Development and change of young adults' preventive health beliefs and behavior: influence from parents and peers

A longitudinal data set is employed to explore the sources of stability and change in young adults' health beliefs and behavior concerning drinking, diet, exercise, and wearing seat belts. There is substantial change in the performance of health behaviors during the first three years of college, and peers have a strong impact on the magnitude of that change. In total, however, parents are much more important than peers as sources of influence over these beliefs and behaviors. Of the various social influence processes considered, the direct modeling of behavior appears to be the most important avenue of influence for both parents and peers. These data, along with previous papers in our research program, suggest a pattern of gradually increasing parental influence on their children's health beliefs and behavior while the children are living at home, and the persistence of that influence at least through the college years.     

黄金假期的SPA之旅——万千宠爱于悦榕

假日旅行不一定非要走个不停，与其拿着地图从一个景点马不停蹄赶赴下一个景点，在人山人海中插缝拍上一张“到此一游”的留念片，不如事先计划好自己的目标城市，好好做一次假日SPA之旅，把自己交付给专业美疗师，从内及外彻底得到一次全面而舒适的芳香调理。 不论是度假用地的休闲SPA，还是星级酒店里的奢华SPA，甚至就是悄立于城市一角闹中取静的会所SPA，都能完全满足您个人不同的身心需求。 这个假期，不妨跟随我们的指引，开始一个舒适的SPA之旅，开始您关照心灵的新时尚生活方式。     

Diesel Engine Exhaust and Lung Cancer Mortality: Time‐Related Factors in Exposure and Risk

To develop a quantitative exposure‐response relationship between concentrations and durations of inhaled diesel engine exhaust (DEE) and increases in lung cancer risks, we examined the role of temporal factors in modifying the estimated effects of exposure to DEE on lung cancer mortality and characterized risk by mine type in the Diesel Exhaust in Miners Study (DEMS) cohort, which followed 12,315 workers through December 1997. We analyzed the data using parametric functions based on concepts of multistage carcinogenesis to directly estimate the hazard functions associated with estimated exposure to a surrogate marker of DEE, respirable elemental carbon (REC). The REC‐associated risk of lung cancer mortality in DEMS is driven by increased risk in only one of four mine types (limestone), with statistically significant heterogeneity by mine type and no significant exposure‐response relationship after removal of the limestone mine workers. Temporal factors, such as duration of exposure, play an important role in determining the risk of lung cancer mortality following exposure to REC, and the relative risk declines after exposure to REC stops. There is evidence of effect modification of risk by attained age. The modifying impact of temporal factors and effect modification by age should be addressed in any quantitative risk assessment (QRA) of DEE. Until there is a better understanding of why the risk appears to be confined to a single mine type, data from DEMS cannot reliably be used for QRA.     

Commercial sex between men: A prospective diary‐based study

This paper describes the results of a self‐reporting dairy completed by 186 male sex workers (MSWs) over a 2‐week period in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, Australia. The diary was completed following each commercial sex encounter by the MSW. The results reveal that MSWs reported 2088 commercial sex encounters during the study period, with an average of 11.2 encounters per MSW. The majority of sex encounters took place in either the client's or the MSW's residence, with significant variations by city. The average sexual encounter lasted 70 minutes, and comprised two sexual acts, masturbation and oral sex. Condom use was reported in 67.4% of all the encounters. Using the AIDS Council safe‐sex classification system, the majority of the commercial sex encounters fell in the “safer sex” category; however, there were significant differences by source of clients and place of the encounter. Use of drugs and alcohol reveal interesting patterns: Clients were more likely to use alcohol, while MSWs had significant differences of usage of the different drugs. This study demonstrates that the majority of MSWs are offering and practicing safe sex behaviours, however, MSWs working in the street setting are still likely to be practising unsafe sex. Male sex work is becoming an organised business and this provides opportunities to implement further public health interventions.     

Corridors of Power: The Institutional Design of North–South NGO Partnerships

Power asymmetries within partnerships between Northern and Southern NGOs are thought to be undesirable. Based on a comparative case study of the partnerships between three Northern NGOs and their Southern partners in Ghana, India and Nicaragua, this study examines how the partnerships’ institutional design affects local partners’ room to manoeuvre. It is demonstrated that (1) the Northern agencies unilaterally set the rules that govern the partnerships, based on their own norms, values and beliefs; (2) similarities and differences between the rules of the three agencies can, above all, be attributed to the corresponding and diverging nature of their norms, values and beliefs; and (3) informal rules allow more flexibility in their use. Whether this is beneficial for the Southern partners’ room to manoeuvre depends on individual project officers, who are responsible for interpreting and applying the rules, and the partners’ ability to conduct negotiations.     

Alternate Definitions of the Uncovered Set and Their Implications

Different definitions of the uncovered set are commonly, and often interchangeably, used in the literature. If we assume individual preferences are strict over all alternatives, these definitions are equivalent. However, if one or more voters are indifferent between alternatives these definitions may not yield the same uncovered set. This note examines how these definitions differ in a distributive setting, where each voter can be indifferent between any number of alternatives. I show that, defined one way, the uncovered set is equal to the set of Pareto allocations that give over half the voters a strictly positive payoff, while alternate definitions yield an uncovered set that is equal to the entire Pareto set. These results highlight a small error in Epstein (Soc Choice Welf 15, 81–93, 1998) in which the author characterizes the uncovered set for a different definition of covering than claimed.     

A comparison study of realtime fatality rates: severe acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Toronto and Beijing, China

Summary.  In an outbreak of a completely new infectious disease like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), estimation of the fatality rate over the course of the epidemic is of clinical and epidemiological importance. In contrast with the constant case fatality rate, a new measure, termed the 'realtime' fatality rate, is proposed for monitoring the new emerging epidemic at a population level. A competing risk model implemented via a counting process is used to estimate the realtime fatality rate in an epidemic of SARS. It can capture and reflect the time-varying nature of the fatality rate over the course of the outbreak in a timely and accurate manner. More importantly, it can provide information on the efficacy of a certain treatment and management policy for the disease. The method has been applied to the SARS data from the regions affected, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Toronto, Taiwan and Beijing. The magnitudes and patterns of the estimated fatalities are virtually the same except in Beijing, which has a lower rate. It is speculated that the effect is linked to the different treatment protocols that were used. The standard estimate of the case fatality rate that was used by the World Health Organization has been shown to be unable to provide useful information to monitor the time-varying fatalities that are caused by the epidemic.