Why do some adolescents encounter everyday events that increase their civic interest whereas others do not?

Using a longitudinal design, we asked 2 age cohorts of adolescents (15- and 18-year-olds) whether they, during the last year, had experienced events that had increased their civic interest and about details of their experiences. Based on self-determination theory, we predicted that the adolescents who reported having experienced events of this kind had already been more interested and had had more positive feelings about politics much earlier in time, and that this original interest would have increased more over time, than that of other adolescents. Second, we proposed that the adolescents who had encountered events that triggered their civic interest would have been engaged in behaviors that reflected their needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence, much earlier in time, and that, over time, they would have increased these behaviors more than other adolescents.

Physical Fitness in Adolescence and Subsequent Inflammatory Bowel Disease Risk.

Objectives: Physical fitness may reduce systemic inflammation levels relevant to the risk of symptomatic Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC); we assessed if fitness in adolescence is associated with subsequent inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) risk, independent of markers of risk and prodromal disease activity.

Methods: Swedish registers provided information on a cohort of 240,984 men (after exclusions) who underwent military conscription assessments in late adolescence (1969-1976). Follow-up started at least 4 years after the conscription assessment until 31 December 2009 (up to age 57 years).

Mortality following a brain tumour diagnosis in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Objectives: As brain tumours and their treatment may theoretically have a poorer prognosis in inflammatory central nervous system diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), all-cause mortality following a brain tumour diagnosis was compared between patients with and without MS. The potential role of age at tumour diagnosis was also examined.

Setting: Hospital inpatients in Sweden with assessment of mortality in hospital or following discharge.

Respiratory infections in preterm infants and subsequent asthma: a cohort study.

Objectives: To investigate whether gestational age modifies the association of airway infections that result in hospital admission during the first year after birth, with subsequent asthma risk after age 5 years.

Setting: Hospital inpatients and a general population comparison group in Sweden followed for subsequent diagnoses in primary and secondary care.

Participants: National registers identified 42 334 children admitted to hospital for respiratory infection in their first year after birth during 1981-1995, individually matched with 211 594 children not admitted to hospital for infection during their first year.