Search

While there is emerging evidence on the prevalence of physical and mental health conditions among autistic adults, less is known about this population's needs during older adulthood (aged 65+). We conducted a cross-sectional retrospective cohort study of 2016–2017 Medicare data to compare the prevalence of physical and mental health conditions in a national sample of autistic older adults (N = 4685) to a matched population comparison (N = 46,850) cohort. Autistic older adults had significantly greater odds of nearly all physical health conditions including epilepsy (odds ratio = 18.9; 95% confidence interval = 17.2–20.7), Parkinson's disease (odds ratio = 6.1; 95% confidence interval = 5.3–7.0), and gastrointestinal conditions (odds ratio = 5.2; 95% confidence interval = 4.9–5.5). Most mental health conditions were more common among autistic older adults, including schizophrenia and psychotic disorders (odds ratio = 25.3; 95% confidence interval = 22.4–28.7), attention deficit disorders (odds ratio = 24.4; 95% confidence interval = 16.2–31.0), personality disorders (odds ratio = 24.1; 95% confidence interval = 17.8–32.5), and suicidality or self-inflicted injury (odds ratio = 11.1; 95% confidence interval = 8.9–13.8). Health conditions commonly associated with advanced age in the general population (e.g. osteoporosis, cognitive disorders, heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, osteoarthritis) were also significantly more common among autistic older adults. By highlighting the significant physical and mental health needs for which autistic older adults require care, our findings can inform healthcare systems, healthcare providers, and public health initiatives seeking to promote well-being in this growing population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the gendered sexuality over the life course (GSLC) model, a conceptual model incorporating aspects of life course sociology and sexuality studies. The author suggests that experiences during life courses influence the development of sexual behaviors and attitudes. She discusses how gender differences lead to unique sexual behaviors for men and women based on experiences such as celibacy, disability, marriage, divorce and loss of virginity. She also comments on how aging can affect sexual agency.

This article brings insights from feminist science and technology studies to bear on recent public debates over the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which prevents many cervical cancers, and male circumcision as potential HIV preventive. In the United States, attempts to mandate HPV vaccination have activated intense concerns about female "promiscuity," whereas talk of promoting circumcision against HIV has triggered scant anxiety about American boys' sexuality. The authors show how intersections among gender, sexuality, race, and age have shaped responses to these two containment technologies—and how the technologies' deployment both relies on and reproduces meanings of gender and sexuality that constitute the omnipresent "double standard." The analysis develops an original feminist sociology of containment, explicating how social relations shape the innovation, reinvention, and use of technologies to contain particular sorts of bodies, fluids, and sexual practices-by whom, under what conditions, and for what purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-depth interviews were conducted with 44 low-income breastfeeding women to explore the incentives and disincentives to breastfeeding experienced within 6 months postpartum. Using an individual net benefit maximization (INBM) framework based on economic theory, we assessed women's motivations, incentives, and disincentives for breastfeeding. Based on the framework and their experience breastfeeding, women fell into 3 groups: intrinsically motivated, extrinsically motivated, and successfully experienced with both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Successfully experienced women were most likely to breastfeed to 6 months. Intrinsically motivated women valued breastfeeding but often required information and instruction to reach breastfeeding goals. Extrinsically motivated women were least likely to continue breastfeeding even with support and instruction. Providers can screen women to determine their experience and motivation then tailor interventions accordingly. Intrinsically motivated women may need support and instruction, extrinsically motivated women may benefit from motivational interviewing, and successfully experienced women may need only minimal breastfeeding counseling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I use the case of male circumcision (MC) to examine how grassroots activists, medical professionals, other stakeholders, and ordinary people employ letters to the editor (LTEs) to influence public health debates. I also show how journalistic practices affect the use of LTEs. Seventy LTEs about MC from U.S. newspapers between 1985 and 2006 are analyzed using qualitative methods. Pro-MC, anti-MC, and neutral LTE writers supported their stances on similar grounds, described adversaries as biased, and stressed medical and scientific authority. Yet only MC advocates and neutralists trivialized MC and declined to justify their stances, suggesting distinctive dynamics for LTEs about widely accepted practices. The prevalence of debated practices and activists' efforts to piggyback on related issues also affect LTE content. Editors chose LTEs to address readers' critiques, enact news values like balance and controversy, and showcase writers with strong claims to legitimacy, thereby mediating public health debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how gender continues to shape interpretations and experiences of virginity loss in complex ways. Virginity loss is widely understood, by scholars and lay people alike, as a central event in the process through which girls and boys become adult women and men. Major social changes occurring in the 1960s and 1970s helped bring about new sexual norms and behaviors. Studies of early sexuality in the 1970s and 1980s found that young women, while more permissive than in previous decades, continued to value virginity and predicate sexual activity on love and committed romantic relationships, whereas young men continued to express disdain for virginity, engage in sexual activity primarily out of curiosity and desire for physical pleasure. In this article, the author draws on 61 detailed case studies, collected from young women and men of diverse social and sexual backgrounds, to develop a grounded theoretical account of the complex ways that gender shapes interpretations and experiences of virginity loss even as gender's significance as a shaper of sexual meanings appears to be on the wane.

Cross-national studies link mass media presentation of sexuality to different patterns of adolescent sexual socialization and conduct but have not analyzed media texts in detail. Using ethnographic content analysis, the author evaluates 76 stories about virginity loss—a key sexual transition—from one German and one U.S. teen magazine. Consistent with culture-specific approaches to teen sexuality, editors at both publications made similar recommendations for virginity loss, but German editors portrayed suggested practices as more appealing and feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]