Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Cost Sharing On Seeking Care For Serious And Minor Symptoms. Results Of A Randomized Controlled Trial, Martin Shapiro, John Ware, Cathy Sherbourne

Martin Shapiro

To estimate the effect of cost sharing on seeking care for serious and minor symptoms, we analyzed data for 3539 persons aged 17 to 61 from the Rand Health Insurance Experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to a free-care group or to insurance plans requiring them to pay part of the costs (cost-sharing group). Annual surveys were administered to determine if participants had serious and minor symptoms during the preceding month and whether they saw a physician. Serious symptoms were judged by a panel of physicians to warrant care in most instances; minor symptoms were judged neither to be severe nor …

Is It Abuse? Deaf Female Undergraduates' Labeling Of Partner Violence, Melissa Anderson, Caroline Kobek Pezzarossi

Melissa L. Anderson

The current study investigated the labeling of abuse experiences in a sample of 97 Deaf female undergraduate students, exploring the following questions: What is the prevalence of violent behaviors experienced by Deaf female undergraduates in their past-year relationships, what proportion of these relationships are identified as "abuse," and what scripts and strategies do Deaf female undergraduates utilize to label their experiences of partner violence? Results indicated that over half of the sample chose not to label past-year experiences of psychological aggression, physical assault, and sexual coercion as abuse, even when these experiences included severe violence. Implications for the Deaf education …

Intimate Partner Violence Against Deaf Female College Students, Melissa Anderson, Irene Leigh

Melissa L. Anderson

It has been estimated that roughly 25% of all Deaf women in the United States are victims of intimate partner violence (Abused Deaf Women's Advocacy Services [ADWAS]), a figure similar to annual prevalence rates of 16% to 30% for intimate partners in the general population. One goal of the present study was to ascertain the prevalence of intimate partner violence victimization in a sample of Deaf female college students. When comparing the prevalence of physical assault, psychological aggression, and sexual coercion victimization to hearing female undergraduates, the current sample was approximately two times as likely to have experienced victimization in …

Deaf Students And Their Classroom Communication: An Evaluation Of Higher Order Categorical Interactions Among School And Background Characteristics, Thomas Allen, Melissa Anderson

Melissa L. Anderson

This article investigated to what extent age, use of a cochlear implant, parental hearing status, and use of sign in the home determine language of instruction for profoundly deaf children. Categorical data from 8,325 profoundly deaf students from the 2008 Annual Survey of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children and Youth were analyzed using chi-square automated interaction detector, a stepwise analytic procedure that allows the assessment of higher order interactions among categorical variables. Results indicated that all characteristics were significantly related to classroom communication modality. Although younger and older students demonstrated a different distribution of communication modality, for both younger and older …

Black Deaf Individuals' Reading Skills: Influence Of Asl, Culture, Family Characteristics, Reading Experience, And Education, Candace Myers, M. Diane Clark, Millicent Musyoka, Melissa Anderson, Gizelle Gilbert, Selina Agyen, Peter Hauser

Melissa L. Anderson

Previous research on the reading abilities of Deaf individuals from various cultural groups suggests that Black Deaf and Hispanic Deaf individuals lag behind their White Deaf peers. The present study compared the reading skills of Black Deaf and White Deaf individuals, investigating the influence of American Sign Language (ASL), culture, family characteristics, reading experience, and education. (The descriptor Black is used throughout the present article, as Black Deaf individuals prefer this term to African American. For purposes of parallel construction, the term White is used instead of European American.) It was found that Black Deaf study participants scored lower on …

Prevalence Of Sexual Abuse Among Women Seeking Gynecologic Care In Germany, Ursula Peschers, Janice Du Mont, Katharina Jundt, Mona Pfurtner, Elizabeth Dugan, Gunther Kindermann

Elizabeth Dugan

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of sexual abuse among patients seen for gynecologic care in Germany. METHODS: A short anonymous questionnaire was distributed to 1157 women attending a gynecologic outpatient clinic at a large urban teaching hospital. Data collected using the questionnaire included patient characteristics, sexual abuse history, and screening practices. Women who reported that they had been abused were asked if they had ever discussed the issue with their gynecologist. RESULTS: A total of 1075 questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 92.9%. Almost half (n = 479 [44.6%]) of the women surveyed reported that they had been …

Assessing And Quantifying High Risk: Comparing Risky Behaviors By Youth In An Urban, Disadvantaged Community With Nationally Representative Youth, Monica Swahn, Robert Bossarte

Monica H. Swahn

No abstract provided.

Prevalence Of Youth Access To Alcohol Or A Gun In The Home, Monica Swahn, B Hammig, R Ikeda

Monica H. Swahn

Objectives: To estimate the national prevalence of youth access to alcohol, a gun, or both alcohol and a gun, in their home and to describe the demographic characteristics associated with access to either alcohol or a gun. Methods: Cross sectional data from the 1995 in-home survey of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which used a nationally representative randomly selected school based sample (n=18 924) of adolescents in grades 7-12, were analyzed. The current analyses were restricted to those adolescents 12-18 years of age (n=18 454). Crude logistic regression analyses was used to determine the demographic characteristics associated with …

Age Of Alcohol Use Initiation, Suicidal Behavior, And Peer And Dating Violence Victimization And Perpetration Among High-Risk, Seventh-Grade Adolescents, Monica Swahn, Robert Bossarte, Ernest Sullivent

Monica H. Swahn

Objective: We examined the cross-sectional associations between reports of an early age of alcohol use initiation and suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and peer and dating violence victimization and perpetration among high-risk adolescents.

Method: Data were obtained from the Youth Violence Survey conducted in 2004 and administered to all public school students enrolled in grades 7, 9, and 11/12 (N = 4131) in a high-risk school district in the United States. Our analyses were limited to seventh-grade students who either began drinking before the age of 13 or were nondrinkers, with complete information on all covariates (n = 856). Cross-sectional logistic …

Violent Attacks On Middle Easterners In The United States During The Month Following The September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, Monica Swahn, R Mahendra, L Paulozzi, R Winston, G Shelley, J Taliano, L Frazier, J Saul

Monica H. Swahn

Objectives: To document and describe hate related violent attacks on Middle Easterners or those perceived to be Middle Easterners during the month following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC. Methods: The LexisNexis database of newspaper reports were used to identify incidents of hate related violent acts against Middle Easterners or those perceived to be Middle Easterners in the US between September 1 and October 11, 2001. A total of 100 incidents of hate related violence were identified in the 2659 news articles that were reviewed. Results: Of the 100 incidents of violent victimization …

The Associations Between Victimization, Feeling Unsafe, And Asthma Episodes Among Us High-School Students, Monica Swahn, Robert Bossarte

Monica H. Swahn

We examined the associations between victimization, missed school because of feeling unsafe, and asthma episodes among US high-school students using the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Cross-sectional analyses on adolescents with asthma (n=1943) showed that any victimization and missed school because of feeling unsafe significantly increased the odds of having an asthma episode in the past year (adjusted odds ratio [OR]=1.45; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.07, 1.95 and adjusted OR = 2.93; 95% CI = 1.90, 4.53, respectively). Victimization and feeling unsafe are important but poorly understood risk factors for asthma.

Differences In Frequency Of Violence And Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal And Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence, Daniel Whitaker, Tadesse Haileyesus, Monica Swahn, Linda Saltzman

Monica H. Swahn

Objectives: We sought to examine the prevalence of reciprocal (i.e., perpetrated by both partners) and nonreciprocal intimate partner violence and to determine whether reciprocity is related to violence frequency and injury. Methods: We analyzed data on young US adults aged 18 to 28 years from the 2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which contained information about partner violence and injury reported by 11 370 respondents on 18761 heterosexual relationships. Results: Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of …

Concordance Between Self-Reported Maltreatment And Court Records Of Abuse Or Neglect Among High-Risk Youths, Monica Swahn, Daniel Whitaker, Courtney Pippen, Rebecca Leeb, Linda Teplin, Karen Abram, Gary Mcclelland

Monica H. Swahn

Objectives: We examined the concordance between measures of self-reported maltreatment and court records of abuse or neglect in a sample of detained youths.

Methods: Data were collected by the Northwestern Juvenile Project and include interviews from 1829 youths aged 10–18 years. Participants were newly detained youths in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Illinois between 1995 and 1998. Self-reported cases of child maltreatment were compared with court records of abuse or neglect in the Cook County judicial system.

Results: We found that among detained youths, 16.6% of those who reported any maltreatment, 22.2% of those who reported the …

Perceived Accessibility As A Predictor Of Youth Smoking, Chyke Doubeni, Wenjun Li, Hassan Fouayzi, Joseph Difranza

Chyke A. Doubeni

PURPOSE: Youths who smoke are more likely to perceive that cigarettes are easily accessible, but the relationship between perceived accessibility of cigarettes and the risk of smoking is not clear. The objective of this study was to determine whether perceived accessibility predicted future smoking among youths. METHODS: This study used data from the second Development and Assessment of Nicotine Dependence in Youth (DANDY-2) study, a 4-year (2002-2006) cohort study that began with 1,246 sixth-grade students in 6 Massachusetts communities. DANDY-2 comprised 11 waves of in-person interviews. A total of 1,195 students who were aged 11 to 14 years at the …

Perceived Accessibility Of Cigarettes Among Youth: A Prospective Cohort Study, Chyke Doubeni, Wenjun Li, Hassan Fouayzi, Joseph Difranza

Chyke A. Doubeni

BACKGROUND: The accessibility of tobacco for youth is difficult to measure, partly because of the varied sources of cigarettes. Perceptions about the accessibility of cigarettes assesses availability from all potential sources and has been found to predict future smoking. This study examines the determinants of perceived accessibility from the perspective of a longitudinal study. METHODS: Data were derived from the second Development and Assessment of Nicotine Dependence in Youth study, a 4-year longitudinal study of 1246 sixth-grade students who underwent up to 11 in-person interviews from 2002 to 2006. Perceived accessibility was assessed prospectively by asking students whether they agreed …

Early Course Of Nicotine Dependence In Adolescent Smokers, Chyke Doubeni, George Reed, Joseph Difranza

Chyke A. Doubeni

OBJECTIVE: The goal was to characterize the early course of nicotine dependence. METHODS: Data were collected from 1246 sixth-graders in a 4-year (2002-2006) prospective study using 11 individual interviews. Subjects were monitored for 10 symptoms of dependence by using the Hooked on Nicotine Checklist. The bidirectional prospective relationship between the intensity of dependence (number of symptoms) and smoking frequency was examined by using cross-lagged analyses. RESULTS: Of the 370 subjects who had inhaled from a cigarette, 62% smoked at least once per month, 53% experienced dependence symptoms, and 40% experienced escalation to daily smoking. Smoking frequency predicted the number of …

Childhood Immunization. How Knowledgeable Are We?, Helen Heurter, Karen Breen-Reid, Leya Aronson, Lorelei Lingard, David Manning, E. Ford-Jones

Lorelei Lingard

No abstract provided.

Sexual Health, Risk Behaviors, And Substance Use In Heterosexual-Identified Women With Female Sex Partners: 2002 Us National Survey Of Family Growth., Greta Bauer, Jennifer Jairam, Shamara Baidoobonso

Shamara M Baidoobonso, PhD

BACKGROUND: Despite knowledge that some people engage in same-sex sexuality without espousing a sexual minority identity, this has rarely been studied in women. METHODS: Heterosexual women aged 20 to 44 who indicated one or more female sex partners in the past year were compared to those with less recent female sex partners, and to bisexual, homosexual, and exclusively heterosexual women using 2002 US National Survey of Family Growth data. RESULTS: Compared to exclusively heterosexual women, heterosexual women with a past-year female sex partner were significantly more likely to smoke tobacco (46% vs. 19%), binge drink (34% vs. 11%), use marijuana …