Numeracy

BACKGROUND: The number of older people with cognitive impairment is increasing worldwide. Impaired lung function might be associated with cognitive decline in older age; however, results from large longitudinal studies are lacking. In this study, we examined the longitudinal associations between pulmonary function and the trajectories of cognitive decline using prospective population-based SHARE data from 14 countries. METHODS: The analytic sample included N = 32,049 older adults (Mean age at baseline = 64...

BACKGROUND: Few studies have examined whether the effect of education on pregnancy and childbearing is due to the academic skills acquired or the social environment that schooling provides. This paper explores whether adolescent girls' learning skills, school enrollment, grade attainment, and friendships affect risk of pregnancy, and whether friendships mediate the relationship between education and pregnancy. METHODS: We draw on three waves of longitudinal data on adolescent girls aged 11-15 in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya between years 2015-2019...

BACKGROUND: Accurate information on age is an essential prerequisite for demographic and epidemiological studies. This study analyzed the age data quality among the literate and illiterate (combined, rural, urban) population and examined the association between data quality and literacy. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Secondary data on age statistics and literacy were obtained from census 2011. We measured age data quality for literates and illiterates (combined, rural, urban) by transforming Whipple's index known as ABCC, abbreviated based on surnames of the developers A'Hearn, Baten, and Crayen (2009)...

BACKGROUND: This study addresses a critical knowledge gap by exploring the intricate relationship between low birth weight (LBW) and the heightened risk of suboptimal academic achievement during adolescence through a comprehensive retrospective cohort design. METHODS: In this registry-based cohort study, meticulously linked health and curriculum-based test data for individuals born in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, between 2003 and 2005 were employed. Birth weight data were carefully sourced from the NSW perinatal data collection (PDC)...

Anemia is a significant public health problem in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with young children being especially vulnerable. Iron deficiency is a leading cause of anemia and prior studies have shown associations between low iron status/iron deficiency anemia and poor child development outcomes. In LMICs, 43% of children under the age of five years are at risk of not meeting their developmental potential. However, few studies have examined associations between anemia status and early childhood development (ECD) in large population-based surveys...

Introduction: Gay and bisexual men (GBM) account for the highest rates of incident infection with HIV in the U.S., and experience social, systemic barriers to accessing and engaging in healthcare services. Interacting with healthcare providers can be a complex process for some GBM with HIV disease. The current study examined the contributions of cognition and health literacy to perceived interactions with healthcare providers among GBM with HIV disease. Methods: The sample included 100 adults with HIV disease (ages 24-75) who identified as GBM...

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between various forms of child nutritional disorders and early childhood development in Bangladesh. DESIGN: We analysed data from the nationally representative cross-sectional 2019 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Early childhood development was evaluated using the Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI), which comprised 10 yes-or-no questions across four domains: literacy-numeracy, physical well-being, socio-emotional development, and learning abilities...

BACKGROUND: Why Puerto Rican youths have higher rates of severe asthma exacerbations (SAEs) than their non-Hispanic White peers is unclear. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to identify risk factors associated with recurrent SAEs in Puerto Rican youths with asthma. METHODS: We performed cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of recurrent SAEs in 209 Puerto Rican youths with asthma who participated in 2 cross-sectional studies approximately 5.2 years apart: the Puerto Rico Genetics of Asthma and Lifestyle study (visit 1, participants aged 6-14 years) and the Epigenetic Variation and Childhood Asthma in Puerto Ricans study (visit 2, participants aged 9-20 years)...

Parents are considered a major resource in children's numeracy development. The relative role of cognitive and motivational parenting practices, however, is unclear given that the two types of practices have largely been studied in isolation. The current study simultaneously estimated the contributions of several cognitive and motivational parenting practices hypothesized to be important, but which may have overlapping effects. To capture parents' cognitive practices, the level and structure (i.e., prompts vs...

The current study explored the relative contribution of individual differences in children's behavioral self-regulation and social skills (often referred to as learning-related skills) in the fall of preschool to children's rate of growth in different domains of early math knowledge through the spring of kindergarten. Participants were 684 children (Mage  = 57.6 months, SD = 3.8, at Time 1 [fall of preschool]; 48% female; 43% Black, 32% White, 13% Latine, 11% multiracial, and 1% Asian)...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of different doses of prophylactic dextrose gel on neurocognitive function and health at 6-7 years. DESIGN: Early school-age follow-up of the pre-hPOD (hypoglycaemia Prevention with Oral Dextrose) study. SETTING: Schools and communities. PATIENTS: Children born at ≥35 weeks with ≥1 risk factor for neonatal hypoglycaemia: maternal diabetes, small or large for gestational age, or late preterm...

Participants judged the risk of an infection during a face to face conversation at different interpersonal distances from a SARS-CoV-2 infected person who wore a face mask or not, and in the same questionnaire answered questions about Corona related issues. Keeping a distance to an infected person serves as a protective measure against an infection. When an infected person moves closer, risk of infection increases. Participants were aware of this fact, but underestimated the rate at which the risk of infection increases when getting closer to an infected person, e...

BACKGROUND: Given the complementary roles of health professionals and journalists in communicating health risks to patients and the public, there have been calls for physicians to work with journalists to improve the quality of health information received by the public. Understanding the preferences of medical and journalism students for the way in which health risks are communicated and their understanding of words used to describe risk is an important first step to inform interdisciplinary learning...

This study assessed the effectiveness of a program aimed at improving the early numeracy skills of students with moderate intellectual disability. The persistence of the acquired skills and the program's impact on learning were monitored. Feedback from the students and their mothers was also gathered. Using a multiple-probe design across subjects, the results were visually presented through graphical analysis. Three male students aged 8-9 years participated. After obtaining high-reliability findings from reliability analyses, results showed the program effectively increased students' number skills with a high effect size...

Assessment of (digital) health literacy in the hospital can raise staff awareness and facilitate tailored communication, leading to improved health outcomes. Assessment tools should ideally address multiple domains of health literacy, fit to the complex hospital context and have a short administration time, to enable routine assessment. This review aims to create an overview of tools for measuring (digital) health literacy in hospitals. A search in Scopus, PubMed, WoS and CINAHL, following PRISMA guidelines, generated 7252 hits; 251 studies were included in which 44 assessment tools were used...

When asked to estimate how much their state or nation has contributed to history, people typically provide unreasonably large estimates, claiming that their group has contributed much more to history than nongroup members would estimate, demonstrating collective overclaiming. Why does such overclaiming occur? In the current study we examined factors that might predict collective overclaiming. Participants from 12 U.S. states estimated how much their home state contributed to U.S. history, completed measures of collective narcissism and numeracy, and rated the importance of 60 specific historical events...

Literacy and numeracy are correlated throughout development, however, our understanding of this relation is limited. We explored the predictors of literacy and numeracy covariance (i.e., shared fluency between literacy and numeracy) in children (N = 1167, girls = 563) in rural Côte d'Ivoire, with specific focus on how developmental timing of instruction may relate to covariance. Many Ivorian children experience late enrollment and grade repetition, leading to variation in age-for-grade; participants were between grades 1 to 6, but their ages ranged from 5 to 15 (M = 9...

BACKGROUND: We aimed to identify long-term patterns of sport participation (overall, team, and individual sport) from childhood into adolescence, and to examine the association between these patterns and academic outcomes. METHODS: This cohort study used data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children in wave 3 (4-5 y) to wave 9 (20-21 y). The participants were a nationally representative sample of 4241 children. We conducted latent class analyses to identify sport participation trajectories and assessed the association between these trajectories and academic outcomes...

PURPOSE: Statistical literacy is the ability of a patient to apply basic statistical concepts to their health care. Understanding statistics is a critical component of shared decision making. The purpose of this investigation was to define levels of statistical literacy in an upper-extremity (UE) patient population. We aimed to determine if patient demographics would be associated with statistical literacy. METHODS: An electronic survey was administered to a consecutive series of UE patients at a single institution...

While numerical skills are increasingly important in modern life, few interventions have been developed to support those with numeracy skills difficulties. Previous studies have demonstrated that applying transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) can improve numerical skills. However, tDCS interventions designed to induce lasting changes typically involve reapplying brain-stimulation over several days. Repeated tDCS application can increase the risks associated with the procedure, as well as restricts the transferability of the method to a wider population, particularly those who may experience mobility issues, such as stroke survivors with acalculia...