On weight classification categories.
Matthew Tayback · American Journal of Public Health · 1987
the United States-they are more acutely aware of their environment and its indigenous threats; whether the in- digenous threat is posed by climatic conditions or proximity to an epidemic.Indeed, survival is contingent on great- er familiarity and knowledge of these threats.This is axiomatic.Second, Weisman, et al, suggest that our conclusions are based on "sim- ilar, but not equivalent, issues."I con- cur with the authors that the phrasing of the questions between the Price, et al, I study and our study2 are indeed differ- ent; however, I disagree that these items would elicit vastly different mea- sures of knowledge.Using the authors' data, the wide discrepancy between San Francisco and Toledo is less likely an artifact of question formatting and more likely a measure of real knowl- edge differences.This point becomes self-evident when considering the pro- portion of adolescents who correctly identified misconceptions in the mode of HIV transmission.In San Francisco, approximately 70 per cent of the stu- dents were aware that touching or being near someone with AIDS is not a mode of HIV transmission compared with approximately 40 per cent in the Toledo sample.Again, geographic proximity to a locale with a high density of AIDS cases would suggest a greater aware- ness not only of the modes of disease transmission by persons residing in that area, but, as important, awareness of those modes which do not transmit disease.Moreover, data not reported by Weisman, et al, suggest the same strong association when considering at- titudes about AIDS.For example, only 27 per cent of the Toledo sample report- ed being "worried" about AIDS, in contrast with 66 per cent of the San Francisco sample.Proximity to an AIDS epicenter appears to not only heighten awareness of the disease, but, increases residents' fear of the disease as well.2.