Activity-monitor accuracy in measuring step number and cadence in community-dwelling older adults

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the accuracy of the activPAL physical activity monitor in measuring step number and cadence in older adults. Two pedometers (New-Lifestyles Digi-Walker SW-200 and New-Lifestyles NL2000) used in clinical practice to count steps were simultaneously evaluated. Observation was the criterion measure. Twenty-one participants (65-87 yr old) recruited from community-based exercise classes walked on a treadmill at 5 speeds (0.67, 0.90, 1.12, 1.33, and 1.56 m/s) and outdoors at 3 self-selected speeds (slow, normal, and fast). The absolute percentage error of the activPAL was <1% for all treadmill and outdoor conditions for measuring steps and cadence. With the exception of the slowest treadmill speed, the NL-2000 error was <2%. The SW-200 was the least accurate device, particularly at slower walking speeds. The activPAL monitor accurately recorded step number and cadence. Combined with its ability to identify primary postures, the activPAL might be a useful and versatile device for measuring activity in older adults.     

Time Poverty Thresholds and Rates for the US Population

Time constraints, like money constraints, affect Americans’ well-being. This paper defines what it means to be time poor based on the concepts of necessary and committed time and presents time poverty thresholds and rates for the US population and certain subgroups. Multivariate regression techniques are used to identify the key variables associated with discretionary time and time poverty. The data confirm the idea that individuals in households with children have less discretionary time and are thus more likely to be time poor than those in households without children. Controlling for other household characteristics, an additional child reduces a household adult’s daily discretionary time by 35 min. Surprisingly, while one might expect the necessary and committed activities required of an individual to be less in a two-adult household with children than in a one-adult household with children because child care can be shared, the data show that the presence of such a second adult only marginally reduces the necessary and committed time burden of an individual household member. Perhaps even more surprisingly, household income is not a statistically significant correlate of discretionary time or time poverty.     

The Protective Effect of Marriage for Survival: A Review and Update

The theory that marriage has protective effects for survival has itself lived for more than 100 years since Durkheim’s groundbreaking study of suicide (Durkheim 1951 [1897]). Investigations of differences in this protective effect by gender, by age, and in contrast to different unmarried statuses, however, have yielded inconsistent conclusions. These investigations typically either use data in which marital status and other covariates are observed in cross-sectional surveys up to 10 years before mortality exposure, or use data from panel surveys with much smaller sample sizes. Their conclusions are usually not based on formal statistical tests of contrasts between men and women or between never-married, divorced/separated, and widowed statuses. Using large-scale pooled panel survey data linked to death registrations and earnings histories for U.S. men and women aged 25 and older, and with appropriate contrast tests, we find a consistent survival advantage for married over unmarried men and women, and an additional survival “premium” for married men. We find little evidence of mortality differences between never-married, divorced/separated, and widowed statuses.     

The Nonprofit Sector and Gender Discrimination

This article reports the results of an exploratory study of a cross section of nonprofit human service organizations that examined whether and to what extent a glass ceiling exists for women in this sector. The findings substantiate the existence of the glass ceiling phenomenon among the agencies studied. Men are disproportionately represented in management, particularly upper‐level management, and they earn higher salaries than women at all hierarchical levels of the organization.     

Isolation as a Form of Marital Violence: The South Asian Immigrant Experience

Isolation is an important factor in marital abuse among South Asian immigrant families. It lends itself to the invisibility immigrant women experience based on their ethno-gender status in the United States. Drawn from unstructured interviews with abused South Asian immigrant women, three different levels of isolation are explained. The first level involves the quality of a woman's relationship with her spouse; the second is related to the frequency and quality of social interaction with friends, relatives, and coworkers; and the third is explained in terms of the level of access to and participation in the ethnic community and other formal institutions.     

Exposure to interpersonal racism and avoidance behaviours reported by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability

Using the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, this paper examines exposure to interpersonal racism and avoidance reported by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities. We find that in 2014–2015, 32 per cent of people aged 15–64 without a disability experienced racism compared with 42 per cent of those with a disability. Half of those living with an intellectual or psychological disability reported racism, and about 20 per cent of those with any disability avoided settings such as healthcare, education or the general public due to past instances of racism, relative to 11 per cent of those without a disability. After adjusting for confounding factors and complex survey design, presence of a disability was associated with a 1.6–1.8 odds increase in exposure to racism, more frequent racist exposure and avoidance. Disability was further associated with an approximate doubling of the odds of reporting multi-context avoidance and the likelihood of reporting both racism and avoidance in tandem. Severity of disability, higher numbers of disabling conditions and specific disability types were associated with increased odds of racism and avoidance. Independent of these effects, removal from one's natural family and identifying with homelands was strongly associated with racism and avoidance.