Post-migration emotional well-being among Black South Africans.

Internal migration has been an institutionalized part of life for Black South Africans from the 1800s, when men left their rural homes to work in mines, through apartheid and into the present. Like other settings in the Global South, we know surprisingly little about the emotional well-being of migrants, especially in sub-Saharan African contexts. We investigate changes in the emotional well-being of 2281 working-age Black South Africans after migration, drawing on four waves of data, from 2008 to 2015, from the nationally representative National Income Dynamics Study.

E-Cigarette Quit Attempts and Experiences in a Convenience Sample of Adult Users.

Most e-cigarette users report planning to quit, but there is a paucity of evidence-based interventions for e-cigarette cessation. In the absence of interventions for e-cigarette cessation, we sought to understand how and why e-cigarette users attempt to quit on their own. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing platform.

Abortion-client religious identity and self-judgment in a setting with antiabortion protestors in Mississippi.

Objective: To assess abortion patients' self-judgment in a setting with antiabortion protestors.

Study Design: We analyzed data from a survey of 196 Mississippi abortion clients who interacted with antiabortion protestors, using ANOVA to compare feelings of self-judgment (measured on a 0-to-4 Likert-based scale) by religious identity. We assessed support for a law limiting protestor activity using a Χ test.

Diagnosing social ills: Theorising social determinants of health as a diagnostic category.

Medicine, as an institution and discipline, has embraced social determinants of health as a key influence on clinical practice and care. Beyond simply acknowledging their importance, most recent versions of the International Classification of Diseases explicitly codify social determinants as a viable diagnostic category. This diagnostic shift is noteworthy in the United States, where 'Z-codes' were introduced to facilitate the documentation of illiteracy, unemployment, poverty and other social factors impacting health.

Measuring Fertility Intentions During Times of Crisis: An Example Using Survey Data Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Fertility intentions-intentions regarding whether and when to have children-predict reproductive health outcomes. Measuring fertility intentions is difficult, particularly during macrostructural shocks, for at least two reasons: (1) fertility intentions may be especially volatile during periods of uncertainty and (2) macrostructural shocks may constrain data collection. We propose a set of indicators that capture how a macrostructural shock directly alters fertility intentions, with a particular focus on the Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

Measuring the long arm of childhood in real-time: Epigenetic predictors of BMI and social determinants of health across childhood and adolescence.

Children who are socioeconomically disadvantaged are at increased risk for high body mass index (BMI) and multiple diseases in adulthood. The developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis proposes that early life conditions affect later-life health in a manner that is only partially modifiable by later-life experiences. Epigenetic mechanisms may regulate the influence of early life conditions on later life health.

Meeting Preferences for Specific Contraceptive Methods: An Overdue Indicator.

Fertility surveys have rarely asked people who are using contraception about the contraceptive method they would like to be using, implicitly assuming that those who are contracepting are using the method they want. In this commentary, we review evidence from a small but growing body of work that oftentimes indicates this assumption is untrue. Discordant contraceptive preferences and use are relatively common, and unsatisfied preferences are associated with higher rates of method discontinuation and subsequent pregnancy.

Association Between Publicly Funded Contraceptive Services and the Abortion Rate in Texas, 2010-2015.

Objective: To evaluate how the availability of contraceptive services was associated with a change in the abortion rate before and after Texas' legislative changes to the family planning budget in 2011 and abortion access in 2013.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we obtained 2010 and 2015 data on contraceptive provision (number of publicly funded clinics and number of contraceptive clients served per 1,000 reproductive-aged women) from the Guttmacher Institute and county-level abortion data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. We categorized counties as having an abortion rate that increased or declined less than the national rate between 2010 and 2015 ( low-decline counties ) compared with those having an abortion rate that declined equal to or greater than the national rate between 2010 and 2015 ( high-decline counties ).

Neighbourhood walkability is associated with risk of gestational diabetes: A cross-sectional study in New York City.

Background: Despite the links between neighbourhood walkability and physical activity, body size and risk of diabetes, there are few studies of neighbourhood walkability and risk of gestational diabetes (GD).

Objectives: Assess whether higher neighbourhood walkability is associated with lower risk of GD in New York City (NYC).

Methods: Cross-sectional analyses of a neighbourhood walkability index (NWI) score and density of walkable destinations (DWD) and risk of GD in 109,863 births recorded in NYC in 2015.

Understanding the rise in traditional contraceptive methods use in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Background: The sustainable development goals (SDG) aim at satisfying three-fourths of family planning needs through modern contraceptive methods by 2030. However, the traditional methods (TM) of family planning use are on the rise, along with modern contraception in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the most populous Indian state. This study attempts to explore the dynamics of rising TM use in the state.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on first-year college students: Racial/ethnic differences.

Prior research has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted American college students; however, few studies have focused on first-year students and their experiences with attending college during unprecedented circumstances. To address this gap, first-year college students ( = 268) completed online questionnaires assessing their perceptions of the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted them in terms of access to resources and psychological well-being. Students also completed a measure of college-specific adjustment in the relational, psychological, and educational domains.

Tobacco advertising exposure and product use among young adults: An ecological momentary assessment approach.

Introduction: Tobacco-related content is prevalent on social media, yet many methods of measuring exposure are inadequate due to the personalized nature of online marketing. The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between exposure to pro-tobacco messages (both industry-sponsored and user-generated) and the use of tobacco products, as reported via ecological momentary assessment (EMA).

Methods: Young adults (n = 175) were instructed to record all sightings of marketing (both in-person and online) related to tobacco for 28 days.

Efficiently exploring the causal role of contextual moderators in behavioral science.

Behavioral science interventions have the potential to address longstanding policy problems, but their effects are typically heterogeneous across contexts (e.g., teachers, schools, and geographic regions).

Age and Cohort Trends in Formal Volunteering and Informal Helping in Later Life: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study.

Formal volunteering holds great importance for the recipients of volunteer services, individuals who volunteer, and the wider society. However, how much recent birth cohorts volunteer in middle and late adulthood compared with earlier birth cohorts is not well understood. Even less well-known are the age and cohort trends in informal helping provided to friends and neighbors in later adulthood.

Predicting sex, age, general cognition and mental health with machine learning on brain structural connectomes.

There is an increasing expectation that advanced, computationally expensive machine learning (ML) techniques, when applied to large population-wide neuroimaging datasets, will help to uncover key differences in the human brain in health and disease. We take a comprehensive approach to explore how multiple aspects of brain structural connectivity can predict sex, age, general cognitive function and general psychopathology, testing different ML algorithms from deep learning (DL) model (BrainNetCNN) to classical ML methods. We modelled N = 8183 structural connectomes from UK Biobank using six different structural network weightings obtained from diffusion MRI.

Physical punishment and child, adolescent, and adult outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Physical punishment at home and in schools is widespread around the world. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have synthesized evidence, mostly from high-income countries (HICs), showing that physical punishment relates to multiple detrimental individual outcomes. Yet, less work has been done to synthesize the evidence on the association between physical punishment at home and schools and child, adolescent, and adult outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where more than 90% of children live and physical punishment is most socially normative and prevalent.

Publicly Funded Family Planning Organizations' Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Texas.

Introduction: After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of family planning services decreased, but there are limited data on how safety net providers were affected.

Methods: Between November 2020 and March 2021, we conducted in-depth interviews with administrators at health departments, federally qualified health centers, and specialized family planning organizations across Texas about pandemic-related changes in family planning services. We analyzed interview transcripts using an inductive thematic approach.

Evidence-based family planning services among publicly funded providers in Texas.

Background: Healthy Texas Women (HTW) is a fee-for-service family planning program that excludes affiliates of abortion providers. The HTW network includes providers who participate in Title X or the state Family Planning Program (FPP) and primary care providers without additional family planning funding (HTW-only). The objective of this study is to compare client volume and use of evidence-based practices among HTW providers.

Comparing preference for and use of medication abortion in Texas after policy changes in 2014 and 2018.

Objectives: Assess preferences for and use of medication abortion in Texas after implementation of two policy changes: a 2013 state law restricting medication abortion and the FDA label change for mifepristone in 2016 nullifying some of this restriction.

Study Design: We analyzed surveys conducted in 2014 and 2018 with abortion patients at 10 Texas abortion facilities. We calculated the percentage of all respondents with an initial preference for medication abortion by survey year, and the type of abortion obtained or planned to obtain among those who were at <10 weeks of gestation.

Socially Stratified Epigenetic Profiles Are Associated With Cognitive Functioning in Children and Adolescents.

Children's cognitive functioning and educational performance are socially stratified. Social inequality, including classism and racism, may operate partly via epigenetic mechanisms that modulate neurocognitive development. Following preregistered analyses of data from 1,183 participants, ages 8 to 19 years, from the Texas Twin Project, we found that children growing up in more socioeconomically disadvantaged families and neighborhoods and children from marginalized racial/ethnic groups exhibit DNA methylation profiles that, in previous studies of adults, were indicative of higher chronic inflammation, lower cognitive functioning, and a faster pace of biological aging.

Real and assumed sexual minority status: Longitudinal associations with depressive symptoms.

Sexual minority status persists in being linked to poorer adolescent mental health. Using a longitudinal sample (N = 845), we examined how youth's own same-gender attraction and their perceptions of peers' beliefs about their same-gender attraction (i.e.

Links between inflammation and immune functioning with cognitive status among older Americans in the Health and Retirement Study.

Elevated inflammation and poor immune functioning are tied to worse cognitive health. Both processes are fundamental to aging and are strongly implicated in the development of age-related health outcomes, including cognitive status. However, results from prior studies evaluating links between indicators of inflammation and immune function and cognitive impairment have been inconsistent due to biomarker selection, sample selection, and cognitive outcome.

A cross-national comparison of the linkages between family structure histories and early adolescent substance use.

Family structure can influence adolescent health with cascading implications into adulthood. Life course theory emphasizes how this phenomenon is dynamic across time, contextualized in policy systems, and grounded in processes of selection and socialization. This study used data from the U.

Health Shocks and Economic Well-being of the Aging Population: Evidence from Mexico.

We exploit the longitudinal Mexican Health and Aging Study to estimate the effects of health shocks in the short-run on the subsequent economic well-being of the aging population in Mexico. While there is substantial evidence indicating negative economic effects of such changes in industrialized countries, little is known about health impacts on the future economic position of older adults in low- and middle-income countries. This paper takes an important step towards filling this gap in knowledge.