Public attitudes to the management of invasive non-native species in Scotland

Invasive non-native species are one of the main threats to biodiversity. Consequently there is a need to control or eradicate those species that are causing problems in order to mitigate their impact. Such management programmes can be controversial and in some cases have been delayed or halted because of opposition from pressure groups. Public support can be critical to the success of such projects, and understanding the underlying attitudes of the public can help inform outreach education activities. To assess attitudes towards invasive species management and investigate socio-demographic factors influencing such attitudes, a questionnaire survey of 600 randomly selected members of the public in Scotland was conducted, and a total of 248 completed questionnaires returned. The level of support for control and eradication programmes was, in general, high and was higher amongst men, older people, and people who had previously heard of control and eradication projects. The species to be managed influenced levels of support, and projects to control birds were the least supported. Respondents with prior knowledge of control and eradication programmes and members of conservation organisations, in general, showed higher levels of support, indicating the important role that awareness and education has in terms of increasing public support for invasive non-native species management projects

Screening for serious mental illness in the general population with the K6 screening scale: results from the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) survey initiative

Data are reported on the background and performance of the K6 screening scale for serious mental illness (SMI) in the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health (WMH) surveys. The K6 is a six-item scale developed to provide a brief valid screen for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition (DSM-IV) SMI based on the criteria in the US ADAMHA Reorganization Act. Although methodological studies have documented good K6 validity in a number of countries, optimal scoring rules have never been proposed. Such rules are presented here based on analysis of K6 data in nationally or regionally representative WMH surveys in 14 countries (combined N = 41,770 respondents). Twelve-month prevalence of DSM-IV SMI was assessed with the fully-structured WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Nested logistic regression analysis was used to generate estimates of the predicted probability of SMI for each respondent from K6 scores, taking into consideration the possibility of variable concordance as a function of respondent age, gender, education, and country. Concordance, assessed by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, was generally substantial (median 0.83; range 0.76–0.89; inter-quartile range 0.81–0.85). Based on this result, optimal scaling rules are presented for use by investigators working with the K6 scale in the countries studied. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77431/1/310_ftp.pd

Segregation distortion of wild-type alleles at the Machado-Joseph disease locus: a study in normal families from the Azores islands (Portugal)

Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) is caused by an expansion of a triplet repeat with a CAG motif at the ATXN3 gene. The putative segregation ratio distortion (SRD) of alleles can play an important role in the non-Mendelian behaviour of triplet repeat loci. To study the stability and infer the segregation patterns of wild-type MJD alleles, the size of the (CAG)(n) tract was analysed in 102 normal sibships, representing 428 meioses. No mutational events were detected during the transmission of alleles. Segregation analysis showed that the smaller alleles were preferentially transmitted (56.9%). Considering maternal meioses alone, such preference was still detected (55.7%) but without statistical significance. A positive correlation was observed for the difference in length between the two alleles constituting the transmitters' genotype (D) and the frequency of transmission of the smaller alleles. The results suggest that small D values are not enough to modify the probability of allele transmission. When transmissions involving genotypes with D <or= 2 were excluded, SRD in favour of the smaller allele became significant for both maternal and paternal transmissions. Therefore, the genotypic composition of the transmitters in a sample to be analysed should influence the ability to detect SRD, acting as a confounding factor.This work was supported by ‘‘Projecto Regional Integrado— DMJ (PRI-DMJ)’’ (funded by Regional Government of the Azores), ‘‘Construyendo una Bio-Región Europea—Biopolis’’ (05/MAC/2.3/ C14, funded by PIC Interreg III B, Azores—Madeira—Canarias) and MANSEEBMO (MI.2.1/004/2005, funded by ‘‘Direcção Regional da Ciência e Tecnologia’’). CB (SFRH/BD/21875/2005) is a recipient of a Ph.D. grant, and RM (SFRH/BPD/32473/2006) and CS (SFRH/BPD/ 20944/2004) are postdoctoral fellows from ‘‘Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia’’ (FCT)

Adverse childhood experiences and prescription drug use in a cohort study of adult HMO patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prescription drugs account for approximately 11% of national health expenditures. Prior research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which include common forms of child maltreatment and related traumatic stressors, has linked them to numerous health problems. However, data about the relationship of these experiences to prescription drug use are scarce.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>We used the ACE Score (an integer count of 8 different categories of ACEs) as a measure of cumulative exposure to traumatic stress during childhood. We prospectively assessed the relationship of the Score to prescription drug use in a cohort of 15,033 adult HMO patients (mean follow-up: 6.1 years) and assessed mediation of this relationship by documented ACE-related health and social problems.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Nearly 1.2 million prescriptions were recorded; prescriptions rates increased in a graded fashion as the ACE Score increased (p for trend < 0.0001). Compared to persons with an ACE Score of 0, persons with a Score ≥ 5 had rates increased by 40%; graded relationships were seen for all age groups (18–44, 45–64, and 65–89 years) (p for trend < 0.01). Graded relationships were observed for the risk of being in the upper decile of number of classes of drugs used; persons with scores of ≥ 5 had this risk increased 2-fold. Adjustment for ACE-related health problems reduced the strength of the associations by more than 60%.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>ACEs substantially increase the number of prescriptions and classes of drugs used for as long as 7 or 8 decades after their occurrence. The increases in prescription drug use were largely mediated by documented ACE-related health and social problems.</p