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There is a growing group of adolescents and young adults in the USA who identify as multiracial. However, very little research, especially health research, focuses on understanding multiracial identification and health and behavioral outcomes for multiracial populations in comparison to their single-race counterparts. Understanding the intersectional influences on this identification process is critical to updating the literature on racial and ethnic identity and health with more accurate identifications and categories. It is especially critical that there is an explicit focus on understanding the impact of structural racism and discrimination when studying the process of racial identification and the impact on health. This review takes an interdisciplinary approach relying on a review of multiple research literatures: the historical literature on race, racism and categorization, psychological and adolescent medicine literatures on adolescent development, the sociological literature on racial and ethnic identification, and the limited public health research beginning to disentangle multiracial health outcomes. An empirically testable conceptual framework is offered to frame the organization of this review—demonstrating the multiple spheres of influence on racial and ethnic identification and the implication for health outcomes.

Objectives. This article explores the social context of the migration-related HIV epidemic in western Mexico. Methods. Data collection involved life histories and participant observation with migrant women in Atlanta and their sisters or sisters-in-law in Mexico. Results. Both younger and older women acknowledged that migrant men’s sexual behavior may expose them to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.Younger Mexican women in both communities expressed a marital ideal characterized by mutual intimacy, communication, joint decisionmaking, and sexual pleasure, but not by willingness to use condoms as an HIV prevention strategy. Conclusions. Migrant Mexican women’s commitment to an illusion of fidelity will hinder HIV prevention initiatives targeted toward them. Furthermore, the changing meanings of marital sex may make it harder to convince young couples to use condoms as an HIV prevention strategy. If the chain of heterosexual marital HIV transmission is to be interrupted in this community, prevention programs must target men. (Am J Public Health. 2002;92:1227–1237)

We examine the relationship between fertility intentions and fertility behavior using a sample of 2,812 non-Hispanic Whites interviewed twice by the National Survey of Families and Households. Time 1 fertility intentions are strong and persistent predictors of fertility, even after controlling for background and life course variables. The effect is greater when the intentions are held with greater certainty. In contrast, the expected timing of births has a much more modest and short-term effect. Only marital status has an effect with a magnitude that is comparable with that of fertility intentions. Fertility intentions do not mediate the effects of other variables but do contribute additional predictive power. The substantive importance of intentions emphasizes the salience of individual motivations and argues for a redirection of fertility research toward studies of the interactions between the individual and society.

Social movements organized around perceived threats to health play an important role in American life as advocates for change in health policies and health behaviors. This article employs a framework drawn from social movement and related sociological theories to compare two such movements: the smoking/tobacco control movement and the gun control movement. A major purpose of the article is to identify specific social movement ideologies and actions that are more or less likely to facilitate achievement of the movement's health policy objectives. The article concludes that the success of health-related social movements is associated with (1) the articulation of a socially (as well as scientifically) credible threat to the public's health, (2) the ability to mobilize a diverse organizational constituency, and (3) the convergence of political opportunities with target vulnerabilities.

The analytic models used by family demographers would be strengthened by the concept of social capital, placed in the context of social exchange theory. Using that concept to designate resources that emerge from social ties, the authors advance five propositions: 1) social capital is a multidimensional attribute of an individual; 2) the dimensions of social capital are the number of relationships a person has, their quality (strength), and the resources available through those relationships; 3) group membership and interaction facilitate the development of social capital; 4) the structural properties of groups influence the development of social capital; and 5) the acquisition and maintenance of social capital is a major motivator of human behavior. The formation of sexual partnerships, the birth and rearing of children, and both intragenerational and intergenerational transfers constitute major forms of investment in social capital in virtually all societies.

Patterns of sex differences in mortality in developed and developing countries are briefly described, and the range of explanatory approaches that have been used to account for these differences are reviewed. Attention is primarily focused on the higher male than female mortality rate in developed countries. Biological and behavioral/environmental perspectives on these differences are considered in some detail. It is concluded that a specifically sociological approach to sex differences in mortality requires both greater attention to the spectrum of variation within and across societies and a more complex model of causality that takes account of gender differences in the nature of mortality risks.

A modified rational decision model incorporating salient events and social influences (particularly from sexual partners) is used to analyze adolescent women's consistent use of oral contraceptives (OCs) over a six-month period. Data are taken from a panel study of 308 clients of an inner-city family planning clinic. Expected OC use was computed for each subject on the basis of subjective expected utility (SEU) theory, and is found in multivariate analyses to be a significant predictor of actual OC use. In addition, variables representing baseline and follow-up partner influences, the salience of pregnancy for the subject, and positive side effects of OCs during the first months of use are found to predict OC use. Partner's support of OC use during follow-up and positive side effects of OCs are found to predict OC use among subjects for whom OC use was not the expected decision according to baseline SEU. Implications of the findings for models of adolescents' contraceptive behavior and for clinicians are discussed.

Prevailing theories of fertility behavior do not explain what sustains fertility in industrialized countries. Extending James Coleman's concept of social capital, the authors argue that the social resource value of children is an important factor motivating childbearing. Data for the United States from the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households are used to test hypotheses regarding how fertility intentions are influenced by the social resource value of children, the economic costs of children, and the effect of children on parental career. The social resource value of children emerges as a powerful predictor of fertility intentions across groups stratified by race, gender, union status, and parity. Children create social capital for parents, an important and previously underappreciated reason for why Americans want children.

This article argues that public health policies are critical to the prevention and control of disease. However, public health policies are not adopted and implemented in a vacuum: they are the outcome of social and political change. The forces of change need to be understood in order for them to be harnessed in the interest of public health. The article proposes a conceptual framework to account for variation in the initiation and implementation of public health policies directed at reducing levels of mortality. This framework incorporates three sets of variables: pertaining to states, to social movements, and to constructions of risk. The framework's usefulness for analytic purposes is tested in two case studies describing public health policymaking in France and the United States. Applicability of the framework in other settings is briefly discussed.