Social Conditions Research Articles

Adolescents who attend public schools are more prone to experience behavioral and socio-emotional issues. The main reasons are that most parents send children to public schools when they experience resource constraints, poverty, social upheavals like parental death, divorce, or poor parental literacy levels, as well as unfavorable physical and social conditions at home. The study aim was to examine the prevalence of socio-emotional and behavioral difficulties and determinants among public school adolescents in Hawassa, Sidama Regional State, EthiopiaMethods:Quantitative approach with cross-sectional survey design was applied in the study. Two hundred twenty-one adolescents on the ages of 14 were selected through multilevel probability sampling techniques. Questionnaires were employed as data-gathering instruments and were analyzed through one sample dichotomous procedure and multiple regression. Ethics approval was obtained from University of South Africa. The prevalence rate of composite socio-emotional and behavioral difficulty was 43% (95% CI [36.60%, 49.50%]). Specifically, adolescents who attended classes in public schools tended to have higher prevalence rates of anxious-depressive problem 49.80% (95% CI [43.20%, 56.40%]); somatic complaints 45.30% (95% CI [38.70%, 51.90%); and hyperactivity-attention deficit disorder 44.30% (95% CI [37.70%, 50.95%). Moreover, the findings showed that positive interactions between guardian and adolescents accounted for R2 = 4.90% of the variation in socio-emotional and behavioral wellbeing where β = -.222, p = .001. Additionally, the combined impact of guardian-adolescent interaction and parental life status was R2 = 6.60% where R2 = 4.90% for guardian-adolescent interaction and R2 = 1.70% for parental life status, β = -.361, where β = -.230, p = .001 for positive guardian-adolescent interaction and β = -.131, p = .047 for parental life status. The need of socio-emotional and behavioral support policies and practices in schools and community settings for the youth under the pressure of deprived interaction with their guardians and adolescent who lost their parents.

The health effects of social conditions such as income, education, and employment have been demonstrated to be persistent and wide-reaching. In this study, we examine the effect of social determinants of health, those conditions in which people live, among individuals with serious mental illnesses (SMI) who are actively engaged with mental health services. Using a sample of 203 clients at a community mental health clinic, this study (1) explores the prevalence of three social determinants of health: food insecurity, homelessness, and neighborhood disorder, and (2) assesses their associations with five outcomes of health, including mental health (overall mental health and life satisfaction) and physical health (overall physical health, number of chronic health conditions, and perceived daily limits). Our findings demonstrated that food insecurity and neighborhood disorder were prevalent within our sample of people with SMI (64% and 93% respectively), while homelessness was not (7%). Furthermore, a series of OLS regressions showed food insecurity and neighborhood disorder to be associated with poor mental and physical health, while homelessness was not significantly associated with any outcomes. These findings suggest that individuals with SMI who are actively engaged in treatment have increased risk of food insecurity and poor neighborhood conditions, which in turn may negatively impact their overall health. We suggest that mental health service providers be aware of the influence of social conditions on their patients and that clinics may be uniquely positioned to identify and intervene for individuals at risk of experiences that may be detrimental to their recovery.

ABSTRACT Governments of all European countries vie for international sporting success, with elite athletes typically participating in national elite sport programmes coordinated by both public and private entities. Recent research sheds light on the precarious social conditions that many elite athletes endure, marked by low income and social protection gaps. This article examines athlete welfare within the context of social policy by assessing athletes’ access to income opportunities and social protection coverage. The case-oriented comparative study explores the legal frameworks and policies for athlete welfare in six European countries and inductively establishes five ideal-type governance models of athlete welfare. The classification of cases according to the models reflects the interplay between a country’s welfare regime and its national sport policy system in this specific policy subfield. The findings highlight common effects of the different models on athletes’ social conditions and livelihoods and emphasise employment status as a crucial factor for their welfare.

The issue of alcoholism among Italy’s subaltern classes began to attract attention particularly towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, a concern that was further accentuated by a rapid increase in the consumption of alcoholic beverages. It was primarily the socialist movement that initiated its own propaganda campaign aimed at alerting the working classes to the dangers associated with the abuse of alcoholic substances, also detailing the dire effects these substances had on children. Prior to the Great War, publications in the scientific and popular domains increasingly addressed this topic, as physicians, pedagogues, and educational authorities became actively involved in condemning the scourge of childhood alcoholism—a phenomenon that alarmingly afflicted a high percentage of the elementary school population and had severe repercussions on both the health of the students and their school attendance. However, the anti-alcoholism law enacted in 1913 did not implement substantial measures to address the issue, and in the aftermath of the World War I, the situation in certain instances was exacerbated by the challenging social and nutritional conditions of the period. Despite these circumstances, neither the post-war governments nor the newly established Fascist regime were able to act coherently and effectively in countering the phenomenon of childhood alcoholism.

Targeting NAAG metabolism restores cognition and synaptic integrity in EcoHIV-infected mice.

The world is facing a food crisis and the goal of zero hunger is facing increased uncertainty. Promoting the transition from traditional to modern agriculture is important for improving agricultural productivity. Human capital is the central factor in driving the transformation of agricultural modernization. Agricultural specialization, as an important symptom of agricultural modernization, is closely linked to the human capital of the rural workforce. And, previous studies on food security have focused mainly on the area of food crops planted. Changes in the cropping structure within food crops have been neglected, and exploration from the perspective of specialized operations can fill this gap. And, few studies have integrated human capital levels with the development of agricultural social services. Therefore, the study uses large-scale micro-survey data representative of China, adopts the HHI to measure agricultural specialization, and empirically analyzes the impact of human capital on agricultural specialization and the role played by the level of agricultural socialization services in this process based on models such as OLS. Studies have shown that the human capital level of Chinese farmers is low, and there is still much room for improvement in the degree of agricultural specialization. The regression results show that human capital contributes significantly to agricultural specialization. The mechanism test show that human capital can promote the specialization by enhancing the agricultural social services. The impact of human capital on specialized operations varies significantly across regions, business scales, land transfer practices, and social network conditions. Therefore, we need to strengthen investment in the level of rural human capital and accelerate the training of new professional farmers. Agricultural infrastructure should be increased and the agricultural service supply system should be improved. Effectively strengthening the coverage of agricultural services and improving the ability of agricultural socialized service organizations to link up with and lead farmers. In addition, land transfers and moderate-scale operations should be promoted, thereby accelerating the process of agricultural modernization.

ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained considerable attention in environmental assessment (EA) in recent years. While current research outlines opportunities and challenges for AI in EA, little is known about how a community of practitioners perceive AI in daily practice. This study explores Danish practitioners’ perceptions of opportunities and barriers and how these are shaping their motivation to apply AI to their daily EA practices. Drawing on the theoretical framework, ‘spaces for practice’, this research is based on 19 semi-structured interviews with consultants, authorities, and developers. The results show a strong motivation in the community to explore AI, driven by the potential to streamline repetitive tasks, improve report consistency, and facilitate knowledge sharing. Perceived barriers include limited expertise, lack of guidelines, data reliability concerns, and organizational constraints. Notably, there is widespread curiosity and cross-sector attention to how different actors engage with AI. Despite motivation, the study emphasizes that institutional support, shared standards, and open collaboration are essential to turn motivation into AI integration that is meaningful across actors in an EA community. The research argues that AI’s future in EA depends not only on technical advancements but also on broader social and structural conditions shaping its adoption in practice.

Abstract During the early twentieth century, Ivy League legal scholars developed a positivist jurisprudential method known as legal realism. Concerned with the law’s relationship to social conditions, legal realism methodologically triumphed in the elite legal academy and brought to a close what one historian has described as the “decline of natural law” in American jurisprudence. Catholic legal scholars in the United States responded to this decline by invoking the natural law philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and his nineteenth-century neoscholastic disciples, arguing that legal realism irredeemably divorced law and morality. In so doing, these scholars effectively inaugurated what the author terms the neoscholastic legal revival , a decades-long period of debate between Catholic natural lawyers and their positivist contemporaries about natural law’s foundational relationship to the US legal tradition. To explain the history and significance of this debate, the author uncovers the origins the neoscholastic legal revival in particular features of nineteenth-century European Catholic intellectual culture that were transmitted to the United States through the Society of Jesus, the world’s largest Catholic religious order. The author especially examines the lives and legacies of two American Jesuits, William J. Kenealy and Francis E. Lucey, who helped to lead the neoscholastic legal revival and who illustrate how recovering the revival’s forgotten history can enrich scholars’ understanding of this important period in US legal history.

ABSTRACT This study develops a novel composite indicator to assess adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in Italy from 1861 to 2015. A two-step procedure is implemented. First, we reconstruct historical macronutrient consumption using multiple imputation techniques informed by structural variables such as food prices, wages, inequality, and education. Second, we apply the Kogut and Singh index to compute the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Index (MDAI), which captures the deviation from the macronutrient share benchmarks prescribed by the Mediterranean Diet. Results show that adherence fluctuated considerably over time and was closely aligned with major historical and economic transformations. Industrialization and urbanization after World War II gave rise to a ‘golden age’ of adherence, whereas after the mid-1970s globalization and the diffusion of ultra-processed food determined a shift away from the Mediterranean Diet. These findings underscore the role of structural forces in shaping long-term dietary behaviour. By linking macroeconomic and social conditions to population-level nutrition, the study provides historical insight relevant to public health and sustainability agendas. The method proposed may be applied to other national contexts and supports policy efforts towards equitable and resilient food systems.

Nature conservation aims to prevent species loss, often driven by habitat fragmentation. While island biogeography theory informs many models, animals consider both habitat structure but also on the social conditions in a given area when selecting territories. Individuals assess resource availability, competition, and predation risk through social cues, yet the interaction between such information (attractive vs. repulsive) and the physical properties of the habitat remains poorly understood. We provide data on both, habitat features (forest parameters and fragmentation metrics) and bird populations along with a large-scale experiment manipulating social information sources (attractive: common forest bird species, repulsive: common forest predator, mixed: attractive and repulsive alternated), testing how different local conditions scenarios affect bird populations. These data can inform broader analyses of bird responses to environmental and social factors, supporting large-scale assessments of habitat selection and population trends. Comparing effect sizes across similar studies can reveal spatiotemporal trends in bird population responses to the interaction of social and environmental cues on larger scales.

BackgroundLatinas are one of the largest and fastest-growing female ethnic groups in the United States and have high levels of physical inactivity and sedentary behavior (SB), contributing to a disproportionate burden of chronic health conditions. An ecological momentary assessment (EMA) involves the use of smartphone-based data collected in real time to assess health behaviors and outcomes.ObjectiveWe examined the feasibility, validity, and acceptability of an EMA protocol assessing physical activity (PA) and SB in Latina adults.MethodsFor 7 days, 67 Latinas (average age 39 years, SD = 13.6; n=37, 55.2% earning less than US $50,000/year; n=53, 79.1% foreign-born; and n=49, 73.1% of Mexican or Mexican American origin) completed a signal-contingent EMA protocol with 3 prompts per day and wore an ActiGraph GT3X accelerometer to measure levels of PA and SB. EMA prompts inquired about current behavior, feelings, beliefs, social conditions, and contexts.ResultsLatinas completed 69.7% (892/1279) of EMA prompts. They were more likely to respond to EMA prompts when engaged in more SB (odds ratio [OR] 1.04, 95% CI 1.01-1.06) and less light-intensity PA (OR 0.97, 95% CI 0.94-0.99) in the 30 minutes around the prompt. Accelerometer data validated self-reported occasions of PA and SB via EMA. The majority of participants (>70%) were satisfied with the protocol and expressed interest in participating in future studies.ConclusionsEMA is a feasible, valid, and acceptable methodology for capturing movement behaviors among Latinas, which can provide insights into the antecedents and consequences of these behaviors in their daily lives.

This study investigates the adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies—such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek—and their impact on employee well-being within university settings. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the research explores how perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment influence the adoption of AI tools by administrative staff. A quantitative survey was conducted with 164 university employees using a structured questionnaire. The findings revealed that perceived enjoyment is the only statistically significant predictor of AI adoption, while perceived usefulness and ease of use did not show significant effects. Furthermore, the adoption of generative AI tools was positively associated with employee happiness and negatively associated with stress levels. These results highlight the importance of intrinsic motivation and user experience in driving technology acceptance, especially in voluntary-use contexts. The study provides practical insights for university administrators seeking to enhance both AI adoption and employee well-being. The study recommends examining external factors such as organizational support, peer influence, and corporate culture to uncover how social and environmental conditions affect AI adoption. Equally important is addressing the potential downsides of AI, including user anxiety, job insecurity, and ethical concerns.

In this paper, we propose that physical literacy should be conceptualized in relation to, and as interconnected with, health literacy rather than as a distinct and separate form of literacy, as is often presented. Furthermore, we contend that this approach should be more centrally integrated into health interventions that target health in general, as well as specific aspects aimed at determinants of health, such as physical activity. Rather than focusing on isolated actions or behaviours, a literacy-centred model empowers individuals with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed for sustained engagement in healthy practices. Integrating these literacies within intervention models bridges the gap between knowing and doing. This offers a holistic pathway to promoting lifelong relationships and responsibility for health and improving population health outcomes. We also want to draw attention to the importance of aiming to increase literacy at higher levels, as it is a variable that influences the relationship between health and poor social and economic conditions. However, it is important to engage in the difference between using literacies to displace responsibility on the individual and engaging in literacies as a component in interventions as an approach to sustainable action.

This paper aims to explore the hermeneutics proposed by Fatima Mernissi in reading a hadith, especially those related to the hadith of female leadership. In this case, the hadith narrated by Abu Bakrah's companion stated that "a people who entrust their affairs to women will not be successful." This research is a qualitative research with a descriptive analytical nature, which focuses on analyzing the sanad and matan and revealing how the socio-historical context of a hadith is narrated. The results of this study indicate that the hermeneutic concept proposed by Fatima Mernissi is able to identify bias in the narration of a hadith. In this case, the hadith narrated by Abu Bakra is considered weak for several reasons, such as the incompleteness of Abu Bakra's genealogy, the influence of the social conditions of the hadith, and the lack of credibility of the narrator. Therefore, the hermeneutic approach proposed by Fatima Mernissi provides a reinterpretation of the hadiths so that they are in line with the principle of justice.

A BSTRACT Urogenital tuberculosis (TB) is uncommon in children. The kidney is the most common organ involved. With the spread of the disease along the urinary system, the bladder is affected very late in the disease. Considering the long latency period and advances in diagnosis and treatment, bladder involvement has rarely been reported in children over the past 2 decades. We present the management of two children with urogenital TB, including bladder involvement around the COVID-19 pandemic time. We would also like to emphasize the role played by the environmental and social conditions in the outcome and quality of life in such chronic disease conditions.

Abstract This paper examines the heuristic of three educational scenarios for the future formulated by Michael F. D. Young and Johan Muller through Herbert Marcuse’s Freudian civilization theory. The original heuristics outlines two scenarios characterizing existing educational trends. They represent a dichotomy between a classical modern knowledge-centered and a late modern learner-centered schoolwork. The third scenario is an attempt to envisage future education that can overcome this dichotomy by turning the focus back toward knowledge but by emphasizing its liberatory potential for the learners. However, as Young has argued, focusing solely on knowledge is insufficient; the conditions for teaching and studying knowledge are equally important. Placing the three scenarios within Marcuse’s interpretation of Freud’s theory of civilization allows for an exploration of the social psychological conditions for learning within these scenarios. In a Marcusean reading, the first scenario appears as schooling based on direct repression, the second scenario as a shift to indirect repression, and the third as schooling that reduces unnecessary repression generated by an advanced capitalist society. A central concept in this paper is the performance principle, which Marcuse uses to describe human behavior in a society characterized by intensifying competition. This paper analyzes how the different forms of repression limit the potential liberatory powers of knowledge. The third scenario, characterized by the principle of hopeful cynicism, is schooling that is distanced from the prevailing society operating under the performance principle, which seems to be unsustainable not only from an ecological but also from a psychological point of view.

Background: Our hospital is the only acute care facility in the Nishu district (population ~64,000), enabling comprehensive capture of heart failure (HF) hospitalizations. Idiopathic cardiomyopathy is a known HF cause, but its clinical course after optimal medical therapy (OMT) in working-age adults remains poorly documented. Social isolation and adverse work conditions are increasingly linked to cardiovascular risk, yet real-world data are limited. We analyzed idiopathic cardiomyopathy in hospitalized working-age HF patients after OMT. Methods: Patients aged 40–65 hospitalized for new-onset HF between January 1998 and June 2024 were retrospectively enrolled. Secondary cardiomyopathies and non-residents were excluded. HF classification and cardiac function were assessed during outpatient follow-up starting January 2025. Results: Fifty-six patients met the criteria. Of these, 41 (73.2%) were classified as HF with improved ejection fraction (HFimpEF), 7 (12.5%) as HFrEF, 3 each (5.4%) as HFpEF and HFmrEF. In the HFimpEF group, 90.2% were male, 68.3% unmarried, and 80.5% had adverse social backgrounds (e.g., harsh work conditions, unemployment, alcohol dependence, psychiatric illness). Overall, 92.7% had at least one social vulnerability. Hypertension, diabetes, and obesity were present in 21, 22, and 24 patients, respectively. Six HFimpEF patients had recurrence; all were unmarried with social adversity, and 3 were non-adherent to therapy. In the HFrEF group, only 3 had social risks (P = 0.0045), while 4 were poorly adherent. Four patients were diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM); none had major social issues, yet their disease progressed despite OMT. Conclusion: Most idiopathic cardiomyopathy cases in this working-age group presented as HFimpEF and were seen in socially vulnerable men. Although prognosis was generally good with OMT, social adversity appeared to contribute significantly to HF onset. In contrast, DCM patients lacked social risk but had worse outcomes, suggesting different pathophysiological mechanisms. Social factors should be addressed in HF prevention and care strategies.

BackgroundAssociations between adverse social conditions and poor health are well documented – also in perinatal care. However, research into the actual ramifications of such disparities for perinatal patient safety remains inconclusive. Therefore, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the risk and burden of patient harm to disadvantaged people, we aim to systematically review current evidence on social determinants of health (SDoH) and perinatal patient safety.ObjectiveThis study protocol outlines definitions, methods, and procedures for a systematic literature review with meta-analysis aiming to synthesise the research base on the associations between SDoH and patient safety in perinatal care.MethodsAdhering to PRISMA guidelines, a literature search will be conducted for a systematic review in MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus database, CINAHL (EBSCO), and Embase (Elsevier) for quantitative studies reporting associations between SDoH and patient safety measures in perinatal care. Data extraction will include study design, population, SDoH variables, outcome measures, effect sizes, and control variables. If deemed feasible after assessment of heterogeneity, narrative synthesis of findings will be complemented by conducting meta-analyses of pooled effect sizes. Methodological quality of included studies will be assessed using JBI Critical Appraisal Tools, and the certainty of evidence using the GRADE tool. This protocol is registered on PROSPERO (CRD420251090149) and OSF (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UP3JS).DiscussionThe review aligns well with current global efforts to promote safe perinatal care and presents an innovative, comprehensive approach for assessing the associations between SDoH and patient safety. The review will provide the first systematic synthesis of current evidence of SDoH and patient safety in perinatal care. Anticipated limitations include heterogeneity of study designs, measures, and outcomes, with expected predominance of observational studies, which may limit causal inferences. However, this review will provide a valuable foundation for further empirical research and interventions to enhance equitable and safe perinatal care.

Associations between adverse social conditions and poor health are well documented - also in perinatal care. However, research into the actual ramifications of such disparities for perinatal patient safety remains inconclusive. Therefore, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the risk and burden of patient harm to disadvantaged people, we aim to systematically review current evidence on social determinants of health (SDoH) and perinatal patient safety. This study protocol outlines definitions, methods, and procedures for a systematic literature review with meta-analysis aiming to synthesise the research base on the associations between SDoH and patient safety in perinatal care. Adhering to PRISMA guidelines, a literature search will be conducted for a systematic review in MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus database, CINAHL (EBSCO), and Embase (Elsevier) for quantitative studies reporting associations between SDoH and patient safety measures in perinatal care. Data extraction will include study design, population, SDoH variables, outcome measures, effect sizes, and control variables. If deemed feasible after assessment of heterogeneity, narrative synthesis of findings will be complemented by conducting meta-analyses of pooled effect sizes. Methodological quality of included studies will be assessed using JBI Critical Appraisal Tools, and the certainty of evidence using the GRADE tool. This protocol is registered on PROSPERO (CRD420251090149) and OSF (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UP3JS). The review aligns well with current global efforts to promote safe perinatal care and presents an innovative, comprehensive approach for assessing the associations between SDoH and patient safety. The review will provide the first systematic synthesis of current evidence of SDoH and patient safety in perinatal care. Anticipated limitations include heterogeneity of study designs, measures, and outcomes, with expected predominance of observational studies, which may limit causal inferences. However, this review will provide a valuable foundation for further empirical research and interventions to enhance equitable and safe perinatal care.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs Urban Relocation program relocated thousands of Native Americans to Chicago and other cities from the early 1950s through the early 1970s. Despite BIA claims of social and economic progress, Native people faced exploitative social, political, and material conditions in the city. This article examines how the BIA envisioned and managed relocation in Chicago and how Native people challenged the BIA’s expectations and desires. Urban sociological and urban historical literature on the postwar U.S. is not well positioned to answer these questions, given its minimal engagement with histories of U.S. settler colonialism and urban Indigenous experiences. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives on settler colonial urbanisms and urban indigeneity, I uncover how the BIA imagined Chicago as a modern city disconnected from indigeneity, and how relocated Native people formed the Chicago Indian Village movement to fight for land back while building space and community in resistance to dispossession.