ReportWire

Tag: University of Toronto

  • Caffeine’s Dirty Little Secret

    Caffeine’s Dirty Little Secret

    [ad_1]

    On Tuesday, curiosity finally got the best of me. How potent could Panera’s Charged Lemonades really be? Within minutes of my first sip of the hyper-caffeinated drink in its strawberry-lemon-mint flavor, I understood why memes have likened it to an illicit drug. My vision sharpened; sweat slicked my palms.

    Laced with more caffeine than a typical energy drink, Panera’s Charged Lemonade has been implicated in two wrongful-death lawsuits since it was introduced in 2022. Though both customers who died had health issues that made them sensitive to caffeine, a third lawsuit this month alleges that the lemonade gave an otherwise healthy 27-year-old lasting heart problems. Following the second death, Panera denied that the drink was the cause, but in light of the lawsuits it has added warnings about the drink, reduced its caffeine content, and removed the option for customers to serve themselves.

    All the attention on Panera’s Charged Lemonade has resurfaced an age-old question: How much caffeine is too much? You won’t find a simple answer anywhere. Caffeine consumption is widely considered to be beneficial because it mostly is—boosting alertness, productivity, and even mood. But there is a point when guzzling caffeine tips over into uncomfortable, possibly unhealthy territory. The problem is that defining this point in discrete terms is virtually impossible. In the era of extreme caffeine, this is a dangerous way to live.

    Most people don’t have to worry about dying after drinking Charged Lemonade. The effects, though uncomfortable, usually seem to be minor. After drinking half of mine, I was so wired that I couldn’t make sense of the thoughts ricocheting around my brain for the next few hours. Caffeine routinely leads to jitteriness, nervousness, sweating, insomnia, and rapid heartbeat. If mild, such symptoms can be well worth the benefits.

    But consuming too much caffeine can have serious health impacts. High doses—more than 1,000 milligrams a day—can result in a state of intoxication known as caffeinism. The symptoms can be severe: People can “develop seizures and life-threatening irregularities of the heartbeat,” and some die, David Juurlink, a toxicology professor at the University of Toronto who also works at the Ontario Poison Centre, told me. “It’s one of the dirty little secrets, I’m afraid, of caffeine.” Juurlink said he occasionally gets calls about people, typically high-school or college students, who have ingested multiple caffeine pills on a dare or in a suicide attempt.

    You’re unlikely to ingest that much caffeine from beverages alone, yet the increasing availability of highly caffeinated products makes it more of a possibility than ever before. Besides Panera’s Charged Lemonade, dozens of energy drinks contain similar amounts of caffeine, and some come in candy-inspired flavors such as Bubblicious and Sour Patch Kids. Less potent but highly snackable products include caffeinated coffee cubes, energy chews, marshmallows, mints, ice pops, and even vapes. Consumed quickly and in rapid succession, these foods can lead to potentially toxic caffeine intake “because your body hasn’t had time to tell you to stop,” Jennifer Temple, a professor at the University of Buffalo who studies caffeine use, told me.

    More than ever, we need a way to track our caffeine consumption, but we don’t seem to have any good options. In all of the lawsuits against Panera, the basic argument is this: Had the company more adequately warned customers of the drink’s caffeine content, perhaps no one would have been hurt. But most of us just aren’t used to thinking about caffeine in numerical terms the way we do with calories and alcohol by volume (ABV). Caffeine intake is generally something that’s not measured but experienced: I know, for example, that a double espresso from the office coffee machine will give me the shakes. But even though I knew how much caffeine is in a Charged Lemonade, I had no idea how much of it I could drink before having the same reaction.

    The FDA does have a recommended daily caffeine limit of 400 milligrams, the equivalent of about four or five cups of coffee. “Based on the relevant science and information available,” a spokesperson told me, consuming that much each day “does not raise safety concerns” for most adults, except for people who are pregnant or nursing, or have concerns related to their health conditions or the medication they take. The agency, however, doesn’t require food labels to note caffeine content, though some companies include that information voluntarily.

    But the numbers are helpful only up to a point. The FDA’s daily recommendation is a “rough guideline” that can’t be used as a universal standard, because “it’s not safe for everybody,” Temple said. For one person, 237 milligrams could mean a trip to the hospital; for another, that would just be breakfast. The effect of a given caffeine dose “varies tremendously from person to person based upon their historical pattern of use and also their genetics,” Juurlink told me.

    Although people generally aren’t aware of the amounts of caffeine they consume, they tend to develop a good sense of how much they can handle, Temple said. But usually, this knowledge is product-specific; when trying a new caffeine product, the effect can be hard to predict. Part of the problem is that the amount of caffeine in products varies dramatically, even among drinks that may seem similar: A 12-ounce Americano from McDonald’s contains 71 milligrams of caffeine, but the same drink at Starbucks contains 150 milligrams. The caffeine in popular energy drinks ranges from 75 milligrams (Ocean Spray Cran-Energy) to 316 milligrams (Redline Xtreme), according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

    Contrast this with alcohol, which tends to be served in conventional units regardless of brand: a can of beer, a glass of wine, or a shot of liquor, all of which have roughly the same ability to intoxicate. Having a standard unit to gauge consumption isn’t foolproof—consuming too much alcohol is still far too easy—but it is nevertheless helpful for thinking about how much you’re ingesting, as well as the differences between beverages. Without such a metric for caffeine, consuming new beverages takes on a daredevil quality. Sipping the Charged Lemonade felt like venturing into the Wild West of caffeine.

    The reason we aren’t good at thinking about caffeine is that historically, we’ve never really had to think that hard about it. Sure, one too many espressos might have occasionally put someone over the edge, but caffeine was consumed and sold in amounts that didn’t require as much thought or caution. “A generation ago, you didn’t have all these energy drinks,” so people didn’t grow up learning about safe caffeine consumption the way they may have done for alcohol, Darin Detwiler, an food-policy expert at Northeastern University, told me.

    Compounding the concern is the fact that energy drinks are popular with kids, who are more susceptible to caffeine’s effects because they’re smaller. Kids tend to drink even more when drinks are labeled as highly caffeinated, Temple said, and the fact that they contain huge amounts of sugar to mask the bitter taste of caffeine adds to their appeal. Last year, a child reportedly went into cardiac arrest after drinking a can of Prime Energy—prompting Senator Chuck Schumer to call on the FDA to investigate its “eye-popping caffeine content.”

    Nothing else in our daily diet is quite like caffeine. Certainly people swear by it, and its benefits are clear: Research shows that it can improve cognitive performance, speed up reaction time, and boost logical reasoning, and it may even reduce the risk of Parkinson’s, diabetes, liver disease, and cancer. But for a substance so ubiquitous that it’s called the most widely used drug in the world, our grasp of how to maximize its benefits is feeble at best. Even the most seasoned coffee drinkers sometimes unintentionally get too wired; as new, more highly caffeinated products become available, instances of caffeine drinkers overdoing it will probably become more common. Perhaps the best we can do is learn how much of each drink we can handle, one super-charged sip at a time.

    [ad_2]

    Yasmin Tayag

    Source link

  • Mental health challenges for Canadian ulcer patients in COVID-19 pandemic

    Mental health challenges for Canadian ulcer patients in COVID-19 pandemic

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Toronto, ON — New research from the University of Toronto has revealed the mental health toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on older adults with peptic ulcer disease (PUD), a painful condition in which gastric sores develop in the lining of the stomach or upper portion of the small intestine.

    The researchers examined a subsample of older adults from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, a national dataset of older Canadians. The sample consisted of 1,140 older adults with PUD, of whom 689 had a pre-pandemic history of depression and 451 had no history of depression. By using longitudinal data, the researchers were able to compare the mental health trajectories of those with and without a history of depression.  The article was published this week in PLOS ONE.

    Among older adults with PUD and no lifetime history of depression, approximately 1 in 8 (13.0%) developed depression for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic. These numbers were substantially higher when compared to depression levels before the pandemic (2015-2018).

    “Although individuals with peptic ulcers were already known to be vulnerable to depression, our findings show that the pandemic severely exacerbated this vulnerability,” said lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and director of the Institute for Life Course & Aging (ILCA). “COVID-19 introduced many unforeseen stressors for people with chronic health conditions, such as higher levels of stress and lower levels of physical activity and social support, which may contribute to their worsening mental health.”

    When the analysis was limited to those who had a lifetime history of depression, approximately 1 in 2 (46.6%) experienced recurrent or persistent depression during the pandemic.

    “One of the major risk factors for depression in later life is having a previous history of depressive episodes,” said co-author Hannah Dolhai, a former research assistant at the ILCA. “Older adults with a history of depression who also had to navigate challenges with managing their chronic illness during the pandemic are a vulnerable subpopulation of Canadians.”

    The researchers also identified several risk factors for depression among those with PUD, such as experiencing difficulty accessing healthcare.

    “We found that individuals who reported challenges with healthcare access during the pandemic had a higher risk for depression. It’s important to think about the potential cascading mental health consequences of the healthcare restrictions that occurred during COVID-19,” said co-author Andie MacNeil, a research assistant at the FIFSW and Institute for Life Course and Aging. “While the shift towards telemedicine helped maintain healthcare continuity for many individuals, it is not always accessible or preferable for some patients”

    Other risk factors for depression among older adults with PUD included feeling lonely at the beginning of the pandemic and experiencing functional limitations.

    “Loneliness is a well-established risk factor for depression. For many older adults, the physical distancing limitations early in the pandemic meant increased time alone and declines in social support. Although these guidelines were important to protect the health of Canadians, they can also had unintended mental health consequences. It is important to find ways to foster social connection even when staying apart,” said co-author Grace Li, PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Victoria.

    Co-author Ying Jiang, Senior Epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency of Canada points out that previous research on the relationship between PUD and depression has highlighted how symptoms like chronic pain can severely disrupt functional status and dramatically reduce quality of life in patients. “It is unsurprising that this relationship persisted into the pandemic, and that those with reduced functional status faced a higher risk of depression,” Jiang said.

    Women were also found to have a higher risk of depression when compared to men.

    “During the pandemic, many women experienced increased household labour and caregiving responsibilities due to school closures and restrictions in other community services, like older adult day programs. This exacerbation of gender-role stress may have impacted the mental health of many women,” said co-author Margaret de Groh, Scientific Manager at the Public Health Agency of Canada.

    “By drawing attention to those with the highest risk for depression, we hope our findings will help inform targeted screening and intervention. Many older adults may still need mental health support in the post-COVID era,” said Fuller-Thomson.

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto

    Source link

  • This Professor Criticized Diversity Statements. Did It Cost Him a Job Offer?

    This Professor Criticized Diversity Statements. Did It Cost Him a Job Offer?

    [ad_1]

    A psychologist spoke out this week about what critics see as a job offer gone awry over an ideological spat about diversity statements.

    Yoel Inbar, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, was up for a job at the University of California at Los Angeles. But the psychology department there decided not to proceed after more than 60 graduate students in the department signed an open letter urging the university not to hire him.

    At issue, the students wrote, were Inbar’s comments on his podcast expressing skepticism about the use of diversity statements in hiring, as well as about other efforts intended to make the academy more inclusive.

    In the letter, which circulated on Twitter, the students wrote that Inbar’s hiring “would threaten ongoing efforts to protect and uplift individuals of marginalized backgrounds” and that Inbar “prioritizes advocating for those he classifies as political minorities in academia” over fostering inclusivity. In a meeting with graduate students, the letter continues, Inbar’s answers to questions about diversity, equity, and inclusion were in some cases “outright disconcerting.” (Inbar shared his account on a podcast episode released on Tuesday, and spoke with The Chronicle on Wednesday.)

    Days after the letter came out, the psychology-department chair emailed Inbar to say she wouldn’t be extending him a job offer, following the recommendation of an ad hoc committee.

    “There is no doubt that unusual events occurred surrounding your visit,” Annette L. Stanton wrote to Inbar, who shared a copy of the email with The Chronicle. “After much consideration and consultation, I believe that following the department’s standard process spanning more than two decades is the right way to go. That said, I’m disappointed with the outcome.” (Stanton told The Chronicle on Wednesday that she was in a meeting and not immediately available for comment; the three members of the ad hoc committee did not return requests for comment. Efforts to reach several of the graduate-student signatories on Wednesday were also unsuccessful.)

    There is no doubt that unusual events occurred surrounding your visit.

    While the students’ concerns extended to a broader critique of Inbar’s sensitivity to DEI issues, his comments about diversity statements were what initially gave them pause, and what has dominated the debate online.

    The situation illustrates how diversity statements have become a live wire nationally, with several university systems and states banning their use in hiring over concerns about their legality or potential use as a “political litmus test.” One professor sued the University of California system last month, saying a requirement that he submit a diversity statement for consideration for a job in the Santa Cruz campus’s psychology department violated his First Amendment rights. (The professor, John D. Haltigan, coincidentally, was formerly employed at the University of Toronto, but left because his grant funding had run out.)

    The Inbar case is also rich with drama: A scholar of moral judgments and the psychology of political affiliation is questioned — publicly, by graduate students — about his own commitment to the DEI values they hold dear. Much of the story has played out in podcast episodes Inbar recorded nearly five years apart: one in which he posed questions about the utility of diversity statements in hiring, and another, released this week, in which he shares his view of what happened at UCLA.

    “It’s funny because from a research perspective, I understand a lot of what’s going on here,” Inbar, who co-authored a 2012 paper in which he asked psychology professors whether they would discriminate in hiring based on a candidate’s political views, told The Chronicle. “I understand how people feel that they have to protect a certain set of moral values and that they don’t want people around who threaten them. I would just say, often those moral instincts can mislead us into rushing to judgment.”

    What Happened?

    Behind the scenes, Inbar’s potential hiring had rocked the department.

    A group of graduate students had emailed the department’s entire faculty to argue against it, Stanton wrote in a February email to the department explaining the situation. (Stanton forwarded that note to Inbar, who shared it with The Chronicle.) Airing such grievances publicly, Stanton wrote, marked “a significant and problematic departure from our typical searches.”

    Then there was the matter of the podcast Inbar co-hosts, Two Psychologists Four Beers, which was repeatedly cited by the graduate students in their open letter opposing Inbar’s hiring. Because the podcast episodes weren’t part of Inbar’s formal application materials, Stanton and other administrators asked UCLA’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion whether the search committee was allowed to mention them in interviewing Inbar, according to emails reviewed by The Chronicle. No, the UCLA office said: The search committee’s interview questions had to be limited to a candidate’s submitted materials, though other faculty members could bring up other topics.

    So members of the department’s diversity-issues committee instead asked Inbar about the podcast material, which Stanton wrote in the email was “consistent with their standard process this year of being free to ask follow-up questions of candidates, as long as the restrictions all faculty follow during interviews aren’t violated.”

    The goals are good, but I don’t know if the diversity statements necessarily accomplish the goals.

    The story began, Inbar said Tuesday on the podcast Very Bad Wizards, when his partner received a job offer from the UCLA psychology department. When she inquired about the possibility of bringing Inbar on as a partner hire, the department was receptive, Inbar said. During a campus visit in late January, faculty members seemed enthusiastic about him as a candidate.

    But he told the hosts of Very Bad Wizards that his meeting with the diversity-issues committee was one of several “strange things” that happened while he was on campus. At the end of the meeting, in which the committee asked standard questions about his approach to diversity in his teaching and research, Inbar said he had been asked about a December 2018 episode of Two Psychologists Four Beers.

    In that episode, Inbar said that diversity statements “sort of seem like administrator virtue-signaling,” questioned how they would be used in a hiring process, and suggested “it’s not clear that they lead to better outcomes for underrepresented groups.”

    The committee asked: Was he prepared to defend those comments now?

    “To be honest, I wasn’t, because this episode is like, four and a half years old,” Inbar said on Very Bad Wizards. But he explained his current stance: “The very short version is, I think that the goals are good, but I don’t know if the diversity statements necessarily accomplish the goals.” (One host of Very Bad Wizards, David A. Pizarro, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, said he’d let Inbar’s comments on the podcast speak for themselves.)

    The UCLA faculty members “seemed satisfied” with Inbar’s answer, he said. “Then one of them said, kind of almost apologetically, ‘Well, you know, we have some very passionate graduate students here, which is great, but what would you say to them if they were upset about this?’” Inbar said he didn’t know what he’d say beyond explaining his views, as he had to the committee.

    Then Inbar met with some of the graduate students. Both parties recalled the meeting as unusual. The students wrote in their letter that Inbar had told them that his “work does not really deal with identity,” which they found problematic. Inbar studies morality and political ideology, the students wrote, so “it was deeply troubling to hear that he does not believe identity (i.e., individual background as it pertains to race, gender, sexuality, class, or ability) has bearing on these research questions.”

    But Inbar said the graduate students had never asked him directly about the podcast episodes mentioned in their letter. “To be honest, it wasn’t entirely clear what they were getting at” in the meeting, Inbar told The Chronicle; if they had asked more-direct questions about, for instance, his approach to mentoring students from diverse backgrounds, he said he could have answered them.

    The department’s graduate students didn’t all share the same view of the matter. A handful of students drafted a response to the first letter, defending the nuance of Inbar’s comments and calling for further conversation among themselves. Inbar shared a copy of that letter with The Chronicle.

    ‘Just Stay Out of It’

    Stanton, the department chair, told faculty members that she had tried to play the situation by the book, according to the emails shared with The Chronicle. As is standard procedure for potential partner hires, Stanton convened an ad hoc committee to make a recommendation on whether to hire Inbar. The members of that committee — Benjamin R. Karney, Carolyn Parkinson, and Hal E. Hershfield — opted not to recommend Inbar’s hiring.

    Whether to give a candidate a green light rests entirely with that committee, Stanton wrote in an email. But because of the unusual circumstances in Inbar’s case, she said she’d considered a few alternatives — a “do-over” interview or a faculty vote on Inbar’s case, for example — before ultimately deciding to let the committee’s decision stand.

    She did, however, ask the committee to write an internal report explaining its decision, which she described as an unusual step.

    Inbar told The Chronicle that the report had not been shared with him. Meanwhile, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has requested from UCLA documents related to Inbar’s case, including the committee’s report; the university denied that request in March and an appeal this month. Alex Morey, director of campus rights advocacy at FIRE, told The Chronicle that her organization is preparing a second appeal, arguing that the records are a matter of public interest.

    They can hold faculty to viewpoint-neutral type of criteria, … but they can’t say, ‘If you don’t pledge allegiance to our particular view on diversity, you can’t have a job.’

    “What we suspect may be happening here is that because Professor Inbar allegedly did not parrot the correct views on DEI and some students objected to that, he may have been discriminated against because of his views in the hiring process,” Morey said. That’s not allowed at a public university, she said: “They can hold faculty to viewpoint-neutral type of criteria, objective standards, but they can’t say, ‘If you don’t pledge allegiance to our particular view on diversity, you can’t have a job.’”

    On Tuesday, during the Very Bad Wizards episode, Inbar said the graduate students who opposed his hiring had missed the nuance in his remarks about diversity statements.

    “You can pull out selective quotes that make me sound like I’m a rabid anti-diversity-statement person, which I’m really not,” Inbar said. His main concern is with their effectiveness, he said: “What you want is somebody who’s going to be able to teach and to mentor people from diverse backgrounds. But what you get is somebody writing about what they believe, and perhaps what they’ve done to demonstrate that.”

    In their open letter, the students also contested Inbar’s comments in a more-recent Two Psychologists episode about how the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the field’s professional organization, uses DEI criteria to evaluate submissions. He also took a public stance against Georgia’s anti-abortion law. Inbar said on Two Psychologists that, while he considers himself “pro-choice,” he believed it wasn’t the organization’s place to take sides: “When we align ourselves with a political side or faction, it’s bad for our science.”

    To the students, Inbar’s remarks about the professional society were more evidence he wouldn’t be a good fit. “Time and time again in these episodes, he fails to reflect on how these issues structurally affect marginalized individuals,” they wrote.

    Meanwhile, Inbar is not asking for sympathy. His partner received a one-year extension of her job offer from UCLA, which he told The Chronicle was “spectacular,” and the couple may consider moving to Los Angeles if Inbar can find a job in the area. “I don’t want people to cry over this for me,” he said on Very Bad Wizards.

    In the past, he added, he’s urged faculty members to speak up about potentially controversial topics they believe in. His recent experience has changed his mind.

    “Is there a cost to opening your mouth about this stuff? Absolutely, there is,” he said. “Would I advise a junior person to take any sort of heterodox position on this publicly? Absolutely not, because you only need to piss off a few people. It just takes one or two to sink you. Just stay out of it.”

    [ad_2]

    Megan Zahneis

    Source link

  • Historical Memories Shape Consumer Preferences, Study Shows

    Historical Memories Shape Consumer Preferences, Study Shows

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Toronto – Zachary Zhong had heard his grandparents’ stories about the Japanese invasion in 1944 of neighbouring counties in his hometown in China. As the Japanese army continued their advance civilians were killed and injured, while others fled the invaders’ path, some taking shelter in his family’s ancestral home.

    Those events lodged deep into locals’ memory. Curious about the impact of a re-ignited territorial dispute between Japan and China in 2012, Zhong, now an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management looked at what happened to car sales in the province of Guangxi around the same time. Guangxi had the highest civilian casualty rate of any Chinese province during the war.

    “Across generations, those historical memories get passed down to present-day consumers,” said Prof. Zhong.

    The invaded counties saw a 6.8 percent drop in sales of Japanese cars and a 5.3 percent increase in Chinese cars following the height of the 2012 dispute, compared to Guangxi counties that hadn’t experienced invasion. Those effects were stronger for larger and more expensive cars and in counties with larger shares of people born before 1936. The impact was not short-lived, lasting more than two years.

    Prof. Zhong and co-investigator Nan Chen of the National University of Singapore looked at China’s vehicle registration data for the top 100 bestselling car models as well as provincial archival data on losses and casualties by county during the Imperial Japanese Army’s “Operation Ichi-Go.” Between late September 1944 and early January 1945, the Imperial Japanese Army occupied about two-thirds of Guangxi.

    China-Japan relations normalized in 1972. However, a longstanding dispute remained over the sovereignty of a group of islands in the East China Sea. The dispute flared in August and September 2012 after the Japanese government nationalized the main islands and there were large protests in many Chinese cities.

    The car purchase effects were seen despite the fact that the Japanese cars were produced in China through joint Chinese-Japanese ventures. However, models with less recognizably Japanese names did not suffer as much.

    Meanwhile, sales of a local independent brand created through a Japanese joint venture were not impacted by the “history effect,” providing clues for how foreign brands can mitigate the impacts of past conflicts on consumer behaviour.

    “Start a local brand,” said Prof. Zhong. “You can take advantage of the local association.”

    Foreign companies can also try to play down the associations of their products with their country of origin. 

    But in the current era of geopolitical tensions and protectionism, perhaps the best way to avoid the business hangover of history is this: “Our paper shows you should not invade other countries,” said Prof. Zhong. “If you do that, people will hold a long grudge.”

    The paper was published in Marketing Science.

    Bringing together high-impact faculty research and thought leadership on one searchable platform, the new Rotman Insights Hub offers articles, podcasts, opinions, books and videos representing the latest in management thinking and providing insights into the key issues facing business and society.

    Visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca/insightshub.

    The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca

    -30-

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management

    Source link

  • Study finds higher risk of sleep problems in gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth

    Study finds higher risk of sleep problems in gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Toronto, ON – A new national study, published in LGBT Health, finds that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth are twice as likely to report trouble falling or staying asleep than their straight peers. Greater depression, stress, and family conflict contribute to the sleep problems of LGB youth.

    “Young people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual may face discrimination and negative attitudes because of their sexual orientation. These experiences can make it harder for them to get a good night’s sleep,” says lead author, Jason Nagata, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. “Difficulties getting along with family, feeling sad and hopeless, and being under a lot of pressure could all make it hard for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth to sleep well.”

    The researchers analyzed data from 8563 youth ages 10-14 years old who are part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States. Data were collected from 2018-2020. The youth and their parents answered questions about their sleep habits and youth were asked about their sexual orientation. Youth who were questioning their sexuality (e.g., who replied “maybe” to being gay, lesbian, or bisexual) also had greater risk for sleep problems compared to their straight peers.

    “Families should provide support by being present and encouraging young people’s exploration of their identity and development of a sense of self,” said co-author, Kyle T. Ganson, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. “Adolescent development is a challenging time for many given the social pressures and physical, psychological, and emotional changes that occur. Understanding this process and being present to support it is crucial for positive health outcomes.”

    “Getting enough sleep is crucial for teenagers because it helps their body and mind grow and develop properly,” Nagata says. “To sleep well, teenagers should follow a consistent sleep routine, make sure their sleeping environment is comfortable, and avoid using electronic devices before going to bed.”

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto

    Source link

  • Social workers experienced depression, PTSD, and anxiety at alarming rates during pandemic

    Social workers experienced depression, PTSD, and anxiety at alarming rates during pandemic

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Toronto, ON — A new study published in the journal International Social Work has uncovered concerning rates of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety among social workers.

    Stressors related to COVID-19 were the strongest factors associated with the negative mental health outcomes. Those who experienced a higher number of pandemic-related stressors — such as health concerns, increased caregiving responsibilities, violence in the home, family stress due to confinement, and stress associated with work-life balance — experienced mental health problems at a higher rate compared with those who were not as impacted by pandemic-related hardships.

    “Like physicians, nurses and other allied health care providers, social workers are feeling the impact of the pandemic, and it is showing up in their mental health,” says lead author Ramona Alaggia, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and the Margaret and Wallace McCain Chair in Child and Family. “As we celebrate Social Work Week in Ontario March 6 – 12 and National Social Work Month in March, it is important to recognize the stressors that affect social workers and the well-being of those working in this essential field.”

    An alarming 40% of the sample reported depression — which is four times higher than the general population. The rate of reported depression among social workers is also substantially higher than other health care professionals working in COVID-19 related conditions, where the prevalence rate of depression has been found to be 24%. In total, one fifth of the sample reported PTSD while 15% reported anxiety. 

    “As personal stressors among social workers have increased, so too have the needs of those they serve,” says co-author Esme Fuller-Thomson, FIFSW professor and director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging at the University of Toronto. “With rising rates of domestic violence, child abuse, mental health illnesses and addictions, death rates in long-term care systems, and homelessness, social workers’ jobs have become more demanding than ever.”

    The majority of survey respondents were from Ontario and married or in common law unions. Half of the respondents had children under the age of 18, and 85% were women, which is consistent with the number of women working in the social work field.

    “Recent trends clearly indicate women have felt the most negative employment change and job loss during COVID-19,” says Carolyn O’Connor, co-author and a doctoral candidate at FIFSW. “Time studies consistently show that women are usually the ones carrying most childcare and domestic responsibilities at home. Meanwhile, COVID lockdowns made working from home even more stressful as parents juggle work demands with home-schooling, while experiencing isolation and fewer supports.”

    The study also found that the social workers most affected by mental health problems tended to be younger, less experienced and less established in their profession. Levels of resilience were also measured. Those who were older and had higher income had higher resilience scores.

    “Job instability is common early in a social worker’s career, especially when working within a neo-liberal environment that promotes precarious, contractual work conditions with fewer benefits and lower pay,” says co-author and FIFSW PhD candidate Keri West.

    Alaggia says that in her work with community-based agencies, she has observed that social workers have been leaving in high numbers since the start of 2022, with some agencies reporting as much as 30% shortfalls in staffing levels and significant problems filling those positions.

    “It seems a tipping point has been reached where-by social workers are leaving traditional settings because of low wages, job insecurity and meagre benefits,” Alaggia says. “Given the essential societal roles that social workers’ play, strategies to sustain the profession into the next generation and future generations are urgently needed. These strategies should include a trauma informed approach and strong mental health supports for staff. This may be a defining moment in the social work field and building resilience into social service systems is the way forward.”

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto

    Source link

  • Incivility reduces interest in what politicians have to say, shows research

    Incivility reduces interest in what politicians have to say, shows research

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Toronto — Nasty remarks by politicians against their critics are so common that we may not pay them much mind. That’s the problem of political incivility, say a pair of researchers who’ve studied the phenomenon among U.S. politicians.

    “The results are pretty clear,” says Matthew Feinberg, an associate professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “Incivility may grab attention, but the ultimate result is less interest in what you have to say.”

    Prof. Feinberg and fellow researcher Jeremy A. Frimer from the University of Winnipeg already knew from their past work that incivility has been on the rise, especially online. In this most recent research, their analysis of rude and demeaning language in former U.S. president Donald Trump’s and current U.S. president Joe Biden’s social media posts revealed that the two gained fewer additional followers in the days after they made particularly uncivil comments.

    The researchers analyzed more than 32,000 tweets issued from Trump’s Twitter account between mid-2015 and Jan. 8, 2021, when he was permanently suspended from the platform. Over that time, Trump’s followers rose from 3 million to about 89 million. However, his biggest gains were made in the days after his tweets were particularly civil – about 43,000 new followers versus only 16,000 new followers after he was especially rude.

    The researchers used a machine-learning program that detects toxic speech and phrases to identify and classify the most uncivil tweets.

    In Biden’s case, the researchers analyzed just over 7,000 tweets between 2012 and June 2021. His followers rose from 5 million to 32 million over that time. He gained an average of 45,000 new followers when his tweets were very civil but only 11,000 in the days after they were not.

    Prof. Feinberg said the steeper drop in new followers for Biden may be due to people expecting more civil behaviour from him than Trump. However, the researchers estimated that Trump’s incivility cost him more than 6.3 million followers.

    Two additional experimental studies that formed part of the research, with a total of about 2,000 participants confirmed the finding that political incivility breeds longer-term disinterest. That was true even when the participant identified with the same political party, something Prof. Feinberg called “surprising.” As well, the third study showed that moral disapproval of what a politician said had a stronger influence on a person’s ongoing interest than whether the politician’s words were attention-grabbing.

    So given the results, how come politicians continue to lob rhetorical grenades at one another? It’s possible they do it because they may inflict greater damage on their opponents’ reputations or even turn voters off so much that they don’t even bother going to the polls, the researchers suggest. Or, says Prof. Feinberg, “maybe it’s just that they’re wrong.”

    The study was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

    Bringing together high-impact faculty research and thought leadership on one searchable platform, the new Rotman Insights Hub offers articles, podcasts, opinions, books and videos representing the latest in management thinking and providing insights into the key issues facing business and society. Visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca/insightshub.

    The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca

    -30-

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management

    Source link

  • Dramatic improvement in the prevalence of disabilities among older Americans since 2008

    Dramatic improvement in the prevalence of disabilities among older Americans since 2008

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — The prevalence of disabilities among American adults aged 65 and older is much lower than it was for the same age group a decade earlier, according to a nationally representative study published online in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) .

    The decline in disability among older Americans was substantial. The odds of experiencing limitations in activities of daily living (such as dressing or bathing) and the odds of experiencing functional limitations (such as serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs) declining 18% and 13%, respectively, between 2008 and 2017.

    In 2008, 12.1% of older Americans reported limitations in activities of daily living. In 2017, this percentage had declined to 9.6%. To put this into perspective, if the prevalence of limitations in daily living remained at the 2008 levels, an additional 1.27 million older Americans would have ADL limitations in 2017.

    Similarly, the percentage of functional limitations among those 65 and older declined from 27.3% in 2008 to 23.5% in 2017. As a result, 1.89 million fewer older adults experienced functional limitations on their quality of life.

    “The dramatic improvement in the prevalence of older Americans experiencing disabilities has important implications for our communities,” says first author Esme Fuller-Thomson, director of the University of Toronto’s Institute for Life Course & Aging and professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and the Department of Family & Community Medicine. “This decline in the prevalence of disabilities has a wide range of benefits for older adults, their families and caregivers, and the health care system at large.”

    The improvements in disabilities among older adults was greater for women than for men.  After adjusting for age and race, women’s odds of experiencing limitations in activities of daily living decreased by 20%. vs 13% for men. The odds of women experiencing functional limitations decreased 16% compared to only an 8% decrease among men.

    “While it is unclear why these gender differences exist, previous research suggest that women are more likely than men to have annual check-ups and adopt preventative care practices, and this may contribute to this gender gap,” says co-author Jason Ferreirinha a recent Master of Social Work graduate from University of Toronto’s FIFSW.

    Further analyses showed a relationship between some of the observed improvements in disabilities across the decade and the proportion of high school and university graduates among the post-World War II birth cohorts.

    “Higher educational attainment increases health literacy and health promoting behaviours,” says co-author Katherine Ahlin, a recent graduate from the MSW program at the University of Toronto’s FIFSW. “One’s education levels also impact job type, which affects cardiovascular risk factors. And the lower one’s cardiovascular risk factors, the lower one’s levels of disability later in life.”

    Other factors may be at play that warrant future research say the researchers. “Other possible contributors to this positive trend could include decreases in smoking, decreasing levels of air pollutants and the phase out of leaded gasoline in the 1970s,” says Fuller-Thomson.

    The study is based on an analysis of 10 consecutive cross-sectional waves of the American Community Survey (2008-2017), a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of both community dwelling and institutionalized older adults.  Approximately half a million older adults were included in each year of data collection, resulting in a final sample size of 5.4 million American respondents aged 65 and older.

    Interestingly, the study found a more modest decline in disability among those in the Baby Boomer generation compared to older cohorts. The authors suggested that higher rates in obesity among Baby Boomers compared to their older counterparts may be playing a role in a slower decline.

    “Our findings from this study indicate a steep decline in the prevalence of disability among older Americans,” said Ferreirinha. “Further investigation will be needed to explore if these positive trends will continue in coming decades as the Baby Boom population ages into their 80s.”

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto

    Source link

  • Researchers uncover factors linked to optimal aging

    Researchers uncover factors linked to optimal aging

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — What are the keys to “successful” or optimal aging? A new study followed more than 7000 middle aged and older Canadians for approximately three years to identify the factors linked to well-being as we age.

    They found that those who were female, married, physically active and not obese and those who had never smoked, had higher incomes, and who did not have insomnia, heart disease or arthritis, were more likely to maintain excellent health across the study period and less likely to develop disabling cognitive, physical, or emotional problems.

    As a baseline, the researchers selected participants who were in excellent health at the start of the approximately three-year period of study. This included the absence of memory problems or chronic disabling pain, freedom from any serious mental illness and absence of physical disabilities that limit daily activities — as well as the presence of adequate social support and high levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

    “We were surprised and delighted to learn that more than 70% of our sample maintained their excellent state of health across the study period,” says the first author, Mabel Ho, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and the Institute of Life Course and Aging. “Our findings underline the importance of a strength-based rather than a deficit-based focus on aging and older adults. The media and research tend to ignore the positive and just focus on the problems.”

    There was considerable variation in the prevalence of successful aging based on the respondents’ age at the beginning of the study. Three quarters of the respondents who were aged 55 to 64 at the start of the study period maintained excellent health throughout the study. Among those aged 80 and older, approximately half remained in excellent health.

    “It is remarkable that half of those aged 80 and older maintained this extremely high bar of cognitive, physical, and emotional well-being across the three years of the study. This is wonderful news for older adults and their families who may anticipate that precipitous decline is inevitable for those aged 80 and older.”  says Mabel Ho. “By understanding factors associated with successful aging, we can work with older adults, families, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to create an environment that supports a vibrant and healthy later life.”

    Older adults who were obese were less likely to maintain good health in later life. Compared to older adults who were obese, those who had a normal weight were 24% more likely to age optimally.

    “Our findings are in keeping with other studies which have found that obesity was related to a range of physical symptoms and cognitive problems and that physical activity also plays a key role in optimal aging,” says co-author David Burnes, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s FIFSW and a Canada Research Chair in Older Adult Mistreatment Prevention. “These findings highlight the importance of maintaining an appropriate weight and engaging in an active lifestyle throughout the life course”.

    Income was also as an important factor. Only about half of those below the poverty line aged optimally compared to three-quarters of those living above the poverty line.

    “Although our study does not provide information on why low income is important, it is possible that inadequate income causes stress and also restricts healthy choices such as optimal nutrition. Future research is needed to further explore this relationship,” says senior author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Director of the Institute for Life Course & Aging and Professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.

    Lifestyle factors are associated with optimal health in later life. Older adults who never smoked were 46% more likely to maintain an excellent state of health compared to current smokers. Previous studies showed that quitting smoking in later life could improve survival statistics, pulmonary function, and quality of life; lower rates of coronary events, and reduce respiratory symptoms. The study found that former smokers did as well as those who had never smoked, underscoring that it is never too late to quit.

    The study also found that engaging in physical activity was important in maintaining good health in later life. Older adults who engaged in moderate to strenuous physical activity were 35% to 45% more likely to age well, respectively.

    The findings indicated that respondents who never or rarely experienced sleep problems at baseline were 29% more likely to maintain excellent health across the study.

    “Clearly, good sleep is an important factor as we age. Sleep problems undermine cognitive, mental, and physical health. There is strong evidence that an intervention called cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is very helpful for people living with insomnia,” says Esme Fuller-Thomson.

    The study was recently published online, in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It uses longitudinal data from the baseline wave (2011-2015) and the first follow-up wave (2015-2018) of data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) to examine factors associated with optimal aging the first two waves. In the CLSA, there were 7,651 respondents who were aged 60 years or older at wave 2 who were in optimal health during the baseline wave of data collection. The sample was restricted to those who were in excellent health at baseline, which was only 45% of the respondents.

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto

    Source link

  • Breast Cancer Survivorship Doubles

    Breast Cancer Survivorship Doubles

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — It was the information she couldn’t find that led Amy Kirkham, an assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE), to her latest discovery.

    Asked by the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance to co-author a scientific statement paper in 2020 on the state of women’s heart health in Canada, Kirkham – whose research is focused on preventing and treating the risk of heart disease related to breast cancer treatment – needed to know what percentage of the Canadian female population has a history of breast cancer.

    But the most recent statistic she could find – one percent – was from 2007.

    “Nearly 15 years had passed and I could not find a more recent citation about the prevalence of breast cancer survivors in Canada,” says Kirkham. “Breast cancer mortality rates had continued to improve 26 per cent over this time period, so I suspected that this number was no longer accurate.”

    So, in collaboration with Katarzyna Jerzak, a medical oncologist at Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre and assistant professor in the department of medicine in U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Kirkham embarked on a new study that would determine an up-to-date estimate of the prevalence of breast cancer survivors in Canada in 2022 using the Canadian Cancer Society’s annual cancer statistic reports.

    The study, recently published in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, found that in the 15-year span from 2007 to 2021, there were 370,756 patients (2.1 per cent of the adult female population in Canada in 2022) diagnosed with breast cancer and 86 per cent of these women would have survived breast cancer by 2022. 

    “This indicates that the prevalence of breast cancer survivors in the Canadian female population has doubled and that there are 2.5 times more survivors since the last estimate in 2007,” says Kirkham. 

    The prior estimate did not include the age group of survivors, but according to the new estimate provided by Kirkham and Jerzak, breast cancer survivors represent one per cent of Canadian women in the typical working and/or child-raising age group (20 to 64 years) and 5.4 per cent of senior (aged 65-plus) Canadian women. 

    But it’s not all good news.

    Many of the treatments that have improved breast cancer mortality rates also cause short-term and long-term side effects, which, in turn, can raise the risk of death from other causes such as heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, liver disease and other non-fatal health outcomes.

    “The most common cause of death in women with breast cancer is heart disease,” Kirkham says. 

    Such conditions also affect overall health-care costs.

    To demonstrate the excess health-care costs related to heart disease, Kirkham and Jerzak performed an additional analysis using Canadian data on rates of hospitalization for heart failure and their costs. They found that two per cent of the women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2007 and 2021 would likely experience heart failure hospitalization costing $66.5 million in total. As much as 25 per cent of these costs, or $16.5 million, were in excess of those costs that would be associated with women who did not have breast cancer. 

    “Given the excess health-care costs, potential for reduced contributions to the workforce and reduced quality of life associated with long-term side effects and risk of excess death among breast cancer survivors, our work highlights that there is a growing segment of the population who require services to support recovery following breast cancer treatment,” says Kirkham.

    “The goal of my research lab is to develop new therapies to improve the health of women after surviving breast cancer.” 

    [ad_2]

    University of Toronto

    Source link

  • ‘Pancakes with maple syrup, success with humility’: Vedanta’s Anil Agarwal gives advice to Canada’s ‘dreamers’

    ‘Pancakes with maple syrup, success with humility’: Vedanta’s Anil Agarwal gives advice to Canada’s ‘dreamers’

    [ad_1]

    Vedanta Resources Limited founder and chairman Anil Agarwal, while sharing his views with the youth about work ethics and success in life, said that one should not forget humility when they become successful. Agarwal, who is a first-generation entrepreneur, said that it is important to be grounded even after tasting success.

    He shared his views on LinkedIn days after attending an event at the University of Toronto in Canada where he met students.

    “My advice to the students was to never shy from dreaming big and always to remain humble. Just as pancakes taste sweeter when maple syrup gets added similarly, success tastes sweeter when paired with humility,” he said. 

    The metal and mining magnate’s story of success is one of a kind. His story started from a small unit in Patna and reached its heights when he got Vedanta Resources listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2003, making him the first Indian to get a company listed on London Stock Exchange. 

    Talking about his personal journey, Agarwal said that it is crucial to move away from one’s comfort zone to pursue their dreams. 

    “As a dreamer, I had to move away from the place I called home and leave my comfort zone behind me. You also must have experienced this at one point or another…” “Having moved cities and then countries, I know how difficult the experience is. Recently, I was invited to speak at the University of Toronto where I got the opportunity to meet many such dreamers who had left home to make a name for themselves. A lot of them were from India with a spark in their eyes ki kuch kar dikhana hai,” he said. 

    He added that when he was asked if it was a bad thing to want to be rich, he said: “I told him, no, it’s not a bad thing to want money and have your roti, kapda, makaan of your choice. We come from a country where people have aspirations – people who are cycling want a scooty, people on a scooty want a car, people driving a car want an even better car…making money is not a sin, but once you get there, once you have your fancy car, there is no harm in slowing down and giving a lift to those who are walking.”   

    Agarwal said there are cultural similarities between India and Canada. “Canada is known to be a cold country and in contrast, the people here are so warm! I even got to learn something new about their culture and hospitality this time – Canadians welcome their guests with something sweet, and in a lovely gesture, I was given a bottle of Maple syrup at the end of my talk.” 

    “This is so similar to the Indian tradition of Ghar aye mehmaan ko kuch meetha khilana, that I couldn’t help but feel at home immediately, surrounded by not only bright-minded but also warm-hearted students and faculty of UofT.” 

    Workwise, in September, Agarwal announced that he would be investing Rs 1.54 lakh crore for setting up the country’s first-ever semiconductor chip plant in Gujarat. 

    [ad_2]

    Source link