“Background: Discrimination is a risk factor for health-ri


“Background: Discrimination is a risk factor for health-risk behaviors, including alcohol abuse. Far less is known about the mechanisms through which discrimination leads to alcohol-related problems, particularly during high-risk developmental periods such as young adulthood.

Methods: The present study tested a mediation model using prospective data from a large, diverse sample of 1539 college

students. This model hypothesized that discrimination would be associated with established cognitive (positive alcohol expectancies) and affective (negative Wnt assay affect and coping motives) risk factors for alcohol-related problems, which would account for the prospective association between discrimination and alcohol problems.

Results: Structural equation modeling indicated that discrimination was associated cross-sectionally with negative affect and more coping

motives for drinking, but not with greater alcohol expectancies. Coping motives mediated the prospective relationship between discrimination and alcohol-related problems. Additionally, results find more indicated significant indirect effects from discrimination to alcohol-related problems through negative affect and coping motives. These associations were evident for multiple groups confronting status-based discrimination, including women, racial/ethnic minorities, and lesbian/gay/bisexual individuals.

Conclusions: This study identified potential affective mechanisms linking discrimination to alcohol-related problems. Results suggest several avenues for prevention and intervention efforts with individuals from socially disadvantaged groups. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“We investigated a possible association of collagen IX tryptophan (Trp) alleles (Trp2 and Trp3) and smoking with cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) in 172 Chinese patients and 176 age-and gender-matched controls. The smoking status was ZD1839 evaluated by smoking index (SI). The CSM cases had a significantly higher prevalence of Trp2 alleles (Trp2+) than controls (19.8 vs 6.2%, P = 0.002), but the prevalence

of Trp3 alleles (Trp3+) was similar between the two groups (23.3 vs 21.6%, P = 0.713). Logistic regression analyses showed that the subjects with Trp2+ had a higher risk for CSM. We thus analyzed whether smoking status influenced the association between Trp2 alleles and CSM risk. Among Trp2+ subjects with an SI less than 100, the smoking status did not influence the effect of risk for SCM [odds ratio (OR) = 1.34, 95% confidential interval (95%CI) = 0.85-2.18, P > 0.05]. When SI increased from 101 to 300, the OR for CSM reached 3.34 (95%CI = 2.11-5.67, P = 0.011); when SI was more than 300, the OR for CSM reached 5.56 (95%CI = 3.62-7.36, P < 0.001). Among Trp2-subjects with SI more than 300, the OR for CSM increased 2.14 (95%CI = 1.15-4.07, P = 0.024).

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