Early age alcohol use and later alcohol problems in adolescents : individual and peer mediators in a bi-national study

This paper examines whether there is cross-national similarity in the longitudinal relationship between early age alcohol use and adolescent alcohol problems. Potential mechanisms underlying this relationship also are examined, testing adolescent alcohol use, low self-regulation, and peer deviance as possible mediators. Students (N = 1,945) participating in the International Youth Development Study, a longitudinal panel survey study, responded to questions on alcohol use and influencing factors, and were followed annually over a 3-year period from 2002 to 2004 (98% retention rate). State-representative, community student samples were recruited in grade 7 in Washington State, United States (US, n = 961, 78% of those eligible; Mage = 13.09, SD = .44) and Victoria, Australia (n = 984, 76% of those eligible; Mage = 12.93, SD = .41). Analyses were conducted using multiple-group structural equation modeling. In both states, early age alcohol use (age 13) had a small but statistically significant association with subsequent alcohol problems (age 15). Overall, there was little evidence for mediation of early alcohol effects. Low self-regulation prospectively predicted peer deviance, alcohol use, and alcohol problems in both states. Peer deviance was more positively related to alcohol use and low self-regulation among students in Victoria compared to students in Washington State. The small but persistent association of early age alcohol use with alcohol problems across both samples is consistent with efforts to delay alcohol initiation to help prevent problematic alcohol use. Self-regulation was an important influence, supporting the need to further investigate the developmental contribution of neurobehavioral disinhibition.

Involvement of young Australian adults in meal preparation : cross-sectional associations with abdominal obesity and body mass index

Previous research has shown that involvement in meal preparation is positively associated with better diet quality. However, it is unclear whether there is an association between involvement in meal preparation and being overweight or obese. This study investigated whether the level of involvement in meal preparation was associated with objectively measured weight status in young adults. During 2004-2006, a national sample of 1,996 Australian adults aged 26 to 36 years completed a self-administered questionnaire including questions on sociodemographic characteristics, diet, and physical activity. Participants were asked to report who usually prepared the main meal on working days and responses were categorized as “myself,” “shared,” or “someone else.” Waist circumference, weight, and height were measured by trained staff. Moderate abdominal obesity was defined as waist circumference >94 cm for men and >80 cm for women. Overweight was defined as body mass index (calculated as kg/m2) >25. Prevalence ratios were calculated using log binomial regression. After adjusting for age, education, and leisure time physical activity, men who shared the meal preparation had a slightly lower prevalence of moderate abdominal obesity (prevalence ratio=0.92; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.86 to 0.99) than those whose meals were usually prepared by someone else. There was no association with having sole responsibility (prevalence ratio=0.99; 95% CI: 0.92 to 1.06). There were no associations between level of involvement in meal preparation and being overweight (shared responsibility prevalence ratio=0.99; 95% CI: 0.92 to 1.07; sole responsibility prevalence ratio=0.98; 95% CI: 0.91 to 1.05). For women, level of involvement was not associated with moderate abdominal obesity (shared responsibility prevalence ratio=0.93; 95% CI: 0.84 to 1.03; sole responsibility prevalence ratio=0.94; 95% CI: 0.86 to 1.03) or being overweight (shared responsibility prevalence ratio=0.93; 95% CI: 0.84 to 1.02; sole responsibility prevalence ratio=0.93; 95% CI: 0.85 to 1.02). In this sample of young adults, level of involvement in meal preparation was not strongly related to weight status.

A cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms

This presentation reports on the methodological issues confronting an Australian-German-Taiwanese team planning comparative video ethnographic research into primary science classrooms. The issues that will be canvassed include: the benefits of cross-cultural comparisons in providing perspectives on local practice, the theoretical justifications of such comparisons, selection of cases for comparison and possibilities for claiming cultural representativeness, the planning of appropriate data sets, the different comparative stories offered by different analytical frames, practical issues of communication and data sharing, and issues of entanglement of language and culture in the analysis.

Cross-sectional analysis of association between socioeconomic status and utilization of primary total hip joint replacements 2006-7 : Australian orthopaedic association national joint replacement registry

Background The utilization of total hip replacement (THR) surgery is rapidly increasing, however few data examine whether these procedures are associated with socioeconomic status (SES) within Australia. This study examined primary THR across SES for both genders for the Barwon Statistical Division (BSD) of Victoria, Australia.

Methods Using the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry data for 2006–7, primary THR with a diagnosis of osteoarthritis (OA) among residents of the BSD was ascertained. The Index of Relative Socioeconomic Disadvantage was used to measure SES; determined by matching residential addresses with Australian Bureau of Statistics census data. The data were categorised into quintiles; quintile 1 indicating the most disadvantaged. Age- and sex-specific rates of primary THR per 1,000 person years were reported for 10-year age bands using the total population at risk.

Results Females accounted for 46.9% of the 642 primary THR performed during 2006–7. THR utilization per 1,000 person years was 1.9 for males and 1.5 for females. The highest utilization of primary THR was observed in those aged 70–79 years (males 6.1, and females 5.4 per 1,000 person years). Overall, the U-shaped pattern of THR across SES gave the appearance of bimodality for both males and females, whereby rates were greater for both the most disadvantaged and least disadvantaged groups.

Conclusions Further work on a larger scale is required to determine whether relationships between SES and THR utilization for the diagnosis of OA is attributable to lifestyle factors related to SES, or alternatively reflects geographic and health system biases. Identifying contributing factors associated with SES may enhance resource planning and enable more effective and focussed preventive strategies for hip OA.

Developing and using an S3R model to analyze reasoning in web-based cross-national exchanges on sustainability

Within the increasing body of research that examines students' reasoning on socioscientific issues, we consider in particular student reasoning concerning acute, open-ended questions that bring out the complexities and uncertainties embedded in ill-structured problems. In this paper, we propose a socioscientific sustainability reasoning (S3R) model to analyze students' reasoning exchanges on environmental socially acute questions (ESAQs). The paper describes the development of an epistemological analysis of how sustainability perspectives can be integrated into socioscientific reasoning, which emphasizes the need for S3R to be both grounded in context and collective. We argue the complexity of ESAQs requires a consideration of multiple dimensions that form the basis of our S3R analysis model: problematization, interactions, knowledge, uncertainties, values, and governance. For each dimension, in the model we have identified indicators of four levels of complexity. We investigated the usefulness of the model in identifying improvements in reasoning that flow from cross-national web-based exchanges between groups of French and Australian students, concerning a local and a global ESAQ. The S3R model successfully captured the nature of reasoning about socioscientific sustainability issues, with the collective negotiation of multiple forms of knowledge as a key characteristic in improving reasoning levels. The paper provides examples of collaborative argumentation in collective texts (wikis) to illustrate the various levels of reasoning in each dimension, and diagrammatic representation of the evolution of collective reflections. We observe that a staged process of construction and confrontation, involving groups representing to some extent different cultural and contextual stances, is powerful in eliciting reasoned argument of enhanced quality. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A cross-national study of calculus

The results from a cross-national study comparing calculus performance of students at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai and students at the University of Michigan before and after their first university calculus course are presented. Overall, ECNU significantly outperformed Michigan on both the pre- and post-tests, but the Michigan students showed a larger gain and normalized gain, and hence narrowed the gap. ECNU's superior performance was especially striking on the subset of problems requiring only a pre-calculus background. On those, Michigan's post-test scores were below ECNU's pre-test scores and, indeed, ECNU's higher performance on both the overall pre-test and overall post-test is attributable to its success on these problems.

Cross-continental comparison of national food consumption survey methods—A narrative review

Food consumption surveys are performed in many countries. Comparison of results from those surveys across nations is difficult because of differences in methodological approaches. While consensus about the preferred methodology associated with national food consumption surveys is increasing, no inventory of methodological aspects across continents is available. The aims of the present review are (1) to develop a framework of key methodological elements related to national food consumption surveys, (2) to create an inventory of these properties of surveys performed in the continents North- America, South-America, Asia and Australasia, and (3) to discuss and compare these methodological properties cross-continentally. A literature search was performed using a fixed set of search terms in different databases. The inventory was completed with all accessible information from all retrieved publications and corresponding authors were requested to provide additional information where missing. Surveys from ten individual countries, originating from four continents are listed in the inventory. The results are presented according to six major aspects of food consumption surveys. The most common dietary intake assessment method used in food consumption surveys worldwide is the 24-HDR (24 h dietary recall), occasionally administered repeatedly, mostly using interview software. Only three countries have incorporated their national food consumption surveys into continuous national health and nutrition examination surveys.

Australian adult smokers' responses to plain packaging with larger graphic health warnings 1 year after implementation: results from a national cross-sectional tracking survey

Abstract
Background We assessed whether the Australian plain packs with larger graphic health warnings (GHWs) achieved three specific objectives of reducing the appeal of tobacco, increasing health warning effectiveness and reducing the ability of packaging to mislead about smoking harms.
Methods We compared responses from continuous cross-sectional telephone surveys of n=2176 cigarette smokers during pre-plain packaging (April–September 2012, pre-PP) with n=759 surveyed in the transition period (October–November 2012) and n=4240 during the first year of implementation (December 2012–November 2013, PP year 1), using multivariate logistic regression analyses.
Results From pre-PP to PP year 1, more smokers disliked their pack (p<0.001), perceived lower pack appeal (p<0.001), lower cigarette quality (p<0.001), lower satisfaction (p<0.001) and lower value (p<0.001) and disagreed brands differed in prestige (p=0.003). There was no change in perceived differences in taste of different brands. More smokers noticed GHWs (p<0.001), attributed much motivation to quit to GHWs (p<0.001), avoided specific GHWs when purchasing (p<0.001), and covered packs (p<0.001), with no change in perceived exaggeration of harms. PP year 1 saw an increased proportion believing that brands do not differ in harmfulness (p=0.004), but no change in the belief that variants do not differ in strength or the perceived harmfulness of cigarettes compared with a year ago. Interactions signified greater change for four outcomes assessing aspects of appeal among young adults and two appeal outcomes among mid-aged adults.
Conclusions The specific objectives of plain packaging were achieved and generally sustained among adult smokers up to 12 months after implementation.

Use of illicit tobacco following introduction of standardised packaging of tobacco products in Australia: results from a national cross-sectional survey

ABSTRACT
Objectives: To assess whether following standardisation of tobacco packaging in Australia, smokers were, as predicted by the tobacco industry, more likely to use illicit tobacco.
Methods: National cross-sectional telephone surveys conducted continuously from April 2012 (6 months before implementation of plain packaging (PP)) to March 2014 (15 months after) using responses from current cigarette smokers (n=8679). Changes between pre-PP, the transition to PP and PP phase were examined using logistic regression models.
Results: Among those whose factory-made cigarettes were purchased in Australia, compared with pre-PP, there were no significant increases in the PP phase in use of: ‘cheap whites’ (<0.1%; OR=0.24, 95% CI 0.04 to 1.56, p=0.134); international brands purchased for 20% or more below the recommended retail price (0.2%; OR=3.49, 95% CI 0.66 to 18.35, p=0.140); or packs purchased from informal sellers (<0.1%; OR=0.24, 95% CI 0.04 to 1.47, p=0.124). The prevalence of any use of unbranded illicit tobacco remained at about 3% (adjusted OR=0.79, 95% CI 0.58 to 1.08, p=0.141).
Conclusions: While unable to quantify the total extent of use of illicit manufactured cigarettes, in this large national survey we found no evidence in Australia of increased use of two categories of manufactured cigarettes likely to be contraband, no increase in purchase from informal sellers and no increased use of unbranded illicit ‘chop-chop’ tobacco.

Cross-cultural examination of the structure of the Revised American Pain Society Patient Outcome Questionnaire (APS-POQ-R)

This study investigated the cross-cultural factor stability and internal consistency of the Revised American Pain Society Patient Outcome Questionnaire (APS-POQ-R); a measure of the quality of postoperative pain management employed internationally. We conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of APS-POQ-R data from two point-prevalence studies comprising 268 and 311 surveys of Danish and Australian medical-surgical patients. Parallel analysis indicated four and three factor solutions for Danish and Australian patients respectively, which accounted for 58.1% and 52.9% of variance. Internal consistency was unsatisfactory among both Danish (Cronbach α=.54) and Australian (Cronbach α=.63) cohorts. There was a high degree of between-group similarity in item-factor loadings of variables coded as "pain experience", but not "pain management". This reflected cross-cultural differences in ratings of treatment satisfaction. For Danish patients, satisfaction was associated with the degree of pain severity and activity interference whereas for Australian patients, satisfaction was associated with their perceived ability to participate in treatment. To facilitate further cross-cultural comparison, we compared our findings to past research conducted in the U.S. and Iceland. EFA supported the construct validity of the APS-POQ-R as a measure of "pain experience", but indicated that items measuring "pain management" may vary cross-culturally. Findings highlighted the need for further validation of the APS-POQ-R internationally. PERSPECTIVE: This study revealed the APS-POQ-R as a valid measure of postoperative pain experience for Danish and Australian patients. Measures of patients' perception of pain management were not robust to group differences in treatment expectations and demonstrated cross-cultural instability. Results highlighted difficulties in establishing stable cross-cultural, cross-population subscales for the APS-POQ-R.

A cross cultural comparison of the contents of codes of ethics: USA, Canada and Australia

This paper examines the contents of the codes of ethics of 83 of the top 500 companies operating in the private sector in Australia in an attempt to discover whether there are national characteristics that differentiate the codes used by companies operating in Australia from codes used by companies operating in the American and Canadian systems. The studies that were used as a comparison were Mathews (1987) for the United States of America and Lefebvre and Singh (1992) for Canada. The major conclusion is that, whilst Australian codes do have some characteristics that differentiate them from the other two groups, it appears that companies in all three cultures are driven by the same motives to develop codes.

November 2007: National American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month

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