ANDATORY PARENTAL NOtification for adolescents obtaining prescribed contraceptives is a controversial issue. Proponents argue that requiring parental notification would strengthen parents' ability to educate their children and safeguard them from the medical risks associated with prescribed contraceptives. Some proponents also believe that mandating parental notification would encourage adolescents to use condoms rather than prescribed contraceptives, reducing rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In 1998, Congress considered the Title X Parental Notification Act requiring written parental consent, a court order, or parental notification 5 business days in advance of providing minors with prescribed contraceptives at all US family planning clinics funded under Title X of the Public Health Services Act. More recently, efforts have been made to bar the use of state matching funds to purchase prescription drugs for minors without parental consent and to deny federal public health and education funds to all school districts offering emergency contraception in school-based health centers without parental consent. In addition, within the last 5 years, at least 10 states have introduced bills to mandate parental involvement in girls' access to prescribed contraceptives. When state law permits or requires parental notification, the new federal medical privacy regulations issued in December 2000 regarding use and dis

Against the backdrop of ever-expanding technological systems, the effects of accidents or breakdowns in human-made technology are examined and contrasted with those of natural disasters. A number of differences are identified, and research on these forms of cataclysmic events is reviewed. These data, as well as this analysis, suggest that technological catastrophes are more likely to have long-term effects, to affect people beyond the point of impact, and to pose different types of threat than are natural disasters.

Technological catastrophes, defined as mishaps involving breakdown in human‐made systems, appear to differ in the nature of threats that they pose. Coping with chronic stress associated with these events was examined by considering response to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Using the Ways of Coping Inventory (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980), use of emotional regulation, problem‐oriented coping, and the assumption of responsibility or blame for problems associated with living near the damaged plant were considered. Patterns of response at TMI were compared to those of a control group, consisting of people living near an undamaged nuclear plant more than 100 miles from TMI. Stress was assessed by making simultaneous measurements of symptom reporting, task performance, and urinary catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine). Findings suggested that both emotionally‐focused coping and self‐blame were associated with less stress than were problem‐focused coping and denial. Further, emotional regulation and assumption of responsibility for encountered difficulty were related to one another and to perceived control as well. This suggested that a control‐oriented coping style, in which the perception of control is actively created or maintained, can be effective in reducing distress associated with technological catastrophes.

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Stress and coping are considered as part of a process involving environmental events, psychosocial processes, and physiological response. The concept of stress as well as approaches to its study are discussed. Links between coping and perceived control are described, and measurement approaches are evaluated. The usefulness of integrated approaches to the study of stress, emphasizing expansion of both conceptual and methodological perspectives, is discussed.