Recent ssha items

Female Servants in Early Modern England

Wed, 3 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Female Servants in Early Modern England

Understanding risk and resiliency in transmasculine pregnancy: An application and biopsychosocial extension of the Gender Minority Stress Theory

Wed, 3 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Research on transgender health has expanded significantly within the past decade, yet the topic of transmasculine pregnancy remains underexplored. In this article, we extend the Gender Minority Stress Theory (GMST) to examine how psychosocial stressors faced by transmasculine individuals during pregnancy might influence gestational outcomes through key psychobiological pathways, including the HPA axis, immune, and cardiovascular systems. Specifically, we propose an adapted model that incorporates both proximal (e.g. internalized transphobia, concealment) and distal (e.g. discrimination, institutional exclusion) stressors specific to transmasculine pregnancy by synthesizing evidence that these psychosocial stressors are not only consequential for the mental and physical health of the pregnant person but may also have downstream effects on pregnancy outcomes. We also highlight certain personal and social psychosocial resilience resources that might buffer the impact of stressors...

A Historical Atlas of Kham

Mon, 1 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This atlas presents a comprehensive cartographic reconstruction of the historical geography of Kham (Eastern Tibet) around 1950, immediately prior to the major political, social, and institutional transformations that followed the incorporation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China. Drawing upon a geospatial database of more than 1,500 Buddhist monasteries, temples, hermitages, and Bonpo religious establishments, the atlas maps the distribution of religious institutions, sectarian affiliations, language regions, trade routes, monastic urban systems, and regional interaction networks across eastern Tibet. The atlas accompanies a broader research project examining the role of monasteries as the principal urban, economic, and organizational institutions of Tibetan society. Using historical GIS methods, terrain-adjusted spatial modeling, and reconstructed monastic population estimates, it visualizes the regional systems and sub-systems that structured social, economic, and...

Trends and Disparities in Mental Health and Suicidality by Sexual Orientation Among East Asian Adolescents in Canada, 1998-2023.

Wed, 8 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Purpose

Sexual minority East Asian adolescents face distinct stressors that negatively impact mental health and increase suicidality risk. This study examines trends in mental health and suicidality among East Asian adolescents in Canada, focusing on changes in sexual orientation-based disparities over time.

Methods

We analyzed data from East Asian adolescents in the British Columbia Adolescent Health Survey (1998-2023) including 13,086 boys and 13,812 girls. Age-adjusted logistic regression analyses, stratified by gender, were used to examine 25-year trends in extreme stress, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts by sexual orientation (heterosexual, mostly heterosexual, and lesbian, gay, or bisexual [LGB]).

Results

Positive trends among East Asian adolescents included decreased extreme stress among heterosexual boys and girls, hopelessness among heterosexual boys and mostly heterosexual girls, and suicide attempts among heterosexual and LGB...

Calling Mogadishu: How Reminders of Anarchy Bias Survey Participation

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract How does the fear of anarchy affect telephone survey behaviors? A survey experiment administered to a sample of Mogadishu residents—validated with a natural experiment—is used to assess this question. Randomly assigned reminders of anarchic violence conditioned differential effects on survey participation depending on subjects’ background level of security and welfare. Vulnerable subjects were more likely than non-vulnerable subjects to refuse to provide sensitive survey information after reminders of anarchy.

The development of essentialist beliefs about social status categories in China

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

China has undergone rapid economic changes in recent years, yet little is known about how children in China understand the social status hierarchies around them. The present study addressed this gap by examining whether Chinese children held essentialist beliefs about two social status categories: residency, an important but understudied status-related category in China, and socioeconomic status (SES). We also examined whether children's beliefs about these categories varied with their age or their own social status background (residency, subjective SES). Chinese 5- to 9-year-old children (47 female) who held residency in a prestigious megacity (N = 50) or less prestigious non-megacities (N = 50) completed two tasks that measured whether they viewed residency and SES as biologically based or causally informative, two dimensions of essentialism. Results suggested that children viewed residency but not SES as biologically based, though this decreased with age. Children from megacities...

Parental education disparities in childhood vaccination in Denmark: A test of two explanations for the role of misinformation

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How does misinformation contribute to socioeconomic disparities in childhood vaccine uptake? While prior research has extensively examined the determinants of vaccination at the population-level, less attention has been paid to the mechanisms generating disparities across socioeconomic status (SES) groups. A fundamental cause theory perspective suggests that vaccination disparities driven by misinformation are due to unequal access to resources that enable higher-SES parents to avoid the influence of such misinformation. By contrast, a neoliberal cultural frames of parenting perspective suggests that higher-SES parents, in trying to avoid risks for their child, would be more receptive to inaccurate claims that arise outside the mainstream medical and scientific community. We test hypotheses from these two perspectives using 22 birth cohorts of Danish national health registry data (1990-2011) analyzing uptake of children's first dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR1)...

Unmasking survey fraud: investigating data quality issues in an MTurk sample

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Social scientists increasingly rely on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) for survey participant recruitment, but emerging research suggests a decline in data quality, raising concerns about its reliability. In November 2023, a sample of 221 U.S. MTurk workers was recruited for a survey experiment examining the impact of affordable housing rhetoric on self-esteem. Despite implementing several best practices for recruitment on MTurk – such as system qualifications, screening questions, and virtual private server/network detection – we found that an estimated 65–84% of the workers seeking compensation submitted fraudulent survey responses. This study details five strategies we used to identify fraudulent data: survey re-entry, duplicate demographic data, similar open-ended responses, nonsensical open-ended responses, and repeated geographic coordinates. Our findings reveal critical shortcomings in current MTurk best practices and suggest that, without additional third-party fraud prevention...

Seabirds shaped the expansion of pre-Inca society in Peru.

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This research investigates the influence of seabird guano on agriculture in the Chincha Valley of southern Peru through multi-isotopic, archaeological, and historical data. We conduct stable carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur analyses of 35 late pre-Hispanic maize (Zea mays) cobs and 11 seabirds from archaeological contexts spanning the late Formative period (c. 200 BCE - 150 CE) to the Colonial period (1532-1825 CE). We report the strongest evidence yet for pre-Inca use of marine fertilizers in Chincha. Isotopic and radiocarbon data corroborate colonial-era records and regional avifauna iconography and assemblages, indicating that Indigenous communities fertilized maize with guano by at least 1250 CE. Maize δ15N values are consistent with archaeological studies on guano manuring in Chile, expanding the known geographical extent of this agricultural practice. Maize δ34S values overlap with experimental field data but are not enriched in 34S, possibly reflecting various environmental...

A systematic review investigating policy design and implementation of US state and local policy to restrict the sale of flavored tobacco products

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

INTRODUCTION: State and local jurisdictions in the United States (U.S.) are increasingly adopting flavored tobacco sales restrictions (FTSRs) to mitigate tobacco initiation and use. Policy implementation is highly understudied yet can impact policy effectiveness. This review examines existing literature on state and local FTSR policy design and implementation in the U.S. METHODS: We systematically searched for PubMed articles published by 12/31/2024 which were: original research articles in English focused on a U.S. state or local FTSR that reported at least one policy implementation outcome measure. We excluded articles that were systematic reviews or reported on federal or non-FTSR policy. Guided by policy and implementation science frameworks, we developed a data extraction template to report: policy design elements, study characteristics, and implementation measures (i.e., inputs, activities, outcomes). RESULTS: Of 1,595 articles identified, 30 were retained for review. Most...

Coupling of Rhythms in Prefrontal Cortex and Autonomic Nervous System in School‐Age Children

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Self-regulation is a neuroregulatory process driven by function in both the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Although many investigations have explored the role of these systems in self-regulation independently, little work has examined how they cooperate across contexts, limiting the understanding of neurophysiological substrates of self-regulation. In a sample of 55 children (M_age = 5.85, SD = 0.80), the present study examined the coordination of cardiac and neural signals during rest and a mildly stressful task. Paired-samples t-tests confirmed that the stressor elicited increases in heart rate (HR) and decreases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), while correlations indicated stability in individual differences across phases. Wavelet transform coherence assessed coupling of dlPFC signals with HR and RSA. HR- and RSA-dlPFC coupling was observed in both contexts, but timescales of significant coupling varied across contexts,...

The Role of Capacity-Building Organizations and Environmental Threat in Addressing Air Quality in Highly Polluted Regions

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Involving residents in meaningful participation in heavily polluted regions faces many obstacles. This study focuses on the conditions that enhance individual involvement in civic initiatives against environmental hazards in one of the largest cities in the United States, facing chronic and heightened air pollution exposure. The work is based on a large-scale representative survey of 1950 residents in Fresno, California. The survey was carried out by a multiracial coalition of community-based organizations. The findings suggest that those individuals with ties to capacity-building organizations and with civic engagement experience were the most willing to attend local meetings about air pollution. In addition, days with higher levels of air pollution also acted as an environmental threat, motivating civic action. The study suggests that increasing public participation in pollution mitigation begins with investing in the types of civic organizations that specialize in capacity...

Roles of mathematics-related psychological factors in STEM sense of belonging and identity: a structural equation modeling analysis

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

BackgroundThe progression and retention of students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines are influenced by their performance in calculus courses, particularly among underrepresented minoritized (URM) and first-generation college students. Research stresses the importance of addressing psychosocial factors to bolster resilience, persistence, and positive self-concepts in STEM disciplines. Despite extensive research in this area, understanding of how mathematics-related psychological factors (e.g., math interest, self-concept, and anxiety) shape STEM sense of belonging and STEM identity remains limited. Interest in STEM is recognized as necessary for engaging individuals in STEM learning and careers, while self-concept and anxiety play significant roles in shaping students’ engagement and performance in STEM fields. Taking data from a larger college calculus, reform project, this study utilizes Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test the degree...

Parent Reports Versus Objective Behavioral Measures in Pediatric Sleep‐Disordered Breathing

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Objectives: To determine the association between parent-reported problem behaviors and objectively measured response inhibition in children with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). Understanding this concordance could facilitate better clinical decision-making, as parent reports often guide treatment decisions despite unclear relationships with objective behavioral measures. Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted at a tertiary care pediatric otolaryngology clinic from 1/1/24-12/1/2024. Children aged 5-11 years with SDB symptoms were included, while those with clinically significant psychiatric or neurologic disorders were excluded. Parent-reported problem behaviors were measured using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF), with the inhibit T-score as the primary predictor. The primary outcome was performance on the Flanker Test of Inhibitory Control and Attention, which measures response suppression to irrelevant stimuli while maintaining...

Infraestructuras de imperio: La integración mexicana-estadounidense y el (anti)liberalismo en las crónicas de viajes mexicanas, 1876-1898