Asian Hate, religion, and perceived changes in physical health: exploring the flip side of minority stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: Prior research suggests that racism is associated with adverse mental health outcomes for Asians in the United States. Relatively less research has been conducted to examine the effects of racism on physical health, particularly the changes in physical health among Asians and Asian Americans. This study aims to fill in this gap in prior research. DESIGN: Survey was conducted via Qualtrics in March 2023. A panel sample of 356 Asian and Asian American adults from across the US was collected. Ordinary Least Squares Regression was employed to examine the interrelationships among racism, religion, and perceived changes in physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: Contrary to conventional wisdom, more frequent experience with blatant racism was associated with a perceived improvement in physical health after controlling for subtle racism, anxiety, acculturation, and various sociodemographic variables. Interestingly, this robust relationship was more significant among Asians who attended religious services more frequently. Additional three-way interactions revealed that the interaction between blatant racism and religious service attendance on perceived changes in physical health was more significant for US-born Asians and Asians of Indian or Japanese ethnicity. CONCLUSION: Racism exerts a significant influence on physical health outcomes among Asians and Asian Americans. However, this relationship was contingent upon the specific aspect of racism and intersected with religiosity, acculturation, and ethnic identity.

OsLPR5 Encoding Ferroxidase Positively Regulates the Tolerance to Salt Stress in Rice.

Salinity is a major abiotic stress that harms rice growth and productivity. Low phosphate roots (LPRs) play a central role in Pi deficiency-mediated inhibition of primary root growth and have ferroxidase activity. However, the function of LPRs in salt stress response and tolerance in plants remains largely unknown. Here, we reported that the OsLPR5 was induced by NaCl stress and positively regulates the tolerance to salt stress in rice. Under NaCl stress, overexpression of OsLPR5 led to increased ferroxidase activity, more green leaves, higher levels of chlorophyll and lower MDA contents compared with the WT. In addition, OsLPR5 could promote the accumulation of cell osmotic adjustment substances and promote ROS-scavenging enzyme activities. Conversely, the mutant lpr5 had a lower ferroxidase activity and suffered severe damage under salt stress. Moreover, knock out of OsLPR5 caused excessive Na+ levels and Na+/K+ ratios. Taken together, our results exemplify a new molecular link between ferroxidase and salt stress tolerance in rice.

Asian Hate, Minority Stress, and Religious Coping: A Study of Asian and Asian American Adults in the USA During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Despite long being the target of racism, Asians and Asian Americans remain an understudied group regarding the mental health implications of racism. Even less is known about how Asians and Asian Americans may use religion to cope with racism and the resulting mental health implications. In this study, 330 Asian and Asian American adults from various regions of the USA were surveyed. The study results suggest that negative religious coping was associated with worsening depression, anxiety, and stress, particularly among Asian Indians, Asian Hindus, and Asian Muslims. In addition, negative religious coping may have exacerbated the deleterious effects of racism on mental health. Surprisingly, positive religious coping failed to provide any protection against racism-related mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Body Mass Index in Religious Contexts: Exploring the Multilevel Influences of Religion.

Can the religious values of an entire geographic area affect the BMI of people living in that same area, even people with different religious values? Although prior research has demonstrated that individual religious characteristics are associated with individual BMI, less is known about how the overall religious context influences BMI. Using multilevel analyses on two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion merged with county-level variables, this study finds that a county's higher Catholic population share is associated with lower individual BMI even after controlling for various individual and county-level variables. Surprisingly, this Catholic contextual effect on BMI applies to almost everyone living in a predominantly Catholic county regardless of individual Catholic identity and residential movement across counties. In contrast, county-level conservative Protestant population share is linked with higher BMI. However, this conservative Protestant contextual effect is explained by county-level socioeconomic variables.

Air pollution as a catalyst for supporting tobacco control policies? Evidence from a nationwide study on Chinese medical students.

PURPOSE: Few studies have discussed how the increasing ambient air pollution may affect policy-related attitudes. Medical professionals constitute an important interest group who analyse and solve public issues within a medicalised framework. The current study investigates whether ambient air pollution is associated with a greater likelihood of supporting tobacco control measures among medical students. METHODS: We conducted multistage sampling among the medical students from 42 cities in China. We employed propensity-score matching to eliminate the selection bias and used multilevel logistic regressions for the main analysis (n1=9458, n2=42). RESULTS: we found that city-level air particulate matter is consistently associated with the support for tobacco control among medical students, net of other individual-level and city-level covariates. For one standard increase in air particulate matter, people are 1.21 times more likely to fully support tobacco control measures (p<0.05). This association is significantly stronger among medical students who are financially worse-off and are ethnic majority. CONCLUSIONS: Environmental pollution has a significant correlation with people's attitudes towards health policies, even when such policies are not directly concerned with the natural environment. Policy makers may use this opportunity to implement tobacco control measures against the backdrop of China's pollution crisis.

Is Asian Hate Just About Race? Religious Discrimination and Smoking Among Asian and Asian American Adults in the USA.

Prior research has shown that experiencing religious discrimination is tied to adverse physical and mental health outcomes. However, less known is whether or not religious discrimination may influence one's risk of smoking. In particular, there is a paucity of research examining the impacts of religious discrimination on smoking for Asians in the United States, whose experience of religious discrimination is heavily racialized. To fill in these gaps, in this study, 356 Asian and Asian American adults living in the US were surveyed. The key results suggest that perceived religious discrimination was associated with a higher risk of smoking among Asians and Asian Americans. Meanwhile, this deleterious effect of religious discrimination does not vary by important sociodemographic variables, such as ethnicity, religious identity, gender, and acculturation. Surprisingly, once controlling for religious discrimination, racial discrimination was no longer associated with smoking. Therefore, when it comes to smoking, it may be possible that religion is a more hazardous source of minority stress than race for Asians and Asian Americans.

Genome-Wide Identification and Bioinformatics Analysis of the FK506 Binding Protein Family in Rice.

The FK506 Binding Protein (FKBP), ubiquitously present across diverse species, is characterized by its evolutionarily conserved FK506 binding domain (FKBd). In plants, evidence suggests that this gene family plays integral roles in regulating growth, development, and responses to environmental stresses. Notably, research on the identification and functionality of FKBP genes in rice remains limited. Therefore, this study utilized bioinformatic tools to identify 30 FKBP-encoding genes in rice. It provides a detailed analysis of their chromosomal locations, evolutionary relationships with the Arabidopsis thaliana FKBP family, and gene structures. Further analysis of the promoter elements of these rice FKBP genes revealed a high presence of stress-responsive elements. Quantitative PCR assays under drought and heat stress conditions demonstrated that genes OsFKBP15-2, OsFKBP15-3, OsFKBP16-3, OsFKBP18, and OsFKBP42b are inducible by these adverse conditions. These findings suggest a significant role for the rice FKBP gene family in stress adaptation. This research establishes a critical foundation for deeper explorations of the functional roles of the OsFKBP genes in rice.

Suppression of OsSAUR2 gene expression immobilizes soil arsenic bioavailability by modulating root exudation and rhizosphere microbial assembly in rice.

One of the factors influencing the behavior of arsenic (As) in environment is microbial-mediated As transformation. However, the detailed regulatory role of gene expression on the changes of root exudation, rhizosphere microorganisms, and soil As occurrence forms remains unclear. In this study, we evidence that loss-of-function of OsSAUR2 gene, a member of the SMALL AUXIN-UP RNA family in rice, results in significantly higher As uptake in roots but greatly lower As accumulation in grains via affecting the expression of OsLsi1, OsLsi2 in roots and OsABCC1 in stems. Further, the alteration of OsSAUR2 expression extensively affects the metabolomic of root exudation, and thereby leading to the variations in the composition of rhizosphere microbial communities in rice. The microbial community in the rhizosphere of Ossaur2 plants strongly immobilizes the occurrence forms of As in soil. Interestingly, Homovanillic acid (HA) and 3-Coumaric acid (CA), two differential metabolites screened from root exudation, can facilitate soil iron reduction, enhance As bioavailability, and stimulate As uptake and accumulation in rice. These findings add our further understanding in the relationship of OsSAUR2 expression with the release of root exudation and rhizosphere microbial assembly under As stress in rice, and provide potential rice genetic resources and root exudation in phytoremediation of As-contaminated paddy soil.

Smoking in the temple of the holy spirit? Geographic location matters.

Smoking at a young age poses significant risks to one's health and is linked with a wide range of deviant conducts. While prior research has looked into the ways in which individual religious characteristics may influence smoking, much less is known about how the overall religious context in which individuals are embedded may affect smoking during adolescence and early adulthood. In this study, multilevel regression analyses were used on nationally representative panel data to explore this understudied area. The results suggest that when a county has higher population share of conservative Protestants, youth living there are more likely to smoke. A similar robust relationship is also found for county-level mainline Protestant population share and smoking. By simultaneously examining both the individual and contextual religious effects on smoking, this study contributes to a renewed, more comprehensive understanding of an important public health and youth deviance issue.