White American Males Research Articles

Changes in Substance Use Diagnoses in the Great Plains during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

As drug overdose mortality rises in the United States, healthcare visits present critical opportunities to mitigate this trend. This study examines changes in healthcare visits for substance use disorders (SUDs) and remission prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Great Plains, with a focus on identifying the characteristics of those served. Data were analyzed from 109,671 patient visits (mode = one visit per patient), encompassing diverse demographics, including sex, age, race, ethnicity, and geographic location. Visits analyzed included those for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), Opioid Use Disorder (OUD), or Stimulant Use Disorder (StUD) and those in remission of these disorders between March 2019 and March 2021. Patient demographic information and geographic factors, like rurality and Medicaid expansion status, were considered, and logistic regression was utilized. Visits were primarily by White (70.83%) and Native American (21.39%) patients, non-Hispanic (91.70%) patients, and males (54.16%). Various demographic, geographic, and temporal trends were observed. Findings indicated that males were more likely to receive an AUD diagnosis, while females were more likely to receive an OUD or StUD diagnosis. Metropolitan-residing patients were more likely to receive an AUD diagnosis, while non-metropolitan patients were more likely to receive an OUD diagnosis. Remission odds increased for StUD during the pandemic but decreased for AUD and OUD. These findings illuminate the demographic and geographic patterns of SUD-related healthcare visits, suggesting critical touchpoints for intervention. The results emphasize the urgent need for targeted healthcare strategies, especially in rural and underserved areas, to address persistent health disparities.

Abstract B138: Examining factors that contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in liver cancer within an EHR-based epidemiologic cohort linked to cancer registries

Abstract Background: Racial and ethnic disparities in HCC risk have been documented, but disparities across detailed racial and ethnic groups and the relative contribution of these factors to HCC risk across those groups has not been assessed. We assembled a pooled, EHR-based cohort linked to cancer registry data to study disparities in HCC risk among detailed racial and ethnic groups and to examine the relative contribution of known and putative HCC risk factors to disparities in risk. Methods: Adults with at least one in-person encounter in 2000-2017 within three healthcare systems, San Francisco Health Network, Sutter Health Northern California, and Kaiser Permanente Hawai’i, were linked to their respective population-based state cancer registries for data on incident HCC. We used EHR data to define 17 detailed racial and ethnic groups and other sociodemographic and clinical factors. We used Cox proportional hazards regression with age as the timescale to examine racial/ethnic disparities in HCC risk with sex-specific models adjusted for length of active follow-up and with underlying stratification by site, birth cohort, baseline year and number of encounters. We calculated sex-specific hazards and population attributable fractions (PAFs) of HCC risk factors among racial/ethnic groups (e.g., smoking, hepatitis infections, metabolic syndrome). Results: The pooled cohort contained data on 4,249,671 adults followed a median of 6.8 years; 55% were female, and 2,916 had incident HCC. Compared to non-Hispanic White males, Vietnamese American males had greater risk of HCC (HR: 7.42; 95% CI: 4.25, 12.96) as did American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Chinese American, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander males, and those of multiple races or ethnicities. Among females, every group except for American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian Indian American, and Pacific Islander females had greater risk of HCC compared to the non-Hispanic White group; HRs ranged from 1.68 (1.01, 2.78) among Filipino to 6.38 (2.79, 14.55) among Vietnamese American females. Risk of HCC according to clinical risk factors was similar for males and females; however, the PAF of HCC for alcohol disorders was much higher for females (43%) than males (2%). Analyses by racial/ethnic group are ongoing, but variation in factor-specific risk of HCC was observed in preliminary analyses; for example, only non-Hispanic White and Asian American males had greater risk of HCC with metabolic-associated fatty liver disease and ever-smoking. Conclusions: Analysis of a large EHR-based cohort linked with cancer registry data yields additional information on cancer disparities across detailed racial and ethnic groups and may benefit efforts to identify targets for intervention. Our results indicate disparities in HCC risk across detailed racial and ethnic groups traditionally aggregated into larger groups (e.g., Asian American/Pacific Islander). Variation in the PAF of HCC for known risk factors suggest that the most impactful prevention efforts may require tailoring to the target populations. Citation Format: Mindy C. DeRouen, Alison J. Canchola, Janet Chu, Aly Cortella, Pushkar Inamdar, Sixiang Nie, Mai Vu, Ma Somsouk, Michele Tana, Caroline A. Thompson, Scarlett L. Gomez, Hashem El-Serag, Mi-Ok Kim, Mark Segal, Chanda Ho, Yihe G. Daida, Su-Ying Liang, Salma Shariff-Marco. Examining factors that contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in liver cancer within an EHR-based epidemiologic cohort linked to cancer registries [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 16th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2023 Sep 29-Oct 2;Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2023;32(12 Suppl):Abstract nr B138.

Relationship between Body Dissatisfaction and Body Size of Males in Their Twenties

Background/Objectives: This research aims to identify any relationships between body dissatisfaction and body size among males in their twenties.
 Methods: Participants were recruited for a year from August 2015 to July 2016. Participants were 100 males, of which 50 were white American males and 50 were Korean males in North Carolina, United States of America, who are aged between 20 and 29 years old. TC2-19 3D body scanner was used to measure the participant’s body size. A descriptive analysis of data for demographics and body satisfaction was conducted. The data were analyzed by correlation techniques and regression analyses with SPSS 24 for Windows.
 Results: The results of this research indicate that the participants who have lower BMI, WHR, WCR, or WSR tend to perceive higher evaluations of their appearance, pay more attention to their appearance and are more satisfied with their body areas. Participants who have higher BMI or WHR tend to be more anxious about being overweight. Participants who have lower weight, lower shoulder-to-shoulder and lower girth values tend to show higher AE, AO, and BAS. Participants who have a higher shoulder-to-shoulder, higher upper arm girth, higher chest girth and higher waist tend to have more preoccupation about being overweight.
 Conclusion/Implications: The results of this research can help fashion businesses consider targeting males’ body dissatisfaction in the design of their products by understanding the relationship between body dissatisfaction and body size of targeting males.

Abstract 13736: Trends and Disparities in Mortality Rates From Acute Myocardial Infarction in United States Cancer Patients

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease and cancer are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is elevated in cancer patients, which may be due to shared risk factors as well as the cardiotoxicity of oncologic therapies. This study aims to estimate the mortality burden from AMI in the United States cancer population and identify demographics of affected populations. Methods: Data were obtained from the multiple causes of death data files from CDC WONDER from 1999-2019. All deaths with ICD 10 code I21 for “acute myocardial infarction” listed as the underlying cause of death and ICD-10 codes C00-C97 for “malignant neoplasms” listed as a contributing cause of death were included. Age-adjusted mortality rates (AAMR) were calculated based on the 2000 United States standard population. Results: There were 98,414 deaths from AMI with underlying cancer between 1999 to 2019, comprising 33.7% of all AMI deaths, with AAMR of 1.41 deaths/100,000 (95% CI 1.40-1.42). Mortality rates were higher in men (2.18/100,000; 95% CI 2.16-2.20) than women (0.90/100,000; 95% CI 0.89-0.91); relative risk 2.42. Among racial groups, African Americans had the highest mortality rate 1.66/100,000 (95% CI 1.62-1.69). In overall demographics, African American males have the highest mortality rate, 2.66 deaths/100,000 (95% CI 2.59-2.73), followed by White American males (2.19 deaths/100,000 (95% CI 2.17-2.20). African American women had higher mortality rates than women of any other racial group (1.09 deaths/100,000 95% CI 1.06-1.13) (Figure). Conclusions: Cancer patients make up a significant portion of all deaths from AMI. Africans Americans and males are disproportionately affected, and efforts should be made to elucidate the pathophysiologic and socioeconomic explanations for these disparities.

Images of Chinese American women on Screen: Femme Fatale and Chinese Swordswoman as the Oriental drug for Western viewers

Representation in the U.S. film industry since the early twentieth century has invariably presented Asian women as sexualized and vampish. The figure of the Asian American femme fatale signifies a particular deathly seduction. She attracts with her soft, unthreatening and servile femininity while concealing her hard, dangerous, and domineering nature. Early images, particularly the performances of Anna May Wong, continue to this day to haunt the production and reception of Asian women on screens, such as in the star-making roles of Nancy Kwan in the 1960s and Lucy Liu in the present. If Asian/ American women’s subjection is fundamentally dependent on sex, creating the parameters for Asian women’s presences in popular film and in history, racialized sexuality on screen must then be sites where bondage of representation is itself re-imagined, recast and criticized at the very moment of performance… This gender imbalance not only sustains the construction of Asian American women as more desirable candidates to be assimilated when paired with White men but also reinforces the “ownership” of White American males over the bodies and spirits of Asian/American women by negating the potential physical and sexual threat imposed by Asian/American men…

Emotions in Intergroup Contact: Incidental and Integral Emotions' Effects on Interethnic Bias Are Moderated by Emotion Applicability and Subjective Agency.

This research draws from three distinct lines of research on the link between emotions and intergroup bias as springboard to integrative, new hypotheses. Past research suggests that emotions extrinsic to the outgroup (or “incidental”), and intrinsic to the outgroup (or “integral”), produce valence-congruent effects on intergroup bias when relevant or “applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral anger and ethnic outgroups). These emotions produce valence incongruent effects when irrelevant or “non-applicable” to the outgroup (e.g., incidental/integral sadness and happiness, and ethnic outgroups). Internally valid and ecologically sound tests of these contrasting effects are missing; hence we examined them experimentally in meaningful settings of interethnic contact. To this end, we hybridized established research paradigms in mood and intergroup contact research; this approach enabled us to use same materials and induction methods to instigate incidental and integral emotions in a single research design. In Experiment 1, White Australian students (N = 93) in in vivo real face-to-face contact with an ethnic tutor in their classroom displayed less interethnic bias when incidentally sad (vs. happy) or integrally happy (vs. sad). In Experiment 2, White American males' (N = 492) anti-Arab bias displayed divergent effects under incidental vs. integral (non-applicable) sadness/happiness and similar effects under incidental vs. integral (applicable) anger. The role of perceptions of agency in the emotion-inducing situation is also explored, tested, and explained drawing from mainstream emotion theory. As expected, integral and incidental applicable emotions caused valence congruent effects, at the opposite sides of the subjective agency spectrum, by encouraging the generalization of dislike from the outgroup contact partner to the outgroup as a whole. On the other hand, incidental-non-applicable emotions caused valence-incongruent effects on bias, under high agency conditions, by encouraging (non-partner-centered) heuristic processing. Because of the improved methodology, these effects can be regarded as genuine and not the byproduct of methodological artifacts. This theory-driven and empirically sound analysis of the interplay between emotion source, emotion applicability and subjective agency in intergroup contact can increase the precision of emotion-based bias reduction strategies by deepening understanding of the emotion conditions that lead to intergroup bias attenuation vs. exacerbation.

Abstract D129: The salivary proteome of African American and white American males diagnosed with laryngeal cancer

Abstract Early detection of head and neck cancers (HNCa) correlate with improved outcomes. Salivary proteins may potentially be used for effective screening, which may result in increased survival time. This project aims to find potential biomarkers for laryngeal cancer, which ultimately could be detected by testing saliva or a swab of the back of the mouth. These simple screening methods would be of great benefit to high-risk individuals, and could potentially decrease disparities seen between minorities and white Americans. African American (AA) and white American (WA) men share similar incidences of laryngeal and tonsillar cancer, which affect men at a much higher rate than women. Among AA and WA men there is an alarming disparity, in which AA men are two to three times more likely to succumb to their disease. It is hypothesized that the salivary proteomes for tonsillar and laryngeal cancer, from AA and WA men, possess prognostic potential illustrating an association with the molecular characteristics of the tumor. MUDPIT proteomic analysis was done on four groups of pooled samples, four per group. Samples were collected with the approval of the Meharry Medical College Institutional Review Board. Inclusion criteria were males diagnosed with late stage (III or IV) laryngeal or tonsillar HNCa, active smokers, and HPV negative. Exclusion criteria were non-smokers and HPV positive. Groups were designated as AA/T, WA/T, AA/L and WA/L. A total number of 117 proteins were identified. AA/L had 111 proteins while WA/L had 116 proteins. Twenty proteins were detected from 1.6-fold to 1.62E+06 –fold greater in AA/L relative to WA/L. Eighty proteins were detected from 1.5-fold to 7.9E+07-fold greater in WA/L relative to AA/L. The resulting salivary proteomes were analyzed using WebGestalt. Pathway analysis for AA/L vs WA/L showed significant alignment with Reactome pathways. 8 proteins were found to be associated with innate immune function. There were no significant categories for enrichment category disease_Disgenet, however several proteins aligned with cancer categories at a non-significant level, such as annexin A1. Disease_GLAD4U recognized a statistically significant enrichment category of dental plaque. Represented proteins include CA6, PRH1 and MUC5B. Pathway analysis with KEGG, Panther and Reactome, were used for proteins greater in WA/L, and revealed overrepresentation of proteins associated with metabolic activity, hypoxia and the innate immune system. In addition, disease_disgenet showed proteins mapping to mouth neoplasms, SCC of esophagus, and cancer invasion. Finally, GLAD4U showed significance with periodontal diseases, ischemia and inflammation. A limitation of this research is the small sample size, nevertheless the potential differences between racial groups promotes further investigation. Exploration of these specific proteins or protein signatures can give insight into varying physiological responses to disease and can be used to create a more personalized therapeutic approach. Citation Format: Derek Wagner, Hannah Trew, Billy Ballard, Victor Paramov, Sid Pratap, Dana Marshall. The salivary proteome of African American and white American males diagnosed with laryngeal cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2019 Sep 20-23; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl_2):Abstract nr D129.

The Impact of the Homicide Decline on Life Expectancy of African American Males.

Homicide is a leading cause of death for young people in the United States aged 15-34, but it has a disproportionate impact on one subset of the population: African American males. The national decline in homicide mortality that occurred from 1991 to 2014 thus provides an opportunity to generate evidence on a unique question-How do population health and health inequality change when the prevalence of one of the leading causes of death is cut in half? In this article, we estimate the impact of the decline in homicide mortality on life expectancy at birth as well as years of potential life lost for African American and white males and females, respectively. Estimates are generated using national mortality data by age, gender, race, and education level. Counterfactual estimates are constructed under the assumption of no change in mortality due to homicide from 1991 (the year when the national homicide rate reached its latest peak) to 2014 (the year when the homicide rate reached its trough). We estimate that the decline in homicides led to a 0.80-year increase in life expectancy at birth for African American males, and reduced years of potential life lost by 1,156 years for every 100,000 African American males. Results suggest that the drop in homicide represents a public health breakthrough for African American males, accounting for 17% of the reduction in the life expectancy gap between white and African American males.

Age and poverty status alter the coding and noncoding transcriptome.

Emerging evidence indicates that noncoding RNAs play regulatory roles in aging and disease. The functional roles of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in physiology and disease are not completely understood. Little is known about lncRNAs in the context of human aging and socio-environmental conditions. Microarray profiling of lncRNAs and mRNAs from peripheral blood mononuclear cells from young and old white (n=16) and African American (AA) males (n=16) living above or below poverty from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study revealed changes in both lncRNAs and mRNAs with age and poverty status in white males, but not in AA males. We validated lncRNA changes in an expanded cohort (n=40); CTD-3247F14.2, GAS5, H19, TERC and MEG3 changed significantly with age, whereas AK022914, GAS5, KB-1047C11.2, MEG3 and XLOC_003262 changed with poverty. Mitochondrial function and response to DNA damage and stress were pathways enriched in younger individuals. Response to stress, viral infection, and immune signals were pathways enriched in individuals living above poverty. These data show that both human age and a marker of social adversity influence lncRNA expression, which may provide insight about molecular pathways underlying aging and social factors that affect disparities in aging and disease.

The utility of elliptical Fourier analysis for estimating ancestry and sex from lateral skull photographs

Current quantitative methods for estimating ancestry and sex from skulls typically require substantial manual data collection and specialized recording equipment, which can limit analysis to the laboratory. This limitation could be addressed by establishing a faster, more user-friendly, and automatic data protocol as investigated in the current study using elliptical Fourier analysis (EFA). Ancestry and sex were estimated using outlines acquired from standardized photographs of the skull in norma lateralis (left side). In this investigation, training samples comprised anatomical specimens from five collections: the Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection, WM Bass Donated Skeletal Collection, Robert J. Terry Anatomical Skeletal Collection, Khon Kaen Osteological Collection, and Chiba Bone Collection. Groups were defined as Black American female (n=87), Black American male (n=109), Japanese male (n=59), Thai female (n=39), Thai male (n=47), White American female (n=97), and White American male (n=134). EFA was conducted on partial Procrustes-aligned skull outline coordinates, before extracting principal components and using linear discriminant analysis for group assignment. Classification accuracy was determined using the 5-fold cross-validation protocol. Ancestry and sex were classified correctly 73% of the time when all seven reference samples were used. When only Black and White Americans were retained in the reference sample with sex pooled, they were correctly classified 94% of the time. Accuracy of out-of-group ancestry and sex estimation was evaluated using nine White American males from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Laboratory. A seven-way comparison with all reference samples for estimating both ancestry and sex achieved 89% (8/9) correct classifications, with one misclassification as White American female. These out-of-group results, along with initial training group accuracies, indicate that lateral skull outlines can be used to successfully estimate ancestry and sex with similar accuracy to other methods, and set the basis for future cross-validation testing. Further, the reliance on a single easy-to-take photograph and user-friendly open-source R script facilitates easy application and field use. The protocol is freely available from CRANIOFACIALidentification.com as the SkullProfiler script.

Age-at-Death Estimation for Modern Populations in Mexico and Puerto Rico through the Use of 3D Laser Scans of the Pubic Symphysis.

Reliable age-at-death estimates from the adult skeleton are of fundamental importance in forensic anthropology, because it contributes to the identity parameters used in a medicolegal death investigation. However, reliable estimates are difficult because many traditional aging methods depend on a set of population-specific criteria derived from individuals of European and African descent. The absence of information on the potential differences in the aging patterns of underrepresented, especially Latinx, populations may hinder our efforts to produce useful age-at-death estimates. In response to these concerns, this study explores the utility of currently available aging techniques and whether population-specific aging methods among Latinx groups are needed. The authors obtained data from two skeletal collections representing modern individuals of Mexican and Puerto Rican origin. They examined five newly developed computational shape-based techniques using 3D laser scans of the pubic symphysis and one traditional bone-to-phase technique. A validation test of all computational and traditional methods was implemented, and new population-specific equations using the computational algorithms were generated and tested against a subsample. Results suggest that traditional and computational aging techniques applied to the pubic symphysis perform best with individuals within 35-45 years of age. Levels of bias and inaccuracy increase as chronological age increases, with overestimation of individuals younger than 35 years and underestimation of individuals older than 45 years. New regression models provided error rates comparable to, and in some occasions outperformed, the original computational models developed on white American males, but age estimates did not significantly improve. This study shows that population-specific models do not necessarily improve age estimates in Latinx samples. Results do suggest that computational methods can ultimately outperform the Suchey-Brooks method and provide improved objectivity when estimating age at death in Latinx samples.

The Authenticity of a T-shirt: Ryan Gosling, Roddy Dangerblood, and the Rebellious Genealogy of Thrasher Magazine

This paper addresses the cultural aesthetics of the skateboard magazine Thrasher and its significant role in allocating means for self-narration and self-stylization of white American males. In exploring skateboard culture from a transnational American studies perspective, this article will excerpt and analyze the sources, narratives, and tropes that pervade the rebellious stylization of such magazines. In doing so, I intend to find new ways of accessing and comprehending the dialogical processes and collective histories of surf and skateboard culture, and thus aim at understanding the discursive regimes that stylize the icons of newly emerging punk scenes.

Abstract MP37: The Triglyceride to High-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Ratio, an Estimate of Insulin Resistance, is Associated with Incident Coronary Heart Disease. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study

Introduction: Insulin resistance (IR), a metabolic dysregulation predictive of various clinical sequelae, is reportedly associated with the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). The invasive nature of direct measures of IR limits their use in clinical practice and population research, motivating the need for a suitable tool to signal the presence of IR. Its correlation with insulin action, simplicity, and wide availability of standardization in its assay properties, promotes the ratio of fasting plasma triglyceride (TG) to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). However, there is no consensus for TG/HDL-C ratio thresholds to index IR, whether the ratio relates to IR in African Americans, nor the ratio’s ability to predict coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. Objectives: To: 1) optimize race and gender-specific TG/HDL-C ratio cut-points indicative of IR in white and African American males and females; 2) compare cardio-metabolic profiles of the dichotomies created by these cut-points within each race-gender subgroup; and 3) estimate associations of IR indexed by the TG/HDL-C ratio with incident CHD by race and gender. Methods: Data from 10,031 white and 3,076 African American non-diabetic participants aged 45-64 years in the population-based ARIC Study were examined. Race and gender-specific TG/HDL-C ratio cut-points with optimal performance against the upper quartile of fasting insulin were calculated at baseline (1987-1989) using Youden indices. Cardio-metabolic profiles were compared by IR categories in each race-gender subgroup. Competing risk (of death) Cox models, adjusted for age, hypertension, cigarette smoking, BMI, and LDL-C, were fit by race and gender to quantify the risk of incident CHD events by 2012 independently attributed to IR. Incident CHD events were ascertained from cohort examinations, follow-up of hospital admissions and fatal events records, and classified according to a standardized protocol. Results: A total of 1,886 (18%) and 429 (14%) validated CHD events accrued by 2012 in whites and African Americans, respectively. Optimized values of the TG/HDL-C ratio thresholds to index IR were ≥3.4 for white males, ≥2.3 for white females, ≥2.2 for African American males, and ≥1.8 for African American females. Applying these thresholds, individuals denoted as having IR had noticeably poorer cardio-metabolic risk profiles than those not having IR in each race-gender subgroup. IR, as defined by the above cut-points, was associated with the following adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) of incident CHD by 2012: 1.35 (1.21, 1.52) in white males; 1.52, (1.27, 1.83) in white females; 1.69 (1.28, 2.22) in African American males; and 1.44 (1.08, 1.92) in African American females. Conclusion: The TG/HDL-C ratio, a clinically useful indicator of IR, independently predicts coronary heart disease in non-diabetic white and African American men and women.

Piecewise Regression Analysis of Secular Change in the Maximum Femoral Vertical Head Diameter of American White Males and Females.

Osteometric measurements of the femur are consistently used to estimate stature, sex, and race in constructing demographic profiles. The presence of positive or negative changes in the size of the maximum vertical diameter of the femoral head could potentially affect the validity of such profiles. Additionally, changes in femoral head size may be an indicator of the socioeconomic status, health, and nutrition of a population over periods of time. Two large data sets consisting of white male and white female femoral vertical head diameter measurements with birth years spanning 1841-1990 are used in this study. A combination of both LOESS and piecewise regression models determined the presence of secular changes in femoral head size. Tests of the residuals were also conducted to assess normality of the data and goodness of fit of the nonlinear models. The results indicate that white males and females experienced nonsignificant increases in femoral head diameter size before 1920 and significant decreases in size thereafter. The results of this study are consistent with other studies that have identified changes in body and skeletal morphology. Considerable changes and improvements in environmental conditions that humans have experienced since the mid-nineteenth century likely contribute to the decrease in femoral head size observed in this study.

The Butterfly Dilemma: Asian Women, Whiteness, and Heterosexual Relationships

Critical Whiteness theory explores Whiteness as a form of power and privilege that originated in Western countries and has been dispersed globally. Its form is particular to location and its interaction with race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and gender. Two ways it has operated historically is through making the norms of Whiteness universal and the marker of reason and rationality. This article examines Whiteness through two lenses, the colonial-era opera, Madame Butterfly, and three recent therapy case studies involving White American husbands and Asian immigrant wives. Although the women in these therapy cases have emigrated from different Asian countries and cultures, the treatment toward them suggests that colonial-era images and stereotypes of Asian women still resonate in contemporary White American culture and are impervious to national or cultural boundaries. A comparison of the opera’s themes with those of the therapy cases suggest how historical and social constructions of Whiteness continue to promote inequality in heterosexual relationships comprised of White American males and Asian females. Feminist, multicultural analyses of the therapy cases are provided to highlight more egalitarian treatment of the women in therapy, in their families, and in the broader society. The intersectionality of gender with ethnicity and culture is discussed for these Asian women who experience the homogenization of their identities in spite of having immigrated to the U.S. from distinct cultures.

Influences on assertiveness: gender, national culture, and ethnicity

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to contribute to assertiveness research and assess the differences in assertiveness as it relates to gender, national culture, and ethnicity.Design/methodology/approach– The data for the study are from 231 undergraduate students majoring in business at one of four academic institutions: three in the USA and one in the Republic of Vietnam. Students completed the 30-item Rathus Assertiveness Schedule.Findings– This research suggests that individuals who are alike in level of education and status demonstrate similar levels of assertiveness, regardless of gender, national culture, or ethnicity. However, differences were seen as the data show white American males to be the most assertive, with African American females next. White females ranked third, followed by Vietnamese females, concluding with Vietnamese males.Research limitations/implications– Although the sample size is small, the intent of this research was never to have the subjects represent the general population in terms of the variables used. Instead, the authors attempted to control for gender, culture, and ethnicity variables by using a sample of college students who were similar in relation to education and social status. Future research could more fully research the findings from this study which suggest that African American women are more assertive than all other groups with the exception of white males.Originality/value– This study also gives credence to the suggestion that the global manager, in order to become more effective, needs to fully understand employee differences as represented by gender, national culture, and ethnicity.

Forensic Applicability of Femur Subtrochanteric Shape to Ancestry Assessment in Thai and White American Males.

Ancestry assessment from the postcranial skeleton presents a significant challenge to forensic anthropologists. However, metric dimensions of the femur subtrochanteric region are believed to distinguish between individuals of Asian and non-Asian descent. This study tests the discriminatory power of subtrochanteric shape using modern samples of 128 Thai and 77 White American males. Results indicate that the samples' platymeric index distributions are significantly different (p≤0.001), with the Thai platymeric index range generally lower and the White American range generally higher. While the application of ancestry assessment methods developed from Native American subtrochanteric data results in low correct classification rates for the Thai sample (50.8-57.8%), adapting these methods to the current samples leads to better classification. The Thai data may be more useful in forensic analysis than previously published subtrochanteric data derived from Native American samples. Adapting methods to include appropriate geographic and contemporaneous populations increases the accuracy of femur subtrochanteric ancestry methods.

Trends and patterns of sexual behaviors among adolescents and adults aged 14 to 59 years, United States.

Evaluation of sexual behaviors is essential to better understand the epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections and their sequelae. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) is an ongoing probability sample survey of the US population. Using NHANES sexual behavior data from 1999 to 2012, we performed the following: (1) trend analyses among adults aged 25 to 59 years by 10-year birth cohorts and (2) descriptive analyses among participants aged 14 to 24 years. Sex was defined as vaginal, anal, or oral sex. Among adults aged 25 to 59 years, median age at sexual initiation decreased between the 1940-1949 and 1980-1989 cohorts from 17.9 to 16.2 among females (P trend < 0.001) and from 17.1 to 16.1 among males (P trend < 0.001). Median lifetime partners increased between the 1940-1949 and 1970-1979 cohorts, from 2.6 to 5.3 among females (P trend < 0.001) and from 6.7 to 8.8 among males (P trend < 0.001). The percentage of females reporting ever having a same-sex partner increased from 5.2% to 9.3% between the 1940-1949 and 1970-1979 cohorts (P trend < 0.001). Among participants aged 14 to 24 years, the percentage having had sex increased with age, from 12.5% among females and 13.1% among males at age 14 years to more than 75% at age 19 years for both sexes. Among sexually experienced 14- to 19-year-olds, 45.2% of females and 55.0% of males had at least 3 lifetime partners; 39.4% of females and 48.6% of males had at least 2 partners in the past year. The proportion of females aged 20 to 24 years who reported ever having a same-sex partner was 14.9%. The proportion of participants aged 14-19 or 20-24 years reporting ever having sex did not differ by survey year from 1999 to 2012 for either males or females. Sexual behaviors changed with successive birth cohorts, with more pronounced changes among females. A substantial proportion of adolescents are sexually active and have multiple partners. These data reinforce existing recommendations for sexual health education and sexually transmitted infection prevention targeting adolescents before sexual debut.

Jefferson’s Jihad?

Jefferson’s Jihad? Robert Allison (bio) Denise A. Spellberg. Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. 384pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. $27.95. In the autumn of 1765, as he completed his legal studies, Thomas Jefferson bought a copy of George Sale’s translation of the Qur’an: The Koran; Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed (1734). Jefferson had been led to the Qur’an by Samuel Pufendorf’s Of the Law of Nature and Nations (1716), which referred to the Qur’an as the foundation of law in the Muslim world. Jefferson bought a second copy sometime after 1770, when a fire destroyed his house and books. This copy now resides with the rest of Jefferson’s books in the Library of Congress. Congressman Keith Ellison took his oath of office on Jefferson’s Koran in 2007. The very existence of this book—a translation of the Qur’an Jefferson owned—sparked Denise Spellberg, a professor in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at the University of Texas, to begin her meditation on the American republic’s Founders and their engagement with Islam. More than any of his contemporary Founders, Jefferson was engaged with Islam and the Muslim world. As American minister to France in the 1780s, he was the first line of contact for American prisoners in Algiers, and he advocated using military force—even building a navy—to fight the Barbary States; as president he conducted a war against Tripoli. Jefferson also had much to say on religious liberty, as his Statute for Religious Freedom (one of three things he wanted carved on his grave) guaranteed religious freedom, in his words, to “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination” (p. 119). Jefferson’s pluralistic inclusion, his Enlightenment vision of freeing individuals, is for Spellberg a shade different: “To many of his political opponents, Thomas Jefferson may have been our first Muslim president” (p. 271). She adds, “many of his own countrymen considered their president an atheist, an infidel, or even a Muslim outright” (p. 224). Spellberg does not name those political opponents or tell us how many of his countrymen thought Jefferson “a Muslim outright.” For those unnamed opponents, Jefferson’s affinity for Islam was a negative; for Spellberg it is a positive. Jefferson, in her view, was the “founding father of Muslim rights in America” (p. 122). [End Page 630] This marks the distance between present-day liberalism and the liberalism of the eighteenth-century. Jefferson and his Enlightenment generation sought freedom for individuals; in our era, it seems unthinkable that rights or freedom exist except for members of groups. Was Jefferson advocating “Muslim rights” or human rights, which, by definition, included Muslims along with Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Presbyterians, and all denominations of infidels? Spellberg tells us that George Washington also “advocated Muslim rights” (p. 7) and calls John Leland, the Baptist minister who led the fight for religious liberty, a “Baptist advocate for the Rights of Muslims” (p. 240). This would have surprised Leland, Washington, and Jefferson. They advocated human rights, not rights for particular groups of people. Spellberg sees other limits to Jefferson’s vision: “For it must have occurred to Jefferson that he could scarcely declare all (free, white) men ‘created equal’ and ‘endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights’ if the Virginians among them did not have the right to freely practice their own faith” (p. 102). Why “must [this] have occurred” to Jefferson? If Jefferson could so blatantly deny the premise of equality to African Americans, why would he have extended equality to Muslims? Why must he have seen Muslims as citizens—Muslims whom Spellberg tells us were for Jefferson strictly hypothetical—when he could not imagine citizenship for the people of color who surrounded him? Strangely enough, Spellberg insists that Jefferson had to have included Muslims, but must have excluded people of color. She cannot write the Declaration’s “all men are created equal” clause without inserting the words “white” and “free.” She writes that “liberty and equality . . . were in Jefferson’s view the natural rights of white American males” (p. 122...

When is a South Indian Really Anemic?

To determine the normal range of Hemoglobin and cutoff values in healthy adults of Southern India, blood samples were analyzed for parameters of RBC and iron metabolism in 177 male and 203 female medical students. The data were compared with the American white population (NHANES III) and the WHO criteria for detection of anemia. The mean values for hemoglobin and hematocrit in male students differed minimally from American white males. However, values for parameters of iron metabolism were lower except total iron binding capacity (TIBC) which was higher. In female students, hemoglobin, hematocrit and parameters of iron metabolism were lower than American white females, except TIBC which was higher. Lower 5th percentile cutoff point (Mean - 1.645 SD) in males and females were 13.5 and 10g/dl respectively. In conclusion, South Indian adult males have Hb values similar to American male adults, but South Indian females have considerably lower Hb levels than American females, raising the questions about appropriateness of WHO or US criteria for detection of anemia in Indian females.