Parents'/guardians' willingness to vaccinate their children against genital herpes.

Purpose: To describe parents' acceptance of a hypothetical herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) vaccine, attitudes toward vaccine legislation, beliefs regarding appropriate timing of vaccination and correlates of vaccine acceptance.

Methods: A telephone survey of 315 parents/guardians in the Southeast United States. Descriptive statistics describe the sample's overall attitudes toward HSV-2 vaccination, vaccine legislation, and age preferences.

Douching beliefs and practices among black and white women.

To ascertain beliefs about douching, douching practices, and their motivational antecedents among adult women living in the southeastern United States, we conducted a telephone survey of a random sample of 535 adult women. Douching was deemed a good hygienic practice by 65% of women, half of whom believed that douching was necessary for good hygiene. These beliefs were more common among black than white women.

Alcohol use and psychological distress: a comparison of Americans and West Germans.

This paper examines the relationship between alcohol use and tendencies toward depression and anxiety among Americans and West Germans. It was found that anxiety was not significant in promoting drinking, although depression was associated with alcohol use for Americans only. Nevertheless, the West Germans consumed more alcohol than Americans, and this study suggests that culture underlies the difference in alcohol consumption.

Health lifestyles and self-direction in employment among American men: a test of the spillover effect.

This paper examines whether American males with a high degree of control over their work situation pursue healthy lifestyles and rate their physical health more positively than those who score low on occupational self-direction. That is, are persons who control their work more likely to also try to control their health through living in a particularly healthy manner? We found that there was no support for a spillover effect from high occupational self-direction to enhanced participation in health lifestyles or more positive self-rated health. The findings suggest health lifestyles have spread throughout occupational work groups in the U.

Psychological distress, perceived health status, and physician utilization in America and West Germany.

This paper reports on findings pertaining to levels of psychological distress, perceived health status, and physician utilization among a sample of Americans (N = 1204) and West Germans (N = 1266) living in Illinois and North-Rhine Westphalia, respectively. The conflicting perspectives of labeling theory and the clinical approach to cross-cultural variations in mental disorder are discussed. There were no significant differences between the two population groups with respect to anxiety tendencies or psychological distress generally, with the exception of Germans having significantly more tendency toward depression.