Leonard Syme

• University of California, Berkeley

This chapter reviews the more than 100 meta-analyses and systematic reviews of relations between religion/spirituality (R/S) and health that have been published in refereed journals, a far larger number than is generally recognized. The 118 published reviews identified by 2017 were categorized as quantitative meta-analyses (n = 33), qualitative met...

This chapter reviews theories and empirical evidence on relations between religion and spirituality (R/S) and social factors. Religion and spirituality are conceived as evolving over time and residing at both collective and individual levels.

Self-rated health (SRH) is an independent predictor of mortality; studies have investigated correlates of SRH to explain this predictive capability. However, the interplay of a broad array of factors that influence health status may not be adequately captured with parametric multivariate regression. This study investigated associations between seve...

Predictor variables used in analysis - method of assessment in CARDIA questionnaires and variable format.

An understanding of factors influencing health in socioeconomic groups is required to reduce health inequalities. This study investigated combinations of health determinants associated with self-rated health (SRH), and their relative importance, in income-based groups. Cross-sectional data from year 15 (2000 − 2001) of the CARDIA study (Coronary Ar...

Health researchers and practitioners increasingly recognise the important role communities play in shaping individual health. Health researchers recognise the role of community factors as causes or determinants of health problems; use community-based methods for understanding complex health issues; and design community-level health solutions. In th...

Social class gradients have been explored in adults and children, but not extensively during adolescence. The first objective of this study was to examine the association between adolescent risk behaviors and a new indicator of adolescent relative social position, adolescent “perceived social mobility.” Second, it investigated potential underlying...

Poverty, both absolute and relative, is associated with poorer health. This is of particular concern in middle- and low-income countries facing a significant and growing burden of disease. There has been limited research specifically on whether interventions that increase income may foster better health outcomes. The establishment of a “living wage...

Vacations enable people to help one another, spend time together in pleasant contexts, and renew relational resources. Reasoning that these shared activities spread social and psychological benefits through social networks, we hypothesized that increase in the number of vacationing workers engenders nonlinear decline in psychological distress at th...

Objectives: We explored the relationship between social isolation and mortality in a nationally representative US sample and compared the predictive power of social isolation with that of traditional clinical risk factors. Methods: We used data on 16,849 adults from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the National Deat...

Introduction: Educational attainment is a well-established social determinant of health. It affects health through many mechanisms such as neural development, biological aging, health literacy and health behaviors, sense of control and empowerment, and life chances. However, what is it, specifically, about education that affects health? A literatur...

Educational attainment is a well-established social determinant of health. It affects health through many mechanisms such as neural development, biological aging, health literacy and health behaviors, sense of control and empowerment, and life chances. Education-from preschool to beyond college-is also one of the social determinants of health for w...

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The past quarter century has seen an explosion of concern about widening health inequities in the United States and worldwide. These inequities are central to the research mission in 2 arenas of public health: social epidemiology and community-engaged interventions. Yet only modest success has been achieved in eliminating health inequities. We advo...

Studies examining associations between racial discrimination and cardiovascular health outcomes have been inconsistent, with some studies finding the highest risk of hypertension among African Americans who report no discrimination. A potential explanation of the latter is that hypertension and other cardiovascular problems are fostered by internal...

Social risk factors are often less vigorously pursued in clinical assessments of infant risk than are biologic risk factors. We examined the relative importance of early social and biologic risk factors in predicting poor health and educational outcomes in children. The study was composed of all infants born in Winnipeg, Canada, during April-Decemb...

How can we translate the findings from public health research into practice? We are not doing this job very well and we need to rethink our approach so that we can do a better job. The major problem is that we public health professionals have messages to give people, but people have lives to lead, and we have not done well in closing this gap. To d...

This study examines the shape of social class gradients for substance use among Mexican adolescents. Substance use and objective and subjective indicators of social class were assessed in house-to-house surveys conducted with 7614 Mexican adolescents in 2004. The sample was designed to be representative of the poorest urban communities in seven Mex...

Studies of the relationship between work time and health have been inconclusive. Consequently, we sought to examine the effect of work time on progression of atherosclerosis. This prospective study of 621 middle-aged Finnish men evaluated effects of baseline and repeat measures of work time on 11-year progression of ultrasonographically assessed ca...

Although neighborhoods with more collective efficacy have better health in general, recent work suggests that social norms and collective efficacy may in combination influence health behaviors such as smoking. Using data from the New York Social Environment Study (conducted in 2005; n=4000), we examined the separate and combined associations of nei...

Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60344/1/Haan MN, Kaplan GA, Syme SL Socioeconomic Status 1989.pdf

Binge drinking is a substantial and growing health problem. Community norms about drinking and drunkenness may influence individual drinking problems. Using data from the New York Social Environment Study (n = 4,000) conducted in 2005, the authors examined the relation between aspects of the neighborhood drinking culture and individual alcohol use....

Social capital has been shown to be associated with reduced mortality due to cardiovascular disease. Our aim was to determine the association of time-varying community-level social capital (CSC) with recurrence of acute coronary syndrome using a retrospective cohort study design. A total of 34,752 men and women were identified, aged 30-85 years, wh...

It is well known that people in racial and ethnic minority groups and in lower social-class positions have higher morbidity and mortality rates from virtually every disease. To effectively deal with the problem, we will need to adopt a more appropriate conceptual model that focuses on the fundamental determinants of health, we will need to understa...

There is a critical need for effective, large-scale health communication programs to support parents of children aged 0-5 years. We evaluated the effectiveness of the Kit for New Parents, a multimedia health and parenting resource now distributed annually to 500000 parents in California. In this quasi-experimental study, 462 mothers in the interven...

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55355/1/Kaplan GA, Socioeconomic Status and Health, 1987.pdf

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51547/1/Haan MN, Recent Publications on Socioeconomic Status and Health, 1989 (chapter).pdf

The five papers in this issue of the Journal (Bucksch & Schlicht 2006; Kloek et al. 2006; Marki et al. 2006; Peres et al. 2006; Weyers & Kunst 2006) illustrate several important problems that need to be considered in developing programs to prevent disease and promote health. These five papers deal with identifying the determinants of disease and wi...

Public health research and practice is faced with three problems: 1) a focus on disease instead of health, 2) consideration of risk factor/disease relationships one at a time, and 3) attention to individuals with limited regard for the communities in which they live. We propose a framework for health-focused research and practice. This framework en...

Previous studies have documented sex and racial/ethnic disparities in outcomes after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), but the explanation of these disparities remains limited. In a setting that controls for access to medical care, we evaluated whether sex and racial/ethnic disparities in prognosis after AMI persist after consideration of socioeco...

Purpose To investigate relationships between adolescents' current alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use; perceptions of neighborhood disorder; and sense of hope. Design Questionnaires were administered to a nonrandom sample of middle school students during the spring of 1999. Subjects The ethnically and geographically diverse sample (n = 369), from...

This is an account of the early days of research on social determinants as I experienced them. I describe my time as one of four Fellows in a new training program in Medical Sociology at Yale University and how I came to be the first Sociologist employed in the U.S. Public Health Service. I then became the first Executive Secretary of a new Study S...

The etiologic role of biomechanical factors for low back injury (LBI) needs to be confirmed in prospective studies that control for psychosocial factors. Complete baseline information on 1,233 vehicle operators was gathered during medical examinations and by questionnaire. First LBI during 7.5 years of follow-up was ascertained from insurance recor...

Approximately half of all causes of mortality in the United States are linked to behavioral factors such as smoking, diet, alcohol use, sedentary lifestyle and accidents (McGinnis & Foege, 1993). One very promising strategy for promoting health and preventing disease, therefore, is to help people change behaviors that increase disease risk—but help...

Interventions designed to encourage people to change high-risk behavior have not been very successful. This is an important challenge because the number of older people in the population will double within the next 20 to 30 years. The increase will put enormous strain on an already overburdened medical care system. We therefore will need to put mor...

This report, released by the Division of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention within the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, asserts that behavioral and social interventions such as health promotion and disease prevention offer great promise to reduce disease morbidity and mortality in the United States, but as yet their p...

A full understanding of the biology and behavior of humans cannot be complete without the collective contributions of the social sciences, cognitive sciences, and neurosciences. This book collects eighty-two of the foundational articles in the emerging discipline of social neuroscience. The book addresses five main areas of research: multilevel int...

To assess whether alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use in elementary school may have serious implications for continued ATOD use in middle school and beyond. Longitudinal analyses were conducted on questionnaire data from 331 middle school students who had previously provided ATOD-use data during elementary school. Non-school personnel admin...

Implementation of screening guidelines for domestic violence has been challenging. The multifaceted "systems model" may provide an effective means to improve domestic violence screening, identification, and intervention in the healthcare setting. We developed: (1) a systems model approach using tools for effective referral, evaluation, and reportin...

Background: Implementation of screening guidelines for domestic violence has been challenging. The multifaceted “systems model” may provide an effective means to improve domestic violence screening, identification, and intervention in the healthcare setting.Methods: We developed: (1) a systems model approach using tools for effective referral, eval...

One hypothesis in the literature on anger and hypertension is that a chronic tendency to suppress anger is an etiological factor in the development of hypertension. The present study assessed the relationship between anger expression and hypertension in a multicultural sample of 1,407 San Francisco bus drivers. Simple and multiple regression analys...

The environment can be thought of in terms of physical and social dimensions. The social environment includes the groups to which we belong, the neighborhoods in which we live, the organization of our workplaces, and the policies we create to order our lives. There have been recent reports in the literature that the social environment is associated...

Five-year prospective cohort study of 1449 transit operators. To investigate psychosocial job factors as predictors of work-related spinal injuries, controlling for current and past physical workload. The association between psychosocial job factors and spinal disorders may be confounded by physical workload. A 1991 prospective study of Boeing work...

This study evaluated the contributions of lower socioeconomic status (SES) and neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics to neural tube defect etiology. The influence of additional factors, including periconceptional multivitamin use and race/ethnicity, was also explored. Data derived from a case-control study of California pregnancies from 1989 t...

Study Design. Five‐year prospective cohort study of 1449 transit operators. Objectives. To investigate psychosocial job factors as predictors of work‐related spinal injuries, controlling for current and past physical workload. Summary of Background Data. The association between psychosocial job factors and spinal disorders may be confounded by phys...

It is now well established that inequalities in income lead to high morbidity and mortality rates. Certain explanations for this phenomenon are explored: (1) Instead of income inequalities causing disease, the inequalities are determined by powerful cultural forces. (2) The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. (3) Wealthier people can buy the m...

With the rapid rise in health care costs, it has become imperative that departments of health services find effective and affordable ways to prevent disease and promote health. During the past 20 years, most of the major educational interventions in the US designed to prevent disease by changing behavior have not been as successful as expected. At...

In this article, as part of an evaluation of the future of medical education in California, we characterize the distribution of disease and injury in California; identify major factors that affect the epidemiology of disease and injury in California, and project the burden of disease and injury for California's population to the year 2007. Our goal...

It is now well established that inequalities in income lead to high morbidity and mortality rates. Certain explanations for this phenomenon are explored: (1) Instead of income inequalities causing disease, the inequalities are determined by powerful cultural forces. (2) The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. (2) Wealthier people can buy the m...

Eighty-one observational work analyses were conducted to measure stressors independently of worker appraisal in the San Francisco transit system. On the basis of action regulation theory, stress factors were defined as hindrances for task performance due to poor work organization or technological design. Stressors included (a) work barriers, define...

This cross-sectional study examined associations between psychosocial job factors and the prevalence of nondisabling back and neck pain in professional drivers after physical work load was taken into account. A total of 1449 transit vehicle operators completed a medical examination and a questionnaire yielding information on demographic and anthrop...

The present study assessed the relationship between anger expression and health outcomes in a sample of 1,407 San Francisco bus drivers. When controlling for a variety of health-risk factors, the results of multiple logistic regression analyses revealed significant positive associations between high levels of suppressed as well as expressed anger a...

To investigate the relationship between self reported health status and sickness absence. Analysis of questionnaire and sickness absence data from the first phase of the Whitehall II study--a longitudinal study set up to investigate the degree and causes of the social gradient in morbidity and mortality. London offices of 20 civil service departmen...

Socioeconomic status (SES) is consistently associated with health outcomes, yet little is known about the psychosocial and behavioral mechanisms that might explain this association. Researchers usually control for SES rather than examine it. When it is studied, only effects of lower, poverty-level SES are generally examined. However, there is evide...

Socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with risk of disease and mortality. Universal health insurance is being debated as one remedy for such health inequalities. This article considers mechanisms through which SES affects health and argues that a broader and more comprehensive approach is needed. Published articles surveyed using MEDLIN...

Objective. —Socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with risk of disease and mortality. Universal health insurance is being debated as one remedy for such health inequalities. This article considers mechanisms through which SES affects health and argues that a broader and more comprehensive approach is needed.Data Sources. —Published ar...

To describe and explain the socioeconomic gradient in sickness absence. Analysis of questionnaire and sickness absence data collected from the first phase of the Whitehall II study. Grade of employment was used as a measure of socioeconomic status. 20 civil service departments in London. 6900 male and 3414 female civil servants aged 35-55 years. Ra...

The link between blood pressure measured at juvenile ages (3-18 years) and subsequent adult ages (30 and 50 years) was investigated in a community-based longitudinal study conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1928 to the present. The original sample of 550 persons decreased 61 percent by age 50 years, leaving only 211 persons in the cohort....

In this study we tested the association between occupational stress--as measured by job demands, decision latitude, and job strain--and hypertension in a population of 1396 Black and White bus drivers. Height, weight, blood pressure, and medical history were assessed by physical exam. Drivers completed a questionnaire assessing their work schedules...

An inverse association between socioeconomic status, as measured by years of education, and blood pressure has been reported in a number of studies. However, two secular trends may have changed the nature of this relation: a higher mean level of education in the population and intervention for high blood pressure in the community. Given that educat...

This paper describes how community participation came to play a central role in developing the Wellness Guide Project, a major new health promotion initiative of the State of California. The Guide itself was to be a simple document that would give information on how to stay well and where to find help on health-related topics. It was to be sensitiv...

Despite public health efforts, the prevalence of smoking among African Americans remains high. The determinants of smoking behavior in this population must be elucidated so that interventions can be better targeted and more effective. As part of a prospective community intervention trial to reduce cancer mortality, we conducted a random household s...

Previous studies of Mexican Americans have shown mean diastolic and systolic blood pressures and prevalence rates of hypertension which are either lower than or similar to those for non-Hispanic whites despite the predominance of obesity in Mexican Americans. However, those results are based on restricted samples from California and Texas. Using da...

Studies of the association between type A behavior and coronary heart disease have yielded inconsistent findings. A possible explanation for these inconsistent findings is that type A behavior is simply a marker for other behaviors that are truly related to coronary heart disease. Hostility is one such behavior that has been found in several recent...

A number of studies have suggested a small to moderate positive relation between blood pressure and blood lead concentration in males (2-4 mmHg/In(microgram/dl]. However, this 1986 study of San Francisco bus drivers suggests larger relations in black males (n = 132) for both systolic pressure (7.5 mmHg/In(microgram/dl] and diastolic pressure (4.7 m...

This paper reports the results of a cross-sectional study conducted to evaluate the prevalence of hypertension in 1500 black and white male bus drivers from a large urban transit system in the US. Data for this study were compiled from the files of an occupational health clinic which conducts biennial medical examinations for drivers' licence renew...

This study examines the extent to which a set of 10 demographic, behavioral, and medical risk factors explain black/white differences in hypertension. Data are from a cross-sectional examination of San Francisco transit drivers aged 25-65 years surveyed during 1983-1985 as part of an occupational health study. The inherent restriction of the study...

Type A/B behavior has been studied extensively as a risk factor for coronary heart disease. This study tests the hypothesis that Type A/B behavior is associated with ill health in general. All-cause mortality was examined in the original cohort of 3,154 men aged 39-59 years at baseline in the Western Collaborative Group Study in 1960-1961. Morbidit...

The association between an a priori measure of social connections and five-year mortality from all causes, cardiovascular diseases (International Classification of Diseases, Eighth Revision (ICD-8) codes 390-458), and ischemic heart disease (ICD-8 codes 410-414) was studied in 13,301 men and women from eastern Finland who were first interviewed in...

San Francisco bus drivers have an increased prevalence of hypertension. This study examined relationships between blood lead concentration and blood pressure in 342 drivers. The analysis reported in this study was limited to subjects not on treatment for hypertension (n = 288). Systolic and diastolic pressures varied from 102 to 173 mm Hg and from...

In an extensive search of available literature, 22 epidemiological studies that have examined health risks of bus drivers were identified. These studies focus on three main disease categories: (1) cardiovascular disease, including hypertension, (2) gastrointestinal illnesses, including peptic ulcer and digestive problems, and (3) musculoskeletal pr...

This paper presents an analysis of self-reported stressors and blood pressure in a population of 1,428 San Francisco bus drivers surveyed from 1983 to 1985 as part of an occupational health study. To test the hypothesis of a positive association between psychosocial stressors and hypertension, the authors derived a stressor index from a survey inst...

A major theme in virtually all of Bertil Gardell's work is that the social and work environment affects health and well-being. This concern with the social environment has been a major influence in the development of a new area of research referred to as social epidemiology. In this area of work, difficulties are increasingly being recognized in id...

Improvement in blood pressure control in a low income, minority community was attempted by adding a counseling approach to physician care. Nurse practitioners and community health workers were assigned to each study participant based on their personal and situational characteristics. Individuals were followed for 2 years. At the end, the control ra...

This paper reports the results of a cross-sectional study conducted to evaluate the prevalence of hypertension in 1500 black and white male bus drivers from a large urban transit system in the US. Data for this study were compiled from the files of an occupational health clinic which conducts biennial medical examinations for drivers' license renew...

A key element in most efforts to prevent disease and promote health is behavioral change to lower risk. One-to-one programs to help people change their behavior are seriously limited because of the difficulty people have in making behavioral changes and because one-to-one programs do little to modify those forces in the community that continually p...

During the last 30 years, an impressive amount of research has been done to better understand the causes of heart disease, and in particular, ischemic heart disease. Unique to this program of research has been the effort to study psychological and social factors as they affect the incidence of this disease. To date, the strongest evidence regarding...

nand urbanization: the dirt, dilapidation, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions of industrial cities. It is our view that the uncritical continuation and extension of these policies as priorities for twentieth century problems is inappropriate be­ cause these policies do not take into account new information. First, sani­ tary programs in the ni...

A total of 2437 Japanese American men living in Hawaii were given the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) and classified as either type A or type B. Only 18% of the sample scored in the type A direction, a much lower percentage than usually found among white American males. There was a slightly higher prevalence of CHD among type A Japanese Americans tha...

The relationship between social and community ties and mortality was assessed using the 1965 Human Population Laboratory survey of a random sample of 6928 adults in Alameda County, California and a subsequent nine-year mortality follow-up. The findings show that people who lacked social and community ties were more likely to die in the follow-up pe...

The relationship between social and community ties and mortality was assessed using the 1965 Human Population Laboratory survey of a random sample of 6928 adults in Alameda County, California and a subsequent nine-year mortality follow-up. The findings show that people who lacked social and community ties were more likely to die in the follow-up pe...