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This paper illuminates how teachers are influenced by age, gender and sexuality in teaching about sex and relationships. In this analysis grounded in feminist theory, age, gender and sexuality are considered to be enacted as doings. Six interviews with teachers working with sexuality education in K-12 schools in Sweden were chosen from of a larger body of material consisting of 21 interviews with professionals engaged in school-based sexuality education. The six interviewees were selected because they explicitly addressed how teachers' age, gender and/or sexuality come to matter in the classroom. Findings show how male and female teachers organise their teaching in relation to normative expectations of age, gender and sexuality. In sexuality education, the diverse life-courses of (hetero)sexual women offer a wide range of pedagogic possibilities for female teachers to address issues of sexuality, consent and relationships whereas male teachers are constrained to doing safe(r) forms of masculinity by directing attention away from their bodies and experiences. In understanding these results, I argue that the figure of the tant has been key in forming the pedagogic backdrop to Swedish sexuality education, hence embedding a normative 'who' in the 'how' to teach sexuality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The impact of hearing impairment is typically studied in terms of its effects on speech perception, yet this fails to account for the interactive nature of communication. Recently, there has been a move towards studying the effects of age‐related hearing impairment on interaction, often using referential communication tasks; however, little is known about how interaction in these tasks compares to everyday communication. Aims: To investigate utterances and requests for clarification used in one‐to‐one conversations between older adults with hearing impairment and younger adults without hearing impairment, and between two younger adults without hearing impairment. Methods & Procedures: A total of 42 participants were recruited to the study and split into 21 pairs, 10 with two younger adults without hearing impairment and 11 with one younger adult without hearing impairment and one older participant with age‐related hearing impairment (hard of hearing). Results from three tasks—spontaneous conversation and two trials of a referential communication task—were compared. A total of 5 min of interaction in each of the three tasks was transcribed, and the frequency of requests for clarification, mean length of utterance and total utterances were calculated for individual participants and pairs. Outcomes & Results: When engaging in spontaneous conversation, participants made fewer requests for clarification than in the referential communication, regardless of hearing status/age (p ≤ 0.012). Participants who were hard of hearing made significantly more requests for clarification than their partners without hearing impairment in only the second trial of the referential communication task (U = 25, p = 0.019). Mean length of utterance was longer in spontaneous conversation than in the referential communication task in the pairs without hearing impairment (p ≤ 0.021), but not in the pairs including a person who was hard of hearing. However, participants who were hard of hearing used significantly longer utterances than their partners without hearing impairment in the spontaneous conversation (U = 8, p < 0.001) but not in the referential communication tasks. Conclusions & Implications: The findings suggest that patterns of interaction observed in referential communication tasks differ to those observed in spontaneous conversation. The results also suggest that fatigue may be an important consideration when planning studies of interaction that use multiple conditions of a communication task, particularly when participants are older or hard of hearing. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: Age‐related hearing impairment is known to affect communication; however, the majority of studies have focused on its impact on speech perception in controlled conditions. This indicates little about the impact on everyday, interactive, communication. What this study adds to the existing knowledge: We investigated utterance length and requests for clarification in one‐to‐one conversations between pairs consisting of one older adult who is hard of hearing and one younger adult without hearing impairment, or two younger adults without hearing impairment. Results from three tasks (two trials of a referential communication task and spontaneous conversation) were compared. The findings demonstrated a significant effect of task type on requests for clarification in both groups. Furthermore, in spontaneous conversation, older adults who were hard of hearing used significantly longer utterances than their partners without hearing impairment. This pattern was not observed in the referential communication task. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: These findings have important implications for generalizing results from controlled communication tasks to more everyday conversation. Specifically, they suggest that the previously observed strategy of monopolizing conversation, possibly as an attempt to control it, may be more frequently used by older adults who are hard of hearing in natural conversation than in a more contrived communication task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: There are substantial differences in remaining life expectancy at higher ages between occupational groups. These differences may be the effect of work-related exposures, lifestyle factors of workers in specific occupations, socioeconomic position or a combination of this. The scope of this paper is the extent to which occupational differences in remaining life expectancy persist after retirement, which would suggest that occupational exposures alone are not likely to explain all the difference. Methods: All individuals born between 1925 and 1939 who reported occupational information in the Census 1985 and were residents in Sweden to the end of 2020 or who died were included and followed for death until 2020. The Nordic Classification of Occupations was used to create nine occupational groups. Partial life expectancy and age-specific death rates were applied to examine mortality differentials. Results: This study showed substantial differences in partial life expectancy across the occupational cohorts with the biggest difference being about 2 years. The mortality differences persisted with increasing age, both when measured as absolute numbers as well as relative numbers. Conclusions: The lack of convergence in mortality at high ages suggests that factors associated with lifestyle may play a larger role than occupational factors for the mortality differences between occupational groups at high ages. However, it cannot be ruled out that long-lasting effects of earlier occupational exposures also contribute. Regardless of the exact mechanism, we conclude that there is room for further reduction in mortality at high ages and, thus, for further improvement in life expectancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although violence among youth remains an important, global issue, little research has been conducted regarding how young people themselves define violence and what practices in relation to violence that are evident in their everyday lives. Using an intersectional gender perspective, specifically exploring the intersection of gender, age, and class, this paper therefore aims to explore how young people define violence, as well as to explore what practices in relation to violence that are evident in young people's everyday lives. By using a photovoice methodology, 11 focus groups of young boys and girls (17–19 years old) living in two municipalities in northern Sweden were interviewed and asked to take photographs representing themes that were discussed. Overall, three main themes in the young peoples' stories were identified: Violence as ubiquitous, Easy prey and dangerous predators, and The way forward. The findings demonstrated that violence is pervasive, all-encompassing and normalized in young people's everyday lives, and that this violence is moderated by intersecting power orders of gender, age, and class. Any future theoretical frameworks or prevention strategies should therefore aim to include an intersectional perspective as well as including the voices of the youths themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being aware of factors that affect fertility can help people make informed decisions about their reproductive futures. To some, however, fertility information leads to worry and self-blame. In this paper, we explore how people from different generations discuss fertility and reproductive decision-making, along with their perceptions of fertility information. The study was conducted in southern Sweden with 26 focus-group discussions that included a total of 110 participants aged 17–90 years. The material was analysed thematically. Our results show that fertility knowledge and openness to talking about fertility problems have increased over generations. Participants who were assigned female at birth were more often concerned about their fertility than those who were not, and fertility concerns were transferred from mothers to daughters. While age-related fertility concerns had been uncommon in older generations, participants aged 25–40 often expressed these concerns. Young adults appreciated being knowledgeable about fertility but simultaneously expressed how fertility information could lead to distress. Our conclusion is that fertility information was best received by high-school students, and efforts to improve fertility education in schools are therefore recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Intelligibility can be defined as the speakers' ability to convey a message to the listener and it is considered the key functional measure of speech. The Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) is a parent rating scale used to assess intelligibility in children. Aims: To describe normative and validation data on the ICS in Swedish and to investigate how these are related to age, gender and multilingualism. Methods & Procedures: Two studies were included. Study 1 included ICS forms from 319 Swedish‐speaking children (3:2–9:2 years:months). Study 2 included video recordings and ICS forms from 14 children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and two with typical speech. The video recordings were transcribed in the validation process, resulting in intelligibility reference scores to which ICS scores were correlated. Outcomes & Results: Study 1: The mean value of the ICS for the 319 children was 4.73. There were no differences in ICS score related to age or gender. The children in the multilingual group were significantly older than the monolingual group and had significantly lower ICS scores than the group of monolinguals. Study 2: There was a moderate correlation between the ICS score and the transcription‐based intelligibility score, with the two children with typical speech excluded; however, this correlation was not significant. Conclusions & Implications: We contribute mean scores and percentiles on the ICS for Swedish‐speaking children. The finding that the ICS does not provide valid measures of intelligibility for the included children with SSD suggests that the instrument measures a different construct. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: The ICS has been translated to numerous languages and validated against articulation measures in several previous studies. The validity of the Swedish version has been investigated against intelligibility based on transcription of single words. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: The study provides normative values of the Swedish version of the ICS for children aged 3–9 years. This is the first study to use a gold standard measure of intelligibility in continuous speech to validate the ICS. The results show a somewhat dubious validity regarding ICS for the group of children with SSD included in the study. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: The ICS's suitability as a measure of intelligibility is questionable; however, it might be of use for speech and language pathologists to give an overview of the parents' view of their child's ability to communicate, in order to make a decision on possible further assessment and intervention. The normative values of the Swedish version of the ICS could be of use in this decision process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of why people are still retiring earlier than would have been expected, despite policies that increase the retirement age. This is a qualitative study in a large public-service organisation in Sweden focusing particularly on how human resource routines aimed at middle management tend to inhibit the promotion of a prolonged working life, despite government efforts aimed at changing these actions. The results highlight three key routines (development talks, salary talks and internal recruitment) that inhibit prolonged working life. These routines seem rational and appropriate to the organisation's managers, because the demands of the job must have priority over employees' capabilities in recruitment routines. Furthermore, it could be considered economically rational to prioritise salary demands of younger employees over those of older employees, and it may appear economically rational to stop further training efforts for older employees. In general, then, it seems reasonable to managers to make decisions based on objective criteria like age. Nevertheless, our results suggest that these routines may need to be redesigned in order to support a prolonged working life and to avoid a discrepancy between accepted prolonged working-life policies and the actions of organisational actors. The study further reveals how intra-organisational institutions (e.g. taken-for-granted mind-sets and norms) embedded in human resource routines may promote or inhibit prolonged working life, suggesting a need for change in those institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swedish response to the COVID-19 pandemic included age-based recommendations of voluntary quarantine specifically for those 70 years of age or older. This paper investigates the experiences of a sudden change of policy in the form of an age restriction that trumped the contemporary active aging ideal. A web-based qualitative survey was conducted in April 2020. Through manual coding of a total of 851 responses, six different ways of relating to the age-based recommendations were identified. The results show that age is not an unproblematic governing principle. Instead, in addition to protecting a vulnerable group, the age-based recommendation meant deprivation of previously assigned individual responsibility and, consequently, autonomy. It is shown how respondents handled this tension through varying degrees of compliance and resistance. Findings highlight the importance of continuously tracking the long-term consequences of age-based policy to avoid negative self-image and poorer health among older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In recent years, telemedicine consultations have evolved as a new form of providing primary healthcare. Telemedicine options can provide benefits to patients in terms of access, reduced travel time and no risk of disease spreading. However, concerns have been raised that access is not equally distributed in the population, which could lead to increased inequality in health. The aim of this paper is to explore the determinants for use of direct-to-consumer (DTC) telemedicine consultations in a setting where telemedicine is included in the publicly funded healthcare system. Methods: To investigate factors associated with the use of DTC telemedicine, a database was constructed by linking national and regional registries covering the entire population of Stockholm, Sweden (N = 2.3 million). Logistic regressions were applied to explore the determinants for utilization in 2018. As comparators, face-to-face physician consultations in primary healthcare were included in the study, as well as digi-physical physician consultations, i.e., telemedicine consultations offered by traditional primary healthcare providers also offering face-to-face visits, and telephone consultations by nurses. Results: The determinants for use of DTC telemedicine differed substantially from face-to-face visits but also to some extent from the other telemedicine options. For the DTC telemedicine consultations, the factors associated with higher probability of utilization were younger age, higher educational attainment, higher income and being born in Sweden. In contrast, the main determinants for use of face-to-face visits were higher age, lower educational background and being born outside of Sweden. Conclusion: The use of DTC telemedicine is determined by factors that are generally not associated with greater healthcare need and the distribution raises some concerns about the equity implications. Policy makers aiming to increase the level of telemedicine consultations in healthcare should consider measures to promote access for elderly and individuals born outside of Sweden to ensure that all groups have access to healthcare services according to their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Swedish legislation, children have the right to participate in child protection proceedings. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the notion of age and maturity in child protection proceedings in order to elucidate how these aspects could influence children's rights to participate. We focus on the view of three groups of actors involved in child protection proceedings in Sweden—social workers, lawyers, and laypersons in social welfare boards and administrative courts—and on how children's age and maturity should be taken into consideration in decisions on their participation in court. The analysis is based on survey data. The study found that social workers, laypersons, and lawyers have different views on when children are old enough to have the right to litigate in court. Additionally, there is no consensus on how the maturity of the child can be assessed to inform the decision about participation. More discussion is needed about what competences a child needs to participate in court and to what extent this right should be limited by their age. Importantly, courts and decision‐making proceedings can be made more child friendly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a widespread tool for assessing behavior problems in children and adolescents. Despite being investigated thoroughly concerning both validity and reliability, peer reviewed studies that provide norms, especially for preschool children, are lacking. This paper provides Swedish norms using data from a large community sample of children aged 3–5, based on mothers', fathers', and preschool teacher's ratings. Preschool teachers' ratings were generally lower than parents' ratings, which contradicts some previous studies. Differences between girls and boys were found, suggesting that boys display higher levels of behavior problems. Lower parental education and country of origin outside of Sweden were also associated with more difficulties. Cut‐offs are presented for each age group, gender and rater category. Population‐specific norms and percentile cut‐offs provided in this study facilitate identifying children in need of interventions in paediatric care and enable cross‐country comparisons of children's mental health problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To describe the prevalence of cerebral palsy (CP), subtype distribution, motor and intellectual impairment, and epilepsy in adults with CP compared with children with CP.Method: CP subtype and impairment data from the population-based CP register of western Sweden and population data from Statistics Sweden were used to compare surviving adults (n=581; 244 females, 337 males) born between 1959 and 1978, with the same cohort as children (n=723; 307 females, 416 males), and with the most recent cohort, born from 2007 to 2010 (n=205; 84 females, 121 males).Results: Prevalence of CP in adults born between 1959 and 1978 was 1.14 per 1000. The occurrence of impairments differed between CP subtypes. Motor and intellectual impairment were closely related, regardless of subtype. Subtype distribution among survivors differed significantly from the original cohorts (p=0.002), and the most recent cohort (p<0.01), tetraplegia and dyskinetic CP being less common in survivors. Severe motor impairment, intellectual disability, and epilepsy were less common among survivors than in the original cohorts (p=0.004, p=0.002, p=0.037) and the most recent cohort (p=0.004, p=0.008, p<0.01).Interpretation: Data on prevalence, subtype distribution, and impairments in children with CP are not applicable to adults with CP. Population-based studies of adults with CP are needed.What This Paper Adds: Cerebral palsy (CP) subtypes are differently distributed in adults compared to children. The prevalence of impairments in adults with CP is related to CP subtype. Spastic tetraplegia and dyskinetic CP are less common in adults than children. Severe motor impairment, intellectual disability, and epilepsy are less common in adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines immigrant poverty at an older age in Sweden with an emphasis on late-in-life immigrants. We analyse tax data for the entire Swedish-born and non-Swedish-born population. The poverty status of a household is assessed using two criteria. First, the disposable income of the household in which the person lived in 2007 must be below 60 per cent of the median equivalent income in Sweden as a whole. Second, to be classified as 'twice poor' a household's net assets must be below SEK 10,000. The results indicate that three out of four Swedish-born older persons were not classified as poor by either of the criteria, and only 1 per cent by both criteria. In contrast, among older persons born in low-income countries almost three out of four were classified as poor according to one of the criteria and not fewer than one in three according to both. Results of estimating logistic models indicate that the risk of being considered poor according to both criteria is strongly positively related to one's age at immigration. Our results indicate that it is crucial that migrants, particularly those who arrive after age 40, be better integrated into the Swedish labour market. To alleviate poverty among those migrants who are already of older age, increased transfers are probably the only possible alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early-age exposure to noise may have long-term health implications of which we have little knowledge of today. Age-specific hearing, learning inadequate coping strategies, and alterations in biological stress regulatory responses could play a role in the long-term health impacts. In Sweden about half a million children in the age between 1–5 years attend preschool. The noise exposure at preschools is intermittent and unpredictable and levels reach up to 84 dB LAeq (time indoors) with maximum levels of 118 dB LAF, mostly due to child activity. To increase the overall understanding of the possible implications of preschool noise environments for children, this paper describes children’s behavioral and emotional reactions to and coping with their everyday sound environment from a teachers perspective. A postal questionnaire study performed in 2013–2014 with answers from 3,986 preschool teachers provided the data. Content analysis was combined with quantitative analysis. Eighty-two percent of the personnel considered that children’s behavior was affected rather or very much by preschool noise. The most prevalent behaviors were categorized into: be heard, be distracted, show negative internal emotions, crowd, avoid, withdraw, be exhausted, and learning. The quantitative analyses confirmed an association between the perceived loudness and noise annoyance at preschool and affirmative reporting on noise affecting the children´s behavior. Age of the personnel, with the youngest age group reporting noise related behavior less often, and age distribution of the class, with 1–5 years old seeming less affected by noise, were also indicated, while pedagogic orientation was not a significant factor. Future studies should address the long-term health effects of these behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood aggression and its resulting consequences inflict a huge burden on affected children, their relatives, teachers, peers and society as a whole. Aggression during childhood rarely occurs in isolation and is correlated with other symptoms of childhood psychopathology. In this paper, we aim to describe and improve the understanding of the co-occurrence of aggression with other forms of childhood psychopathology. We focus on the co-occurrence of aggression and other childhood behavioural and emotional problems, including other externalising problems, attention problems and anxiety-depression. The data were brought together within the EU-ACTION (Aggression in Children: unravelling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies) project. We analysed the co-occurrence of aggression and other childhood behavioural and emotional problems as a function of the child’s age (ages 3 through 16 years), gender, the person rating the behaviour (father, mother or self) and assessment instrument. The data came from six large population-based European cohort studies from the Netherlands (2x), the UK, Finland and Sweden (2x). Multiple assessment instruments, including the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory (MPNI), were used. There was a good representation of boys and girls in each age category, with data for 30,523 3- to 4-year-olds (49.5% boys), 20,958 5- to 6-year-olds (49.6% boys), 18,291 7- to 8-year-olds (49.0% boys), 27,218 9- to 10-year-olds (49.4% boys), 18,543 12- to 13-year-olds (48.9% boys) and 10,088 15- to 16-year-olds (46.6% boys). We replicated the well-established gender differences in average aggression scores at most ages for parental ratings. The gender differences decreased with age and were not present for self-reports. Aggression co-occurred with the majority of other behavioural and social problems, from both externalising and internalising domains. At each age, the co-occurrence was particularly prevalent for aggression and oppositional and ADHD-related problems, with correlations of around 0.5 in general. Aggression also showed substantial associations with anxiety-depression and other internalizing symptoms (correlations around 0.4). Co-occurrence for self-reported problems was somewhat higher than for parental reports, but we found neither rater differences, nor differences across assessment instruments in co-occurrence patterns. There were large similarities in co-occurrence patterns across the different European countries. Finally, co-occurrence was generally stable across age and sex, and if any change was observed, it indicated stronger correlations when children grew older. We present an online tool to visualise these associations as a function of rater, gender, instrument and cohort. In addition, we present a description of the full EU-ACTION projects, its first results and the future perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore meanings of adulthood and youthfulness in relation to notions of life course, good motherhood, and girlhood among young mothers in Sweden. Our analysis was informed by a discursive psychological approach and was based on interview conversations with 17 mothers who were 13–25 years old at the birth of their first child. In our analysis, we identified two repertoires – the ‘social age’ repertoire and the ‘chronological age’ repertoire. The interviewees invoked the two repertoires to position themselves and others as either responsible adult mothers or as responsible youthful mothers. Meanings of adulthood are central within the idea of motherhood, and by deviating from their expected life course young mothers are often understood as non-adults who are incapable of fulfilling the developmental task of motherhood. Our work suggests that the maternal identity work of young mothers takes place within discourses of both adulthood and youthfulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) is one of the most widely used and well-validated parent rating scales for children’s disruptive behavior. This screening instrument is a short, targetted and easy to implement inventory with good psychometric properties and is normed for different countries, among which the United States, Spain, Sweden and Norway. The ECBI has been successfully used for research and clinical purposes, in several countries including The Netherlands. To date, Dutch studies have relied on Scandinavian or US norm scores. However, this may be problematic because of cross-cultural differences in the degree to which certain behaviors are seen as problematic by parents. The main goal of this paper therefore was to obtain norm scores for The Netherlands among 6462 Dutch children aged 4 to 8 years (Mage = 6.37 years; SD = 1.32; 50.6% boys). In line with previous research, we found small differences on the mean sum scores across children of different ages (intensity scale) and gender (intensity and problem scale). Therefore, Dutch norm scores were provided age- and gender specific. Our results showed that disruptive behavior of children in the most rural areas was reported as occurring less frequently and was seen as less problematic by parents compared to the disruptive behavior of children in less rural areas. Finally, we found that Dutch norm scores on the ECBI were significantly lower than US norm scores, and significantly higher on the intensity scale (but not the problem scale) than Norwegian and Swedish norm scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates young care leavers' expectations of their future after discharge from care. The results are based on qualitative longitudinal data where 16‐ to 21‐year‐old care leavers (n = 15) were interviewed twice, first when still in care but planning for their discharge (T1) and the second time 6–9 months later (T2). The analysis using a general inductive approach showed that their expectations were dependent on the time horizon and that there was an obvious difference between the young informants' short‐ and long‐term expectations. Their short‐term expectations consisted of worries connected to their approaching discharge (at T1) and how to cope with challenges of everyday life after discharge from care (at T2). These results seem to echo negative outcomes shown in previous quantitative research. However, the informants' long‐term expectations provide a different picture, being mainly positive in both interviews (T1 and T2). The results are discussed from a life course perspective, where the informants' visions of their future are framed and understood in terms of the different stages of their transition process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prolonged working life is crucial for sustaining social welfare and fiscal stability for countries facing ageing populations. The group of older adults is not homogeneous; however, differences within the group may affect the propensity to continue working and to participate in continuing education. The aim of this paper is to explore how participation in work and education vary with gender, age, and education level in a sample of older adults. The study was performed in Sweden, a context characterized by high female labour-market-participation rates and a high average retirement age. The participants were 232 members of four of the major senior citizens’ organizations. We found no differences in participation in work and education based on gender. People older than 75 years were found to be as active as people 65–75 years old in education, but the older group worked less. There were positive associations between education level and participation in both work and education. Hence, this study implies that socio-economic inequalities along these dimensions are widened later in life. This highlights the importance of engaging workers with lower education levels in educational efforts throughout life. It also emphasizes the need for true lifelong learning in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Objective: This paper aims to assess association between breastfeeding and maternal immigration background and body mass index development trajectories from age 2 to 16 years. Methods: A cohort of children born in Stockholm during 1994 to 1996 was followed from age 2 to 16 years with repeated measurement of height and weight at eight time points (n = 2278). Children were categorized into groups by breastfeeding status during the first 6 months of life and maternal immigration background. Body mass index (BMI) trajectories and age at adiposity rebound were estimated using mixed‐effects linear models. Results: Body mass index trajectories were different by breastfeeding and maternal immigration status (P‐value < 0.0001). Compared with exclusively breastfed counterparts, never/short breastfed children of Swedish mothers had a higher BMI trajectory, whereas never/short breastfed children of immigrant mothers followed a lower BMI trajectory. Ages at adiposity rebound were earlier for higher BMI trajectories regardless of maternal immigration background. Conclusion: Differences in BMI trajectories between offspring of immigrant and of Swedish mothers suggest a lack of beneficial association between breastfeeding and long‐term BMI development among children of immigrant mothers. Given the relation between long‐term BMI development and risk of overweight/obesity, these differences challenge the notion that exclusive breastfeeding is always beneficial for children's BMI development and subsequent risk of overweight/obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on a paper by K. Healy and colleague on comparative child welfare and children in out-of-home-care (OOHC). The author states that although there is a great deal of evidence about high levels of investment in early childhood services in Sweden, it is not necessarily borne out by figures offered in the paper.

In this paper we present a comparative analysis of out-of-home care in Australia and Sweden. We compare the age structure of the out-of-home care population and the types of out-of-home care services provided to children and young people in both countries. Our analysis reveals that in Australia the out-of-home care service system is focused mainly on children who are deemed to be abused or neglected within their families, while in Sweden the majority of the out-of-home care population are teenagers who cannot live with their families for emotional or behavioural reasons. These population differences intersect with variations in the forms of service provision in both countries, with a much greater reliance on home-based care in Australia than in Sweden, while there is more extensive use of residential care in Sweden. We envisage that this paper will demonstrate how the age structure of the out-of-home care population, though rarely considered in international comparative child welfare research, reveals much about the assumptions on which State intervention with children and young people is based. We intend that this analysis will assist social workers to better understand and address the gaps in the quality and comprehensiveness of out-of-home care service provision to children and young people in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies empirically the consequences on health of an early retirement offer. To this end we use a targeted retirement offer to military officers 55 years of age or older. Before the offer was implemented, the normal retirement age in the Swedish defense was 60 years of age. Estimating the effect of the offer on individuals' health within the age range 56-70, we find support for a reduction in both mortality and in inpatient care as a consequence of the early retirement offer. Increasing the mandatory retirement age may thus not only have positive government income effects but also negative effects on increasing government health care expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly often in epidemiologic research, associations between survival time and predictors of interest are measured by differences between distribution functions rather than hazard functions. For example, differences in percentiles of survival time, expressed in absolute time units (e.g., weeks), may complement the popular risk ratios, which are unitless measures. When analyzing time to an event of interest (e.g., death) in prospective cohort studies, the time scale can be set to start at birth or at study entry. The advantages of one time origin over the other have been thoroughly explored for the estimation of risks but not for the estimation of survival percentiles. In this paper, we analyze the use of different time scales in the estimation of survival percentiles with Laplace regression. Using this regression method, investigators can estimate percentiles of survival time over levels of an exposure of interest while adjusting for potential confounders. Our findings may help to improve modeling strategies and ease interpretation in the estimation of survival percentiles in prospective cohort studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Variation in prescription of antibiotics in primary care can indicate poor clinical practice that contributes to the increase of resistant strains. General Practitioners (GPs), as a professional group, are expected to have a fairly homogeneous prescribing style. In this paper, we describe variation in prescribing style within and across groups of GPs from six countries. Methods: Cross-sectional study with the inclusion of 457 GPs and 6394 sore throat patients. We describe variation in prescribing antibiotics for sore throat patients across six countries and assess whether variation in “prescribing style” - understood as a subjective tendency to prescribe - has an important effect on variation in prescription of antibiotics by using the concept of prescribing style as a latent variable in a multivariable model. We report variation as a Median Odds Ratio (MOR) which is the transformation of the random effect variance onto an odds ratio; Thus, MOR = 1 means similar odds or strict homogeneity between GPs' prescribing style, while a MOR higher than 1 denotes heterogeneity in prescribing style. Results: In all countries some GPs always prescribed antibiotics to all their patients, while other GPs never did. After adjusting for patient and GP characteristics, prescribing style in the group of GPs from Russia was about three times more heterogeneous than the prescribing style in the group of GPs from Denmark - Median Odds Ratio (6.8, 95% CI 3.1;8.8) and (2.6, 95% CI 2.2;4.4) respectively. Conclusion: Prescribing style is an important source of variation in prescription of antibiotics within and across countries, even after adjusting for patient and GP characteristics. Interventions aimed at influencing the prescribing style of GPs must encompass context-specific actions at the policy-making level alongside GP-targeted interventions to enable GPs to react more objectively to the external demands that are in place when making the decision of prescribing antibiotics or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animal-related injuries are among the most common occupational injuries in agriculture. Despite the large number of documented animal-related injuries in dairy farming, the issue has received relatively limited attention in the scientific literature. The farmers' own perspectives and views on risks and safety during livestock handling and what they think are effective ways of preventing injuries are valuable for the future design of effective interventions. This paper presents results from a qualitative study with the aim to investigate Swedish dairy farmers' own experience of animal-related occupational injuries, as well as their perceptions of and attitudes towards them, including risk and safety issues, and prevention measures. A total of 12 dairy farmers with loose housing systems participated in the study. Data collection was conducted by means of semistructured in-depth interviews. Three main themes with an impact on risks and safety when handling cattle were identified: the handler, the cattle, and the facilities. They all interact with each other, influencing the potential risks of any work task. Most of the farmers believed that a majority of the injuries can be prevented, but there are always some incidents that are impossible to foresee. In conclusion, this study indicates that Swedish dairy farmers are aware of the dangers from working with cattle. However, even though safety is acknowledged by the farmers as an important and relevant issue, in the end safety is often forgotten or not prioritized. One concern is that farmers are willing to take calculated risks to save money or time. In situations where they work alone with high stress levels and under economic distress, safety issues are easily given low priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The probability of pregnancy after in vitro fertilisation (IVF) declines with age in parallel with a reduction in the ovarian reserve. However, there is considerable variation in the ovarian reserve in women of advanced reproductive age; so to give such women accurate advice about the prospects of treatment success, factors other than age must be considered. Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) has been shown to be a good indicator of ovarian reserve, and its utility is explored in this paper. Aims: To determine the utility of AMH serum levels for prediction of ovarian response to gonadotropin stimulation and outcome in IVF in women of advanced reproductive age. Methods: The material consists of 127 women with a median age of 42 years (range 39-46) having had their first cycle of IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment from November 2006 to December 2008. During this period, a total of 772 oocyte retrievals and 715 embryo transfers were performed at the clinic (median age 36.4 years). AMH was analysed with the Beckman Coulter DSL ELISA. Agonist and antagonist protocols were used and monitored by ultrasound and oestradiol; embryo transfer was performed on day 2, 3 or 5 of culture. Results: The lower the AMH, the higher the risk of cycle cancellation, low oocyte yield and treatment failure. Women with a serum AMH above 8.6 pmol/L had a good chance of achieving live birth after IVF/ICSI treatment. Conclusions: Anti-Müllerian hormone is useful for identifying a good prognosis group in women of advanced reproductive age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose Modular cementless revision prostheses are being used with increasing frequency. In this paper, we review risk factors for the outcome of the Link MP stem and report implant survival compared to conventional cemented long-stem hip revision arthroplasties. Patients and methods We used data recorded in the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register. 812 consecutive revisions with the MP stem (mean follow-up time 3.4 years) and a control group with 1,073 cemented long stems (mean follow-up time 4.2 years) were included. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to determine implant survival. The Cox regression model was used to study risk factors for reoperation and revision. Results The mean age at revision surgery for the MP stem was 72 (SD 11) years. Decreasing age (HR == 1.1, 95% CI: 1--1.1), multiple previous revisions (HR == 2.6, 95% CI: 1.1--6.2), short stem length (HR == 2.4, 95% CI: 1.1--5.2), standard neck offset (HR == 5, 95% CI: 1.5--17) and short head-neck length (HR == 5.3, 95% CI 1.4--21) were risk factors for reoperation. There was an overall increased risk of reoperation (HR == 1.7, 95% CI: 1.3--2.4) and revision (HR == 1.9, 95% CI: 1.2--3.1) for the MP prostheses compared to the controls. Interpretation The cumulative survival with both reoperation and revision as the endpoint was better for the cemented stems with up to 3 years of follow-up. Thereafter, the survival curves converged, mainly because of increasing incidence of revision due to loosening in the cemented group. We recommend the use of cemented long stems in patients with limited bone loss and in older patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sonesson M, Hamberg K, Lundin Wallengren M-L, Matsson L, Ericson D. Salivary IgA in minor-gland saliva of children, adolescents, and young adults. Eur J Oral Sci 2011; 119: 15-20. © 2011 Eur J Oral Sci According to previous studies, minor glands produce about 35% of the total salivary immunoglobulin A (salivary IgA). The age-dependent increase in whole-saliva salivary IgA concentrations has been studied extensively, but we found no published reports comparing the minor-gland saliva concentrations of salivary IgA in children, adolescents, and adults. In this study we measured the concentration of salivary IgA in saliva from the labial and the buccal minor glands of children, adolescents, and adults. Three age groups donated saliva for analysis: 3-yr-old children, 14-yr-old adolescents, and 20- to 25-yr-old adults. Minor-gland saliva was collected on filter paper and unstimulated whole saliva was collected by draining into a tube, and the salivary IgA concentration was determined by ELISA. The salivary IgA concentration in labial saliva was significantly lower among 3-yr-old children (0.037 mg 100 ml, SD = 0.035) than among 14-yr-old adolescents (0.126 mg 100 ml, SD = 0.128) and adults (0.128 mg 100 ml, SD = 0.13). The 3-yr-old children also had significantly lower whole-saliva salivary IgA values compared with the other age groups (0.09 mg 100 ml, SD = 0.091; 0.179 mg 100 ml, SD = 0.149; and 0.170 mg 100 ml, SD = 0.099, respectively). This increase in salivary IgA concentrations with age might reflect a developing immune response in the growing child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the more difficult ethical questions from a public decision-making perspective is whether the estimation of benefits from risk reducing projects should be influenced by factors such as age groups and risk domains. For example, should a project that saves the lives of elderly people be assigned a more different benefit value in cost-benefit analyses than one that saves the same number of children''s lives? This paper examines the preferences of the general public in Sweden on these issues. We design a choice experiment in which subjects are required to make six pair-wise choices where the characteristics of each choice are accident type (fire and traffic), number of fatalities and serious injuries avoided, and age of those saved (5–15-, 35–45- and 65–75-year-olds). We find that avoiding the fatality of one 5–15-year-old is equivalent to avoiding 1.4 fatalities of 35–45-year-olds. Likewise, avoiding the fatality of one 5–15-year-old is equivalent to avoiding 3.3 fatalities of 65–75-year-olds. We find no significant differences between the causes of accident. One avoided fatality is found to be equivalent to around 3.5 avoided severe injuries, which is lower than the official value of 6 used by the Swedish Road Administration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There is broad agreement in the international literature that there are significant barriers to the use of long-term care services (LTCS) by older migrants in various contexts. However, there is a lack of comprehensive study in this area, and particularly concerning the diversity of migrants from different sending countries and the heterogeneity of their migration trajectories concerning the age at migration. Barriers to the use of care might be intensified for persons migrating at an older age, resulting in lower use of care. However, it is still unknown whether late-in-life migrants are underrepresented as users of LTCS in comparison to Swedish born and migrants arriving at younger ages. We study the likelihood of using any (1) LTCS, (2) residential care, and (3) personal and domestic care among older foreign-born, compared to Swedish-born older persons. Secondly, we study the likelihood of care across different birth countries compared to older persons born in Sweden. Thirdly, we investigate the likelihood of LTCS among migrants arriving at different ages. The total population of all persons 65 years and over in Sweden, is studied using register data with almost two million observations. The central findings of this study show that there is substantial heterogeneity across and within different birth countries regarding utilization of LTCS, residential care and personal and domestic care. The results from this study also suggest that late in life migration does not have to imply lower utilization of LTCS, residential care and personal, and domestic care. However, results show a slight over-representation of personal and domestic care among those who have migrated later in life. Further, there is an under-representation of residential care among late-in-life migrants. Our findings thus suggest that caution is needed when generalizing about levels of formal care use in migrant populations. • Heterogeneity exist in likelihood for the use of LTCS between countries. • Personal and domestic care are higher among migrants arriving after age 65. • Residential care is lower among late life migrants. • Hanna Mac Innes is the sole author of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]