Changes in Household Size and Depression: A Temporal Analysis

This study examines the relationship between changes in household size and depression through a temporal analysis using the Korean Welfare Panel Study. The number of household members at both t-1 and t year was measured and a generalized estimating equation was used. Households that increased in size after a year showed a lower prevalence of depression than the corresponding reference groups. On the contrary, when individuals from multi-person households inhabited single-person households after a year, their probability of experiencing depression increased by more than 70% in comparison to those who remained in single-person households throughout.

The Influences of Reference Groups Towards the Usage of E-Wallet Payment Systems

This chapter investigates how the three referent groups (peers, parent, media) of subjective norms (SN) influence the intention of millennials to adopt e-wallets. This study is supported by the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework. A total of 215 usable responses were obtained and analyzed using SPSS 25 and SmartPLS 3.2.6. The data is collected using a self-administered survey (Lancaster Qualtrics) and distributed randomly using the snowball sampling technique. The results indicate that the decomposition of SN has a significant relationship towards the intention of millennials to adopt e-wallets. This chapter also provides useful insights on what are the other factors that would build the intention of millennials towards the usage of e-wallets. Moreover, TPB along with the SOR framework supports the findings and provides better credibility to this study. This chapter concludes that brands should leverage more capital on media advertisements rather than peer referrals if they want to capture a larger market.

Age, Body Mass Index (BMI) And Cognitive Difficulties In Appalachian West Virginia

Several known factors exacerbate the risk of cognitive difficulties among older adults. In addition to place-based disparities, body weight also predicts cognitive health. In fact, overweight and Obese BMI (Benito-Leon et al., 2013) and underweight BMI (Xiang & An, 2015) are risk factors for cognitive difficulties. Whether the effect of BMI operates similarly across age among adults facing place-based disparities is not clear. In order to better understand the role of BMI among adults already at-risk for health disparities, we used the 2018 BRFSS data to examine the relations among these variables among the 4817 West Virginian adults in the BRFSS database. Approximately 16.5% had difficulty making decisions or remembering. Approximately 73% were overweight or obese, 26% were healthy BMI, and 1% were underweight. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted to examine cognitive difficulties. Healthy BMI and ages 25 – 44 years were the reference groups. The omnibus test was significant, χ2 (5, N = 4817) = 38.71, p < 0.0001. Age and BMI uniquely contributed to the classification. Post hoc inspection of the Odds Ratios showed that adults ages 60 years and older with obesity were 1.27 times more likely to report cognitive difficulties, while those who were underweight were 3.74 times more likely to report cognitive difficulties. That individuals over age 60 with an obese or underweight BMI report more cognitive difficulties highlights the intersection among age, obesity and location on cognitive health disparities in West Virginia.

The Persistence of National Victimhood: Bosniak Post-War Memory Politics of the Srebrenica Mass Killings

The Persistence of National Victimhood: Bosniak Post-War Memory Politics of the Srebrenica Mass KillingsThis article reveals the origins of the radicalisation of memory politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the year 2010. It shows that the radicalisation in the public sphere of Bosnia and Herzegovina was eventually possible due to the long-term persistence of the nationalist commemorative strategy, rooted in the dialectic mechanism of consolidating and antagonising relevant reference groups, and responsible for structuring the national memories of the last war according to an exclusivist martyrological model. Based on the example of Bosniak post-war memory politics regarding the Srebrenica mass killings, the study describes a more universal political mechanism, one characteristic also of the post-war Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat nationalist factions. Trwałość martyrologii narodowej. Boszniacka powojenna polityka pamięci o masowych morderstwach w SrebrenicyArtykuł odsłania źródła radykalizacji polityki pamięci w Bośni i Hercegowinie po 2010 roku. Pokazuje, że radykalizacja ta była możliwa dzięki długotrwałemu utrzymywaniu się w sferze publicznej Bośni i Hercegowiny nacjonalistycznej strategii komemoratywnej, która była odpowiedzialna za strukturyzację narodowej pamięci o ostatniej wojnie według ekskluzywistycznego modelu martyrologicznego oraz zakorzeniona w dialektycznym mechanizmie konsolidacji i antagonizowania odpowiednich grup odniesienia. Na przykładzie powojennej boszniackiej polityki pamięci dotyczącej masowych morderstw w Srebrenicy opisany został bardziej uniwersalny mechanizm polityczny, charakterystyczny także dla powojennych polityk pamięci prowadzonych przez nacjonalistyczne elity bośniackich Serbów i bośniackich Chorwatów.

Wealthy Private Investors and Socially Responsible Investing: The Influence of Reference Groups

Sustainable development requires a shift from traditionally invested assets to socially responsible investing (SRI), bringing together financial profits and social welfare. Private high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) are critical for this shift as they control nearly half of global wealth. While we know little about HNWIs’ investment behavior, reference group theory suggests that their SRI engagement is influenced by their identification with and comparison to reference groups. We thus ask: how do reference groups influence the investment behavior of SRI-oriented HNWIs? To answer this question, we analyzed a unique qualitative data set of 55 semi-structured interviews with SRI-oriented HNWIs and industry experts. Our qualitative research found that, on the one hand, the family serves as a normative reference group that upholds the economic profit motive and directly shapes HNWIs to make financial gains from their investments at the expense of social welfare. On the other hand, fellow SRI-oriented HNWIs serve as a comparative reference group that does not impose any concrete requirements on social welfare performance, indirectly influencing SRI-oriented HNWIs to subordinate social concerns to financial profits. Our scholarly insights contribute to the SRI literature, reference group theory, and practice.

Blood Pressure Levels and Risks of Dementia: a Nationwide Study of 4.5 Million People

There are inconsistent results on the impacts of controlling blood pressure (BP) on the risk of dementia. We investigated the association between BP and risk of dementia subtypes by antihypertensive treatment and comorbidities. Using the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Health Screening Database from 2009 to 2012, a total of 4 522 447 adults aged 60+ years without a history of dementia were analyzed and followed up for a mean of 5.4 years. Individuals were classified according to their baseline systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP; SBP 130 to <140 mm Hg and diastolic BP 80 to <90 mm Hg were used as reference groups. The risk of overall dementia and probable Alzheimer disease was significantly higher in the SBP≥160 and lower SBP groups. These U-shaped associations were consistent regardless of antihypertensive use or comorbidities. The risk of probable vascular dementia (VaD) was not higher among lower SBP groups and increased gradually as SBP increased. Although there was a linear association between SBP and the risk of probable VaD in individuals not taking antihypertensives or without comorbidities, there was a U-shaped association in individuals taking antihypertensives or with comorbidities. Patterns of association between diastolic BP and risk of probable Alzheimer disease or probable VaD were similar to those with SBP, except for the risk of probable VaD in individuals taking antihypertensives. In conclusion, risks of probable Alzheimer disease and probable VaD were different among lower BP groups. Although the risk of dementia appears higher in people with lower BP receiving antihypertensives, this finding may be affected by comorbidities.

Using the UK Biobank as a global reference of worldwide populations: application to measuring ancestry diversity from GWAS summary statistics

The UK Biobank project is a prospective cohort study with deep genetic and phenotypic data collected on almost 500,000 individuals from across the United Kingdom. Within this dataset, we carefully define 17 distinct ancestry groups from all four corners of the world. Using allele frequencies derived from these global reference groups, we are now able to effectively measure diversity from summary statistics of any genetic dataset. Measuring genetic diversity is an important problem because increasing genetic diversity is key to making new genetic discoveries, while also being a major source of confounding to be aware of in genetics studies.