Worsening Perceptions of Family Connectedness and Parent Support for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adolescents.

Objectives: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adolescents often report compromised relations with their families. Given the recent changes in societal attitudes toward LGB individuals, in respect to rights for marriage and other legal statuses, we explore whether or not there has been a change in how LGB and heterosexual adolescents perceive their family relations over time.

Methods: Using the British Columbia Adolescent Health Survey from British Columbia, Canada ( = 99,373; = 14.

Investigating site-level longitudinal effects of population health interventions: Gay-Straight Alliances and school safety.

There is limited research on evaluating nonrandomized population health interventions. We aimed to introduce a new approach for assessing site-level longitudinal effects of population health interventions (SLEPHI) by innovatively applying multiple group multilevel (MG-ML) modeling to repeated cycles of cross-sectional data collected from different individuals of the same sites at different times, a design commonly employed in public health research. For illustration, we used this SLEPHI method to examine the influence of Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) on school-level perceived safety among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) and heterosexual (HET) adolescents.

Revisiting the healthy immigrant effect with diabetes risk in Canada: why race/ethnicity matters.

Evidence shows that recent immigrants are healthier than the native-born population, a phenomenon known as the healthy immigrant effect. With increasing duration of stay, this health gap significantly narrows as immigrants' health deteriorates to either resemble or become worse than the host population. However, little is known about the category of immigrants for whom this decline is most pronounced since the extant research largely considers immigrants as a homogeneous group, thus overlooking important racial/ethnic differences.

Ten-Year Trends in Physical Dating Violence Victimization Among Adolescent Boys and Girls in British Columbia, Canada.

Physical dating violence (PDV) victimization among adolescents is a serious global problem. Although knowledge of trends in PDV victimization can help guide programming and health policies, little research has examined whether the prevalence of PDV victimization has increased, decreased, or remained stable over time among non-U.S.

Local knowledge and practices towards malaria in an irrigated farming community in Ghana.

Background: Although malaria is endemic across Ghana, the risk is generally elevated for residents living in and around stagnant water bodies such as dams and irrigated farming projects. What knowledge do these at-risk populations have about the aetiology and symptoms of malaria? What are their coping strategies? And what interventions are needed to help improve the health outcomes of people living in high-risk malaria communities?

Methods: This study addressed these research questions with primary data, comprising both qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys, collected in Asutsuare-a rural irrigated farming community located in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana.

Results: Results from the fieldwork showed that awareness of malaria as a major health concern in the community was universal.

Sexual Orientation Trends and Disparities in School Bullying and Violence-Related Experiences, 1999-2013.

Numerous recent studies have demonstrated that schools are often unsafe for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adolescents, who are more likely than heterosexual peers to be bullied, harassed, or victimized in school contexts. Virtually all of these studies call for change, yet none investigate whether or not it has occurred. Using repeated waves of a population-based high school survey, we examine (1) the extent to which sexual orientation differences in school bullying and violence-related experiences are reported by lesbian/gay, bisexual, and heterosexual male and female adolescents; (2) trends in school bullying and violence-related experiences for each gender/orientation group, and (3) whether disparities have changed over time.

Modulation of antimicrobial efflux pumps of the major facilitator superfamily in .

Variants of the microorganism which are resistant to antimicrobial agents exist as causative agents of serious infectious disease and constitute a considerable public health concern. One of the main antimicrobial resistance mechanisms harbored by pathogens is exemplified by integral membrane transport systems that actively remove antimicrobial agents from bacteria where the cytoplasmic drug targets reside, thus allowing the bacteria to survive and grow. An important class of solute transporter proteins, called the major facilitator superfamily, includes related and homologous passive and secondary active transport systems, many of which are antimicrobial efflux pumps.

Substance Use among Sexual Minorities: Has it Actually Gotten Better?

Background: Despite efforts to decrease substance use, rates among sexual minority youth (SMY) remain higher than among heterosexuals. Substance use is a leading contributor to morbidity and mortality in adulthood, and SMY's use of substances is related to poorer mental and emotional health.

Objectives: We sought to document the trends in substance use for a large sample of youth over 14 years with special attention to SMY.

Boys are not exempt: Sexual exploitation of adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa.

Research on youth sexual exploitation in Africa has largely neglected the experiences of exploited boys. To date, much of the research in sub-Saharan Africa continues to consider boys mainly as exploiters but not as exploited. Using the only publicly available population-based surveys from the National Survey of Adolescents, conducted in four sub-Saharan African countries - Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda-we assessed factors associated with transactional sexual behaviour among never-married adolescent boys and girls.

Trends and disparities in disordered eating among heterosexual and sexual minority adolescents.

Objective: Disordered eating has decreased for all youth over time, but studies have not focused specifically on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth. Research has found that LGB youth report disordered eating behaviors more often compared to their heterosexual counterparts, but no studies have documented trends over time for LGB youth and considered whether these disparities are narrowing or widening across sexual orientation groups.

Method: We use pooled data from the 1999 to 2013 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (N = 26,002) to investigate trends in purging, fasting, and using diet pills to lose or control weight for heterosexual and sexual minority youth.

Prevalence of Pregnancy Involvement Among Canadian Transgender Youth and its Relation to Mental Health, Sexual Health, and Gender Identity.

While little research has been conducted into the reproductive experiences of transgender people, available evidence suggests that like cisgender people, most transgender people endorse a desire for these experiences. This study explores the pregnancy experiences and related health factors among transgender and gender-diverse 14-25 year olds using a national Canadian sample ( = 923). Results indicated that 26 (5%) transgender youth reported a pregnancy experience in the past and the prevalence among 14-18 year olds was comparable to population-based estimates using the same question in the British Columbia Adolescent Health Survey.

Adolescent sexual risk-taking in the informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya: understanding the contributions of religion.

Young people in sub-Saharan Africa are at the centre of the global HIV epidemic as they account for a disproportionate share of new infections. Their vulnerability to HIV has been attributed to a myriad of factors, in particular, risky sexual behaviours. While economic factors are important, increasing attention has been devoted to religion on the discourse on sexual decision-making because religious values provide a perspective on life that often conflicts with risky sexual behaviours.

Superstition, witchcraft and HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa: the case of Ghana.

Belief in superstition and witchcraft is central to many African conceptions of illness, disease causation and etiology. While a number of anthropological studies have alluded to a theoretical link between such beliefs and HIV prevention in particular, there is limited empirical assessment of the association. Using data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey and applying random-effects logit models, we investigate whether the belief that AIDS can spread through witchcraft associates with the sexual decision making of never-married men and women.

Religion, contraception, and method choice of married women in Ghana.

Using pooled data from the 1998 and 2003 Demographic and Health Surveys, this paper investigates the association between religion and contraceptive behavior of married women in Ghana. Guided by the particularized theology and characteristics hypotheses, multinomial logit and complementary log-log models are used to explore denominational differences in contraceptive adoption among currently married women and assess whether the differences could be explained through other characteristics. We found that while there were no differences between women of different Christian faiths, non-Christian women (Muslim and Traditional) were significantly more likely to have never used contraception compared with Christian women.

Ideal versus actual: the contradiction in number of children born to Nigerian women.

Although desired family size is often different from actual family size, the dynamics of this difference are not well understood. This paper examines the patterns and determinants of the difference between desired and actual number of children (unmet fertility desires) among women aged 15-49 years using pooled data from the 1990, 1999 and 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHSs). The results show that more than two-thirds of the sample have unmet fertility desires (18.

Religion, HIV/AIDS and sexual risk-taking among men in Ghana.

Although a growing body of research has linked religious involvement with HIV/AIDS protective behaviour in Africa, the focus has mainly been on women. Given the patriarchal nature of African culture, this paper argues for the inclusion of men, a critical group whose sexual behaviours have increasingly been linked to the spread and sustenance of the virus in the region. Drawing on different theoretical discourses and using data from the 2003 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, this paper examines how religious affiliation influences men's risky sexual behaviours.