The effects of interdependent group contingencies on the academic performance of students with serious emotional disturbances : randomizing target behaviors, criteria, and reinforcers

This investigation examined the effects of randomizing components in an interdependent group contingency program for academic assignment accuracy of five Seriously Emotionally Disturbed (SED) male students in a self-contained multi-grade classroom in southeastern United States. A multiple baseline design across target behaviors was used to evaluate the effects of the group contingency program on students\u27 academic performance (i.e., independent seatwork assignments in spelling, mathematics, and English). The design included four phases. During baseline, no additional consequences were received for academic performance. During the randomized interdependent group contingency intervention phases in spelling, mathematics, and English, students received access to rewards contingent upon the average performance on independent seatwork assignments. For all interventions, rewards were randomly selected, as were the criteria for earning the reward. Results suggest that all three intervention phases were successful in increasing the classwide average percent correct data for all three subjects

Housing assistance is a safety net, not a springboard to economic opportunity

Housing assistance in the United States is unusual: unlike many other forms of public assistance, it is not an entitlement and serves only about one-quarter of eligible households. Researchers know a lot about outcomes for the lucky few who receive assistance, but what about those who lose it? In the largest study of its kind, a team from the Urban Institute, including Robin E. Smith, Susan J. Popkin, Taz George, and Jennifer Comey, examined the post-assistance trajectories of families from five US cities. The results point to the need to smooth often vulnerable families’ transition off of housing aid

Coping With Trade-Offs: Psychological Constraints and Political Implications

A thoughtful reader of the psychological literature on judgment and choice might easily walk away with the impression that people are flat-out incapable of reasoning their way through value trade-offs (Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982). Trade-offs are just too cognitively complex, emotionally stressful, and socially awkward for people to manage them effectively, to avoid entanglement in Tverskian paradoxes, such as intransitivities within choice tasks and preference reversals across choice tasks. But what looks impossible from certain psychological points of view looks utterly unproblematic from a microeconomic perspective. Of course, people can engage in trade-off reasoning. They do it all the time – every time they stroll down the aisle of the supermarket or cast a vote or opt in or out of a marriage (Becker 1981). We expect competent, self-supporting citizens of free market societies to know that they can\u27t always get what they want and to make appropriate adjustments. Trade-off reasoning should be so pervasive and so well rehearsed as to be virtually automatic for the vast majority of the non-institutionalized population. We could just leave it there in a post-positivist spirit of live-and-let-live pluralism. The disciplinary divergence provides just another illustration of how competing theoretical discourses construct reality in their own image. This “resolution” is, however, less than helpful to political scientists who borrow from cognitive psychology or microeconomics in crafting theories of political reasoning. The theoretical choice reduces to a matter of taste, in effect, an unconditional surrender to solipsism

Screen time and physical activity during adolescence: longitudinal effects on obesity in young adulthood

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The joint impact of sedentary behavior and physical activity on obesity has not been assessed in a large cohort followed from adolescence to adulthood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Nationally representative longitudinal data from Waves II (1995; mean age: 15.9) and III (2001; mean age: 21.4) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 9,155) were collected. Sex-stratified multivariate logistic regression analysis assessed the odds of obesity associated with Wave II MVPA and screen time, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and change in MVPA and screen time from Wave II to III. Obesity was defined using body mass index (BMI, kg/m²) International Obesity Task Force cut-points at Wave II and adult cut-points at Wave III (BMI ≥ 30).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In males, adjusted odds of prevalent obesity was strongly predicted by MVPA bouts [OR (95% CI): OR_{6 vs. 1 MVPA bouts}= 0.50 (0.40, 0.62); OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs screen time}= 0.83 (0.69, 1.00)]. In females, greater MVPA bouts and lower screen time correlated with lower prevalent obesity [OR (95% CI): OR_{6 vs. 1 MVPA bouts}= 0.67 (0.49, 0.91); OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs screen time}= 0.67 (0.53, 0.85)]. Longitudinally, adolescent screen time hours had a stronger influence on incident obesity in females [OR (95% CI): OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs}= 0.58 (0.43, 0.80)] than males [OR (95% CI): OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs}= 0.78 (0.61, 0.99)]. Longitudinal activity patterns were not predictive of incident obesity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Reducing screen time during adolescence and into adulthood may be a promising strategy for reducing obesity incidence, especially in females.</p

Case-control study of lung cancer risk from residential radon exposure

Abstract-A study of lung cancer risk from residential radon exposure and its radioactive progeny was performed with 200 cases (58% male, 42% female) and 397 controls matched on age and sex, all from the same health maintenance organization. Emphasis was placed on accurate and extensive year-long dosimetry with etch-track detectors in conjunction with careful questioning about historic patterns of in-home mobility

Screen time and physical activity during adolescence: longitudinal effects on obesity in young adulthood

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The joint impact of sedentary behavior and physical activity on obesity has not been assessed in a large cohort followed from adolescence to adulthood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Nationally representative longitudinal data from Waves II (1995; mean age: 15.9) and III (2001; mean age: 21.4) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 9,155) were collected. Sex-stratified multivariate logistic regression analysis assessed the odds of obesity associated with Wave II MVPA and screen time, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and change in MVPA and screen time from Wave II to III. Obesity was defined using body mass index (BMI, kg/m²) International Obesity Task Force cut-points at Wave II and adult cut-points at Wave III (BMI ≥ 30).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In males, adjusted odds of prevalent obesity was strongly predicted by MVPA bouts [OR (95% CI): OR_{6 vs. 1 MVPA bouts}= 0.50 (0.40, 0.62); OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs screen time}= 0.83 (0.69, 1.00)]. In females, greater MVPA bouts and lower screen time correlated with lower prevalent obesity [OR (95% CI): OR_{6 vs. 1 MVPA bouts}= 0.67 (0.49, 0.91); OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs screen time}= 0.67 (0.53, 0.85)]. Longitudinally, adolescent screen time hours had a stronger influence on incident obesity in females [OR (95% CI): OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs}= 0.58 (0.43, 0.80)] than males [OR (95% CI): OR_{4 vs. 40 hrs}= 0.78 (0.61, 0.99)]. Longitudinal activity patterns were not predictive of incident obesity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Reducing screen time during adolescence and into adulthood may be a promising strategy for reducing obesity incidence, especially in females.</p

Multilevel examination of diabetes in modernising China: what elements of urbanisation are most associated with diabetes?

Aims/hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between urbanisation-related factors and diabetes prevalence in China. Methods: Anthropometry, fasting blood glucose (FBG) and community-level data were collected for 7,741 adults (18–90 years) across 217 communities and nine provinces in the 2009 China Health and Nutrition Survey to examine diabetes (FBG ≥7.0 mmol/l or doctor diagnosis). Sex-stratified multilevel models, clustered at the community and province levels and controlling for individual-level age and household income were used to examine the association between diabetes and: (1) a multicomponent urbanisation measure reflecting overall modernisation and (2) 12 separate components of urbanisation (e.g., population density, employment, markets, infrastructure and social factors). Results: Prevalent diabetes was higher in more-urbanised (men 12%; women 9%) vs less-urbanised (men 6%; women 5%) areas. In sex-stratified multilevel models adjusting for residential community and province, age and household income, there was a twofold higher diabetes prevalence in urban vs rural areas (men OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.47, 2.78; women, OR 1.94, 95% CI 1.35, 2.79). All urbanisation components were positively associated with diabetes, with variation across components (e.g. men, economic and income diversity, OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.20, 1.66; women, transportation infrastructure, OR 1.18, 95% CI 1.06, 1.32). Community-level variation in diabetes was comparatively greater for women (intraclass correlation [ICC] 0.03–0.05) vs men (ICC ≤0.01); province-level variation was greater for men (men 0.03–0.04; women 0.02). Conclusions/interpretation: Diabetes prevention and treatment efforts are needed particularly in urbanised areas of China. Community economic factors, modern markets, communications and transportation infrastructure might present opportunities for such efforts. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00125-012-2697-8) contains peer-reviewed but unedited supplementary material, which is available to authorised users

Beyond Supermarkets: Food Outlet Location Selection in Four U.S. Cities Over Time

Understanding what influences where food outlets locate is important for mitigating disparities in access to healthy food outlets. However, few studies have examined how neighborhood characteristics influence the neighborhood food environment over time, and whether these relationships differ by neighborhood-level income

Water, Hydration and Health

This review attempts to provide some sense of our current knowledge of water including overall patterns of intake and some factors linked with intake, the complex mechanisms behind water homeostasis, the effects of variation in water intake on health and energy intake, weight, and human performance and functioning. Water represents a critical nutrient whose absence will be lethal within days. Water’s importance for prevention of nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases has emerged more recently because of the shift toward large proportions of fluids coming from caloric beverages. Nevertheless, there are major gaps in knowledge related to measurement of total fluid intake, hydration status at the population level, and few longer-term systematic interventions and no published random-controlled longer-term trials. We suggest some ways to examine water requirements as a means to encouraging more dialogue on this important topic

Longitudinal associations of away-from-home eating, snacking, screen time, and physical activity behaviors with cardiometabolic risk factors among Chinese children and their parents

Background: Little is known about intergenerational differences in associations of urbanization-related lifestyle behaviors with cardiometabolic risk factors in children and their parents in rapidly urbanizing China