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PubMed2006

Sociality, age at first reproduction and senescence: comparative analyses of birds.

Evolutionary theories of senescence suggest that aging evolves as a consequence of early reproduction imposing later viability costs, or as a consequence of weak selection against mutations that act late in life. In addition, highly social species that live in sites that are protected from extrinsic mortality due to predation should senesce at a slower rate than solitary species. Therefore, species that start reproducing late in life should senesce at a slower rate than species that start reproducing early. In addition, social species should senesce more slowly than solitary species. Here I investigate the rate of senescence using an extensive data set on longevity records under natural field conditions to test predictions about the evolution of senescence among 271 species of birds. Longevity records increased with sampling effort and body mass, but once these confounding variables were controlled statistically, there was a strongly positive relationship between relative longevity and relative adult survival rate. Relative longevity after controlling statistically for sampling effort, body mass and adult survival rate, increased with age at first reproduction, but not with degree of breeding sociality. These findings suggest that the evolution of senescence is related to timing of first reproduction, but that the evolution of breeding sociality has played a negligible role in the evolution of senescence.

Aging↗
PubMed2004

Gender differences in risk factors and consequences for alcohol use and problems.

Women drink less alcohol and have fewer alcohol-related problems than men. Women appear to be less likely than men to manifest certain risk factors for alcohol use and problems and are more likely to have certain protective factors against these problems: women perceive greater social sanctions for drinking; women are less likely to have characteristics associated with excessive drinking including aggressiveness, drinking to reduce distress, behavioral undercontrol, sensation-seeking and antisociality; and women are more likely to have desirable feminine traits (e.g., nurturance) protective against excessive drinking. In addition, consequences of heavy alcohol use, or alcohol use disorders, appear to be more negative for women than men, at least in some domains: women suffer alcohol-related physical illnesses at lower levels of exposure to alcohol than men, and some studies suggest women suffer more cognitive and motor impairment due to alcohol than men; women may be more likely than men to suffer physical harm and sexual assault when they are using alcohol; heavy alcohol use in women is associated with a range of reproductive problems. Implications of these findings for future research and public health education campaigns are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Social variables affect phenotype in the neuroma model of neuropathic pain.

When the degree of genetic determination of a trait (i.e. its heritability) is high, one tends to presume that environmental factors will not modify its expression by much. Contrary to this expectation, we show here in rats that a psychosocial-behavioral variable, the identity of cagemates, can largely over-ride genetic predisposition to pain behavior. We used selection-line rats that consistently show high (HA) or low (LA) pain phenotype (autotomy) in the neuroma model of neuropathic pain. Normally, HA animals show autotomy after nerve injury while LA animals do not. However, when caged together with HA rats, LA rats showed high levels of autotomy. This occurred even when the individual HA cagemates were familiar preoperatively, and it did not depend on the actual performance of autotomy by the HA rats. Indeed, cage bedding soiled by HA rats was sufficient to induce a modest level of autotomy in LA animals. Chemical cues associated with HA rats, perhaps in combination with behavioral characteristics, are apparently able to induce pain phenotype despite the powerful protection otherwise rendered by the LA genotype. Social factors must be considered in behavior-related research on rodents that have undergone genetic modification. More generally, the overwhelming influence that psychosocial-behavioral variables have on pain perception, and on pain behavior, in humans may have evolutionary roots deeper than has previously been appreciated.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Women and migration: a public health issue.

The need to migrate is usually a function of the complex interaction of economic, social, familial and political factors. Among the most important, however, are the denial of access to education, employment, goods and services and the lack of respect for basic human rights. Because in many societies women are marginalized from these rights, migration to more economically and educationally open societies can often help improve their personal situation and their professional opportunities. On the other hand, because the status of women is usually linked to their role and status within the family and is defined in relationship to their male partners, migration can place women in situations where they experience stress and anxiety due to the loss of their traditional social entourage and environment. Their social integration in new settings may be equally limited by their initial lack of education and occupational experience. The higher vulnerability of women to sexual abuse and violence also places them at risk of STDs, including HIV, and a range of post-traumatic stress disorders associated with sexual violence. Their reproductive health needs often go unnoticed and unprotected even in well organized refugee and migrant situations, and the insensitivity of health staff to the needs of women is often more pronounced in refugee and migrant contexts than it is in general. Health monitoring of women in all migration-related situations has to be given greater priority. Similarly, much more attention at a health policy level is called for if the rights of women refugees and migrants are to be protected, and their contribution to health and social development is to be acknowledged and promoted.

Acculturation↗
PubMed2006

Is attachment style a source of resilience against health inequalities at work?

The argument that 'indirect selection' is a contributory factor to health inequality has included ideas about personal characteristics that may originate in childhood and increase the likelihood of both poor health and disadvantaged social position in adulthood. The concept of protective resilience makes a similar but converse argument: that positive characteristics acquired at one phase of life may enable individuals to withstand later adversity. The increasing richness of data from longitudinal studies now allows us to examine these processes more closely over a longer period of life. In this paper we show that attachment style, a psychological characteristic thought to be associated with the style of parenting encountered during early childhood, may act as a source of resilience in the face of educational disadvantage. Men in mid-life who were not burdened with anxious or avoidant attachment styles seem to have been more likely to overcome the disadvantage of a lower level of educational attainment and progress up the ladder of Civil Service grades in the English Whitehall II study. As it is not strongly related to parents' social class, it can be argued that attachment style has acted as a source of upward social mobility which is also likely to reinforce better health in later life.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1994

A prospective study of the precursors to problem drinking in young adulthood.

This study was part of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study on Social Development. The subjects (196 males, 173 females) were studied at age 8, 14 and 26. Three components in drinking habits were obtained at age 26: social, problem and controlled drinking. Moderate to severe problem drinking was obtained for 26% of the men and 1% of the women, and mild problem drinking for 23% of the men and 15% of the women. Problem drinking (defined by the CAGE Questionnaire, arrest for alcohol abuse and other indicators of heavy drinking) was directly accounted for by poor school success at age 14 and, for men, by conduct problems and low anxiety. Variables at age 8 that contributed indirectly to adult problem drinking were aggression, low anxiety, low prosociality and poor school success for men, and high anxiety and poor school success for women. Women and men differed in the effect of social anxiety; in men, anxiety was a protective factor against problem drinking; in women, it was a risk factor. Although conduct problems often precede severe problem drinking, other risk factors may exist among sons of alcoholic parents. Parental drinking had a significant threshold effect on male off-springs' drinking: if parental drinking was low, there was less problem drinking among the male offspring than if a mild dependence on alcohol was observed in the parents.

Achievement↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[The reduction of the HIV vulnerability of women involved in the sex business in Ukraine through social mobilization and the creation of self-support networks].

The importance of making plans on projects and measures, aimed at the prevention of HIV infection and the social development of female sex workers (FSW) with due regard to observing the principles of human rights protection, is discussed. The materials and resolutions of the First International Conference "Social Development of HIV-Vulnerable Groups of Population", held of Kiev on December 26, 1998, are presented. The conference was attended by representatives of state and public organizations, specialists on the organization of the prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases among FSW, lawyers, physicians and representatives of the HIV-vulnerable target group (FSW) from 7 Ukrainian cities and from Belarus. All these activities contributed to the implementation of the Project "FSW Network Initiative with NGOs" in 11 Ukrainian cities, starting from September 1999, with the support of UNAIDS. The possibility of the mobilization of FSW for organizing self-support groups with a view to protect their rights and to take themselves measures for HIV/AIDS prevention among FSW is shown.

Disease Susceptibility↗
PubMed1996

Conducting research with children: legal and ethical issues.

Research with children and mentally disabled individuals raises difficult legal and ethical issues. It is the obligation of researchers and those who review research to protect both the rights and welfare of research subjects. Ethicists, legal scholars, and national commissions have examined the circumstances under which it is acceptable to use incompetent people as research subjects, since they are unable to provide consent for participation. Furthermore, there is an extensive set of federal rules that govern the use of children as research subjects. Children may be used as research subjects after a careful weighing of risks and benefits, and as long as they participate in the decision to the extent they are able to do so. However, research projects that will not provide children with direct benefit, such as some placebo-controlled trials, raise particularly difficult issues concerning the protection of these subjects. While biomedical research is an important and socially desirable undertaking, it must proceed only when the rights and welfare of the subjects are scrupulously protected.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Children as organ donors: legal rights and ethical issues.

As the number of children in need of organ transplants increases as a result of medical advances, so does the demand for organs that can be used in transplantation. In the face of compelling medical need, prospective donors as well as prospective recipients are subject to strong pressures. Social workers can play a large role in protecting the rights and interests of both groups of young clients.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Harm reduction theories and strategies for control of human immunodeficiency virus: a review of the literature.

AIM: To provide a comprehensive review of the literature on harm reduction theories and strategies related primarily to licit and illicit drug use. BACKGROUND: Although human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) disease transmission is well understood, it continues to spread, particularly among injection drug users (IDUs). Despite early indications that HIV would be contained within the IDU community, it is spreading to non-IDU sexual partners and to children of IDUs, threatening a more widespread epidemic. METHODS: An examination of research studies and theoretical writings including reviews and policy papers published in English between 1990 and 2000. RESULTS: Harm reduction does not seek to eliminate drug use; it focuses on minimizing the personal and social harms and costs associated with drug use and spread of HIV. It seeks to ameliorate conditions surrounding drug use responsible for the spread of HIV in the IDU community: unequal access to health services; sharing of infected needles; racial and social discrimination; poverty; exposure to street violence; inadequate housing; lack of employment; poor general or mental health and other demographic and social determinants. Some controversial harm reduction strategies are described: methadone maintenance programmes, illegal drugs dispensing under controlled conditions, needle exchanges, HIV testing, vein maintenance, safe-sex and would-care programmes. CONCLUSION: The main challenge is to get IDUs to protect themselves against HIV when suffering physical and social privations and addiction needs. Diverse perspectives on harm reduction are problematic with consequences for success of drug use initiatives. Practical, ethical and theoretical complexities exist but further research is needed to build support for a harm-reduction orientation in practice and policy formulation.

Community-Institutional Relations↗
PubMed1997

Nurses' roles in protecting human subjects.

This article highlighted several nursing roles and strategies for the protection of human subjects including the importance of socializing new nurses into their role responsibilities and reporting questionable scientific conduct. Although different strategies were suggested in relation to each role, one commonality pervaded--nurses, by virtue of their license and focus of their professional discipline, are keys to the protection of human subjects in research.

Clinical Nursing Research↗
PubMed1976

Intellectual and social development following prolonged isolation.

A patient with severe combined immunodeficiency required protective isolation for the first year of life. He was discharged after an effective treatment program was developed and has remained well. Developmental testing at 14 and 16 months revealed near age level social and intellectual functioning. Optimal nursing care, frequent and prolonged maternal contact, and the patient's adaptive capacities permitted rapid adjustment to normal life following prolonged isolation.

Child Development↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Blood pressure, ethnicity, and psychosocial resources.

Research on psychosocial factors and cardiovascular disease has shown that psychosocial resources (including social supports and coping styles) help to protect individuals from the risk associated with psychosocial stressors. Some evidence indicates that this protective effect may extend to standard risk factors as well. This latter hypothesis was examined in greater detail in a study conducted in Brazil, in which it was found that psychosocial resources modified black-white differences in blood pressure. Highest mean blood pressures were observed among mixed race and black Brazilians who had low psychosocial resources; Afro-Brazilians with high psychosocial resources had lower blood pressures than white Brazilians. Implications of these results for the mechanisms linking ethnicity, psychosocial factors, and blood pressure are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1994

Genetic structure of a population with social structure and migration.

Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) live in social groups consisting of resident adult females and their offspring, and immigrant males. Subadult males leave their birth group, and might establish themselves as reproducing males in another group. Females do not leave their birth group. Such a social pattern might have consequences for the genetic differentiation between groups and the genetic relationships within groups. In a field study of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Ketambe, Sumatra, Indonesia, blood samples were taken from individuals in seven adjacent social groups. Electrophoretic analysis showed 17 blood proteins and enzymes to be polymorphic, allowing the computation of heterozygosities and of the F-statistics. Of the F-statistics, F(IS) indicates the deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium averaged over local populations, FST indicates the differentiation in allele frequency between local populations, and F(IT) indicates the deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium over the total population. In a computer simulation of the population of long-tailed macaques using many loci with many neutral alleles, F(IS) and FST values proved to be characteristic for a certain demography and life history of the population, and proved not to depend upon the number of alleles or level of heterozygosity. FST values found in the simulation were compatible to those found in the field; in the simulation, values for F(IS) and F(IT) were consistently negative. The explanation for the negative F(IS) appears to be that genetic drift causes differentiation in allele frequencies between groups, and that due to this differentiation, allele frequencies differ between resident females and immigrant males, leading to offspring with an excess of heterozygotes (negative F(IS)) relative to the expectation based upon the overall allele frequency. The excess of heterozygotes might imply that slightly deleterious alleles are protected from selection. A population with a social structure and differential migration of the sexes is liable to accumulate deleterious recessives and, as a consequence, to be very sensitive to inbreeding on disruption of the social structure, as for instance in zoos.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Suicide among patients with schizophrenia: a consideration of risk and protective factors.

BACKGROUND: The elevated rate of suicide among patients with schizophrenia is well documented and thus frequently researched. The majority of research has focused solely on the identification of risk factors that predispose patients to attempt or commit suicide. This review serves to expand on the literature pertaining to suicide risk factors by additionally outlining how protective factors may shield against suicide within this unique patient population. METHODS: A literature review of English-language publications pertaining to suicide among people with schizophrenia was completed using PsychINFO and MEDLINE databases between the years of 1960-2004 and 1950-2004 respectively. Special emphasis was given to studies of risk factors and protective factors for suicide. RESULTS: Commonly supported risk factors for suicide were identified: previous attempts, severity of illness, comorbidity, social isolation, temporal relationships, and demographic characteristics. Risk factors such as a history of violence, the presence of command hallucinations, and recent tragic loss were found to warrant future study. Social support, positive coping skills, life satisfaction, and resiliency emerged as protective factors that may mitigate suicide. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding why some patients wish to end their lives but also why some desire to live allows for more comprehensive suicide prevention.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2005

Social isolation stress-induced oxidative damage in mouse brain and its modulation by majonoside-R2, a Vietnamese ginseng saponin.

Stressors with a physical factor such as immobilization, electric foot shock, cold swim, etc., have been shown to produce oxidative damage to membrane lipids in the brain. In this study, we investigated the effect of protracted social isolation stress on lipid peroxidation activity in the mouse brain and elucidated the protective effect of majonoside-R2, a major saponin component of Vietnamese ginseng, in mice exposed to social isolation stress. Thiobarbituric acid reactive substance levels, one of the end products of lipid peroxidation reaction, were increased in the brains of mice subjected to 6-8 weeks of social isolation stress. Measurements of nitric oxide (NO) metabolites (NO(x)(-)) also revealed a significant increase of NO production in the brains of socially isolated mice. Moreover, the depletion of brain glutathione content, an endogenous antioxidant, in socially isolated animals occurred in association with the rise in lipid peroxidation. The intraperitoneal administration of majonoside-R2 (10-50 mg/kg) had no effect on thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), NO, or glutathione levels in the brains of group-housed control mice but it significantly suppressed the increase in TBARS and NO levels and the decrease in glutathione levels caused by social isolation stress. These results suggest that mice subjected to 6-8 weeks of social isolation stress produces oxidative damage in the brain partly via enhancement of NO production, and that majonoside-R2 exerts a protective effect by modulating NO and glutathione systems in the brain.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Depression and social change. From transcultural psychiatry to a constructivist model.

Based on the findings of previous studies carried out by our group, which will be briefly summarised, the present paper puts forward several hypotheses to account for the evolution of depressive symptoms and the possible increase observed in risk of depression subsequent to social changes. The particular mood disorders presented by Senegalese emigrants and several protective factors which appear to determine a low risk in these populations, such as a strong social support, will be examined. Based on a previous investigation carried out by our group, which seems to indicate the presence of depressive pictures among poorly westernised populations such as the Peul nomads or Dogon farmers from the Sub-Saharian regions, the hypothesis that "westernalisation" (considered as the loss at an individual level of traditional ways of life, working habits, cultural patterns and languages in favour of different attitudes influenced by western culture) may represent a risk factor for depressive illness, in its clinical expressions commonly observed in western contexts, has been considered. In these populations, with the exception of educated individuals, the albeit rare depressive symptoms appear to be secondary to serious somatic disorders. Research performed identified two well-defined means of clinical expression, which has been termed, respectively, "western style" or "guilty" and "traditional" or "dislocation from the group". Further studies carried out in rapidly changing areas seem to indicate how environmental factors are able to influence the evolution of depressive symptoms from the first form to the latter and to modify the threshold of onset of emotive, behavioural and depressive patterns. It has been hypothesised that rapid changes in the social organisation tend to exacerbate attitudes of "compulsive hyper-responsibilisation", a cognitive set of basic assumptions which may be considered at the same time both as a product of "westernalization" at an individual level and a risk factor for depression. Individuals who possess these basic characteristics, subsequent to the opportunities afforded by the social changes, tend to develop new complex systems of interpreting reality, causality, controlling of events and ways of expressing emotions. Accordingly, we herewith propose a reviewal of the entire threshold concept and provide a means of interpreting the transformation in depressive phenomena in view of the fact that, although the new levels of knowledge and learning better equip subjects to face the new situations, they also render them more vulnerable to depression.

Adult↗