Biomedical subjects

P C Griesler

Publications and source records attributed to P C Griesler.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

Ethnic differences in correlates of adolescent cigarette smoking.

PURPOSE: To examine the correlates of cigarette smoking among African-American, Hispanic, and white adolescents in a cross-sectional national sample. METHODS: A total of 1795 mother-child dyads from the 1992 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were selected for analyses. Measures of adolescents cigarette smoking and family, individual, peer, and sociodemographic risk factors were analyzed. RESULTS: White youths reported the highest rates of lifetime, current, and persistent smoking, and initiated smoking at a significantly earlier age than African-Americans and Hispanics. Except for maternal cigarette smoking and substance use, African-Americans and Hispanics experienced a disproportionately larger number of purported risk factors than whites. Multivariate analyses revealed common and ethnic-specific correlates of adolescent lifetime and current smoking, with many more significant associations among whites than minorities. Common correlates included youth's age across all three ethnic groups, problem behaviors and delinquency among whites and African-Americans, and perceived peer pressure to smoke among whites and Hispanics. Ethnic-specific correlates included maternal smoking, maternal cocaine use, low maternal religiosity, and negative scholastic attitudes, which increased smoking for whites; and positive parenting, which reduced smoking for African-Americans. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of effects of maternal smoking and perceived peer pressure to smoke on African-American adolescents compared with whites suggests that role modeling and interpersonal influence may be more important determinants of smoking for white than African-American adolescents. The differential impact of family and peer factors on the smoking of adolescents of different ethnicity warrants further investigation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

The impact of maternal drinking during and after pregnancy on the drinking of adolescent offspring.

OBJECTIVE: The impact of prenatal maternal drinking on alcohol consumption in adolescent offspring was examined among boys and girls separately. METHOD: A prospective longitudinal sample of 185 mother-firstborn child dyads was used to examine the impact of maternal self-reported alcohol consumption during pregnancy on adolescent self-reported lifetime and current drinking, controlling for potential confounding factors. RESULTS: In this representative general population sample, maternal drinking during pregnancy, particularly continuous moderate to heavy consumption, had a significant positive effect on adolescent daughters' current drinking, but a slight negative effect on sons' lifetime drinking. The sex-specific prenatal effect on current drinking persisted with controls for prenatal maternal cigarette smoking, current maternal drinking, child-rearing practices (i.e., maternal-child closeness, monitoring and a rule against drinking) and the adolescent's problem behaviors in childhood. Prenatal maternal smoking was also associated with elevated rates of adolescent drinking, particularly current drinking. Of the child-rearing variables, only a rule against drinking decreased adolescent drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Selected prenatal factors may constitute risks for alcohol consumption among adolescent daughters. The results are discussed in light of animal models that document increased vulnerability among female offspring to the deleterious effects of gestational alcohol exposure. Implications for understanding the risk factors associated with adolescent alcohol use are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Diet selection by chicks.

Seven experiments with 324 chicks tested their ability to select a nutritionally adequate diet from separate sources of purified casein and various supplements, including gelatin (a source of two amino acids), a gelatin-creatine mixture (a source of three amino acids), and fiber (nonnutritive bulk). Nonselecting controls consumed the basal purified-casein diet or a supplemented purified-casein diet. Chicks in all selection conditions composed diets that yielded normal intake, normal body temperature, normal activity, and the maximum growth possible for their intake. They also selected components in the same percentages as in premixed diets. In all instances, their selection was nonrandom and regulated. What chicks included in their diet depended on what else was available. Although the specific percentage taken from each dietary component varied across different selection alternatives, these differences affected neither intake nor growth. Selection, per se, incurred a caloric cost. Chicks selecting from fractions of a corn-and-soy diet offset this cost by increasing intake compensatorily, but chicks with a purified-casein fraction did not, suggesting that some unspecified property of casein placed a ceiling on its intake. These findings unequivocally demonstrate that immature chicks not only can self-select nutritionally adequate diets, but can do so with unexpected precision by exploiting different but equally successful strategies.

Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena↗

PubMed1995

Childhood aggression and peer relations in the context of family and neighborhood factors.

4 models (risk, protective, potentiator, and person-environment fit) comparing the associations among ethnicity, income, and structural characteristics of families and neighborhoods on childhood aggression and peer relations were explored. The 1,271 second- through fifth-grade (M = 9.9 years) children were assigned to 1 of 8 family types based on ethnicity, income, and household composition, and their addresses were used to define low- or middle-SES neighborhoods using neighborhood census data. Middle-SES neighborhoods operated as a protective factor for reducing aggression among children from high-risk families, interacted with family type to produce poor person-environment fit resulting in a greater likelihood of being rejected by one's peers, and potentiated the development of home play companions for children from low-risk families. Developmental and gender differences were also explored. Results are discussed in terms of the need for broader contextual factors to be considered in studying children's social and behavioral development.

Black or African American↗

PubMed1990

Children's perceptions of self and of relationships with others as a function of sociometric status.

We studied the relations among children's reports about their own competence, objective measures of their competence, and their views of important relationships with others as a function of sociometric status. 515 third- and fourth-grade children responded to questions about aspects of their personal competence and about their relationships with mothers, fathers, teachers, and best friends. Rejected children reported the least supportive relationships overall with their fathers of any status group; this was especially true of rejected-aggressive children. Neglected children reported the lowest perceived social competence with peers. The subjective reports of rejected but not neglected children overestimated their social competence as rated by peers. Relative to teacher reports, rejected-aggressive children also overestimated their behavioral competence. While highlighting heterogeneity among low-accepted groups, these results add to knowledge about the subjective experiences of children who are unpopular with peers.

Aggression↗