16,597 research outputs found
Smoking and intention to quit in deprived areas of Glasgow: is it related to housing improvements and neighbourhood regeneration because of improved mental health?
Background: People living in areas of multiple deprivation are more likely to smoke and less likely to quit smoking. This study examines the effect on smoking and intention to quit smoking for those who have experienced housing improvements (HI) in deprived areas of Glasgow, UK, and investigates whether such effects can be explained by improved mental health.
Methods: Quasi-experimental, 2-year longitudinal study, comparing residents’ smoking and intention to quit smoking for HI group (n=545) with non-HI group (n=517), adjusting for baseline (2006) sociodemographic factors and smoking status. SF-12 mental health scores were used to assess mental health, along with self-reported experience of, and General Practitioner (GP) consultations for, anxiety and depression in the last 12 months.
Results: There was no relationship between smoking and HI, adjusting for baseline rates (OR=0.97, 95% CI 0.57 to 1.67, p=0.918). We found an association between intention to quit and HI, which remained significant after adjusting for sociodemographics and previous intention to quit (OR 2.16, 95% CI 1.12 to 4.16, p=0.022). We found no consistent evidence that this association was attenuated by improvement in our three mental health measures.
Conclusions: Providing residents in disadvantaged areas with better housing may prompt them to consider quitting smoking. However, few people actually quit, indicating that residential improvements or changes to the physical environment may not be sufficient drivers of personal behavioural change. It would make sense to link health services to housing regeneration projects to support changes in health behaviours at a time when environmental change appears to make behavioural change more likely
TEMPORAL PAYMENT ISSUES IN CONTINGENT VALUATION ANALYSIS
We analyze agent response to disparate payment schedules for protection of critical habitat units for the Seller sea lion in Alaska. The model allows for identification of implicit and explicit discount rates using information from a system of maximum likelihood equations. Testing is done using data for one, five, and fifteen year payment treatments.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,
The Cosmic Microwave Background and Inflation Parameters
We review the currrent cosmic parameter determinations of relevance to
inflation using the WMAP-1year, Boomerang, CBI, Acbar and other CMB data. The
basic steps in the pipelines which determine the bandpowers from the raw data
from which these estimations are made are summarized. We forecast how the
precision is likely to improve with more years of WMAP in combination with
future ground-based experiments and with Planck. We address whether the current
data indicates strong breaking from uniform acceleration through the relatively
small region of the inflaton potential that the CMB probes, manifest in the
much-discussed running spectral index or in even more radical braking/breaking
scenarios. Although some weak ``anomalies'' appear in the current data, the
statistical case is not there. However increased precision, at the high
multipole end and with polarization measurements, will significantly curtail
current freedom.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 2004, ed. E.
Verdaguer, "Peyresq Physics 8", "The Early Universe: Confronting theory with
observations" (June 21-27, 2003
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