Adolescent Health and Well‐Being in the Twenty‐First Century: A Global Perspective

Adolescence is a critical developmental period with long‐term implications for the health and well‐being of the individual and for society as a whole. The most significant factors to adolescents' health are found in their environments, and in the choices and opportunities for health‐enhancing or health‐compromising behaviors that these contexts present (e.g., exposure to violence, supportive families). Inadequate contexts represent a failure to invest in and protect adolescents, a choice to alienate rather than integrate them into society. This article describes a number of societal trends, including growing poverty and income disparities, government instability, the changing health‐care system, the spread of HIV/AIDS, increased migration and urbanization, changing family and cultural contexts, and new information technology. The health implications of these trends for the well‐being of adolescents in the 21st century are contemplated.     

Relationship between vigorous exercise frequency and substance use among first-year drinking college students

OBJECTIVE: The authors explored the relationship between self-reported vigorous exercise frequency and alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use behaviors among first-year college students who self-identified as drinkers. PARTICIPANTS: The authors recruited 391 freshman college students in Northeast Florida to participate in an alcohol abuse prevention study. METHODS: The authors conducted a multivariate analysis of variance to assess the relationship between vigorous exercise frequency and 6 measures of ATOD use at baseline. RESULTS: Frequent exercisers drank significantly more often and a significantly greater quantity than did infrequent exercisers. However, frequent exercisers smoked cigarettes significantly less often than did infrequent exercisers. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that vigorous exercise frequency is differentially associated with alcohol and cigarette consumption among college students. Researchers should further examine the reasons for these differences.     

Estimating the costs of preventive interventions

The goal of this article is to improve the practice and reporting of cost estimates of prevention programs. It reviews the steps in estimating the costs of an intervention and the principles that should guide estimation. The authors then review prior efforts to estimate intervention costs using a sample of well-known but diverse studies. Finally, the authors illustrate the principles with an example, the Family Bereavement Program. They conclude that example by discussing whether and how the costs of the intervention might differ when implemented in a real-world setting.     

When Mr. Right Becomes Mr. Wrong: Women’s Postdivorce Name Choice

ABSTRACT

Divorced women (N = 185) who had changed to their husband’s name responded to a survey about their postdivorce name choice, which included demographic questions, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction in General Scale. Resumers were younger and had more education than women maintainers. Resumers were married for fewer years and had fewer children at the time of divorce. Gender attitudes were not related to postdivorce name choice. Bivariate results provided some support for the hypothesis that name choice would be related to well-being measures. Maintainers reported significantly higher levels of autonomy and competence, but there was no difference in relatedness and self-esteem. Further analysis showed these relationships were moderated by age. Higher levels of autonomy and competence were seen in maintainers, but only among younger women. Possible explanations and the need for further research are discussed.     

A Temporal Multifaceted Adaptation Approach to the Experiences of Employed Mothers

Scholars have been examining multiple facets of the experiences of employed mothers for decades. However, much of this scholarship has focused on the examination of specific variables that may have an influence on their lives. In this article I seek to review much of this research and explore it through the framework of a temporal multifaceted adaptation approach. This framework addresses the specific phases that comprise the professional or semiprofessional employed mother's adaptation to her home and work environments. Thus, this approach organizes employed mothers’ experiences in terms of the antecedent, process, and outcome phases of their adaptation to their lives as employed mothers. Organizing and examining the research in this way enables a more comprehensive understanding of how the experience of employed mothers evolves over time, as well as the factors that both hinder and help them as they adjust to challenges associated with their role.     

Consumer boycott, household heterogeneity, and child labor

Consumer boycott campaigns against goods that are produced using child labor are becoming increasingly popular. Yet there is still no consensus on which are the effects of such type of activism on child labor in developing countries. In fact, if some agreement is to be found in the recent economic literature, it is that the boycott does not reduce child labor. We contribute to this discussion presenting a simple model which shows that there are conditions under which a consumer boycott reduces child labor. We consider a small country two-factor economy populated by heterogeneous households. The boycott affects both the adult and the child labor markets. We show that the effects are heterogeneous and depend on household characteristics and on the income distribution. We derive the conditions under which the consumer boycott reduces child labor not only for nonpoor households but also for some of the households whose’ income is—before the boycott—under the subsistence level.