People In Years Research Articles

Changes in parental involvement in secondary education: An exploration study using the longitudinal study of young people in England

Empirical research on parental involvement in children's education often makes the assumption that levels of involvement remain fixed over time. This paper highlights evidence from a longitudinal study that half of parents of young people in Year 9 reported becoming more or less involved in their child's school life over a two‐year period and explores the characteristics associated with mothers and fathers that change their levels of involvement. The young person's attitude to school, the mother's relationship with the school, attendance at parents’ evenings and the mother's ethnicity, qualifications and change in economic status had the strongest associations with a reported change in maternal involvement levels. Changes in paternal involvement were strongly associated with the father's ethnicity and the young person's behaviour.

Negotiate to Get What You Want, So Everybody Wins

Negotiate to Get What You Want, So Everybody Wins

Aspirin Should Not Be Promoted for Colon Cancer Prevention: Counterpoint

There is little question that aspirin can decrease the risk of large bowel cancer. A large number of observational studies in humans, both case-control and cohort, consistently show a strong protective effect of aspirin ([1][1]). Importantly, three randomized controlled trials show that aspirin

The influence of the school in the decision to participate in learning post‐16

The primary aim of this study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, was to identify the nature and influence of school‐based factors in the choices of young people about their post‐16 education, training and career pathways. The study also contributes to the wider understanding of ‘choice’, and identifies implications for the development of careers education and guidance and decision‐making awareness amongst pupils and students in schools. It also further enhances the modelling of pupil decision making in education and training markets, and in labour markets. The research is based on a series of qualitative interviews in 24 schools across nine local education authorities. Focus groups were undertaken with young people in years 10, 11 and 12. Interviews were also conducted with head teachers, heads of year and heads of careers. A postal survey of parents was also undertaken. Four key school‐based factors were found to have a very strong influence in the choices and decisions of young people about their post‐16 education, training and career pathways. These were: whether the school had a sixth form or not; the characteristics of school leadership, ethos and values; the socio‐economic status (SES) of the schools' catchment; and the organisation and delivery of careers education and guidance at the school level. In the main, high SES schools see themselves as developing pupils for academic university careers, while low SES schools maintain a rather stronger commitment to vocational pathways. The academic ethos of schools offers a very powerful influence on post‐16 choices and decisions of pupils. The usual interventions put in place to influence choices and decisions appear to have greater impact in schools with a less robust academic vision.

Arsenic in Herbal Kelp Supplements: Schenker et al. Respond

Arsenic in Herbal Kelp Supplements: Schenker et al. Respond

Mark Griffiths, PhD: Planting Seeds and Cultivating Ideas for the World Community

I have always been fond of the comparison between social change agents and traditional farmers. That is, while farmers plant seeds and nurture crops to sustain the masses, leading thinkers cultivate ideas that help to enrich and advance us as a species. This brings to mind an amusing quip from one of my high school teachers many years ago: that a farmer is a person “out standing in their field.” With that as background, this article illustrates that Dr. Mark Griffiths, likely well known to most who consult this and peer-reviewed journals, is a contributor who is similarly “outstanding in his field.” By anyone’s criteria, he has “planted” far more than his fair share of ideas that will benefit many people for years to come. During the later half of the 1990s, a time when I was working on my doctoral thesis, there was very little published regarding the role of the Internet within the fields of mental health and addictions. In particular, the problem gambling arena, an area where I was hoping to explore Internet-based peer-support as an emerging trend, was especially plagued by a paucity of any published accounts in peer-review journals. This is not too surprising given that the Internet was still a very new phenomenon back then. At the time, I was working on a paper and cited NUA data regarding the number of people who were connecting to the Internet on a regular basis (early 1999). NUA estimated these numbers to be 159million worldwide and roughly 88million North Americans (NUA as cited in Cooper 2001). The NUA group appears to have stopped counting as of 2003, however, their estimates for that year still far surpassed the 1999 numbers: 600 million worldwide and 165 million in North America (NUA 2003a, b). Today, high volume traffic on the Internet (remember the term “information superhighway”?) is taken for granted; just a decade ago, however, it was quite a novelty. The Internet’s infancy is even more noteworthy because Griffiths was among the research pioneers, publishing papers on related themes during this period. For example, he was writing about “Internet Addiction” (Griffiths 1996a) and “Internet Gambling” (Griffiths 1996b; Int J Ment Health Addiction (2007) 5:103–105 DOI 10.1007/s11469-007-9059-7

Trends in drop out, drug free discharge and rates of re-presentation: a retrospective cohort study of drug treatment clients in the North West of England

BackgroundGovernments aim to increase treatment participation by problematic drug users. In the UK this has been achieved by fiscal investment, an expanded workforce, reduced waiting times and coercive measures (usually criminal justice (CJ) led). No assessment of these measures on treatment outcomes has been made. Using established monitoring systems we assessed trends in 'dropped out' and 'discharged drug free' (DDF), since the launch of the national drug strategy, and rates of treatment re-presentation for these cohorts.MethodsA longitudinal dataset of drug users (1997 to 2004/05, n = 26,415) was used to identify people who dropped out of, and were DDF from, services for years 1998 to 2001/02, and re-presentations of these people in years to 2004/05. Trends in drop out and DDF, baseline comparisons of those DDF and those who dropped out and outcome comparisons for those referred from the CJ system versus other routes of referral were examined using chi square. Logistic regression analyses identified variables predicting drop out versus DDF and subsequent re-presentation versus no re-presentation.ResultsThe proportion of individuals dropping out has increased from 7.2% in 1998 to 9.6% in 2001/02 (P < 0.001). The proportion DDF has fallen from 5.8% to 3.5% (P < 0.001). Drop out was more likely in later years, by those of younger age and by CJ referrals. The proportion re-presenting to treatment in the following year increased from 27.8% in 1998 to 44.5% in 2001/02 (P < 0.001) for those DDF, and from 22.9% to 48.6% (P < 0.001) for those who dropped out. Older age and prior treatment experience predicted re-presentation. Outcome (drop out or DDF) did not predict re-presentation.ConclusionIncreasing numbers in treatment is associated with an increased proportion dropping out and an ever-smaller proportion DDF. Rates of drop out are significantly higher for those coerced into treatment via the CJ system. Rates of re-presentation are similar for those dropping out and those DDF. Encouragingly, those who need to re-engage with treatment, particularly those who drop out, are doing so more quickly. The impact of coercion on treatment outcomes and the appropriateness of aftercare provision require further consideration.

‘If We Help You What Will Change?’—Participatory Research with Young People

This article explores the ways in which young people were included as research participants in a major study on teenage pregnancy and young parenthood. The study was funded by UK government through the Teenage Pregnancy Unit (TPU) and the Department of Health (DoH) Policy Research Programme and was part of a national programme of nine projects. This project, ‘Living on the edge (LOTE): Sexual behaviour and young parenthood in seaside and rural areas’ (Bell et al., 2004), took place between 2002 and 2004. It involved three seaside towns and their rural hinterlands in the North‐West, North‐East and South of England. The study was qualitative and most of the interviewees were young people in years 8, 10 and, where available, year 12 in selected secondary schools in both urban and rural areas. Additional interviews were undertaken with young people outside mainstream education, with young parents and with a small number of professionals. This article has been co‐written by a researcher on the project and two peer researchers, who are also young mothers, from one of the study sites. Legislative and ethical support for participatory research with young people is outlined, followed by an examination of a number of methodological approaches that are available in this area. The article concludes by discussing whether or not it is possible to involve young people in research in ways that are more than tokenistic. It also considers whether or not the research process, the researchers and research participants benefit from such involvement.

Overview of the Tsunami Disaster

This is the text for the Opening Address for the Conference, Health Aspects of the Tsunami Disaster in Asia, convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Phuket, Thailand, 04-06 May 2005. The frightening reality of the costs (human and material) must be balanced by what has been and can be learned that, if applied, can make the world more resilient for the next event. At the time of this Conference, we are moving from response to recovery. The immediate conclusion relates to the consequences of the realization of a truly interdependent world. Given the huge resources made available, there is an increased need for accountability. Several factors will bear heavily on the outcomes: (1) risk of loss of momentum; (2) ensuring that no gaps in services occur; (3) ensuring that already marginalized communities do not become forgotten or even more marginalized; (4) support and respect of national leadership; (5) commit to enhanced coordination; and (6) develop mechanisms for joint and shared assessments. The available resources must be used to stablize the livelihoods of people for years. Lastly, the reliability and sustainability of the important contributions of the military and the commercial private sectors for future events must be established.

Understanding and enriching young people's learning: issues, complexities and challenges®

Within the context of national debate about the motivation of young people in Year 8 and the effects of the key stage three strategy, this article examines young people's views of learning and their understanding of what helps them learn. The research method draws on the concept of Appreciative Inquiry to examine young people's experiences. The findings, based on interviews with 58 young people in four schools, indicate a range of views. Three models of learning emerge and are used to examine young people's views of learning and what supports their learning. Young people provide examples of effective learning including activity in learning, learner responsibility and collaboration. Young people express a wish that their classroom experiences would include more of these elements. In all four schools, however, there does not seem to be any time for talk about learning. Implications for schools are discussed: first, in providing more effective learning experiences for young people; second, in the value of talking with young people about their learning.

Commentary on “Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease: Two decades of progress”

Dr. Khachaturian’s review provides a high-level overview of the progress that has been made, particularly in the last 20 years, in understanding the neurobiology and clinical presentation of Alzheimer’s disease. More importantly, it shows how well-directed basic biomedical and clinical research has changed the public perception of this disease and has improved the clinical management of affected patients. Alzheimer’s disease will continue to afflict many people for years to come, but the care that these patients receive will be more effective and more humane than would be the case without the work described by Dr. Khachaturian. Additionally, the knowledge gained over the last 2 decades provides a solid scientific foundation that will make further advances in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention much more likely. The events and developments surrounding the diagnosis of AD over the past 20 to 30 years highlight at least 3 issues that are important for an effective biomedical research enterprise, particularly a disease-focused enterprise. They are, first, an appropriate balance of individually driven, investigator-initiated research and larger, multicenter, institutionally guided research; second, the key role that government officials can make in guiding research efforts across many institutions toward common public health goals; and, third, recognition of the unique, complimentary, and essential contributions of government agencies, academic institutions, patient advocacy groups, and for-profit corporations in the biomedical enterprise.

Tabaquismo: un problema de salud pública en el Perú

Tobacco use is currently a public health problem which represents a global epidemic responsible of an enormous damage to people’s health. Worldwide, 1100 million people smoke, 4 million die every year because of diseases related to tobacco use, and it is estimated that the death toll will be as high as 10 million people for year 2030; 7 million of such deaths will correspond to developing countries. Tobacco use in Peru for the year 2000 indicates that 61% of men and 46% of women had smoked at least once in their lives; and that 40% of women older than 18 years old and 60% of men older than 18 years old had smoked in the past year. There is a well-established cause-effect and doseeffect relationship between smoking and cancer; malignancies where this association has been proven include the following sites: oral cavity, larynx, esophagus, respiratory tract, and urinary bladder. These malignancies have been notified in both active and passive smokers. In spite of all the evidence indicating that smoking affects health, tobacco companies increase their advertisements using misleading messages, associating tobacco use to glamour, pleasure, sports, and even health. The campaign against tobacco as a prioritary action within the world’s sanitary policy led to an international legal instrument which will limit worldwide spread of tobacco use, thorough a Global Agreement for Tobacco Control, which is a compromise from the signing countries in order to have an integrated legislation for tobacco control, and Peru is one of the first 40 signing countries.

Complexity through nonextensivity

The problem of defining and studying complexity of a time series has interested people for years. In the context of dynamical systems, Grassberger has suggested that a slow approach of the entropy to its extensive asymptotic limit is a sign of complexity. We investigate this idea further by information theoretic and statistical mechanics techniques and show that these arguments can be made precise, and that they generalize many previous approaches to complexity, in particular, unifying ideas from the physics literature with ideas from learning and coding theory; there are even connections of this statistical approach to algorithmic or Kolmogorov complexity. Moreover, a set of simple axioms similar to those used by Shannon in his development of information theory allows us to prove that the divergent part of the subextensive component of the entropy is a unique complexity measure. We classify time series by their complexities and demonstrate that beyond the “logarithmic” complexity classes widely anticipated in the literature there are qualitatively more complex, “power-law” classes which deserve more attention.

Meningococcal vaccination for adolescents? An economic evaluation in Victoria.

To undertake an economic evaluation of the options for vaccination of adolescents using meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine based on Victorian data. Cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses of three options for vaccination were undertaken for hypothetical populations aged 15-19 years. Baseline analyses assumed a single year of programme implementation and vaccine protection of 5 years. Sensitivity analyses of key variables were performed. Outcomes included the number of people vaccinated, cases averted, life years saved and disability adjusted life years (DALY) averted. Lost earnings avoided were included as a measure of vaccination benefit in cost-benefit analyses. Vaccination of people in Years 10-12 (secondary school) and first year university within a defined population with a high rate of disease was the most cost-effective option. Excluding direct cost savings and compared with no vaccination, this resulted in a discounted cost per DALY avoided of $17646 and benefits exceeding costs in discounted terms. The 'break-even' incidence rate for this option in the cost-benefit analysis was 11.9/100000. Economic evidence favours the use of vaccination within well-defined populations with a high rate of disease.

"Radio Imagination": Octavia Butler on the Poetics of Narrative Embodiment

I realize that I have been writing about people for years and I've never seen any of them. I have the kind of imagination that hears. I think of it as radio imagination. I like radio a lot, better than I do television; and, really, I have to go back and try to imagine what characters might look like because when I began writing at age twelve, I couldn't. I had to do was go back and sort of paint the characters in. would I like them to look like? (Octavia Butler, Interview with Mehaffy and Keating) African American science-fiction author Octavia Butler's work is thematically preoccupied with the potentiality of genetically altered bodies--hybrid multi-species and multi-ethnic subjectivities--for revising contemporary nationalist, racist, sexist, and homophobic attitudes. Yet a curiously polarized dualism has dominated the critical response to this thematics: while Donna Haraway and Amanda Boulter praise Butler's novels for the way that they consistently interrogate reproductive, linguistic, and nuclear politics a mythic field structured by late twentieth-century race and Charles Johnson dismissively cites Butler's fiction's tendency to plunge so deeply into fantasy that revelation of everyday life ... disappears (Haraway 179, emphasis added; Johnson 115-16). Is Butler's science fiction radically revisionary, as Haraway and Boulter propose, interacting with the anatomical idioms of, specifically, everyday contemporary representation? Or, as Johnson proposes, do its frequent otherworldly themes and characters, and subsequent classification as fantasy, render Butler's work socially disjunctive or, as even a more positive critique like Eric White's depicts it, race-blind science fiction? Our interview with Octavia Butler centers on several sets of questions having to do with the narrative embodiments inhabiting Butler's fiction: with the efficacy of science fiction as an ideology-bending genre; and with the possible connections between Butler's texts' unorthodox embodiments and her relative marginalization from the canons of US literature, both African American and mainstream. Butler's relative marginalization within canonical contexts resonates as well her work's peculiar position within the genre of science fiction. Recently, she has been the multiple winner of science fiction's highest awards, the Hugo and the Nebula; 1995 she was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Award, popularly called the young genius award. However, Butler's work has never, as she related our interview, fit in with conventional expectations for either canonical or science fiction literature. For many years, science fiction was written by, primarily, white men for white male adolescents. With very few exceptions, women of any color did not write science fiction, female characters were generally portrayed as sex objects, and men of color rarely wrote or appeared science fiction novels or stories. Thus, Butler's entry into this genre represents an unusual and significant breakthrough. Her novels introduce strong female protagonists, usually African American, and characters of many colors. In this way her work complicates traditional science fiction themes--global and local power struggles, for example--by inflecting such struggles with the implications of gender, ethnic, and class difference. As Butler explains another interview: It is a writer's duty to write about human differences, all human differences, and help make them acceptable. I think science fiction writers can do this if they want to. In my opinion, they are a lot more likely to have a social conscience than many other kinds of writers. (Harrison 33) Further, a 1995 autobiographical essay, Butler addresses the challenges directed to science fiction's efficacy, as a genre, for representing struggles specific to African American history. She responds to the question, most often asked by African American readers, What good is science fiction to Black people? …

Seroprevalence of toxoplasmosis in women with repeated abortions in Kashmir.

Toxoplasmosis caused by an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii is a very common infection among young adults in diVerent parts of the world. 1 Most of the toxoplasma infections...

Unemployment is an important risk factor for suicide in contemporary Sweden: an 11-year follow-up study of a cross-sectional sample of 37 789 people

Objective: To evaluate whether unemployment is a risk factor in suicide. Design: This study was designed as a follow-up study of a cross-sectional sample. People in years at risk were calculated from the date of the interview until death, or for those who survived, until the end of the follow-up period at 31 December 1993. Information on the dependent variable, was obtained from the Cause of Death Register by the Swedish personal registration number. The data were analysed by a proportional hazard model in order to estimate relative risks (RR) of suicide with 95% confidence intervals (CI). The background variables were added one by one to the model according to their casual order, namely, sex, age, marital status, form of tenure and health status. Setting: Sweden. Subjects: The present study is focused on a simple random cross-sectional sample of 37 789 people aged 20–64 y. The data is collected only once from each person. Main outcome measures: Suicide and undetermined deaths (E950-959 and E980-989 according to ICD-8 and ICD-9 1987). Results: The high relative risk for suicide for unemployment/sickness pension decreased from 3.86 to 1.93 (1.63–3.67) when adding the variables sex, age, marital status, form of tenure and health status one by one into the model. People living alone, form of tenure (renting an apartment) and those who reported poor health had high suicide risks in the final model varied between 1.66 and 3.39. Conclusions: Unemployment is an important social variable associated with increased suicide risk. Socio-economic position defined as form of tenure is important for social patterning in suicide. Self-rated poor health is also strongly related to suicide.

A critical review of the use of Rogers’ model within a special hospital: a single case study

This case study presents a problematic patient who has been resident in a special hospital for mentally handicapped people for years due to a gross sexual fantasy disorder, continuous self-injurious behaviour and an array of disordered conducts which resulted in negative nursing reports. The introduction of Rogers' model, with its abstract finer conceptualizations produced an alternative framework by which to assess the patient. This holistic interactive model generated a paradigmatic shift in the nursing perceptions, at a conceptual level, which was manifested in their reporting behaviours. The results appeared to indicate a sudden and dramatic change in the patient's behaviour. However, alternative interpretations proved the more convincing on closer analysis. The use of Rogers' framework proved difficult in its practical application due to its underpinning requirements for role adoption and negotiation, both being problematic in a secure environment.

Certification: Another Step for Geriatric Medicine

On April 20, 1988, throughout the United States and Canada, the first certification examination in geriatric medicine will be administered. Those who pass will be awarded a certificate recognition of added competence in geriatrics. This is a landmark event, for several diverse reasons. Geriatrics has emerged as a well-defined field of expertise. Since the now almost legendary Institute of Medicine committee, chaired by Paul Beeson, issued its report in 1979, 1 stating that there was clearly a distinct area of geriatric medicine that could be identified by its special body of knowledge and approach to patient care, there has been growing acceptance of that assertion. While at first many in academic medicine and community practice were skeptical, saying I have been taking care of old people for years already, there is an increasing understanding of better ways to evaluate patients, establish the goals of treatment, and achieve those goals. The

The Unquiet Mind.

Here is a splendid autobiography which is a delight to read. Sargant writes well and tells the remarkable story of his campaign with the help of two or three other psychiatrists to modernize the treatment of mental patients in British hospitals. As he says, in England they used to (as we in America still do), incarcerate insane people for years or a lifetime in a mental hospital. We confine them, in some instances for years without treatment, until they are beyond cure. Also, many of the old psychiatrists in England were like many psychiatrists in America today, who still believe in treating schizophrenics for years with psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, despite the fact that most of them get no better. Sargant tells how he had great difficulty getting many of his British colleagues to try methods of treatment which had been found useful in other parts of the civilized world.