Clustering of homicide with other adverse health outcomes in the Netherlands

In this project we examine whether homicide ‘clusters together’ with other adverse health outcomes in the Netherlands, focusing on child mortality, suicide, sexual risk behavior, and substance abuse. We expect moderate-to-strong correlations between homicide and the other adverse health phenomena (hypothesis 1). Further, we expect that these correlations will be reduced when social disorganization is controlled for (hypothesis 2).The study used population-level data between the years 1996 and 2019, for each of the 40 local regions of the Netherlands. We applied a multilevel correlation procedure to evaluate correlations between homicide and the other adverse health outcomes. Correlations between homicide and the other adverse health outcomes were modest. That is, we found only limited evidence for clustering between homicide and the other adverse health outcomes. The patterns of clustering that did occur, suggested that social disorganization in the region promotes risk-taking behaviors in the population, which ultimately increases rates of homicide, abuse of illegal drugs and births to adolescent parents.Project materials, syntax and supplementary information can be found on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/jd5yu/.Security and Global Affair

When it rains it pours?: A time-series approach to the relationship between homicide and other adverse health phenomena

Aim: This paper aims to better understand the relationship between homicide and other public health outcomes, by studying their trends over time.Subject and Methods: Research in both criminology and public health has long identified that crime and violence tend to cluster together with adverse phenomena in the social and the health domain. However, such work has relied primarily on cross-sectional analyses. Here, we instead study trends over time. We take data from the Netherlands, between 2000 and 2020, and ask whether homicide shows similar trends over time as other public health phenomena – such as smoking behaviour, alcohol use, child mortality, adolescent pregnancies and suicide.Results: We observe, first, that all of the phenomena – with the exception of suicide – declined over the period under study. We then employ a time series analysis to examine whether these trends arise independently, or whether they are the result of structural similarities between phenomena. Results showed that the decline in homicide rates is linked to a similar decline in adolescent pregnancies – the rates of these phenomena “move together” during the period under study.Conclusion: This work shows that the phenomenon of homicide shares structural similarities with teenage pregnancies – a decline in one is linked to a similar decline in the other. More generally, the current work furthers our understanding of the place of homicide in the domain of (public) health.Security and Global Affair

Mind the gap! Stereotype exposure discourages women from expressing the anger they feel about gender inequality

This work examines strategic factors that impact women’s intention to express anger. Research suggests that women express anger to a lesser extent than they experience it (Hyers, 2007; Swim et al., 2010), and we focus on the role of gender stereotypes in this phenomenon. We differentiate two “routes” by which gender stereotypes can lead women to avoid expressions of anger. First, in the stereotype disconfirmation route, women become motivated to avoid expressing anger because it supposedly disconfirms stereotypical prescriptions for women to be kind and caring. We also identify a stereotype confirmation route, in which women avoid anger expressions because anger confirms the stereotype that women are overly emotional. Across three experimental studies (Nstudy1 = 558, Nstudy2 = 694, Nstudy3 = 489), we show that women experienced anger about gender inequality, but were relatively reluctant to express the anger they felt. That is, there was evidence for an “Anger Gap.” Feminists in particular showed a large Anger Gap when it was suggested that anger might confirm stereotypes. This work demonstrates that stereotype information introduces strategic concerns that women must take into account when deciding whether to express anger about gender inequality. Additionally, this work highlights that the notion that anger confirms a stereotype can be as powerful in discouraging anger expressions as the idea (identified in previous work) that anger may disconfirm stereotypes.Security and Global Affair

Old habits die hard: assessing the validity of using homicide as an indicator of other violent crimes.

​​​​​​​Homicide statistics are often used as an indicator for violent crime more generally. In this work, we evaluate the empirical support for this convention in a Western European context, specifically the Netherlands. Using data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and from the Dutch Homicide Monitor, we compare homicide rates to rates of other violent crimes between 2010 and 2020. Results show that homicide and violent crimes are related in a general sense, but it is difficult to say what those relationships look like concretely. In other words, there is an empirical relationship between homicide and the overarching concept of violent crime, but relationships between homicide and individual violent crimes varied considerably. Based on these findings, we advise that researchers tread carefully when using homicide as an indicator of violent crime.Security and Global Affair

Understanding ethnic disparities in lethal police incidents in the Netherlands between 2016 and 2020

Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit

The rocky road from experience to expression of emotions—women’s anger about sexism

We investigated women’s anger expression in response to sexism. In three studies (Ns = 103, 317, and 241), we tested the predictions that women express less anger about sexism than they experience—the anger gap—and that the anger expressed by women is associated with instrumental concerns, specifically perceived costs and benefits of confronting sexism. To estimate the specificity of the proposed gap, we compared women’s anger reactions to men’s anger reactions as well as anger reactions to sadness reactions. Across studies, we found support for the anger gap, that is, lower anger expression than experience, and the gap was more pronounced for women than for men (Study 3). Surprisingly, a gap also occurred in sadness reactions. Regarding instrumental concerns, there was converging evidence that expressed anger was negatively associated with individual costs. We also investigated whether anger expression can be encouraged through women’s identification with feminists (Studies 1 and 2) and support by other women (Study 2); yet, we found no evidence. We conclude that, to understand women’s—and men’s—reactions to sexism, it is critical not to mistake their emotion expression for how they really feel, but instead to also consider strategic concerns.Security and Global Affair

Obesity remodels activity and transcriptional state of a lateral hypothalamic brake on feeding

The current obesity epidemic is a major worldwide health concern. Despite the consensus that the brain regulates energy homeostasis, the neural adaptations governing obesity are unknown. Using a combination of high-throughput single-cell RNA sequencing and longitudinal in vivo two-photon calcium imaging, we surveyed functional alterations of the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA) - a highly conserved brain region that orchestrates feeding - in a mouse model of obesity. The transcriptional profile of LHA glutamatergic neurons was affected by obesity, exhibiting changes indicative of altered neuronal activity. Encoding properties of individual LHA glutamatergic neurons were then tracked throughout obesity, revealing greatly attenuated reward responses.These data demonstrate how diet disrupts the function of an endogenous feeding suppression system to promote overeating and obesity

Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather

The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence, stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure