Alcohol consumption in men exposed to the military draft lottery: A natural experiment

1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Goldberg ◽  
Margaret S. Richards ◽  
Robert J. Anderson ◽  
Miriam B. Rodin
10.2196/18567 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. e18567
Author(s):  
Williams Bell Ngan ◽  
Lawrence Essama Eno Belinga ◽  
Alain Serges Patrick Essam Nlo'o ◽  
Frederic Roche ◽  
Luc Goethals ◽  
...  

Background Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading causes of death worldwide. They were responsible for 40 million of the 57 million deaths recorded worldwide in 2016. In Cameroon, epidemiological studies have been devoted to NCDs and their risk factors. However, none provides specific information on their extent or the distribution of their risk factors within the Cameroonian defense forces. Objective The objective of our study was to assess the cardiovascular risk of a Cameroonian military population compared with that of its neighboring civilian population. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study that involved subjects aged 18 to 58 years, recruited from October 2017 to November 2018 at the Fifth Military Sector Health Center in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon. Data collection and assessment were done according to the World Health Organization (WHO)’s STEPS manual for surveillance of risk factors for chronic NCDs and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Five cardiovascular risk factors were assessed: smoking, harmful alcohol consumption, obesity/overweight, hypertension, and diabetes. The risk was considered high in subjects with 3 or more of the factors. Univariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression were carried out according to their indications. Results Our study sample of 566 participants included 295 soldiers and 271 civilians of the same age group (median age 32 years versus 33 years, respectively; P=.57). The military sample consisted of 31 officers and 264 noncommissioned officers (NCOs). Soldiers were more exposed to behavioral risk factors than civilians, with a prevalence of smoking of 13.9% versus 4.4% (P<.001) and excessive alcohol consumption of 61.7% versus 14.8% (P<.001). They also presented with a higher cardiovascular risk than civilians (odds ratio 2.7, 95% CI 1.50-4.81; P<.001), and among the military participants, the cardiovascular risk was higher for officers than for NCOs (51.6% versus 14.0%, respectively; P<.001). Conclusions Cameroonian soldiers are particularly exposed to cardiovascular behavioral risk factors and consequently are at higher risk of NCDs. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04315441; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04315441


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Cameron Hicks

Background: Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol comorbidity is becoming a rising issue within the military veteran community highlighted by research indicating individuals diagnosed with PTSD are more likely to have a drinking problem [1]. The implementation of meditation as an alternative form of stress release was aimed at reducing PTSD symptomology and therefor reducing factors that lead to drinking.Methods: A single veteran was recruited to complete a two-week intervention. The participant completed a behavioural diary noting alcohol consumption and mood respectively. During the middle of the study, an interview was undertaken to determine reasons of alcohol consumption and potential reasons and motivations for the cessation of drinking.Results: A moderate correlation between using meditation as a tool to reduce alcohol consumption in veterans with PTSD however this was not significant. Conversely, meditation was able to reduce PTSD symptomology.Conclusions: These results indicate that an alternative to drinking can be implemented as a successful form of treatment. However, these findings are specific to this study and need to be amplified and reproduced to determine if it can be applied to the general population.


Author(s):  
Anne M. Blankenship

Incarcerated Christians frequently thanked God for giving them the strength to endure the incarceration and developed a variety of faith communities to provide additional support. The focus of Chapter Four turns away from church leaders to examine how lay (non-ordained) Christians experienced camp life. Buddhists joined Protestants and Catholics to organize interfaith memorial services for Nikkei soldiers killed in action, while pacifists and others resisted the military draft. This chapter expands the book’s focus to highlight Christian youth culture at a camp in Arizona and the hardships at Tule Lake, where incarcerees attacked Japanese Christians for cooperating with camp officials. The roots of Asian American theologies began growing in the camps in response to this rejection and suffering.


Author(s):  
Nissim Leon

This chapter examines the phenomenon of deferments of army enlistment in Israel of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men studying in yeshivas. The author claims that counter-nationalist argument enables us to understand the progress that the haredi scholar-society has made from a sectorial entity that kept itself removed from the nation-state, and viewed the state as an undesired political fact, to an entity that maintains its own counter-nationalism. This social cultural religious entity regards itself as a symbiotic or active partner in the national endeavor, specifically through the insular haredi ethos. The author employs the term counter-nationalism to describe an approach that takes a critical view of nationalism, but has in effect adapted it to the structure of the discourse, organization, and aims of the hegemonic national ideology. This perspective raises the possibility that the ultra-Orthodox are beginning to view themselves as maintaining a complementary partnership with the Israeli culture, and to a considerable extent have even constructed a similar cultural structure, a sort of mirror-image of the militaristic one. Moreover, this study even suggests that the haredi mainstream seeks recognition for itself as the spiritual elite troops of the State of Israel.


2017 ◽  
pp. 43-45
Author(s):  
Ephraim K. Jernazian
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
pp. 175063522092227
Author(s):  
Andrew C Sparks

Since the attacks of September 11 2001, there has been a marked decline in the number of military comedy films in American cinema. Films like Buffalo Soldiers, a film made prior to September 11 but released in 2003, show how this change first started. Whereas, prior to 2001, military comedies were generally accepted and even profitable, after 2001 the genre effectively disappeared and still to this day has not re-emerged despite military non-comedy films making a clear resurgence after 2008. In this article, the author explores how and why military comedies have declined over time by making comparisons of how popular both military comedy and non-comedy films were in prior periods and today. The purpose of this is to show how the decline of military comedies since 2001 is a symptom of a greater political trend within American political development, specifically the civil–military divide. As this divide has grown in the post-military draft period in the United States, an event like September 11 seems to have ruptured the general acceptability of laughing at the military, which remains improper in cinema to this day. Finally, he examines some of the political consequences of this lack of laughter at the military within the greater political and film studies literature, which include growing tacit support for the military and how the narratives within some of these films leave little room for American civilians to comedically view the military that defends them.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (42) ◽  
pp. 10624-10629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laia Balcells ◽  
Gerard Torrats-Espinosa

This study investigates the consequences of terrorist attacks for political behavior by leveraging a natural experiment in Spain. We study eight attacks against civilians, members of the military, and police officers perpetrated between 1989 and 1997 by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), a Basque terrorist organization that was active between 1958 and 2011. We use nationally and regionally representative surveys that were being fielded when the attacks occurred to estimate the causal effect of terrorist violence on individuals’ intent to participate in democratic elections as well as on professed support for the incumbent party. We find that both lethal and nonlethal terrorist attacks significantly increase individuals’ intent to participate in a future democratic election. The magnitude of this impact is larger when attacks are directed against civilians than when directed against members of the military or the police. We find no evidence that the attacks change support for the incumbent party. These results suggest that terrorist attacks enhance political engagement of citizens.


Physics Today ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (11) ◽  
pp. 12-12
Author(s):  
William H. Southwell
Keyword(s):  

Addiction ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 98 (10) ◽  
pp. 1433-1446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Luc Heeb ◽  
Gerhard Gmel ◽  
Christoph Zurbrügg ◽  
Meichun Kuo ◽  
Jürgen Rehm

1993 ◽  
Vol 72 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1282-1282 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lester

In the USA from 1936 to 1970, the military participation rate predicted alcohol consumption. These two variables combined with unemployment rates to predict accurately suicide rates during this same period.


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