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In New Zealand, cardiovascular disease is higher among Maori and Pacific peoples than other ethnic group. Researchers in Cardiology documented that CVD begins early in a person’s life and that a person's risk of cardiovascular disease is determined by risk factors that contribute to a form of CVD over time. This thesis, “The Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Adolescents of Christchurch: A Cross-Sectional Survey (CRFAC)”, is the first of its kind in the South Island, and was designed to estimate the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease for adolescent high school students in New Zealand. The aims of the study were to determine cardiovascular risk factor levels between, Pacific, Asian, Maori, and European students, with the Pacific communities including (Samoan, Cook Islands, Tongan, and Niuean). The CRFAC was a school-based cross-sectional survey of 1051 adolescent students, across nine Christchurch High Schools. The study specifically aimed to determine ethnic-specific differences in lifestyle and intermediate variables that have been established as cardiovascular risks. Variables included: smoking, alcohol consumption, leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), television exposure, and sun exposure, and body mass index (BMI). Demographic variables analyzed included: form (level of education), gender, ethnic group, and socioeconomic status. In regards to smoking and alcohol consumption, Maori had the highest rates overall 77% and 88%, respectfully. As for LTPA, the type of activity that was participated in varied between sex and ethnicity. For instance, netball was played predominately more for females than males, and rugby was played more so by European/Pakehas than compared to Asians. Maori and Pacific also had a higher proportion 43.4% and 33.7%, respectively, who watched TV four or more hours per week day on average compared to the other ethnicities. Sun exposure varied strongly with ethnicity, with Asian students having a smaller proportion 20.1% in the high daily sun exposure category compared with Maori 40.8 % daily (p< 0.001). The CRFAC study results showed that demographic variables were associated with the intermediate variables: lifestyle and BMI. The findings showed that there were substantive ethnic variations between the four main ethnic groups (Pacific, Maori, Asian and European) in risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The CRFAC study was able to identify contributing factors, for which gave the investigator clarity to possible reasons for ethnic differences in BMI. The CRFAC study results showed that Pacific participants had the highest BMI levels of all the ethnic groups, followed by Maori.

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Alcohol is a recognized cause of over 60 injuries and diseases and is consistently in the top 5 most important risk factors for global burden of disease. It is important to be able to measure how drinking alcohol affects our health, and how our risk of getting injured or acquiring diseases caused by alcohol is dependent on how much alcohol we drink. This type of information allows us to make personal choices about our health and is an integral piece of public health evidence to inform how alcohol policy is informed, implemented, or monitored. This analysis will, for the first time, model the effects of alcohol for injury outcomes over the entire drinking lifetime for men and women separately using a new method that aims to improve upon existing calculations by accounting for different patterns of drinking – both acute consumption and average daily drinking. In both cases, both the amount consumed and the number of times it is consumed is taken into account. Within acute consumption, the number of occasions and the amount ii consumed at each occasion was counted. What’s more, for the first time in this field, a lifetime approach was adopted – risks will no longer be seen as discrete, individual events that occur independently of each other. In this study, risks are combined much like other exposures to environmental substances or contaminants – in a cumulative manner over a lifetime of drinking. The method combines data sources from experimental data, from meta-analyses, Canadian mortality and hospital data, and survey data, making this a rich, yet complicated analysis. Its products were dose-response risk curves for each injury outcome, by sex, and age group, and alcohol-attributable fractions and their variance estimation for mortality and morbidity for injury. This study has important implications for forming and planning health policy, represents advancements in absolute risk calculation, and will result in important consumer-level information that will enable development of limits around healthy drinking.

The present study examined the relationship between life event stress, illness and alcohol use as a function of one's social support level and personality, while taking into account the "contamination" of past life event research and the potential differential response to life event stress (i.e., depression, psychosomatic disorders and alcohol use). Three hundred and three university undergraduate students voluntarily completed an extensive questionnaire. In addition to demographics and life event stress, predictor variables measured were: social support, including loneliness; anxiety, rationality, and self concept. Outcome measures included depression, psychosomatic disorders, and alcohol use. According to the study results, life event stress was observed to be associated with mental and physical illness but was found to be unrelated to alcohol use. The "contaminated" events seemed to account for the stress-illness relationship. Uncontaminated life stressors did not interact with social support or personality variables to predict any of the outcome measures. Further, according to canonical correlation analysis, the predictor canonical variables related similarly, not differentially, to the outcome canonical variables. Life event stress did not seem to predict different outcomes among different people. It was concluded that little, if any, relationship exists between life stress and mental or physical illness, nor does this study provide support for a relationship between life event stress and alcohol use. These findings were suggested to be as a result of methodological problems. In the future, there is a need to reconceptualize stress and measure it differently, including utilizing longitudinal designs.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how some college students become alcohol abusers and how, if at all, colleges can reduce such behavior. I will begin with a brief overview of the positive and negative economic impacts of alcohol consumption in the United States. Underage drinking is responsible for a significant portion of the negative impact, so the remainder of this thesis will focus on the negative role that alcohol plays during one of the most transformative times in young adults' lives: college. I will provide a review of the research that examines various risk factors for alcohol abuse in the college setting, the alcohol-related negative consequences, and an examination of explanations for why students consume alcohol. I will conclude with examples of three different actions that university administrators can take to reduce alcohol abuse.

Three nickel based catalysts were prepared by the impregnation method (Ni/Al2O3 and Ni/SiO2) and co-precipitation method (Ni/ZnO). The catalysts were characterized by XRD, ICP-OES, BET-surface area and pore volume, SEM, TEM, TPR, NH3-TPD and in-situ XRD reduction. The catalytic activity of the catalysts in the liquid phase hydrogenation of octanal was studied at 110 °C and 50 bar. The effect of water as a co-feed on the catalytic activity of the catalysts was also investigated. Generally, all the catalysts were crystalline materials. The Ni/Al2O3 and Ni/ZnO catalysts contained NiO species that were “hard” to reduce, whereas the Ni/SiO2 catalyst was the easiest to reduce, according to the TPR and in-situ XRD reduction studies. The total acidity (μmol NH3/gcatal.) of the catalysts decreased in the following sequence: Ni/Al2O3 > Ni/ZnO > Ni/SiO2. The Ni/SiO2 and Ni/ZnO catalysts had intermediate and strong acidic sites, respectively, while the Ni/Al2O3 catalyst had weak-intermediate and strong acidic sites. The BET-surface area and pore volume of the catalysts decreased in the following order: Ni/Al2O3 > Ni/SiO2 > Ni/ZnO. The conversion of octanal for all the catalysts was ca. 90 %. The Ni/SiO2 and Ni/ZnO catalysts had octanol selectivities of over 99 % and the Ni/Al2O3 catalyst had 95 % octanol selectivity. The alumina support was observed to catalyze the formation of heavy products (C24 acetal, dioctyl ether and 2-hexyl-1-decanol). The water present in the feed poisoned the alumina sites that were responsible for the formation of heavy products thereby, making the catalyst more selective (> 99 %) to octanol. For the Ni/SiO2 catalyst the presence of water in the feed caused the octanal conversion to decrease with time-on-stream. The deactivation of the Ni/SiO2 catalyst, when water was used as a co-feed, was caused by the mechanical failure of the catalyst and also by the leaching of nickel metal during the reaction. / Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

Epidemiologic studies have found that approximately one third of individuals will experience either alcohol abuse or dependence during their lifetime. However, only a minority will seek help or perceive a need for help. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a longitudinal investigation of the predictors of new onset perceived need for care and help-seeking in individuals with a lifetime alcohol use disorder who have no prior history of perceived need or help-seeking. Methods: Data were drawn from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; n=34,653), a 3-year longitudinal nationally representative survey of the United States population. Results: Respondents with an incidence of perceived need and help-seeking were more likely to be male, younger, less educated, and black. Those who sought help and perceived a need for help were more likely to have a concurrent Axis I or II disorder after controlling for sociodemographic differences and social, legal, economic problems. They also had very high odds of having a persistent alcohol use disorder (OR=4.68) and experiencing social or legal problems related to their alcohol use after controlling for sociodemographics and psychiatric comorbidity (AOR’s from 5.59-38.42). Conclusion: Individuals with a history of having no perceived need for care or help-seeking may represent a unique group among those with an alcohol use disorder. Psychiatric comorbidity and social or legal problems related to alcohol use were both independent predictors of perceived need and help-seeking.

This study uses a phenomenological methodology to understand Japanese women, living in Tohoku region, Japan, who have the experience of alcohol dependency and recovery. Moreover, the purpose of the study was to understand what would be the most effective ways if supporting women in rural communities. Six women were interviewed to obtain the meanings they attach to recovery. Nine themes emerged. It was found that the women had common turning points prior to beginning their recovery, and had adopted various changes in their process of recovery. For all women in the study, the essential meaning of recovery was to live and to live fully. Recommendations are presented regarding the advocacy required to create the conditions necessary for women to live fully. This involves greater education of the community at large about alcohol dependency and the creation of supportive environments for individuals in recovery and their families.

Injuries are a serious public health concern and identifying risk factors for injury is a research priority. Previous research consistently supports the link between alcohol and risk of injury and between mental health and alcohol use. There is also some research to indicate an association between mental health and risk of injury. Given the nature of these independent relationships, examining how these variables are inter-related could have significant implications for injury prevention and informing public health policies. There is however, a dearth of research examining how mental health and alcohol interact and contribute to injury risk. The present study examines the independent and shared contributions of mental health and alcohol to injury. Furthermore, gender differences in these relationships are examined. The results indicate both alcohol use and mental health are significantly associated with increased risk of injury. Moreover, a synergistic effect between alcohol and mental health on injury is found among women. The implications for these results in practice and policy are discussed. / Graduate / 0622 / aroemer@uvic.ca