Good Bodies
Scientific Hegemony and the Field of Autism
Claire Laurier Decoteau & Meghan Daniel
American Sociological Review, June 2020, Pages 451-476
Abstract:
Autism is one of the twenty-first century’s most contested illnesses. Early controversies around vaccine harm have irrevocably structured the field of autism science. Despite incredible investment in genetic research on autism over the past 30 years, scientists have failed to identify a set of “genes for” autism, and genomic causality has become more complex. Yet, orthodox genetic explanations for autism have retained dominance over a vociferous field of heterodox experts pointing to a series of environmental insults (vaccines, heavy metal exposure, overuse of antibiotics, toxic pollution) as the main causes of autism. To make sense of this puzzling trend, we develop a novel theoretical synthesis combining a Bourdieusian field analysis with a Gramscian conception of hegemony, centered around the concept of “subsumptive orthodoxy.” Analyzing multiple years of archival data from the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, we argue that when faced with heterodox challenges, dominant members of the field shore up hegemony by incorporating environmental causal factors into the genome, thus engaging in subsumptive orthodoxy. This move gives rhetorical space to environmental explanations without providing them substantive causal weight, which renders particular environmental causes (like vaccines) impossible. This article traces the strategies dominant members of the field use to retain control over the definition and etiology of autism. We develop the broader implications of the study within autism science and beyond.
Who’s to Blame? Partisanship, Responsibility, and Support for Mental Health Treatment
Christin Munsch, Liberty Barnes & Zachary Kline
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, May 2020
Abstract:
This article investigates partisan beliefs regarding attributions of responsibility for mental illness and support for mental health treatment. In study 1, we utilize a nationally representative data set to investigate these relationships with respect to generalized anxiety disorder. In study 2, we utilize an online convenience sample to assess these relationships in the context of schizophrenia. In both studies, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to attribute mental health disorders to factors that lie within patients’ control and were less supportive of healthcare coverage. In addition, given the rhetorical, erroneous link between schizophrenia and gun violence, we assess participants’ beliefs about gun control in the context of mental health. Paradoxically, we find that people who support gun rights for the mentally ill are the least likely to support healthcare coverage for the mentally ill. We discuss the implications of our findings for shaping U.S. gun debates.
State Gun Control Laws, Gun Ownership and the Supply of Homicide Organ Donors
Firat Bilgel
International Review of Law and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The likelihood of being a potential deceased organ donor is higher for individuals who have been exposed to situations typically characterized by a severe head trauma or stroke that result in brain death. Employing count data models that account for overdispersion and/or excessive counts of zeros, this paper assesses the unintended consequences of enforcing stricter gun control laws and the effects of gun ownership on homicide organ donor supply in the United States using county data for the period 2009–2015. The findings confirm the transplantation paradox hypothesis that stricter gun control laws reduce the expected cases of gun homicides and thereby reduce deceased organ donor supply and exacerbate the organ shortage. The findings are robust to several measures of the strength of gun control laws, restricted samples and spurious outcome variables. However, the direction of the impact of gun ownership levels on homicide organ donor supply proved to be inconclusive.
Not Only in My Genes: The Effects of Peers’ Genotype on Obesity
Giorgio Brunello, AnnaSanz-de-Galdeano & Anastasia Terskaya
Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We use data from three waves of Add Health to study the short- and long-run effects of high school peers’ genetic predisposition to high BMI — measured by grade-mates’ average BMI polygenic scores — on adolescent and adult obesity in the U.S. We find that, in the short-run, a one standard deviation increase in peers’ average BMI polygenic scores raises the probability of obesity for females by 2.8 percentage points, about half the size of the effect induced by a one standard deviation increase in one's own polygenic score. No significant effect is found for males. In the long-run, however, the social-genetic effect fades away, while the effect of one's own genetic risk for BMI increases substantially. We suggest that mechanisms explaining the short-run effect for females include changes in nutrition habits and a distorted perception of body size.
Does Proximity to Fast Food Cause Childhood Obesity? Evidence from Public Housing
Jeehee Han, Amy Ellen Schwartz & Brian Elbel
Regional Science and Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the causal link between proximity to fast food and the incidence of childhood obesity among low-income households in New York City. Using individual-level longitudinal data on students living in public housing linked to restaurant location data, we exploit the naturally occurring within-development variation in distance to fast food restaurants to estimate the impact of proximity on obesity. Since the assignment of households to specific buildings is based upon availability at the time of assignment to public housing, the distance between student residence and retail outlets — including fast food restaurants, wait-service restaurants, supermarkets, and corner stores — is plausibly random. Our credibly causal estimates suggest that childhood obesity increases with proximity to fast food, with larger effects for younger children who attend neighborhood schools.
Recency negativity: Newer food crops are evaluated less favorably
Yoel Inbar, Jordan Phelps & Paul Rozin
Appetite, forthcoming
Abstract:
Food crops produced by new technologies such as genetic engineering are widely opposed (Gaskell, Bauer, Durant, & Allum, 1999; Scott, Inbar, Wirz, Brossard, & Rozin, 2018). Here, we examine one reason for this opposition: recency. More recently-developed crops are evaluated less favorably, whether they are produced by artificial selection (i.e., conventional breeding), natural or man-made irradiation, or genetic engineering. Negative effects of recency persist in a within-subjects design where people are able to explicitly compare crops developed at different times, and an internal meta-analysis shows that the negative effect of recency is robust across measures and stimuli. These results have implications for the evaluation of crops produced using new modification techniques, including the widespread opposition to genetic engineering.
Social Class, Diagnoses of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Child Well-Being
Jayanti Owens
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, June 2020, Pages 134-152
Abstract:
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorder among U.S. children. Diagnosis can bring positives, like proper treatment, extra testing time, and social support, but may also trigger negatives, like stigmatization. Although rates of diagnosis are high across socioeconomic status (SES) groups, the balance of positive and negative consequences of diagnosis may differ by SES. In high-SES communities, mental health diagnoses are less stigmatized and parents have greater ability to connect children to support resources, suggesting greater positive effects of diagnosis for high-SES children. Alternatively, the greater academic pressure present in high-SES communities may amplify the negative effects of mental health stigma, suggesting larger negative diagnostic effects. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort of 1998–1999, I found that diagnosed and medicated high-SES but not low-SES children exhibit significantly poorer future self-competence and teacher-rated school behaviors than undiagnosed matches. Findings suggest that diagnosis may not always be a net positive.
The influence of cultural attitudes to nut exposure on reported nut allergy: A pilot cross sectional study
Lilahom Ben Kayale et al.
PLoS ONE, June 2020
Abstract:
Food allergies in children have become a common management and diagnostic concern and have a significant influence on general health-related quality of life. We investigated the prevalence of reported nut allergy between populations with different cultural attitudes to nuts during pregnancy and infancy. We conducted a survey to investigate the relationship between cultural differences in the consumption of nuts during pregnancy, breastfeeding and exposure to nuts in early childhood against the reported prevalence of nut allergy between three populations: Libyan, UK Libyan and a general UK population. The survey was administered to a representative sample of UK and Libyan parents with children aged between 3 and 16 years who were asked to report prevalence of nut allergy and to describe the factors that might affect this such as cultural behaviours and diet. A total of 1,123 parents responded. Nut allergy was defined as an allergic reaction that required medical treatment. The reported rates of nut allergy showed a significant difference in nut allergy between the Libyan populations and the general UK population with an increased odds ratio of nut allergy of ~10 when comparing the Native Libyan population to the UK population. The UK Libyan population reported the same low rate of allergic reactions as the Libyan population which were both significantly lower than the UK population (p < .0001). The Libyan populations showed significant differences from the UK population in exposure to nuts during pregnancy, breastfeeding and early infancy. The development of peanut and almond allergy through tolerance induction could be prevented by frequent and early ingestion of a moderate quantity of nuts during infancy and by maternal ingestion during pregnancy or lactation.
The Impact of BMI on Mental Health: Further Evidence from Genetic Markers
Vikesh Amin, Carlos Flores & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes
Economics & Human Biology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We estimate the effect of BMI on mental health for young adults and elderly individuals using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the Health & Retirement Study. To tackle confounding due to unobserved factors, we exploit variation in a polygenic score (PGS) for BMI within two related econometric methods that differ in the assumptions they employ. First, we use the BMI PGS as an IV and adjust for PGSs for other factors (depression and educational attainment) that may invalidate this IV. We find a large statistically significant effect of BMI on mental health for the elderly: a 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI (a difference equivalent to moving from overweight to obese) increases the probability of depression by 29%. In contrast, for young adults the IV estimates are statistically and economically insignificant. We show that IV estimates likely have to be interpreted as identifying a weighted average of effects of BMI on mental health mostly for compliers on the upper quantiles of the BMI distribution. Second, we use the BMI PGS as an “imperfect” IV and estimate an upper bound on the average treatment effect for the population. The estimated upper bounds are consistent with the conclusions from the IV estimates.
Impact Of The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act On Obesity Trends
Erica Kenney et al.
Health Affairs, July 2020, Pages 1122-1129
Abstract:
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 strengthened nutrition standards for meals and beverages provided through the National School Lunch, Breakfast, and Smart Snacks Programs, affecting fifty million children daily at 99,000 schools. The legislation’s impact on childhood obesity is unknown. We tested whether the legislation was associated with reductions in child obesity risk over time using an interrupted time series design for 2003–18 among 173,013 youth in the National Survey of Children’s Health. We found no significant association between the legislation and childhood obesity trends overall. For children in poverty, however, the risk of obesity declined substantially each year after the act’s implementation, translating to a 47 percent reduction in obesity prevalence in 2018 from what would have been expected without the legislation. These results suggest that the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act’s science-based nutritional standards should be maintained to support healthy growth, especially among children living in poverty.