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This study investigated whether and how different patterns of group exposure within residential contexts (i.e., living in a Mexican immigrant enclave, a Mexican ethnic enclave, a pan-Hispanic enclave, or a non-Hispanic white neighborhood) are associated with smoking during pregnancy among Mexican-origin mothers. Using a hierarchical linear modeling approach, we found that Mexican-origin mothers' residential contexts are important for understanding their smoking during pregnancy. Residence in an ethnic enclave is associated with decreased odds of smoking during pregnancy, while residence in a non-Hispanic white neighborhood is associated with increased odds of smoking during pregnancy, above and beyond the mothers' individual characteristics. The magnitude of the associations between residence in an ethnic enclave and smoking during pregnancy is similar across the different types of ethnic enclaves examined. The important roles of inter- and intra-group exposures suggests that in order to help Mexican-origin women, policy makers should more carefully design place-based programs and interventions that target geographic areas and the specific types of residential contexts in which women are at greater risk., Author(s): Aggie J. Noah[sup.1] [sup.2] , Nancy S. Landale[sup.1] [sup.2] , Corey S. Sparks[sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, 211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA, USA [...]

Background and Objectives Testosterone plays an important role in regulating male development, reproduction and health. Declining levels across the lifespan may reflect, or even contribute to, chronic disease and mortality in men. Methodology Relationships between testosterone levels and male mortality were analyzed using data from multiple samples of the cross-sectional National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n = 10 225). Target outcomes included known deaths from heart disease, malignant neoplasms, chronic lower respiratory diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes mellitus, influenza and pneumonia, kidney diseases, and accidents or unintentional injuries. Results Results of discrete-time hazard models revealed that lower levels of testosterone were related to higher mortality for the majority of disease categories in either an age-dependent or age-independent fashion. Analysis of all-cause mortality—which included deaths from any known disease—also revealed greater general risk for those with lower testosterone levels. For most disease categories, the hazard associated with low testosterone was especially evident at older ages when mortality from that particular ailment was already elevated. Notably, testosterone levels were not related to mortality risk for deaths unrelated to chronic disease (i.e. accidents and injuries). Conclusions and Implications While the causal direction of relationships between testosterone and mortality risk remains unclear, these results may reflect the decline in testosterone that accompanies many disease states. Accordingly, the relationship between testosterone and male mortality may be indirect; ill individuals are expected to have both lower testosterone and higher mortality risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among 19th century Osage full-bloods, a modified cranium, specifically a flattened occiput, was an integral part of ethnic expression. An early archival source documenting this practice is a sculpted bust of Black Spirit, who, along with five other members of the Osage tribe, toured Paris in 1827, where a local artisan skillfully crafted this marble likeness of an exotic, visitor from America's frontier. When viewed in profile this bust clearly depicts a tabular occiput. Comparative study of 124 Osages measured by Franz Boas and colleagues at the close of the 19th century reveals that the majority of mixed-bloods did not possess altered crania, while full-bloods did. It will be demonstrated that Indian-white marriages created a domestic environment where parents chose not to utilize a cradleboard as part of infant care. Their probable motives for this decision will also be explored. The craniometric data analyzed in this report document an important form of culture change among admixed Osage Indians at the close of the 19th century. Keywords: Osages, cranial modification, admixture, culture change

Objective: Child undernutrition is a global public health problem with serious implications. In this study, we estimate predictive algorithms for the determinants of childhood stunting by using various machine learning (ML) algorithms.Design: This study draws on data from the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey of 2016. Five ML algorithms including eXtreme gradient boosting, k-nearest neighbours (k-NN), random forest, neural network and the generalised linear models were considered to predict the socio-demographic risk factors for undernutrition in Ethiopia.Setting: Households in Ethiopia.Participants: A total of 9471 children below 5 years of age participated in this study.Results: The descriptive results show substantial regional variations in child stunting, wasting and underweight in Ethiopia. Also, among the five ML algorithms, xgbTree algorithm shows a better prediction ability than the generalised linear mixed algorithm. The best predicting algorithm (xgbTree) shows diverse important predictors of undernutrition across the three outcomes which include time to water source, anaemia history, child age greater than 30 months, small birth size and maternal underweight, among others.Conclusions: The xgbTree algorithm was a reasonably superior ML algorithm for predicting childhood undernutrition in Ethiopia compared to other ML algorithms considered in this study. The findings support improvement in access to water supply, food security and fertility regulation, among others, in the quest to considerably improve childhood nutrition in Ethiopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Sleep, like many biological processes, is linked with immunity and inflammation such that "abnormal" sleep is associated with changes in circulating immune cells. These sleep patterns are also associated with increased mortality risk, and it may be that altered immune cell counts are one biological pathway through which sleep affects mortality. We used NHANES survey data to examine the associations between sleep duration, total white blood cell (WBC) count, and mortality from biological causes. Methods: Several waves of public NHANES data (2005–2011; n = 11 353, ages 18+) were analyzed using bivariate statistics and causal mediation models including corrections for complex survey design. Results: Deceased individuals were characterized by higher WBC but lower monocyte counts relative to surviving individuals. Significant associations between sleep duration, total WBC count, monocytes and mortality were found, as were marginally significant relationships between sleep and these cell counts. Significant mediated effects of sleep on mortality were found. Including covariates known to affect mortality, such as BMI, age, and self‐reported health resulted in a nonsignificant mediated effect of sleep on mortality for monocytes, while mediated effects for total WBC count remained. Conclusions: This large, cross‐sectional analysis suggests that sleep duration is associated with changes in mortality risk through—in part—effects on leukocyte count. These findings support an immunological/inflammatory pathway linking sleep and mortality. Further research in populations with quantitatively different sleep patterns can determine whether this sleep‐immune‐mortality pathway is restricted to Western, industrial samples or is characteristic of humans in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study which investigated the variation in children's height-for-age z-scores (HFAZ) among a nationally representative sample of children from Honduras in 2006. Study authors aimed to describe the influence of parental investment on children's health and nutrition. The study found that children with parents who have invested more have better outcomes in HFAZ. Such parental investment include breastfeeding, child wantedness and sufficient prenatal care.

The article presents a study that uses spatially autoregressive models to assess the influence of spatial structure on the mortality rates in U.S. counties. The study analyzes dependent and independent variables of age-sex-race standardised rates using Moran statistic. Result shows that mortality rates correlation with spatial structure are higher to black and Hispanic population. It concludes the benefits of spatial models in social and behavioral sciences rather than the spatial process.

This paper presents an analysis of the differential growth rates of the farming and non-farming segments of a rural Scottish community during the 19th and early 20th centuries using the variable-r method allowing for net migration. Using this method, I find that the farming population of Orkney, Scotland, showed less variability in their reproduction and growth rates than the non-farming population during a period of net population decline. I conclude by suggesting that the variable-r method can be used in general cases where the relative growth of subpopulations or subpopulation reproduction is of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]