No abstract

Analysis of British National Child Development Study data corroborates the long held views that first born children tend to get more medical surveillance than those of later birth order, and that there is a direct relationship between achieved family size and social status.

SUMMARYThe relation between biosocial factors and childhood asthma in a British national sample (n = > 14 000) is examined. The presence of asthma was found to associate with sex of the child, parental age and occupation, housing type, and overcrowding as well as eczema and some infectious diseases. Discriminant analysis showed that it was possible to differentiate between asthmatics and non-asthmatics due mainly to allergy related factors. This report uses data collected when the children were in their seventh year to examine the relation between asthma and potentially relevant social, educational, and health related variables. MethodsThe health visitors asked mothers of children aged 7 years, "Has your child ever had attacks of asthma?" If the answer was 'yes' mothers were then asked about the frequency and severity of the attacks. The latter were categorised as mild, moderate, and severe.' The variables possibly relevant to the epidemiology of asthma in the first three NCDS restudies were selected for analysis. The computer files storing data collected in 1965 were analysed by SPSS Crosstabs programs to determine the relation of frequency of occurrence of asthma to many other variables. The program yielded information on x2, percentages, and levels of significance. Other analyses involved the use of larger numbers of variables to search among the particular categories for the associations that contributed most significantly to asthma occurrence. Discriminant function analyses were also applied to study the difference between asthmatics and non-asthmatics in respect of a large number of variables appropriately weighted and examined simultaneously. General findingsIn 1964, 3.1%, of the total cohort had been reported as suffering from (or having suffered from) asthma. Of the 430 cases, 25 had severe asthma, 368 had had 152

Detroit, MichiganITH the onset of mass migrations to the United States from Eastern W Europe in the 1890's consternation was shown in some quarters concerning the rapid modification of American stock. With a view to collecting data concerning the physical characteristics of the new Americans, the Immigration Commission in 1908 asked Franz Boas to compare the measurements of recent immigrants and their children with those of older established Americans. The goal of the study was to determine whether one could observe any "assimilation of the immigrants . . . as far as the form of the body is concerned" (Boas 191 la: 141). The results of this study were published in 1911 and pointed to considerable differences between the measurements of immigrants and those of their children born in the United States. These differences were greater than those found between the immigrants and those of their children who were born abroad. The findings gave a new stimulus to the study of environmental effects on physical characteristics and on the process of human growth. Since then, many investigations have been made in this general field of inquiry by physical anthropologists and also by physicians and physiologists. Their common endeavor might be described as the attempt to discover just how the plasticity of the human organism reacts to differences and changes in environment. Bowles' (1932) direct comparison of Harvrtrd fathers and sons in a situation where migration was not involved gave added impetus to this effort. Although much of the excitement and debate which followed the preliminary investigations of this problem have waned, the postgenetic mechanisms which mold man's physique are still imperfectly understood. That the human organism is plastic, however, has been amply demonstrated; and a number of hypotheses have been advanced to explain this observation. It is our purpose to reexamine these hypotheses in the light of the findings.A cursory examination of the literature in nonanthropological fields shows that, long before Boas' studies, other biological disciplines had recognized the plasticity of organisms as a phenomenon that must be accounted for. At that time, however, physical anthropologists were not primarily concerned with dynamic aspects of racial development, but rather with outlining man's biological history and the delineation of the several "races." While ornithologists, animal geographers and other naturalistspvere discovering that members of the same species showed marked physical differences in varying climatic areas and under the influence of diverse environments (Allen 1905), anthropologists were busy enumerating the "stable" physical differentiae of racial and subracial groupings. Since the germ-plasm concepts of Weismann and his followers were early accepted, physical anthropological research continued on the as- 780

Participants in a longitudinal cohort study (the National Child Development Study) were asked, at the age of 23, about their smoking habits and asthmatic experiences since 16 years of age. Of the total sample (n = 8860) 10.8% reported smoking cigarettes, and the percentages were very similar in the two sexes although males tended to be heavier smokers. There was an association between asthma and smoking; more than expected of those reported as having asthma at any age had smoked, and of those with asthma since 16 years of age more reported smoking than expected by chance. In addition, all who report asthma at any time since the age of 16 are overrepresented among those who report current smoking (p < 0.001). Those reporting asthma since 16 are more likely to be living with others who smoke, and their spouses or partners were more likely to be heavy smokers (30+ cigarettes per day). In addition, in more than the expected number of homes where asthmatics live, there are others who smoke (p < 0.003).