JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Social causation (adversity and stress) vs social selection (downward mobility from familial liability to mental illness) are competing theories about the origins of mental illness. ⋯ An income intervention that moved families out of poverty for reasons that cannot be ascribed to family characteristics had a major effect on some types of children's psychiatric disorders, but not on others. Results support a social causation explanation for conduct and oppositional disorder, but not for anxiety or depression.
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The role of race/ethnicity in survival of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is unclear, with some studies reporting poorer survival among minority children and others reporting equivalent survival across race/ethnicity in the modern, risk-stratified treatment era. ⋯ Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaskan Native children with ALL have worse survival than white and Asian/Pacific Islander children, even in the contemporary treatment era. Future work must delineate the social and biological factors, including any differences in pharmacokinetics associated with chemotherapeutic agents, that account for disparities in outcome.
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Treatment results for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) clearly have improved over the past decade, but black children have not fared as well as white children in large national trials. ⋯ With equal access to effective antileukemic therapy, black and white children with ALL can expect the same high rate of cure.