Knowledge, attitudes and preventive efforts of Malaysian medical students regarding exposure to environmental tobacco and cigarette smoking.

A longitudinal study was conducted to determine changes in knowledge, attitudes and preventive efforts of Malaysian medical students concerning cigarette smoking and environmental exposure to tobacco smoke from their first pre-clinical year in medical school until their final clinical year. There were significant improvements in knowledge about cigarette smoking and in knowledge, attitudes and efforts concerning environmental exposure to tobacco smoke. Overall attitudes concerning cigarette smoking did not change over this period. The same pattern was found for male non-smokers. Women improved on all five scales; male smokers improved on none over the 3-year period. Male non-smokers had better scores on these scales than male smokers in both beginning and ending years. Women excelled in comparison to male non-smokers on smoking attitudes in the pre-clinical year and on all scales except preventive efforts in the final clinical year.Although medical students experienced no changes in the amount of pressures not to smoke from family and friends, there was a significant increase in the amount of prohibition on smoking from their teachers. Male non-smokers alone accounted for this increase. Women experienced more pressure than men not to smoke from their teachers in both years, but the male smokers and non-smokers did not differ in teacher pressure for either year.

Biosocial variances and infant survival: a path analysis approach.

This study used path analysis to assess the chances of survival of babies in a neonatal intensive care unit in Lansing, Michigan, USA. Two paths to neonatal survival were identified and the variables accounted for 20% of the variance in gestational age. The first path showed that prior infant losses were negatively correlated with gestational age while in the second path, gestational age showed negative relationships with pre-pregnancy weight and household job worries.

Estimation of viable airborne microbes downwind from a point source.

Modification of the Pasquill atmospheric diffusion equations for estimating viable microbial airborne cell concentrations downwind form a continuous point source is presented. A graphical method is given to estimate the ground level cell concentration given (i) microbial death rate, (ii) mean wind speed, (iii) atmospheric stability class, (iv) downwind sample distance from the source, and (v) source height.