Families in Crisis: The Family Court Perspective

The Chief Justice, Family Court of Australia, explores the changing and challenged concept of family’ and the range of critical external pressures which impinge on families and inhibit their functioning. He then considers Family Court responses to issues of partner and child abuse, and recent legislative changes especially as they impinge on children.     

Health literacy and uptake of annual physical checkups among emerging adults in the United States: Findings from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

Public health literature is replete with evidence on the determinants of preventive healthcare utilization. However, gap exists in the relationship between health literacy, a key social determinant of health, and annual physical checkups, especially among younger adults in the United States. This age group is one of the least likely to utilize such services for screening and prevention of diseases, which can have a significant impact on their long-term health as they progress through the life course. Using the Andersen Healthcare Utilization framework, this study investigated the association between health literacy, an enabling factor, and uptake of annual physical checkups among emerging adults aged 18–29. A binary logistic regression model was employed to achieve the study objective using data from the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data (N = 9515). Findings showed that 61% of young adults had physical checkups in the past year. After adjusting for predisposing, need, and other enabling factors, experiencing difficulties with oral and written health literacy and having difficulties obtaining medical information and advice were significantly associated with lower odds of physical checkups in the past year. These findings provide evidence for strategies like Healthy People 2030 that aim to increase preventive healthcare service utilization among emerging adults.     

The Importance of Sex in the Lives of Women Living with HIV: A Critical Quantitative Analysis

The authors explored the importance of sex for 1,289 women living with HIV in Canada. Approximately half of women viewed sex as “very” (19.6%) or “somewhat” important (32.3%) and the remaining reported “neither important or unimportant” (22.0%), “somewhat unimportant” (5.4%), or “not at all important” (20.1%). Women who had a regular sex partner, identified as African, Caribbean, or Black, were more educated, believed HIV treatment prevents transmission, or had better physical health-related quality-of-life reported greater importance of sex, whereas those who were older, used illicit drugs, or experienced violence in adulthood reported lesser importance. Findings underscore the diversity of women's perspectives within the context of their lives.     

Precaution and liquidity in the demand for housing

We exploit cross-sectional mortgage data to investigate the importance of liquidity constraints and a precautionary motive in the demand for housing. Households that are not liquidity constrained consume housing services essentially as the life cycle hypothesis suggests but with a significant precautionary component. Households that are liquidity constrained, in terms of not meeting standard loan-to-value or payments-to-income constraints, are similar to unconstrained households in most respects, including the precautionary motive, but they respond somewhat less to fluctuations in their lifetime income - suggesting some influence of bank-induced liquidity constraints. We additionally find, however, that banks enforce liquidity constraints only weakly.     

Maternal Work–Family Conflict and Psychological Distress: Reciprocal Relationships Over 8 Years

The relationships between employed mothers' work–family conflict and psychological distress are unlikely to be static or one way. Using longitudinal data, the authors investigated reciprocal effects between work–family conflict and psychological distress across 8 years of the family life cycle. They modeled cross‐lagged structural equations over 5 biennial waves of data, in 4 overlapping samples of Australian mothers reentering work between child ages 0–1 to 8–9 (N range: 1,027–2,449). The findings revealed that work–family conflict and psychological distress are distinctive aspects of mothers' well‐being that influence each other over time. Reciprocal influences were not confined to one period of parenting but continued as children grew older. Associations persisted after controlling for a range of work and family characteristics, and there was no evidence of mediation by family socioeconomic status, maternal age, or job quality. The findings suggest that employed mothers may benefit from policies and workplace practices that both promote maternal well‐being and reduce conflicts between employment and raising children.     

Racial Microaggressions and Self-rated Health Among Asians and Asian Americans

Race and Social Problems - Asians are currently the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the USA. Using community samples, previous research has explored the role of racial microaggressions on...     

Thrown back: Reintegration experiences of National Guard/Reserve mothers of young children

Few studies have examined the experiences and perceptions of servicewoman mothers and their children, even as an increasing number of them have experienced deployment and combat exposure. The present paper describes a qualitative study that explored National Guard/Reserve (NG/R) mothers' experiences with mothering and co‐parenting during reintegration and their perceived priorities, supports, challenges and needs. Interpretive phenomenological analysis of seven in‐depth qualitative interviews produced themes including reunion and loneliness, the importance of time, help seeking and gendered experiences. Notably, all participants transitioned immediately back into primary caregiver roles upon homecoming, and several described how difficult it was to readjust while privately dealing with unmet mental health needs. Findings underscore the importance of a flexible suite of service options that meet key needs, most importantly, child care, social–emotional support for children and peer‐based parenting support specific to servicewoman mothers. For NG/R mothers, who may live far from base, community‐based services are essential, but as participants described, civilian social workers and other professionals must develop specialized knowledge, skills and experience to provide appropriate support.     

Television Viewing by School-Age Children: Associations with Physical Activity,Snack Food Consumption and Unhealthy Weight

Alarm about the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity has focussed attention on individual lifestyle behaviours that may contribute to unhealthy weight. Television viewing is often a focus of the obesity debate. Not only is it sedentary, it also has the potential to influence other lifestyle behaviours either by displacing physical activities or through the consumption of high energy snack foods while watching TV. The research reported here uses data from 2,143 Australian 6–7 year children to examine the lifestyle behaviours associated with excess weight. These children spent 90 min each day watching television, 100 min each day in physical activity, and 39% consumed high levels of snack foods. Nearly one in five (18%) were overweight or obese. After adjustment for family and child characteristics, more time spent watching television was associated with more snacking and less physical activity. However, television viewing was associated with children’s weight status, but snacking and physical activities were not. These findings confirm the existence from a young age, of a cluster of lifestyle behaviours that are associated with unhealthy weight status.