Presence Of Older Children Research Articles

Women on the margins of political power. Drivers of the gendered assessment of political leadership in Romania

ABSTRACT This paper explores the gendered assessment of political leadership in Romania. Using recent survey data obtained from a nationally representative sample, we found that men and women are unevenly impacted by various individual, household, and socio-cultural variables that have an unequal influence on their support for the cultural belief that men make better political leaders than women do. Our findings suggest that women’s stereotypical view of male leadership is eroded mostly by education, the presence of older children in the household, and upholding a feminist agenda. For men, only the category of those with tertiary education has a lower likelihood to believe in this stereotype, compared with the reference category of men with secondary education or below. In addition, men are less inclined to support this cultural belief when they choose reading as first leisure preference as compared to men privileging other leisure activities, while for women this relationship has not been identified. A higher income of respondents as compared to their spouses’/partners’ income reinforces the cultural stereotype of men as natural political leaders among male respondents, while for women a positive association is found in relationship with their partners undertaking masculine activities such as fixing things around the house.

Bronchiolitis hospitalizations in rural New England: clues to disease prevention.

Background:An improved understanding of the clinico-epidemiology of bronchiolitis hospitalizations, a clinical surrogate of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease, is critical to inform public health strategies for mitigating the in-patient burden of bronchiolitis in early life.Methods:A retrospective chart review was conducted of all bronchiolitis first admissions (N = 295) to the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, CHaD, between 1 November 2010 and 31 October 2017 using the relevant International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-9 and ICD-10 codes for this illness. ed data included laboratory confirmation of RSV infection, severity of illness, duration of hospitalization, age at admission in days, weight at admission, prematurity, siblings, and relevant medical pre-existing conditions.Results:Admissions for bronchiolitis were strongly associated with age of the child, the calendar month of an infant’s birth, and the presence of older children in the family. Medical risk factors associated with admission included premature birth and underlying cardiopulmonary disease.Conclusion:The very early age of hospitalization emphasizes the high penetration of RSV in the community, by implication the limited protection afforded by maternal antibody, and the complexity of protecting infants from this infection.Plain Language SummaryAlthough risks for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)/bronchiolitis hospitalization are well described, few studies have examined, with precision, the age-related frequency and severity of RSV/bronchiolitis. We also explore the implications of RSV clinico-epidemiology for our understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease and development of optimal approaches to prevention.

Incidence of childhood injuries and modifiable household risk factors in rural Ghana: a multistage, cluster-randomised, population-based, household survey

ObjectiveWe aimed to describe the incidence of childhood household injuries and prevalence of modifiable household risk factors in rural Ghana to inform prevention initiatives.Setting357 randomly selected households in rural Ghana.ParticipantsCaregivers...

Diet during pregnancy: Influence of social characteristics and migration in the ELFE cohort.

Better adherence to dietary guidelines during pregnancy is supposed to result in healthier perinatal outcomes. We aim to characterize the diets of pregnant women by hypothesis‐driven and exploratory approaches and describe potential social determinants. Analyses included 12 048 mothers from the French nationwide ELFE birth cohort. Dietary intake over the last three months of the pregnancy was assessed by a food frequency questionnaire. Two hypothesis‐driven scores (the Diet Quality score, based on benchmarks derived from the National Health and Nutrition Program Guidelines, and the PANDiet score, based on nutrient intake) were calculated. Exploratory dietary patterns were also identified by principal component analysis. Multiple linear regressions were used to assess associations of maternal social characteristics with dietary patterns, accounting for the possible effect modification by their migration status. Five dietary patterns were identified: the Western, Balanced, Bread and toppings, Processed products, and Milk and breakfast cereals. Younger maternal age, single motherhood, unemployment and the presence of older children in the household were related to a suboptimal diet during pregnancy. The less acculturated the women were, the healthier and less processed their diets were, independent of their socio‐economic position. Several social determinants of the quality of women's diets were however moderated by their migration status. These findings shed light on the relations between indicators of social vulnerability, such as single motherhood and unemployment, and poorer diet quality. Given the reduced diet quality that accompanies the acculturation process, it is of paramount importance to identify the specific factors or obstacles that affect migrant women in maintaining their diet quality advantage over the majority population.

Characterization of Infant Feeding Practices and Related-Family Characteristics in the French Nationwide ELFE Birth Cohort.

Family characteristics such as education level or income are related to infant feeding practices. This study aimed to characterize infant feeding practices and investigate their associations with family characteristics. Analyses were performed with data from a French nationwide cohort, Etude Longitudinale Française depuis l’Enfance (ELFE). Feeding practices were characterized by two methods, a principal component analysis and a hierarchical ascendant classification (n = 8922). This characterization was conducted in three steps: considering firstly only introduction of main food groups, then also food pieces and finally adding the type of complementary food. The associations between family characteristics and the infant feeding patterns or clusters were tested by linear or multinomial regressions (n = 7556). Besides breastfeeding duration and age of first introduction of complementary foods, it appeared also important to consider specific food groups such as sweetened beverages and cow’s milk, and the introduction of food pieces, to describe feeding practices. Recommended feeding practices (longer breastfeeding, complementary food in the right period) were related to higher maternal age and education level, so was migration status, the presence of older children, low income or the mothers’ attendance to pre-birth preparation classes. The interrelations between feeding practices and family characteristics must be considered when examining the influence of feeding practices on child’s health.

Changes in quality of life and sleep across the perinatal period in women with mood disorders.

The perinatal period represents a time of significant life changes associated with increases in sleep difficulties, depression, and potentially impaired quality of life (QoL). Associations between QoL and sleep among women with perinatal depression are poorly understood, and changes in QoL across the perinatal period have received little attention. Participants were the treatment-as-usual group (n = 23) from a clinical trial testing an intervention for perinatal mood disorders. They completed the WHOQOL-Bref, had depression assessed with the HAM-D-17, and wore wrist actigraphs to estimate sleep for 1week during third trimester and at 6weeks postpartum. Higher education level was associated with better environmental QoL during pregnancy (p = .044) and presence of older children was associated with worse social QoL postpartum (p = .045). Psychological health QoL worsened (p = .014) across the perinatal period. Total sleep time (p = .001) and sleep efficiency (p = .008) decreased from third trimester to postpartum week 6, but sleep measures were not associated with QoL at either time point. Depressive symptoms decreased from pregnancy to postpartum week 6 and were inversely associated with postpartum physical and social QoL (p = .031 and .048). Factors contributing to self-rated QoL are variable across multiple domains during the perinatal period. QoL among our participants was lower than population norms. In our sample of women with depression and/or anxiety, QoL was related to postpartum depressive symptoms, but not to objectively measured sleep quality, quantity, or timing. Links between QoL and sleep may be inherently complex in perinatal women.

Health professionals as parents are not immune to vaccine hesitancy – an Italian national survey

Abstract Vaccine hesitancy is a growing concern in many European countries, including Italy, as instanced by alarming results from Eurobarometer 488 dated April 2019. In the view of the current magnitude of the phenomenon, our aim was to investigate its determinants among parents, with a specific view on those working as health professional. In 2017, parents of children aged 3-84 months were recruited online. Based on self-reported vaccine status and timeliness of vaccinations, parents were classified as pro-, hesitant, or anti-vaccine. The association between baseline characteristics and hesitancy was investigated with logistic regression adjusting for child’s and parents’ age, prematurity, presence of older children, previous vaccine adverse reaction in the child at issue, parents’ nationality, education and employment status, health profession of at least one parent, single parenting, vegetarian lifestyle and perceived economic security. A total of 3,865 questionnaires were collected (64% pro-, 32% hesitant, 4% anti-vaccine). Families with at least one health professional as parent were 20% of the sample. Vegetarian lifestyle (aOR 3.0; 95%CI 2.20-4.08), unsatisfactory (aOR 1.67 95%CI 1.08-2.58) and partially satisfactory perceived economic security (aOR 1.40; 95%CI 1.09-1.78) and previous vaccine adverse reactions (aOR 1.25; 95%CI 1.05-1.48) were associated with vaccine hesitancy, while having older children resulted as a protective factor (aOR 0.82; 95%CI 0.69-0.98). No significant association was found with other abovementioned variables, including parent employed as health professional (aOR 0.99; 95%CI 0.81-1.22). Vaccine hesitancy seems to be part of a lifestyle choice and, to a smaller extent, associated with previous vaccine adverse reactions and lower socioeconomic status. Interestingly, parents’ level of education and employment in healthcare do not affect vaccine acceptance. The latter poses a challenge, given their crucial role in promoting vaccination. Key messages Hesitancy is associated with lifestyle choices, experience of adverse reactions and socioeconomic status, while education and employment as health professional seem not to be relevant. Whether they are health professionals or not, parents’ attitude towards their child’s vaccinations is the same.

Assessment of Indoor Air Pollution in Homes with Infants

Infants spend most of their indoor time at home; however, residential air quality is poorly understood. We investigated the air quality of infants’ homes in the New England area of the U.S. Participants (N = 53) were parents of infants (0–6 months) who completed telephone surveys to identify potential pollutant sources in their residence. Carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤0.5 µm (PM0.5), and total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) were measured in 10 homes over 4–7 days, and levels were compared with health-based guidelines. Pollutant levels varied substantially across homes and within homes with overall levels for some homes up to 20 times higher than for other homes. Average levels were 0.85 ppm, 663.2 ppm, 18.7 µg/m3, and 1626 µg/m3 for CO, CO2, PM0.5, and TVOCs, respectively. CO2, TVOCs, and PM0.5 levels exceeded health-based indoor air quality guidelines. Survey results suggest that nursery renovations and related potential pollutant sources may be associated with differences in urbanicity, income, and presence of older children with respiratory ailments, which could potentially confound health studies. While there are no standards for indoor residential air quality, our findings suggest that additional research is needed to assess indoor pollution exposure for infants, which may be a vulnerable population.

Environmental degradation and the demand for children: searching for the vicious circle in Pakistan

If children contribute to the household by using their time to collect natural resources from common property sources—such as collecting firewood, fetching water, collecting fodder, grazing animals—then local depletion of these resources could potentially increase the demand for children. This feedback could create a dynamically unstable ‘vicious circle’ between population growth and resource depletion. We empirically examine several elements of such a ‘vicious circle’ hypothesis using data from Pakistan with unusually rich detail on both child time use and firewood collection activities. We find that collection activities do absorb a substantial part of household resources; that children's tasks are relatively devoted to collection activities; that child time is a significant, but not a dominant, portion of collection activities; and the presence of older children in the household reduces the time that women devote to household tasks. Exploratory multivariate regressions show a partial correlation between indicators of firewood scarcity and fertility—a relationship that varies across regions of Pakistan.

Prenatal attachment in future parents of twins

The present study aims at contributing to a better understanding of prenatal attachment in parents expecting twins. In particular, the relationship between prenatal attachment (measured with the Questionnaire for Antenatal Emotional Attachment) and three other psychosocial factors—the parents' psychosocial well-being and the quality of the marital relationship (respectively assessed with the General Health Questionnaire and the Relational Interactional Satisfaction Scale) and the presence of older children in the family—was investigated in both future mothers and fathers at 27 weeks of gestation. Multiple regression analysis revealed no significant relationship between the intensity of prenatal attachment and either of the three variables. For the mothers, a significant positive relationship was found between the quality of attachment on the one hand and psychosocial well-being and quality of the marital relationship on the other hand. For the fathers, the quality of attachment was only significantly predicted by the quality of the marital relationship. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Prenatal attachment in future parents of twins

The present study aims at contributing to a better understanding of prenatal attachment in parents expecting twins. In particular, the relationship between prenatal attachment (measured with the Questionnaire for Antenatal Emotional Attachment) and three other psychosocial factors—the parents' psychosocial well-being and the quality of the marital relationship (respectively assessed with the General Health Questionnaire and the Relational Interactional Satisfaction Scale) and the presence of older children in the family—was investigated in both future mothers and fathers at 27 weeks of gestation. Multiple regression analysis revealed no significant relationship between the intensity of prenatal attachment and either of the three variables. For the mothers, a significant positive relationship was found between the quality of attachment on the one hand and psychosocial well-being and quality of the marital relationship on the other hand. For the fathers, the quality of attachment was only significantly predicted by the quality of the marital relationship. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.