* WINNER: The American military - for the progress it is making in reducing sexual harassment. An extensive new survey by the Department of Justice shows a significant drop in the number of women in uniform who report suffering sexual harassment.
LOSER: The American military - because it still has a long way to go. There's ample reason to be encouraged by the drop from 64 percent in 1988 to 55 percent currently in the number of female service personnel encountering sexual harassment. But when more than half still say they encounter this offensive behavior, the Pentagon plainly has its work cut out for it.LOSERS: Nurses - because their already difficult jobs are becoming much harder as hospitals try to economize by piling more work on their staffs. A new survey by the American Journal of Nursing Care shows 69 percent of the nurses say they have less time to provide basic care and nearly three-fourths have less time to teach patients how to care for themselves after leaving the hospital. No wonder 40 percent of the nurses would not recommend their own hospital to members of their family. No wonder, too, that there are more complaints from patients.
LOSERS: Teenage mothers - and the many people whose lives they affect. It's already well known that early motherhood is a big contributor to chronic poverty, particularly among the teenage parents who are unmarried. Now a new study commissioned by the Robin Hood Foundation, a New York-based charity dedicated to reducing poverty, has pinpointed some other results of adolescent childbearing. The cost to society - mostly in terms of foster care, medical treatment, and lost tax revenues - comes to $7 billion a year. Then there's the impact on the offspring - who are 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade in school, 42 percent more likely to drop out, 13 percent more likely to end up in prison, 30 percent more likely to be unemployed as young adults, and 22 percent more likely to bear children themselves before the age of 18. Ouch!