Starting to drink: the experiences of Australian lower secondary students with alcohol

This study describes Australian year eight students' (13-14 years old) experiences with alcohol in terms of communication with parents, initiation into drinking, patterns of consumption, context of use, and harms experienced. The sample comprised 521 year eight students from four state government secondary schools in the state of Victoria. Three of the schools are in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria; the fourth is in a rural center. Female and rural students were more likely to talk to parents about alcohol, but this was not associated with safer drinking. Initiation into drinking was higher among rural students. Rural students also drank more, were more likely to drink without adult supervision, to drink to get drunk, and drink more than planned. Student drinkers experienced just over four alcohol-related harms on average in 12 months, with some indication of greater harm among rural students. Higher levels of drinking by rural students, accompanied by more risky patterns of consumption and the possibility of greater harm, supports prioritizing interventions in rural schools.     

Marrying into the American Population: Pathways into Cross‐Nativity Marriages

Cross‐nativity marriages have been a neglected dimension of intermarriage patterns in the U.S., although they provide a vehicle for the easy social and political integration of the foreign‐born spouse and the couple's children. We first present U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service data to show that cross‐nativity marriages are common among migrants entering the country and appear to be increasing over time. The following analyses based on 2008 American Community Survey data imply several pathways into cross‐nativity marriages that are strongly gendered and race specific and that involve major social institutions such as the higher educational system and the U.S. military.     

ESTIMATING THE NUMBER OF VISITS TO THE DOCTOR

The frequency of doctor consultations has direct consequences for health care budgets, yet little statistical analysis of the determinants of doctor visits has been reported. We consider the distribution of the number of visits to the doctor and, in particular, we model its dependence on a number of demographic factors. Examination of the Australian 1995 National Health Survey data reveals that generalized linear Poisson or negative binomial models are inadequate for modelling the mean as a function of covariates, because of excessive zero counts, and a mean‐variance relationship that varies enormously over covariate values. A negative binomial model is used, with parameter values estimated in subgroups according to the discrete combinations of the covariate values. Smoothing splines are then used to smooth and interpolate the parameter values. In effect the mean and the shape parameters are each modelled as (different) functions of gender, age and geographical factors. The estimated regressions for the mean have simple and intuitive interpretations. However, the dependence of the (negative binomial) shape parameter on the covariates is more difficult to interpret and is subject to influence by extreme observations. We illustrate the use of the model by estimating the distribution of the number of doctor consultations in the Statistical Local Area of Ryde, based on population numbers from the 1996 census.