80 research outputs found
Appendix -Supplemental material for Adjustment for time-invariant and time-varying confounders in ‘unexplained residuals’ models for longitudinal data within a causal framework and associated challenges
No full textSupplemental material, Appendix for Adjustment for time-invariant and time-varying confounders in ‘unexplained residuals’ models for longitudinal data within a causal framework and associated challenges by KF Arnold, GTH Ellison, SC Gadd, J Textor, PWG Tennant, A Heppenstall, MS Gilthorpe in Statistical Methods in Medical Research</p
Racial categories in medicine: a failure of evidence-based practice?
No full textThis Perspective discusses the
following new Essay published in
PLoS
Medicine:
Braun L, Fausto-Sterling A, Fullwiley
D, Hammonds EM, Nelson A, et al. (2007)
Racial categories in medical practice:
How useful are they? PLoS Med 4(9):
e271. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040271
In this Essay, the authors address the
question of whether it is good medical
practice for physicians to “eyeball” a
patient’s race when assessing their
medical status
The health in later life of channel islanders exposed to the 1940-45 occupation and siege
No full textEvents during the Second World War resulted in a number of 'natural experiments' that have offered an invaluable opportunity for exploring the long-term impact of acute periods of deprivation on health in later life. Following the pioneering work by researchers examining the 1944-45 Dutch hunger winter and the 900-day siege of Leningrad (1941-1943), this Chapter presents ongoing research on a series of cohorts exposed to a period of chronic and acute deprivation that occurred contemporaneously on the British Channel Islands - the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by the Germans during the second world war. The 1940-45 occupation of the Channel Islands, which culminated in a 9-month siege following the Allied liberation of Normandy, involved both a gradual decline in the availability of food, fuel and essential supplies associated with the rationing and requisitioning of resources by the German garrison, but also a period of intense deprivation during the 1944-45 siege when the only supplies to reach the islands were delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross in response to pleas from the beleaguered civilian administration. Official and anecdotal reports suggest that once the islands' economies had adapted to their change in circumstances, most islanders coped with the early stages of the occupation relatively well, relying on their savings, bartering, garden produce, foraging and ingenious recipes to cope with whatever food was available (including that available through the black market). However, the poor and those in urban areas with limited access to off-ration foods are reported to have struggled to cope even before the final phase of the occupation (the 1944-45 siege) when black market stocks had been depleted and there were limited supplies of off-ration foods available that were not subject to confiscation by the besieged German garrison. Indeed, many reports suggest that even the wealthiest members of society and those living in rural areas (whose produce was more systematically monitored by the German authorities) suffered substantial nutritional challenges during the siege. Drawing on this evidence of a similar pattern of chronic and acute deprivation to that found to be associated with health in later life by researchers on both the Dutch hunger winter and Leningrad siege studies, the Channel Islands Occupation Birth Cohorts Study set out to examine whether exposure to the occupation and siege might have a similar association with the health of this population. This Chapter describes the epidemiological analyses that have been conducted to-date to address this question. It draws on findings from three separate cohorts, linking data from multiple sources (including birth records, population registration documents, health care utilisation data and death notifications) to assess whether exposure to the occupation in early life was associated, in later life, with higher: blood pressure; blood glucose levels; total blood cholesterol concentrations; body mass index; rates of hospital admission for acute cardiovascular events; all-cause and/or cause-specific mortality; and rates of poor self-reported health. These analyses suggest that there is some evidence of an increased risk of metabolic dysfunction, elevated body mass index, hospital admissions for acute cardiovascular events, mortality and self-reported health, while the absence of an increased risk of elevated blood pressure or total blood cholesterol levels may partly reflect ongoing challenges associated with linking sufficient numbers of individuals across enough of the available datasets to generate samples for analysis that are sufficiently large and sufficiently well-specified to permit robust analysis. These challenges are being addressed in ongoing research which draws on the recently released 'permission to return' forms from Channel Islanders who were resident on the mainland during the occupation (either because they were away, left or were evacuated before the occupation began). These contain information that will help to better identify unexposed islanders who returned to live on the islands and unexposed individuals born during the occupation to islanders resident on the mainland. © 2013 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved
Life expectancy and the Global Burden of Disease 1990–2016: little cause for complacency
No full textPoverty, disability and self-reported health amongst residents and migrants in Gauteng, South Africa
No full textBackground and aim: The aim of the present study was to assess the relative importance of individual- and household-level indicators of poverty to the self-reported health of residents and recent migrants in South Africa’s most urbanised province (Gauteng). Subjects and methods: Univariate and multivariable statistical analyses were undertaken on data from the 2014 Quality of Life household survey undertaken by the Gauteng City Regional Observatory. The survey generated data on a representative sample of n = 27 490 respondents. Results: At the individual-level the odds for disability or health-limiting work/social activities was significantly lower amongst younger, better educated and employed respondents, and amongst both transnational and internal migrants. At the household-level, the absence of some basic services and household assets (particularly mains electricity, telecommunications and a television) were significantly associated with a lower odds of health-limiting work/social activities. Conclusions: Variation in sociodemographic and economic predictors of self-reported health at the individual- and household-level partly explain the lower odds of disability and health-limiting work/social activities of migrants, since migrants were less likely to be disabled and tended to be younger, with higher educational attainment and better employment status than residents, yet were also more likely to be living in households with fewer services and assets
Biological determinism
No full textBiological determinism is the tendency to view human social phenomena (at the individual, group, and societal level) as the products of biological causes. It can be traced back to the earliest philosophical ideas regarding the biological basis of human nature, and it has played an important role in the interpretation of scientific advances in human anatomy, physiology, and genetics. By privileging biological over environmental causes, biological determinism plays a key role in the “nature versus nurture” debate—suggesting that social phenomena are essential, natural, and immutable and therefore only subject to limited modification by the contexts from which these have emerged and in which these are expressed. These features have placed biological determinism at the center of scientific and popular claims regarding the biological nature of social divisions, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and disability (among others). The limits these claims place on individual (and group) agency have been criticized on both scientific and philosophical grounds—first, because many such claims mistake phenotypic and genotypic traits as predominantly prescriptive and insensitive to environmental modification; and second, because they involve logical fallacies and cognitive errors that are prone to social and political bias, and serve to “naturalize” pernicious social effects
Effects of insulin-like growth factor I on GnRH-induced gonadotropin subunit gene expressions in masu salmon pituitary cells at different stages of sexual maturation.
No full textEffects of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and salmon gonadotropin-releasing hormone (sGnRH) on expression of gonadotropin (GTH) subunit genes were examined using primary pituitary cell cultures of masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou). Fishes were assessed at three reproductive stages, i.e., in April (early maturation), in June (maturing), and in September (spawning). Amounts of GTH subunit mRNAs in pituitary cells were determined using real-time PCR after incubation with IGF-I and/or sGnRH. IGF-I alone had almost no effects on three GTH subunit mRNAs in both sexes, except for decrease in follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) β mRNA in males in June. sGnRH alone was effective in stimulation of FSHβ and luteinizing hormone (LH) β gene expression in males in April. Thereafter it had no significant effects on GTH subunit mRNAs, although in September it tended to increase FSHβ and LHβ mRNAs in females. Co-administered IGF-I counteracted the sGnRH-induced expression of FSHβ and LHβ genes in males in April, but not in females in September. These results suggest that IGF-I is involved in direct regulation of GTH subunit genes during sexual maturation. In particular, IGF-I differently modulates sGnRH-induced GTH subunit gene expression, depending on reproductive stages
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