Prairie voles seek social contact with peer companions during immune challenge.

Selection for group living has occurred across taxa, despite inherent risk of disease transmission. Behavioral and immune responses to sickness affect social interactions and can be altered by social contexts. However, the majority of research on sickness behavior has focused on species that do not form selective social relationships. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) form selective social relationships with mates and peers and provide a useful study system to examine effects of sickness on social seeking in established relationships. We used peripheral injections of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of E. coli to stimulate the innate immune system and verified effects on activity, core temperature, and corticosterone concentrations for 6 h following treatment. We demonstrated that male and female same-sex pairs of prairie voles increase social contact when sick and that this increase persists when contact is initiated by the sick vole. Finally, we assessed social motivation following immune challenge using operant choice chambers equipped with two levers and side chambers. Voles worked to gain access to chambers with social and non-social rewards. While overall effort decreased following LPS injection, only immune-challenged voles worked significantly harder for their companion than for a non-social chamber. LPS treatment also increased proportion of rewards earned for the partner versus a stranger and again led to increased huddling behavior. Prior studies in other rodent species have shown decreased social interaction when sick; the present results demonstrate an alternative outcome of sickness in the context of dyadic bonds and lay the foundation for future work in peer companions.

Evaluating the sensitivity to threat and affiliative reward (STAR) model in relation to the development of conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits across early adolescence.

BACKGROUND: The Sensitivity to Threat and Affiliative Reward (STAR) model proposes low threat sensitivity and low affiliation as risk factors for callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Preliminary evidence for the STAR model comes from work in early childhood. However, studies are needed that explore the STAR dimensions in late childhood and adolescence when severe conduct problems (CP) emerge. Moreover, it is unclear how variability across the full spectrum of threat sensitivity and affiliation gives rise to different forms of psychopathology beyond CU traits. METHODS: The current study addressed these gaps using parent- and child-reported data from three waves and a sub-study of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study® of 11,878 youth (48% female; ages 9-12). RESULTS: Consistent with the STAR model, low threat sensitivity and low affiliation were independently related to CU traits across informants and time. Moreover, there was significant interaction between the STAR dimensions, such that children with lower sensitivity to threat and lower affiliation had higher parent-reported CU traits. Unlike CU traits, children with higher threat sensitivity had higher parent-reported CP and anxiety. Finally, children with lower affiliation had higher parent-reported CP, anxiety, and depression. Results largely replicated across informants and time, and sensitivity analysis revealed similar findings in children with and without DSM-5 defined CP. CONCLUSIONS: Results support the STAR model hypotheses as they pertain to CU traits and delineate threat sensitivity and affiliation as independent transdiagnostic risk factors for different types of psychopathology. Future research is needed to develop fuller and more reliable and valid measures of affiliation and threat sensitivity across multiple assessment modalities.

Reduced prosocial motivation and effort in adolescents with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits.

BACKGROUND: Prosocial behaviours - acts that benefit others - are of crucial importance for many species including humans. However, adolescents with conduct problems (CP), unlike their typically developing (TD) peers, demonstrate markedly reduced engagement in prosocial behaviours. This pattern is particularly pronounced in adolescents with CP and high levels of callous-unemotional traits (CP/HCU) who are at increased risk of developing psychopathy in adulthood. While a substantial amount of research has investigated the cognitive-affective mechanisms thought to underlie antisocial behaviour, much less is known about the mechanisms that could explain reduced prosocial behaviours in adolescents with CP. METHODS: Here we examined the willingness to exert effort to benefit oneself (self) and another person (other, prosocial condition) in children with CP/HCU, CP and lower levels of CU traits (CP/LCU) and their TD peers. The task captured both prosocial choices, and actual effort exerted following prosocial choices, in adolescent boys aged 11-16 (27 CP/HCU; 34 CP/LCU; 33 TD). We used computational modelling to reveal the mechanistic processes involved when choosing prosocial acts. RESULTS: We found that both CP/HCU and CP/LCU groups were more averse to initiating effortful prosocial acts than TD adolescents - both at a cognitive and at a behavioural level. Strikingly, even if they chose to initiate a prosocial act, the CP/HCU group exerted less effort following this prosocial choice than other groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that reduced exertion of effort to benefit others may be an important factor that differentiates adolescents with CP/HCU from their peers with CP/LCU. They offer new insights into what might drive low prosocial behaviour in adolescents with CP, including vulnerabilities that may particularly characterise those with high levels of CU traits.

Infants expect friends, but not rivals, to be happy for each other when they succeed.

A friend telling you good news earns them a smile while witnessing a rival win an award may make you wrinkle your nose. Emotions arise not just from people's own circumstances, but also from the experiences of friends and rivals. Across three moderated, online looking time studies, we asked if human infants hold expectations about others' vicarious emotions and if they expect those emotions to be guided by social relationships. Ten- and 11-month-old infants (N = 154) expected an observer to be happy rather than sad when the observer watched a friend successfully jump over a wall; infants looked longer at the sad response compared to the happy response. In contrast, infants did not expect the observer to be happy when the friend failed, nor when a different, rival jumper succeeded; infants' looking times to the two emotion responses in these conditions were not reliably different. These results suggest that infants are able to integrate knowledge across social contexts to guide expectations about vicarious emotional responses. Here infants connected an understanding of agents' goals and their outcomes with knowledge of social relationships to infer an emotion response. Biased concern for friends but not adversaries is not just a descriptive feature of human relationships, but an expectation about the social world present from early in development. Further, the successful integration of these information types welcomes the possibility that infants can jointly reason about goals, emotions, and social relationships under an intuitive theory of psychology. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: 11-month-old infants use knowledge of relationships to make inferences about others' vicarious emotions. In Experiment 1 infants expected an observer to respond happily to a friend's success but not their failure. Experiments 2 and 3 varied the relationship between the observer and actor and found that infants' expectation of vicarious happiness is strongest for positive relationships and absent for negative relationships. The results may reflect an intuitive psychology in which infants expect friends to adopt concern for one another's goals and to thus experience one another's successes as rewarding.

The effects of ostracism on preschoolers' over-imitation behaviors.

Overimitation represents an early developing behavior implicated in the emergence of learning, affective, and social competences. Adult overimitation is heavily affected by contextual variables such as social ostracism, the experience of being ignored by others in a social context, an experience that threatens several psychological needs, inducing the urge to reaffiliate with a social group to restore the original state of well-being. Yet, the impact of social ostracism on overimitation in children remains unclear. This study explored how a face-to-face triadic inclusive/ostracizing ball-tossing game affects overimitation in predominantly White 3-year-old children (n = 43, 53.4% boys) and 5-year-old children (n = 43, 41.8% boys). Results showed that preschoolers are highly affected by social ostracism experiences, with both age groups displaying decreased positive emotionality and heightened negative emotionality when ostracized. Despite this continuity in the affective and behavioral reactions toward social exclusion, imitation fidelity is differently affected by first-person ostracism; the 3-year-olds imitated more when ostracized, whereas the 5-year-olds did so when included, signaling a developmental difference between the strategy repertoire at different ages. Overall, the current findings shed light on the social influences driving preschoolers' overimitation behaviors, emphasizing the importance of investigating social mechanisms underlying imitation and young children's social cognition development.

Trust in scientific institutions and experts during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland.

AIMS: To explore variations in trust in science and scientific institutions in Finland during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the factors influencing trust in experts of a key institution in the management of the pandemic, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). These results are contrasted with trust in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. METHODS: Five surveys were conducted between April 2020 and March 2022 (n=5448). The changes were tested with the chi-square test. Predictors of trust in THL and the ministry was examined with binary logistic regression. RESULTS: Trust in science and key scientific institutions remained consistently high throughout this period. In the early pandemic, trust in the ministry declined. The most significant explanatory factors for trust in THL and the ministry were being a supporter of some other party than the right-wing Finns Party and belonging to the age groups over 50 years. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that the pandemic, marked by unpredictability, did not weaken trust in science and THL, whereas trust in the ministry responsible for managing the pandemic and university experts weakened. In increasingly politically polarised societies, the impact of political sentiments on health-related perceptions and choices should be analysed more in future public health studies.

Social tension after grooming in wild Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata yakui) is sex specific and sensitive to social relationships.

Changes in the rate of self-directed behavior-a proxy for social tension-offer valuable insights into individuals' experiences of social interactions. Many studies have tested the tension-reduction hypothesis, whereby grooming is expected to reduce social tension in the grooming partners. However, it is still unclear whether responses to grooming are affected by social factors such as an individual's role or social relationship with their partner, and whether responses are similar for females and males. Focussing on same-sex grooming in Yakushima Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata yakui), we analyzed the effects of two social factors on the change in the rate of self-scratching after receiving grooming: sitting in contact with their partner outside of grooming contexts (as a measure of relationship strength) and rank distance. We collected 10-min postgrooming and matched-control focal samples on recipients of grooming. After controlling for postinhibitory rebound effects, grooming reduced scratching in females (suggesting that grooming was relaxing for the receiver), but not in males. In females, this reduction was associated with increased sitting in contact and increased rank distance: being groomed was more tension-reducing if the grooming partners spent time together outside of grooming contexts, or if their difference in rank was greater and therefore more conspicuous. The reduction effect was mediated by sitting in contact only when females had a higher-ranking-that is, more dominant and potentially aggressive-groomer. Our findings suggest that not all grooming interactions are perceived as equal, which has implications for its use as an index of relationship quality. To our knowledge, this represents the first study of postgrooming social tension in male Japanese macaques and our results highlight the need for caution when generalizing findings from only one sex to the species level.

Is it me or others who matter? The interplay between consumer values vis-à-vis status and affiliation motives as shapers of meat alternative interest.

This study is about the role of consumers' personal values (Self-enhancement, Openness to change, Self-transcendence, and Conservation) in consumers' interest towards meat alternatives. In addition, the underlying role of two social motives, status and group affiliation are analysed. A conceptual model with hypotheses was developed and validated, and the hypotheses were tested through PLS-SEM with data from four European countries (Finland, the UK, Germany, and Sweden, total N = 3600). The results show that self-focused personal values (Self-enhancement and Openness to change) are not associated with consumers' interest towards meat alternatives. The case is different with other-focused values. Self-transcendence had a positive connection to interest while Conservation had a negative relationship. Finally, the data suggest an underlying role of social motive status between Self-enhancement and interest and the same for group affiliation between Self-transcendence and Conservation and interest. Based on the results, strategies to support meat alternative adoption such as value activation through priming, cognition and emotion-driven marketing are proposed.

Social determinants of health and treatment center affiliation: analysis from the sickle cell disease implementation consortium registry.

BACKGROUND: Adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) suffer early mortality and high morbidity. Many are not affiliated with SCD centers, defined as no ambulatory visit with a SCD specialist in 2 years. Negative social determinants of health (SDOH) can impair access to care. HYPOTHESIS: Negative SDOH are more likely to be experienced by unaffiliated adults than adults who regularly receive expert SCD care. METHODS: Cross-sectional analysis of the SCD Implementation Consortium (SCDIC) Registry, a convenience sample at 8 academic SCD centers in 2017-2019. A Distressed Communities Index (DCI) score was assigned to each registry member's zip code. Insurance status and other barriers to care were self-reported. Most patients were enrolled in the clinic or hospital setting. RESULTS: The SCDIC Registry enrolled 288 Unaffiliated and 2110 Affiliated SCD patients, ages 15-45y. The highest DCI quintile accounted for 39% of both Unaffiliated and Affiliated patients. Lack of health insurance was reported by 19% of Unaffiliated versus 7% of Affiliated patients. The most frequently selected barriers to care for both groups were "previous bad experience with the healthcare system" (40%) and "Worry about Cost" (17%). SCD co-morbidities had no straightforward trend of association with Unaffiliated status. The 8 sites' results varied. CONCLUSION: The DCI economic measure of SDOH was not associated with Unaffiliated status of patients recruited in the health care delivery setting. SCDIC Registrants reside in more distressed communities than other Americans. Other SDOH themes of affordability and negative experiences might contribute to Unaffiliated status. Recruiting Unaffiliated SCD patients to care might benefit from systems adopting value-based patient-centered solutions.

Deviant peer affiliation, self-control, and aggression during early adolescence: within-person effects and between-person differences.

Abundant studies have explored the relations among deviant peer affiliation, self-control, and aggression without separating within-person from between-person effects. Moreover, it is unclear whether self-control mediates the associations between deviant peer affiliation and aggression during early adolescence. This longitudinal study used Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model to examine the dynamic relations among deviant peer affiliation, self-control, and aggression within individuals, including examining whether self-control mediated the relations between deviant peer affiliation and aggression. A total of 4078 early adolescents (54% boys, Mage = 9.91, SD = 0.73) completed questionnaires on four occasions across 2 years. Results indicated: (a) Deviant peer affiliation and aggression positively predicted each other; (b) Self-control and aggression negatively predicted each other but were unstable; (c) Deviant peer affiliation and self-control negatively predicted each other; and (d) Self-control mediated the path from aggression to deviant peer affiliation, but not vice versa. The results more precisely identify the relations among deviant peer affiliation, self-control, and aggression within individuals, providing valuable information for prevention and intervention programs targeted at alleviating early adolescent aggression.

Longitudinal associations between deviant peer affiliation and externalizing behavior in Chinese preadolescence: Differentiating between-person effects from within-person effects.

The present study employed the cross-lagged panel model and the random intercepts cross-lagged panel model to investigate the longitudinal association between deviant peer affiliation and externalizing behavior in Chinese preadolescents. A sample of 1987 students, comprising 56.10% male participants with a mean age of 12.32 years (SD = 0.53), from Guangdong and Shandong provinces, completed the Deviant Peer Affiliation Scale and the Externalizing Behavior Scale in biannual surveys. The surveys were conducted in the autumn semester of 7th grade, the spring semester of 7th grade, and the autumn semester of 8th grade. The cross-lagged panel model illustrated a bidirectional association between adolescents' involvement with deviant peers and externalizing behavior. Conversely, the random intercepts cross-lagged panel model indicated a positive association between deviant peer affiliation and externalizing behavior at the between-person level. At the within-person level, a significant predictive correlation was identified between the association with deviant peers and subsequent externalizing behavior, whereas the reverse pathway was determined to be statistically insignificant. To comprehend the connection between deviant peer association and externalizing behavior in preadolescence, it is essential to differentiate between between-person and within-person effects and utilize a sophisticated research methodology.

The impact of political partisanship, certificate of need, Medicaid expansion, and area deprivation index on total shoulder arthroplasty prices in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Recent mandates from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services require United States hospitals to disclose health care service pricing. Yet, there's a gap in understanding how state-level factors affect hospital service pricing, like total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA). Comprehending these influences can help policymakers and health care providers manage costs and improve care access for vulnerable populations. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of state characteristics such as partisan lean, certificate of need (CON) status, and Medicaid expansion on TSA price. METHODS: TSA price data was extracted from the Turquoise Health Database using Current Procedural Terminology code 23472. State partisan lean was determined by evaluating each state during the 2020 election year for its legislature (both senate and house), governor, presidential vote, and Insurance Commissioner Affiliation, categorizing states as either "Republican-leaning" or "Democratic-leaning." CON status, Medicaid expansion, Area Deprivation Index (ADI), and population density information was obtained from publicly available sources. Multivariable regression models were used to assess the relationship between these factors and TSA price. RESULTS: The study included 2068 hospitals nationwide. The median (interquartile range) price of TSA across these hospitals was $12,607 ($9,185). In the multivariable analysis, hospitals in Republican-leaning states were associated with a significantly greater price of +$210 (P = .0151), while Medicaid expansion was also associated with greater price +$1,878 (P < .0001). CON status was associated with a significant reduction in TSA prices of -$2,880 (P < .0001). In North Carolina an ADI >85 was associated with a reduction in price (P = .0045), while urbanization designation did not significantly impact TSA price (P = .8457). CONCLUSION: This cross-sectional observational study found that Republican-leaning states and Medicaid expansion were associated with increased TSA prices, while an ADI >85 and CON laws were associated with reduced TSA prices.

Cognitive Representations of Social Relationships and their Developmental Origins.

In the human mind, what is a social relationship, and what are the developmental origins of this representation? I consider findings from infant psychology and propose that our representations of social relationships are intuitive theories built on core knowledge. I propose three central components of this intuitive theory. The purpose of the first component is to recognize whether a relationship exists, the purpose of the second is to characterize the relationship by categorizing it into a model and to compute its strength (i.e., intensity, pull, or thickness), and the purpose of the third is to understand how to change relationships through explicit or implicit communication. I propose that infants possess core knowledge on which this intuitive theory is built. This paper focuses on the second component and considers evidence that infants characterize relationships. Following Relational Models Theory (A. P. Fiske, 1992, 2004) I propose that from infancy humans recognize relationships that belong to three models: communal sharing (where people are 'one'), authority ranking (where people are ranked), and equality matching (where people are separate, but evenly balanced). I further propose that humans, and potentially infants, recognize a relationship's strength which can be thought of as a continuous representation of obligations (the extent to which certain actions are expected), and commitment (the likelihood that people will continue the relationship). These representations and the assumption that others share them allow us to form, maintain, and change social relationships throughout our lives by informing how we interpret and evaluate the actions of others and plan our own.

Why So Lonely? The Direct and Indirect Associations between Developmental Trajectories of Fear of Negative Evaluation, Prosocial Behavior and Loneliness in Adolescence.

Fear of negative evaluation and prosocial behavior have been identified as predictive factors influencing the development of loneliness in adolescence, representing typical factors in the cognitive and behavioral processes of re-affiliation. The elucidation of plausible direct and indirect pathways linking these pivotal factors to adolescents' loneliness need further exploration. This study aimed to investigate the direct and indirect relationships between the fear of negative evaluation, prosocial behavior, and adolescents' loneliness through the lens of developmental changes. A total of 533 adolescents (49.0% girls, Mage = 15.18 years, SD = 0.71) participated in this longitudinal study, assessed at three timepoints over a span of two years with 12-month intervals. Latent growth modeling uncovered direct associations between the developmental trajectories of both fear of negative evaluation and prosocial behavior with the developmental trajectory of adolescents' loneliness. The developmental trajectory of fear of negative evaluation exhibited an indirect association with the developmental trajectory of loneliness through the mediating role of prosocial behavior. These findings highlighted the roles of cognitive and behavioral re-affiliation processes, both independently and as mediators, in influencing adolescent loneliness, suggesting that interventions aimed at reducing fear of negative evaluation and promoting prosocial behavior could effectively mitigate adolescents' loneliness.

Examining Audiences' Psychological Reactance to Christian-Sourced Excessive Alcohol Consumption Messages in the United States.

This study experimentally investigated the effect of dogmatic and suggestive language in Christian-sourced excessive alcohol consumption messages among college-aged participants who identify as Christians or non-Christians, as well as the role of perceived similarity with the message source, on their self-reported freedom-threat, psychological reactance, and behavioral intentions to consume alcohol. The results from this study support psychological reactance theory and demonstrate the various message strategies to effectively communicate the negative health effects of excessive alcohol consumption to individuals who identify either as Christians or non-Christians.

The association between delinquent peer affiliation and disruptive behavior interacts with functional brain correlates of reward sensitivity: a biosocial interaction study in adolescent delinquents.

BACKGROUND: Affiliating with delinquent peers may stimulate the development of antisocial behavior, especially for adolescents who are sensitive to social rewards. The current study examines whether the association between delinquent peer affiliation (DPA) and disruptive behavior interacts with functional brain correlates of reward sensitivity in early onset male adolescents delinquents. METHODS: Childhood arrestees (n = 126, mean age = 17.7 [s.d. 1.6]) completed a DPA questionnaire, and participated in an fMRI study in which reward sensitivity was operationalized through responsiveness of the ventral striatum (VS), amygdala, and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during the monetary incentive delay paradigm (reward anticipation and outcome). Symptoms of disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) were assessed through structured psychiatric interviews (Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children) with adolescents. RESULTS: DPA had a main effect on DBD symptoms. Adolescents with high VS reward responses showed a stronger significant positive association between DPA and DBD symptoms compared to low VS responders. No evidence for an interaction effect was found for the amygdala and mPFC. Post-hoc analyses revealed the positive association between DPA and DBD was only present in males, with a diminishing effect as age increased. CONCLUSIONS: We found evidence for a biosocial interaction between DPA and reward sensitivity of the VS in relation to DBD symptom severity. This study provides the first evidence of an interaction effect between a brain mechanism and an environmental factor in relation to DBD symptoms, implying that susceptibility to influences of delinquent peers may intertwine with individual biological differences.

Cooperation increases bottlenose dolphins' (Tursiops truncatus) social affiliation.

Dolphins live in a fission-fusion society, where strong social bonds and alliances can last for decades. However, the mechanism that allows dolphins to form such strong social bonds is still unclear. Here, we hypothesized the existence of a positive feedback mechanism in which social affiliation promotes dolphins' cooperation, which in turn promotes their social affiliation. To test it, we stimulated the cooperation of the 11 dolphins studied by providing a cooperative enrichment tool based on a rope-pulling task to access a resource. Then we measured the social affiliation [simple ratio index (SRI)] of each possible pair of dolphins and evaluated whether it increased after cooperation. We also evaluated whether, before cooperation, pairs that cooperated had a higher SRI than those that did not cooperate. Our findings showed that the 11 cooperating pairs had significantly stronger social affiliation before cooperation than the 15 non-cooperating pairs. Furthermore, cooperating pairs significantly increased their social affiliation after cooperation, while non-cooperating pairs did not. As a result, our findings provide support to our hypothesis, and suggest that the previous social affiliation between dolphins facilitates cooperation, which in turn promotes their social affiliation.

AppIndels.com server: a web-based tool for the identification of known taxon-specific conserved signature indels in genome sequences. Validation of its usefulness by predicting the taxonomic affiliation of >700 unclassified strains of Bacillus species.

Taxon-specific conserved signature indels (CSIs) in genes/proteins provide reliable molecular markers (synapomorphies) for unambiguous demarcation of taxa of different ranks in molecular terms and for genetic, biochemical and diagnostic studies. Because of their predictive abilities, the shared presence of known taxon-specific CSIs in genome sequences has proven useful for taxonomic purposes. However, the lack of a convenient method for identifying the presence of known CSIs in genome sequences has limited their utility for taxonomic and other studies. We describe here a web-based tool/server (AppIndels.com) that identifies the presence of known and validated CSIs in genome sequences and uses this information for predicting taxonomic affiliation. The utility of this server was tested by using a database of 585 validated CSIs, which included 350 CSIs specific for ≈45 Bacillales genera, with the remaining CSIs being specific for members of the orders Neisseriales, Legionellales and Chlorobiales, family Borreliaceae, and some Pseudomonadaceae species/genera. Using this server, genome sequences were analysed for 721 Bacillus strains of unknown taxonomic affiliation. Results obtained showed that 651 of these genomes contained significant numbers of CSIs specific for the following Bacillales genera/families: Alkalicoccus, 'Alkalihalobacillaceae', Alteribacter, Bacillus Cereus clade, Bacillus Subtilis clade, Caldalkalibacillus, Caldibacillus, Cytobacillus, Ferdinandcohnia, Gottfriedia, Heyndrickxia, Lederbergia, Litchfieldia, Margalitia, Mesobacillus, Metabacillus, Neobacillus, Niallia, Peribacillus, Priestia, Pseudalkalibacillus, Robertmurraya, Rossellomorea, Schinkia, Siminovitchia, Sporosarcina, Sutcliffiella, Weizmannia and Caryophanaceae. Validity of the taxon assignment made by the server was examined by reconstructing phylogenomic trees. In these trees, all Bacillus strains for which taxonomic predictions were made correctly branched with the indicated taxa. The unassigned strains likely correspond to taxa for which CSIs are lacking in our database. Results presented here show that the AppIndels server provides a useful new tool for predicting taxonomic affiliation based on shared presence of the taxon-specific CSIs. Some caveats in using this server are discussed.

The impact of facility characteristics on Merkel cell carcinoma outcomes: A retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Previous work has suggested that facility-level characteristics, such as case volume and academic affiliation, are associated with patient survival for rare malignancies. Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare neuroendocrine skin cancer with high mortality and rising incidence. The effect of facility characteristics on MCC outcomes is not yet established. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate whether facility academic affiliation or case volume was associated with MCC patient survival. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of US adult MCC cases diagnosed during 2004-2014 in the National Cancer Database. RESULTS: Both facility academic affiliation (P < .001) and case volume (P < .001) were significantly associated with patient survival. The 5-year survival of patients treated at academic facilities was 63.0% (standard error [SE] 1.7) and that of a propensity score- matched cohort of patients treated at nonacademic facilities was 53.4% (SE 1.9). The 5-year survival of patients treated at high-case volume facilities was 67.4% (SE 2.1) and that of a propensity score-matched cohort of patients treated at low- and intermediate-case volume facilities was 58.6% (SE 2.0). LIMITATIONS: Disease-specific survival and local recurrence data were not available. CONCLUSION: Treatment of MCC at academic and high-volume centers is associated with significantly improved patient survival. Further studies evaluating comorbidities and disease-specific survival are needed to establish whether experienced centers have improved outcomes in MCC treatment.

Longitudinal examination of resilience among child welfare-involved adolescents: The roles of caregiver-child relationships and deviant peer affiliation.

Despite growing attention to resilience following childhood maltreatment, it remains unclear how the development of resilience unfolds over time among child welfare-involved adolescents. Further, little is known about the immediate and enduring effects of two important attachments in children's lives, namely caregiver-child relationship and deviant peer affiliation, on resilience development over time. This study sought to examine the ways in which caregiver-child relationships and deviant peer affiliation shape developmental trajectories of resilience among child welfare-involved youth. Data were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Latent growth curve modeling was conducted on a sample of 711 adolescents. The results revealed that adolescents' resilience increased across a 36-month period since initial contact with Child Protective Services. Better caregiver-child relationships were associated with a higher initial level of resilience among adolescents, whereas higher deviant peer affiliation was associated with a lower initial level of resilience. Significant lagged effects were also found; caregiver-child relationship quality and deviant peer affiliation at baseline were associated with resilience at 18 months after. The findings suggest that interventions that aim to promote positive caregiver-child relationships and prevent deviant peer relationships may help foster resilience among adolescents who have experienced child maltreatment.