Means of transportation to work and overweight and obesity: A population-based study in southern Sweden

Objectives. To investigate the association between means of transportation to work and overweight+obesity and obesity. Methods. The 2004 public health survey in Skåne is a cross-sectional postal questionnaire study of the population aged 18–80 with a 59% response rate including 16,705 employed participants. Results. Forty-six percent of men and 26.6% of women were overweight (BMI 25.0–29.9); 11.6% of men and 10.3% of women were obese (BMI 30.0–); 18.2%ofmen and 25.9%of women bicycled and/orwalked towork and 10.4% and 16.2%used public transportation, respectively. In contrast, 68.3%ofmen and 55.8% of women went to work by car. The odds ratios of overweight+obesity among persons who walked or bicycled were significantly lower and remained 0.62 (95%CI 0.51–0.76) among men and 0.79 (95% CI 0.67–0.94) among women in the models including all confounders compared to the car driving reference category. The odds ratios of obesity were initially significantly lower among bothmen andwomenwhowalked or bicycled, but in the final models only among women. The odds ratios of overweight+obesity as well as obesity were also lower among men using public transportation. Conclusions. Walking and bicycling to work are significantly negatively associated with overweight+obesity and, to some extent, obesity. Public transportation is significantly negatively associated with overweight+obesity and obesity among men

All that's mine I carry with me. Early life disease and adult health in Sweden during 250 years

The aim of this thesis is to study early life risk exposures in relation to adult health and mortality in Sweden during 250 years. A number of causal mechanisms by which exposure to diseases and stressful economic and social conditions early in life may lead to increased morbidity and mortality later in life are discussed (paper I). The early life exposures investigated are the foetal origins (nutrition) and the inflammation hypotheses. Longitudinal demographic and socioeconomic data for individuals and households from parish registers are combined with local area data on food costs (rye prices) and disease load (infant mortality rate, IMR) using a Cox regression framework to analyse the 55-80 year age group mortality based on a data material from four parishes in Scania, southern Sweden, in the late 18th and almost entire 19th centuries (The Scanian Economic Demographic Database) (papers II and III). Register based cohort data with individual demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and mortality from the Swedish Longitudinal Immigrant Database (SLI), including individuals in Sweden born in eleven countries in the inter-war period who were residents in Sweden in 1980-2001, is analysed in Cox regression analyses of adult mortality, including IMR and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the year and country of birth in the analyses (paper IV). A cross-sectional public health questionnaire survey in Scania conducted in 2008 based on respondents born in Sweden in 1927-1960 is used to analyse associations between individual self-reported data on socioeconomic early life conditions and IMR in the year of birth, and adult self-rated health (SRH) in logistic regression analyses (paper V). The results of paper II suggest that cohorts exposed to high IMR during the first year of life have high mortality in ages 55-80 specifically from airborne infectious diseases, while early life food costs have no such effect. Paper III concerns early life exposure of poor nutrition, disease load on mothers during pregnancy and IMR in infancy (including airborne infectious disease mortality) leading to subsequent cohort effects on old-age mortality. The results suggest that high IMR and a high disease load of particularly airborne infectious diseases in infancy have a strong impact on mortality in later life. In contrast, hypotheses concerning the access to nutrition and the disease load during pregnancy are not supported. Adult individual socioeconomic status is essentially not associated with adult morality in papers II and III. In contrast, in paper IV current adult socioeconomic conditions are more strongly and consistently associated with adult mortality than early life indicators IMR and GDP per capita in the year of birth in the country of birth. The results of paper V show significant associations between individual socioeconomic early life factors and adult SRH, but not between IMR in the year of birth (and the year after birth) and SRH. In conclusion, historical results suggest cohort effects of IMR on adult later life mortality, which supports the inflammation hypothesis, while modern results show significant associations between individual adult (paper IV) and early life (paper V) socioeconomic indicators and adult mortality and SRH, respectively

Marital status and generalized trust in other people: A population-based study

The association between marital status and generalized trust in other people was investigated. The public health survey in Skane 2008 is a cross-sectional study including 28,198 persons (55% participation rate) aged 18-80 in southern Sweden. Logistic regression models investigated associations between marital status and trust, adjusting for age, country of birth, education, emotional support, instrumental support and economic stress. 33.9% of the men and 35.7% of the women had low trust. The significantly higher odds ratios of low trust for unmarried men and women and divorced men remained throughout the analyses, while the significant association disappeared for divorced women in the final model. In contrast, the odds ratios of low trust for widows/widowers remained not significant compared to the married/cohabitating category throughout the analyses. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc on behalf of Western Social Science Association

Ethnic differences in social participation and social capital in Malmo, Sweden: a population-based study.

The aim of this study was to investigate ethnic differences in different aspects of social participation in Malmö, Sweden. The public health survey in Malmö 1994 is a cross-sectional study. A total of 5600 randomly chosen individuals aged 20–80 years were asked to complete a postal questionnaire. The participation rate was 71%. The population was divided into categories born in Sweden, Denmark/Norway, other Western countries, former Yugoslavia, Poland, Arabic speaking countries and all other countries. The age-adjusted and multivariate analyses were performed using a logistic regression model in order to investigate the importance of possible confounders (age, education, economic stress and unemployment) on the differences by country of origin in different aspects of social participation. Men and women born in Arabic speaking countries and other countries (Iran, Turkey, Vietnam, Chile and subsaharan Africa) participate to a significantly lower extent in a variety of civic and social activities when compared to the reference population born in Sweden. The differences in participation in these groups compared to the group born in Sweden are observed both for social participation items at the core of the definition of social capital and cultural and other activities unrelated to social capital. This pattern is particularly pronounced for women born in Arabic speaking countries. These women even sharply differ from the participation rates of men born in Arabic speaking countries. The ethnic differences in most cases do not seem to be explained satisfactorily by education, economic stress or possibly unemployment

Migration and health: a study of effects of early life experiences and current socio-economic situation on mortality of immigrants in Sweden.

Objectives. Previous research has demonstrated mortality differences between immigrants and natives living in Sweden. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of early life conditions in the country of birth and current socio-economic conditions in adult life in Sweden on cardiovascular, cancer, all other cause and total mortality among immigrants and natives in Sweden. Design. The cohort data concerning individual demographic characteristics and socio-economic conditions stems from the Swedish Longitudinal Immigrant Database (SLI), a register-based representative database, and consists of individuals from 11 countries of birth, born between 1921 and 1939, who were residents in Sweden between 1980 and 2001. The associations between current socio-economic conditions as well as infant mortality rates (IMR) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in the year and country of birth, and total, cardiovascular, cancer and 'all other' mortality in 1980-2001 were calculated by survival analysis using Cox proportional hazards regression to calculate hazard rate ratios. Results. The effects of current adult life socio-economic conditions in Sweden on mortality are both stronger and more straightforward than the effects of early life conditions in the sense that higher socio-economic status is significantly associated with lower mortality in all groups of diagnoses; however, we find associations between infant mortality rates (IMR) in the year and country of birth, and cancer mortality among men and women in the final model. Conclusions. Socioeconomic conditions in Sweden are more strongly associated with mortality than early life indicators IMR and GDP per capita in the year of birth in the country of origin. This finding has health policy and other policy implications

Linearizing Generalized Kahler Geometry

The geometry of the target space of an N=(2,2) supersymmetry sigma-model carries a generalized Kahler structure. There always exists a real function, the generalized Kahler potential K, that encodes all the relevant local differential geometry data: the metric, the B-field, etc. Generically this data is given by nonlinear functions of the second derivatives of K. We show that, at least locally, the nonlinearity on any generalized Kahler manifold can be explained as arising from a quotient of a space without this nonlinearity.Comment: 31 pages, some geometrical aspects clarified, typos correcte

A note on the Seiberg-Witten solution of N=2 Super Yang-Mills Theory

We examine the Seiberg-Witten treatment of N=2 super Yang-Mills theory, and note that in the strong coupling region of moduli space, some massive particle excitations appear to have negative norm. We discuss the significance of our observation.Comment: 4 pages, latex, no figures. The discussion has been revise