Predictors of Fatigue among Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Activity logs involve patients writing down their activities over 1 or more days. Several studies have found these data collection instruments to accurately describe activities of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The purpose of this study was to utilize the repeated measures available on the National Institutes of Health Activity Record to evaluate predictors of fatigue at a given time point. A random intercept model was tested with the following variables predicting current fatigue: past fatigue (30 mins. prior), current category of activity (e.g., resting, work, recreation), past category of activity (30 mins. prior), the interaction of past fatigue and past activity, and TH2/TH1 immune shift. These findings and others suggest that activity logs can provide investigators and clinicians with valuable sources of data for understanding patterns of behavior and activity among patients with CFS.     

Sexual behavior of resident street prostitutes with their clients in Camden,New Jersey

This paper describes a prospective study of the sexual behaviors of 20 resident street prostitutes and their clients. Prostitutes were long‐term residents of and practiced street prostitution in their community. They worked full‐time and reported averages of four clients per workday, four to five workdays per week, in an eight‐year career. Sexual behaviors with clients on five to eight workdays were recorded over a seven‐month period. Forty‐nine percent of contacts were with repeat clients. A regular client was defined by prostitutes as one who visited at least once a week. The results of the present study indicate that long‐term sexual relationships exist between some clients and prostitutes. Typically, a regular client had one to three sexual encounters per week with the prostitute, spent several hours with her at a motel (or one of their homes), and was more likely (than the occasional client) to engage in vaginal intercourse. Reported condom use was in the range of 39 to 74 percent.     

Gambling Behaviors Among Oxford House Residents: A Preliminary Investigation

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the prevalence of gambling behaviors among 71 individuals recovering from substance-dependent disorders and living in self-run recovery homes (Oxford Houses). Residents were given the South Oaks Gambling Screen to assess gambling behaviors and pathological gambling, and 19.7% of the sample was identified as having probable pathological gambling. These residents reported proportionately more involvement in a variety of gambling behaviors than other residents. Engagement in various gambling activities was consistent with previous investigations and suggested that self-run recovery homes such as Oxford Houses might be suitable referral sources for recovering persons who have comorbid gambling problems.     

An empirical approach to determine a threshold for assessing overdispersion in Poisson and negative binomial models for count data

Overdispersion is a problem encountered in the analysis of count data that can lead to invalid inference if unaddressed. Decision about whether data are overdispersed is often reached by checking whether the ratio of the Pearson chi-square statistic to its degrees of freedom is greater than one; however, there is currently no fixed threshold for declaring the need for statistical intervention. We consider simulated cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets containing varying magnitudes of overdispersion caused by outliers or zero inflation, as well as real datasets, to determine an appropriate threshold value of this statistic which indicates when overdispersion should be addressed.     

Understanding Very Old Age: Looking Back and Thinking Forward

ABSTRACT

Understanding human development among the oldest old is a sequential building process taking into account building-block data, theories, and models from childhood, adulthood, and old age toward a new territory of oldest-old survivors who have lived way beyond the average life-span. A central question is whether the oldest-old survivors have developed specific survival techniques and/or protective environments that nurture survival. Or are the oldest old statistical outliers who by happenstance continue to survive further into old age? This commentary provides a historical framework on the papers in this series that describe challenges confronted by the oldest-old survivors in order to advance our understanding of survival of the oldest old. A clear understanding of the contributors to longevity could guide public policies toward well-being and life satisfaction among our oldest-old citizens.     

Maternal work hours and adolescents’ School outcomes among low-income families in four urban counties

We examine how changes in maternal work hours affect adolescent children's school participation and performance outcomes using data from interviews in 1998 and 2001 with approximately 1700 women who, in May 1995, were welfare-reliant, single mothers of adolescents living in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty in Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and Philadelphia counties. Analyses control for a broad array of mothers' characteristics, including their psychological and physical health, experiences with domestic violence and substance abuse, as well as unobserved time-invariant characteristics. In fixed-effects models, we find unfavorable effects of increased maternal work hours on three of six outcomes: skipping school, performing above average, and parental contact about behavior problems. Adolescent-aged sons seem to be particularly sensitive to changes in mothers' hours of work.     

"MEN I MESS WITH DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH AIDS":

Pivotal in HIV/STD intervention and prevention is how individuals perceive risk. This article discusses how ethnotheory can be used to understand the underpinnings of risk perception from the subject's perspective. Ethnotheory's theoretical and methodological character extends present models used to explain sex-related HIV behaviors and provides insights into risk perception useful for the development of effective intervention strategies. Four detailed ethnographic excerpts from low-income African American and Mexican American men and women illustrate how people form perceptions of risk and how information gained through ethnotheory is useful in the design of culturally relevant interventions.