Relationships between types of UK national newspapers, illness classification, and stigmatising coverage of mental disorders

BACKGROUND: Media coverage on mental health problems has been found to vary by newspaper type, and stigma disproportionately affects people with mental illness by diagnosis. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the relationships between types of UK national newspaper (tabloid vs. broadsheet), illness classification (SMI–severe mental illnesses vs. CMD–common mental disorders), and stigmatising coverage of mental disorders, and whether these relationships changed over the course of the Time to Change anti-stigma programmes in England and Wales. METHODS: Secondary analysis of data from a study of UK newspaper coverage of mental illness was performed. Relevant articles from nine UK national newspapers in 2008–11, 2013, 2016 and 2019 were retrieved. A structured coding framework was used for content analysis. The odds an article was stigmatising in a tabloid compared to a broadsheet, and about SMI compared to CMD, were calculated. Coverage of CMD and SMI by newspaper type was compared using the content elements categorised as stigmatising or anti-stigmatising. RESULTS: 2719 articles were included for analysis. Articles in tabloids had 1.32 times higher odds of being stigmatising than articles in broadsheet newspapers (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.12–1.55). Odds of stigmatising coverage was 1.72 times higher for articles on SMI than CMD (OR  1.72, 95% CI 1.39–2.13). Different patterns in reporting were observed when results were stratified by years for all analyses. A few significant associations were observed for the portrays of stigmatising elements between tabloid and broadsheet newspapers regarding SMI or CMD. CONCLUSIONS: Tailored interventions are needed for editors and journalists of different newspaper types, to include specific strategies for different diagnoses

MHC class I variation associates with parasite resistance and longevity in tropical pythons

Using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) we identified 26 unique major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genotypes in 104 water pythons. We observed a significant independent association between reduced blood parasite load (Hepatozoon sp.) and python body length/age, presence of a specific RFLP fragment (C-fragment) and the overall number of fragments. The parasite has a negative impact on several python life-history traits such as growth, nutritional status and longevity. Thus, the C-fragment could be considered a 'good gene' (a fitness-enhancing genetic element). However, while the number of fragments affected parasite load, the association between level of parasitaemia and fragment number was not linear, and, hence, minimum parasite infection level was achieved at an intermediate number of fragments. Intermediate MHC fragment numbers were also observed among the largest/oldest pythons, suggesting that both a specific fragment and intermediate levels of MHC polymorphism enhanced python longevity. Thus, our results suggest python MHC is subject to both frequency-dependent and balancing selection

Susceptibility of Italian agile frog populations to an emerging strain of Ranavirus parallels population genetic diversity.

Western populations of the Italian agile frog (Rana latastei) experience widespread genetic depletion. Based on population genetic theory, molecular models of immunity and previous empirical studies, population genetic depletion predicts increased susceptibility of populations to emergent pathogens. We experimentally compared susceptibility of R. latastei populations upon exposure to an emerging strain of Ranavirus, frog virus 3 (FV3), using six populations spanning the geographical range and range of population genetic diversity found in nature. Our findings confirm this prediction, suggesting that the loss of genetic diversity accompanying range expansion and population isolation is coincident with increased mortality risk from an emergent pathogen. Loss of heterozygosity and escape from selection imposed by immunologically cross-reactive pathogens may potentially generate range-wide variation in disease resistance

Rapid Mixing of Subset Glauber Dynamics on Graphs of Bounded Tree-Width

Motivated by the ‘subgraphs world’ view of the ferromagnetic Ising model, we develop a general approach to studying mixing times of Glauber dynamics based on subset expansion expressions for a class of graph polynomials. With a canonical paths argument, we demonstrate that the chains defined within this framework mix rapidly upon graphs of bounded tree-width. This extends known results on rapid mixing for the Tutte polynomial, the adjacency-rank (R 2-)polynomial and the interlace polynomial