A growing body of evidence has documented the effects of discrimination among Latinos. However, little is known about the impacts a noxious sociopolitical climate can have on their health and health ...care outcomes. The present study explored the associations between perceived anti-immigrant climate, health care discrimination, and satisfaction with care among US Latino adults. We used data from the 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey (n = 1,284), a nationally representative sample of US Latino adults (ages 18 and older). Key predictors included living in a state whose policies are unfavorable towards immigrants, perceived anti-immigrant climate and/or anti-Hispanic climate, and health care discrimination. Ordered logistic regression models evaluated the associations between these predictors (adjusting for other relevant covariates) and satisfaction with care. Latinos living in state that is unfavorable towards immigrants were less likely to be satisfied with medical care they receive. Also, we found that Latinos living in anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic climates were less likely to be satisfied with care. In both cases, experiencing health care discrimination significantly reduced the odds of satisfaction with care. Latinos’ perception of an anti-immigrant & anti-Hispanic climate and state policies can have detrimental effects on their health and health care outcomes. These results highlight the importance of addressing both community-wide and interpersonal discrimination specific to health care settings, which can have concurrent impacts on the health and well-being of Latino and other minoritized populations.
Are Filipino Americans closer to Asian Americans or Latinos, politically? We argue that due to Spanish and American colonialism, this is an open question. We test hypotheses regarding Filipino ...American distinctiveness from other Asian Americans using data from two nationally representative surveys of Asian Americans. Discrimination drives Filipino Americans' sense of pan-ethnic linked fate with Asian Americans, but not their perceptions of political commonality with Latinos. We find suggestive evidence that Millennial Filipino Americans are more likely to perceive political commonality with Latinos than non-Millennial Filipino Americans. Given these findings, we question what is implied when scholars study the political behavior of immigrant groups and their descendants.
In this article, we test whether perceptions of Latino linked fate influence partisan identification and voting behavior among the Latino electorate across time. Specifically, we contend that ...attachments to the Latino community have become more widely used heuristics for Latino voters due to an increase in anti-immigrant (Latino) sentiment. Moreover, growing attachments to the Latino community have the potential to influence partisanship and even compete with traditional partisan loyalties (i.e., partisan heuristics) at the polls. To test our argument, we rely on multiple surveys of Latino likely voters with similar measures that span over a decade and a half. Our results indicate that perceptions of linked fate, to varying degrees, are associated with Latino’s decisions to identify with the Democratic Party. At least in more recent presidential elections, they also indicate that Latinos are becoming increasingly reliant on ethnic heuristics while becoming less reliant on their own partisan identity to make decisions at the polls. The findings have important implications for the future of the Democratic and Republican Parties’ ability to court Latino voters and our understanding of how party identification operates among the Latino electorate.
Objective. Despite the Latino electorate’s increased political importance and their prominence among the uninsured population, there has been relatively little research focused on Latinos’ political ...attitudes, particularly in the substantively important area of health policy. We examine the foundations of Latino registered voters support for universal healthcare with a particular focus on the relationship between linked fate (a form of group identity) and support for expansion of health coverage to a wider segment of the population. We theorize that the obstacles to healthcare and health coverage the Latino community faces makes health policy a Latino-salient policy area where group identity becomes relevant. Methods. We use the Latino Decisions “100 Days” 2009 survey of Latino registered voters for our analysis, an ideal data set that provides a measure of linked fate, support for universal healthcare, and several key control variables. Results. Our findings show that linked fate is a significant predictor of Latino registered voters’ support for expansion of health-care coverage, suggesting that healthcare is a salient policy for the Latino community. Conclusions. Despite being a tremendously diverse population, our results suggest that Latino policy preferences can be influenced by an underlying sense of group identity when the policy area cues ethnic identity.
Fungus-growing ants have been found recently to be symbiotic with actinomycetes living on the ant’s cuticle; these bacteria are inhibitory to soil fungi that are detrimental to the ants’ fungus ...gardens. In order to investigate whether actinomycetes found on the cuticle of attine ants also had inhibitory properties against plant pathogenic fungi, we isolated 32 strains of actinomycetes from fungus-growing ants (
Atta, Trachymyrmex
, and
Cyphomyrmex
), from the Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. Of the actinomycetes tested against selected plant pathogenic fungi (
Alternaria solani, Aspergillus flavus, Colletotrichum lindemuthianum, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotium
sp.) on Czapek-Dox agar medium, 13 isolates inhibited at least one of the fungi.
C. lindemuthianum
was inhibited by 11 actinomycetes, and
Rhizoctonia
by three. An actinomycete strain isolated from
Cyphomyrmex rimosus
inhibited all five fungi tested.
The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed to increase health insurance access for the over 47 million uninsured people in the U.S.A., among whom ethnoracial minorities had the ...highest uninsured rates before the ACA. Studies have shown that Latinos have had the greatest improvements in health coverage under the ACA, but many may be at a significant disadvantage, specifically due to their nativity and immigration status, as the ACA explicitly excludes unauthorised immigrants from most of its provisions. Using the 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey, a nationally representative sample of Latinos (n = 1493), we find that variation in health insurance access among Latinos can be traced to immigration status. This study finds no differences among U.S.-born versus foreign-born Latinos in the likelihood of being uninsured in 2015. However, among foreign-born Latinos, unauthorised immigrants are five times more likely than naturalised citizens to be uninsured and less likely to visit a primary care provider or clinic, even after controlling for other factors including language, income and education.
Over 40 states have considered voter identification laws in recent years, with several adopting laws requiring voters to show a valid ID before they cast a ballot. We argue that such laws have a ...disenfranchising affect on racial and ethnic minorities, who are less likely than Whites to possess a valid ID. Leveraging a unique national dataset, we offer a comprehensive portrait of who does and does not have access to a valid piece of voter identification. We find clear evidence that people of color are less likely to have an ID. Moreover, these disparities persist after controlling for a host of relevant covariates.
The systematic value of the middle-ear ossicles, in particular the malleus, has been long recognized for diverse groups. We present systematic work on the characters of the middle-ear ossicles of ...pinnipeds, focusing on until now poorly studied Southern Hemisphere species. Mallei were extracted from 16 specimens of pinnipeds belonging to five austral and one boreal species of Phocidae and two austral species of Otariidae. Several characters used in this study have been described previously, and some were here modified. Three new characters are here defined and analysed. All characters were mapped onto the phylogeny. Our character analysis shows the transformations that have occurred in the evolution of middle ear ossicles in pinnipeds and identifies diagnostic features of many of its clades. Beyond the identification of specific changes within eachclade, our study of pinniped ossicle evolution documents the occurrence of anatomical convergences with other groups of mammals that live in an aquatic environment, as has occurred in other organ systems as well.
While the primary therapy for most patients with a pulmonary embolism (PE) consists of anticoagulation, the efficacy of thrombolysis relative to standard therapy remains unclear.
In this ...retrospective cohort study of 15,944 patients with an objectively confirmed symptomatic acute PE, identified from the multicenter, international, prospective, Registro Informatizado de la Enfermedad TromboEmbólica (RIETE registry), we aimed to assess the association between thrombolytic therapy and all-cause mortality during the first 3 months after the diagnosis of a PE. After creating two subgroups, stratified by systolic blood pressure (SBP) (< 100 mm Hg vs. other), we used propensity score-matching for a comparison of patients who received thrombolysis to those who did not in each subgroup.
Patients who received thrombolysis were younger, had fewer comorbid diseases and more signs of clinical severity compared with those who did not receive it. In the subgroup with systolic hypotension, analysis of propensity score-matched pairs (n = 94 pairs) showed a non-statistically significant but clinically relevant lower risk of death for thrombolysis compared with no thrombolysis (odds ratio OR 0.72; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.36-1.46; P = 0.37). In the normotensive subgroup, analysis of propensity score-matched pairs (n = 217 pairs) showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful increased risk of death for thrombolysis compared with no thrombolysis (OR 2.32; 95% CI, 1.15-4.68; P = 0.018). When we imputed data for missing values for echocardiography and troponin tests in the group of normotensive patients, we no longer detected the increased risk of death associated with thrombolytic therapy.
In normotensive patients with acute symptomatic PE, thrombolytic therapy is associated with a higher risk of death than no thrombolytic therapy. In hemodynamically unstable patients, thrombolytic therapy is possibly associated with a lower risk of death than no thrombolytic therapy. However, study design limitations do not imply a causal relationship between thrombolytics and outcome.
Background: Allergy to apple and
Prunus fruits is frequently associated with birch pollinosis, with the principal cross-reacting allergens involved being members of the Bet v 1 family. However, a ...major 13-kd component, nonimmunologically related to Bet v 1, has been implicated as allergen in patients allergic to
Prunoideae fruit but not to birch pollen.
Objective: We sought to isolate and characterize the 13-kd allergen present in apple and peach.
Methods: Sera from patients allergic to both fruits were selected on the basis of clinical symptoms, skin prick tests responses, and specific IgE levels. Allergens were purified by reverse-phase HPLC and characterized by N-terminal amino acid sequencing, MALDI analysis, specific IgE immunodetection, and immunoblot inhibition assays.
Results: A 13-kd protein band was recognized in crude apple and peach extracts by 9 of 10 and 10 of 10 sera from patients allergic to fruit, respectively. The isolation and characterization of the corresponding allergens allowed their identification as lipid-transfer proteins, with a molecular mass of 9058 d for the apple protein and 9138 d for the peach protein. Both purified allergens were recognized by sera from patients allergic to fruit and fully inhibited the IgE binding by the 13-kd component present in the 2 crude fruit extracts.
Conclusion: Lipid-transfer proteins are relevant apple and peach allergens and, considering their ubiquitous distribution in tissues of many plant species, could be a novel type of panallergen of fruits and vegetables. (J Allergy Clin Immunol 1999;103:514-9.)
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