPA). Using qualitative methods, including document analysis and key informant interviews, we trace the historical evolution of South Korea's occupational health and safety regulatory framework within its broader political-economic context. We argue that the push for corporate criminal liability emerged from the margins, led by non-unionized, precarious workers whose grievances remained largely unaddressed by mainstream labor movement. In an environment where formal mechanisms for worker participation were either absent or structurally weakened, confrontational demands for criminalization gained traction as an alternative strategy to contest entrenched power asymmetries. However, SAPA's legislative process and implementation reveal that state institutions selectively mediated these demands, incorporating key compromises – such as a narrow focus on individual rather than systemic corporate liability – that limited the law's transformative potential. Our findings contribute to critical legal and public health scholarship by demonstrating that the criminalization of work-related deaths in South Korea was not a state-driven initiative to enhance worker protections but rather a contested outcome shaped by labor's strategic adaptation within structurally selective institutions that have historically privileged corporate interests. Nevertheless, SAPA's limitations underscore its potential as a site of ongoing political struggle, wherein its enforcement – or lack thereof – may catalyze broader labor mobilization and structural reforms addressing the systemic causes of work-related deaths.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"381 ","pages":"Article 118240"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144254228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dimensions of women's decision-making power and the influence on quality early prenatal care in Burkina Faso","authors":"Eric Allara Ngaba","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118235","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118235","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Access to prenatal care in Burkina Faso does not always comply with WHO standards and guidelines, and many maternal deaths could have been avoided if these guidelines had been adhered to. Early initiation of prenatal care plays a critical role in identifying health problems and providing timely solutions. The woman's status within the household is likely to affect her access to such care. This paper aims to analyse the effects of the dimensions of decision-making power of women who are married and living with their partners on the quality of early prenatal care in Burkina Faso. With data from the 2021 Burkina Faso Demographic and Health Survey, the study uses binary probit, recursive bivariate probit model, and robustness methods to assess this relationship. The results show that most women involved in household decision-making have access to quality early prenatal care. The proportions range from 54 % to 58 % for all dimensions. The econometric estimates indicate that the dimensions of women's decision-making power significantly affect the quality of early prenatal care. These results appear to be relatively robust to concerns about selection and endogeneity biases. The study confirms the assertion that the status of women within the household is significantly related to maternal healthcare in developing countries. Policymakers in Burkina Faso must not only implement direct maternal health interventions but also focus on broader policies that aim to strengthen women's decision-making power within the household.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"380 ","pages":"Article 118235"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144170013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Framing coalitions and the Canadian overdose crisis: The case of opioid marketing","authors":"Daniel Eisenkraft Klein ,&nbsp;Quinn Grundy ,&nbsp;Benjamin Hawkins ,&nbsp;Robert Schwartz","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118247","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118247","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The overdose crisis remains one of the most pressing public health emergencies in North America, with the marketing of prescription opioids identified as a key contributor to its escalation. Notwithstanding, the role of prescription opioids in the current overdose crisis, as well as the extent to which marketing and education can be distinguished, remains highly debated.</div><div>Using qualitative framing analysis of four separate consultations obtained through two Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests, this study examines how stakeholders framed prescription opioids and the overdose crisis as policy problems, the culpability of marketing and education in the crisis, and how these framings both reflected and influenced the often-conflicting objectives of the opioid industry and public health.</div><div>Findings show that while some stakeholders acknowledged problematic prescription opioid use, many reframed the crisis as an “illicit overdose crisis” and minimized the role of marketing practices. Stakeholders commonly opposed <em>any</em> restrictions related to prescription opioids for fear that they would bring undue attention to chronic pain patients. Overall, debates surrounding marketing and education served as proxy disagreements around safe supply, harm reduction, illicit and prescription opioids, and the appropriate role of the pharmaceutical industry in the healthcare system.</div><div>Applying the analytic framework of “framing coalitions,” the study highlights how stakeholders' framings and policy interests can differ and shift across overdose crisis priorities, leading to complex, overlapping constructions of the crisis. Given the crisis's varied social constructions, this research sheds light on the deep-seated tensions that fuel the deep divisions surrounding overdose crisis policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"381 ","pages":"Article 118247"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144254230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using drugs to enhance capacities for action in everyday life practices: Analysing addiction stories’ descriptions of the escalation of substance use as counter-narratives","authors":"Jukka Törrönen,&nbsp;Ulrika Winerdal,&nbsp;Malin Gunnarsson","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118245","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118245","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>The article demonstrates how substance use can enhance capacities for action in various everyday practices and function as a productive force rather than simply a risky and harmful activity.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>The data set comprises 33 life story interviews in which the participants self-identified as having experienced an addiction to substances. The data was analyzed as ‘counter-narratives’ by drawing on actor-network theory.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The analysis identified four typical variants of how substance use can increase capacities for action. First, substance use can initially enhance the capacities to achieve life goals and then transform into a mediator that strengthens attachments to normal daily activities. Secondly, substance use can become linked to serving mutually reinforcing trajectories in everyday life: assisting breaks from worries, reinforcing daily continuity, and advancing life goals. Third, substance use can enable a sudden change in life direction by facilitating a radical transition to a new reality and subsequently stabilizing it. Fourth, substance use can evolve into a mediator that divides life into two assemblages: one that enables fulfillment of daily responsibilities and another that mediates freedom to pursue pleasure.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Generating knowledge about the relations, assemblages, and trajectories in which substance use acts as a productive force and identifying when and how it can become a mediator that limits, threatens, or impedes the capacities of actors to live functional lives provides important information for health professionals and practitioners. Such knowledge will deepen their understanding of the elements on which their prevention and treatment efforts should focus.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"380 ","pages":"Article 118245"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144170015","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When nature strikes: Unraveling the mental health consequences among herders in China's pastoral region","authors":"Dongqing Li ,&nbsp;Alec Zuo ,&nbsp;Lingling Hou","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118237","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118237","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Frequent natural disasters in ecological conservation regions threaten economic activities and human health. Using the first field survey dataset on herders' mental health collected in pastoral regions of China, we analyzed the impacts of natural disasters on their mental well-being. Empirical results indicate a significant rise in distress among herders, as assessed by the K6 score, attributable to the effects of natural disasters. This increase is especially pronounced in the context of severe and persistent common natural disasters such as droughts and snowstorms. Further analysis reveals that the adverse effects of natural disasters on herders’ mental health are due to economic loss from increased fodder costs and, more importantly, a social multiplier effect that doubles the psychological impact on individual herders. In response to these negative impacts, disaster warning information, access to modern productive infrastructure facilities, and grassroots informal institutions prove beneficial. These findings underscore the necessity of giving increased attention to the mental health of residents in ecologically fragile regions, especially considering the growing adverse impacts of nature disasters resulting from climate change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"380 ","pages":"Article 118237"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144170012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Individual and neighborhood determinants of depressive symptoms in ethnic minorities in the urban HELIUS sample: a multi-level network perspective","authors":"K.B.S. Huth ,&nbsp;J. van der Wal ,&nbsp;O. Zavlis ,&nbsp;J. Luigjes ,&nbsp;J. Lakerveld ,&nbsp;H. Galenkamp ,&nbsp;A. Lok ,&nbsp;K. Stronks ,&nbsp;C.L. Bockting ,&nbsp;M. Marsman ,&nbsp;A.E. Goudriaan ,&nbsp;R.J. van Holst","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118195","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118195","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ethnic minorities in Europe experience an increased risk of depressive symptomatology. This is believed to be the result of the interplay between different factors at the individual (e.g., psychological, socioeconomic, cultural) and the neighborhood level (e.g., social cohesion, resources, ethnic diversity). This study sheds light on the interplay between variables using cross-sectional data from 13<em>,</em> 507 individuals from five ethnic minority groups from the Healthy Life in Urban Setting (HELIUS) study in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We developed a novel multilevel network analysis to explore the conditional associations between factors of interest for the entire group, and deviations from these effects for each ethnic subgroup. Across all groups, unemployment, perceived stress, and adverse experiences were most strongly connected to depressive symptoms, while other individual factors such as perceived ethnic discrimination were connected indirectly. While individual psychological factors remain the strongest predictors of depressive symptomatology, socio-demographic and cultural determinants underly these psychological factors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"381 ","pages":"Article 118195"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144271493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The lasting impact of incarceration: A qualitative thematic analysis of mental health in formerly incarcerated Black men","authors":"Helena A. Addison ,&nbsp;Therese S. Richmond ,&nbsp;Toorjo Ghose ,&nbsp;Sara F. Jacoby","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118244","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118244","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Black men in the United States face high incarceration rates and formerly incarcerated Black men (FIBM) have worse mental health outcomes than Black men who have never been incarcerated. Incarceration is a driver of population health inequities and as such, its role in contributing to negative mental health outcomes must be examined within FIBM's broader social, environmental, and historical context. The purpose of this study was to examine FIBM's perceptions of mental health broadly, and in relation to their lived experiences with incarceration. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 FIBM in Philadelphia, PA. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze interview transcripts. Five themes were generated in analysis: 1) “Defining mental health” 2) “Mental health harms during incarceration,” 3) “Incarceration and its harms persist,” 4) “Redefined relationships and roles,” and 5) “Navigating place.” Together these themes reveal the extent to which mental health of FIBM is influenced by social, environmental, and structural aspects of their individual lived experiences, which is largely shaped by the shared experience of incarceration. Incarceration has a direct and persistent impact on FIBM's mental health and lived experiences, and a pervasive influence on the larger context in which they are embedded, including their social relationships and physical environment. It is essential to examine the mental health of FIBM through the context created and influenced by incarceration to effectively understand and address their mental health needs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"380 ","pages":"Article 118244"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144178668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘It's about the connections we've made with each other’: resilience and risk translation in governing healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Bert de Graaff ,&nbsp;Sabrina Huizenga ,&nbsp;Roland Bal","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118246","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118246","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper we focus on risk translation in the governing of healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. We do so to explore crisis resilience in healthcare systems as a concrete practice. We build in this paper on a multi-sited ethnography of the Dutch crisis-organization in healthcare between March 2020 and August 2022. We zoom-in on regional networks of acute care delivery (ROAZ) during the second year of the pandemic in the Netherlands (from August 2021 to August 2022). Our analysis underscores how the COVID-19 pandemic in healthcare is enacted through a multitude of relations of risk. These relations are translated between institutional layers of crisis governance through relation-building, data-infrastructures, modelling and scenario-building, (re)writing guidelines and protocols, next to formal political practices. We argue that risk translation during crises allows for creating specific objects and infrastructures of governance such as care (acute/‘non-COVID’), geographies (‘the region’) and materials (‘an ICU-bed’). Risk translation appears as a crucial practice for resilient healthcare systems; emphasizing the ad hoc, informal and manual risk work that mediates knowledge and values about how to act during crisis between layers of healthcare governance and emerging collective(s) (in) action. These practices are inherently political, leading to the in- or exclusion of (alternative) concerns and their representatives in governing healthcare during crisis.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"380 ","pages":"Article 118246"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144148088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The constructive power of informality? Relationships, emotion, and empathy in the administration of social assistance for childhood disability in South Africa","authors":"Zara Trafford","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118211","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118211","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social assistance cash transfers, known locally as grants, are the only regular financial support available to low-income families in South Africa. There are two broad categories: poverty alleviation and disability-related grants. All disability-related grants are linked with the public sector health system, because only medical doctors are permitted to conduct the required assessments. This article reflects on a three-year qualitative study of the perspectives of stakeholders around the central focus of the Care Dependency Grant for primary caregivers of disabled children. In this article, various framings of disability-related grants are unpacked, with a specific focus on the gatekeeping practices of frontline social security officials in South Africa. I situate their behaviours within local and global conversations about systems for disability benefits assessment and distribution, which increasingly aim to suppress bureaucratic “emotionality” for fear that this produces subjective – and thus, unfair – decision-making. The latter imperative is intensified in South Africa because of justified concerns about corruption. In an under-resourced bureaucracy catering to a large population, however, high levels of informality are likely to persist. Building on Rupert Hodder's concept of positive informality, I share examples of “constructive” informality from the abovementioned study and argue for the importance of closely examining and learning from these instances. I conclude by suggesting that instead of trying to suppress their humanity, public servants' engagement with the populace could be enhanced by investing in their professional development toward increased empathy and relationship-building. This might be an untapped complementary approach to improving social justice in redistributive efforts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"380 ","pages":"Article 118211"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144170010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correlates of longitudinal patterns of racial discrimination in midlife and older Black adults: Evidence from the health and retirement study","authors":"Kellee White Whilby ,&nbsp;Shuo J. Huang ,&nbsp;Bethany A. Bell ,&nbsp;Kaitlynn Robinson-Ector ,&nbsp;Mario Sims ,&nbsp;David R. Williams","doi":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118194","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118194","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>Single cross-sectional discrimination measures may mask dynamic patterns of cumulative experiences and exposure to racial discrimination. However, there is a dearth of studies assessing trajectories of racial discrimination, particularly among midlife and older Black adults in the United States. The study aims to identify trajectories of racial discrimination over 12 years. We also examine the association between sociodemographic characteristics and resilience resources with racial discrimination trajectories.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (2006–2020), repeated measures latent profile analysis was employed to identify racial discrimination trajectories among Blacks aged 50+ (N = 1710). Multinomial logistic regression examined the association between sociodemographic and resilience resources with racial discrimination trajectories.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Three racial discrimination trajectories were identified: low-stable (70 %), moderate (23 %), and persistently high and increasing (7 %). Individuals reporting higher levels of major lifetime experiences of discrimination and greater neighborhood social cohesion were associated with membership in the “moderate” and the “persistently high and increasing” racial discrimination trajectory groups. Those reporting positive social support and psychological resilience were less likely to be in the “moderate” or the “persistently high and increasing trajectory” groups.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>These findings suggest heterogeneity in the cumulative patterning of racial discrimination among midlife and older Black adults. Racial discrimination trajectories may enable greater precision in estimating the health consequences of cumulative exposure to discrimination. Future studies are warranted to determine whether membership in specific discrimination trajectory groups confers differential risk to age-related conditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49122,"journal":{"name":"Social Science & Medicine","volume":"380 ","pages":"Article 118194"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144125337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}