Using age difference and sex similarity to detect evidence of sibling influence on criminal offending

Background Sibling resemblance in crime may be due to genetic relatedness, shared environment, and/or the interpersonal influence of siblings on each other. This latter process can be understood as a type of 'peer effect' in that it is based on social learning between individuals occupying the same status in the social system (family). Building on prior research, we hypothesized that sibling pairs that resemble peer relationships the most, i.e., same-sex siblings close in age, exhibit the most sibling resemblance in crime. Methods Drawing on administrative microdata covering Finnish children born in 1985-97, we examined 213 911 sibling pairs, observing the recorded criminality of each sibling between ages 11 and 20. We estimated multivariate regression models controlling for individual and family characteristics, and employed fixed-effects models to analyze the temporal co-occurrence of sibling delinquency. Results Among younger siblings with a criminal older sibling, the adjusted prevalence estimates of criminal offending decreased from 32 to 25% as the age differences increased from less than 13 months to 25-28 months. The prevalence leveled off at 23% when age difference reached 37-40 months or more. These effects were statistically significant only among same-sex sibling pairs (p < 0.001), with clear evidence of contemporaneous offending among siblings with minimal age difference. Conclusions Same-sex siblings very close in age stand out as having the highest sibling resemblance in crime. This finding suggests that a meaningful share of sibling similarity in criminal offending is due to a process akin to peer influence, typically flowing from the older to the younger sibling.Peer reviewe

Experience of maternal and paternal adversities in childhood as determinants of self-harm in adolescence and young adulthood

Introduction Previous studies suggest that childhood experience of parental adversities increases the risk of subsequent offspring self-harm, but studies on distinct paternal and maternal characteristics are few and it remains unclear how these interact with childhood social position. The study aims to assess whether paternal and maternal adversities have different associations with offspring self-harm in adolescence and young adulthood. Interaction by offspring gender and childhood income are investigated, as well as cumulative effects of multiple adversities. Methods The study uses administrative register data on a 20% random sample of Finnish households with children aged 0–14 years in 2000. We follow children born in 1986–1998 (n=155 855) from their 13th birthday until 2011. Parental substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, criminality and hospitalisations due to interpersonal violence or self-harm are used to predict offspring self-harm with Cox proportional hazards models. Results The results show a clear increase in the risk of self-harm among those exposed to maternal or paternal adversities with HRs between 1.5 and 5.4 among boys and 1.7 and 3.9 among girls. The excess risks hold for every measure of maternal and paternal adversities after adjusting for childhood income and parental education. Evidence was found suggesting that low income, accumulation of adversity and female gender may exacerbate the consequences of adversities. Conclusions Our findings suggest that both parents’ adversities increase the risk of self-harm and that multiple experiences of parental adversities in childhood are especially harmful, regardless of parent gender. Higher levels of childhood income can protect from the negative consequences of adverse experiences.Peer reviewe

Socioeconomic differences in psychiatric treatment before and after self-harm : an observational study of 4,280 adolescents and young adults

Background: Individuals in higher socioeconomic positions tend to utilise more mental health care, especially specialist services, than those in lower positions. Whether these disparities in treatment exist among adolescents and young adults who self-harm is currently unknown. Methods: The study is based on Finnish administrative register data on all individuals born 1986–1994. Adolescents and young adults with an episode of self-harm treated in specialised healthcare at ages 16–21 in 2002–2015 (n=4280, 64% female) were identified and followed 2 years before and after the episode. Probabilities of specialised psychiatric inpatient admissions and outpatient visits and purchases of psychotropic medication at different time points relative to self-harm were estimated using generalised estimation equations, multinomial models and cumulative averages. Socioeconomic differences were assessed based on parental education, controlling for income. Results: An educational gradient in specialised treatment and prescription medication was observed, with the highest probabilities of treatment among the adolescents and young adults with the highest educated parents and low- est probabilities among those whose parents had basic education. These differences emerged mostly after self-harm. The probability to not receive any treatment, either in specialised healthcare or psychotropic medication, was highest among youth whose parents had a basic level of education (before self-harm 0.39, 95% CI 0.34–0.43, and after 0.29, 95% CI 0.25–0.33 after) and lowest among youth with higher tertiary educated parents (before self-harm: 0.22, 95% CI 0.18–0.26, and after 0.18, 95% CI 0.14–0.22). The largest differences were observed in inpatient care. Conclusions: The results suggest that specialised psychiatric care and psychotropic medication use are common among youth who self-harm, but a considerable proportion have no prior or subsequent specialised treatment. The children of parents with lower levels of education are likely to benefit from additional support in initiating and adhering to treatment after an episode of self-harm. Further research on the mechanisms underlying the educational gradient in psychiatric treatment is needed.Peer reviewe

Substance abuse in parents and subsequent risk of offspring psychiatric morbidity in late adolescence and early adulthood : A longitudinal analysis of siblings and their parents

The effects of substance abuse on other family members are not fully established. We estimate the contribution of parental substance abuse on offspring psychiatric morbidity in late adolescence and early adulthood, with emphasis on the timing and persistency of exposure. We used a nationally representative 20% sample of Finnish families with children born in 1986-1996 (n = 136,604) followed up in 1986-2011. We identified parental substance abuse and offspring psychiatric morbidity from hospital discharge records, death records and medication registers. The effects of parental substance abuse at ages 0-4, 5-9 and 10-14 on psychiatric morbidity after age 15 were estimated using population averaged and sibling fixed effects models; the latter controlling for unobserved factors shared by siblings. Parental substance abuse at ages 0-14 was associated with almost 2-fold increase in offspring psychiatric morbidity (HR = 1.86, 95% CI 1.78-1.95). Adjustment for childhood parental education, income, social class and family type reduced these effects by about 50%, with some further attenuation after adjustment for time-varying offspring characteristics. In the sibling fixed effects models those exposed at 0-4 or 5-9 years had 20% (HR = 1.20, 95% CI 0.90-1.60) and 33% (HR = 1.33, 95% CI 1.01-1.74) excess morbidity respectively. Also in sibling models those with early exposure at ages 0-4 combined with repeated exposure in later childhood had about 80-90% higher psychiatric morbidity as compared to never exposed siblings (e.g. for those exposed throughout childhood HR = 1.81, 95% CI 1.01-3.25). Childhood exposure to parental substance abuse is strongly associated with subsequent psychiatric morbidity. Although these effects are to a large extent due to other characteristics shared within the parental home, repeated exposure to parental substance abuse is independently associated with later psychiatric morbidity.Peer reviewe

Associations Between Cohabitation, Marriage, and Suspected Crime : a Longitudinal Within-Individual Study

The effects of marriage on criminal behavior have been studied extensively. As marriages today are typically preceded by cohabiting relationships, there is a growing need to clarify how different relationship types are associated with criminality, and how these effects may be modified by relationship duration, partner's criminality, and crime type. We used Finnish longitudinal register data and between- and within-individual analyses to examine how cohabitation and marriage were associated with suspected crime. The data included 638,118 residents of Finland aged 0-14 in 2000 and followed for 17 years for a suspected crime: having been suspected of violent, drug, or any crime. Between-individual analyses suggested that those who were cohabiting or married had a 40-65% lower risk of being suspected of a crime compared to those who were single, depending on the type of crime. The within-individual analysis showed a 25-50% lower risk for suspected crime when people were cohabiting or married compared to time periods when they were single. Those in a relationship with a criminal partner had 11 times higher risk for suspected crime than those in a relationship with a non-criminal partner. Forming a cohabiting relationship with a non-criminal partner was associated with reduced criminality. The risk reduction was not fully explained by selection effects due to between-individual differences. Marriage did not introduce further reduction to criminality. Our findings demonstrate that selection effects partly explain the association between relationship status and criminality but are also compatible with a causal effect of cohabitation on reduced risk of being suspected of a crime.Peer reviewe

Miten tutkia suomalaista rangaistuskäytäntöä : esimerkkinä rattijuopumuksesta annetut tuomiot

Peer reviewe

The effect of low childhood income on self-harm in young adulthood : Mediation by adolescent mental health, behavioural factors and school performance

Low childhood income is an established risk factor of self-harm in adolescence and young adulthood, and childhood income is additionally associated with various correlates of self-harm. How these correlates, such as psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, violent behaviour and school problems, mediate the effect of childhood income on self-harm, is less understood. The purpose of the current paper is to examine this mediation. The study is based on administrative register data on all Finnish children born in 1990-1995. An analytical sample of 384,121 children is followed from age 8 to 22. We apply the parametric g-formula to study the effect of childhood income on the risk of self-harm in young adulthood. Adolescent psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, prior self-harm, violent criminality and victimization, out-of-home placements, not being in education, employment or training and school performance are considered as potential mediators. We control for confounding factors related to childhood family characteristics. As a hypothetical intervention, we moved those in the lowest childhood income quintile to the second-lowest quintile, which resulted in a 7% reduction in hospital-presenting self-harm in young adulthood among those targeted by the intervention (2% reduction in the total population). 67% of the effect was mediated through the chosen mediators. The results indicate that increases in childhood material resources could protect from self-harm in young adulthood. Moreover, the large proportion of mediation suggests that targeted interventions for high-risk adolescents may be beneficial. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to use the parametric g-formula to study youth self-harm. Future applications are encouraged as the method offers several further opportunities for analysing the complex life course pathways to self-harm.Peer reviewe

Paikallisten ja kotimarkkinayritysten kasvu. Arviointiraportti.

Tekes on tukenut paikallisten ja kotimarkkinoilla toimivien yritysten uudistumista vuosittain 40–60 miljoonalla eurolla, mikä on noin kymmenes kaikesta Tekesin yrityksille myöntämästä rahoituksesta. Tässä tutkimuksesta tarkastellaan, millainen vaikutus Tekesin myöntämillä lainoilla ja avustuksilla on ollut ko. asiakassegmentin kasvuun ja uudistumiseen. Tuettuja yrityksiä verrataan ominaisuuksiltaan vastaaviin yrityksiin, jotka eivät ole olleet tuen piirissä.</p

Analysing the effects of healthcare payment policies in conjunctionwith tax - benefit policies: A microsimulation study with real - world healthcare data

In Europe, many people experience financial hardship due to healthcare payments despite (near-)universal healthcare systems. In Finland, as well as in many other countries, austerity has further widened the gaps in coverage through increases in patient payments. However, the distributional analyses of austerity have concentrated on the effects of tax benefit policies alone. We present a method for examining how health payment policies and tax-benefit policies affect household incomes in conjunction, to evaluate the total effect of implemented and planned policies. We linked the national tax-benefit microsimulation model, SISU, and its nationally representative 15% sample of households in Finland in 2017 (n=826,001) with administrative real-world healthcare data (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare Care Register for Health Care, HILMO; and Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Kela, National Health Insurance reimbursement registers). As a case example, we analysed the effects on relative poverty risk and poverty gap during two government terms. We found that between 2011 and 2015, tax-benefit policies contributed to decreasing relative poverty, and health payment changes had no measurable effects. In 2015–2019, the poverty risk rate and average gap increased due to tax-benefit policies, and health payment changes strengthened the effects by 10% to 20%. Health payments, and their increases, mainly deteriorated the position of older adults; nevertheless, their poverty risk mostly remained below the population average. Social assistance had an important buffering effect among under 65-year-old population. Health payment increases thus exacerbated the effects of austerity on the oldest age-groups, who, based on tax-benefit analyses alone, were relatively well protected.</p

The continuous laryngoscopy exercise test in severe or in difficult-to-treat asthma in adults: a systematic review

Objective: A systematic review was performed to determine if the continuous laryngoscopy exercise test (CLE) has been used in the diagnostics of exercise dyspnea in adults with asthma, and whether inducible laryngeal obstruction (ILO) is found in those with asthma or with severe or difficult-to-treat asthma. Data Sources: We used Scopus and PubMed databases. The articles published up to 13 August 2019 were considered. Study Selections: We excluded manuscripts that did not contain information about adult patients with asthma. We included six studies from 59 search results in Scopus and none from the 17 search results in PubMed. Results: The articles included 455 study individuals. Of these, 229 (50.3%) had diagnosed asthma or were treated with asthma medication. Altogether 31/229 (13.5%) subjects with diagnosis of asthma or previous asthma treatment had exercise-induced laryngeal obstruction (EILO) as comorbidity. The CLE test was performed on 229 patients with asthma. The method was used only for differential diagnosis of exercise-induced dyspnea to confirm EILO. At least 10/455 (2.2%) out of the 455 subjects experienced adverse events. Conclusions: This systematic review revealed that only a small proportion of patients with asthma had undergone the CLE test to assess exercise-induced dyspnea. None of the selected manuscripts reported severity of asthma. Whether CLE provides a valuable diagnostic tool for patients with severe or difficult-to-treat asthma cannot be determined according to this review.Peer reviewe