Dependence social costs

Data from the ECA were used in an analysis of the social costs of anxiety disorders (Leon et al, 1995). Financial dependence was high among anxious individuals, particularly those with panic disorders (unemployment among men was 60%). Chronic... 

Difficulties will arise in expressing functions that depend on value judgements for example, the social benefits and the social costs that arise from pollution. 

In the market for energy, the main causes of divergence between private and social prices are the regulation of natural gas prices, the existence of a social cost associated with U.S. dependence on imports of foreign oil not reflected in private prices, and the existence of environmental externalities such as pollution or risk of a major accident such as nuclear leakage. 

Let us address briefly the various costs involved in a further differentiation with respect to the pesticide accumulation problem. We mentioned above that the real social costs of the use of pesticides will vary according to their propensity to accumulate in drinking water. This accumulation problem again depends upon several factors, among which are the types of pesticides used and the amounts applied to the soil, the types of product grown on the land and the hydrogeological conditions. 

Society s ultimate goal is to encourage that combination of care that minimizes total social cost in the final column of table 8.1. The lowest-cost combination will depend on the values taken by P and T. Table 8.2 shows the levels of due care that should be taken by the railroad and the highway user for different values of the levels of daily traffic, and the proportion of times that the highway user would have to slow down to exercise a higher level of care. 

In steady-state equilibrium the annual total social costs of passive belts are estimated to be from 0.5 to 1.0 billion dollars per year and the same type of costs of air bags are estimated to be from 2.5 to 6.5 billion dollars per year depending on which cost estimates are used. Comparable benefits are estimated to be from 2.1 to 5.5 billion dollars per year for passive belts and 3.6 to 6.4 billion dollars per year for air bags. Costs and benefits are expressed in 1975 dollars. For passive belts the estimated net benefits are positive for each case examined. For air bags, the net benefits are smaller and always negative for the better costs estimates. Arnould and Grabowski conclude that passive belts are a much more cost effective approach to occupant crash protection than air bags. 

This would affect every business that was linked to a computer juid the commotion and hysteria tliat surrounded the Y2K bug were due to the present age s dependence on computers. For c.xamplc, it was feared that the go eminent s computer system would print social security checks with amounts seen in the year 1900 and that banks would calculate dividends based on interest rates from the year 1900. The problems could have been catastrophic. Fortunately, tlie response to the "potential Y2K disaster was effective in that most corrections or patches were made before the year 2000. However, these corrections were costly and required large amounts of money to be spent." ... 

As society advances, its values depend on what is produced and those sources of production. However, as the means to acquire products becomes easier, values turn inward to the general societal welfare and our environment. Uncontrolled fire can devastate our assets and production sources, and this relates to the societal costs of fire prevention and loss restoration. The effects of fire on people and the environment become social issues that depend on the political ideology and economics that prevail in the state. Thus, attention to fire prevention and control depend on its perceived damage potential and our social values in the state. While these issues have faced all cultures, perhaps the twentieth century ultimately provided the basis for addressing fire with proper science in the midst of significant social and technological advances, especially among the developed countries. 

There are major consequences of alcoholism, from child abuse to domestic or public violence to traffic accidents and from cirrhosis to hypertension. Mean life expectancy of alcohol abusers is around 55 years. Alcohol seems involved in several hundred thousand deaths each year in Europe, with considerable added social and health care costs. This is in clear contrast with the little attention paid to the treatment of alcohol dependence and abuse. It is important to note that there is an increasing knowledge of similar effects on driving etc. from other psychoactive substances, particularly from the seda-tive/tranquillizer drugs and antihistamines. 

How high is the cost In financial terms, it depends on the ambitions of the drug companies and the stinginess of the insurers, both of which seem to increase exponentially. They could be changed, but it would take a social revolution not yet visible on our horizon. In personal terms, it s incalculable, because we don t yet know what will happen if we use any drug for 10, 20, or 50 years. I love the idea of prevention, but I am not excited about its immediate prospects ... 

Nicotine dependence is almost invariably caused by addiction to tobacco, because tobacco is the overwhelming source of nicotine. Nicotine present within tobacco products causes physical and mental effects rapidly leading to addiction, and the user continues using tobacco despite adverse health consequences and usually a desire to stop. The widespread use of tobacco, despite its known dangers, probably reflects its low cost and easy availability, its high level of social acceptance until recent years, and its seemingly mild immediate side effects. 

The use of alcohol (ethanol) prepared from the fermentation of sugars, starches and other carbohydrates dates back to the beginning of recorded history. Alcohol is the most important drug of dependence in all industrialized countries, and the clinical and social problems that arise from its widespread abuse are legion. In the US, the total annual economic cost of alcoholism and its related disorders has been estimated to be approximately 80 billion, and this does not take into account the human cost, which is impossible to quantify. It has been calculated that the lifetime... 

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