Investigating the Effects of Trauma-Related Research on Well-Being

Using an experimental design, we investigated the impact of participation in trauma-related research on well-being in a sample of 219 higher education students. We created five conditions that exposed participants to questions about life events. A sixth condition represented a control condition. Exposure conditions varied according to whether they contained yes/no questions about events that entailed stress, stigma, trauma, or sexual violation. We operationalized well-being by measuring positive and negative affect, state anxiety, and positive reactions to research. Across exposure conditions, participants reported low levels of negative affect and generally positive reactions immediately after participation. The most negative and least positive responses followed exposure conditions that contained questions about stressful events and sexual violation. We discuss implications of our findings for ethics review board practices.     

Investigating the effects of trauma-related research on well-being

Using an experimental design, we investigated the impact of participation in trauma-related research on well-being in a sample of 219 higher education students. We created five conditions that exposed participants to questions about life events. A sixth condition represented a control condition. Exposure conditions varied according to whether they contained yes/no questions about events that entailed stress, stigma, trauma, or sexual violation. We operationalized well-being by measuring positive and negative affect, state anxiety, and positive reactions to research. Across exposure conditions, participants reported low levels of negative affect and generally positive reactions immediately after participation. The most negative and least positive responses followed exposure conditions that contained questions about stressful events and sexual violation. We discuss implications of our findings for ethics review board practices.     

Adapting the Own Children Method to allow comparison of fertility between populations with different marriage regimes

The Own Children Method (OCM) is an indirect procedure for deriving age-specific fertility rates and total fertility from children living with their mothers at a census or survey. The method was designed primarily for the calculation of overall fertility, although there are variants that allow the calculation of marital fertility. In this paper we argue that the standard variants for calculating marital fertility can produce misleading results and require strong assumptions, particularly when applied to social or spatial subgroups. We present two new variants of the method for calculating marital fertility: the first of these allows for the presence of non-marital fertility and the second also permits the more robust calculation of rates for social subgroups of the population. We illustrate and test these using full-count census data for England and Wales in 1911.     

Where do underage college students get alcohol?

Alcohol consumption and related problems are common among underage college students, yet qualitative, in-depth information on how/where these students obtain alcohol is limited. We conducted focus groups pertaining to access to alcohol and related issues with 19 underage college students. They reported that alcohol is easy to obtain from a variety of sources, with friends/acquaintances who are of legal age or those with a false ID being the most common. Parties were also common sources, but "shoulder tapping" (i.e., asking a stranger to purchase alcohol) was not common. Disagreement arose over whether underage fraternity/sorority members have greater access to alcohol than non-Greeks. Our results provide updated information on the various sources of alcohol and associated issues among underage college students.     

Grandparents Responsible for Grandchildren in Native‐American Families*

Objectives. The primary goal of this article is to examine factors associated with grandparent care giving within the American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) population. Methods. Data from the 2000 Census of Population, 5% Public Use Microdata Sample, are used to evaluate a multivariate logistic regression model focusing on living with and caring for grandchildren. Particular emphasis is placed on characteristics that may reflect culturally‐based ideas about grandparents' responsibility for the care of their grandchildren. Results. Indicators related to Native‐American identity—specifically, reporting race as AIAN only rather than mixed race, reporting tribal membership, and living in a nonmetropolitan area of an “Indian” state—increase the likelihood of being responsible for a grandchild among Native‐American singles and couples aged 45 and over. Conclusions. Cultural and resource characteristics combine to produce high levels of grandparent care giving within the AIAN population. Inasmuch as those with lower educational and economic resources are especially likely to have responsibility for a grandchild, special attention should be directed toward ensuring adequate support for these caregivers.     

Scale estimators for symmetric stable distributions

This paper reports on a simulation comparison of scale estimators for symmetric stable distributions in terms of their ability to identify the population with the greater scale. The modified geometric mean is found to be superior to the sample standard deviation and the Fama-Roll estimator for the larger values of the characteristic exponent, while the Fama-Roll estimator is judged superior for the smaller values. Further, this study sheds some light on the question of the appropriate sample size for discriminating risk measurement in investment analysis when the samples are taken from symmetric stable distributions.     

Third order asymptotics: connections among test quantities

Saddlepoint methods, extended to distribution functions, can provide highly accurate tail probabilities for testing real parameters in exponential models. For extensions, asymptotic connections among various test quantities are needed. For five quantities, the maximum likelihood departure standardized by observed and expected information, the score function standardized by observed and expected information, and the signed square root of the likelihood ratio statistic, the needed connections to third order are recorded. Their use is illustrated by a simple integration proof of the Lugannani and Rice formula.     

Can oral toxicity data for PFAS inform on toxicity via inhalation?

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are ubiquitous in the environment and are detected in wildlife and humans. With respect to human exposure, studies have shown that ingestion is the primary route of exposure; however, in certain settings, exposure via inhalation could also be a significant source of exposure. While many studies examined toxicity of PFAS via ingestion, limited information is available for PFAS toxicity via the inhalation route, translating into a lack of exposure guidelines. Consequently, this article examined whether route-to-route extrapolation to derive guidelines for inhalation exposure is appropriate for PFAS. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) were used as exemplary PFAS given the abundance of toxicity data for these two compounds. Our evaluation determined that available toxicity and toxicokinetic data support route-to-route extrapolation for PFAS in order to derive inhalation-based standards. Results from this analysis suggest that an air concentration of 7.0 × 10⁻⁵ mg/m³ (or 0.07 μg/m³) would be an appropriate RfC for PFOA and PFOS assuming the 2016 EPA RfD of 0.00002 mg/kg-day, whereas use of the interim RfDs proposed in 2022 of 1.5 × 10⁻⁹ and 7.9 × 10⁻⁹ mg/kg would yield much lower RfCs of 5.25 × 10⁻⁹ and 2.77 × 10⁻⁸ mg/m³ (or 5.25 × 10⁻⁶ and 2.77 × 10⁻⁵ μg/m³) for PFOA and PFOS, respectively.