Financial transfers from parents to their adult children are a growing trend in contemporary societies, and this study investigates the relation of those transfers to their beneficiaries' health in ...France. In the 2005 nationally representative Gender and Generation Survey, nearly 6% of the subjects aged 25–49 years reported having received financial transfers during the last 12 months. Subjects who had achieved intergenerational upward mobility as well as those who had remained in the upper class were more likely to receive transfers, suggesting that parents rewarded those of their children who achieved most social success. After adjusting for a wide range of socio-demographic factors, subjects who had been given large transfers were much more likely to report very good health than subjects who had not been given anything. Findings were interpreted within the framework of sociological research on intergenerational transfers and that of lifecourse epidemiology.
► This is the first study to explore the relation of financial transfers from parents to their adult children's health. ► Adults who had received large transfers were much more likely to report very good health than those who did not receive any. ► Policy implications relate to the harmonization of private and public intergenerational transfers to reduce social inequalities in health.
Aims
The diffusion of cannabis initiation has been accompanied by a reversal in the educational gradient: contrary to older generations, the less educated in recent generations are more likely to ...initiate than the more educated. We tested whether the educational gradient for the transition from initiation to daily use evolved in the same way.
Design/setting
A French telephone random survey conducted in 2010 (21 818 respondents aged 15–64 years), asking interviewees about their ages at initiation to daily use, if any.
Participants
A total of 6824 cannabis initiators aged 18–64 years at data collection. Three birth cohort groups (generations) were compared: 1946–60 (n = 767), 1961–75 (n = 2632) and 1976–92 (n = 3425) with, respectively, 47, 42 and 45% of women.
Measures
Risks of transition to daily use from ages 11–34 were compared through time‐discrete logistic regressions and educational gradients were quantified through a relative index of inequality (RII). Control variables include age and time‐varying variables (ages at tobacco daily use, at first drunkenness and at first other use of an illicit drug in a list of 13 products).
Findings
Twenty‐four per cent of the initiators reported daily use before age 35, the proportions tripling from the oldest to the youngest generation (from 11.7 to 38.6% in men, from 7.7 to 22.2% in women). Whatever the generation, the less educated initiators more often shifted to daily use than the most educated: from the oldest to the youngest generation, RII = 2.13, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.65, 7.02; 2.19 95% CI = 1.33, 3.63; and 2.24, 95% CI = 1.60, 3.15 in men; RII = 3.31, 95% CI = 0.75, 14.68; 3.17, 95% CI = 1.49, 6.76; and 3.56, 95% CI = 2.07, 6.14 in women, respectively.
Conclusion
In France, the risk of transition from cannabis initiation to daily use has remained consistently higher among less educated cannabis initiators over three generations (1946–60, 1961–75, 1976–92), in contrast to what is observed for initiation.
Objectives
The study investigates the life cycle patterns of educational inequalities in smoking according to gender over three successive generations.
Methods
Based on retrospective smoking ...histories collected by the nationwide French Health Barometer survey 2010, we explored educational inequalities in smoking at each age, using the relative index of inequality.
Results
Educational inequalities in smoking increase across cohorts for men and women, corresponding to a decline in smoking among the highly educated alongside progression among the lower educated. The analysis also shows a life cycle evolution: for all cohorts and for men and women, inequalities are considerable during adolescence, then start declining from 18 years until the age of peak prevalence (around 25), after which they remain stable throughout the life cycle, even tending to rise for the most recent cohort.
Conclusions
This analysis contributes to the description of the “smoking epidemic” and highlights adolescence and late adulthood as life cycle stages with greater inequalities.
Highlights • We studied the diffusion of cannabis in France, Germany and the USA. • The diffusion of cannabis experimentation is similar to the tobacco epidemic. • It begins in the most educated ...groups and among men first. • France is at an earlier stage compared to Germany and the USA. • The contribution of this process to social and health inequalities is questioned.
This study investigates the sociodemographic factors associated with self-report of common mental problems by the psychologically distressed in order to gain insight into the profile of the ...population subgroups least likely to receive mental health support whenever needed. Data from the 2006–2008 french National Survey on Health, Health Care and Insurance, were used, measuring psychological distress based on the Mental Health Inventory MHI-5. The patterns associated with education, employment situation and living arrangement were investigated in a sample of 11,543 subjects aged 30–54 years. Men with lower educational level were found to be doubly disadvantaged, as they were more subjected to distress than those with higher educational level and at the same time less likely to report common mental problems whenever distressed. While in both genders subjects not living with a spouse and non-employed subjects were also more subjected to distress, they were more likely than the others to report common mental problems in presence of distress. The findings were discussed in terms of living conditions, stigma, mental health literacy and help-seeking behaviour. Mental health promotion programmes should aim at educating the public, and particularly men and the lower educated public, on the signs of distress and their significance.
Potential risk factors for cholangiocarcinoma were investigated in a case-control study among inhabitants of north-east Thailand, which included 103 cases from 3 hospitals, with age- and sex-matched ...controls. A clear association with past or present infection with Opisthorchis viverrini, as indicated by raised serum antibodies, was found (o.r. 5.0), and at least two-thirds of cases can be attributed to this cause. The results suggest that males may be at higher risk than females. There was no association with hepatitis B infection, with aflatoxin intake as estimated from albumin adducts in serum or with any particular dietary patterns. Alcohol consumption was very low in the population, and the risk associated with regular drinking was non-significant. Regular users of betel nut-predominantly female-had a high risk (o.r. 6.4), a possible mechanism being through their increased exposure to nitrosamines.
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