A Stochastic Assessment of the Public Health Risks of the Use of Macrolide Antibiotics in Food Animals

Campylobacteriosis is an important food-borne illness with more than a million U.S. cases annually. Antibiotic treatment is usually not required. However, erythromycin, a macrolide antibiotic, is recommended for the treatment of severe cases. Therefore, it is considered a critically important antibiotic and given special attention as to the risk that food animal use will lead to resistant infections and compromised human treatment. To assess this risk, we used a retrospective approach; estimating the number of campylobacteriosis cases caused by specific meat consumption utilizing the preventable fraction. We then determined the number of cases with macrolide resistance Campylobacter spp. based on a linear model relating the resistance fraction to on-farm macrolide use. In this article, we considered the uncertainties in the parameter estimates, utilized a more elaborate model of resistance development and separated C. coli and C. jejuni . There are no published data for the probability of compromised treatment outcome due to macrolide resistance. Therefore, our estimates of compromised treatment outcome were based on data for fluoroquinolone-resistant infections. The conservative results show the human health risks are extremely low. For example, the predicted risk of suboptimal human treatment of infection with C. coli from swine is only 1 in 82 million; with a 95% chance it could be as high as 1 in 49 million. Risks from C. jejuni in poultry or beef are even less. Reduced antibiotic use can adversely impact animal health. These low human risks should be weighed against the alternative risks.     

The Effect of Risk Beliefs on Property Values: A Case Study of a Hazardous Waste Site1

Health risk beliefs of homeowners near a landfill site were assessed in a survey and compared to expert judgments of the health risks of living near the site. A bimodal distribution of health risk beliefs suggested sharp disagreement between the experts and at least some of the residents. Correlates of high risk beliefs included perception of odor from the site, exposure to media coverage of the problem, having children living at home, age (younger respondents more concerned), and gender (females more concerned). An aggregated neighborhood health risk belief predicted reductions in home prices even after controlling for home physical characteristics, such as size and other disamenities such as proximity to a freeway. In the 4100 homes near the site, the estimated depression in property values was estimated to total about $40.2 million before the site was closed and to be about $19.7 million after closure. Implications of these results for community conflict and for benefit-cost analysis of hazard site remediation are discussed.     

Remarriage in later life: older women's negotiation of power, resources and domestic labor

Using data from in-depth interviews with 24 community-dwelling women aged 52-90, this paper analyzes the remarriage experiences of older women in contrast to their first marital relationships. The women's accounts of their experiences in their first and later life marriages are examined in terms of the negotiation of power, resources, and domestic labor. While first marriages were frequently characterized by incompatibility, alcoholism, abuse, and infidelity, second marriages were viewed as the marriages the women wished they had had in the first place or as relationships that met their later life needs. The women's lived experiences are discussed in terms of the changing cultural norms pertaining to gender roles, marriage, and divorce.     

Older women's body image and embodied experience: an exploration

This paper presents and analyzes findings from unstructured interviews with women aged 61 to 92 regarding their perceptions and feelings about their aging bodies. The data are discussed in light of the existing literature on women's body image which has largely ignored the experiences of women in later life and which has tended to focus on adolescent and middle-aged women. Given the fact that beauty is equated with youthfulness and thinness in our society, older women face unique challenges as they strive to construct and maintain positive evaluations of self. The women in the study exhibit the internalization of ageist beauty norms even as they assert that health is more important to them than physical attractiveness and comment on the 'naturalness' of the aging process.     

Decoding deception: A look at the process

This study examined the effects of sex and response format on the process of decoding deceptive messages. A videotape was made containing 32 items (16 honest and 16 dishonest) in which encoders described a person they liked and a person they disliked both honestly and deceptively. Two response formats were used: (1) the rating of items on a six-point liking scale and a six-point deception scale and (2) a forced choice format whereby subjects had to choose between the four types of items. Decoders were given five sets of scores: (a) accuracy scores, (b) awareness of deception scores, (c) confidence scores, (d) cues scores, which were the number of items on which they mentioned using a particular type of cue (verbal, nonverbal, or both combined), and (e) a measure of response time for each item. In the accuracy analyses, there were so significant main effects for sex for either format. However, when decoding males, females (relative to males) tended to read the overt rather than the covert, affect. Females, however, were more aware of the possibility of deception but did not differentiate between honest and dishonest items. Males were more confident and took less time than females to make a decision. Females mentioned the use of cues more than males did. There were no significant correlations between accuracy and the process variables although for males, but not females, there were significant correlations among the process variables for both honest items and dishonest items.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Applied Psychology Congress (IAAP), Jerusalem, Israel, July, 1986.     

Risk-Based Analysis of the Danish Pork Salmonella Program: Past and Future

The Danish pork Salmonella control program was initiated in 1993 in response to a prominent pork-related outbreak in Copenhagen. It involved improved efforts at slaughter hygiene (postharvest) and on-farm (preharvest) surveillance and control. After 10 years, 95 million Euros, significant reductions in seropositive herds, Salmonella positive carcasses, and pork-attributable human cases (PAHC), questions have arisen about how best to continue this program. The objective of this study was to provide some analysis and information to address these questions. The methods used include a computer simulation model constructed of a series of Excel workbooks, one for each simulated year and scenario ( http://www.ifss.iastate/DanSalmRisk ). Each workbook has three modules representing the key processes affecting risk: seropositive pigs leaving the farm (Production), carcass contamination after slaughter (Slaughter), and PAHC of Salmonella (Attribution). Parameter estimates are derived from an extensive farm-to-fork database collected by industry and government and managed by the Danish Zoonosis Centre ( http://www.food.dtu.dk ). Retrospective (1994–2003) and prospective (2004–2013) simulations were evaluated. The retrospective simulations showed that, except for the first few years (1994–1998), the on-farm program had minimal impact in reducing the number of positive carcasses and PAHC. Most of the reductions in PAHC up to 2003 were, according to this analysis, due to various improvements in abattoir processes. Prospective simulations showed that minimal reductions in human health risk (PAHC) could be achieved with on-farm programs alone. Carcass decontamination was shown as the most effective means of reducing human risk, reducing PAHC to about 10% of the simulated 2004 level.     

Unless you go online you are on your own: blogging as a bridge in para-sport

Since its inception, the Web has been described as a liberating technology permitting individuals with disabilities to surmount barriers that otherwise prevent full societal engagement. Subsequent studies of Web-based communication have instead reported that disabling conditions are reproduced rather than challenged online. This paper uses interviews with 25 para-sport participants to provide an empirical account of how the affordances of the Web are leveraged in disability sport networks. Our findings suggest that individuals with disabilities are using blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of online communication to find information, engage in advocacy and outreach projects, and form strong networks that extend online and offline. We discuss our findings in light of Putnam’s conceptualization of bridging and bonding social capital, and describe how individuals and groups use weak ties to disseminate information and strong ties to foster a sense of belonging.     

Anchoring and Acquiescence Bias in Measuring Assets in Household Surveys

Cognitive psychology has identified and studied extensively a number of cognitive anomalies that may be important for the assessment of the economic status of individuals and households. In particular the use of brackets to elicit information about income and assets in surveys of households can interact with acquiescence bias and anchoring to cause bias in the estimates of the distributions of income and assets. This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study and the Asset and Health Dynamics Study to find that, as predicted by psychology, bracketing can produce bias in population estimates of assets.