Childhood mental health: an ecological analysis of the effects of neighborhood characteristics

Research on childhood mental illness traditionally examines risk factors most proximal to the child. However, current trends reflect growing interest in how broader contextual factors contribute to psychopathology risk. In this study, we examined neighborhood‐level indicators as potential sources of chronic strain in a sample of 156 mother–child dyads; children were 8 to 12 years old. For most neighborhood indicators, data were collected at the level of census tracts using publicly available data sets. We hypothesized that these indicators would be both associated with greater overall mental health symptoms and specifically predictive of childhood symptoms of depression. We also examined potential mediators (maternal functioning and family cohesion) and moderators (maternal depression). Neighborhood indicators correlated with parents’ ratings of children's overall mental health problems, but did not correlate with children's self‐report of depression symptoms. Maternal functioning mediated neighborhood effects on children's overall mental health problems. Implications and directions for future research are presented.The current work was supported by the following grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health MH066077, MH082861, PI: Martha C. Tompson, Ph.D. and MH082861S1, PI: Gail N. Kemp, M.A., M.P.H. (MH066077 - National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health; MH082861 - National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health; MH082861S1 - National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health)Published versio

Social-ecological analysis of climate induced changes in biodiversity – outline of a research concept

The interactions of changes in climate and biodiversity with societal actions, structures and processes are a priority topic within the international scientific debate – and thus, a relevant subject matter for BiKF’s work. This paper outlines a concept for transdisciplinary research within BiKF. It focuses on the analysis of social-ecological systems supporting society with biodiversity driven ecosystem services. Such research is considering different issues: defining sustainable societal adaptations to climate induced biodiversity changes; permitting adequate understanding of the social-ecological reproduction of ecosystem functions, including their conservation and restoration; analysing the societal values and socio-economic utilisation of ecosystem services. Gaining knowledge in these areas provides an improved basis for decision-making in biodiversity and resource management

Intimate Femicide: An Ecological Analysis

This research identifies the killing of women by male partners as a multidimensional problem and, through empirical analysis, identifies relationships between intimate femicide and individual, family, community services, state status of women, and violence against women factors. The conceptual base follows an ecological framework. Individual demographic and situational factors are presented. The findings of the study indicate that factors within each of the ecological settings are associated with intimate femicide. An implication of this exploratory study is that intimate femicide is related to a number of state factors, including factors associated with gender inequality in a state

Open defecation and childhood stunting in India: an ecological analysis of new data from 112 districts.

Poor sanitation remains a major public health concern linked to several important health outcomes; emerging evidence indicates a link to childhood stunting. In India over half of the population defecates in the open; the prevalence of stunting remains very high. Recently published data on levels of stunting in 112 districts of India provide an opportunity to explore the relationship between levels of open defecation and stunting within this population. We conducted an ecological regression analysis to assess the association between the prevalence of open defecation and stunting after adjustment for potential confounding factors. Data from the 2011 HUNGaMA survey was used for the outcome of interest, stunting; data from the 2011 Indian Census for the same districts was used for the exposure of interest, open defecation. After adjustment for various potential confounding factors--including socio-economic status, maternal education and calorie availability--a 10 percent increase in open defecation was associated with a 0.7 percentage point increase in both stunting and severe stunting. Differences in open defecation can statistically account for 35 to 55 percent of the average difference in stunting between districts identified as low-performing and high-performing in the HUNGaMA data. In addition, using a Monte Carlo simulation, we explored the effect on statistical power of the common practice of dichotomizing continuous height data into binary stunting indicators. Our simulation showed that dichotomization of height sacrifices statistical power, suggesting that our estimate of the association between open defecation and stunting may be a lower bound. Whilst our analysis is ecological and therefore vulnerable to residual confounding, these findings use the most recently collected large-scale data from India to add to a growing body of suggestive evidence for an effect of poor sanitation on human growth. New intervention studies, currently underway, may shed more light on this important issue

An ecological analysis of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) assemblages in the North Pacific Ocean along broad-scale environmental gradients

Environmental variability affects the distributions of most marine fish species. In this analysis, assemblages of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) species were defined on the basis of similarities in their distributions along environmental gradients. Data from 14 bottom trawl surveys of the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands (n=6767) were used. Five distinct assemblages of rockfish were defined by geographical position, depth, and temperature. The 180-m and 275-m depth contours were major divisions between assemblages inhabiting the shelf, shelf break, and lower continental slope. Another noticeable division was between species centered in southeastern Alaska and those found in the northern Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands. The use of environmental variables to define the species composition of assemblages is different from the use of traditional methods based on clustering and nonparametric statistics and as such, environmentally based analyses should result in predictable assemblages of species that are useful for ecosystem-based management

Crime, Unemployment, and Xenophobia? An Ecological Analysis of Right-Wing Election Results in Hamburg, 1986−2005

This paper investigates the consequences of immigration, crime and socio-economic depriviation for the performance of right-wing extremist and populist parties in the German city state of Hamburg between 1986 and 2005. The ecological determinants of voting for right-wing parties on the district level are compared to those for mainstream and other protest parties. Parallels and differences in spatial characteristics between right-wing extremist and populist parties' performance are identified. Our empirical results tend to confirm the general contextual sociological theory of right-wing radicalization by general social deprivation and immigration. Nevertheless they indicate that one has to be very cautious when interpreting the unemployment/crime - right-winger nexus. Moreover, crime does not seem to have a strong significant effect on right-wing populist parties' election successes despite its importance for their programmes and campaigns.elections, political extremism, labor market policy, welfare policy, immigration