Suchergebnisse

Background: Nutrition in utero and infancy may causally affect health and mortality at old ages. Until now, very few studies have demonstrated long-run effects on survival of early life nutrition, mainly because of data limitations and confounding issues. Methods: This paper investigates whether exposure to nutritional shocks in early life negatively affects longevity at older ages, using unique individual data and exploiting the exogenous variation implied by natural experiments. In particular, early nutritional conditions are instrumented by exposure to the potato famine of unprecedented severity that the Dutch faced in 1846-47. The individual data are from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands and are augmented by food price data and macro-economic data. The sample used in the study covers lifetimes of 398 individuals exposed and 1,342 individuals not exposed to severe famine during gestation and/or till age three. We compare non-parametrically the total and residual lifetimes of treated and controls per gender. We also estimate survival models in which we control for other individual characteristics and additional (early life) determinants of mortality. Results: Men exposed to severe famine during pregnancy (at least four months) and directly after birth have a significant lower residual life expectancy at age 50 than others, but not at earlier ages. We could not demonstrate any long-run effects for men exposed at ages 0-2 and for women. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first evidence suggesting long-run effects of early nutritional stresses on mortality at old ages for men. -- Nutrition in early life ; famine ; longevity ; natural experiments ; survival analysis ; mortality ; food intake ; developmental origins ; fetal origins

The increase in environmentally induced diseases and the loosening of regulation and safety measures have inspired a massive challenge to established ways of looking at health and the environment. Communities with disease clusters, women facing a growing breast cancer incidence rate, and people of color concerned about the asthma epidemic have become critical of biomedical models that emphasize the role of genetic makeup and individual lifestyle practices. Likewise, scientists have lost patience with their colleagues' and government's failure to adequately address environmental health issues and to safeguard research from corporate manipulation. Focusing specifically on breast cancer, asthma, and Gulf War-related health conditions-"contested illnesses" that have generated intense debate in the medical and political communities-Phil Brown shows how these concerns have launched an environmental health movement that has revolutionized scientific thinking and policy. Before the last three decades of widespread activism regarding toxic exposures, people had little opportunity to get information. Few sympathetic professionals were available, the scientific knowledge base was weak, government agencies were largely unprepared, laypeople were not considered bearers of useful knowledge, and ordinary people lacked their own resources for discovery and action. Brown argues that organized social movements are crucial in recognizing and acting to combat environmental diseases. His book draws on environmental and medical sociology, environmental justice, environmental health science, and social movement studies to show how citizen-science alliances have fought to overturn dominant epidemiological paradigms. His probing look at the ways scientific findings are made available to the public and the changing nature of policy offers a new perspective on health and

Over the past decades, human rights have gained an increasing significance in law, politics and society, at the national and the international level. According to the American scholar Louis Henkin, human rights have become the paradigm of our time, thereby displacing previous paradigms such as religion and socialism. The criminal justice system has not been immune to this rapid rise of human rights. In the past two decades, considerable attention has been paid to the rules of due process for suspects and offenders, during criminal proceedings and in situations of detention.In recent years, the rights of victims have gained more weight in the criminal justice system, also in international tribunals and courts. Moreover, the principles and norms of human rights have received wide attention in conceptualizing crime and delinquency. Some crimes, e.g. trafficking in human beings or violence against women and children, are now defined in terms of human rights violations. The same is true with gross and systematic human rights violations, such as genocide and crimes against humanity.This volume wishes to address these major developments in a systematic way, from the perspective of criminology and sociology, by way of original contributions. In the first part, we look at several types of crimes, old and new, from the angle of human rights and human rights violations, while the second part sketches the influence of the human rights paradigm on some parts of the justice system in North America, Europe and elsewhere. This volume is addressed to students and researchers in criminology and criminal justice studies, and to professionals and policy-makers in the criminal justice system, primarily but not exclusively in North America and Europe.

Over the last several years, the traditional narrative of the civil rights movement as largely a southern phenomenon, organized primarily by male leaders, that roughly began with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has been complicated by studies that root the movement in smaller communities across the country. These local movements had varying agendas and organizational development, geared to the particular circumstances, resources, and regions in which they operated. Local civil rights activists frequently worked in tandem with the national civil rights movement but often functioned autonomously from-and sometimes even at odds with-the national movement.Together, the pathbreaking essays in Groundwork teach us that local civil rights activity was a vibrant component of the larger civil rights movement, and contributed greatly to its national successes. Individually, the pieces offer dramatic new insights about the civil rights movement, such as the fact that a militant black youth organization in Milwaukee was led by a white Catholic priest and in Cambridge, Maryland, by a middle-aged black woman; that a group of middle-class, professional black women spearheaded Jackson, Mississippi's movement for racial justice and made possible the continuation of the Freedom Rides, and that, despite protests from national headquarters, the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality staged a dramatic act of civil disobedience at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.No previous volume has enabled readers to examine several different local movements together, and in so doing, Groundwork forges a far more comprehensive vision of the black freedom movement

During John Dewey's lifetime (1859-1952), one public opinion poll after another revealed that he was esteemed to be one of the ten most important thinkers in American history. His body of thought, conventionally identified by the shorthand word "Pragmatism," has been the distinctive American philosophy of the last fifty years. His work on education is famous worldwide and is still influential today, anticipating as it did the ascendance in contemporary American pedagogy of multiculturalism and independent thinking. His University of Chicago Laboratory School (founded in 1896) thrives still and is a model for schools worldwide, especially in emerging democracies. But how was this lifetime of thought enmeshed in Dewey's emotional experience, in his joys and sorrows as son and brother, husband and father, and in his political activism and spirituality? Acclaimed biographer Jay Martin recaptures the unity of Dewey's life and work, tracing important themes through the philosopher's childhood years, family history, religious experience, and influential friendships. Based on original sources, notably the vast collection of unpublished papers in the Center for Dewey Studies, this book tells the full story, for the first time, of the life and times of the eminent American philosopher, pragmatist, education reformer, and man of letters. In particular, The Education of John Dewey highlights the importance of the women in Dewey's life, especially his mother, wife, and daughters, but also others, including the reformer Jane Addams and the novelist Anzia Yezierska. A fitting tribute to a master thinker, Martin has rendered a tour de force portrait of a philosopher and social activist in full, seamlessly reintegrating Dewey's thought into both his personal life and the broader historical themes of his time.

"We are all acutely aware of the devastation and upheaval that result from war. Less obvious is the extent to which the military and war impact on the gender order. This book is the first to explore the intersections of the military, war and gender in twentieth-century Germany from a variety of different perspectives. Its authors investigate the relevance of the military and war for the formation of gender relations and their representation as well as for the construction of individual and social agency for both genders in civil society and the military. They inquire about the origins and development of gendered images as they were shaped by war. They expound on the multifarious mechanisms that served to reconstruct or newly form gender relations in the postwar periods. They analyze the participation of women and men in the creation of wars as well as the gender-specific meaning of their respective roles. Finally, they investigate the different ways of remembering and coming to terms with the two great military conflicts of the very violent twentieth century. The book focuses on the period before, during and after the two World Wars, closely linked 'total wars' that mobilized both the 'front' and the 'home-front' and increasingly blurred the boundaries between them. Drawing on sources ranging from forces newspapers to German pilot literature, police reports on women's food riots to oral history interviews with soldiers' wives, the richly documented case studies of Home/Front add the long-overdue gender dimension to the cultural and historical debates that surround these two great military conflicts."--Bloomsbury Publishing

What was the social structure of England in the period 1200 to 1500? What were the basic forms of social inequality? To what extent did such divisions generate social conflict? How significantly did English society change during this period and what were the causes of social change? Is it useful to see medieval social structure in terms of the theories and concepts produced within the medieval period itself? What does modern social theory have to offer the historian seeking to understand English society in the later middle ages? These are the questions which this book seeks to answer. Beginning with an analysis of class structure of medieval England, Part One of this book asks to what extent class conflict was inherent within class relations and discusses the contrasting successes and outcomes of such conflict in town and country. Part Two of the book examines to what extent such class divisions interacted with other forms of social inequality, such as those between orders (nobility and clergy), between men and women, and those arising from membership of a status-group (the Jews). Dr Rigby's discussion of medieval English society is located within the context of recent historical and sociological debates about the nature of social stratification and, using the work of social theorists such as Parkin and Runciman, offers a synthesis of the Marxist and Weberian approaches to social structure. The book should be extremely useful to those undergraduates beginning their studies of medieval England whilst, in offering a new interpretative framework within which to examine social structure, also interesting those historians who are more familiar with this period

AbstractAlthough the long-term consequences of informal care provision have been well investigated, few studies have examined the trajectories of informal care provision among older people and the socioeconomic, demographic, health, and family characteristics associated with them. We use data from four waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, with 6561 respondents followed for 6 years (2012/3–2018/9). We used group-based trajectory modelling to group people's provision of care over time into a finite number of distinct trajectories of caregiving. Using multinomial logistic regressions, we then investigated the characteristics associated with these trajectories. Four distinct trajectories of caregiving were identified: "stable intensive", "increasing intensive", "decreasing", and "stable no care". Results suggest that although there are socioeconomic, demographic, and health differences across the trajectories of caregiving (with younger women in good health and poorer socioeconomic status more likely to care intensively throughout), family characteristics are their main drivers. Respondents who live alone, with no children, and no parents alive are more likely to never provide care, whereas those with older parents and who live with adults in poor health are more likely to provide stable intensive care. Also, changes in family characteristics (e.g. death of parents, widowhood, or deterioration of the partner's health) are associated with trajectories representing increases or decreases in caregiving over time. Overall, trajectories of informal caregiving undertaken by older people are varied and these patterns are mostly associated with both the availability and health of family members, suggesting that need factors represent the most immediate reason for caregiving commitments.

Objective: This paper explores how national family policies moderate the association between flexible working arrangements and work-to-family conflict across countries.
Background: Although flexible working is provided to enhance work-family integration, studies show that it can in fact increase work-to-family conflict. However, certain policy contexts can help moderate this association by introducing contexts that enable workers to use of flexible working arrangements to better meet their family and other life demands.
Method: The paper uses the European Working Conditions Survey of 2015 including data from workers with caring responsibilities from across 30 European countries. It uses a multilevel cross-level interaction model to examine how family policies, such as childcare and parental leave policies, can explain the cross-national variation in the association between flexible working arrangements, that is flexitime, working-time autonomy, and teleworking, and work-to-family conflict.
Results: At the European average, flexible working was associated with higher levels of work-to-family conflict for workers, with working-time-autonomy being worse for men's, and teleworking being worse for women's conflict levels. In countries with generous childcare policies, flexitime was associated with lower levels of work-to-family conflict, especially for women. However, in countries with long mother's leave, working-time-autonomy was associated with even higher levels of work-to-family conflict for men.
Conclusion: The results of this paper evidence how flexible working arrangements need to be introduced in a more holistic manner with possible reforms of wider range of family policies in order for flexible working to meet worker's work-family integration demands.

Abstract

Introduction
Earlier studies have shown that chimney sweeps have an increased risk for many severe health outcomes. These excessive risks have been related to their exposure to soot with the conclusion that the exposure must be reduced.
To contribute to effective measures to reduce chimney sweepers soot exposure, our knowledge about the exposure needs to be extended, which is the overall aim of our project. In this study the difference in airborne exposure to soot has been evaluated between different sweeping techniques and fuels used.


Methodology
A self-monitoring method was used for collection of exposure data. Exposure to airborne soot was measured as black carbon (BC) with micro-aethalometers (microAeth® model MA200 and AE51, AethLabs USA), recording the BC-levels each minute. Personal repeated measurements were performed for eight consecutive workdays for 20 chimney sweeps (13 men and seven women). Each participant filled out a diary with work tasks performed. The measurements with micro-aethalometer were correlated with the diary notes to evaluate exposure levels for different tasks.
The sweeping techniques compared were traditional sweeping and sweeping with rotating rods. The fuels studied were oil, wood and pellets.


Results
Among the preliminary results a large variation of soot exposure was found between different individuals. Different sweeping techniques and fuel used influenced the exposure, with a lower exposure for rotating rod technique and a higher exposure for pellets.


Conclusions
With the large variability in soot exposure found between participants, we are positive that it is possible to reduce the exposure among chimney sweeps.

Abstract

Background
High blood pressure and poor cardiorespiratory fitness are independent risk factors for dementia. However, few studies have examined if combined longitudinal patterns of these modifiable risk factors are associated with dementia risk.


Methods
In this prospective cohort study, we used data from the population-based Trøndelag Health (HUNT) Study, Norway. We applied group-based multidimensional trajectory modeling to identify age-specific multidimensional trajectories of SBP, DBP, and estimated cardiorespiratory fitness across 3 surveys (HUNT1, 1984–1986 to HUNT3, 2006–2008). Dementia was diagnosed in the HUNT4 70+ substudy in 2017–2019. We used multivariate logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and risk differences (RDs) of dementia.


Results
In total, 7 594 participants (54.9% women) were included, with a mean age of 44.7 (SD 6.3) years at HUNT1. Dementia was diagnosed in 1 062 (14.0%) participants. We identified 2 multidimensional trajectories throughout adulthood within 3 age groups: one with higher systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and lower estimated cardiorespiratory fitness (the poorer group), and one with lower SBP and DBP, and higher cardiorespiratory fitness (the better group). After adjustment for sex, apolipoprotein E ε4 status, education, marital status, and diabetes, the better group had consistently lower risk of dementia in all age groups with the lowest OR in the middle-aged group of 0.63 (95% confidence intervals [95% CI]: 0.51, 0.78) with corresponding RD of −0.07 (95% CI: −0.10, −0.04).


Conclusions
Having a beneficial multidimensional trajectory of SBP, DBP, and cardiorespiratory fitness in adulthood was associated with reduced dementia risk. Aiming for optimal SBP, DBP, and estimated cardiorespiratory fitness throughout adulthood may reduce dementia risk.

Abstract

Background
Grip strength is a robust indicator of overall health, is moderately heritable, and predicts longevity in older adults.


Methods
Using genome-wide linkage analysis, we identified a novel locus on chromosome 18p (mega-basepair region: 3.4–4.0) linked to grip strength in 3 755 individuals from 582 families aged 64 ± 12 years (range 30–110 years; 55% women). There were 26 families that contributed to the linkage peak (cumulative logarithm of the odds [LOD] score = 10.94), with 6 families (119 individuals) accounting for most of the linkage signal (LOD = 6.4). In these 6 families, using whole genome sequencing data, we performed association analyses between the 7 312 single nucleotide (SNVs) and insertion deletion (INDELs) variants in the linkage region and grip strength. Models were adjusted for age, age2, sex, height, field center, and population substructure.


Results
We found significant associations between genetic variants (8 SNVs and 4 INDELs, p < 5 × 10−5) in the Disks Large-associated Protein 1 (DLGAP1) gene and grip strength. Haplotypes constructed using these variants explained up to 98.1% of the LOD score. Finally, RNAseq data showed that these variants were significantly associated with the expression of nearby Myosin Light Chain 12A (MYL12A), Structural Maintenance of Chromosomes Flexible Hinge Domain Containing 1 (SMCHD1), Erythrocyte Membrane Protein Band 4.1 Like 3 (EPB41L3) genes (p < .0004).


Conclusions
The DLGAP1 gene plays an important role in the postsynaptic density of neurons; thus, it is both a novel positional and biological candidate gene for follow-up studies aimed at uncovering genetic determinants of muscle strength.

Abstract
Gender and racial pay penalties are well-known: women (of all races) and people of color (of all genders) earn less, on average, even when they gain access to occupations historically reserved for White men. Studies of social mobility show that people from working-class backgrounds in the US have also been excluded from top professional and managerial occupations. But do working-class-origin people who attain top US jobs face a class-origin pay penalty? Despite evidence of class-origin pay gaps in higher professional and managerial occupations elsewhere, we might expect that the central role of race and racism in US stratification processes, along with the relatively low salience of class identities, would render class origins irrelevant to earnings in exclusive occupations, at least within racial groups. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to link childhood class position to adult occupation and earnings, we describe the racial and class-origin composition of different high-status occupations and the earnings of people within them. We show that when people who are from working-class backgrounds are upwardly mobile into high-status occupations, they earn almost $20,000 per year less, on average, than individuals who are themselves from privileged backgrounds. The difference is partly explained by the upwardly mobile being less likely to have college degrees, but it remains substantial (around $11,700) even after accounting for education, race and other important predictors of earnings. The gap is largest among White people; there is a class-origin penalty in top US occupations that is distinct from the racial pay gap.

Background: Mental health literacy (MHL) has been related to health behaviors and outcomes. However, studies examining MHL as a barrier and facilitator to service use are limited, especially among minority groups. Aims: This study examined MHL as a barrier and facilitator to mental health service use among the Palestinian Bedouin minority in Israel. Methods: Twenty-five Bedouins (15 women) from southern Israel participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The participants were recruited by publishing an ad on social media about the study, then through a snowball technique. The data were analyzed thematically using ATLAS.ti.9, and the intercoder reliability was 92%. Results: We identified four major themes in the interviews: (1) MHL as a barrier to service use, due to lack of knowledge about professionals in the field, mental health services, or reasons and risk factors for mental health problems; (2) traditional attitudes that acted as barriers to service use, including a preference for informal treatment, a lack of faith in mental health treatment, aversion to discussing private feelings, and the perception that mental health is a luxury; (3) MHL as a facilitator to service use by enabling accurate identification of mental distress and suggesting practical avenues for seeking help; and (4) ways to improve MHL that should be culturally sensitive and under the government agencies' responsibility. Conclusions: Interventions aimed at increasing the use of mental health services among Bedouins and reducing racial/ethnic disparities should increase knowledge in culturally adapted ways, especially regarding professionals and services, and change negative attitudes such as mental health treatment as ineffective or bonus.

Abstract
Background
Latina mothers have been especially affected by the pandemic and historically exhibit high rates of depression and anxiety. However, few longitudinal studies have assessed the effect of the pandemic on this vulnerable population. We hypothesized that COVID-19-related stressors would associate with psychological distress among Latina mothers across the first year of the pandemic.

Methods
We investigated COVID-19-related impact, stigma, and fears across two critical time points and changes in these measures in relation to changes in maternal anxiety and depression among mothers of Mexican descent living in Southern California (n=152). Surveys were administered within 5–16 weeks of the March 19, 2020 stay-at-home COVID-19 order in California and again between June to December 2021.

Results
High proportions of women reported moderate to severe impacts of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, which reduced modestly a year later, e.g., reduced family incomes (55.9% 2020 Lockdown vs 32.7% 1-year follow-up). Anticipatory stigma was high across the first year, e.g., worrying at least some of the time that a family member will be deported (33.1% 2020 Lockdown vs. 14.1% 1-year follow-up), or they would not be able to care for their children (88.5% 2020 lockdown vs 82.2% 1-year follow-up). COVID-19 stigma, impact, and fears were significantly associated with higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms at both time points (p<0.003), and changes in COVID-19 impact were associated with changes in depression (p=0.0004).

Conclusion
Findings emphasize the adverse socioeconomic and psychological effects of the pandemic for Latina mothers.