Evidence bearing on mental illness as a possible cause of violent behavior.
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Adolescent↗
Biomedical subjects
A Stueve
Publications and source records attributed to A Stueve.
Lifetime and five-year prevalence of homelessness in the United States.
OBJECTIVE: Intense debate exists concerning the number of homeless people in the United States. Previous studies, counting currently homeless people, have provided point-prevalence estimates of homelessness but have been criticized on methodological grounds. This study reports lifetime and 5-year prevalence estimates of homelessness using a different methodological approach. METHODS: Random-digit dialing was used to interview 1507 adults living in households with telephones in the 48 contiguous states in the fall of 1990. Respondents were asked whether they had ever been homeless and if so, where they had slept while homeless. RESULTS: Lifetime and 5-year prevalence of all types of homelessness combined were 14.0% (26 million people) and 4.6% (8.5 million people), respectively. Lifetime "literal homelessness" (sleeping in shelters, abandoned buildings, bus and train stations, etc.) was 7.4% (13.5 million people). Five-year (1985 through 1990) prevalence of self-reported homelessness among those who had ever been literally homeless was 3.1% (5.7 million people). CONCLUSIONS: The magnitude of the problem of homelessness is much greater than most previous attempts to enumerate homeless people have led us to believe. This finding requires reconsideration of inferences about the causes of homelessness that were derived from point-prevalence studies of currently homeless people.
Adolescent↗
Socioeconomic status and psychiatric disorders: the causation-selection issue.
Are inverse relations between psychiatric disorders and socioeconomic status due more to social causation (adversity and stress) or social selection (downward mobility of genetically predisposed)? This classical epidemiological issue is tested by focusing on ethnic status in relation to socioeconomic status. Ethnic status cannot be an effect of disorder because it is present at birth whereas socioeconomic status depends on educational and occupational attainment. A birth cohort sample of 4914 young, Israel-born adults of European and North African background was selected from the country's population register, screened, and diagnosed by psychiatrists. Results indicate that social selection may be more important for schizophrenia and that social causation may be more important for depression in women and for antisocial personality and substance use disorders in men.
Education↗
Characterizing life events as risk factors for depression: the role of fateful loss events.
Empirical associations between life events and health are often weak, in part because event exposure measures may group together very different kinds of experiences within a single event category. Attempts to refine the measures (by using respondents' subjective appraisals of event stressfulness or by taking into consideration situational and personal factors that influence the contextual threat of the events) may strengthen the association, but they cloud the clarity of any causal inference by confounding the measure with extraneous variation. Instead, the use of descriptive information about what actually happened before, during, and after each event is recommended to define exposure to potent, fateful life events. In a comparison of 96 patients with major depression and 404 community residents with no apparent depression, the odds that a person would have experienced one or more events meeting criteria for fatefulness and disruptiveness was 2.5 times greater in the depressed group.
Adult↗
Gender differences in risk factors for violent behavior among economically disadvantaged African American and Hispanic young adolescents.
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Adolescent↗
Inconsistencies over time in young adolescents' self-reports of substance use and sexual intercourse.
When surveyed twice within a 6-month period, to what extent do young adolescents give inconsistent answers to questions about sexual behavior and substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, inhalants, cocaine)? Data were collected from 1,575 urban African American and Hispanic students during fall and spring of 7th grade. For each behavior examined, less than 2% of the sample gave inconsistent answers within a survey and less than 7.5% did so over time. Retraction of baseline answers at follow-up was greater for rarer and more socially undesirable behaviors (e.g., cocaine versus cigarette use). Over-time inconsistencies were associated with lower reading comprehension and an overall reduction in risk behaviors at follow-up.
Adolescent↗
Early sexual initiation and subsequent sex-related risks among urban minority youth: the reach for health study.
CONTEXT: Since the 1980s, the age at which U.S. teenagers, especially minority youth, begin having sex has decreased. There is limited information on the relationship between early sexual initiation and subsequent risky sexual behaviors. METHODS: A sample of 1,287 urban minority adolescents completed three surveys in seventh and eighth grade, and 970 completed a follow-up in 10th grade. Logistic regression was used to test the effects of timing of initiation on 10th-grade sexual behaviors and risks, adjusting for gender, ethnicity and age. RESULTS: At baseline, 31% of males and 8% of females reported sexual initiation; by the 10th grade, these figures were 66% and 52%, respectively. Recent intercourse among males increased from 20% at baseline to 39% in eighth grade; 54% reported recent sex and 6% had made a partner pregnant by 10th grade. Among females, recent intercourse tripled from baseline to eighth grade (5% to 15%); 42% reported recent sex and 12% had been pregnant by grade 10. Early initiators had an increased likelihood of having had multiple sex partners, been involved in a pregnancy, forced a partner to have sex, had frequent intercourse and had sex while drunk or high. There were significant gender differences for all outcomes except frequency of intercourse and being drunk or high during sex. CONCLUSIONS: Minority adolescents who initiate sexual activity early engage in behaviors that place them at high risk for negative health outcomes. It is important to involve parents and schools in prevention efforts that address sexual initiation in early adolescence and that target youth who continue to place themselves and their partners at risk.
Adolescent↗