College freshmen who are more outgoing and agreeable — and less moody — are more likely to feel a sense of belonging at their new school, new research has found. Those personality traits could result in better academic performance and better mental health during college, the study authors concluded. However, two other important personality traits — conscientiousness and openness to new experiences — played no role in how well students felt they fit in at college. “Students who were more agreeable and more extroverted tended to have higher belonging in college, especially in big schools, and students who were more neurotic [that is, nervous and/or handle stress poorly] tended to have lower belonging in college,” concluded the research team, led by Alexandria Stubblebine, an independent researcher in Ocala, Fla. “Additionally, and contrary to what many people might think, openness to new ideas and conscientiousness were unrelated to students’ feelings of belonging,” the researchers added. For the study, Stubblebine’s team analyzed survey data from more than 4,700 freshman college students at 12 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. The surveys analyzed a collection of widely studied personality traits collectively called the “Big Five” — extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. Students also were asked questions aimed at assessing how well they were fitting in at school. Responses showed that students with higher levels…  read on >  read on >

An American’s income and ethnicity could play a role in how clean the air is that they breathe, a new study finds. Air pollution emissions have fallen more in wealthier areas, and less in areas with larger Hispanic or American Indian populations. Overall, U.S. air pollution emissions have decreased substantially, but the magnitude of the change varies based on demographics, the researchers found. “Policies specifically targeting reductions in overburdened populations could support more just reductions in air pollution and reduce disparities in air pollution exposure,” said lead researcher Yanelli Nunez, an environmental health scientist with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. “This is an important lesson gained from 53 years of Clean Air Act implementation, which is particularly relevant as we develop policies to transition to renewable energy sources, which will have a collateral impact on air quality and, as a result, on public health,” Nunez added in a university news release. For the study, Nunez’ team analyzed emissions data from the Global Burden of Disease Major Air Pollution Sources inventory, a collaborative academic project involving three different universities. On average, U.S. air pollution emissions declined substantially from 1970 to 2010 from all sources, except for ammonia emissions from agriculture fertilizer and organic carbon particle emissions from indoor heating of the residential sector, researchers said. Despite this overall downward trend,…  read on >  read on >

Stressed-out teens are likely to have more heart health risk factors in adulthood, a new study says. Teens with elevated stress levels tended to have high blood pressure, obesity and other heart risk factors as they aged, compared to those teens with less stress, researchers found. “Our findings suggest that perceived stress patterns over time have a far-reaching effect on various cardiometabolic measures, including fat distribution, vascular health and obesity,” said researcher Fangqi Guo, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “This could highlight the importance of stress management as early as in adolescence as a health protective behavior,” Guo added in a university news release. For this study, researchers analyzed data from 276 participants in the Southern California Children’s Health Study, an ongoing research project that included follow-up health assessments at average ages 13 and 24 for participants. The participants’ stress levels were measured using a perceived stress scale, and they were placed in one of four categories – consistently high stress, decreasing stress over time, increasing stress over time or consistently low stress. Researcher found that teens who had higher levels of stress into adulthood were more likely to have higher total body fat, more fat around the belly and a higher overall risk of obesity as adults, researchers found. They also tended to have worse…  read on >  read on >