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Cultural transmission of a sign language when deafness is caused by recessive alleles at two independent loci.

Two unlinked autosomal loci are assumed to affect the ability to hear in such a way that homozygosity for the recessive allele at either locus causes deafness. The five deaf genotypes are subject to the same negative selection due to a lower likelihood of marriage, but unmarried deaf persons remain socially active and participate in the cultural transmission of sign languages. Marriages are assortative for deafness or for hearing, and mutation occurs irreversibly from the dominant to recessive allele at each locus at the same rate. At mutation-selection balance, the fully polymorphic equilibrium is symmetrical. Based on this genetic model, we consider the relative importance of various forms of cultural transmission as they affect the persistence of sign languages. Horizontal transmission is shown to be effective when deaf children are able to interact with many peers. This observation is especially pertinent if assortative meeting of deaf children occurs, for example, at schools for the deaf. Oblique transmission can also be effective, but the literature suggests that this kind of transmission plays only a minor role. It is necessary, however, that some form of cultural transmission occur between generations. Thus, vertical transmission is a critical factor, despite the fact that parent-child transmission is often interrupted due to the recessive inheritance of deafness. In particular, the contribution of vertical transmission is enhanced by assortative mating for deafness.

Child Development↗

Dynamics and phylogenetic implications of MtDNA control region sequences in New World Jays (Aves: Corvidae).

To study the evolution of mtDNA and the intergeneric relationships of New World Jays (Aves: Corvidae), we sequenced the entire mitochondrial DNA control region (CR) from 21 species representing all genera of New World jays, an Old World jay, crows, and a magpie. Using maximum likelihood methods, we found that both the transition/transversion ratio (kappa) and among site rate variation (alpha) were higher in flanking domains I and II than in the conserved central domain and that the frequency of indels was highest in domain II. Estimates of kappa and alpha were much more influenced by the density of taxon sampling than by alternative optimal tree topologies. We implemented a successive approximation method incorporating these parameters into phylogenetic analysis. In addition we compared our study in detail to a previous study using cytochrome b and morphology to examine the effect of taxon sampling, evolutionary rates of genes, and combined data on tree resolution. We found that the particular weighting scheme used had no effect on tree topology and little effect on tree robustness. Taxon sampling had a significant effect on tree robustness but little effect on the topology of the best tree. The CR data set differed nonsignificantly from the tree derived from the cytochrome b/morphological data set primarily in the placement of the genus Gymnorhinus, which is near the base of the CR tree. However, contrary to conventional taxonomy, the CR data set suggested that blue and black jays (Cyanocorax sensu lato) might be paraphyletic and that the brown jay Psilorhinus (=Cyanocorax) morio is the sister group to magpie jays (Calocitta), a phylogenetic hypothesis that is likely as parsimonious with regard to nonmolecular characters as monophyly of Cyanocorax. The CR tree also suggests that the common ancestor of NWJs was likely a cooperative breeder. Consistent with recent systematic theory, our data suggest that DNA sequences with high substitution rates such as the CR may nonetheless be useful in reconstructing relatively deep phylogenetic nodes in avian groups.

Animals↗

Parental risk factors and social assimilation in alcohol dependence of Mexican Americans.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the reciprocal relationship of social assimilation and four parental behavioral risk factors in the intergenerational development of alcohol abuse or dependence (AAD) among adults of Mexican origin in the United States. Whereas many studies have shown U.S. nativity and English language use are markers for enhanced risk of AAD among Mexican Americans, such studies have not examined the extent to which predisposing biobehavioral factors are conditioned by social assimilation in the United States. METHOD: Language use patterns as a proxy of cultural assimilation and length of time in the U.S. as a proxy for social assimilation were used to compare the distribution of parental behavioral factors (alcohol, drug abuse, depression and anxiety) and the influence of these factors on AAD onset in adult children of Mexican immigrants. Data were obtained from an epidemiologic field survey in Central California of 3,012 Mexican origin adults. RESULTS: Complex effects structured by gender were found: parental behavioral risk factors predicted AAD onset; Mexican American adults born in the U.S. were much more likely than were immigrants to report parents with behavioral risk factors; women were more susceptible to the effects of parent risk factors in the context of social and cultural assimilation. Women required more total risk factor exposure, including parent risk factors, for AAD onset. CONCLUSIONS: Reciprocal influences of parent risk factors on assimilation were found, suggesting that parental behavioral factor effects on AAD in adult children of Mexican Americans are subordinate to social and cultural assimilation.

Acculturation↗

Inappropriate accommodation in communication to elders: inferences about nonverbal correlates.

According to Communication Accommodation Theory, overaccommodation in intergenerational communication with elders is frequently based on stereotyped expectations of frailty and dependence. This study examined the role of nonverbal behaviors in such overaccommodation. Adult volunteers (N = 120; mean age = 29 years) read either a patronizing or neutral version of one of three conversations between a nursing home resident and a nurse. As in our earlier study, the nurse's use of the patronizing conversational style was rated as less respectful, less nurturant, and more frustrating for the resident than the neutral style. The main analyses indicated that negative nonverbal behaviors were rated as significantly more likely to occur with the patronizing style while positive nonverbal behaviors were rated as significantly less likely. The negative evaluative impact of patronizing style was especially apparent for instrumental task situations with high compliance demands. The effects for conversational style were essentially replicated for a smaller sample (N = 50) of formal care providers.

Activities of Daily Living↗

Reaching out to racial/ethnic minority older persons for elderly nutrition programs.

This paper reports findings from a study that was conducted to identify perceived barriers to racial/ethnic minority elders' participation in an elderly nutrition program (ENP) in a large metropolitan area and effective strategies for reaching out to them. The data were collected from a survey with the ENP's staff and volunteers and three focus group discussions with professionals working with minority elders and minority community leaders. The study participants identified as their perceived barriers: the lack of information or misinformation; culturally driven reluctance to ask for outside help; fear and distrust of formal systems; lack of ethnic menus in the program; discomfort due to cultural differences; and inaccessibility and inadequacy of transportation. Recommended outreach strategies included: involvement of family members in the information dissemination process; establishment of good working relationships with community leaders and contact with key older persons; diversification of menus and increased use of food enhancements; increase in cultural activities/programs in congregate dining centers; solicitation of input from current participants; provision of intergenerational programs; recruitment of volunteer drivers from the minority community; location of the program in ethnic enclaves or places where minority elders can easily congregate; and improvement in transportation services.

Acculturation↗

Are all grandmothers equal? A review and a preliminary test of the "grandmother hypothesis" in Tokugawa Japan.

An unresolved question arising from human evolutionary research relates to the function of the postreproductive period in human females. If menopause is not merely an artifact resulting from the benefits of civilization, there must be an adaptive mechanism favoring the offspring of women who continue to thrive well past the time of their last ovulation. The "grandmother hypothesis" was developed on the basis of the original suggestion by Williams (1957 Evolution 11:32-39) that "stopping early" would benefit already-born children. This idea, combined with the concepts of kin selection (Hamilton 1964 J Theor Biol 7:1-52) and parental investment (Trivers 1972 Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, Chicago: Aldine, p. 136-179), was expanded to suggest that postreproductive women (in contrast to males) contribute to their inclusive fitness by extending support to their grandchildren. We used discrete time event history analysis (Allison [1984] Event History Analysis, Newbury Park: Sage; Allison [1995] Survival Analysis, Cary, NC: SAS Institute) and logistic regression on data provided in population registers (Shūmon Aratame Chō, or SAC) from a village in central Japan, covering the period from 1671-1871, in a preliminary investigation of the effects of household grandparental presence on the probability of a child's death. We found that after accounting for the presence of other household members, the only grandparent whose presence exerted a consistent negative effect on the likelihood of a child's death was the mother's mother. Due to the small sample size of households that contained maternal grandmothers, these results failed to achieve statistical significance. Their importance, however, is in what they suggest about future research, i.e., census data from preindustrial societies can provide a basis for testing evolutionary proposals, including the "grandmother hypothesis."

Adaptation, Physiological↗

Multigeneration employees: strategies for effective management.

Today's health care workforce comprises Traditional, Baby Boomer, and Generation X employees. Effective managers must understand the times and generational characteristics of these employees and they must assure that employees understand and respect one another's differences. They must foster open discussion of how generational differences influence attitudes toward work and organizations. They must provide opportunities for multigeneration employees to contribute their best concurrent with meeting organizational goals. Employees must be offered a conditional security based upon value-added results and collaboration. Managers must use leadership practices that encourage the hearts of dispirited employees.

Adult↗

Young African-American multigenerational families in poverty: quality of mothering and grandmothering.

Parenting practices (problem-solving and disciplinary styles) in a sample of 99 young, low-income, African-American multigenerational families were examined, using home-based observations of grandmothers and young mothers (mean age at first birth: 18.3; range = 13.3 to 25.5), interacting separately with 3-year-old children. A risk and resilience approach was applied in studying African-American families' behavior in harsh social contexts, and included a consideration of the role of kin, shared child rearing between mothers and grandmothers, coresidence, and adolescent parenthood. Mothers and grandmothers did not differ in the mean level of the quality of their parenting practices. Similarly, few significant correlations in parenting quality across generations were evident, and these primarily involved negative dimensions of parenting between younger childbearers and grandmothers. No main effect of mothers' age at first birth on mothers' parenting was found. In contrast, there was a main effect of grandmother coresidence on both mothers' and grandmothers' parenting, which was negative. Moreover, the interaction between coresidence and mothers' age at first birth indicated that multigenerational families most likely to provide positive parenting were those where older mothers did not reside with the grandmother. Yet, in families with very young mothers, coresiding grandmothers showed higher quality of parenting than did non-coresiding grandmothers.

Adolescent↗

Communication crossroads: Exploring generational dynamics in nursing from the bedside to the boardroom.

Nurses have up to four times more patient contact than physicians, positioning them as central drivers of communication in health care. Effective communication directly influences patient outcomes, teamwork, staff engagement, and the overall care experience. Today's nurses operate within a highly diverse environment that includes four generations in the workforce and up to eight generations of patients, each with distinct values, expectations, and communication preferences. This article examines how generational differences shape communication across three key relational domains: peer-to-peer, nurse-to-patient, and nurse-to-leader interactions, and offers insights to strengthen collaboration, engagement, and quality of care.

Humans↗

Alzheimer's disease: the impact of the family on spouses, offspring, and inlaws.

This article reports the findings from a study designed to identify qualities of the multigeneration family system that affected the relationship between the demands of Alzheimer's disease on the family and the health and well-being of (a) spouses, (b) offspring, and (c) offspring's spouses or "inlaws." Members of 97 families of patients with Alzheimer's disease, recruited from four University-affiliated Alzheimer's Centers, completed detailed questionnaires and participated in a 45-minute telephone interview to assess care-strain, personal stress, appraisals of three major domains of family life (World View, Structure/Organization, and Emotion Management), and three health and well-being indices (Anxiety/Depression, Somatic Symptoms, and Well-Being). Multivariate multiple regression equations, run separately for each of the three groups of family respondents and each of the three family domains, indicated: (1) no significant associations between the severity of the elder's disease and family member health and well-being; (2) female family members reported poorer health and well-being than male family members; and (3) caregiver strain was negatively associated with family member health and well-being. Further, appraised family qualities were associated with the health and well-being of the three groups of respondents differently: directly for offspring, interactively with severity of patient disorder for inlaws, and not at all for spouses. The data suggested that some family qualities served a protective function, whereas others exacerbated the negative effects of caregiving by affecting personal health and well-being. The findings are interpreted in terms of the different roles and expectations for care-giving placed on spouses, offspring, and inlaws. It is suggested that programs of intervention for patients with Alzheimer's and other chronic diseases should focus on the multigeneration family as the context for care, rather than only on the primary caregiver.

Activities of Daily Living↗

From aging . . . to saging- the Ohio State Senior Partners Program: longitudinal and experiential geriatrics education.

Ohio State College of Medicine began its Senior Partners Program (SPP) in 2001 as part of its commitment to integrate geriatric education throughout all four years of the medical curriculum. For participating senior partners and medical students, the SPP has signified a journey through a continuum of aging. Initial evaluations suggest that students have gained appropriate knowledge, skills, and attitudes to care for seniors responsively and cost effectively. Perhaps most important is the attitude change that this experience has brought about in the students, who are now substituting the health model for the traditional disease model of aging, and who have learned to lay aside their stereotypes of aging. Student debriefings and faculty evaluations indicate improved learning of geriatric skills and knowledge associated with the SPP. Ongoing program modification and evaluation will help guide Ohio State's next steps in geriatrics education.

Adult↗

Older adults in sub-Saharan Africa living with children and grandchildren.

Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys, we examine the composition of households containing older adults in 24 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on those living with children and grandchildren. Overall, 59 per cent live with a child and 46 per cent with a grandchild. Men are more likely to live in nuclear households and women in extended households and alone. Regression analyses show that individual-level determinants of household composition differ by sex. For example, living with children and grandchildren is tied to living with a spouse for men, but for women the effect is either not significant or in the opposite direction. Households with an older adult and a grandchild, but no adult children, are common. Usually the adult child lives elsewhere, though about 8 per cent of older adults live with a grandchild who has at least one deceased parent. Older adults are more likely to be living with double-orphans in countries with high AIDS-related mortality.

Africa South of the Sahara↗

Growth of functional cranial components in rats submitted to intergenerational undernutrition.

The aim of the present study was to discover how intergenerational undernutrition affects the growth of major and minor functional cranial components in two generations of rats. Control animals constituted the parental generation (P). The undernourished generations (F1 and F2) were fed 75% of the control diet. Animals were X-rayed every 10 days from 20 to 100 days of age. The length, width and height of the major (neurocranium and splanchnocranium) and minor (anterior-neural, middle-neural, posterior-neural, otic, respiratory, masticatory and alveolar) cranial components were measured on each radiograph. Volumetric indices were calculated to estimate size variations of these components. Data were processed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for two samples. Impairment in splanchnocranial and neurocranial growth was found, the latter being more affected than the former in F1. Comparison between F2 and F1 animals showed cumulative effects of undernutrition in both major and minor components (anterior-neural, respiratory, masticatory and alveolar in males, and middle-neural and respiratory in females). Such differential effects on minor components may reflect a residual mechanical strain resulting from the linkage between components. This phenomenon was clearly observed in the neurocranium and could be understood as an adaptive response to the demands of the associated functional matrices.

Animals↗

Discounting across generations: necessary, not suspect.

Periodically, ethical objections are raised against the practice of discounting for future effects. Concerns about the potential effects on future generations from long-term nuclear waste disposal and global climate change have caused these ethical objections to recur. This article rebuts the various ethical objections to future discounting on practical, ethical, and analytic grounds. Discounting for future effects is a ubiquitous practice that cannot be practically prevented. In the event that public policy would dictate against future discounting in public decisions, such a constraint could never be successfully imposed on markets. Market values will always reflect the full, discounted streams of future effects even if governments prohibited the practice among individuals. Ethically, there is no basis for choosing an upper-bound time horizon beyond which discounting should be rejected. Any proposed horizon is arbitrary and has no obvious foundation. All decisions are fundamentally irreversible, so opponents of future discounting also must define a degree of irreversibility beyond which normal discounting should not apply, and defend on ethical grounds the basis for this demarcation. This task is further complicated by the likelihood that choices are rarely, if ever, as irreversible as opponents suggest. Typical examples given to prove future discounting is inappropriate overstate the degree of irreversibility actually present and understate subsequent opportunities for modifications. Finally, opposition to distant-future discounting on the ground that burdens are shifted to future generations must face the fact that such shifts are characteristic of intergenerational transfers now practiced widely and with great public support.

Journal Article↗

Intergenerational transmission of somatization behaviour: a study of chronic somatizers and their children.

BACKGROUND: Exposure to an ill parent in childhood may be a risk factor for adult somatization. This study examines the hypothesis that somatizing adults are more likely to have been exposed to illness as a child and that in turn, their children are more likely to report ill health and to have more contact with medical services than children of other mothers. METHOD: A cross-sectional comparative investigation of three groups of mothers and their children of 4-8 years of age: (i) 48 mothers suffering from chronic somatization; (ii) 51 mothers with chronic 'organic' illness; and (iii) 52 healthy mothers was carried out. RESULTS: Somatizing mothers were more likely than other women to report exposure to childhood neglect and to physical illness in a parent (OR 2.9; 95% CI 1.4-6.1). The children of these somatizing mothers were more likely to have health problems than were the children of organically ill or healthy women and had more consultations with family doctors (average annual rates: somatizers 4.9 (S.D. 3.8), organic 3.0 (S.D. 3.5) and healthy 2.8 (S.D. 2.6)). Multivariate modelling of consultation rates among children found significant main effects for maternal somatization, maternal childhood adversity, the child's tendency to worry about health and a two-way interaction of maternal childhood adversity and her somatization status. CONCLUSIONS: The hypotheses are broadly supported. However, it is important to emphasize the extent to which these findings are based on maternal reports.

Adolescent↗

Whose socioeconomic status influences a woman's obesity risk: her mother's, her father's, or her own?

BACKGROUND: Evidence on the relative influence of childhood vs adulthood socioeconomic conditions on obesity risk is limited and equivocal. The objective of this study was to investigate associations of several indicators of mothers', fathers', and own socioeconomic status, and intergenerational social mobility, with body mass index (BMI) and weight change in young women. METHODS: This population-based cohort study used survey data provided by 8756 women in the young cohort (aged 18-23 years at baseline) of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. In 1996 and 2000, women completed mailed surveys in which they reported their height and weight, and their own, mother's, and father's education and occupation. RESULTS: Multiple linear regression models showed that both childhood and adulthood socioeconomic status were associated with women's BMI and weight change, generally in the hypothesized (inverse) direction, but the associations varied according to socioeconomic status and weight indicator. Social mobility was associated with BMI (based on father's socioeconomic status) and weight change (based on mother's socioeconomic status), but results were slightly less consistent. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest lasting effects of childhood socioeconomic status on young women's weight status, independent of adult socioeconomic status, although the effect may be attenuated among those who are upwardly socially mobile. While the mechanisms underlying these associations require further investigation, public health strategies aimed at preventing obesity may need to target families of low socioeconomic status early in children's lives.

Adult↗

Inheritance and wealth composition.

"This paper studies the effects of variables pertaining to alternative bequest motives on the composition of households' portfolio. It relies on a 1986 survey on the assets structure of 5,600 French households. The main conclusion is that bequest motives indeed influence the composition of households' wealth.... In general, however, for lack of data but also because households have mixed bequest motives, one cannot establish a clear relation between specific models of inheritance on the one hand and wealth pattern on the other hand."

Developed Countries↗

Moderating effects of physical abuse and perceived social support on the potential to abuse.

This study investigated the moderating effects of perceived prepubertal social support on the relationship between prepubertal childhood physical abuse and child abuse potential as well as on the relationship between a childhood history of abuse and conflict and depth in adult relationships. Three hundred and sixty-nine undergraduate men and women were classified as abused or nonabused based on their responses to the Childhood History Questionnaire. Multiple regression analyses revealed interactions of social support and a childhood history of physical abuse on both the potential to abuse and the quality of participants' relationships with their parents. Differences between abused and nonabused individuals were obtained only under conditions of low perceived social support. When social support was perceived to be high, abused and nonabused individuals did not differ in the potential to abuse or in the ratings of the depth of their relationships with parents. Implications of these findings for the intergenerational transmission of abuse are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗