Adolescent egocentrism and indoor tanning: is the relationship direct or mediated?

This paper explored how imaginary audience and personal fable ideations contribute to adolescent indoor tanning intentions directly and indirectly through the way they shape pro-tanning attitude and association with peers who use tanning beds. Five hundred and ninety-five male (n = 207) and female (n = 387) adolescents, ranging in age from 11 to 19 (M = 16.87; SD = 1.34) years completed a cross-sectional survey. Measures included imaginary audience, personal fable (three dimensions: invulnerability, uniqueness, and omnipotence), pro-tanning attitude, association with peers who use tanning beds, and tanning bed use intentions. Bootstrapping analyses documented that imaginary audience ideations are indirectly associated with indoor tanning intentions through the mediation of pro-tanning attitude and association with peers who use tanning beds. Of the personal fable ideations, only invulnerability ideation is indirectly associated with indoor tanning intentions through the mediation of association with peers who use tanning beds. Design and evaluation of interventions and campaigns to reduce indoor tanning must be targeted to adolescents varying in imaginary audience ideations differently.     

Human and organizational factors in offshore safety

The role of human and organizational factors in predicting accidents and incidents has become of major interest to the UK offshore oil and gas industry. Some of these factors had been measured in an earlier study focusing on the role of risk perception in determining accident involvement. The current study sought to extend the methodology by focusing on perceptions of organizational factors that could have an impact on safety. A self-report questionnaire was developed and distributed to 11 installations operating on the UK Continental Shelf. A total of 722 were returned (33% response rate) from a representative sample of the offshore workforce on these installations. The study investigated the underlying structure and content of offshore employees' attitudes to safety, feelings of safety and satisfaction with safety measures. Correlations and step-wise regression analysis were used to test the relationships between measures. The results suggest that 'unsafe' behaviour is the 'best' predictor of accidents/near misses as measured by self-report data and that unsafe behaviour is, in turn, driven by perceptions of pressure for production.     

People and Pixels 20 years later: the current data landscape and research trends blending population and environmental data

Population and Environment - In 1998, the National Research Council published People and Pixels: Linking Remote Sensing and Social Science. The volume focused on emerging research linking changes...     

Assessment and Application of National Environmental Databases and Mapping Tools at the Local Level to Two Community Case Studies

Communities are concerned over pollution levels and seek methods to systematically identify and prioritize the environmental stressors in their communities. Geographic information system (GIS) maps of environmental information can be useful tools for communities in their assessment of environmental‐pollution‐related risks. Databases and mapping tools that supply community‐level estimates of ambient concentrations of hazardous pollutants, risk, and potential health impacts can provide relevant information for communities to understand, identify, and prioritize potential exposures and risk from multiple sources. An assessment of existing databases and mapping tools was conducted as part of this study to explore the utility of publicly available databases, and three of these databases were selected for use in a community‐level GIS mapping application. Queried data from the U.S. EPA's National‐Scale Air Toxics Assessment, Air Quality System, and National Emissions Inventory were mapped at the appropriate spatial and temporal resolutions for identifying risks of exposure to air pollutants in two communities. The maps combine monitored and model‐simulated pollutant and health risk estimates, along with local survey results, to assist communities with the identification of potential exposure sources and pollution hot spots. Findings from this case study analysis will provide information to advance the development of new tools to assist communities with environmental risk assessments and hazard prioritization.     

Comparison of Two Smoothing Methods for Exploring Waning Vaccine Effects

We consider the statistical evaluation and estimation of vaccine efficacy when the protective effect wanes with time. We reanalyse data from a 5-year trial of two oral cholera vaccines in Matlab, Bangladesh. In this field trial, one vaccine appears to confer better initial protection than the other, but neither appears to offer protection for a period longer than about 3 years. Time-dependent vaccine effects are estimated by obtaining smooth estimates of a time-varying relative risk RR( t ) using survival analysis. We compare two approaches based on the Cox model in terms of their strategies for detecting time-varying vaccine effects, and their estimation techniques for obtaining a time-dependent RR( t ) estimate. These methods allow an exploration of time-varying vaccine effects while making minimal parametric assumptions about the functional form of RR( t ) for vaccinated compared wit unvaccinated subjects.     

Parental Resources, Schooling Achievements, and Gender Schooling Gaps: Evidence of Change over 25 years in Rural Guatemala

We use village census data and linear regression models to examine changes between 1975 and 2002 in the associations of parental resources with boys’ and girls’ schooling in four rural Guatemalan villages. Levels of schooling in 1975 were universally low for children 7–17 years. Large increases in schooling achievements occurred between 1975 and 2002. By 2002, schooling levels were comparable for younger boys and girls (7–12 years, N = 3,525) and favored older boys compared to older girls (13–17 years, N = 2,440) by about 0.5 grades. The associations of household standard of living and maternal schooling with schooling among girls diminished over time and became more comparable with these associations among boys, and the associations of household standard of living with schooling among older boys declined and became more comparable with these associations among girls. Thus, as increased social investments reduce the costs of schooling or increase the supply and quality of schooling to families, the magnitudes of the associations between parental resources and children’s schooling decline and become more gender equitable at all ages. However, our results show that older boys may benefit more than older girls from social investments in schooling. These changes suggest potential needs to monitor gender gaps in schooling retention among older children, to insure gender equitable access to social investments in schooling, and to encourage parents to invest in schooling as joint measures to achieve greater schooling achievements of girls and boys.     

What predicts breast cancer rates? Testing hypotheses of the demographic and nutrition transitions

Modern demographic and nutritional transitions have been implicated in global epidemiological transitions intensifying over the last 60 years. These transitions include steadily declining fertility rates, improving nutritional indicators, and increasing incidence rates of chronic diseases such as breast cancer. This research draws on the well established pathways linking individual reproductive and nutritional profiles to breast cancer risk, in order to test the links among demographic, nutritional, and epidemiological transitions on a global scale. We propose two hypotheses that test the reproductive and nutritional pathways that are suggested to increase breast cancer risk at the population level. We use total fertility rate (TFR) to test the reproductive behaviour hypothesis, and we use average height and the percentage of the population that is overweight for the nutritional hypothesis; these indicators are compared to breast cancer incidence rates for 2008. Accounting for national wealth and expenditures on healthcare, we found that both hypotheses were significantly associated with breast cancer incidence, although TFR appears to have a more consistent association with incidence. Drawing on our regression model, we explain trends in breast cancer incidence in selected countries, as well as making predictions about shifting breast cancer incidence rates over the next several decades. These data suggest that greater attention should be paid to the unintended health consequences of transitions that are largely considered to bring improvements in quality of life. Our findings suggest that greater investments in screening and treatment are particularly needed in regions undergoing transitions in fertility rates, particularly those areas experiencing super-low fertility.     

Women’s Political Empowerment and Investments in Primary Schooling in India

Using a national district-level dataset of India composed of information on investments in primary schooling [data from the District Information Survey for Education (DISE, 2007/8)] and information on demographic characteristics of elected officials [data from the Election Commission of India (ECI, 2000/04)], we examined the relationship between women’s representation in State Legislative Assembly (SLA) seats and district-level investments in primary schooling. We used OLS regressions adjusting for confounders and spatial autocorrelation, and estimated separate models for North and South India. Women’s representation in general SLA seats typically was negatively associated with investments in primary-school amenities and teachers; women’s representation in SLA seats reserved for under-represented minorities, i.e., scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, typically was positively associated with investments in primary schooling, especially in areas addressing the basic needs of poor children. Women legislators’ gender and caste identities may shape their decisions about redistributive educational policies.     

Kindergartners' Temperament,Classroom Engagement,and Student–teacher Relationship: Moderation by Effortful Control

The purpose of this study was to examine whether kindergartners' (N = 291; M age = 5 years) effortful control (EC), impulsivity, anger, or shyness predict their classroom participation, school liking, and student–teacher relationship. Parents and teachers reported on children's temperament. Children's EC and impulsivity were also assessed with the Continuous Performance Task. Teachers and children reported on classroom participation and school liking, and teachers reported on the student–teacher relationship. Consistent with predictions, EC was frequently positively related to the outcomes. Both impulsivity and anger were often negatively related to the outcomes. Evidence of a quadratic relation, in the form of an inverted U, between shyness and the student–teacher relationship also emerged. There was evidence that EC moderated many of the main effects. Subsequent analyses for impulsivity and anger demonstrated that the negative relations were often only for children low in EC whereas the negative relation for shyness was for children high in EC. Findings illustrate the utility in considering multiple ways components of temperament relate to early indices of school success.