Entries Tagged 'research' ↓

The recent 63rd United Nations Department of Public Information NGO Conference held in Melbourne focused on improving women and children’s health.

“Advancing global health is essential to the Millennium Development Goals, and you are essential to advancing global health,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The central concern of Mr. Ban’s opening remarks was the need to improve women’s and children’s health “the area where we are most behind”.  Simple measures could make a huge difference, he told the gathering, whose activism the United Nations not only valued, but depended upon.

On the agenda was a workshop hosted by Australia on the harms of alcohol misuse. Conducted by Rev. Tim Costello Director of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER Foundation), the discussion and workshop concentrated on identifying community driven solutions to alcohol misuse.

The Alcohol Education & Rehabilitation Foundation (AER) is a unique, independent, not-for-profit organisation with a goal to change the way we drink.

AER Foundation Chairman Cheryl Bart said: “Alcohol misuse has been identified as a priority issue by the World Health Organisation, yet a policy response remains noticeably absent from our own political agenda.”

“We can no longer ignore the significant human and financial cost of alcohol-related harms, which impact upon the physical, mental and social wellbeing of drinkers and people around them. The $36 billion cost of alcohol-related harms demonstrates to government the urgent need for reform in this area” he added.

Research has found that young people and women are at greatest risk of harm from others misuse of alcohol. In Australia every year 24,000 women are victims of alcohol related domestic violence assaults and 20,000 children are victims of alcohol-related child abuse.

Professor Ian Webster of the AER Foundation said, “Much more needs to be done to support our young people, particularly young women, to prevent them from being negatively affected by our current problematic drinking culture.”

A report funded by the AER Foundation, conducted by the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI) at Curtin University, Perth revealed voluntary restrictions on the sale of alcohol in the town of Norseman WA, led to a 17.5% reduction in assaults, a 60.5% fall in alcohol related hospital admissions and a 10% decrease in per capita consumption of alcohol.

The report entitled, Don’t Wake Up Angry No More – The Evaluation of the Norseman Voluntary Liquor Agreement, measured the impact of voluntary alcohol restrictions put in place in the town of Norseman with a population of 857 individuals, 12% of whom are Aboriginal people.

The AER Foundation workshop shared internationally significant findings from its major new research report: The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others, Beyond the drinker: Alcohol’s hidden costs*.

“We need to change the way we drink. Australia is a very fortunate nation, yet we squander our good fortune by continuing to sideline the preventative health agenda. Enough is enough,” said Ms Bart.

Alcohol misuse is a significant contributor to a range of health and social issues, including violence, crime, child abuse and mortality, in both developed and developing countries.

The AER Foundation workshop will focus on the disproportionate effect of alcohol misuse on children, young adults, women and Indigenous people.

*The study was commissioned by the AER Foundation to assess harm caused by the heavy drinking of others. It draws on existing and newly developed data, including a national survey of more than 2,600 Australians aged 18 or older conducted in 2008.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: AER Foundation. UN Department of Public Information NGO Conference.

70,000 Australians are reported victims of alcohol related assaults every year
24,000 women are victims of alcohol related domestic violence assaults
20,000 children are victims of alcohol-related child abuse

The Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER Foundation) recently commissioned a new report The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others, which has just been published.

The AER is a unique, independent, not-for-profit organisation with a goal to change the way we drink.

The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others report was carried out by the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research in Melbourne. It offers an insight into how individual acts of alcohol misuse affect both families and communities.

Young Australians bear the brunt of the negative effects of drinking by others, with young women suffering the most when a person they were in a relationship with misused alcohol.

According to The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others report, young people aged 18-29 years were three times more likely to be affected by the drinking of someone they knew compared with older people and they were also twice as likely to be affected by strangers.

AER Foundation Director Professor Ian Webster said: “We often talk about young people as being part of the problem when it comes to alcohol-related harms. But we now know that they are one of the most vulnerable groups in our community when it comes to the impact of others’ drinking.”

He added “Much more needs to be done to support our young people, particularly young women, to prevent them from being negatively affected by our current problematic drinking culture.”

As part of the report, the Alcohol’s Harm to Others survey* also found that young people aged 18-29 years were more likely to experience harm from the drinking of strangers by:
• Being forced or pressured into sexual activity
• Being physically abused
• Encountering trouble or noise related to a licensed venue
• Having to avoid places where drinkers are known to hang out
• Being involved in a traffic accident
• Being verbally abused and threatened
• Getting into a serious argument
• Feeling unsafe in a public place and public transport
• Having their property or personal belongings damaged

Nearly 75% of both men and women aged 18-29 years who had been negatively affected in the last year by the drinking of a family member or friend said they also had to spend time looking after that person as a result of their drinking (cleaning up after them, driving them somewhere, caring for them or their children).

The survey found that 46% of young women who lived with a drinker would need to care for that person as a result of their drinking habits. They were also likely to experience verbal abuse from that person, which could also lead to cases of domestic violence.

The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found that younger men were more likely than women to experience verbal and physical abuse, while both younger and older women were more likely to be put in fear by someone affected by alcohol.

“We need to be asking what we can do to ensure that the whole community is protected from these harms. Now more than ever alcohol policy development is supported by a sound evidence base that shows which strategies are effective in reducing alcohol-related harms.” said Professor Webster.

He concluded “Significant policy reform is required in alcohol taxation, advertising and sponsorship restrictions, and limiting the availability of alcohol to protect young people.”

The report found the hidden cost of harms caused by someone else’s drinking brings the total economic impact of alcohol misuse in Australia to $36 billion annually, more than double previous estimates.

*Alcohol’s Harm to Others is a national survey completed in 2008 of more than 2,600 Australians aged 18 years or older conducted by Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: Alcohol Education & Rehabilitation Foundation

87% of young people happier when they have quality time with their dads

Research in the UK has found that young people who have the opportunity to spend quality time with their fathers on “most days’ are happier and more well balanced compared to those who don’t.

The Children’s Society released findings by the British Household Panel survey of 1,200 teenagers in the UK aged from 11 years old to 15 years old.

 It is of concern though that 46% of the young people said they “hardly ever” spent time with their fathers talking about issues that were important to them.

The study was carried out by the University of York and found that as teenagers get older they spend less quality time with their fathers talking about the things that matter to them most.

42% of the surveyed 11 year olds spent time talking to their dads more than once a week; however by the age of 15 years this figure had dropped to 16%.

The figures are “highly significant” because experts worldwide now recognise that a child’s well-being later in life depends on their teenage relationship with their father as well as with their mother.

The Children’s Society has launched a Fatherhood Commission to gather the views of both experts and the general public alike (including children), in the hope of exploring further the barriers to a father’s involvement with their children as they grow older and go through their teenage years.

Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of the Children’s Society, said: “This research shows that young people’s happiness is closely linked to how often they speak to their fathers about things that matter. Yet all too often these days, children are becoming alienated or live apart from their fathers”.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: The Children’s Society

Dr Aric Sigman, psychologist and author of Remotely Controlled: How Television is Damaging Our Lives and The Spoilt Generation is concerned that exposing children as young as 22 months to computers and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) actually impinges on their development rather than aids it because it is “subverting the development of children’s cognitive skills”.

Based the UK, Dr Sigman recently addressed a childcare conference, telling them “there is evidence to show that introducing information and communication technology (ICT) in the early years actually subverts the very skills that government ministers said they want children to develop, such as the ability to pay attention for sustained periods.”

In Australia it is almost a year since the Rudd government made laptops available to Australian school children. During that time there has been growing concern that their use is distracting students and making them under perform in exams.

Helen Walton from the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizen’s Association said “anything that offers children the opportunity to be distracted, they will be”.

Many young people already suffer from a poor attention span which in turn makes it difficult for them to listen to a teacher or follow through on even the simplest of tasks. It is feared that exposure to computers will be harmful to young children’s under developed brains.

“The big problems we are seeing now with children who do not read, or who find it difficult to pay attention to the teacher, or to communicate, are down to attention damage that we are finding in all age groups.”

Dr Sigman suggests that computers should “be introduced and used judiciously at much later ages – ideally at least age nine – or it can subvert the development of the cognitive skills and curiosity it was intended to foster and enhance,”

By the age of nine years old, computers can be used very effectively to help children’s learning, social development and health. A number of studies in the US show that age-appropriate software can help language development.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: The (London) Sunday Telegraph.  Dr Aric Sigman

It is a well known ‘old wives tale’ that a mother’s love can protect a child from illness. Her love creates a protective bond around a newborn baby that shields them from harm as they grow.

Now new research conducted by scientists from the University of British Columbia, Canada shows that indeed children who have received copious amounts of ‘maternal warmth’ as children, regardless of their socio-economic status, are less prone to certain illnesses in their adult years.

Scientists have now proved that a child who feels secure in their mother’s love as a child has lower levels of protein molecules that cause inflammation in tissues of the body. In later years this inflammation can develop into conditions such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and depression.

These findings, relating to early childhood and ‘maternal warmth’ have now been published in Molecular Psychiatry, a new online multidisciplinary medical journal.

For the study, Edith Chen and fellow researchers from the University of British Columbia selected 53 adults (aged 25 to 40 years old) whose childhoods had been difficult from a socio-economic point of view, but who now showed no significant differences in their current demographic or behavioural aspects.

The candidates were asked about their early childhood including any economic hardships and their relationship with their mothers. Their immune systems were also tested on immune activation and systemic inflammation patterns.

From this group of 53 it was found that the 26 participants who said their mothers were warm and loving had reduced inflammatory profiles when compared to the remaining 27 people in the study.

The researchers said that these findings were significant because they showed that a loving and secure home atmosphere helped reduce the harmful medical effects of poverty.

The unconditional love of a mother should never be underestimated. It is one of the most important and powerful ingredients in the development of a healthy balanced child who is less likely to suffer from a heart disease and mental health issues later in life.

This ‘maternal warmth’ creates in the child a sense of wellbeing and self worth so that as they grow up they are less prone to depression and feelings of low self esteem.

Austin Health cardiologist Prof David Hare said “having a caring mother is highly beneficial, irrespective of poor social circumstances”.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: Molecular Psychiatry

Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry.

Lack of fear conditioning at age 3 years may signal future criminality.

According to a neuro-developmental hypothesis, dysfunction in multiple brain regions may be involved in subsequent criminal offenses.

This study investigated the hypothesis that children who poses poor fear conditionings at a young age may be at risk of subsequent criminal behaviour in their adult life.

1,795 children aged 3 years old from Mauritius were tested for their fear-conditioned response. 20 years later their criminal status was compared with these results. Fear conditioning was determined from their response patterns to several tones and a noxious sound.

When the participants reached 23 years of age researchers compared 137 participants who had property, drug, violence, or serious driving offenses with 274 non-criminal participants matched for age, sex, ethnicity, and social adversity (e.g., uneducated parent, single-parent families, separation from parents, overcrowding, poor maternal health).

Unlike the comparison group, the criminal offender group had not shown fear conditioning to the noxious sound at age 3 years.

Comment:
This may be the first-ever long-term prospective study to show an early deficit in autonomic fear conditioning as a predisposition to adult criminality.

This report does not indicate other possible long-term outcomes in children with deficient fear conditioning.

Early biomarkers of increased criminal risk might enable clinicians and parents to fashion environments that decrease negative outcomes and, perhaps, even enable some of these children to flourish. — Joel Yager, MD

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

SOURCE: Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry. 2010

The “In The Driver’s Seat II: Beyond the Early Driving Years” is the second report from the collaborative partnership between the Australian Institute of Family Studies, the Transport Accident Commission of Victoria and the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria.

1,000 adolescents participated in this report which looks at the driving behaviours of young people aged 23 to 24 years old.  The main dangerous driving behaviours committed by young people seems to be speeding, driving while fatigued, driving without a seatbelt, drink driving, driving while under the influence of an illegal substance and using a mobile phone.

The report showed that there is a connection between young people undertaking risky driving and other risk taking activities in life such as alcohol and substance abuse. Those who indulged in one risk taking activity were more likely to indulge in other risky activities while driving and during their everyday lives.

Rather than decrease with age and understanding, the occurrence of risk taking behaviour by some young people seemed to increase with confidence and experience. Risky driving appeared to be one element of a risk taking lifestyle for a number of young people.

The report addressed 6 main issues:
1. Young people’s driving behaviours
2. The consistency of driving behaviours from 19–20 to 23–24 years
3. Links between drink-driving, other risky driving, and substance use
4. The relationship between crashes, high-level speeding and fatigue
5. The influence of parents on young people’s car purchases, and
6. The links between young people’s personal characteristics and their driving  behaviours.

Driving behaviours of young people in their mid-20s
97% of young people obtain a driver’s licence by 23–24 years of age
60% had been involved in a crash
50% are caught speeding during their driving careers
40% had friends who engaged in drink-driving
20% had recently driven when near or over the legal alcohol limit
 7% had experienced a licence cancellation or suspension

The report found that risky driving was relatively common for adolescent drivers. For example, on one or more of their ten most recent driving trips, close to 50% had exceeded the speed limit, about 60%  had driven when very tired, 60% had used a mobile phone function (such as receiving or sending an SMS), and around 50% had talked on a mobile phone.

Gender differences
Young men tended to have their licence cancelled or suspended more often than young women. Young men also tended to engage more frequently in a range of unsafe driving practices (e.g., high-level speeding, driving when affected by alcohol). However, young women had more often driven when fatigued.

Residence locality
As a group, those from metropolitan areas (68%) had more often been involved in a crash, and had been involved in a higher number of crashes. Additionally, rates of hands-free mobile use when driving were higher among young people from metropolitan areas.

Changed driving behaviours from 19–20 to 23–24 years
There was a slight decrease in high-level speeding and driving without a seatbelt from 19–20 to 23–24 years however, rates of other types of risky driving tended to increase or remain stable. Driving when fatigued remained very prevalent, and driving when affected by alcohol increased substantially.

This suggests that risky driving is as serious an issue in the mid-20s as in the late teens and points to the importance of sustaining road safety efforts into the twenties.

High stability was found among those with low levels of risky driving, but less stability was found among those showing moderate and high levels of risky driving, the majority of whom were less problematic at 23–24 years.

Risky driving and substance use
Early adulthood can be a period of considerable risk taking: the prevalence of substance use reaches a life-time high (Spooner, Hall, & Lynskey, 2001), while other forms of risk-taking common at this age include antisocial behaviour, gambling and risky driving.

Young people who engaged in drink-driving were more likely to engage in other types of risky driving, such as speeding, and driving without a seatbelt, when fatigued, under the influence of an illegal drug or when using a mobile phone. Binge drinking, and marijuana, ecstasy and amphetamine use were all significantly higher among high- and moderate-level risky drivers.

Crash involvement, speeding, fatigue and other aspects of road safety
Similarities were found in the driver histories and behaviours of young people who had been involved in multiple crashes as drivers, had recently engaged in high-level speeding (more than 25 km/h over the limit), or had recently driven when very tired.

These findings suggest that problematic driving does not occur in isolation, and may reflect a risk-taking approach to driving among some young drivers.

Parents’ influence on young people’s car purchase
Parents can play an important role in the driving behaviour and attitudes of young people. One way in which this may occur is through the advice and support they provide when young people are purchasing a car. Parents were more likely to have had an influence on their children’s car purchase if they had a close relationship. Parents are not often considered in road safety efforts targeted at young drivers.

Personal characteristics
Individuals who drove in a law-abiding manner tended to show greater empathy, responsibility and perspective-taking than other drivers, as well as closer connections to parents and more tolerant attitudes.

These findings are a reminder that what an individual is like as a person impacts on his/her behaviour behind the wheel. They point to the value of helping young people gain an understanding of their personal style and how this might affect their approach to driving.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: In the Driver’s Seat II: Beyond the Early Driving Years
For copies, please contact the Australian Institute of Family Studies on (03) 9214 7888,  or visit www.aifs.gov.au

Published in Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

A recent study has confirmed that the long-term consequences of harmful childhood experiences do persist into adulthood.
 
In 1998 the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study (Am J Prev Med 1998; 14:245) showed that childhood maltreatment and family dysfunction contribute to many leading causes of death in adults.

This study followed 1037 newborns (91% of eligible births) who represented the full range of socioeconomic status (SES) in the general population. Adverse psychosocial experiences (hardship, maltreatment, and social isolation) were assessed 11 times between the ages of 3 and 32 years old.

Results:

• Children who experienced SES disadvantage, maltreatment, or social isolation were significantly more likely to have risk factors for age-related disease as adults, and
• Children who were exposed to a greater number of adverse experiences had a greater number of age-related risks as adults. These results were independent of genetic liability for adult diseases, birth weight, childhood weight, and adult SES and health behaviours.

Comment:
This study supports the view that adverse psychosocial experiences in childhood affect physiological responses to stress. Those children exposed to extreme and difficult living conditions while growing up are less able to process stressfull situations as adults.

The authors conclude that chronic overactivation of the physiological response to stress leads to negative consequences in stress-sensitive systems that increase risk for common chronic adult conditions.

This prospective study reminds us that, although preventable psycho-social scars during childhood might appear to heal, long-term consequences can persist into adult life. The results serve as another reminder that the best practice of pediatrics is based on the principles of bio-psychosocial medicine. — Martin T. Stein, MD

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

 
SOURCE: Published in Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. 2010

Published in Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2010.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is calling for a more-stringent control of alcohol advertising on cable television.

Although advertising alcoholic beverages to a television audience with many underage drinkers has been avoided since 2003, it is felt that even tighter guidelines and limits need to be put in place.

Based on the national Nielsen Media Research data from 2001 to 2006, it has been found that the increase of adolescent viewership and the screening of alcoholic advertisements rise disproportionally. With the figures showing that with a 1% rise in underage viewers, the incidence of ads featuring alcohol goes up by 7% for beer, 15% for spirits and a staggering 22% for alcopops. Only the airing of wine ads (-8%) decreases with adolescent viewership.

Ad incidences of spirits and alcopops are more strongly associated with female viewership than male viewership; each 1% increase in the percentage of females in the adolescent audience is associated with a 4% to 5% increase in alcoholic ads being screened.

Comment:
These findings suggest that producers of beer, spirits, and especially alcopops monitor the extent of youth viewership during cable television time slots to maximize ad exposure.

Recent surveys show that binge drinking of spirits and consumption of alcopops have increased more among girls than boys — trends reflected in the preferential targeting of ads for these products during shows with greater proportions of girls in the adolescent viewership.

95% of cable advertising time slots have youth viewership levels with an average age of between 12 and 20 years of age.— Alain Joffe, MD, MPH, FAAP

Published in Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2010.

Citation(s):
Chung PJ et al. Association between adolescent viewership and alcohol advertising on cable television. Am J Public Health 2010

Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Many teenagers who occasionally smoke cannabis don’t think that they are putting themselves at risk of developing issues of addiction or health problems as they grow older.

However Paul Dillon, author of “Teenagers, Alcohol and Drugs” and Generation Next speaker, has commented that “… experimenting with cannabis puts you at risk of coming into contact with a range of other drugs… There is also the possibility that after breaking one taboo – smoking an illegal drug like cannabis – it is much easier to break another.”

More information about the effects of smoking cannabis can be found at the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre website.

A new Australian study “Outcomes of occasional cannabis use in adolescence: 10-year follow-up study” carried out in Victoria confirms that even occasional cannabis use can lead to the use of hard drugs and excessive drink in their 20’s and beyond. The study and its findings were recently published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

The Study:
Assessed almost 2,000 teenagers at the age of 13-14 years old
Assessed again four times during their teenage years, and
Assessed again twice in their early 20s.

The Results:
34% of the students reported using cannabis in their teens.
64% of these users said they used cannabis occasionally and the rest used it weekly
60% said they were still using cannabis by the time they reached early adulthood
77% of these users said they used cannabis occasionally, and
23% used cannabis weekly.

The Findings:

• Teenagers who occassionally used cannabis were at higher risk of illegal drug use, and alcohol and tobacco dependence when they reached early adulthood, and
• Occasional teenage cannabis users were less likely to have gained post-school qualifications by the age of 24 years.

Lead researcher Professor Louisa Degenhardt, of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre  (NDARC) at the University of New South Wales, said: “… even those students who only used cannabis occasionally in their teenage years faced a higher risk of drug problems in adulthood too.”

“It seems clear that in countries such as Australia, where cannabis use is the norm among young people, even infrequent cannabis use is related to later levels of drug use of all kinds. Whether this is due to learning processes, the influence of social networks or other factors, it is still the case that early onset occasional cannabis use is a marker for later drug use and drug problems.”

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre