Age Differences In Exposure Research Articles

Age, education, and political involvement differences in daily election-related stress.

Stress in daily life is rather common, but elections can present unique challenges. Evaluating the impact of individual characteristics, behaviors, and political beliefs on stress processes is imperative to understanding how elections influence psychological well-being. Exploring how these individual and behavioral characteristics interacted to predict exposure to election-related stressors, we hypothesized that age, education, and past socio-political involvement would be associated with exposure to election-related stressors. In the 2018 U.S. Midterm Election Stress Coping and Prevention Every Day (ESCAPED) study, 140 participants in the United States and territories aged 19–86 were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for a 30-day daily diary study. Collectively, participants completed a total of 1196 reports between October 15, 2018 and November 13, 2018. The midterm election was November 6, 2018. Each day, participants reported on past political participation, election stress anticipation, and exposure to election-related stressors. Confirming our hypothesis, on days when people were more politically active and on days when stress anticipation increased, exposure to election-related stressors increased. Age differences in exposure depended on political activity in the last 24 h, with older adults exhibiting a steeper increase in exposure following political activity, especially if they were highly educated. However, higher education was protective against election-related stressors among younger adults even with increases in political activity. Individuals’ experiences, characteristics, and daily decisions influence the likelihood of exposure to election-related stressors. Additionally, for younger adults, education may function as a protective factor when they engage in political activities.

The Ups and Downs of Daily Life During COVID-19: Age Differences in Affect, Stress, and Positive Events.

ObjectivePast research has linked older age with greater emotional well-being and decreased reactivity to stressors, but it is unknown whether age-related advantages in emotional well-being are maintained in the wake of COVID-19. We examined age differences in exposure and affective reactivity to daily stressors and positive events in the first several weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak.MethodIn March and April 2020, 776 adults from Canada and the U.S. ages 18-91 (mean age 45) reported COVID-19 threats at baseline, then completed nightly surveys for one week about their daily stressors, positive events, and affect.ResultsYounger age predicted more concerns about the threat of COVID-19 across multiple domains, in addition to lower positive affect, higher negative affect, and less frequent positive events. Younger adults had more non-COVID-19 daily stressors and higher perceived control over stressors, but lower perceived coping efficacy than older adults. There were no age differences in the frequency of COVID-19 daily stressors nor perceived stressor severity. Younger adults had greater reductions in negative affect on days when more positive events occurred and greater increases in negative affect on days when non-COVID-19 stressors occurred. Age moderation was attenuated for negative affective reactivity to COVID-19 stressors. Age did not moderate positive affective reactivity to daily events.DiscussionIn the early weeks of the pandemic, older adults showed better emotional well-being and less reactivity to stressors but did not differ from younger adults in their exposure to COVID-19 stressors. Additionally, younger adults benefited more from positive events.

Sex and Age Differences in Exposure to Secondhand Smoke at Home among Korean Adolescents: A Nationally Representative Survey.

The authors assessed sex and age differences in secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure among vulnerable adolescent populations. Data from the 2013 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey of 64,499 non-smokers aged 13–18 years were analyzed using multiple logistic regression. Girls were exposed 1.26 times (95% confidence interval, 1.21–1.32) more to home SHS than boys, and the younger adolescents were more likely to be exposed to home SHS than were the older, regardless of sex (p < 0.001). Younger girls living with or without current smokers and the younger boys living with current smokers were more likely to be exposed to SHS at home, when the data were stratified according to current household member smoking, which was one of the main risk factors for SHS exposure at home. Girls living with current smokers were more likely to be exposed to SHS at home than boys regardless age. Girls and younger adolescents, populations vulnerable to smoke exposure, were more likely to be exposed to SHS at home, even though they should be more protected. It is necessary to improve home SHS awareness, especially among these vulnerable populations.

Age differences in Exposure and Reactivity to Interpersonal Tensions among Black and White Individuals across Adulthood.

The present study examined age differences in exposure and reactivity to interpersonal tensions among White and Black Americans. Participants from the National Study of Daily Experiences II (NSDE II, n= 1696 White and n = 239 Black; ages 34 to 84) reported their experiences of daily interpersonal tensions and well-being (positive and negative affect) over 8 days and provided salivary cortisol samples. A total of 40% of respondents reported having an argument and 62% reported avoiding an argument. Multilevel models estimated separately for Black and White respondents revealed that older people reported fewer interpersonal tensions (i.e., less exposure) than did younger people. However, age differences in reactivity to tensions (e.g., appraisals, coping strategies, implications of tensions for affect and cortisol) varied by race. Although older Black respondents reported tensions were less stressful than younger Black respondents, there were fewer age difference in reactivity to tensions overall among Black respondents compared to White respondents. Findings are consistent with the exposure reactivity model and gerontological theories of emotion regulation but show that the specific age differences vary by race which may indicate unique strengths and vulnerabilities among Whites and Blacks.

Violence in primary schools in Serbia: Forms and prevalence

A questionnaire study of 26,228 pupils of grades 3 through 8 in 50 primary schools across Serbia, conducted in spring 2006, indicated that in a three-month period, 65.3% of the pupils stated that they experienced some form of peer violence (the percentage varies by school, between 48% and 80%). An analysis of repeated violence cases identifies 20.7% of the pupils as victims, 3.8% as perpetrators of violence, and 3.6% as victims/perpetrators. Adult violence is reported by 35.7% of the pupils, while 42% have witnessed verbal aggression of pupils towards teachers. The most frequent forms of peer violence reported were insults (45.6%) and plotting (32.6%). Boys declared themselves as perpetrators of violence somewhat more frequently than girls, and they were somewhat more often exposed to peer and adult violence. Older pupils were more frequently violent and more often reported adult violence, while age differences in exposure to violence were minimal. .

Age Differences in Exposure and Reactions to Interpersonal Tensions: A Daily Diary Study.

This study examines age differences in exposure and reactivity to interpersonal tensions. The data are from the National Study of Daily Experiences in which participants ages 25 to 74 (N = 666) completed phone interviews wherein they described interpersonal tensions and rated the stressfulness of the tensions each evening for 8 days. Coders rated descriptions for types of behavioral reactions. Multilevel models revealed older adults reported fewer interpersonal tensions, were more likely to report tensions with spouses, were less likely to report tensions with children, experienced less stress, and were less likely to argue and more likely to do nothing in response to tensions than were younger adults. Age differences in emotional and behavioral reactions did not appear to be due to variations in exposure to tensions. The discussion centers on why older people may be better able to regulate their reactions to problems than younger people.

The relationship between ethanol intake and DSM-III alcohol use disorders: A cross-perspective analysis

The purpose of this investigation was to quantify the relationship between ethanol consumption and DSM-III alcohol use disorders using mathematical modeling techniques that allowed for the simultaneous control of several extraneous factors and the assessment of potential interaction. Although gender, education, ethnicity, and marital status were not identified as actual confounders in the logistic regression model, the ethanol intake-dependence association was found to be stronger among younger adults than in the later stages of life. Age was an influential confounder of the ethanol intake-abuse relationship, but the magnitude of the association was generally weaker for abuse than for dependence. Separate analyses in which the abuse and dependence criteria served as outcome measures qualified the interpretation of the overall ethanol intake-disorder associations. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of age differences in exposure and context of consumption, differential interpretation of withdrawal symptoms, and the relationship between abuse and dependence. The need for future research to refine our descriptions of risk of alcohol use disorders in relation to levels of intake is highlighted.

Methods of cancer case selection: implications for research.

The race, age, and sex differences between clinically and microscopically diagnosed cancer cases for a total of 63,301 incident cases for 18 sites are reported. The cases, diagnosed during 1973-1978, were drawn from the Cancer Surveillance Section in the Division of Epidemiology at the Michigan Cancer Foundation in Detroit, a participant in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. Although microscopically diagnosed cases and those diagnosed by other methods differed by race and sex for a few sites, the two case groups differed by age for 15 of the 18 sites examined. Cases without microscopic diagnoses (i.e., clinical diagnoses) tended to be older than microscopically confirmed cases. These findings indicate that in studies of certain cancer sites, the method of case selection could affect results pertaining to age differences in exposure to and effects of relevant risk factors.