This study explored relationships between perceived life satisfaction and physical activity behaviors in a statewide sample of adolescents in South Carolina (n = 4,758) using the CDC Youth Risk ...Behavior Survey (YRBS) and the Brief Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS). Adjusted logistic regression analyses and multivariate models constructed separately revealed significant race by gender results. Not exercising for 20 minutes over the past 7 days (sweating and hard breathing), not performing stretching exercising (past 7 days), not exercising to strengthen or tone muscles (past 7 days), spending < 20 minutes actually exercising or playing sports in PE class, not playing on sport teams run by school, and not playing on sport teams run by outside school organizations were associated (p = .05) with reduced life satisfaction for specific race/gender groups. Results suggest implications for school and community‐based physical activity programs. Future research should consider measures of life satisfaction as a component of comprehensive assessments of adolescent physical activity behaviors infieldwork, research, and program evaluation.
Purpose: To explore the relationship between perceived global life satisfaction and selected substance use behaviors among 5032 public high school students.
Methods: The 1997 South Carolina Youth ...Risk Behavior Survey substance abuse and life satisfaction variables were used. An adjusted polychotomous logistic regression analysis utilizing SAS/SUDAAN, revealed a significant race/gender interaction. Subsequent multivariate models were constructed individually for four race/gender groups. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated to assess the magnitude of risk for selected substance abuse behaviors and their association with reduced global life satisfaction.
Results: Cigarette smoking, chewing tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, regular alcohol use, binge drinking, injection drug, and steroid use were significantly (
p < .05) associated with reduced life satisfaction for specific race/gender groups (white males; black males; white females; and black females). In addition, age (≤13 years) of first alcohol drink, first marijuana use, first cocaine use, and first cigarette smoked were also significantly (
p < .05) associated with reduced life satisfaction.
Conclusion: Longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether dissatisfaction with life is a consequence or determinant of substance abuse behavior for adolescents.
In adult quality of life (QOL) research, the QOL construct appears to differ from self-rated health status. Although increased QOL continues to be recognized as an important outcome in health ...promotion and medical intervention, little research has attempted to explore adolescent perceptual differences between self-rated health and QOL.
Correlational analyses were performed between self-rated health, physical health days and mental health days, and QOL. Data were collected from two different public high school adolescent samples during two different time periods (1997 & 2003) in two different geographic regions in the USA (a southern & midwestern state) with two different sample sizes (N = 5,220 and N = 140, respectively) using the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions' health-related quality of life scale (HRQOL) provided estimates of self-rated health, physical health days and mental health days, and QOL.
All correlation coefficients were significant in both samples (p < or = .0001), suggesting sample size was not a contributing factor to the significant correlations. In both samples, adolescent QOL ratings were more strongly correlated with the mean number of poor mental health days (r = .88, southern sample; r = .89, midwestern sample) than with the mean number of poor physical health days (r = .75, southern sample; r = .79, midwestern sample), consistent with adult QOL research. However, correlation coefficients in both samples between self-rated health and the mean number of poor physical health days was slightly smaller (r = .24, southern, r = .32, midwestern) than that between self-rated health and the mean number of poor mental health days (r = .25, southern, r = .39 midwestern), which is contrary to adult QOL research.
Similar to adults, these results suggest adolescents are rating two distinct constructs, and that self-rated health and QOL should not be used interchangeably. QOL, in the context of public high school adolescents, is based largely upon self-reported mental health and to a lesser extent on self-reported physical health. Conversely, although self-reported mental health and self-reported physical health both contribute significantly to adolescent self-rated health, mental health appears to make a greater contribution, which is contrary to observations with adults. Health promoting efforts for adolescents may need to focus more on mental health than physical health, when considering population needs and type of micro or macro intervention.
Purpose: To explore the relationship between perceived satisfaction with life and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in a state-wide sample of 13-18-year-old adolescents (n = 4914) in South ...Carolina, USA. Methods: Questions were added to the self-report Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) asking about perceived life satisfaction in six domains (self, family, friends, living environment, school, and overall) and HRQOL (self-rated health; and the number of poor physical health days, poor mental days, and activity limitation days during the past 30 days). Results: Adjusted logistic regression analyses and multivariate models constructed separately revealed that self-rated health, poor physical days (past 30 days), poor mental health days (past 30 days), and activity limitation days (past 30 days) were significantly related (p < 0.05) to reduced life satisfaction, regardless of race or gender. Moreover, as the number of reported poor health days increased, the greater the odds of reporting life dissatisfaction. Conclusions: This is the first study to document the relationship between poor physical health and perceived life satisfaction. This adds to the mounting evidence that life satisfaction is related to a variety of adolescent health behaviors and that life satisfaction may add additional information in longitudinal databases that track adolescent health because it appears to be related to HRQOL.
Objective: To explore relationships between life satisfaction and violent behaviors among 5,032 adolescents. Methods: Adjusted polychotomous logistic regression analyses and multivariate models were ...used via SUDAAN with the 1997 CDC YRBS. Results: Carrying a weapon;
carrying a gun; carrying a weapon at school; physical fighting; physical fighting at school; physical fighting that required physician treatment; drinking and driving; riding with a drinking driver; having property stolen/damaged at school; feeling unsafe while at, going to or returning from
school; and being injured/ threatened with a weapon were associated (p=.05) with reduced life satisfaction. Conclusion: Measures of life satisfaction as a component of comprehensive assessments of adolescent violence/aggression in field-work, research, and program-evaluation efforts
should be considered.
Comorbidities complicate our understanding of impairments and their risk factors. The objective of the current study was to assess the comorbidity between hearing impairment (HI) and memory ...impairment (MI) in older Americans and to assess to what extent they share common risk factors.
Data were examined from 5252 participants aged 65 years or older from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988–1994).
The prevalence of HI and MI was 21.4 (SE 0.8)% and 8.3 (0.6)%, respectively, but the prevalence of concurrent impairment was only 2.1 (0.2)%. African Americans had higher odds of MI than whites (OR
=
3.75, 95% CI: 2.81, 5.00), but not of HI (OR
=
0.62, 95% CI: 0.42, 0.91). Leisure physical activity was associated with lower odds of MI, good lung function was associated with lower odds of HI, and moderate alcohol use was associated with lower odds of both HI and MI. Compared with individuals free of HI, the OR of MI was 1.07 (95% CI: 0.78, 1.47) for individuals with HI.
Although prevalence was relatively high, comorbidity was surprisingly low, and the two impairments were not significantly associated. In addition to age, other factors appear to play critical but different roles in the development of these impairments.
Relationships between perceived life satisfaction, poor mental health, suicide ideation and suicide behaviors were examined in a statewide sample of 13 to 18 year old public high school students (n = ...4,758) using the self-report CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Adjusted logistic regression analyses and multivariate models constructed separately (via SUDAAN), revealed that poor mental health (past 30 days), poor mental/physical health (past 30 days) serious suicide consideration (past 12 months), planning for suicide (past 12 months), attempted suicide (past 12 months) and suicide attempt requiring medical care (past 12 months) were significantly related to reduced life satisfaction. Also, differences across gender and race were demonstrated. Measures of life satisfaction as a component of comprehensive assessments of adolescent mental health, suicide ideation and suicide behavior in fieldwork, research, and program-evaluation efforts should be considered.
Infection levels of eastern oysters by the unicellular pathogen Perkinsus marinus have been associated with anthropogenic influences in laboratory studies. However, these relationships have been ...difficult to investigate in the field because anthropogenic inputs are often associated with natural influences such as freshwater inflow, which can also affect infection levels. We addressed P. marinus-land use associations using field-collected data from Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, USA, a developed, coastal estuary with relatively minor freshwater inputs. Ten oysters from each of 30 reefs were sampled quarterly in each of 2 years. Distances to nearest urbanized land class and to nearest stormwater outfall were measured via both tidal creeks and an elaboration of Euclidean distance. As the forms of any associations between oyster infection and distance to urbanization were unknown a priori, we used data from the first and second years of the study as exploratory and confirmatory datasets, respectively. With one exception, quarterly land use associations identified using the exploratory dataset were not confirmed using the confirmatory dataset. The exception was an association between the prevalence of moderate to high infection levels in winter and decreasing distance to nearest urban land use. Given that the study design appeared adequate to detect effects inferred from the exploratory dataset, these results suggest that effects of land use gradients were largely insubstantial or were ephemeral with duration less than 3 months.
This study explored associations between peer victimization experiences and adolescents' perceptions of life satisfaction. Public high school students (n = 1,325) completed a self-report ...questionnaire measuring being bullied and life satisfaction. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between being bullied and perceived life satisfaction across four race and gender groups. Results indicated that significant associations (p ≤ .05) were established for reduced life satisfaction and being bullied over the past 12 months due to religion for whites and black males (OR = 3.18-4.84); victimization due to gender for black males and white females (OR = 3.07-4.52); victimization for race/ethnicity for whites and black females (OR = 2.46-3.88); victimization for sexual orientation for males (OR = 3.42-4.51) and victimization for a disability for all four race/gender groups (OR = 2.92-7.35). Results suggest that perceived life satisfaction is related to a variety of differentially motivated victimization experiences, but not uniformly across race and gender groups. Implications for the delivery of race- and gender- specific prevention interventions are discussed.
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