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This study aims to investigate the relationships between the perceived neighborhood walkable environment (PNWE), neighborhood interaction (NI) and residents’ mental health, with a focus on examining differences among residents of different age groups.

Using an electronic survey questionnaire, data on PNWE, NI and mental health were collected from 1,159 residents across 205 communities in Shanghai, China. Our study utilized a structural equation modeling (SEM), employing the maximum likelihood estimation method. The structural equation model was fitted using the MPLUS software.

The mental health of young and middle-aged adults is generally poor, and they are at higher risk of depression than children and older adults. The effects of PNWE and NI on the mental health of residents varied among different age groups. As residents get older, their mental health is more affected by the PNWE. In addition, the influence of the PNWE on children and older adults’ mental health is direct and not mediated by NI. For young and middle-aged adults, the influence of the PNWE on their mental health needs to be mediated by NI.

This study marks the first examination of the relationship between PNWE, NI and mental health among different age groups of residents in China. The findings of this research can assist policymakers in gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which PNWE affects mental health. Furthermore, it can contribute to the development of more targeted walkable environment designs aimed at enhancing mental health among various age groups.

The purpose of this study is to determine the antecedents of obesity among the younger generation of Indians (Generation Y) from a psychological and lifestyle consumer perspective. The study also investigates the moderating role of demography on the body mass index (BMI) of Indian youths.

The study initially develops a conceptual model, stemming from an extensive theoretical research, and subsequently validates this using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique with a sample size of 1,242 Indian youths.

The study concludes that consumers' food habits (FH) and physical activity (PA) positively impact consumers' physical health (PH), which influences their BMI levels (BLs). Anxiety (AX), depression (DE), stress (ST), peer pressure (PP) and work pressure (WP) impact individuals' mental health (MH), which also influences their BLs. Finally, there is a significant moderating impact of demographic factors, such as age (AG), gender (GE) and income levels (ILs) on the relationship between individuals' physical and MH and individuals' BLs.

This study proposes a new model which highlights the issue of youth consumer obesity from the psychological and lifestyle perspectives. The model is effective as it has a high explanative power of 73%. The study investigates consumer obesity from emerging market like India perspective, but the study does not examine consumer food consumption behavior and obesity from developed market perspective.

Youth obesity could be considered a global pandemic, and obesity rates among the Indian youth are also increasing. This study provides valuable inputs and understanding of consumer markets to policy makers, consumer protection institutions, organizations related to the food and beverage industry, healthcare workers and consumers themselves regarding the antecedents of youth obesity (BL) in developing and emerging markets.

The study adds value to the body of literature related to consumer obesity, FH, consumer psychology and lifestyle through findings that are new in terms of findings' specificity, contextual focus and explication. Moreover, the study extends the cognitive theory of DE and the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The research effectively offers significant theoretical and practicable market knowledge to both scholars and marketing practitioners, as well as policy makers and institutions dealing with youth obesity, particularly in emerging markets.

The outbreak of the new coronavirus has caused tremendous concerns to public health, which are impacting human lives both physically and psychologically. The rise in coronavirus cases has led to the propagation of control measures for its prevention. This study aims to investigate the factors enhancing the coronavirus preventive behavior among the respondents.

To understand the coronavirus preventive behavior, the study is based on the value–belief–norm (VBN) theory. Data for the study has been collected through a survey of 319 respondents in New Delhi, India. The study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to understand the factors impacting preventive behavior. For analysis, the study uses SEM to examine direct and indirect relationships and Hayes’ PROCESS macro SPSS module for moderating effects.

The results show that egoistic values have a negative impact on belief while altruistic values have a positive impact on the belief about the coronavirus outbreak. Belief is recorded to have a positive and significant impact on preventive behavior. Also, personal norms positively mediate the relationship between belief and preventive behavior. Additionally, the impact of awareness of preventive behavior is positively moderated by the symptomatic profile. Furthermore, the interaction effect is found to be conditioned positively with age and level of education.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other work in the existing literature was found to apply the VBN theory to determine coronavirus preventive behavior. Further, the extensive moderation analysis done in this study is expected to be a significant contribution to the literature.

This study uses the concept of standing, or legitimacy, to bridge the disciplinary divide between social movement and communication scholarship on activism. Here, the authors examine whether activist standing in 269 broadcast news stories sampled between 1970 and 2012 across five social movements – Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, Immigrant Rights, Occupy Wall Street, and Tea Party – is undermined by (1) the mix of visuals included in media coverage and (2) activists’ social statuses at the intersection of gender, race, and age. The authors find that broadcast media undercut the standing of activists in some social movements more than others. Occupy activists faced the most challenges to their standing because they were more likely to be shown as angry, young protestors wearing anti-government costumes and engaged in nonnormative protest behavior than activists associated with other movements. In contrast, Tea Party movement activists, who also made anti-government claims during the same relative time frame, were not cast in a similarly negative light. The authors also find that activist standing is diminished and enhanced at the intersection of gender, race, and age. For example, the social movements with the most racial diversity – the immigrant rights and Occupy movements – were also shown as the most deviant and deserving violent repression in coverage. The authors conclude the study with a discussion of the importance of interdisciplinary research and a call for additional research on the movement–media relationship.

The purpose of this study is to develop a model for investigating the sharing of harmful messages by employees using social media using the conspiracy theory from a socio-legal perspective. This study also examines the moderating role of different demographic parameters such as age, gender and education toward sharing harmful messages using social media.

Using the conspiracy theory and social impact theory as the foundation of this study, the authors developed theoretical model and validated it using the structural equation modeling technique with 342 participants from various organizations across Europe and Asia. The study also used different statistical measures to understand the demographic impacts toward sharing harmful messages.

It was found that epistemic, existential and social motives significantly and positively influence employees’ inappropriate message-sharing and seeking behavior, which in turn influences them to share harmful messages on social media. The study also indicates that there are some moderating impacts of employee demography toward sharing harmful messages using social media platforms.

This study investigates the antecedents of sharing harmful messages using social media by employees. The present study could be useful for the organizations leaders as well as policymakers and legal fraternity. The study uses a limited number of feedback to validate the model. Also, this is a cross-sectional study which is another limitation of this study.

This study has proposed and validated a theoretical model by using the conspiracy theory as well as the social impact theory which is unique. Moreover, this study adds value to the existing literature on the harmful impacts of social media and its societal impacts. Besides, the validated model of this study has a high explanatory power which is another uniqueness of this study.

The paper aimed to explore the factors leading to lower rates of whole grain consumption amongst the Malaysian adult population according to the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) model.

This paper employed a qualitative approach to explore the factors that influence whole grain consumption. Individual interviews were conducted online amongst Malaysian adults aged 18 years and above who purchase groceries and are responsible for food preparation at home. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically using the NVivo version 12 software.

A majority of the respondents (N = 30; mean age = 39.2 years old) were females (n = 19, 63.3%) and lived in urban areas (n = 23, 76.7%). Even though over 86.7% of respondents (n = 26) had consumed whole grain products, a majority of them had inadequate knowledge surrounding whole grains (n = 25, 83.3%). Predominant barriers to whole grain consumption were perceived cost (n = 30, 100%), dislikes towards the sensory aspects of whole grain foods (n = 28, 93.3%), inadequate knowledge in identifying whole grains in foods (n = 25, 83.3%), poor awareness (n = 25, 83.3%), lack of knowledge in preparation of whole grain foods (n = 25, 83.3%), a wide variety of other tasty cuisine alternatives in Malaysia (n = 25, 83.3%), low availability and accessibility of whole grain products (n = 18, 60%), cultural eating behaviours (n = 17, 56.7%) and family influence (n = 16, 53.3%). Besides that, having a longer preparation time, restrictive diets and social influences were minor barriers.

This study addresses the barriers that should be highlighted in future health educational interventions, and presents a challenge to the food industry to develop whole grain foods which are easily accepted by consumers.

This is the first paper to outline the factors associated with poor consumption of whole grains amongst the Malaysian adult population.

This study compared different types of full-time caregiver (e.g., children, older adults, COVID-19 patients) and subgroups (e.g., disability, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation) in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic for potentially meaningful distinctions.

Data from the 9,854 full-time caregivers identified in Phase 3.2 (July 21–October 11, 2021) of the US Census Household Pulse Survey (HPS) were analyzed in this study using multinomial logistic regression to examine relationships between caregiver types, marginalized subgroups, generation, and vaccination status.

The prevalence of caregiving was low, but the type of full-time caregiving performed varied by demographic group (i.e., disability, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, generation, and vaccination status). The relative risk of being a COVID-19 caregiver remained significant for being a member of each of the marginalized groups examined after all adjustments.

To date, the HPS has not been analyzed to predict the type of full-time informal caregiving performed during the COVID-19 pandemic or their characteristics. Research limitations of this analysis include the cross-sectional, experimental dataset employed, as well as some variable measurement issues.

Prior informal caregiver research has often focused on the experiences of those caring for older adults or children with special healthcare needs. It may be instructive to learn whether and how informal caregivers excluded from paid employment during infectious disease outbreaks vary in meaningful ways from those engaged in other full-time caregiving. Because COVID-19 magnified equity concerns, examining demographic differences may also facilitate customization of pathways to post-caregiving workforce integration.

Every book has its unique history. Our own interest in intergenerational ambivalence developed in discussions during Karl Pillemer’s sabbatical in 1996 at the University of Konstanz Research Center on Society and the Family. Despite using different methods, samples, and research frameworks, both of us had come up with findings about intergenerational relations that could not be interpreted easily within existing theoretical frameworks. Kurt Lüscher’s study of family reorganization after older parents’ divorce pointed toward complex tensions between interpersonal closeness and distance, and between a desire to preserve traditional family forms and to strike out in new directions (Lüscher & Pajung-Bilger, 1998). Similarly, Lüscher’s work on family rhetoric (Lüscher, 2000) and on contemporary families (Lüscher, 1998) suggested the limitations of existing frameworks in these areas. Karl Pillemer’s research on elder mistreatment had revealed the paradoxical circumstance that extreme conflict and a high degree of solidarity coexist in abusive families (Pillemer & Suitor, 1992; Pillemer & Wolf, 1998; Wolf & Pillemer, 1997) and his studies of parent-child relationships had pointed to the prevalence of interpersonal conflict and unmet expectations (Pillemer & Suitor, 1998; Suitor & Pillemer, 1988, 1996) as well as their negative impact on parental well-being (Pillemer & Suitor, 1991).

This study aims to propose increasing the number of dimensions around current intergenerational influence (IGI) construct and renaming it to intergenerational brand influence (IGBI). This research describes the development and validation of the items comprising the dimensions of this new construct.

This study performed a literature review to identify potential dimensions for IGBI based on previous research about IGI. Analysis of items used to measure IGI was conducted to establish a set for each dimension. A structured, self-administered survey was used. Item reduction, measure validation and regression analysis were conducted to measure the predictive validity of the instrument. Moreover, three separate studies were conducted to develop and validate IGBI construct.

IGBI quantifies the various interactions that contribute to intergenerational brand transfer. The interactions could be classified according to one of the five IGBI dimensions: communication, recommendation, observed behavior, good impression and co-shopping with parents.

IGBI recognizes the relevance of influence behaviors such as children observing their parents buy a brand, children participating in shopping and children attempting to develop a good impression through brand loyalty. The first two behaviors indicate the importance of brands advocating purchase behavior as a family activity. The measure of good impression suggests that consumers use brands to maintain family connections, which should be considered a pertinent brand strategy.

This study develops the aforementioned five IGBI dimensions that describe the interactions between parent–child consumers that result in brand transfer.

Prior to the mandate young adults wore masks 42.7% (n = 565) of the time and elderly adults wore masks 81.4% (n = 129) of the time. Also, 56.7% (n = 979) of females and 48.2% (n = 678) of males wore masks. Whereas almost all the observed participants (95.9%, n = 73) who appeared of Asian descent wore masks, individuals perceived as White were far less likely to wear masks with only 47.2% (n = 1,089) wearing masks, and 62.6% (n = 401) of perceived Black individuals wearing masks. After the mask mandate was issued 91.7% (n = 109) of those observed were wearing masks. Mask wearing declined shortly after the CDC guidelines changed to indicate that fully vaccinated people did not need to wear masks indoors.

Understanding demographic differences in mask wearing and responses to policy changes are important for public policy and public health.

This chapter is one of a few that include observational data of actual mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021.