Background Previous literature documents associations between low socioeconomic status (SES) and poor health outcomes, including asthma. However, this literature has largely focused on the effects of current family circumstances. Objective To test an intergenerational hypothesis, that the childhood SES that parents experience will be associated with asthma outcomes in their children, independent of effects of current family SES. Secondly, to test whether this association is in part due to difficulties in current parent-child relationships. Methods Observational study, whereby 150 parents were interviewed about their childhood SES, and their children (physician-diagnosed with asthma, ages 9–17) were interviewed about current family stress. Asthma control was assessed by parent- and child-report (primary outcome), and blood was collected from children to measure cytokine production relevant to asthma (secondary outcomes). Results To the degree that parents had lower childhood SES, their offspring showed worse asthma outcomes across multiple indicators. This included lower asthma control scores (parent and child-report, p’s<.05), and greater stimulated production of Th-2 and Th-1 cytokines by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) (p’s<.05). These associations were independent of current family SES. Mediation analyses were consistent with a scenario wherein parents with low childhood SES had current family relationships that were more stressful, and these difficulties in turn related to worse asthma control and greater cytokine production in children. Conclusions These results suggest the potential ‘long reach’ of low socioeconomic status across generations, and the importance of expanding theories of how the social environment can affect childhood asthma to include characteristics of earlier generations.

The links between low socioeconomic status and poor health are well established, yet despite adversity, some individuals with low socioeconomic status appear to avoid these negative consequences through adaptive coping. Previous research found a set of strategies, called shift-and-persist (shifting the self to stressors while persisting by finding meaning), to be particularly adaptive for individuals with low socioeconomic status, who typically face more uncontrollable stressors. This study tested (a) whether perceived social status, similar to objective socioeconomic status, would moderate the link between shift-and-persist and health, and (b) whether a specific uncontrollable stressor, unfair treatment, would similarly moderate the health correlates of shift-and-persist. A sample of 308 youth (Meanage = 13.0, range 8-17), physician diagnosed with asthma, completed measures of shift-and-persist, unfair treatment, asthma control, and quality of life in the lab, and 2 weeks of daily diaries about their asthma symptoms. Parents reported on perceived family social status. Results indicated that shift-and-persist was associated with better asthma profiles, only among youth from families with lower (vs. higher) parent-reported perceived social status. Shift-and-persist was also associated with better asthma profiles, only among youth who experienced more (vs. less) unfair treatment. These findings suggest that the adaptive values of coping strategies for youth with asthma depend on the family's perceived social status and on the stressor experienced.

The relation between empathy subtypes and prosocial behavior was investigated in a sample of healthy adults. "Empathic concern" and "empathic happiness," defined as negative and positive vicarious emotion (respectively) combined with an other-oriented feeling of “goodwill” (i.e. a thought to do good to others/see others happy), were elicited in 68 adult participants who watched video clips extracted from the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Prosocial behavior was quantified via performance on a non-monetary altruistic decision-making task involving book selection and donation. Empathic concern and empathic happiness were measured via self-report (immediately following each video clip) and via facial electromyography recorded from corrugator (active during frowning) and zygomatic (active during smiling) facial regions. Facial electromyographic signs of (a) empathic concern (i.e. frowning) during sad video clips, and (b) empathic happiness (i.e. smiling) during happy video clips, predicted increased prosocial behavior in the form of increased goodwill-themed book selection/donation.

Summary:In developing countries, from 80 to 90% of the people with active epilepsy do not have access to treatment. A multitude of factors such as nonavailability of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) contributes to the treatment gap in epilepsy. Our study carried out in 2003 in southern Vietnam showed that 57% of pharmacies had AEDs. A majority of these pharmacies were located in specific areas like market area or hospital area. The pharmacist in charge was present in only 24% of the pharmacies. The different kinds of AEDs available were carbamazepine (94%), phenytoin (61%), valproate (56%) and diazepam (16%).The maximum stock of a drug was two box. The availability of AEDs in southern Vietnam can be regarded as sufficient but does not allow an adequate treatment for a long time. An effort must be made to sensitize professional health workers to decrease the treatment gap in epilepsy.

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