In the last decade, the migrant population in Chile has substantially increased, where the rates have not only increased in the adult population, but also among children and adolescents, creating a potential for social and cultural development in the educational system. The present work analyzes the relationship between self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in native and migrant adolescents in Santiago de Chile. The sample consisted of 406 students, 56.65% women, with an age range that fluctuated between 12 and 16 years, with an average of 13.36 years (SD = 0.96). Student’s t-tests were used to compare the average of the constructs evaluated between natives/migrants and boys/girls participants. Subsequently, two multivariate models of simple mediation were constructed, one for natives and another for migrants, which assumed subjective well-being as a dependent variable, academic self-concept as an independent variable and the general self-efficacy as a mediating variable. In both models, gender was considered as a control variable. Results show that migrant students present higher levels of academic self-concept and general self-efficacy than native students. There are no differences with regard to well-being. In the case of gender, differences are observed only for the case of general self-efficacy, where boys present higher levels. On the other hand, a partial mediation is observed for the model of native students and a total mediation for the model of migrant students. The study yielded interesting results regarding the differences in the evaluation of the constructs of self-concept, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being in both groups. Such data can be used as inputs for the development of public policies for adolescents.

The prevalence and mortality of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is increasing in Chile, constituting a public health problem. Pulmonary and systemic consequences of COPD affect physical activity, as the disease progresses. There are multiple means for physical activity assessment, from low cost and easily applicable questionnaires to sophisticated laboratory tests. Physical inactivity is a modifiable risk factor for morbidity and mortality in patients with COPD. Physical activity interventions not only contribute to decrease the likelihood of mortality, but also protect from comorbidities, especially cardiovascular ones. It also plays a major role avoiding functional limitations of these subjects. Dyspnea and fatigue render exercise as an unpleasant activity for most patients with COPD. If psychological alterations such as anxiety and depression are summed, these patients drift towards an inactive lifestyle. This article analyzes several tools available to assess physical activity is patients with COPD, useful in clinical practice.

We analyze the effect of obesity on the incidence of hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes in USA using a health production theoretical framework along with a bivariate flexible semi-parametric recursive copula model that account for endogeneity. In this approach, the effects of control variables are flexibly determined using additive predictors that allow for a variety of effects. Our findings suggest that there exist a positive and significant effect of obesity on the prevalence of all chronic diseases examined. In particular, after endogeneity is accounted for, the probability of having hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes for obese individuals are, respectively, 35%, 28% and 11% higher than those under the obesity threshold. These findings suggest that lowering obesity rates could lead to significant reductions in the morbidity and mortality associated with these diseases.

Subjective well-being is a broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgments of life satisfaction. This research investigates how schoolchildren’s subjective well-being is affected by the different types of technology use, in personal contexts, and, concurrently, whether these effects are different when the use of technology is problematic. The central hypotheses are as follows: (1) the use of the Internet affects the subjective well-being of schoolchildren negatively only when this use is problematic and (2) the effect on subjective well-being is different according to the type of Internet use. To respond to the objectives of the research, a survey was applied to 15-year-old adolescents (2,579 cases), distributed in 330 public schools, beneficiaries of a government program for the delivery of personal computers and Internet for a year. The different uses of the Internet were measured using frequency scales by type of activity (social, recreational, and educational). Problematic use scale measured the perception of negative consequences of the intensity of Internet use on a daily basis. Subjective well-being was measured by the Personal Well-Being Index-School Children (PWI-SC). Subsequently, for analytical purposes, three simple mediation models were created, whose dependent variable was PWI-SC, while its independent variables were Internet use scales differentiated by purpose (social, recreational, and educational) and problematic use as a mediating variable, as well as attributes of the subjects and their social environment, which were incorporated as control variables. The main results show that only if Internet use is expressed as problematic does it negatively affect subjective well-being. On the contrary, when the use of the Internet is not problematic, the effect is positive and even greater than the simple effect (without mediation) between these two variables. This finding is relevant, since it allows us to provide evidence that suggests that, when studying the effect that the intensity of the Internet, firstly, one must consider the mediating effect exerted by the network’s problematic use and, secondly, that not all types of use have the same impact. Therefore, it is useful to enrich the discussion on subjective well-being and social integration of schoolchildren in the digital age.

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