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In this article we present a framework for interdisciplinary service learning as border pedagogy grounded on Dewey's educational philosophy and critical social theory. The project Stoa Malakopi allowed design and social science students from two universities in the US and Greece to collaborate in a necessity-driven field of inquiry through engagement with local knowledge. Evaluation showed that students embraced polyphony, reflexivity and situational problem solving as conditions for meaningful university-community partnerships.

The succession of extraordinary traumatic events, such as the poles defrosting, the fires in Australia and Amazon, the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial global crises revival, the Black Lives Matter movement, seems to call for science (to solve problems) and schooling (to make time to the unemployed) for help. Science and schooling are some of the big successes of post-modern culture and states. Given these successes, questions remain. Why do they not deliver hope? We are left to ponder (a) why these extreme events takes us by surprise; (b) why those who have been afforded the best education ever are so anxious, so frozen; (c) why is it that our best policies, science, and minds continue to fail us when it comes to solving the problems associated with the environment, this pandemic, capitalism, and racism; and (d) given the promise of science, why are we so in need of solutions? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons' major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more "relevant" teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution to consideration of "Talcott Parsons and Politics" explores the kind of optimism of sociology's "incurable theorist" that is evident in his mature view of the USA as the world's "New Lead" society. Statements related to optimism can be identified in his extensive writings and this article focuses upon its expression when as an "early career academic" in the late 1920s and 1930s he laid the foundations for his life-long work in sociology. Parsons' sociology developed as the USA's twentieth century contribution unfolded. His "moderate optimism" about the viability of the American experiment shares deeply and intimately in his claim that sociology had finally emerged as an analytical social science oriented by the theory of social action. His mature work considers the "societal community" to be the peculiar focus for sociology's special scientific attention. The USA has taken on this "New Lead" role at the same time that the societal community itself has emerged from within American experience. The discussion here is as much a personal memoire of the author, revisiting efforts to understand how the earliest stages of Parsons's sociology were maintained by him over a long career. Parsons sociological scholarship exhibited American characteristics. As sociology's "incurable theorist" he sought understanding of his own (American) situation, and its context, past and present, seeking to promote a social science that contributed positively to global society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminological literature and statistics show that African Americans are comparatively over-represented in the United States criminal justice system. This study explores whether African American athletes are similarly overrepresented as criminally involved sports figures. Data abundantly illustrate that African Americans fare worse in all phases of criminal justice compared to whites. It has been speculated that African Americans, perhaps due to cultural influences or blocked opportunities, do commit more crime than other racial categories. There is equally strong reason to believe that the representation of African Americans in the criminal justice system is largely a result of racial bias on the part of social control agencies. Crime among athletes, regardless of race, can be explained through social forces, such as collective behavior, organizational influences, and social process. We conclude that African American athletes are socially expected to be engaged in crime and suggest a new approach to this area of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use has rapidly increased among young people, while conventional cigarette use has decreased in this age group. However, some evidence suggests that e-cigarette use is likely to induce conventional cigarette smoking. The present study explored the social influence of the prevalence of e-cigarette use in the peer network and in the general population as a potential mechanism by which e-cigarette use affects adolescents’ overall smoking behaviours. For this purpose, we developed an agent-based model in which young agents repeatedly choose to smoke conventional cigarettes and/or e-cigarettes, or to remain non-smokers. The choice is based on the agent’s evaluation of the utility derived from smoking and attitude towards smoking (‘openness’), which is influenced by smoking prevalence in the agent’s peer network and in the broader society. We also assumed a ‘crossover’ effect between the different types of smoking. The model was calibrated with United States National Youth Tobacco Survey data to reflect real-world numbers. We further simulated the prevalence of different types of smoking under counterfactual scenarios with different levels of openness and crossover effects. The models developed successfully reproduced actual prevalence trends in different types of smoking from 2011 to 2014. Openness to smoking is associated with a dramatic increase in e-cigarette smoking and especially in dual smoking, which cancels out the decline in sole conventional smoking. Larger crossover effects are associated with a higher prevalence of conventional smoking. The simulation results indicate that the social influence of the prevalence of e-cigarette use may influence young people to initiate or continue conventional cigarette smoking. Assessing the impact of e-cigarettes in the general population as a ‘healthier’ alternative to conventional smoking may require carefully monitoring trends in young people’s smoking behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies from the social and health sciences have tended to view the household as the locus of access to and distribution of care, resources, monitoring and modeling for children’s wellbeing. Obesity may present a special case for the study of investments in children, being a component of health for which more of certain inputs may not lead to better outcomes. We expanded on common measures of household structure in the child health literature by considering co-residence and relatedness of parents, grandparents, other relatives, and other children. Data were from a longitudinal sample of 6,700 children participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K), the largest U.S. national dataset with measures of child anthropometrics and household structure at seven time-points over nine years. We used lagged survey-adjusted regressions to estimate associations between household structure and subsequent changes in children’s weight between ages 5 and 14 years in terms of BMI gain and incident obesity. Adjusting for household structure more thoroughly, children living in households with two parents rather than one parent did not experience advantages in terms of less excess weight gain or lower incidence of obesity during elementary and middle school. Children living with a grandmother gained more weight than children not living with a grandmother. Living with siblings and with non-related adults was associated with less weight gain. These findings corroborate a scenario in which, for health problems associated with caloric surplus, classic household factors have more complex associations with child wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 50 years I have been, and remain, an interdisciplinary social scientist seeking to develop and apply social science to improve the well-being of human individuals and social life. Sociology has been my disciplinary home for 48 of these years. As a researcher/scholar, teacher, administrator, and member of review panels in both sociology and interdisciplinary organizations that include and/or intersect with sociology, I have sought to improve the quality and quantity of sociologists and sociology. This article offers my assessment as a participant observer of what (largely American) sociology has been over the course of my lifetime, which is virtually coterminous with the history of modern (post–World War II) sociology, and what it might become. I supplement my participant observations with those of others with similarly broad perspectives, and with broader literature and quantitative indicators on the state of sociology, social science, and society over this period. I entered sociology and social science at a time (the 1960s and early 1970s) when they were arguably their most dynamic and impactful, both within themselves and also with respect to intersections with other disciplines and the larger society. Whereas the third quarter of the twentieth century was a golden age of growth and development for sociology and the social sciences, the last quarter of that century saw sociology and much of social science—excepting economics and, to some extent, psychology—decline in size, coherence, and extradisciplinary connections and impact, not returning until the beginning of the twenty-first century, if at all, to levels reached in the early 1970s. Over this latter period, I and numerous other observers have bemoaned sociology's lack of intellectual unity (i.e., coherence and cohesion), along with attendant dissension and problems within the discipline and in its relation to the other social sciences and public policy. The twenty-first century has seen much of the discipline, and its American Sociological Association (ASA), turn toward public and critical sociology, yet this shift has come with no clear indicators of improvement of the state of the discipline and some suggestions of further decline. The reasons for and implications of all of this are complex, reflecting changes within the discipline and in its academic, scientific, and societal environments. This article can only offer initial thoughts and directions for future discussion, research, and action. I do, however, believe that sociology's problems are serious, arguably a crisis, and have been going on for almost a half-century, at the outset of which the future looked much brighter. It is unclear whether the discipline as now constituted can effectively confront, much less resolve, these problems. Sociologists continue to do excellent work, arguably in spite of rather than because of their location within the current discipline of sociology. They might realize the brighter future that appeared in the offing as of the early 1970s for sociology and its impact on other disciplines and society if they assumed new organizational and/or disciplinary forms, as has been increasingly occurring in other social sciences, the natural sciences, and even the humanities. Society needs more and better sociology. The question is how can we deliver it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most prior research on culture and the dynamics of social support has focused on the emotional outcomes for social support recipients. Though an existing body of research has identified cross-cultural differences in the emotional correlates of receiving different types of social support, researchers have seldom examined possible cultural differences in the experience of social support providers. This study used the Day Reconstruction Method to examine cultural differences in the emotional correlates of the provision of solicited and unsolicited and emotional and informational social support in the daily lives of Singaporean (n = 79) and American (n = 88) participants. Singaporean participants reported providing more social support overall. Regardless of culture, participants reported more positive emotion (affection, happiness) and less negative emotion (anger, anxiety) when they provided emotional social support. Also, multilevel modeling analyses revealed a 3-way interaction between culture, social support provision, and social support solicitation, indicating cultural differences in negative emotional responses to providing solicited social support. Specifically, results suggest that attempts to provide more solicited social support were associated with more negative emotions in the U.S. In contrast, provider negative emotions were highest in Singapore when the provider did not meet the recipient’s request for support. Patterns of cultural differences in social support provision are dissimilar to—rather than simply mirroring—those found in published research on social support receipt, highlighting the importance of studying social support provision as a distinct phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute abdominal pain (colic) is the most common reason for emergency veterinary treatment in the horse. Consolidation of data through a systematic review is important to inform evidence-based medicine and clinical guidelines, but there are currently no published systematic reviews on colic in the horse. The aim of this study was to identify, categorize and appraise the evidence on factors associated with increased risk of developing abdominal pain (colic) due to gastrointestinal disease in the adult horse. A scoping review was performed to identify and categorize evidence on all risk factors for colic. A systematic review of management-related risk factors was then performed following PRISMA guidelines. Both searches were conducted in Medline, CAB Abstracts and Web of Science databases, and publications were assessed against inclusion and exclusion criteria. For the scoping review, study and participant characteristics of included publications and key results were extracted and tabulated. For the systematic review, cohort, case-control or cross-sectional studies investigating acute abdominal pain in horses within two weeks of management changes were assessed. Study characteristics, participant characteristics and study results of included publications for the systematic review were extracted and tabulated. Included publications were appraised using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tools for cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies. The scoping review search identified 3,756 publications. Fifty eight studies met final inclusion criteria, and 22 categories of risk factors were identified. These were grouped into three broad areas: horse-related factors, management-related factors and environment-related factors. The largest body of evidence related to management change. The systematic review of management change identified 410 publications: 14 met inclusion criteria for analysis. These consisted of one cohort, eight case-control and five cross-sectional studies. The studies were conducted between 1990–2008, and the majority of studies were located in the USA (8/14) or UK (3/14). The risk factors related to management change that were assessed were feed, carer, exercise, pasture, water and housing. The largest bodies of evidence for increased risk of colic associated with management change were changes in feed (5/14 publications) and recent change in housing (3/14). Most studies (8/14) did not meet the JBI criterion on confounding factors. There was marked heterogeneity of study methodologies and measures. This is the first study to use a combined scoping and systematic review to analyse evidence for modifiable risk factors for a common condition in the horse. It provides a comprehensive review that will be a key resource for researchers, veterinary practitioners and horse owners. It identified modifiable risk factors associated with an increased risk of colic which should be a key target for preventative health programmes. The findings from the critical appraisal were used to develop recommendations for future research to improve the quality of evidence-based veterinary medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: For the estimated 554,000 homeless individuals on any given night in the United States, obtaining quality sleep is often challenging. This group is known to have multiple health disparities, potentially affected by sleep problems; therefore, identifying lifestyle factors–such as physical activity–that are associated with improving both quality and quantity of sleep has important implications for public health. Here, we examine associations of physical activity with subjective sleep problems within a large sample of homeless adults. Methods: Participants were homeless adults recruited from Dallas and Oklahoma (N = 747; 66.1% men, Mage = 43.7±12.1). Participants self-reported insufficient sleep (number of days without sufficient rest/sleep in the last month; categorized as 0, 1–13, 14–29, or ≥30 days), sleep duration (over average 24 hours; categorized as ≤6 [short sleeper], 7–9 [optimal sleeper], or ≥10 hours [long sleeper]), and unintentional daytime sleep (number of days with unintentional sleep in the last month; categorized as 0 vs ≥30 days). Physical activity was assessed subjectively using the BRFSS Physical Activity Questionnaire. Regression analyses were performed to examine the associations between physical activity and sleep problems, controlling for age, sex, race, education, body mass, months homeless, at-risk drinking, self-rated health, serious mental illness, smoking status, and recruitment city. Results: Failure to meet/exceed physical activity guidelines was associated with higher likelihood of being a long sleeper (OR = 2.64, 95% CI: 1.46, 4.78) but a lower likelihood of having ≥30 days of insufficient rest/sleep (OR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.29, 0.93). Conclusions: Findings suggest that physical activity promotion may hold promise for addressing the problem of too much sleep, but not other manifestations of sleep problems among this vulnerable group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing critical global health issues, such as antimicrobial resistance, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters, requires strong coordination and management across sectors. The One Health approach is the integrative effort of multiple sectors working to attain optimal health for people, animals, and the environment, and is increasingly recognized by experts as a means to address complex challenges. However, practical application of the One Health approach has been challenging. The One Health Systems Mapping and Analysis Resource Toolkit (OH-SMART) introduced in this paper was designed using a multistage prototyping process to support systematic improvement in multi-sectoral coordination and collaboration to better address complex health concerns through an operational, stepwise, and practical One Health approach. To date, OH-SMART has been used to strengthen One Health systems in 17 countries and has been deployed to revise emergency response frameworks, improve antimicrobial resistance national action plans and create multi agency infectious disease collaboration protocols. OH-SMART has proven to be user friendly, robust, and capable of fostering multi-sectoral collaboration and complex system-wide problem solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is ongoing debate about whether education or socioeconomic status (SES) should be inputs into cardiovascular disease (CVD) prediction algorithms and clinical risk adjustment models. It is also unclear whether intervening on education will affect CVD, in part because there is controversy regarding whether education is a determinant of CVD or merely correlated due to confounding or reverse causation. We took advantage of a natural experiment to estimate the population-level effects of educational attainment on CVD and related risk factors.Methods and Findings: We took advantage of variation in United States state-level compulsory schooling laws (CSLs), a natural experiment that was associated with geographic and temporal differences in the minimum number of years that children were required to attend school. We linked census data on educational attainment (N = approximately 5.4 million) during childhood with outcomes in adulthood, using cohort data from the 1992-2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; N = 30,853) and serial cross-sectional data from 1971-2012 waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; N = 44,732). We examined self-reported CVD outcomes and related risk factors, as well as relevant serum biomarkers. Using instrumental variables (IV) analysis, we found that increased educational attainment was associated with reduced smoking (HRS β -0.036, 95%CI: -0.06, -0.02, p < 0.01; NHANES β -0.032, 95%CI: -0.05, -0.02, p < 0.01), depression (HRS β -0.049, 95%CI: -0.07, -0.03, p < 0.01), triglycerides (NHANES β -0.039, 95%CI: -0.06, -0.01, p < 0.01), and heart disease (HRS β -0.025, 95%CI: -0.04, -0.002, p = 0.01), and improvements in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (HRS β 1.50, 95%CI: 0.34, 2.49, p < 0.01; NHANES β 0.86, 95%CI: 0.32, 1.48, p < 0.01), but increased BMI (HRS β 0.20, 95%CI: 0.002, 0.40, p = 0.05; NHANES β 0.13, 95%CI: 0.01, 0.32, p = 0.05) and total cholesterol (HRS β 2.73, 95%CI: 0.09, 4.97, p = 0.03). While most findings were cross-validated across both data sets, they were not robust to the inclusion of state fixed effects. Limitations included residual confounding, use of self-reported outcomes for some analyses, and possibly limited generalizability to more recent cohorts.Conclusions: This study provides rigorous population-level estimates of the association of educational attainment with CVD. These findings may guide future implementation of interventions to address the social determinants of CVD and strengthen the argument for including educational attainment in prediction algorithms and primary prevention guidelines for CVD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has documented myriad pernicious psychological effects of high economic inequality, prompting interest into how people perceive, evaluate, and react to inequality. Here we propose, refine, and validate the Support for Economic Inequality Scale (SEIS)–a novel measure of attitudes towards economic inequality. In Study 1, we distill eighteen items down to five, providing evidence for unidimensionality and reliability. In Study 2, we replicate the scale’s unidimensionality and reliability and demonstrate its validity. In Study 3, we evaluate a United States version of the SEIS. Finally, in Studies 4–5, we demonstrate the SEIS’s convergent and predictive validity, as well as evidence for the SEIS being distinct from other conceptually similar measures. The SEIS is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing perceptions of and reactions to economic inequality and provides a useful tool for researchers investigating the psychological underpinnings of economic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Persons with dementia have twice the acute hospital use as older persons without dementia. In addition to straining overburdened healthcare systems, acute hospital use impacts patient and caregiver quality of life and is associated with increased risk of adverse outcomes including death. Reducing avoidable acute hospital use in persons with dementia is thus a global healthcare priority. However, evidence regarding the impact of health service interventions as defined by the Effective Practice and Organization of Care Cochrane Group on acute hospital use is scant and inconclusive. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to synthesize available evidence on the impact of health service interventions on acute hospital use in community-dwelling persons with dementia compared to usual care. Methods: Data Sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and Cochrane CENTRAL (from 01/1995 to 08/2017). Study eligibility criteria: Randomised controlled trials measuring the impact of health service interventions on acute hospital use (proportion and mean number of emergency department visits and hospitalisations, mean number of hospital days, measured at 12 months, and at longest follow-up) in community-dwelling persons with dementia, compared to usual care. Study selection, appraisal and synthesis methods: Reviewers independently identified studies, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias, with the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Authors of relevant trials were queried about unpublished data. Random effects model was used for meta-analyses. Effect heterogeneity was assessed through prediction intervals, and explored using sub-group analyses. Findings: Seventeen trials provided data on 4,549 persons. Unpublished data were obtained for 13 trials, representing 65% of synthesized data. Most interventions included a case management or a self-management component. None of the outcome comparisons provided conclusive evidence supporting the hypothesis that these interventions would lead to a decrease in acute hospital use. Furthermore, prediction intervals indicated possible and important increased service use associated with these interventions, such as emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and hospital days. Subgroup analyses did not favour any type of intervention. A limitation of this study is the inclusion of any type of health service intervention, which may have increased the observed heterogeneity. Conclusion: Despite a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis, including predominantly unpublished data, no health service intervention beyond usual care was found to reduce acute hospital use in community-dwelling persons with dementia. An important increase in service use may be associated with these interventions. Further research is urgently needed to identify effective interventions for this vulnerable population to limit rising acute hospital use, associated costs and adverse outcomes. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42016046444. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: College affirmative action programs seek to expand socioeconomic opportunities for underrepresented minorities. Between 1996 and 2013, 9 US states-including California, Texas, and Michigan-banned race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Because economic opportunity is known to motivate health behavior, banning affirmative action policies may have important adverse spillover effects on health risk behaviors. We used a quasi-experimental research design to evaluate the association between college affirmative action bans and health risk behaviors among underrepresented minority (Black, Hispanic, and Native American) adolescents.Methods and Findings: We conducted a difference-in-differences analysis using data from the 1991-2015 US national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). We compared changes in self-reported cigarette smoking and alcohol use in the 30 days prior to survey among underrepresented minority 11th and 12th graders in states implementing college affirmative action bans (Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington) versus outcomes among those residing in states not implementing bans (n = 35 control states). We also assessed whether underrepresented minority adults surveyed in the 1992-2015 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS) who were exposed to affirmative action bans during their late high school years continued to smoke cigarettes between the ages of 19 and 30 years. Models adjusted for individual demographic characteristics, state and year fixed effects, and state-specific secular trends. In the YRBS (n = 34,988 to 36,268, depending on the outcome), cigarette smoking in the past 30 days among underrepresented minority 11th-12th graders increased by 3.8 percentage points after exposure to an affirmative action ban (95% CI: 2.0, 5.7; p < 0.001). In addition, there were also apparent increases in past-30-day alcohol use, by 5.9 percentage points (95% CI: 0.3, 12.2; p = 0.041), and past-30-day binge drinking, by 3.5 percentage points (95% CI: -0.1, 7.2, p = 0.058), among underrepresented minority 11th-12th graders, though in both cases adjustment for multiple comparisons resulted in failure to reject the null hypothesis (adjusted p = 0.083 for both outcomes). Underrepresented minority adults in the TUS-CPS (n = 71,575) exposed to bans during their late high school years were also 1.8 percentage points more likely to report current smoking (95% CI: 0.1, 3.6; p = 0.037). Event study analyses revealed a discrete break for all health behaviors timed with policy discussion and implementation. No substantive or statistically significant effects were found for non-Hispanic White adolescents, and the findings were robust to a number of additional specification checks. The limitations of the study include the continued potential for residual confounding from unmeasured time-varying factors and the potential for recall bias due to the self-reported nature of the health risk behavior outcomes.Conclusions: In this study, we found evidence that some health risk behaviors increased among underrepresented minority adolescents after exposure to state-level college affirmative action bans. These findings suggest that social policies that shift socioeconomic opportunities could have meaningful population health consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioinformatics has become an indispensable part of life science over the past 2 decades. However, bioinformatics education is not well integrated at the undergraduate level, especially in liberal arts colleges and regional universities in the United States. One significant obstacle pointed out by the Network for Integrating Bioinformatics into Life Sciences Education is the lack of faculty in the bioinformatics area. Most current life science professors did not acquire bioinformatics analysis skills during their own training. Consequently, a great number of undergraduate and graduate students do not get the chance to learn bioinformatics or computational biology skills within a structured curriculum during their education. To address this gap, we developed a module-based, week-long short course to train small college and regional university professors with essential bioinformatics skills. The bioinformatics modules were built to be adapted by the professor-trainees afterward and used in their own classes. All the course materials can be accessed at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demographic and income disparities may impact food accessibility. Research has not yet well documented the precise location of healthy and unhealthy food resources around children’s homes and schools. The objective of this study was to examine the food environment around homes and schools for all public school children, stratified by race/ethnicity and poverty status. This cross-sectional study linked data on the exact home and school addresses of a population-based sample of public school children in New York City from 2013 to all corner stores, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, and wait-service restaurants. Two measures were created around these addresses for all children: 1) distance to the nearest outlet, and 2) count of outlets within 0.25 miles. The total analytic sample included 789,520 K-12 graders. The average age was 11.78 years (SD ± 4.0 years). Black, Hispanic, and Asian students live and attend schools closer to nearly all food outlet types than White students, regardless of poverty status. Among not low-income students, Black, Hispanic, and Asian students were closer from home and school to corner stores and supermarkets, and had more supermarkets around school than White students. The context in which children live matters, and more nuanced data is important for development of appropriate solutions for childhood obesity. Future research should examine disparities in the food environment in other geographies and by other demographic characteristics, and then link these differences to health outcomes like body mass index. These findings can be used to better understand disparities in food access and to help design policies intended to promote healthy eating among children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Reviews of violence against children in disaster settings focus on armed conflict. Little is understood about natural disasters which has implications in planning humanitarian response. We examined the magnitude and direction of the association between exposure to natural disasters and physical, emotional, and sexual violence against children, and assessed the quality of the evidence. Methods: We searched 15 health and social science databases from first record until May 16, 2018. Publications describing all types of quantitative study design were eligible for inclusion. We presented study characteristics and quality in a narrative form and generated pooled estimates using a three-level random effects model. We evaluated Cochrane’s Q with p-values below 0.10 and radial plots to assess heterogeneity. Planned subgroup analyses explored differential results by violence form, study design, and analysis method. Results: 11 publications met inclusion criteria. The majority were cross-sectional studies examining physical or sexual violence in the United States. We found no evidence of a consistent association or directional influence between natural disasters and violence against children. Combined categorical violence outcomes had substantial heterogeneity [Q (df = 66) = 252.83, p < 0.001]. Subgroups without evidence of heterogeneity had confidence intervals that included a possible null effect. Our findings were mainly limited by inconsistencies in operational definitions of violence, a lack of representative sampling, and unclear establishment of temporal order between natural disaster exposure and violence outcomes. Conclusions: Based on the available evidence, we cannot confidently conclude that natural disasters increase the level or severity of violence against children above non-disaster settings, however heterogeneity and study quality hamper our ability to draw firm conclusions. More nuanced and rigorous research is needed to inform practice and policy as natural disasters increasingly affect human populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cross-cultural study of the relationship among the subsistence strategies, the environmental setting and the food sharing practices of 22 modern small-scale societies located in America (n = 18) and Siberia (n = 4). Ecological, geographical and economic variables of these societies were extracted from specialized literature and the publicly available D-PLACE database. The approach proposed comprises a variety of quantitative methods, ranging from exploratory techniques aimed at capturing relationships of any type between variables, to network theory and supervised-learning predictive modelling. Results provided by all techniques consistently show that the differences observed in food sharing practices across the sampled populations cannot be explained just by the differential distribution of ecological, geographical and economic variables. Food sharing has to be interpreted as a more complex cultural phenomenon, whose variation over time and space cannot be ascribed only to local adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unintended pregnancy in adolescence and early adulthood is stigmatized in the United States because it deviates from social norms that consider young people’s sexuality as a social problem. While limited, prior research has found that this stigma prevents young people from telling people in their lives about their pregnancies, for fear of judgment or negative reactions. We hypothesized that this selective disclosure of unintended pregnancy due to stigma would reduce the social support available to young pregnant people at a particularly vulnerable time—social support that we know is important for optimal physical and mental health of the young person, and the pregnancy (should they choose to carry to term). To explore this hypothesis, we conducted a qualitative study among young people to understand if and how they experienced stigma in relation to an unintended pregnancy, how this stigma shaped patterns of pregnancy disclosure, the implications for received social support, and participant thoughts on how to alleviate the influence of this stigma on their lives. In in-depth interviews with 25 young people in the San Francisco Bay area who had experienced at least one unintended pregnancy, using a thematic analysis approach, we found that the stigma of unintended pregnancy led participants to selectively disclose the pregnancy to limited people, which in turn cut them off from needed sources of social support. Black and Hispanic women disproportionately described this experience. Participants expressed a desire for programs that would connect young people who had experienced unplanned pregnancy to each other–either via the internet, organized groups through clinical care sites, college or high school campuses, or other forums—as a way to alleviate stigma, share perspectives and lessons learned, and otherwise build emotional and informational support networks for themselves where their usual support had fallen away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student evaluations of teaching are widely believed to contain gender bias. In this study, we conduct a randomized experiment with the student evaluations of teaching in four classes with large enrollments, two taught by male instructors and two taught by female instructors. In each of the courses, students were randomly assigned to either receive the standard evaluation instrument or the same instrument with language intended to reduce gender bias. Students in the anti-bias language condition had significantly higher rankings of female instructors than students in the standard treatment. There were no differences between treatment groups for male instructors. These results indicate that a relatively simple intervention in language can potentially mitigate gender bias in student evaluation of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that suicide rates can increase following the suicide of a prominent celebrity or peer, sometimes known as ‘suicide contagion’. The risk of contagion is especially high when media coverage is detailed and sensational. A recent study reported a 10% increase in U.S. suicides in the months following the suicide of comedian Robin Williams, who died in August 2014. The authors tentatively linked this increase to sensational media coverage; however, no content analysis of U.S. media was performed. As such, the aim of the present study is to formally examine the tone and content of U.S. newspaper coverage of Williams’ suicide. The primary objective is to assess adherence to suicide reporting guidelines in U.S. newspapers after his suicide. The secondary objective is to identify common emerging themes discussed in these articles. The tertiary objective is to compare patterns of results in the U.S media with those in the Canadian media. Articles about Williams’ suicide were collected from 10 U.S. newspapers in the 30-day period following his death using systematic retrieval software, which were then examined for adherence to suicide reporting recommendations. An inductive thematic analysis was also undertaken. A total of 63 articles were included in the study. We found that 100% of articles did not call it a ‘successful’ suicide, 96.8% did not use pejorative phrases and 71% did not say ‘commit’ suicide. However, only 11% included information about help-seeking, 27% tended to romanticize his suicide and 46% went into detail about the method. The most prominent emerging theme was Williams’ struggles with mental illness and addiction. These findings suggest that U.S. newspapers moderately adhered to best practice recommendations when reporting Williams’ suicide. Key recommendations were underapplied, which may have contributed to suicide contagion. New interventions targeting U.S. journalists and media may be needed to improve suicide reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Health literacy (HL) skills are essential to enable self-management and shared decision-making in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Limited HL in these patients is associated with poorer outcomes. It is not clear what the burden of limited HL in patients with T2DM across countries and what factors influence it. Methods: A systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines. The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42017056150). We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL and ERIC for articles published up to January 2017. Articles that measured HL levels in adult patients with T2DM; that used validated HL tools; and that were reported in English were included. Two reviewers assessed studies for eligibility and quality, and extracted the data. Prevalence of limited HL is calculated from the number of patients with less than adequate HL over the total number of patients with T2DM in the study. Meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis were conducted using the Open Meta-analyst software. Results: Twenty-nine studies involving 13,457 patients with T2DM from seven countries were included. In total, seven different HL measurement tools were used. The prevalence of limited HL ranged from 7.3% to 82%, lowest in Switzerland and the highest in Taiwan. Meta-regression analysis of all included studies showed the country of study (p<0.001), HL tool used (p = 0.002), and the country’s region (p<0.001) contributed to the variation findings. Thirteen studies in the USA measured functional HL. The pooled prevalence of inadequate functional HL among patients with T2DM in the USA was 28.9% (95% CI: 20.4–37.3), with high heterogeneity (I2 = 97.9%, p <0.001). Studies were done in the community as opposed to a hospital or primary care (p = 0.005) and populations with education level lower than high school education (p = 0.009) reported a higher prevalence of limited HL. Conclusion: The prevalence of limited HL in patients with T2DM varied widely between countries, HL tools used and the country’s region. Pooled prevalence showed nearly one in three patients with T2DM in the USA had limited functional HL. Interactions with healthcare providers and educational attainment were associated with reported of prevalence in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature suggests that post-secondary students experience food insecurity (FI) at greater rates than the general population. However, these rates vary dramatically across institutions and studies. FI assessment methods commonly used in studies with college students have not been scrutinized for psychometric properties, and varying protocols may influence resulting FI prevalence estimates. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of standard food security assessment protocols and to evaluate their agreement as well as the relative accuracy of these protocols in identifying student FI. A randomized sample of 4,000 undergraduate students were invited to participate in an online survey (Qualtrics, LLC, Provo, Utah, USA) that evaluated sociodemographic characteristics and FI with the 2-item food sufficiency screener and the 10-item USDA Adult Food Security Survey Module (FSSM; containing the abbreviated 6-item module). Four hundred sixty-two eligible responses were included in the final sample. The psychometric analysis revealed inconsistencies in college student response patterns on the FSSM when compared to national evaluations. Agreement between FI protocols was generally high (>90%) but was lessened when compared with a protocol that incorporated the 2-item screener. The 10-item FSSM with the 2-item screener had the best model fit (McFadden's R2 = 0.15 and Bayesian Information Criterion = -2049.72) and emerged as the tool providing the greatest relative accuracy for identifying students with FI. Though the 10-item FSSM and 2-item screener yields the most accuracy in this sample, it is unknown why students respond to FSSM items differently than the general population. Further qualitative and quantitative evaluations are needed to determine which assessment protocol is the most valid and reliable for use in accurately identifying FI in post-secondary students across the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: Critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) often require the care of specialist physicians for clinical or procedural expertise. The current state of communication between specialist physicians and families and nurses has not been explored. Objectives: To document the receipt of communication by nurses and family members regarding consultations performed on their patient or loved one, and to quantify how this impacts their overall perceptions of the quality of specialty care. Methods: Prospective survey of 60 adult family members and 90 nurses of 189 ICU patients who received a specialist consultation between March and October of 2015 in a single academic medical center in the United States. Surveys measured the prevalence of direct communication—defined as communication conducted in person, via telephone, or via text-page in which the specialist team gathered information about the patient from the nurse/family member and/or shared recommendations for care—and perceived quality of care. Results: In about two-thirds of family surveys (40/60) and one-half of nurse surveys (75/160), respondents had no direct communication with the specialist team that performed the consultation. Compared to nurses who had no direct communication with the specialists, those who did were 1.5 times more likely to rate the consultation as “excellent” (RR 1.48, 95% CI 1.2–1.8, p<0.001). Nearly 40% (22/60) of families knew so little about the consultation that they felt incapable of evaluating it. Conclusions: Most ICU families and nurses have no interaction with specialist providers. Nurses’ frequent exclusion from conversations about specialty care may pose safety risks and increase the likelihood of mixed messages for patients and families, most of whom desire some interaction with specialists. Future research is needed to identify effective mechanisms for information sharing that keep nurses and families aware of consultation requests, delivery, and outcomes without increasing the risk of mixed messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latinx in the United States have greater life expectancy than other groups, in spite of their socioeconomic and psychosocial disadvantage. This phenomenon has been described as the Latinx health paradox. This investigation observed the interplay of cultural processes and social networks to shed light on this paradox. Latina (N = 26) and White-European (N = 24) mothers wore a digital recorder as they went about their daily lives. Four conversation styles were characterized from the recordings to measure the mothers’ quality of their conversations (small talk and substantive conversations) within different social networks (with the father vs. other adults). As a positive indicator of well-being, laughter was assessed during the conversations. Results demonstrated that Latina mothers tend to laugh more than White-European mothers; and that this relation is mediated by substantive conversations with others. This suggests that Latinas’ cultural processes afford meaningful conversations, which relates to more behavioral laughter, a process that may have positive implications on well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Migration of physicians has been a cause for global concern. In China, reforms of the higher education and healthcare systems have led to a shortage of postgraduate training positions relative to the number of medical graduates. Medical graduates opt for non-clinical roles or move abroad to pursue further training and practice opportunities. The impact of this physician migration is not known. This study quantifies where Chinese migrant physicians to the U.S. were educated, where they went to practice, and how these trends have changed over time. Methods: We combined data on physician characteristics from the 2008 and 2017 American Medical Association Physician Masterfiles with demographic information from the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates. Using a repeated cross-sectional approach, we reviewed the available data, including citizenship at entry to medical school, medical school attended, practice specialty, and practice location. Results: The number of Chinese-educated physicians (CEPs) to the United States (US) has increased over the past 10 years, from 3,878 in 2008 to 5,355 in 2017 (+38.1%). The majority held Chinese citizenship at entry to medical school (98.4% vs 97.1%) with the remainder being citizens of other East Asian nations. Of the Chinese citizens identified in 2008, 913 (19.3%) attended medical school outside of China; in 2017, 376 (6.7%) attended medical school outside of China, representing a decrease of 58.8%. Overall, in 2017, four Chinese medical schools provided 32.1% of all Chinese-educated physicians in the US. Over 50% of the CEPs were practicing in Internal Medicine, Anatomic/ Clinical Pathology, Anesthesiology, Family Medicine or Neurology. Compared with all IMGs, CEPs are more likely to be Anatomic/ Clinical Pathologists and Anesthesiologists. CEPs were concentrated in several states, including New York, California and Massachusetts. In 2017, a lower proportion of CEPs in the US healthcare workforce were in residency training, compared to 2008 (13.2% vs 22.8%). Conclusions: Unlike trends from some other South Asian countries, the number of CEPs in the US has increased over the past 10 years. Migration trends may vary depending on citizenship and country of medical school training. The majority of Chinese-educated graduates come to the US from relatively few medical schools. Fewer CEPs currently in residency training might indicate lower success rates in securing GME training in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant phenology (e.g. timing of spring green-up, flowering) is among the most sensitive indicator of ecological response to ongoing climate variability and change. While previous studies have documented changes in the timing of spring green-up and flowering across different parts of the world, empirical evidence regarding how such ongoing ecological changes impact allergic disease burden at population level is lacking. Because earlier spring green-up may increase season length for tree pollen, we hypothesized that early onset of spring (negative anomaly in start of season (SOS)) will be associated with increased hay fever burden. To test this, we first calculated a median cardinal date for SOS for each county within the contiguous US for the years 2001–2013 using phenology data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). We categorized yearly deviations in SOS for each county from their respective long-term averages as: very early (>3 wks early), early (1–3 wks early), average (within 1 wk), late (1–3 wks late) and very late (> 3 wks late). We linked these data to 2002–2013 National Health Interview Survey data, and investigated the association between changes in SOS and hay fever prevalence using logistic regression. We observed that adults living in counties with a very early onset of SOS had a 14% higher odds of hay fever compared to the reference group, i.e. those living in counties where onset of spring was within the normal range (Odds Ratios (OR): 1.14. 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.03–1.27). Likewise, adults living in counties with very late onset of SOS had a 18% higher odds hay fever compared to the reference group (OR: 1.18, CI: 1.05–1.32). Our data provides the first-ever national scale assessment of the impact of changing plant phenology–linked to ongoing climate variability and change–on hay fever prevalence. Our findings are likely tied to changes in pollen dynamics, i.e early onset of spring increases the duration of exposure to tree pollen, while very late onset of spring increases the propensity of exposure because of simultaneous blooming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are public officials more responsive to requests from affluent or poor constituents? A growing body of evidence suggests that lawmakers are more responsive to the rich when they craft policy. However, some scholars theorize that officials also exhibit a corresponding bias in favor of the poor when they handle casework, essentially giving policy to the rich and services to the poor. In this paper, we test this casework prediction using four experiments in which confederates sent simple requests to state or local officials. In each, our confederates’ reported social classes were randomly assigned and signaled with a brief introductory statement mentioning the sender’s occupation or economic situation. Across our samples, we find precisely-estimated null effects of social class biases: the officials we studied were equally likely to respond regardless of the constituent’s class. These findings raise doubts about whether casework is really a class-biased process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The goal of this study was to analyze differences in the employment and wage trajectories of college-educated young workers in the United States, as distinguished by the timing of their entry into the labor market relative to the onset of the 2008–09 recession. Methods and findings: Using annual American Community Survey microdata, we analyzed the first six years of employment and wage outcomes for cohorts of young workers on traditional-student pathways entering the market (1) in 2006, shortly before recession onset; (2) in 2009, during the recession; and (3) in 2012, three years after the recession officially ended. We found evidence for negative effects on outcomes and outcome trajectories differentiated by the recession’s proximity to workers’ labor market entry, including lower wages for the cohort entering in 2009. However, recession effects tended to be smaller for workers at the high end of the education gradient or with no direct exposure to the recession and were outweighed by gendered labor outcome disparities. We also observed a possibly enduring, recession-induced rise in the number of idle young males and the proportion of male and female high school graduates enrolled in college and not working. Conclusions: Cohort differences in labor outcomes show that the disadvantages of entering the labor market during an economic downturn appear lasting. However, the subordinate role of timing effects in sorting young workers’ employment and wage rates, when compared to the stark stratification of employment and wage outcomes by education or sex, is a useful reminder that these latter social structures remain key determinants of labor outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between mother’s socioeconomic disadvantage and blood concentrations of inflammation-related proteins among extremely preterm newborns (<28 weeks gestation), a group at heightened risk of cognitive impairment when exposed to systemic inflammation. We measured the concentrations of 27 inflammatory and neurotrophic proteins in blood specimens collected a week apart during the first postnatal month from 857 extremely preterm newborns in the United States. We classified children according to 3 indicators/correlates of socioeconomic disadvantage, mother’s eligibility for government-provided medical care insurance (Medicaid), mother’s formal education level, and mother’s IQ approximated with the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test– 2. The risks of a top-quartile concentration of each protein on each of 5 days a week apart, on two occasions during the first two postnatal weeks, and during the next two weeks were modeled as functions of each indicator of socioeconomic disadvantage. The risks of top quartile concentrations of multiple (2–5) inflammation-related proteins on multiple days during the first two weeks were increased for each of the 3 indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage, while the risks of top quartile concentrations of selected neurotrophic proteins were reduced. Adjustment for socioeconomic disadvantage did not alter the relationships between protein concentrations and both low IQ and low working memory 10 years later. Among extremely preterm newborns, indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage are associated with modestly increased risk of systemic inflammation in postnatal blood during the first postnatal month and with a slightly reduced risk of a neurotrophic signal, but do not confound relationships between protein concentrations and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 2007-2009 financial crisis, governments around the world passed laws that marked the beginning of new period of enhanced regulation of the financial industry. These laws called for a myriad of new regulations, which in the U.S. are created through the so-called notice-and-comment process. Through examining the text documents generated through this process, we study the formation of regulations to gain insight into how new regulatory regimes are implemented following major laws like the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Due to the variety of constituent preferences and political pressures, we find evidence that the government implements rules strategically to extend the regulatory boundary by first pursuing procedural rules that establish how economic activities will be regulated, followed by specifying who is subject to the procedural requirements. Our findings together with the unique nature of the Dodd-Frank Act translate to a number of stylized facts that should guide development of formal models of the rule-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Quality & Quantity was established in 1967 and in 2017 it completed its half century. The journal is interdisciplinary in nature and it mainly discusses methodological application of mathematics and statistics in the social sciences, particularly sociology, economics, and social psychology. It was created with the idea of advancing methodology of the various social studies. This study looks back journey of the journal from 1967 to 2017 aims to develop a bibliometric analysis of all the publications of the journal. Web of Science Core Collection database is used to collect data. The present study discovered the significant contributions of the journal in terms of impact, topics, authors, universities and countries. Utrecht University of Netherlands is the most productive university. Asian Universities are emerging and growing quickly in the recent years. Although USA leads among the countries but Europe leads among the six supranational regions. Finally, the visualization of similarities viewer software is used to present network visualization of the bibliographic coupling, co-citation, citation, co-authorship and co-occurrence of keywords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is an increased need to understand how e-cigarette flavors may contribute to e-cigarette uptake and use among youth. We examined the relationship between perceived ease of flavored e-cigarette use and e-cigarette use susceptibility and progression among a nationally representative sample of U.S. youth never tobacco users. Methods: The wave 1 (2013–2014) and wave 2 (2014–2015) surveys of PATH Study were used. Youth never tobacco users (ages 12–17) who reported whether flavored e-cigarettes were easier to use than unflavored e-cigarettes at wave 1 (n = 6,983) were included in the study. Multivariable logistic regressions were used to examine the associations between perceived ease of using flavored e-cigarettes (wave 1) and e-cigarette use outcomes including e-cigarette use susceptibility (wave 1) and e-cigarette initiation and past-30-day use (wave 2). Results: Overall, 21.2% of the sample perceived flavored e-cigarettes easier to use than unflavored e-cigarettes; and 28.9% of the sample were susceptible to using e-cigarettes at wave 1, and 7.5% and 2.0% initiated e-cigarettes and used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days at wave 2, respectively. Among those who perceived flavored e-cigarettes easier to use, 41.0% were susceptible to using e-cigarettes at wave 1, and 10.6% and 3.4% initiated and used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days at wave 2, respectively. Perceiving flavored e-cigarettes as easier to use than unflavored e-cigarettes at wave 1 was positively associated with e-cigarette use susceptibility at wave 1 (AOR = 1.43, CI = 1.21, 1.69), and e-cigarette initiation (AOR = 1.32, CI = 1.12, 1.67) and past-30-day use (AOR = 1.25, CI = 1.10, 2.47) at wave 2. Conclusions: Perceiving flavored e-cigarettes as easier to use than unflavored e-cigarettes may lead to e-cigarette use progression among youth never tobacco users. Determining the factors (including e-cigarette marketing and specific e-cigarette flavors) that lead to perceived ease of using flavored e-cigarettes would inform efforts to prevent and curb youth e-cigarette use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No studies have investigated the association between living arrangements and disability-free life expectancy in the United States, nor worldwide. This study aims to examine the differences in total and disability-free life expectancy among older Americans according to living arrangements. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998 to 2014) for non-Hispanic whites aged 50 and over (N = 21,612). Disability-free life expectancy by gender, living arrangement, and education are obtained from incidence-based multistate life tables. Overall, those who live only with their spouses/partners live 1–19 years longer with 3–25 more years without disability and 1–7 fewer years with disability than do those with other living arrangements. Among those with the same living arrangement, the higher educated live up to 6 years longer with up to 8 more years in a disability-free state and up to 2 fewer years in a disabled state. The study shows strong association between living arrangement and disability-free life expectancy by gender and education. Long-term care policy should take into account the length of life with/without disability by living arrangements and socioeconomic status and make use of the potential family resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to produce timely and accurate flu forecasts in the United States can significantly impact public health. Augmenting forecasts with internet data has shown promise for improving forecast accuracy and timeliness in controlled settings, but results in practice are less convincing, as models augmented with internet data have not consistently outperformed models without internet data. In this paper, we perform a controlled experiment, taking into account data backfill, to improve clarity on the benefits and limitations of augmenting an already good flu forecasting model with internet-based nowcasts. Our results show that a good flu forecasting model can benefit from the augmentation of internet-based nowcasts in practice for all considered public health-relevant forecasting targets. The degree of forecast improvement due to nowcasting, however, is uneven across forecasting targets, with short-term forecasting targets seeing the largest improvements and seasonal targets such as the peak timing and intensity seeing relatively marginal improvements. The uneven forecasting improvements across targets hold even when “perfect” nowcasts are used. These findings suggest that further improvements to flu forecasting, particularly seasonal targets, will need to derive from other, non-nowcasting approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Myopia is increasing worldwide and possibly linked to education. In this study, we analyse the association of myopia and education in the U.S. and investigate its age-dependency. Methods: We conducted a secondary data analysis using the public use files from the cross-sectional study National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of the period from 1999 to 2008. 19,756 participants aged 20 to 85 years were included with data on education and ophthalmic parameters (distance visual acuity, objective refraction and keratometry). Spherical equivalent, astigmatism, corneal power and corneal astigmatism were evaluated for an association with education using linear regression analysis with adjustment of potential confounders. Results: Analysis revealed an association between spherical equivalent and educational level in the univariate analysis (P < .001), and in the adjusted model (P < .001). Subjects who attend school to less than 9th grade had a mean spherical equivalent of 0.34 D, subjects with 9-11th grade -0.14 D, subjects that finished high school -0.33 D, subjects with partial college education -0.70 D, subjects that graduated from college or a higher formal education -1.22 D. Subjects that graduated from college or above were -1.47 D more myopic compared to subjects that completed less than 9th grade school in the adjusted analyses. Astigmatism and corneal curvature was not associated with education. Conclusions: Myopia is associated with higher education in the U.S. Our analysis shows that corneal curvature does not contribute to this association, therefore axial elongation or lens power are likely to contribute to myopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boutwell, Nedelec, Winegard, Shackelford, Beaver, Vaughn, Barnes, & Wright (2017) published an article in this journal that interprets data from the Add Health dataset as showing that only one-quarter of individuals in the United States experience discrimination. In Study 1, we attempted to replicate Boutwell et al.’s findings using a more direct measure of discrimination. Using data from the Pew Research Center, we examined a large sample of American respondents (N = 3,716) and explored the prevalence of discrimination experiences among various racial groups. Our findings stand in contrast to Boutwell et al.’s estimates, revealing that between 50% and 75% of Black, Hispanic, and Asian respondents (depending on the group and analytic approach) reported discriminatory treatment. In Study 2, we explored whether question framing affected how participants responded to Boutwell’s question about experiencing less respect and courtesy. Regardless of question framing, non-White participants reported more experiences than White participants. Further, there was an interaction of participant race and question framing such that when participants were asked about experiences of less respect or courtesy broadly, there were no differences between non-White participants and White participants, but when they were asked about experiences that were specifically race-based, non-White participants reported more experiences than White participants. The current research provides a counterweight to the claim that discrimination is not a prevalent feature of the lives of minority groups and the serious implications this claim poses for research and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of rescuing early-career scientists often take narrow approaches and focus on PhD students or postdoc populations. In a multi-method systems approach, we examine the inter-relations between the two ends of the pipeline and ask: what are the effects of late retirement on aging and hiring in academia? With a simulation model, we postulate that the decline in the retirement rate in academia contributes to the aging pattern through two mechanisms: (a) direct effect: longer stay of established professors, and (b) indirect effect: a hiring decline in tenure-track positions. Late retirement explains more than half of the growth in average age and brings about 20% decline in hiring. We provide empirical evidence based on the natural experimental set-up of the removal of mandatory retirement in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The American Heart Association’s 2020 Impact Goals propose to improve cardiovascular health (CVH) and reduce deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke in the US. Targeted health promotion efforts in workplaces and communities are needed to achieve these population-level changes. The present study examined the sex-specific cross-sectional associations between employment status and ideal CVH among Hispanics/Latinos, and whether these associations were modified by age (i.e., younger adults [aged 18–44] compared to middle-aged and older adults [aged 45–74]). Methods: This study included 4,797 males and 7,043 females (aged 18–74) from the Hispanic Community Health Study / Study of Latinos. Employment status was categorized as employed full-time (FT), employed part-time (PT), employed (FT or PT) and homemakers, homemakers only, and unemployed. CVH metrics, operationalized as ‘ideal’ versus ‘less than ideal,’ included health factors (i.e., blood pressure, cholesterol, and fasting glucose) and health behaviors (i.e., body mass index, smoking, physical activity [PA], and diet). A total CVH score was derived based on the seven CVH metrics, and dichotomized as ideal vs. less than ideal (score of 11–14 vs. 0–10). Survey-based generalized linear regression models with Gaussian binomial distribution were used to estimate adjusted prevalence differences (APDs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the associations between employment status (with employed FT as referent) and ideal CVH (total score and each metric), adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics. Effect modification by age was examined. Results: Among males, compared to their employed FT counterparts, those who were employed PT had a higher prevalence of ideal CVH score (APD = 6.8, 95% CI = 1.7, 11.8), ideal BMI (APD = 8.5, 95% CI = 3.0, 14.0), and ideal PA (APD = 4.8, 95% CI = 0.9, 8.7). Age modified the associations of employment type with ideal CVH score and ideal BMI, i.e., younger males who were employed PT had a higher prevalence of ideal CVH score and ideal BMI. Among females, employment status was not associated with ideal CVH score. Compared to females employed FT, females who were homemakers had a lower prevalence of ideal (non-) smoking (APD = -4.7, 95% CI = -8.5, -1.0) and ideal PA (APD = -7.9, 95% CI = -12.7, -3.0), and females who were unemployed had a lower prevalence of ideal PA (APD = -10.4, 95% CI = -16.7, -4.1). Age modified the associations of employment type with ideal fasting glucose and ideal PA, i.e., middle-aged and older females who were homemakers or unemployed had a lower prevalence of ideal fasting glucose and ideal PA. Conclusions: Hispanic/Latino males who were employed PT had the most favorable CVH profiles but these associations were mostly driven by better CVH (total score and metrics) among younger males. Hispanic/Latino females who were homemakers or unemployed had lower rates of ideal CVH metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Improving the accuracy and precision of predictive analytics for temporal trends in crime necessitates a good understanding of the how exogenous variables, such as weather and holidays, impact crime. Methods: We examine 5.7 million reported incidents of crime that occurred in the City of Chicago between 2001 to 2014. Using linear regression methods, we examine the temporal relationship of the crime incidents to weather, holidays, school vacations, day-of-week, and paydays. We correct the data for dominant sources of auto-correlation, and we then employ bootstrap methods for model selection. Importantly for the aspect of predictive analytics, we validate the predictive capabilities of our model on an independent data set; model validation has been almost universally overlooked in the literature on this subject. Results: We find significant dependence of crime on time of year, holidays, and weekdays. We find that dependence of aggressive crime on temperature depends on the hour of the day, and whether it takes place outside or inside. In addition, unusually hot/cold days are associated with unusual fluctuations upwards/downwards in crimes of aggression, respectively, regardless of the time of year. Conclusions: Including holidays, festivals, and school holiday periods in crime predictive analytics software can improve the accuracy and precision of temporal predictions. We also find that including forecasts for temperature may significantly improve short term crime forecasts for the temporal trends in many types of crime, particularly aggressive crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known regarding the time trend of mass shootings and associated risk factors. In the current study, we intended to explore the time trend and relevant risk factors for mass shootings in the U.S. We attempted to identify factors associated with incidence rates of mass shootings at the population level. We evaluated if state-level gun ownership rate, serious mental illness rate, poverty percentage, and gun law permissiveness could predict the state-level mass shooting rate, using the Bayesian zero-inflated Poisson regression model. We also tested if the nationwide incidence rate of mass shootings increased over the past three decades using the non-homogenous Poisson regression model. We further examined if the frequency of online media coverage and online search interest levels correlated with the interval between two consecutive incidents. The results suggest an increasing trend of mass shooting incidences over time (p < 0.001). However, none of the state-level variables could predict the mass shooting rate. Interestingly, we have found inverse correlations between the interval between consecutive shootings and the frequency of on-line related reports as well as on-line search interests, respectively (p < 0.001). Therefore, our findings suggest that online media might correlate with the increasing incidence rate of mass shootings. Future research is warranted to continue monitoring if the incidence rates of mass shootings change with any population-level factors in order to inform us of possible prevention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the skills of graduate education that is most central to the evaluation of students is their ability to read and report on complex disciplinary texts. The display of comprehension is central to the judgment of competence, creating a status hierarchy. Demonstrating reading prowess is taken as a transparent indication of intelligence. Based on thirty-six ethnographic interviews with graduate students in sociology, history, and economics, we examine how informants think about the establishment of their scholarly reputations through self-presentational skills in discussing reading in seminars, articles, and eventually in the dissertation itself. The ability to read disciplinary texts and to situate those texts within disciplinary contexts is crucial for a validated selfhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]