Associations Between Forced Intercourse and Subsequent Depression Among Women in the U.S. General Population.

Forced intercourse is a high prevalence experience among US women, with high potential to produce subsequent major depressive episodes (MDE). However, the extent to which prior risk factors are associated with the timing of both sexual assault experiences and subsequent MDE onset is not known. The aim of this study was to document the associations between childhood depression, subsequent forced intercourse, and later MDE. We used retrospective information on childhood depression, forced intercourse, and MDE after forced intercourse from female respondents in the nationally representative 2017 US Panel Study of Income Dynamics-Transition to Adulthood Supplement (PSID-TAS, N = 1298, response rate: 87%). Multivariable logistic regression estimated these associations, controlling for age, race, poverty, religiosity, family history of depression, and adverse childhood experiences (such as parental physical abuse or parental violence). Women who experienced childhood depression (prevalence: 15%) had 2.57 times the odds of experiencing forced intercourse after depression onset, even after adjusting for these other risk factors. However, even though childhood depression is a powerful risk factor for later MDE, independent of that women who experienced forced intercourse had 2.28 times the odds of experiencing MDE after the occurrence of forced intercourse, adjusting for childhood depression and other risk factors. This study provided the first clear evidence for time-ordered associations between forced intercourse and subsequent MDE among women in the general population.

Abortion Policy in the United States: The New Legal Landscape and Its Threats to Health and Socioeconomic Well-Being.

Policy Points The historic 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization decision has created a new public policy landscape in the United States that will restrict access to legal and safe abortion for a significant proportion of the population. Policies restricting access to abortion bring with them significant threats and harms to health by delaying or denying essential evidence-based medical care and increasing the risks for adverse maternal and infant outcomes, including death. Restrictive abortion policies will increase the number of children born into and living in poverty, increase the number of families experiencing serious financial instability and hardship, increase racial inequities in socioeconomic security, and put significant additional pressure on under-resourced social welfare systems.

Forced intercourse in America: a pandemic update.

BACKGROUND: Measures of forced intercourse from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) indicate high prevalence among U.S. women, which is likely to produce unintended pregnancies. However, NCHS did not measure forced intercourse during the pandemic, limiting knowledge of recent prevalence rates. METHODS: We use multiple nationally-representative, cross-sectional surveys representing the U.S. population from 2011 to 2022 to document these trends. This includes measures from the National Survey of Family Growth, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transition into Adulthood Supplement, and the American Family Health Study (AFHS) to provide population estimates of forced intercourse. RESULTS: Reports of forced intercourse remained high during the pandemic, with more than 25% of U.S. females over 40 reporting lifetime forced intercourse in the AFHS (number of females in AFHS: 1,042). There was a significant increase among females aged 24-28 (p < 0.05) and rates are highest for those who did not complete college. Among females 24-28, 32.5% (S.E. = 5.7%) with less than 4 years of college reported forced intercourse, a significantly (p < 0.05) higher rate than among those with a higher level of education. CONCLUSIONS: Rates of forced intercourse among U.S. women remained high during the pandemic, increasing significantly in early adulthood. This exposure to forced intercourse is likely to produce an increase in unintended pregnancies and other sexual, reproductive, and mental health problems.

Cohabitation dissolution and psychological distress among young adults: The role of parenthood and gender.

Cohabitation has become a normative experience for American young adults and a common setting for childbearing in recent decades. However, the high dissolution rate of cohabitation exposes young adults to the potential stress of intimate relationship dissolution and single parenthood during early adulthood. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we apply growth curve models to analyze how cohabitation dissolution associates with trajectories of depressive symptoms and binge drinking behaviors for young adults (aged 17 to 35). We investigate how the presence of children moderates this association for men and women. We find that cohabitation dissolution is associated with increased depressive symptoms for both men and women. However, cohabitation dissolution is only positively associated with binge drinking behaviors for men, and a significant gender difference is observed. The presence of children when cohabitation dissolves strengthens the positive association between cohabitation dissolution and depressive symptoms among women, and this positive moderation fades away as young women age. These findings suggest that gender differences in the association of cohabitation dissolution with psychological distress are contingent on the types of psychological distress under consideration and also reveal that cohabitation dissolution intertwined with non-marital parenthood is harmful to mental health, especially for young women.

Resilience to mental disorders in a low-income, non-Westernized setting.

BACKGROUND: Cross-national studies have found, unexpectedly, that mental disorder prevalence is higher in high-income relative to low-income countries, but few rigorous studies have been conducted in very low-income countries. This study assessed mental disorders in Nepal, employing unique methodological features designed to maximize disorder detection and reporting. METHODS: In 2016-2018, 10714 respondents aged 15-59 were interviewed as part of an ongoing panel study, with a response rate of 93%. The World Mental Health version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WMH-CIDI 3.0) measured lifetime and 12-month prevalence of selected anxiety, mood, alcohol use, and impulse control disorders. Lifetime recall was enhanced using a life history calendar. RESULTS: Lifetime prevalence ranged from 0.3% (95% CI 0.2-0.4) for bipolar disorder to 15.1% (95% CI 14.4-15.7) for major depressive disorder. The 12-month prevalences were low, ranging from 0.2% for panic disorder (95% CI 0.1-0.3) and bipolar disorder (95% CI 0.1-0.2) to 2.7% for depression (95% CI 2.4-3.0). Lifetime disorders were higher among those with less education and in the low-caste ethnic group. Gender differences were pronounced. CONCLUSIONS: Although cultural effects on reporting cannot be ruled out, these low 12-month prevalences are consistent with reduced prevalence of mental disorders in other low-income countries. Identification of sociocultural factors that mediate the lower prevalence of mental disorders in low-income, non-Westernized settings may have implications for understanding disorder etiology and for clinical or policy interventions aimed at facilitating resilience.

Social Change, Out-migration, and Exit from Farming in Nepal.

Though international out-migration is widespread, little evidence exists regarding the consequences for economic change in sending countries, particularly in the densely populated agricultural areas of Asia. We examine associations between labor out-migration, remittances, and agricultural change in Nepal. Existing studies of this important population-environment relationship generally ignore the role of local community context, which is known to shape demographic behavior and likely exit from farming as well. Research offers opposing views of the consequences of out-migration for agricultural change - (1) loss of farm labor reduces engagement in agriculture, versus (2) loosening credit constraints from remittances increases engagement in agriculture - and indicates that both mechanisms likely operate simultaneously. Both of these mechanisms are likely to be shaped by changes in local context. Using multilevel dynamic models, we estimate associations between out-migration and remittances by household members and subsequent exit from farming, controlling for variations in community context. Results suggest international out-migration is associated with higher odds of exit from farming and simultaneously remittances are associated with lower odds of exit from farming. Results are robust against several key variations in model specification, including controls for household characteristics and local community context. However, local community context exerts an important independent influence on the hazard of exit from farming.

Using life history calendars to improve measurement of lifetime experience with mental disorders.

BACKGROUND: Retrospective reports of lifetime experience with mental disorders greatly underestimate the actual experiences of disorder because recall error biases reporting of earlier life symptoms downward. This fundamental obstacle to accurate reporting has many adverse consequences for the study and treatment of mental disorders. Better tools for accurate retrospective reporting of mental disorder symptoms have the potential for broad scientific benefits. METHODS: We designed a life history calendar (LHC) to support this task, and randomized more than 1000 individuals to each arm of a retrospective diagnostic interview with and without the LHC. We also conducted a careful validation with the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition. RESULTS: Results demonstrate that-just as with frequent measurement longitudinal studies-use of an LHC in retrospective measurement can more than double reports of lifetime experience of some mental disorders. CONCLUSIONS: The LHC significantly improves retrospective reporting of mental disorders. This tool is practical for application in both large cross-sectional surveys of the general population and clinical intake of new patients.

Parents' Marital Quality and Children's Transition to Adulthood.

Unique longitudinal measures from Nepal allow us to link both mothers' and fathers' reports of their marital relationships with a subsequent long-term record of their children's behaviors. We focus on children's educational attainment and marriage timing because these two dimensions of the transition to adulthood have wide-ranging, long-lasting consequences. We find that children whose parents report strong marital affection and less spousal conflict attain higher levels of education and marry later than children whose parents do not. Furthermore, these findings are independent of each other and of multiple factors known to influence children's educational attainment and marriage timing. These intriguing results support theories pointing toward the long-term intergenerational consequences of variations in multiple dimensions of parents' marriages.

Mass Education, International Travel, and Ideal Ages at Marriage.

Opportunities to document associations between macro-level changes in social organization and the spread of new individual attitudes are relatively rare. Moreover, of the factors generally understood to be influential, little is known about the potential mechanisms that make them so powerful. Here we use longitudinal measures from the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) to describe the processes of ideational change across 12 years among a representative sample from a rural agrarian setting in South Asia. Findings from lagged dependent variable models show that (1) two key dimensions of social organization--education and international travel--are strongly associated with change in attitudes, net of prior attitudes; (2) reorganization of education and travel are associated with attitudes toward ideal age at marriage; and (3) this association varies by gender. Using the study's prospective design, we document not only these important associations but also potential mechanisms of education and travel--exposure to the English language and friends' international travel experience--as potentially powerful social influences on individuals' attitudes, independent of their own experiences.

The utility of a follow-up interview for respondents to a longitudinal survey with frequent measurement.

Social processes that change quickly are difficult to study, because they require frequent survey measurement. Weekly, daily, or even hourly measurement may be needed depending on the topic. With more frequent measurement comes the prospect of more complex patterns of missing data. The mechanisms creating the missing data may be varied, ranging from technical issues such as lack of an Internet connection to refusal to complete a requested survey. We examine one approach to mitigating the damage of these missing data - a follow-up or closeout interview that is completed after the frequent measurement. The Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study used this approach. The study asked women weekly about their attitudes and behaviors related to sexual relationships and pregnancy. The surveys were carried out for 130 weeks and concluded with a closeout interview. We explore the patterns of missing data in the RDSL study and then examine associations between the data collected in the closeout survey and key variables collected in the weekly survey. We then assess the extent to which data from the closeout survey are useful in repairing the damage caused by missing data.

Suicidal thoughts and behaviors among college students and same-aged peers: results from the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys.

PURPOSE: The primary aims are to (1) obtain representative prevalence estimates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) among college students worldwide and (2) investigate whether STB is related to matriculation to and attrition from college. METHODS: Data from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys were analyzed, which include face-to-face interviews with 5750 young adults aged 18-22 spanning 21 countries (weighted mean response rate = 71.4%). Standardized STB prevalence estimates were calculated for four well-defined groups of same-aged peers: college students, college attriters (i.e., dropouts), secondary school graduates who never entered college, and secondary school non-graduates. Logistic regression assessed the association between STB and college entrance as well as attrition from college. RESULTS: Twelve-month STB in college students was 1.9%, a rate significantly lower than same-aged peers not in college (3.4%; OR 0.5; p < 0.01). Lifetime prevalence of STB with onset prior to age 18 among college entrants (i.e., college students or attriters) was 7.2%, a rate significantly lower than among non-college attenders (i.e., secondary school graduates or non-graduates; 8.2%; OR 0.7; p = 0.03). Pre-matriculation onset STB (but not post-matriculation onset STB) increased the odds of college attrition (OR 1.7; p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: STB with onset prior to age 18 is associated with reduced likelihood of college entrance as well as greater attrition from college. Future prospective research should investigate the causality of these associations and determine whether targeting onset and persistence of childhood-adolescent onset STB leads to improved educational attainment.

Emotional Variation and Fertility Behavior.

Emotional influences on fertility behaviors are an understudied topic that may offer a clear explanation of why many couples choose to have children even when childbearing is not economically rational. With setting-specific measures of the husband-wife emotional bond appropriate for large-scale population research matched with data from a long-term panel study, we have the empirical tools to provide a test of the influence of emotional factors on contraceptive use to limit fertility. This article presents those tests. We use long-term, multilevel community and family panel data to demonstrate that the variance in levels of husband-wife emotional bond is significantly associated with their subsequent use of contraception to avert births. We discuss the wide-ranging implications of this intriguing new result.

Natural resource collection and desired family size: a longitudinal test of environment-population theories.

Theories relating the changing environment to human fertility predict declining natural resources may actually increase the demand for children. Unfortunately most previous empirical studies have been limited to cross-sectional designs that limit our ability to understand links between processes that change over time. We take advantage of longitudinal measurement spanning more than a decade of change in the natural environment, household agricultural behaviors, and individual fertility preferences to reexamine this question. Using fixed-effects models, we find that women experiencing increasing time required to collect firewood to heat and cook or fodder to feed animals (the dominant needs for natural resources in this setting) increased their desired family size, even as many other macro-level changes have reduced desired family size. In contrast to previous, cross-sectional studies we find no evidence of such a relationship for men. Our findings regarding time spent collecting firewood are also new. These results support the "vicious circle" perspective and economic theories of fertility pointing to the value of children for household labor. This feedback from natural resource constraint to increased fertility is an important mechanism for understanding long term environmental change.

Associations between the social organization of communities and psychiatric disorders in rural Asia.

PURPOSE: We provide rare evidence of factors producing psychiatric variation in a general population sample from rural South Asia. The setting is particularly useful for demonstrating that variations in the social organization of communities, often difficult to observe in rich countries, are associated with important variations in mental health. METHODS: Clinically validated survey measures are used to document variation in psychiatric disorders among 401 adults. This sample is chosen from a systematic sample of the general population of rural Nepal, in a community-level-controlled comparison design. Multilevel logistic regression is used to estimate multivariate models of the association between community-level nonfamily social organization and individual-level psychiatric disorders. RESULTS: Schools, markets, health services and social support groups each substantially reduce the odds of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), intermittent explosive disorder and anxiety disorders. Associations between schools, health services and social support groups and depression are statistically significant and independent of each other. The association between access to markets and PTSD is statistically significant and independent of other social organization and support groups. CONCLUSIONS: Community integration of some nonfamily social organizations promotes mental health in ways that may go unobserved in settings with many such organizations. More research on the mechanisms producing these associations is likely to reveal potential avenues for public policy and programs to improve mental health in the general population.

Impact of the spread of mass education on married women's experience with domestic violence.

This paper investigates the association between mass education and married women's experience with domestic violence in rural Nepal. Previous research on domestic violence in South Asian societies emphasizes patriarchal ideology and the widespread subordinate status of women within their communities and families. The recent spread of mass education is likely to shift these gendered dynamics, thereby lowering women's likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. Using data from 1775 currently married women from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal, we provide a thorough analysis of how the spread of mass education is associated with domestic violence among married women. The results show that women's childhood access to school, their parents' schooling, their own schooling, and their husbands' schooling are each associated with their lower likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. Indeed, husbands' education has a particularly strong, inverse association with women's likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. These associations suggest that the proliferation of mass education will lead to a marked decline in women's experience with domestic violence in Nepal.

Response of sensitive behaviors to frequent measurement.

We study the influence of frequent survey measurement on behavior. Widespread access to the Internet has made important breakthroughs in frequent measurement possible-potentially revolutionizing social science measurement of processes that change quickly over time. One key concern about using such frequent measurement is that it may influence the behavior being studied. We investigate this possibility using both a population-based experiment with random assignment to participation in a weekly journal for twelve months (versus no journal) and a large-scale, population-based, journal-keeping study with weekly measurement for 30 months. Results reveal few of the measured behaviors are correlated with assignment to frequent measurement. Theoretical reasoning regarding the likely behavioral response to frequent measurement correctly predicts domains most vulnerable to this possibility. Overall, however, we found little evidence of behavioral response to frequent measurement.

Parental depression and their children's marriage timing: The long-term consequences of parental mental disorders.

Although decades of research documents powerful associations between parents' characteristics and their children's marital behaviors, the role of parental mental health has largely been ignored, despite the high prevalence of mental disorders and their strong potential to shape multiple dimensions of family life. Many studies examine other consequences of mothers' mental disorders, particularly for young children, but rarely do studies investigate the consequences of fathers' mental disorders, especially the potential for long-term consequences. We construct a theoretical framework for the study of intergenerational influences on family formation behaviors, integrating parental mental health, and emphasizing the potential for father's disorders to shape their children's lives. To investigate these associations, we use new intergenerational panel data featuring clinically validated diagnostic measures of parental mental health for both mothers and fathers, assessed independently. Results demonstrate that fathers' major depressive disorder is associated with significantly earlier marriage timing among sons. These important new findings provide insights into key priorities for social research on family formation processes and intergenerational influences across many domains.

Community exposure to armed conflict and subsequent onset of alcohol use disorder.

AIMS: To measure the independent consequences of community-level armed conflict beatings on alcohol use disorders (AUD) among males in Nepal during and after the 2000-2006 conflict. DESIGN: A population-representative panel study from Nepal, with precise measures of community-level violent events and subsequent individual-level AUD in males. Females were not included because of low AUD prevalence. SETTING: Chitwan, Nepal. PARTICIPANTS: Four thousand eight hundred seventy-six males from 151 neighborhoods, systematically selected and representative of Western Chitwan. All residents aged 15-59 were eligible (response rate 93%). MEASUREMENTS: Measures of beatings in the community during the conflict (2000-2006), including the date and distance away, were gathered through neighborhood reports, geo-location and official resources, then linked to respondents' life histories of AUD (collected in 2016-2018) using the Nepal-specific Composite International Diagnostic Interview with life history calendar. Beatings nearby predict the subsequent onset of AUD during and after the armed conflict. Data were analyzed in 2021-2022. FINDINGS: Cohort-specific, discrete-time models revealed that within the youngest cohort (born 1992-2001), those living in neighborhoods where armed conflict beatings occurred were more likely to develop AUD compared with those in other neighborhoods (odds ratio = 1.66; 95% confidence interval = 1.02-2.71). In this cohort, a multilevel matching analysis designed to simulate a randomized trial showed the post-conflict incidence of AUD for those living in neighborhoods with any armed conflict beatings was 9.5% compared with 5.3% in the matched sample with no beatings. CONCLUSIONS: Among male children living in Chitwan, Nepal during the 2000-2006 armed conflict, living in a neighborhood where armed conflict beatings occurred is associated with increased odds of developing subsequent alcohol use disorder. This association was independent of personal exposure to beatings and other mental disorders.

Forced Intercourse in America: A Pandemic Update.

Background : Measures of forced intercourse from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) indicate this a high prevalence among U.S. women that is likely to produce unintended pregnancies. However, NCHS did not measure forced intercourse during the pandemic, limiting knowledge of recent prevalence rates. Methods : We use multiple nationally-representative, cross-sectional surveys representing the U.S. population from 2011 to 2022 to document these trends. This includes measures from the National Survey of Family Growth, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transition into Adulthood Supplement, and the American Family Health Study (AFHS) to provide population estimates of forced intercourse. Results : Reports of forced intercourse remained high during the pandemic, with more than 25% of U.S. females over 40 reporting lifetime forced intercourse in the AFHS (number of females in AFHS: 1,042). There was a significant increase among females aged 24-28 (p<.05) and rates are highest for those who did not complete college. Among females 24-28, 32.5% (S.E. = 5.7%) with less than 4 years of college reported forced intercourse, a significantly (p<.05) higher rate than among those with higher education. Conclusions : Rates of forced intercourse among U.S. women remained high during the pandemic, increasing significantly in early adulthood. This exposure to forced intercourse is likely to produce an increase in unintended pregnancies and other sexual, reproductive, and mental health problems.

Student reports of attendance at programs to reduce campus sexual assault and harassment.

OBJECTIVE: To identify factors independently associated with program participation and knowledge of campus processes to address sexual assault and harassment complaints. PARTICIPANTS: 1,182 undergraduates who completed the University of Michigan's 2015 campus climate survey on topics of sexual assault and harassment (67% response rate). METHODS: We analyze survey responses to estimate multivariable models that identify subgroups of the student population least likely to have participated in programs or to know campus processes. RESULTS: Students living off campus, not involved in major organizations, and males are less likely to report attending programming. Students not involved in major organizations and females are less likely to report knowing campus processes. CONCLUSIONS: Specific student subpopulations are more difficult to engage in programs designed to reduce sexual assault and harassment. Targeting additional effort to these groups may improve campus sexual climate. Careful analyses of campus climate survey data can help construct campus-specific priorities for these interventions.