The socio-demographic determinants and nutritional consequences of food insecurity of a group of New Zealand children : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Nutritional Science, at Massey University

Food security among individuals exists when there is stable access to the kind of adequate, nutritious, safe, and culturally appropriate diet needed to maintain an active, healthy life (Campbell, 1991; Bickel et al., 2000). There is evidence that food insecurity - the lack of such an access - exists among some segments of the New Zealand population (Parnell. 1997; Russell et al., 1999; Parnell et al., 2001). There has been little research into the nutritional impact of food insecurity in New Zealand children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of socio-demographic and food security status on the nutrition and health of New Zealand children. The sample chosen for this study were a group of 183 children, aged one to 14 years, from Auckland's western suburbs, who participated in the Validation study; part of the pilot for the Children's Nutrition Survey conducted during 2000. Of the 183 children who participated in this study, 60 were Maori, 63 were Pacific and 60 were European. Demographic, anthropometric and medical history data were obtained during interviews, and dietary data was based on 24-hour recalls and food frequency questionnaires. Statistical analysis, including two-sample t-tests, Kruskal-Wallis, ordinal and binary logistic regressions using the MINITAB 13.31 program (Minitab Inc., 2003), was performed on the data set. Any relationship was considered significant if the p-value was less than 0.05. This study reported a high prevalence of food insecurity in the sample group, with 39% of all children living in households that sometimes or often did not have enough money to buy food. Household income, the educational status of the food preparer, the occupation of the main provider, the type of dwelling (rented versus owned) and ethnicity were significant predictors of food insecurity in the children in this study (p < 0.0005). Children from food-insecure households and children from low-income households, or children whose main provider was of a low occupational status or receiving a government benefit, or children whose food preparer left school early, or children from large-sized households living in rented homes, all had significantly lower intakes of fruit, vegetables, milk products and protein-rich foods such as meat. Food-insecure preschool children were also significantly more likely not to meet the RDI for nutrients such as vitamin E, calcium and selenium than food-secure preschool children. Most food-insecure school-age children did not meet the recommended values for energy, fibre, riboflavin, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin A and zinc. Poor dietary habits were observed amongst the food insecure, with most eating takeaways on a frequent basis. Food insecurity was not significantly associated with overweight or obesity, or other measures of health status, in the group of children in this study. However, significantly higher BMI values were reported among food-insecure children, and Maori and Pacific children had higher BMI values than European or Other children. A stronger association was found between BMI and socio-economic status. Children living in low-income households or in rented dwellings, or whose food preparer left school at an early age, had higher median BMI values than children from higher income households or living in households where the home was owned, or whose food preparer had stayed at school for longer or had an undergraduate degree. An important finding of this study was the high prevalence of food insecurity amongst Pacific children or children whose food preparer was of Pacific ethnicity. However, caution needs to be applied when drawing conclusions from this study, as the sample in the study was not a true representation of the New Zealand population. Some ethnic groups were under-represented, while households from the higher end of the income spectrum were over-represented in the sample chosen for the study. The results of this study are also subjective to limitations associated with the measurement of food insecurity (Blumberg & Bialostosky, 1999; Tarasuk & Beaton, 1999) and dietary assessment methods (Briefel et al., 1997; Gibson, 2002). There are also currently no nation-specific cut-off values for classifying NZ children as obese or overweight. The proposed Children's National Nutrition Survey will determine the prevalence of food insecurity in a random population based sample. This study provides evidence that food insecurity and low socio-economic status can have a negative impact on the nutritional and health status of NZ children. Its findings provide a strong case for an increased public focus on the nutritional status of Pacific children. Future research is needed to assess the impact of nutritional education programs on food-insecure households with children

Applicability of MIKE SHE to simulate hydrology in heavily tile drained agricultural land and effects of drainage characteristics on hydrology

The watersheds of the Des Moines lobe in north central Iowa have fundamentally changed in the last 170 years. Where there was once prairie, row crop agriculture now dominates. This progress has enabled this small region of the Midwest to provide food, fuel, feed, and fiber for millions, but with recent flooding events of 2008 and 2010 questions have been raised about the hydrological impacts of these lands. These flood events are driven by peak flow and concerns about the effect of drainage on peak flow should be investigated. MIKE SHE, a watershed scale model, was used to simulate daily streamflow in a multisite comparison to determine if the model is suitable to simulate streamflow in heavily drained agricultural land. The model was tested for five years (2007-2011) in two similar watersheds (1127 ha and 1356 ha) in Palo Alto County, Iowa. In the testing watershed, the simulated streamflow correlated well with the observed streamflow, as shown by a daily Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of 0.62 and a coefficient of determination of 0.66. Likewise, the model performed well in the validation watershed with a daily Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of 0.73 and coefficient of determination of 0.79. This shows that the model can be used in the future to simulate flow in similar agricultural regions throughout the Midwest that employ tile drainage to maintain suitable water table levels needed for crop growth. Changes in land use management and drainage design were simulated to better understand the hydrological impact that land use and tile drainage has on the landscape. It was shown that if row crops are converted to pasture or prairie, with drainage infrastructure intact, evapotranspiration would increase by 25% and the magnitude of peak events would decrease by over 50% in some cases. Likewise, if the drainage infrastructure was removed and only perennial grassland remained, similar to likely pre-settlement conditions for the region, then water table height becomes the main driver of surface flow and overall flow from both watersheds would decrease by 55%. Alternatively, if the depth of tile drains were decreased from 1.2m to 0.75m the effect would allow for 7 to 20 mm of extra surface runoff, while decreasing subsurface flow and maintaining the total flow. Lastly, if all drainage infrastructures were removed from the watersheds and row crop monoculture were to be maintained there would be an increased frequency of peak flow that may lead to damaging flood events. These results show that MIKE SHE could be used in land use management decisions and assessment of drainage design for mitigation of hydrological impacts downstream of heavily drained agricultural watersheds. This may help target land areas for wetland placement by showing the effects of eliminating drainage structure will have on the watershed

Process of educational innovation: A micropolitical study of the implementation of a team teaching model

This is a two-year case study, conducted in a large school district (over 10,000 students), of an attempt to introduce interdisciplinary team teaching at the high school level. The purpose of this study was to examine what teachers do and think as they engage in the process of implementing educational reform. I believed initially that the success or failure of educational reform depended largely on the actual teachers involved in implementing that reform. Once I was in the setting, however, it was clear that administrators must be included because reform depends on much more than what teachers do and think. To gain an in-depth understanding of the interactions among the key persons involved in the innovation process, micropolitics was selected as the guiding conceptual framework. Micropolitics refers to the use of both formal and informal power by individuals and groups to achieve their goals. Also, given the nature of the problem, a qualitative approach was employed because it allowed me to focus on understanding—that is, it allowed me to focus on the complex interactions among teachers and administrators and on what these interactions meant to those involved. As a nonparticipant observer, I collected data through interviews, observations, and from historical/archival documents. Over the course o f the two-year study I interviewed on numerous occasions, both formally and informally, the participating teachers, building principals, and district level administrators. I employed an analytic inductive method to analyze the data. My major findings as to the reason for the failure of this team teaching innovation are as follows: 1. The possibilities for the success of the innovation were diminished because of misperceptions on the part of teachers about the amount of support they were receiving for their efforts from administrators. 2. The “culture” of the three high schools in this district, with its focus on transmitting subject matter, was resistant to the student orientation o f the team teaching approach. 3. The site-based decision-making structure in the district allowed individual principals to end an innovation even though it was highly desired by district level administrators and the teachers involved in the process. 4. T he power and influence of people of higher socioeconomic status over building principals led directly to the failure of this team teaching innovation

Coordinating the experts and the masses: the professions of health and the creation of American community health, 1915-1940

This dissertation reveals just how public health professionals and their successors perceived themselves between 1915 and 1940, how they conceived of their expertise, and what they proposed to do with it. By examining their own conclusions about the way things work or, alternately, do not work, the outlines of an entirely new way of practicing public health appear, described at the time as community health. I wish to explore the process of invention and reinvention as it developed in the minds of the public health elite---those who by addressing particular problems in professional journals and books shaped the debate---and in the hands of those who implemented and lived with their decisions. This is not so much a dissertation revealing how public health professionals acted upon their professional debates. Rather, it emphasizes the debates themselves. It is essentially an intellectual history of the re-professionalization of public health;The crystallization of community health as a unique field, sometimes called the new public health, delimited a period in which the model of sanitary science and state medicine bore refinements and new ideological injections. These refinements and injections, taken together, took the professions of community health in new directions while preserving much of the usable knowledge and applications wrung from the older model for expertise, a model determined to objectively identify a crying social need, initiate the process of self-identification, standardize new knowledge, create an organization with restrictive membership requirements, found journals, and establish university departments and laboratories where ideas might be transferred from professionals to naifs. Community health gathered together the strengths of specialized scientific experts and educated laypeople, arranging them into a whole stronger than any individual. Community health thus represented at the same time one profession and many professions acting (ideally) in concert. Thus, this project concentrates on the many parts---public health nursing, child hygiene, industrial hygiene, mental hygiene, popular health education, philanthropic effort in health demonstrations, familial epidemiology---as well as their shared ideas. Community health professionals did not discard the principles and practices of previous decades wholesale, but rather transformed them

Chemical composition of crystalline rock fragments from Luna 16 and Luna 20 fines

The chemical composition (bulk, rare earth, and trace elements) of the Luna 16 mare regolith and luna 20 highland regolith is discussed. The rock samples considered are 14 basaltic rock fragments (Luna 16) and 13 rock fragments of the ANT suite (Luna 20). On the basis of bulk composition, two types of basaltic rocks have been differentiated and defined in the Luna 16 regolith: mare basalts (fundamental crystalline rocks of Mare Fecunditatis) and high-alumina basalts. The bulk analyses of rock fragments of the ANT suite also enabled distinction of two rock types: anorthositic norites and troctolites and/or spinal-troctolites (the most abundant crystalline rocks of the highland region, the landing site of luna 20), and anorthosites. The chemical compositions of Luna 16 and Luna 20 regolith samples are compared. Differences in the chemistry of the Luna 16 mare regolith and that of mare basalts are discussed. The chemical affinity between the Luna 20 highland regolith and (a) anorthositic norites and (b) troctolites and/or spinel-troctolites has been ascertained