Father’s Contributions to Housework and Childcare and Parental Aggravation Among First-Time Parents

This study investigated the associations between fathers’ contributions to housework and childcare and both spouses’ parenting aggravation. It was hypothesized that greater father contributions to domestic labor would be associated with more paternal aggravation but less maternal aggravation. Data are from a four-wave study of 178 married couples undergoing the transition to first parenthood. Dyadic growth-curve models revealed gender differences in aggravation trajectories over the first year of the child’s life. Fathers were higher in initial aggravation but mothers’ aggravation grew at a faster rate over time. The primary hypothesis was only partially supported. Fathers’ contributions to childcare were associated with significantly lower maternal aggravation levels, but only among more religious mothers. Child fussiness and unpredictability were consistently significant predictors of higher aggravation for both parents. Depressive symptomatology was positively related to aggravation for fathers, whereas love for the spouse was associated with lower aggravation for mothers, controlling for other factors

Parents and Partners: Moderating and Mediating Influences on Intimate Partner Violence Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Prior work examining intimate partner violence (IPV) among young adults often has emphasized familial characteristics, such as parent–child physical aggression (PCPA), and romantic relationship dynamics, such as jealousy and controlling behaviors, but has not considered these two domains simultaneously. Likewise, research examining how these two domains affect IPV perpetration over time for young adults is still limited. Using five waves of data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 950), the present study examined the influence of parent– child relationship factors and romantic relationship dynamics in both their main and interactive effects on IPV perpetration spanning adolescence through young adulthood. Results from random-effects analyses indicated that both familial and romantic relationship dynamics should be taken into account when predicting IPV perpetration. Importantly, these two domains interacted to produce cumulatively different risk for engaging in violence against a romantic partner. Individuals were more likely to perpetrate IPV when their romantic relationship was characterized by verbal aggression if they reported PCPA experiences

Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: Trajectories and the Role of Familial Factors

Prior empirical research on intimate partner violence (IPV) in adolescence and young adulthood often focuses on exposure to violence in the family-of-origin using retrospective and cross-sectional data. Yet individuals’ families matter beyond simply the presence or absence of abuse, and these effects may vary across time. To address these issues, the present study employed five waves of longitudinal data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) to investigate the trajectory of IPV from adolescence to young adulthood (N = 950 respondents, 4,750 person-periods) with a specific focus on how familial factors continue to matter across the life course. Results indicated that family-of-origin violence and parent-child relationship quality were independent predictors of IPV. The effect of parent-child relationship quality on IPV also became greater as individuals aged. These results have implications for policies targeted at reducing IPV

Health and Sickness Absence in Denmark: A Study of Elderly-Care Immigrant Workers

The objective of this study is to investigate patterns of sickness absence in light of health status among immigrants. Cross-sectional data from 2005 was used and the study population consisted of 3,121 healthcare assistants and healthcare helpers working in the elderly-care sector in Denmark. A multinomial logistic regression was employed to investigate the relationship between health indicator, sickness absence and being an immigrant. Our findings show that, on one hand, immigrants have worse health status, but on the other, they have significantly lower sickness absence than their Danish counterparts, even after factors such as age and gender are controlled for. The results show that the relationship between being an immigrant and sickness absence differs according to health status. Our findings are in line with Steer and Rhode’s theoretical framework, according to which attendance to work is a function of ability and motivation to be at work

Being questioned and receiving advice about alcohol and smoking in health care: Associations with patients' characteristics, health behavior, and reported stage of change

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alcohol habits are more rarely addressed than other health behavior topics in Swedish health care. This study examined whether differences between topics could be explained by their different associations with patient characteristics or by the differences in the prevalence of the disadvantageous health behavior, i.e., excessive alcohol use and smoking. The study moreover examined whether simply being asked questions about behavior, i.e., alcohol use or smoking, was associated with reported change.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study was based on a cross-sectional postal survey (n = 4 238, response rate 56.5 percent) representative of the adult population in Stockholm County in 2003. Retrospective self-reports were used to assess health care visits during the past 12 months, the questions and advice received there, patients characteristics, health behavior, and the present stage of change. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the associations among the 68 percent who had visited health care.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among the health care visitors, 23 percent reported being asked about their alcohol habits, and 3 percent reported receiving advice or/and support to modify their alcohol use - fewer than for smoking, physical exercise, or diet. When regression models adjusted for patient characteristics, the differences between health behaviors in the extent of questioning and advice remained. However, when the models also adjusted for smoking and alcohol consumption there was no difference between smoking and alcohol-related advice. In fact one-third of the present smokers and two-fifths of the persons dependent on alcohol reported having receiving advice the previous 12 months. Those who reported being asked questions or receiving advice more often reported a decreased alcohol use and similarly intended to cease smoking within 6 months. Questions about alcohol use were moreover related to a later stage of stage of change independently of advice among women but not among men.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>While most patients are never addressed, many in the target groups seem to be reached anyway. Besides advice, already addressing alcohol habits appears to be associated with change. The results also indicate that gender possibly plays a role in the relationship between advice and the stage of change.</p

Underestimated Effect Sizes in GWAS: Fundamental Limitations of Single SNP Analysis for Dichotomous Phenotypes

Complex diseases are often highly heritable. However, for many complex traits only a small proportion of the heritability can be explained by observed genetic variants in traditional genome-wide association (GWA) studies. Moreover, for some of those traits few significant SNPs have been identified. Single SNP association methods test for association at a single SNP, ignoring the effect of other SNPs. We show using a simple multi-locus odds model of complex disease that moderate to large effect sizes of causal variants may be estimated as relatively small effect sizes in single SNP association testing. This underestimation effect is most severe for diseases influenced by numerous risk variants. We relate the underestimation effect to the concept of non-collapsibility found in the statistics literature. As described, continuous phenotypes generated with linear genetic models are not affected by this underestimation effect. Since many GWA studies apply single SNP analysis to dichotomous phenotypes, previously reported results potentially underestimate true effect sizes, thereby impeding identification of true effect SNPs. Therefore, when a multi-locus model of disease risk is assumed, a multi SNP analysis may be more appropriate

Do obese but metabolically normal women differ in intra-abdominal fat and physical activity levels from those with the expected metabolic abnormalities? A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obesity remains a major public health problem, associated with a cluster of metabolic abnormalities. However, individuals exist who are very obese but have normal metabolic parameters. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent differences in metabolic health in very obese women are explained by differences in body fat distribution, insulin resistance and level of physical activity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This was a cross-sectional pilot study of 39 obese women (age: 28-64 yrs, BMI: 31-67 kg/m²) recruited from community settings. Women were defined as 'metabolically normal' on the basis of blood glucose, lipids and blood pressure. Magnetic Resonance Imaging was used to determine body fat distribution. Detailed lifestyle and metabolic profiles of participants were obtained.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Women with a healthy metabolic profile had lower intra-abdominal fat volume (geometric mean 4.78 l [95% CIs 3.99-5.73] vs 6.96 l [5.82-8.32]) and less insulin resistance (HOMA 3.41 [2.62-4.44] vs 6.67 [5.02-8.86]) than those with an abnormality. The groups did not differ in abdominal subcutaneous fat volume (19.6 l [16.9-22.7] vs 20.6 [17.6-23.9]). A higher proportion of those with a healthy compared to a less healthy metabolic profile met current physical activity guidelines (70% [95% CIs 55.8-84.2] vs 25% [11.6-38.4]). Intra-abdominal fat, insulin resistance and physical activity make independent contributions to metabolic status in very obese women, but explain only around a third of the variance.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A sub-group of women exists who are metabolically normal despite being very obese. Differences in fat distribution, insulin resistance, and physical activity level are associated with metabolic differences in these women, but account only partially for these differences. Future work should focus on strategies to identify those obese individuals most at risk of the negative metabolic consequences of obesity and on identifying other factors that contribute to metabolic status in obese individuals.</p

Thermal Stress and Coral Cover as Drivers of Coral Disease Outbreaks

Very little is known about how environmental changes such as increasing temperature affect disease dynamics in the ocean, especially at large spatial scales. We asked whether the frequency of warm temperature anomalies is positively related to the frequency of coral disease across 1,500 km of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. We used a new high-resolution satellite dataset of ocean temperature and 6 y of coral disease and coral cover data from annual surveys of 48 reefs to answer this question. We found a highly significant relationship between the frequencies of warm temperature anomalies and of white syndrome, an emergent disease, or potentially, a group of diseases, of Pacific reef-building corals. The effect of temperature was highly dependent on coral cover because white syndrome outbreaks followed warm years, but only on high (>50%) cover reefs, suggesting an important role of host density as a threshold for outbreaks. Our results indicate that the frequency of temperature anomalies, which is predicted to increase in most tropical oceans, can increase the susceptibility of corals to disease, leading to outbreaks where corals are abundant

Conditioning Individual Mosquitoes to an Odor: Sex, Source, and Time

Olfactory conditioning of mosquitoes may have important implications for vector-pathogen-host dynamics. If mosquitoes learn about specific host attributes associated with pathogen infection, it may help to explain the heterogeneity of biting and disease patterns observed in the field. Sugar-feeding is a requirement for survival in both male and female mosquitoes. It provides a starting point for learning research in mosquitoes that avoids the confounding factors associated with the observer being a potential blood-host and has the capability to address certain areas of close-range mosquito learning behavior that have not previously been described. This study was designed to investigate the ability of the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus Say to associate odor with a sugar-meal with emphasis on important experimental considerations of mosquito age (1.2 d old and 3–5 d old), sex (male and female), source (laboratory and wild), and the time between conditioning and testing (<5 min, 1 hr, 2.5 hr, 5 hr, 10 hr, and 24 hr). Mosquitoes were individually conditioned to an odor across these different experimental conditions. Details of the conditioning protocol are presented as well as the use of binary logistic regression to analyze the complex dataset generated from this experimental design. The results suggest that each of the experimental factors may be important in different ways. Both the source of the mosquitoes and sex of the mosquitoes had significant effects on conditioned responses. The largest effect on conditioning was observed in the lack of positive response following conditioning for females aged 3–5 d derived from a long established colony. Overall, this study provides a method for conditioning experiments involving individual mosquitoes at close range and provides for future discussion of the relevance and broader questions that can be asked of olfactory conditioning in mosquitoes