Social participation and mortality: does social position in civic groups matter?

BACKGROUND: Social participation is known to predict longevity. However, little is known about the effect of social participation according to an individual's position in civic groups. We evaluated the influence of social position on mortality, using data from a large cohort of Japanese older adults (the AGES cohort). METHODS: Of 14,804 individuals aged 65 years and older enrolled in the AGES, 14,286 individuals were followed up for approximately 5 years from 2003 to 2008. We performed inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW) Cox proportional hazards regression with multiple imputation of missing values to compute hazard ratios (HR) for all-cause mortality according to the individual's position in the community organization(s) to which they belonged. We examined participation in the following civic groups: neighborhood association/senior citizen club/fire-fighting team, religious group, political organization or group, industrial or trade association, volunteer group, citizen or consumer group, hobby group, and sports group or club. The values for IPTW were computed based on demographic variables, socioeconomic status, and self-reported medical condition. RESULTS: During 22,718 person-years of follow-up for regular members of community groups and 14,014 person-years of follow-up for participants in leadership positions, 479 deaths and 214 deaths were observed, respectively. Relative to regular members, crude HR for all-cause mortality for occupying leadership positions (e.g. president, manager, or having administrative roles) was 0.72 (95 % CI:0.62-0.85). The IPTW-HR was 0.88 (95 % CI: 0.79-0.99) for participants occupying leadership positions. CONCLUSIONS: Holding leadership positions in community organization(s) may be more beneficial to health than being regular members

Phase II Trial of Preoperative Chemotherapy with Docetaxel, Cisplatin and S-1 for T4 Locally Advanced Gastric Cancer

The standard treatment for T4 locally advanced gastric cancer is gastrectomy with D2 lymph node dissection followed by adjuvant chemotherapy with S-1 for 12 months; however, prognostic outcome in Stage IIIb has been insufficient. It is expected that survival is improved by preoperative treatment with a triplet regimen of docetaxel, cisplatin and S-1 (divided DCS therapy). A multicenter Phase II study has been conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of two courses of preoperative chemotherapy followed by gastrectomy. Fifty-five patients are required for this study. The primary endpoint of the study is pathological response rate of primary lesions. Secondary endpoints are overall survival, disease-free survival, R0 resection rate and adverse events

Using dynamical mode decomposition to extract the limit cycle dynamics of modulated turbulence in a plasma simulation

The novel technique of dynamical mode decomposition (DMD) is applied to the outputs of a numerical simulation of Kelvin–Helmholtz turbulence in a cylindical plasma, so as to capture and quantify the time evolution of the dominant nonlinear structures. Empirically, these structures comprise rotationally symmetric deformations together with spiral patterns, and they are found to be identified as the main modes of the DMD. A new method to calculate the time evolution of DMD mode amplitudes is proposed, based on convolution-type correlation integrals, and then applied to the simulation outputs in a limit cycle regime. The resulting time traces capture the essential physics far better than Fourier techniques applied to the same data

Assessing the association between all-cause mortality and multiple aspects of individual social capital among the older Japanese

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Few prospective cohort studies have assessed the association between social capital and mortality. The studies were conducted only in Western countries and did not use the same social capital indicators. The present prospective cohort study aimed to examine the relationships between various forms of individual social capital and all-cause mortality in Japan.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to subjects in the Aichi Gerontological Evaluation Study (AGES) Project in 2003. Mortality data from 2003 to 2008 were analyzed for 14,668 respondents. Both cognitive and structural components of individual social capital were collected: 8 for cognitive social capital (trust, 3; social support, 3; reciprocity, 2) and 9 for structural social capital (social network). Cox proportional hazard models stratified by sex with multiple imputation were used. Age, body mass index, self-rated health, current illness, smoking history, alcohol consumption, exercise, equivalent income and education were used as covariates.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During 27,571 person-years of follow-up for men and 29,561 person-years of follow-up for women, 790 deaths in men and 424 in women were observed. In the univariate analyses for men, lower social capital was significantly related to higher mortality in one general trust variable, all generalised reciprocity variables and four social network variables. For women, lower social capital was significantly related to higher mortality in all generalised reciprocity and four social network variables. After adjusting for covariates, lower friendship network was significantly associated with higher all-cause mortality among men (meet friends rarely; HR = 1.30, 95%CI = 1.10-1.53) and women (having no friends; HR = 1.81, 95%CI = 1.02-3.23). Among women, lower general trust was significantly related to lower mortality (most people cannot be trusted; HR = 0.65, 95%CI = 0.45-0.96).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Friendship network was a good predictor for all-cause mortality among older Japanese. In contrast, mistrust was associated with lower mortality among women. Studies with social capital indices considering different culture backgrounds are needed.</p

The Association of Neighborhood Social Capital and Ethnic (Minority) Density with Pregnancy Outcomes in the Netherlands

Background: Perinatal morbidity rates are relatively high in the Netherlands, and significant inequalities in perinatal morbidity and mortality can be found across neighborhoods. In socioeconomically deprived areas, ‘Western’ women are particularly at risk for adverse birth outcomes. Almost all studies to date have explained the disparities in terms of individual determinants of birth outcomes. This study examines the influence of neighborhood contextual characteristics on birth weight (adjusted for gestational age) and preterm birth. We focused on the influence of neighborhood social capital – measured as informal socializing and social connections between neighbors – as well as ethnic (minority) density. Methods: Data on birth weight and prematurity were obtained from the Perinatal Registration Netherlands 2000–2008 dataset, containing 97% of all pregnancies. Neighborhood-level measurements were obtained from three different sources, comprising both survey and registration data. We included 3.422 neighborhoods and 1.527.565 pregnancies for the birth weight analysis and 1.549.285 pregnancies for the premature birth analysis. Linear and logistic multilevel regression was performed to assess the associations of individual and neighborhood level variables with birth weight and preterm birth. Results: We found modest but significant neighborhood effects on birth weight and preterm births. The effect of ethnic (minority) density was stronger than that of neighborhood social capital. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density was associated with higher birth weight for infants of non-Western ethnic minority women compared to Western women (15 grams; 95% CI: 12,4/17,5) as well as reduced risk for prematurity (OR 0.97; CI 0,95/0,99). Conclusions: Our results indicate that neighborhood contexts are associated with birth weight and preterm birth in the Netherlands. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density seems to be a protective factor for non-Western ethnic minority women, but not for Western women. This helps explain the increased risk of Western women in deprived neighborhoods for adverse birth outcomes found in previous studies

The effects of socioeconomic status and indices of physical environment on reduced birth weight and preterm births in Eastern Massachusetts

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: Air pollution and social characteristics have been shown to affect indicators of health. While use of spatial methods to estimate exposure to air pollution has increased the power to detect effects, questions have been raised about potential for confounding by social factors.Methods: A study of singleton births in Eastern Massachusetts was conducted between 1996 and 2002 to examine the association between indicators of traffic, land use, individual and area-based socioeconomic measures (SEM), and birth outcomes ( birth weight, small for gestational age and preterm births), in a two-level hierarchical model.Results: We found effects of both individual ( education, race, prenatal care index) and area-based ( median household income) SEM with all birth outcomes. The associations for traffic and land use variables were mainly seen with birth weight, with an exception for an effect of cumulative traffic density on small for gestational age. Race/ethnicity of mother was an important predictor of birth outcomes and a strong confounder for both area-based SEM and indices of physical environment. The effects of traffic and land use differed by level of education and median household income.Conclusion: Overall, the findings of the study suggested greater likelihood of reduced birth weight and preterm births among the more socially disadvantaged, and a greater risk of reduced birth weight associated with traffic exposures. Results revealed the importance of controlling simultaneously for SEM and environmental exposures as the way to better understand determinants of health.This work is supported by the Harvard Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Center, Grants R827353 and R-832416, and National Institute for Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) ES-0002