Theses and dissertations

This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students. 

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Prevalence of Optimal Lifestyle Behaviors in College Undergraduate Students

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Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in the United States and remains a great public health challenge. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (e.g., unhealthy diet, sedentary behavior, cigarette smoking, and obesity) are associated with a greater risk of incident CVD and all-cause mortality. From the prevention strategy, maintaining…

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in the United States and remains a great public health challenge. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (e.g., unhealthy diet, sedentary behavior, cigarette smoking, and obesity) are associated with a greater risk of incident CVD and all-cause mortality. From the prevention strategy, maintaining a healthy lifestyle throughout a lifetime is a key to CVD prevention. Nonetheless, the prevalence of healthy lifestyle behaviors in US communities is low as 3 to 5%. Moreover, the prevalence of a healthy population among college students remains unknown. Objective: We investigated the prevalence of healthy lifestyle behaviors among college students. Methods: We recruited 747 undergraduate students from Arizona State University using a survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire investigated demographic characteristics, body mass index, dietary habits, physical activity habits, and smoking habits. The chi-square test was used to investigate the frequency of ideal lifestyle behaviors in college students. Results: Prevalence of students who met all 4 ideal health behaviors (ideal cardiovascular health) is very low at 7.6%. Approximately 55.7% of students had only 2 or less ideal lifestyle behaviors (poor cardiovascular health). In addition, there were no statistical differences in combined ideal lifestyle behaviors across gender and different years of undergraduate studies. Conclusion: College students had a very low prevalence of healthy lifestyle behaviors. Increasing healthy low-risk students throughout college education is an important strategy to prevent chronic disease morbidity and mortality at individual and population level.
ContributorsConway, Jason Michael (Author) / Lee, Chong (Thesis director) / Angadi, Siddhartha (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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Genetic and Environmental Contributions to the Relation Between Parenting and Child Psychopathology

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Prior research has established a relation between parenting behaviors and symptoms of child psychopathology, and this association may be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Gene-environment correlation, or the influence of a child’s genes on the environment they receive, represents one possible mechanism through which genes and environment combine…

Prior research has established a relation between parenting behaviors and symptoms of child psychopathology, and this association may be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Gene-environment correlation, or the influence of a child’s genes on the environment they receive, represents one possible mechanism through which genes and environment combine to influence child outcomes. This study examined evocative gene-environment correlation in the relation between parenting and symptoms of child psychopathology in a sample of 676 twins (51.5% female, 58.5% Caucasian, 23.7% Hispanic/Latinx, primarily middle class, MAge=8.43, SD=.62) recruited from Arizona birth records. Using univariate ACE twin biometric models, genetic influences were found to moderately contribute to internalizing symptoms (A=.47, C=.25, E=.28), while externalizing (A=.86, E=.14) and ADHD (A=.84, E=.16) symptoms were found to be highly heritable. The genetic influences for positive (C=.54, E=.46) and negative (C=.44, E=.56) parenting were smaller and found to be nonsignificant. The correlations between parenting and types of psychopathology were examined and bivariate Cholesky decompositions were conducted for statistically significant correlations. Negative parenting was moderately positively correlated with externalizing and ADHD symptoms; the relation between externalizing symptoms and negative parenting was found to be due to shared genetics, whereas the relation between negative parenting and ADHD symptoms was due to the shared environment. The mixed results regarding the role of gene environment correlation in relations between parenting and child psychopathology indicate that further research on the mechanisms of this relation is needed.
ContributorsCarrizosa, Mya Grace (Author) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Thesis director) / Corbin, William (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Oro, Veronica (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05