Many women are subject to role conflict. Between participating in their jobs and social expectations about duties as a mother, they might experience considerable stress trying to fulfill both those demanding roles. Data was analyzed from 182,617 women in 38 low- and middle-income countries from MICS surveys, using linear regression to examine how a number of children and working status interact to predict life satisfaction and happiness. Having more children was almost always associated with lower life satisfaction and happiness. The only exception was that among women who worked, more children to a point was associated with greater life satisfaction. Notably, work had different associations with emotional well-being depending on how it was measured. Having a job was generally associated with lower happiness, but greater life satisfaction. There is little evidence of an interaction between work and children indicating role conflict. Indeed, for life satisfaction, working seems to counteract the negative effect of having more children. Determining how large the effect of having both children and jobs are in women's lives can help determine the burden placed on women today and how that burden can be alleviated.

With the accelerated emergence of telehealth systems being deployed with promises to access unreachable populations in today’s socially distant environment, it is increasingly important to understand the barriers that underprivileged populations face when trying to access healthcare through digital platforms. This research investigates the use of telehealth in social and cultural sub-populations, focusing on how the diverse student population at Arizona State University (ASU) use the recently-launched ASU Telehealth system. Statistical analysis of demographic factors spanning the five categories of social determinants of health were coupled with population studies of the ASU student body to evaluate the reach of services and patient diversity across telehealth and in person health platforms. Results show that insurance, racial and international student identity influence the percentage of students within these demographic categories Also, though the ASU Telehealth patient body reflects ASU’s general student population, the platform did not increase the reach of Health Services and the magnitude of students served. using ASU Telehealth. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to determine the validity and reliability of these findings. However, the findings and background research point to targeted marketing campaigns, intentional policy decision-making, post-pandemic telehealth resilience, and the continuation of quantitative and qualitative data collection as means to expand the impact and equity of ASU Telehealth into future iterations of the platform. Outputs of this study include web communication materials and qualitative data collection mechanisms for future use and implementation by ASU Health Services.

Contemporary human populations conform to ecogeographic predictions that animals will become more compact in cooler climates and less compact in warmer ones. However, it remains unclear to what extent this pattern reflects plastic responses to current environments or genetic differences among populations. Analyzing anthropometric surveys of 232,684 children and adults from across 80 ethnolinguistic groups in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Americas, we confirm that body surface-to-volume correlates with contemporary temperature at magnitudes found in more latitudinally diverse samples (Adj. R² = 0.14-0.28). However, far more variation in body surface-to-volume is attributable to genetic population structure (Adj. R² = 0.50-0.74). Moreover, genetic population structure accounts for nearly all of the observed relationship between contemporary temperature and body surface-to-volume among children and adults. Indeed, after controlling for population structure, contemporary temperature accounts for no more than 4% of the variance in body form in these groups. This effect of genetic affinity on body form is also independent of other ecological variables, such as dominant mode of subsistence and household wealth per capita. These findings suggest that the observed fit of human body surface-to-volume with current climate in this sample reflects relatively large effects of existing genetic population structure of contemporary humans compared to plastic response to current environments.

Background: The transition from the home to college is a phase in which emerging adults shift toward more unhealthy eating and physical activity patterns, higher body mass indices, thus increasing risk of overweight/obesity. Currently, little is understood about how changing friendship networks shape weight gain behaviors. This paper describes the recruitment, data collection, and data analytic protocols for the SPARC (Social impact of Physical Activity and nutRition in College) study, a longitudinal examination of the mechanisms by which friends and friendship networks influence nutrition and physical activity behaviors and weight gain in the transition to college life.

Methods: The SPARC study aims to follow 1450 university freshmen from a large university over an academic year, collecting data on multiple aspects of friends and friendship networks. Integrating multiple types of data related to student lives, ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) are administered via a cell phone application, devilSPARC. EMAs collected in four 1-week periods (a total of 4 EMA waves) are integrated with linked data from web-based surveys and anthropometric measurements conducted at four times points (for a total of eight data collection periods including EMAs, separated by ~1 month). University databases will provide student card data, allowing integration of both time-dated data on food purchasing, use of physical activity venues, and geographical information system (GIS) locations of these activities relative to other students in their social networks.

Discussion: Findings are intended to guide the development of more effective interventions to enhance behaviors among college students that protect against weight gain during college.

The term “Iraqi American” defines any person of Iraqi origin who is residing in the United States. From 1960 until 2014, Iraq experienced numerous armed conflicts and international sanctions. As a result, a great surge of Iraqis migrated out of the country to seek refuge elsewhere. The United States alone currently houses about 400,000+ persons of Iraqi descent, many of whom identify as its citizens. Despite that, Iraqi Americans remain severely understudied. Therefore, this study aims to understand the cultural barriers Iraqi American women face while seeking healthcare in the United States, and how these barriers can impact their behaviors. I collected data via semi-structured interviews with eight Iraqi American women. In this study, I identified five major themes that contributed to women’s healthcare seeking behaviors: societal/familial pressures, staying “pure,” shame associated with performing medical procedures, taboo surrounding discussions of female health conditions, and issues regarding being in the presence of male doctors. Many of these themes involved cultural stigmas and pointed to potential pathways to destigmatize women’s healthcare in the community. This study acts as an initiative to understanding Iraqi Americans better and lays groundwork for further research.

The electronic dance music (EDM) rave community prides itself in fostering an all- accepting subculture for people to unite in style, song, and dance. Based on the principles of Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect (PLUR), rave events have unique and colorful themes, bass levels you can feel in your heart, bright and invigorating laser light shows, and in many cases, a heavy presence of both legal and illegal drug use. Because of the association with illegal substances, open discussions regarding drug presence, use, and harm reduction have been stigmatized and limited in the rave community. This study aims to evaluate the current level of knowledge and attitudes regarding drug presence and harm reduction among “ravers.” All participants were required to be of 18 years of age or older and have attended at least 1 EDM event in the past 5 years. The study involved two stages: (1) collecting qualitative data through in person, phone call, or Zoom interviews (n=14), and (2) collecting quantitative data through closed-ended, anonymous surveys via QuestionPro (n=64). The results indicate that a significant portion of participants in both stages express a desire for easily accessible harm reduction information and increased measures prior to and at EDM events. Starting an open dialogue about drug use and harm reduction efforts within this subculture could help create a safer environment and reduce the negative consequences of drug use.

For African countries during the 1960s and 70s, decolonization marked the first step in a slow crawl toward complete independence. For Western powers and the Soviet Union, however, decolonization presented an opportunity to exert new influence over countries in desperate need of aid, investment, experts, and trade. Amidst the backdrop of increasing Cold War tensions, the US and USSR used foreign aid to pressure development according to either capitalist or Marxist agendas. Thus, sub-Saharan Africa became a battleground of proxy wars and neocolonialism. The Cold War superpowers would back opposing regimes in Angola and prop up, oust, or assassinate leaders in Ghana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. This disrupted natural political development and created instability and violence, which was compounded by the arrival of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s. AIDS ravaged African societies and destroyed the remaining fibers of leadership. The disease illuminated harsh historical realities as it spread among the conflict-stricken countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the motivations behind US and USSR foreign aid during the Cold War, understand how their involvement halted the natural progression of pan-Africanism and leadership in newly-independent African countries, and link the resulting violence to the devastation of the AIDS crisis twenty years later. It begins with a look at European colonization in sub-Saharan Africa and traces the legacy of western influence in the region. The paper will then analyze specific examples of the consequences of historical interference, such as in the Angolan Civil War, the Congo Crisis, and the Rwandan genocide. It will introduce the AIDS crisis—coincident with major civil conflict and the end of the Cold War—and reveal the foreign aid response of the international community in the late 1990s and early 2000s, once Cold War-era pressures were gone. Through realizing the continued impact and spread of HIV/AIDS, the objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive view of the modern-day consequences of historical interference.

Existing research has shown that both ethnic discrimination and household wealth can shape child well-being and development. However, little work examines ethnic discrimination and its relation to income in predicting childhood health globally. This study explores two possible explanations for disparities in infant mortality between ethnic groups across countries worldwide. The first is an explanation based on wealth differentials across ethnic groups. The second is the impact of forms of ethnic discrimination such as past lethal violence or forced labor experienced by the group. This study examines the correlation between ethnic discrimination and infant mortality using household wealth as a covariate. Analyses focused on 266 ethnicities in 40 low- and middle-income countries globally, drawing on infant mortality data from Demographic and Health Surveys and data on ethnic discrimination compiled by the Inclusive Human Learning Lab at Arizona State University. Findings without the inclusion of household wealth show that ethnic groups that predominantly spoke the state language had significantly lower rates of infant mortality. However, this trend disappears when income is added as a covariate. No other measures of discrimination or privilege were associated with infant mortality. Across all analyses, the wealth of the ethnic group was a significant predictor of infant mortality. Future studies should examine whether these trends persist in high-income countries, and whether the general lack of association of discrimination and privilege variables with infant mortality is influenced by how the variables were coded.