Chronic conditions in children increase the risk for physical abuse – but vary with socio‐economic circumstances

Aim: To explore whether children (age 10, 12 and 15 years) with self‐reported chronic conditions are at higher risk of physical abuse and/or exposure to intimate‐partner violence than other children, while considering the importance of demographic factors. Methods: A national cross‐sectional study of 2771 pupils in grades 4, 6 and 9 from 44 schools in Sweden (91% response rate). Conflict Tactic Scales were used to measure physical abuse and separate questions measured exposure to intimate‐partner violence. A list of 13 diagnoses was used to estimate chronic conditions. Results: Children with chronic conditions had an increased risk for physical abuse (CPA) only (OR 1.67) as well as in combination with exposure to intimate‐partner violence (IPV) (OR 2.54), but not to IPV only, compared to children without chronic conditions. Furthermore, when chronic conditions were combined with country of birth other than Sweden and living in low‐income areas, the risk for CPA increased even more, indicating interactive effects. Conclusions: A wide range of chronic health conditions in children increased the risk for physical abuse. This indicates that certain factors unite this group of children, irrespective of the type of disability or degree of severity, but where a combination with socio‐economic circumstances is of importance.     

Cumulative blood-cadmium and tubular proteinuria: a dose-response relationship

Summary Biological monitoring, i.e. using individual measures of exposure such as cadmium in blood, is supposed to reflect the real dose better than the more commonly used external measures such as air-cadmium. In order to investigate this, cumulative cadmium doses were estimated individually for 440 workers in a battery factory. Cumulative air-cadmium dose as well as two different cumulative blood-cadmium doses were computed for each study individual. Forty workers had evidence of tubular proteinuria and a clear dose-response relationship was found for each of the dose estimates. Our results suggest that cumulative blood-cadmium is a more sensitive indicator of cadmium-induced renal dysfunction than cumulative air-cadmium.This work was carried out at the Department of Environmental Hygiene, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm     

The development of reactive saccade latencies

Saccadic reaction time (SRT) of 4-, 6- and 8-month-old infants' was measured during tracking of abruptly changing trajectories, using a longitudinal design. SRTs decreased from 595 ms (SE=30) at 4 months of age to 442 ms (SE=13) at 8 months of age. In addition, SRTs were lower during high velocities (comparing 4.5 and 9 degrees/s) and vertical (compared to horizontal) saccades.