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Nationwide Data (nationwide + data)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Relating psychiatric disorders, offender and offence characteristics in a sample of adolescent sex offenders and non-sex offenders

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 1 2007
A.Ph. Van Wijk
Introduction,Several studies have paid attention to the relationship between psychiatric disorders and adolescent offending but few have distinguished different types of offenders, especially within the category of youngsters who have committed sex offences. Aim,To test for relationships between psychiatric disorder and specific offence category among young male offenders. Method,Nationwide data were extracted from Dutch Forensic Psychiatric Services (FPD) files for five groups of offenders, as defined by their index offence: 308 violent sex offenders; 134 non-violent sex-offenders; 270 sex offenders against children; 3148 violent offenders and 1620 offenders charged with any crime other than interpersonal body contact crimes. They were compared on individual characteristics and psychiatric diagnoses according to DSM-IV criteria. Having a diagnosis of a paraphilia alone was exclusively associated with sex offending, therefore all such youths were excluded from further analyses. The OVERALS technique was used to explore possible relationships between offence, psychiatric diagnoses, sociodemographic and individual characteristics among the remaining young men for whom all pertinent data were available (n = 1894). Results,Sex offenders constituted a distinct group of juvenile delinquents. Developmental disorders were more common among non-violent sex offenders and child molesters. Violent offences were more typical of delinquents from immigrant backgrounds. Conclusion,Group differences in types of psychiatric diagnoses may reflect differences in aetiological factors for the various types of sexual and other delinquent behaviour, and this would be worthy of further study. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

THE CORRELATION OF YOUTH PHYSICAL ACTIVITY WITH STATE POLICIES

CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 4 2007
JOHN CAWLEY
Childhood overweight has risen dramatically in the United States during the past three decades. The search for policy solutions is limited by a lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of state policies for increasing physical activity among youths. This paper estimates the correlation of student physical activity with a variety of state policies. We study nationwide data on high school students from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System for 1999, 2001, and 2003 merged with data on state policies from several sources. We control for a variety of characteristics of states and students to mitigate bias due to the endogenous selection of policies, but we conservatively interpret our results as correlations, not causal impacts. Two policies are positively correlated with participation in physical education (PE) class for both boys and girls: a binding PE unit requirement and a state PE curriculum. We also find that state spending on parks and recreation is positively correlated with two measures of girls' overall physical activity. (JEL I18, I28) [source]

The impact of state physical education requirements on youth physical activity and overweight

HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 12 2007
John Cawley
Abstract To combat childhood overweight in the US, which has risen dramatically in the past three decades, many medical and public health organizations have called for students to spend more time in physical education (PE) classes. This paper is the first to examine the impact of state PE requirements on student PE exercise time. It also exploits variation in state laws as quasi-natural experiments in order to estimate the causal impact of PE on overall student physical activity and weight. We study nationwide data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System for 1999, 2001, and 2003 merged with data on state minimum PE requirements from the 2001 Shape of the Nation Report. We find that high school students with a binding PE requirement report an average of 31 additional minutes per week spent physically active in PE class. Our results also indicate that additional PE time raises the number of days per week that girls report having exercised vigorously or having engaged in strength-building activity. We find no evidence that PE lowers BMI or the probability that a student is overweight. We conclude that raising PE credit requirements may make girls more physically active overall but there is not yet the scientific base to declare raising PE requirements an anti-obesity initiative for either boys or girls. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

New criteria of normal serum lipid levels in Japanese children: The nationwide study

PEDIATRICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 6 2002
Tomoo Okada
Abstract Aim: To make new criteria of serum lipid levels in current Japanese children using the large nationwide data provided from Japan Association of Health Service for the analysis. Methods: The subjects were schoolchildren who received screening and care programs for lifestyle related diseases since 1993,1999. Serum total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC) and triglyceride (TG) levels were measured, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC) levels were calculated. Serum lipid levels were analyzed by age and sex. For each serum lipid, we extracted age- and sex-specific group which the mean value was not statistically different from that in 1999 by Student's t -test analysis. Results: The level below the 75th percentile was defined to be acceptable, from the 75th to 95th to be borderline and over the 95th to be high in TC/LDLC. The level below the fifth percentile in HDLC was defined to be low and the level over the 95th percentile in TG to be high. Therefore, TC level was categorized as follows: acceptable < 190 mg/dL; borderline 190,219 mg/dL; and high > 220 mg/dL. The LDLC level was also categorized into: acceptable < 110 mg/dL; borderline 110,139 mg/dL; and high > 140 mg/dL. The cut-off value in TG was determined to be 140 mg/dL and in HDLC was 40 mg/dL. Conclusions: This new criteria should prove valuable in health strategies for rational prevention and intervention in children. It should be emphasized to provide some intervention for Japanese children immediately. [source]