Anna Zamora-Kapoor

Keywords: American indian Alaska native Obesity Risk and protective factors Health disparities a b s t r a c t Objectives: We systematically reviewed the literature on risk factors for obesity in American Indians (AIs) and Alaska Natives (ANs) of all ages. Study design: We searched titles and abstracts in PubMed with combinations of the following terms: obesity, body mass index (BMI), American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native American. Methods: We limited our review to articles that provided an empirically testable claim about a variable associated with obesity, measured obesity as a dependent variable, and provided data specific to AI/ANs. Results: Our final sample included 31 articles; 20 examined AI/AN youth (<18 years), and 11 examined AI/AN adults (18 years). Risk factors for obesity varied by age. In infants, low birth weight, early termination of breastfeeding, and high maternal BMI, and maternal diabetes increased the risk of childhood obesity. In children and adolescents, parental obesity, sedentary behaviors, and limited access to fruits and vegetables were associated with obesity. In adulthood, sedentary behaviors, diets high in fats and carbohydrates, stress, verbal abuse in childhood, and the belief that health cannot be controlled were associated with obesity. Conclusions: Extant studies have three limitations: they do not apply a life course perspective, they lack nationally representative data and have limited knowledge of the resilience, resistance and resourcefulness of AI/ANs. Future studies that avoid these shortcomings are needed to inform interventions to reduce the prevalence of obesity in AI/ ANs across the life course.

Background: Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs) experience a disproportionate burden of type 2 diabetes and related complications. Although diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) interventions have generally yielded positive results, few NHPIs have been included in these studies, and even fewer studies have been evaluated using a randomized controlled trial design and/or implementation research methods. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate implementation outcomes of a culturally adapted diabetes self-management education intervention delivered by peer educators to Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders residing in Honolulu, Hawai'i.

Background American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) have the highest obesity prevalence in the United States, but the influence of early childhood variables on body mass index (BMI) is not well understood. Previous studies have investigated the association between breastfeeding in infancy and offspring BMI, but rarely included AI/ANs.
Objective This study investigated the association between breastfeeding in infancy and BMI in AI/AN and non-Hispanic White (NHW) adolescents and young adults. 
Design Longitudinal analysis based on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (1994-2008).
Participants Adolescent respondents who self-identified as AI/AN or NHW, reported their height and weight, and whose parents completed the parental questionnaire. The final sample included 655 AI/AN and 10,305 NHW respondents.
Statistical analyses performed Generalized estimating equations were used to measure the mean differences, 95% confidence intervals, and p-values of the association between breastfeeding in infancy and offspring BMI in adolescence, stratifying by race, and adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic variables.
Results The length of breastfeeding was inversely associated with BMI in both populations. AI/ANs that were breastfed 6 to 12 months or more than 12 months had an average BMI 2.69 (95% CI -3.46, -1.92; p<0.01) and 1.54 (95% CI -2.75, -0.33; p<0.05) units lower than those that were never breastfed. NHWs that breastfed for 3 to 6 months, 6 to 12 months, or more than 12 months had a mean BMI 0.71 (95% CI -0.93, -0.50; p<0.01), 0.68 (95% CI -0.87, -0.50; p<0.01), and 0.85 (95% CI -1.09, -0.62; p<0.01) units lower than those that were never breastfed. The association between the length of breastfeeding and offspring BMI varied by race (p<0.01). 
Conclusion Breastfeeding in infancy is associated with a lower mean BMI. Future research should investigate causal pathways and whether interventions promoting breastfeeding in AI/ANs can prevent increasing BMI.

This manuscript reviews the literature on race and ethnicity in the political context. It discusses the most important scholarship on international migration, political mobilization, and the welfare state to date, to identify current gaps and emerging lines of inquiry. Future studies are needed to better understand the mobilization of immigrants by political parties, the role of local politics for a national electoral mobilization, and the relationship between local and national political areas for policy development.

Social isolation, exposure to suicide, and overweight increase suicidal ideation in adolescents, but no study to date has examined their relative significance in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth. Generalized estimating equations and path analyses were used to measure the significance and mediation of these variables in the suicidal ideation of 721 AI/ANs and 12,107 White adolescents. Social isolation, exposure to suicide, and overweight were risk factors for suicidal ideation in both races, and the associations among the variables of interest and suicidal ideation varied by race. Interventionists need to consider race in the prevention of suicidal ideation in AI/AN and White youth.

Introduction: The prevalence of pre-eclampsia, a major cause of maternal morbidity, varies by race, being greater in African Americans, and lower in Asians and Hispanics than in White women. Little is known about its prevalence in American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs). We estimated pre-eclampsia risk in AI/ANs compared to Whites, with consideration of the potential effect of obesity, a major risk factor for pre-eclampsia, and a condition disproportionately affecting AI/AN women. 
Methods: This retrospective cohort study of linked birth-hospital discharge data from Washington State (2003-2013) included all AI/AN women and a sample of White first-time mothers with singleton deliveries. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for pre-eclampsia risk in AI/ANs compared to Whites, first controlling for several important risk factors, and subsequently with additional adjustment for pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI).
Results: AI/ANs had an increased risk of pre-eclampsia compared to Whites after controlling for all covariates except BMI (OR=1.17, 95% CI=1.06-1.29). After further adjustment for BMI, the racial disparity in pre-eclampsia risk was greatly attenuated (OR=1.05, 95% CI=0.95-1.16).
Discussion: This population-based study suggests that any increased risk in AI/ANs relative to Whites may be at least partly due to differences in BMI.

This study aims to examine the relationship between infant-feeding practices and American Indian infants' gut microbiome — laying the foundation of a research program aimed at identifying potential aetiologies of childhood obesity in this population. Previous studies have emphasised the high prevalence of obesity in American Indian infants, but its underlying causes remain unclear. We received funding from the University of Washington to examine attitudes towards breastfeeding and formula feeding in American Indian mothers, their dietary and physical activity habits and the yield, quality and diversity of their infants' gut microbiome. Our study combines the strengths of qualitative and quantitative data with DNA sequencing. Results will be used to propose a larger study aimed at clarifying aetiologies of childhood obesity in this population and to identify prevention strategies. This protocol describes the theoretical basis of the study, rationale for the target population, study design, participant recruitment and data analysis plan.

Objective:This study examined the role of English language use in the reported frequency of musculoskeletal pain among Hispanic and non-Hispanic White youth. Method: This is a secondary data analysis using a cross-sectional sample of 12,189 Hispanic and non-Hispanic White adolescents recruited for the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Respondents were classified into three groups: (a) English-speaking non-Hispanic Whites, (b) English-speaking Hispanics, and (c) Spanish-speaking Hispanics. Results: After controlling for body mass index and demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral variables, Spanish-speaking Hispanics reported the least frequent musculoskeletal pain (OR = 0.415, 95% CI [0.361, 0.477]; p < .001), followed by English-speaking Hispanics (OR = 0.773, 95% CI [0.690, 0.865]; p < .001). Conclusion: The experience of musculoskeletal pain is a physiological as well as a cultural phenomenon. Implications for Practice: Health care providers should consider the role of language use in reports of pain in Hispanic and non-Hispanic White adolescents.

Introduction

Obesity rates for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adolescents are among the highest in the US. However, little is known about the influence of maternal correlates on adolescent body mass index (BMI), and the extent to which the size and significance of these correlates vary by adolescent sex and race.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis with a sample of 531 AI/AN and 8896 White mother/adolescent pairs from Wave 1 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We used generalized estimating equations to measure the association of maternal educational attainment, marital status, employment status, obesity status, and adolescent BMI of AI/AN and White adolescents, while controlling for adolescents' demographic and behavioral covariates. We sought to determine whether the size and statistical significance of maternal correlates differed by race, and between mother/son and mother/daughter pairs.

Results

The strength and statistical significance of maternal correlates varied between mother/son and mother/daughter pairs in both races. However, we did not find effect modification by race.

Maternal obesity showed the strongest effect on adolescent BMI in all mother/adolescent pairs.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that maternal factors are critical in the transmission of obesogenic behaviors from one generation to the next, and their effects vary between mother/son and mother/daughter pairs, and are similar for AI/ANs and Whites. We encourage future work aimed at preventing adolescent obesity to investigate causal pathways between maternal correlates and adolescent BMI.

The late 2000s economic crisis has transformed Europe. Scholars and politicians concur with the longstanding economic, political, and social consequences of this crisis.
The financial meltdown shrunk traditionally large economies and left a few of them at the verge of bankruptcy. The South of Europe, in particular, is one of the regions in the world where the consequences of the crisis have become most salient. Governmental efforts to face the crisis have generated deep institutional changes and historical turning points for the welfare state, democratic representation, labor relations, and social protests. The economic crisis has shifted the structure of the political field, allowing the rise of new political actors and novel alignments on both new and old political issues. In the midst of these transformations, we have attempted to compile a collection of scholarly analyses that seek to examine the most important institutional and social shifts taking place today in Southern Europe.

The economic crisis of the late 2000s has transformed inter-ethnic relations. Despite the fact that North American and European economies have depended on international migration flows for decades (Piore 1979; Sassen 1988; Zolberg 2006), recent years have witnessed an increasing tension in perceptions of international migration among citizens in these regions (Telles and Ortiz 2007: 292). The increasing success of the far-right at the polls and the support for policies strengthening border controls and criminalizing unregulated migration reveal the extent to which immigrants continue to be the outsiders and scapegoats of the present era (Allport 1979; Benhabib 2004; Wimmer 2002). The unprecedented number of votes of Le Front National in the 2014 French municipal elections illustrate this generalized trend.

This special issue aims to examine emerging trends in anti-migrant sentiment in North America and Europe, embedded in a global transformation. Due to the growth of significant migratory flows in several regions of the world during the first decade of the twenty-first century (United Nations 2009), previous studies have shown the extent to which an increasing inflow of immigrants has led to an increasing opposition from the citizenry (Eger 2010; Fox 2004; Verea 2012). The spread of populist political movements that capitalize on anti-immigrant, anti-multicultural and anti-government sentiments have not only enabled but also legitimized novel forms of inter-ethnic contention with both violent and non-violent manifestations (Berezin 2009; Dancygier 2010; Rydgren 2012).

Our main goal is to take advantage of a zeitgeist characterized by its turbulence, to revise prevailing assumptions in the literature on international migration and inter-ethnic contention, as well as to introduce novel forms of interdependence between states, citizens, immigrants, and organized interest groups. All the papers in this collection ask, in some way, the key questions:How does anti-immigrant sentiment arise and why? How are these drivers affected by economic turbulence and political upheaval?