Culture

Andrew Fuligni and his colleagues want to understand the secret life of the American teenager. Their research has examined whether stress in the teen years affects kids' health as adults (it does), whether teens maintain their religious ties and beliefs as adults (they do) and if ethnic minority–based stigmatization affects how they perform in school (it does).

Ancient structures uncovered in Turkey and thought to be the world's oldest temples may not have been strictly religious buildings after all, according to an article in the October issue of Current Anthropology. Archaeologist Ted Banning of the University of Toronto argues that the buildings found at Göbekli Tepe may have been houses for people, not the gods.

Continued participation in the Harrisburg Preschool Program (HPP) has led 5th-grade students to score higher on Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) literacy and math tests than peers who have not participated in the HPP program, according to the final evaluation of the HPP initiative by the Prevention Research Center at Penn State.

HPP is a collaborative program involving the Harrisburg School District and Capital Area Head Start, which provides comprehensive, high-quality preschool services to at-risk children in the Harrisburg area.

TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 6, 2011) – According to Anna R. Giuliano, Ph.D., program leader in cancer epidemiology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues in the Netherlands, earlier circumcision of males in South Africa may be a positive step in slowing the spread of both HIV and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Their commentary and data were published in a recent issue of the British medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases (Vol. 11) 581-582.

6 October, 2011, Bad Gastein, Austria– Globally, people believe that friends and family have as much responsibility for their personal health as do health care providers, according to the Edelman Health Barometer 2011. After “themselves,” nearly half (43%) of respondents believe that their friends and family have the most impact on their lifestyle as it relates to health, and more than a third (36%) believe friends and family have the most impact on personal nutrition.

Where you live could play a larger role in health disparities than originally thought, according to a new study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They examined a racially integrated, low-income neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland and found that, with the exception of smoking, nationally reported disparities in hypertension, diabetes, obesity among women and use of health services disappeared or narrowed.

Hypothetically speaking, if someone told you that a hypothetical question could influence your judgments or behavior, would you believe them?

Cincinnati, OH, October 6, 2011 -- Directly advertising food items to children worries many parents and health care providers, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have expressed concern about the negative impact of advertising on children's healthy food choices. A new study soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics explores the relationship between fast food advertisements, parental influence, and the food choices made by children.

PHILADELPHIA — Over the next decade, the population of cancer survivors over 65 years of age will increase by approximately 42 percent.

"We can expect a dramatic increase in the number of older adults who are diagnosed with or carry a history of cancer," said Julia Rowland, Ph.D., director of the Office of Cancer Survivorship in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). "Cancer is largely a disease of aging, so we're seeing yet another effect of the baby boom generation and we need to prepare for this increase."

At the beginning of the 2011-12 flu season, a new study finds that the proportion of nursing home patients who get a shot remains lower than a national public health goal and that the rate is lower for blacks than for whites. The disparity persists even within individual nursing homes, said researchers at Brown University, who investigated the disparity and some of the reasons behind it.

Closures of hospital trauma centers are disproportionately affecting poor, uninsured and African American populations, and nearly a fourth of Americans are now forced to travel farther than they once did.

In a new study led by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), researchers examined changes in driving time to trauma centers, which have increasingly been shuttered in recent years.

A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash.

Spanish men prefer immigrant women with a little less going for them. Spanish women, not so much.

A team at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) has studied the marriage strategies of immigrants in order to determine the nature of endogamic (between people of the same nationality) and exogamic partnerships (between people of different nationalities) in Spain. The preliminary results indicate that, unlike Spanish men, Spanish women prefer immigrants with more qualifications.

Although the transtheoretical model stages of change (TTM SOC) method is frequently used to help obese and overweight people lose weight, a newly published Cochrane systematic review indicates there is little evidence that it is effective. "The use of TTM SOC only resulted in 2kg or less weight loss, and there was no conclusive evidence that this loss was sustained," says study leader Nik Tuah, who works at Imperial College London.

Yale University researchers have found one of the mechanisms that cause fat cells to lose their ability to efficiently store and use energy -- a scientific mystery and a phenomenon that contributes to a major public health problem.