International journal of environmental research and public health
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Int J Environ Res Public Health · Dec 2015
Differential Effects of Temperature Extremes on Hospital Admission Rates for Respiratory Disease between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory.
The health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians may be exacerbated by climate change if temperature extremes have disproportionate adverse effects on Indigenous people. To explore this issue, we analysed the effect of temperature extremes on hospital admissions for respiratory diseases, stratified by age, Indigenous status and sex, for people living in two different climates zones in the Northern Territory during the period 1993-2011. ⋯ These findings support our two hypotheses, that extreme hot and cold temperatures have a different effect on hospitalisations for respiratory disease between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, and that these health risks vary between the different climate zones. We did not, however, find that there were differing responses to temperature extremes in the two populations, suggesting that any increased vulnerability to climate change in the Indigenous population of the Northern Territory arises from an increased underlying risk to respiratory disease and an already greater existing health burden.
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Int J Environ Res Public Health · Nov 2015
Comparative StudyEpidemiology of Unintentional Child Injuries in the Makwanpur District of Nepal: A Household Survey.
Secondary sources of information indicate that the proportion of child deaths due to injuries is increasing in Nepal. This study aimed to describe the epidemiology of unintentional injuries in children, explore risk factors and estimate the burden faced by families and the community in the Makwanpur district. We conducted a household survey in Makwanpur, covering 3441 households. ⋯ Mean period of disability following injury was 25 days. The rates and the mechanisms of injury vary by age and gender. Falls and burns are currently the most common mechanisms of injury amongst young children around rural homes.
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Int J Environ Res Public Health · Nov 2015
Proofreading in Young and Older Adults: The Effect of Error Category and Comprehension Difficulty.
Proofreading text relies on stored knowledge, language processing, and attentional resources. Age differentially affects these constituent abilities: while older adults maintain word knowledge and most aspects of language comprehension, language production and attention capacity are impaired with age. Research with young adults demonstrates that proofreading is more attentionally-demanding for contextual errors which require integration across multiple words compared to noncontextual errors which occur within a single word. ⋯ Older adults were preserved at proofreading spelling errors, but were impaired relative to young adults when proofreading grammar or meaning errors, especially for difficult passages. Additionally, older adults were relatively spared at detecting errors compared to correcting spelling errors, in keeping with previous research. Age differences were not attributable to individual differences in vocabulary knowledge or self-reported spelling ability.
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Int J Environ Res Public Health · Nov 2015
Death Rates among Detained Immigrants in the United States.
The United States system of immigrant detention centers has been the subject of considerable scrutiny with respect to health care of detainees. We sought to characterize the rates and types of deaths that have occurred within this system between the years 2003-2015. We analyzed a file of detainee deaths released by the U. ⋯ During this time period, the annual rate of death among detainees dropped dramatically, whether measured by annual admissions or by person years of exposure. The most common causes of death were cardiovascular, cancer and suicide. More research is needed to adequately account for the contributors to these declining rates of death in immigration detention settings.
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Int J Environ Res Public Health · Oct 2015
Understanding Walking Behavior among University Students Using Theory of Planned Behavior.
Walking has been shown to improve physical and mental well-being, yet insufficient walking among university students has been increasingly reported. This study aimed to understand walking behavior of university students using theory of planned behavior (TPB). We recruited 169 undergraduate students by university mass email of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and first administered a salient belief elicitation survey, which was used to design the TPB questionnaire, to a subset of the study sample. ⋯ We found perceived behavioral control to be the key determinant of walking intention. Shaped by participants' perceived behavioral control, attitude toward walking and subjective norms, and behavioral intention, in turn had a moderate explanatory effect on their walking behavior. In summary, our findings suggest that walking behavior among university students can be understood within the TPB framework, and could inform walking promotion interventions on the university campuses.