Exposure To Family Violence And Early Sexual Engagement: Potential Disruptors To Intimacy Development In Girls\u27 Early To Middle Adolescent Close Friendships

Informed by theories of interpersonal development, this study evaluates whether two known threats to psychosocial health – exposure to family violence (EFV) and early sexual engagement (ESE) – are associated with adolescent girls’ intimacy development with close same-sex friends. A sample of metropolitan-area, mostly Black and African American (77%) girls (N = 93; Mage = 12.5) provided three waves of longitudinal data over 18 months (T1 – T3), spanning early to middle adolescence. Multilevel models were used to examine changes in girls’ close friendships, including the number of closest same-sex friends and quality of best same-sex friendship. Cumulative EFV and ESE by T1 showed different patterns of association with growth in these two areas of intimacy development. Girls with low EFV had more closest same-sex friends at T1 than girls with high EFV and showed a reduction in the number of closest friends from T1-T3. The comparatively low number of closest same-sex friends reported at T1 by girls with high EFV remained relatively unchanged over time. EFV was unrelated to best friendship quality. ESE by T1 predicted changes in both the number of closest same-sex friends and quality of best friendships over time. For girls with less extensive ESE at T1, the number of closest same-sex friends and the quality of girls’ best friend relationship remained relatively unchanged over time. Girls with more extensive ESE at T1 showed a decrease in the number of closest same-sex friends and an increase in negative friendship quality from T1-T3. ESE was unrelated to change in positive friendship quality. Same-sex friendships are often examined as a predictor of interpersonal and psychosocial outcomes for youth or as a mid-late adolescent outcome to explore. The current findings highlight the potential for childhood exposure to family violence and precocious sexual engagement to disrupt same-sex intimacy development during a critical developmental period. Eliminating interpersonal violence, systemic violence, and related precocious sexual engagement is important for promoting girls’ positive intimacy development. Use of a systems approach is needed to continue to examine transacting patterns of intimacy development among girls’ familial, close friend, and romantic and sexual relationships

When Free Is Not for Me: Confronting the Barriers to Use of Free Quitline Telephone Counseling for Tobacco Dependence

Remarkable disparities in smoking rates in the United States contribute significantly to socioeconomic and minority health disparities. Access to treatment for tobacco use can help address these disparities, but quitlines, our most ubiquitous treatment resource, reach just 1%–2% of smokers. We used community-based participatory methods to develop a survey instrument to assess barriers to use of the quitline in the Arkansas Mississippi delta. Barriers were quitline specific and barriers to cessation more broadly. Over one-third (34.9%) of respondents (n = 799) did not have access to a telephone that they could use for the quitline. Respondents reported low levels of knowledge about the quitline, quitting, and trust in tobacco treatment programs as well as considerable ambivalence about quitting including significant concerns about getting sick if they quit and strong faith-based beliefs about quitting. These findings suggest quitlines are not accessible to all lower socioeconomic groups and that significant barriers to use include barriers to cessation. These findings suggest targets for providing accessible tobacco use treatment services and addressing concerns about cessation among lower income, ethnic minority, and rural groups

Cognitive, Behavioral, and Situational Influences on Relapse to Smoking After Group Treatment for Tobacco Dependence

Socioeconomic disparities in treatment failure rates for evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment are well-established. Adapted cognitive behavioral treatments are extensively tailored to meet the needs of lower socioeconomic status (SES) smokers and dramatically improve early treatment success, but there is little understanding of why treatment failure occurs after a longer period of abstinence than with standard treatment, why early treatment success is not sustained, and why long-term treatment failure rates are no different from standard treatments. We sought to understand the causes of treatment failure from the perspective of diverse participants who relapsed after receiving standard or adapted treatment in a randomized control trial. We used a qualitative approach and a cognitive-behavioral framework to examine themes in responses to a semi-structured post-relapse telephone interview. The primary causes of relapse were familiar (i.e., habit, stress, unanticipated precipitating events). The adapted treatment appeared to improve the management of habits and stress short-term, but did not adequately prepare respondents for unanticipated events. Respondents reported that they would have benefited from continued support. New therapeutic targets might include innovative methods to reduce long-term treatment failure by delivering extended relapse prevention interventions to support early treatment success

Spatial and temporal specificity of Ca2+signalling inChlamydomonas reinhardtiiin response to osmotic stress

Ca2+-dependent signalling processes enable plants to perceive and respond to diverse environmental stressors, such as osmotic stress. A clear understanding of the role of spatiotemporal Ca2+ signalling in green algal lineages is necessary in order to understand how the Ca2+ signalling machinery has evolved in land plants. We used single-cell imaging of Ca2+-responsive fluorescent dyes in the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to examine the specificity of spatial and temporal dynamics of Ca2+ elevations in the cytosol and flagella in response to salinity and osmotic stress. We found that salt stress induced a single Ca2+ elevation that was modulated by the strength of the stimulus and originated in the apex of the cell, spreading as a fast Ca2+ wave. By contrast, hypo-osmotic stress induced a series of repetitive Ca2+ elevations in the cytosol that were spatially uniform. Hypo-osmotic stimuli also induced Ca2+ elevations in the flagella that occurred independently from those in the cytosol. Our results indicate that the requirement for Ca2+ signalling in response to osmotic stress is conserved between land plants and green algae, but the distinct spatial and temporal dynamics of osmotic Ca2+ elevations in C. reinhardtii suggest important mechanistic differences between the two lineages

Predicting Early Adolescents\u27 Emergent Romantic And Sexual Experiences: Examining Longitudinal Effects Of The Composition Of Girls\u27 Immediate Peer Network

Romantic and sexual development become increasingly prominent during early adolescence. Peer networks seem to play an important role in adolescents’ romantic and sexual engagement. However, much of the research focuses on middle to late adolescence or risk-related behavior. Less is known about how specific aspects of early adolescents’ peer networks contribute to emergent behavior that spans the full range of romantic and sexual engagement. The current study is among the first to examine associations between sex-specific characteristics of girls’ peer network and a subsequent range of romantic and sexual experiences. In a sample (N=91) of urban, mostly African American (76%) early adolescent girls, above and beyond cumulative familial risk, pubertal development, and prior romantic and sexual experience, the presence of age-atypical peer relationships in girls’ networks, including higher proportions of older and emotionally close males, predicted subsequent age-atypical romantic and sexual experiences nine months later. Findings point to the potential importance of peer relationship intervention for early romantic and sexual development. As early adolescents’ peer networks become increasingly mixed sex, helping girls foster and sustain same-age other-sex and close same-sex friendships may be beneficial to their continued interpersonal development