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Abstract Introduction Although per capita crime has generally fallen over the period which coincides with the obesity epidemic, it has not fallen uniformly across communities. It also has not fallen enough to allay fears on the part of parents. Over the past 30 years, technological changes have made the indoor alternatives to playing outside, where children are more vulnerable to criminal activity, more enjoyable (cable TV, video games, and the internet) and comfortable (the spread of air conditioning to low income neighborhoods). We determined whether indoor sedentary behavior patterns are associated with community crime statistics. 4th graders in the U.S. are typically 9 or 10 years old. Methods We used data from the 2004–2005 Texas School Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN) survey linked with U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics data for the years 2000 through 2005 and Texas State data on sexual offenders. The probability-based sample included a total of 7,907 children in grade four. Multistage probability sampling weights were used. The dependent variables included were hours of TV watching, video game playing, computer use and total indoor sedentary behavior after school. Incremental Relative Rates were computed for community crime rates including robberies, all violent crimes, murders, assaults, property crimes, rapes, burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts as well as for sexual offenders living in the neighborhood. The neighborhood refers to the areas where the students at each school live. In the case of sexual offenders, sexual offenders per capita are estimated using the per capita rate in the zip code of the school attended; all other crime statistics are estimated by the crimes per capita in the police department jurisdiction covering the school attended. After controlling for sex, age, and African-American and Hispanic, cross-sectional associations were determined using multivariate Poisson regression. Results 4th grade boys were more likely to play video games in communities with increased per 100 population rates of larceny and burglary as well as in communities with increased per capita sexual offenders; 4th grade girls were more likely to watch television in communities with increased per capita sexual offenders. While 4th grade girls were more likely to watch TV in communities with increased per capita sex offenders, they were less likely to use computers. Per capita sexual offenders were negatively related to computer use amongst 4th grade girls. Conclusion By combining community crime and cross-sectional individual level data on indoor sedentary behavior, we found that there is an association between community crimes/sex offender rates and certain types of indoor sedentary behavior. The development of technologies in recent decades which makes supervising children easier indoors, where children are much less vulnerable to crime, may be contributing to the epidemic of childhood obesity.

Objectives: To investigate whether smoking prevalence in grade-level networks influences individual smoking, suggesting that peers are important social multipliers in teen smoking. Methods: We measured gender-specific, grade-level recent and life-time smoking among urban middle-school students who participated in Project Northland Chicago in a longitudinal cohort design. Results: Within schools, grade-level recent smoking had comparable effects on girls' and boys' individual-level smoking. Grade-level lifetime smoking had a greater effect on girls' smoking. Conclusion: Interventions can target middle school classes and schools broadly, without making the identification of friendship networks a concern.

Objective: To investigate which points of the middle-school drinking distribu­tion are the most influential in the so­cial contagion of drinking across the middle-school years, in order to identify potential social multipliers. Methods: We measured drinking intentions and behaviors by gender, school, and grade among urban middle-school students who participated in Project Northland Chicago in a longitudinal cohort design. Results: Individual drinking behaviors were consistently influenced by extreme (80th percentile) drinking intentions and behaviors. This effect was mediat­ed through normal or average levels of drinking, over time. Conclusions: Inter­ventions can target extreme drinkers as the influential persons in middle-school grades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Logistic regression models test whether physician demand for leisure affects both total and unplanned cesarean section rates, after controlling for relevant clinical variables. Although nature distributes births and associated problems uniformly, time-dependent dummy variables related to leisure are significant predictors of both total and unplanned c-sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If different types of firms are flourishing in rural and urban areas, then it is appropriate to question whether both urban and rural economic development programs should focus on the formation and growth of the same type of firms. The product life cycle theory suggests that urban areas should garner the lion's share of new firm formations in newly-emerging industries, while rural areas will be the location for mature industrial manufacturing branch plants. This paper examines whether the anticpated rural/urban distribution of high-technology firms and branches are valid for the industry. Data taken from the US Small Business Administration's Small Business Data base for 1976 through 1986 show that high technology has been the high-growth industrial sector in the USA. Central to this growth has been a high rate of new firm formations which have been responsible for over 70% of new jobs formed in this sector. Contrary to expectations based on the product cycle, analysis by urban and rural employment growth shows that small high-technology firms grow as much in rural as urban areas. This may be indicative of the declining importance of economies of scale in operations and/or transportation costs in delivered prices. These findings refute the notion that high-technology firm formations occur only in urban areas. Rural economic developments specialists are correct in promoting high-tech firm formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]