Concordance of sibling's recall of measures of childhood socioeconomic position

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies of socioeconomic determinants of health often rely on recalled information on childhood socioeconomic position, despite limited evidence of the validity of this information. This study examined concordance between siblings of recalled measures of childhood socioeconomic position.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This cross-sectional study examined reports by 1280 adult sibling pairs in the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States of seven measures of childhood socioeconomic position: father's occupation (in 9 categories), father having a professional occupation, father being a supervisor at work, father's education level, mother's education level, receipt of welfare payments, and subjective appraisal of being better or worse off financially than others.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Concordance was high for father's professional occupation (0.97; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.96, 0.98), father's occupation in 9 categories (0.76; 95% CI 0.73, 0.80), and receipt of welfare payments (0.95; 95% CI 0.93, 0.97). Concordance was lower for father's and mother's education level, and lowest for subjective appraisal of socioeconomic position (0.60; 95% CI 0.57, 0.64). Concordance of parental education was lower for sibling pairs with high school educations or less.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Concordance of recalled measures of childhood socioeconomic position by siblings is generally but not uniformly high.</p

Effects of childhood socioeconomic position on subjective health and health behaviours in adulthood: how much is mediated by adult socioeconomic position?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Adult socioeconomic position (SEP) is one of the most frequently hypothesised indirect pathways between childhood SEP and adult health. However, few studies that explore the indirect associations between childhood SEP and adult health systematically investigate the mediating role of multiple individual measures of adult SEP for different health outcomes. We examine the potential mediating role of individual measures of adult SEP in the associations of childhood SEP with self-rated health, self-reported mental health, current smoking status and binge drinking in adulthood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data came from 10,010 adults aged 25-64 years at Wave 3 of the Survey of Family, Income and Employment in New Zealand. The associations between childhood SEP (assessed using retrospective information on parental occupation) and self-rated health, self-reported psychological distress, current smoking status and binge drinking were determined using logistic regression. Models were adjusted individually for the mediating effects of education, household income, labour market activity and area deprivation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Respondents from a lower childhood SEP had a greater odds of being a current smoker (OR 1.70 95% CI 1.42-2.03), reporting poorer health (OR 1.82 95% CI 1.39-2.38) or higher psychological distress (OR 1.60 95% CI 1.20-2.14) compared to those from a higher childhood SEP. Two-thirds to three quarters of the association of childhood SEP with current smoking (78%), and psychological distress (66%) and over half the association with poor self-rated health (55%) was explained by educational attainment. Other adult socioeconomic measures had much smaller mediating effects.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study suggests that the association between childhood SEP and self-rated health, psychological distress and current smoking in adulthood is largely explained through an indirect socioeconomic pathway involving education. However, household income, area deprivation and labour market activity are still likely to be important as they are intermediaries in turn, in the socioeconomic pathway between education and health.</p

Lifecourse socioeconomic circumstances and multimorbidity among older adults

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many older adults manage multiple chronic conditions (i.e. multimorbidity); and many of these chronic conditions share common risk factors such as low socioeconomic status (SES) in adulthood and low SES across the lifecourse. To better capture socioeconomic condition in childhood, recent research in lifecourse epidemiology has broadened the notion of SES to include the experience of specific hardships. In this study we investigate the association among childhood financial hardship, lifetime earnings, and multimorbidity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cross-sectional analysis of 7,305 participants age 50 and older from the 2004 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who also gave permission for their HRS records to be linked to their Social Security Records in the United States. Zero-inflated Poisson regression models were used to simultaneously model the likelihood of the absence of morbidity and the expected number of chronic conditions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Childhood financial hardship and lifetime earnings were not associated with the absence of morbidity. However, childhood financial hardship was associated with an 8% higher number of chronic conditions; and, an increase in lifetime earnings, operationalized as average annual earnings during young and middle adulthood, was associated with a 5% lower number of chronic conditions reported. We also found a significant interaction between childhood financial hardship and lifetime earnings on multimorbidity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study shows that childhood financial hardship and lifetime earnings are associated with multimorbidity, but not associated with the absence of morbidity. Lifetime earnings modified the association between childhood financial hardship and multimorbidity suggesting that this association is differentially influential depending on earnings across young and middle adulthood. Further research is needed to elucidate lifecourse socioeconomic pathways associated with the absence of morbidity and the presence of multimorbidity among older adults.</p

Pre-clinical quantitative imaging and mouse-specific dosimetry for In-111-labelled radiotracers

Cancer Research UK and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council support to the Cancer Imaging Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (RMH) in association with Medical Research Council and Department of Health C1060/A10334, C1060/A16464

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

van der Waals Interactions in Material Modelling

Van der Waals (vdW) interactions stem from electronic zero-point fluctuations and are often critical for the correct description of structure, stability, and response properties of molecules and materials, including biomolecules, nanomaterials, and material interfaces. Here, we give a conceptual as well as mathematical overview of the current state of modeling vdW interactions,focusing in particular on the consequences of different approximations for practical applications. We present a systematic classification of approximate first-principles models based on the adiabatic-connection fluctuation-dissipation theorem, namely the nonlocal density functionals, interatomic methods, and methods based on the random-phase approximation. The applicability of these methods to different types of materials and material properties is discussed in connection with availability of theoretical and experimental benchmarks. We conclude with a roadmap of the open problems that remain to be solved to construct a universal, efficient, and accurate vdW model for realistic material modeling