American journal of preventive medicine
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The purpose of this study is to explore how the associations between importance of religion and recent suicide ideation, recent suicide attempt, and lifetime suicide attempt vary by sexual orientation. ⋯ Religion-based services for mental health and suicide prevention may not benefit gay/lesbian, bisexual, or questioning individuals. Religion-based service providers should actively assure their services are open and supportive of gay/lesbian, bisexual, or questioning individuals.
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Globalization via free trade and investment agreements is often implicated in the obesity pandemic. Concerns center on how free trade and investment agreements increase population exposure to unhealthy, high-calorie diets, but existing studies preclude causal conclusions. Few studies of free trade and investment agreements and diets isolated their impact from confounding changes, and none examined any effect on caloric intake, despite its critical role in the etiology of obesity. This study addresses these limitations by analyzing a unique natural experiment arising from the exceptional circumstances surrounding the implementation of the 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. ⋯ The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was associated with a substantial rise in calorie availability in Canada. U.S. free trade and investment agreements can contribute to rising obesity and related diseases by pushing up caloric intake.