Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

For months on end we were subjected to the rituals of irrelevance: to posturing as patriotism, incoherence as eloquence, innuendo as nuance, character assassination as candor, sound-bites as substance, carefully memorized one-liners as expressions of spontaneity, self-righteousness as self-deprecation. Misstatement, outright fabrication, deliberate falsehood, and conscious distortion were spewed out by spin-masters, merchants of manipulation, propagandists, pollsters, shysters of the slick and technicians of the fast fix, all in the name of the democratic process. Nor were the two presidential candidates, Michael Dukakis and George Bush, themselves immune to the malaise, proving themselves extraordinarily adept time and again at not …

Roxbury, Boston, And The Boston Smsa: Socioeconomic Trends 1960-1985, Sally Brewster Moulton

New England Journal of Public Policy

Socioeconomic trends for a primarily black and poor urban area, Roxbury, Massachusetts, are compared to those of the surrounding city of Boston and the Boston Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) for the period 1960 to 1985. Patterns in income, poverty, labor force participation, educational attainment, and racial composition are examined for each of the three areas. The chief purpose of the analysis is to determine the nature of gaps between Roxbury residents and the rest of the metropolitan area as well as the ways in which such gaps have changed over time.

The findings indicate that, despite growth in income, …

Recent Trends In The Economic Status Of Boston's Aged: Determinants And Policy Implications, William H. Crown

New England Journal of Public Policy

The economic status of the older population has improved significantly since the early 1970s. Yet poverty rates among certain groups of elderly, especially older minorities, have declined very little. To understand the reasons for these seemingly contradictory trends, changes in the income composition of the elderly in Boston are compared to changes in income for the elderly in the United States. This analysis suggests that low-income older persons were largely bypassed by one of the major factors in income growth among the older population — growth in pension income.

Despite the persistence of poverty among significant segments of the older …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

On occasion, the New England Journal of Public Policy will devote an entire issue to consideration of a public policy matter of major importance. The AIDS epidemic is such a matter, with a likely impact of overwhelming consequence well into the twenty-first century. The epidemic raises fundamental questions regarding the nature of individual freedom, our responsibilities to others, the always delicate balance between private rights and the public interest, and society's obligation to its "out" groups — whose members it has stigmatized, discriminated against, ridiculed, and treated as less than full and equal citizens. Indeed, it requires us to ask …

The Clinical Spectrum Of Hiv Infections: Implications For Public Policy, Kenneth H. Mayer

New England Journal of Public Policy

The term acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a definition developed by the Centers for Disease Control to explain the epidemic of immunosuppression first seen in the United States among gay and bisexual men and intravenous drug users in the early 1980s. It is now known that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the necessary agent for the compromise of the immune system which results in AIDS; however, there is a wide range of manifestations associated with HIV infection. Individuals with AIDS tend to have severe opportunistic infections or malignancies, and the vast majority ofindividuals die within two years after the …