ORCID Profile
0000-0001-8566-1876
Current Organisation
Bond University
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-04-2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-07-2007
DOI: 10.1007/S12110-007-9004-2
Abstract: There is substantial evidence that in human mate choice, females directly select males based on male display of both physical and behavioral traits. In non-humans, there is additionally a growing literature on indirect mate choice, such as choice through observing and subsequently copying the mating preferences of conspecifics (mate choice copying). Given that humans are a social species with a high degree of sharing information, long-term pair bonds, and high parental care, it is likely that human females could avoid substantial costs associated with directly searching for information about potential males by mate choice copying. The present study was a test of whether women perceived men to be more attractive when men were presented with a female date or consort than when they were presented alone, and whether the physical attractiveness of the female consort affected women's copying decisions. The results suggested that women's mate choice decision rule is to copy only if a man's female consort is physically attractive. Further analyses implied that copying may be a conditional female mating tactic aimed at solving the problem of informational constraints on assessing male suitability for long-term sexual relationships, and that lack of mate choice experience, measured as reported lifetime number of sex partners, is also an important determinant of copying.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 31-01-2012
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X11001105
Abstract: Analysis of in idual differences in religious observance in a Belizean community showed that the most religious (pastors and church workers) reported more illnesses, and that there was no tendency for the religiously observant to restrict their interactions to family or extended family. Instead, the most religiously observant tended to have community roles that widened their social contact: religion did not aid isolation – thus violating a key assumption of the parasite-stress theory of sociality.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.MEHY.2009.11.018
Abstract: In recent decades obesity has become an increasing concern for governments and health organisations around the world. Changes in diet in modern conditions have led to our food environment being labelled "toxic" and "obesogenic", and are portrayed in marked contrast to the types of food environment in which humans evolved and are adapted to biologically. In this article I question whether the modern food environment is genuinely so different from those that humans evolved in, and whether domesticated animals, like humans, tend to become obese in conditions where food is plentiful. I continue by offering a model of eating behaviour based on the marginal value theorem. The model implies that many parents and public policy unwittingly encourage unhealthy diets by controlling or over-regulating children's diet: although it may feel counterintuitive to respond to the risk of obesity by allowing in iduals to make choices rather than restricting their choices, a more relaxed and less regulated approach to food intake should allow appropriate modulation of food intake in conditions where food is plentiful.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 12-01-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2005
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 10-2015
Abstract: Human birth interval length is indicative of the level of parental investment that a child will receive: a short interval following birth means that parental resources must be split with a younger sibling during a period when the older sibling remains highly dependent on their parents. From a life-history theoretical perspective, it is likely that there are evolved mechanisms that serve to maximize fitness depending on context. One context that would be expected to result in short birth intervals, and lowered parental investment, is after a child with low expected fitness is born. Here, data drawn from a longitudinal British birth cohort study were used to test whether birth intervals were shorter following the birth of a child with a long-term health problem. Data on the timing of 4543 births were analysed using discrete-time event history analysis. The results were consistent with the hypothesis: birth intervals were shorter following the birth of a child diagnosed by a medical professional with a severe but non-fatal medical condition. Covariates in the analysis were also significantly associated with birth interval length: births of twins or multiple births, and relationship break-up were associated with significantly longer birth intervals.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 06-2023
Abstract: David Waynforth describes how non-normal distributions occur for good reasons in human biology, and can be invaluable when teaching medical students
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 1999
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-04-2022
DOI: 10.1111/AJO.13528
Abstract: Laparoscopy is the gold standard approach for many surgical procedures, but it is a complex skill to learn. Laparoscopic simulation training may help, but it is unclear how to best engage trainees in these programs. Test‐enhanced learning (TEL) uses regular, well‐defined assessments of performance throughout the training phase of learning. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of TEL on a laparoscopic simulation program involving a cohort of medical student volunteers. A prospective cohort study was performed with a convenience s le of 40 medical students. Students were recruited to participate in a ten‐week laparoscopic simulation program. Twenty students participated in a laparoscopic surgical program with TEL (‘TEL group’), and 20 students participated in a standard laparoscopic simulation program (‘control group’). Attendance in the TEL group was significantly higher than in the standard group (71 vs 51.5%, P = 0.03). There was no difference between groups in mean time scores. Four themes were identified in qualitative data drawn from student surveys – personal traits and motivators, training context, clear goals and feedback enabling understanding of one's own performance. Testing laparoscopic skills throughout a learning program, in conjunction with in idualised feedback and tracking of learning trajectory, increases trainee attendance. Laparoscopic simulation training programs are encouraged to reflect on the pedagogic framework in which their procedural skills training operates.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2007
DOI: 10.1002/DEV.20248
Abstract: Substantial variation in childcare arrangements exists both within and between populations. Research has suggested negative stress-related outcomes for children who regularly attend daycare facilities. In the present study, 122 cortisol and 94 secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA) s les from 32 British children aged between 3 and 8 were analyzed using multilevel modeling to assess effects of daycare attendance and other childcare-related variables on children's stress and SIgA immune function. Parents' reports of children's aggression and family discord within 2 hr of saliva collection were associated with elevated cortisol levels in children. With these acute stressors statistically controlled, retrospective data on parent-child cosleeping showed that children who had coslept in their parent(s) room had lower cortisol levels, as did children who had attended less daycare in the first 4 years of life. The parenting-related variables did not predict SIgA immunity. The results are discussed in the context of theories of parenting strategies.
Publisher: Brill
Date: 1995
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 28-03-2012
Abstract: Life-history theoretical models show that a typical evolutionarily optimal response of a juvenile organism to high mortality risk is to reach reproductive maturity earlier. Experimental studies in a range of species suggest the existence of adaptive flexibility in reproductive scheduling to maximize fitness just as life-history theory predicts. In humans, supportive evidence has come from studies comparing neighbourhoods with different mortality rates, historical and cross-cultural data. Here, the prediction is tested in a novel way in a large ( n = 9099), longitudinal s le using data comparing age at first reproduction in in iduals with and without life-expectancy-reducing chronic disease diagnosed during childhood. Diseases selected for inclusion as chronic illnesses were those unlikely to be significantly affected by shifting allocation of effort away from reproduction towards survival those which have comparatively large effects on mortality and life expectancy and those which are not profoundly disabling. The results confirmed the prediction that chronic disease would associate with early age at first reproduction: in iduals growing up with a serious chronic disease were 1.6 times more likely to have had a first child by age 30. Analysis of control variables also confirmed past research findings on links between being raised father-absent and early pubertal development and reproduction.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 14-09-2011
Abstract: There has been a recent increase in interest among evolutionary researchers in the hypothesis that humans evolved as cooperative breeders, using extended family support to help decrease offspring mortality and increase the number of children that can be successfully reared. In this study, data drawn from the 1970 longitudinal British cohort study were analysed to determine whether extended family support encourages fertility in contemporary Britain. The results showed that at age 30, reported frequency that participants saw their own parents (but not in-laws) and the closeness of the bond between the participant and their own parents were associated with an increased likelihood of having a child between ages 30 and 34. Financial help and reported grandparental childcare were not significantly positively associated with births from age 30 to 34. Men's income was positively associated with likelihood of birth, whereas women's income increased likelihood of birth only for working women with at least one child. While it was predicted that grandparental financial and childcare help would increase the likelihood of reproduction by lowering the cost to the parent of having a child, it appears that the mere physical presence of supportive parents rather than their financial or childcare help encouraged reproduction in the 1970 British birth cohort s le.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-1998
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 29-03-2023
DOI: 10.20944/PREPRINTS202303.0498.V1
Abstract: Psychomotor developmental delay in infants includes failure to acquire abilities such as sitting, walking, grasping objects and communication at the ages when most infants have acquired these abilities. Known risk factors include a large number of aspects of family environment, socioeconomic position, problems in pregnancy and birth, and maternal health. It is clinically useful to be able to screen for developmental delay so that healthcare interventions can be considered. The present research used machine learning (random forest) to create an algorithm predicting psychomotor delay in 9-month-old infants using information ascertainable at birth and in early infancy. The dataset was the UK longitudinal Millennium Cohort study. Fifty-two predictors measuring socioeconomic indicators, paternal, family and social support for the mother, beliefs about good parenting, maternal health, pregnancy and birth were included in the initial algorithm. Feature reduction showed that of the 52 variables, birthweight, family income and parents& rsquo ages had the highest feature importance scores and could alone correctly predict developmental delay with over 99% sensitivity and 100% specificity. The relationships between delay and some of the predictors, particularly income, were nonlinear and complex. The results suggest that the risk of psychomotor developmental delay can be identified in early infancy using machine learning, and that the best predictors are factors present prior to birth. Surprisingly, the most important factors included in the present study did not include illnesses during pregnancy such as ecl sia and infections.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-2001
DOI: 10.1007/S12110-001-1007-9
Abstract: Researchers studying human sexuality have repeatedly concluded that men place more emphasis on the physical attractiveness of potential mates than women do, particularly in long-term sexual relationships. Evolutionary theorists have suggested that this is the case because male mate value (the total value of the characteristics that an in idual possesses in terms of the potential contribution to his or her mate's reproductive success) is better predicted by social status and economic resources, whereas women's mate value hinges on signals conveyed by their physical appearance. This pattern may imply that women trade off attractiveness for resources in mate choice. Here I test whether a trade-off between resources and attractiveness seems to be occurring in the mate choice decisions of women in the United States. In addition, the possibility that the risk of mate desertion drives women to choose less attractive men as long-term mates is tested. The results were that women rated physically attractive men as more likely to cheat or desert a long-term relationship, whereas men did not consider attractive women to be more likely to cheat. However, women showed no aversion to the idea of forming long-term relationships with attractive men. Evidence for a trade-off between resources and attractiveness was found for women, who traded off attractiveness, but not other traits, for resources. The potential meaning of these findings, as well as how they relate to broader issues in the study of sex differences in the evolution of human mate choice for physical traits, is discussed.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 09-12-2022
Abstract: Prior research on causes of preterm birth has tended to focus on pathophysiological processes while acknowledging the role of socioeconomic indicators. The present research explored a wide range of factors plausibly associated with preterm birth informed by pathophysiological and evolutionary life history perspectives on gestation length. To achieve this, a machine learning ensemble classification data analysis approach, random forest (RF), was applied to the UK Millennium Cohort (18,201 births). The results highlighted the importance of socioeconomic variables and parental age in predicting preterm (before 37 completed weeks) and very preterm (before 32 weeks) birth. Infants born in households with low income and with young fathers had an increased risk of both very preterm and preterm birth. Maternal health and health problems during pregnancy were not found to be useful predictors. The best-performing algorithm was for very preterm birth and had 93% sensitivity and 100% specificity using six variables. Algorithms predicting preterm birth before 37 weeks showed increased error, with out-of-bag error rates of about 7% versus only 1% for those predicting very preterm birth. The poorer performance of algorithms predicting preterm births to 37 weeks of gestation suggests that some preterm birth may not result from pathology related to poor maternal health or social or economic disadvantage, but instead represents normal life-history variation.
Publisher: AMPCo
Date: 2015
DOI: 10.5694/MJA14.00454
Abstract: To explore the future career preferences of Commonwealth-supported place (CSP) and full-fee paying (FFP) medical students in Australia. Data from the Medical Schools Outcomes Database and Longitudinal Tracking (MSOD) Project exit questionnaire for CSP and FFP students who graduated between 2008 and 2011 were analysed using logistic regression. The influence of age, sex, marital status, rural background and fee-paying status on future career preference were explored. Future career preference (location and specialty) at graduation. Compared with CSP students, domestic FFP students were more likely to nominate as their first preference both urban locations (odds ratio [OR], 5.58 95% CI, 2.04-15.26 P < 0.001) and higher-income specialties (OR, 1.37 95% CI, 1.07-1.75 P < 0.05), and less likely to nominate as their first preference in-need specialties (OR, 0.72 95% CI, 0.52-1.00 P < 0.05), specifically general practice (OR, 0.71 95% CI, 0.52-0.99 P < 0.05). There was a significant domestic FFP student by marital status interaction effect, such that domestic FFP students who were married or partnered on exit from medical school were more likely to prefer a rural location (OR, 0.64 95% CI, 0.44-0.95 P < 0.05). Also, students who were married or partnered were less likely to select a one of the higher-income specialties as their first preference (OR, 0.77 95% CI, 0.64-0.92 P < 0.01). A rural background increased preferences for rural location (OR, 0.18 95% CI, 0.15-0.22 P < 0.001) and in-need specialties (OR, 1.28 95% CI, 1.04-1.57 P < 0.05), and being older on entry to medical school also increased preferences for rural location (OR, 0.96 95% CI, 0.95-0.98 P < 0.001) and in-need specialties (OR, 1.03 95% CI, 1.01-1.04 P < 0.01). International FFP students were more likely to prefer urban practice (OR, 1.79 95% CI, 1.19-2.72 P < 0.01). Domestic FFP graduates are less likely to prefer careers in rural locations and in lower-paid and in-need specialties, particularly general practice. Current workforce implications might be minor, but if fees for CSP students increase or more FFP places become available, potential impacts on workforce distribution will need to be considered.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 22-08-1998
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 25-04-2020
Abstract: Mother–infant co-sleeping or bed sharing is discouraged by health organisations due to evidence that it is associated with unexplained sudden infant death. On the other hand, there is evidence that it should theoretically be beneficial for infants. One line of this evidence concerns breathing regulation, which at night is influenced by the rocking movement of the mother’s chest as she breathes. Here, the hypothesis that mother–infant co-sleeping will be associated with a lower probability of infant breathing distress is tested in the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 18,552 infants). Maternal, infant, family, and socio-economic covariates were included in logistic regression analysis, and in a machine learning algorithm (Random Forest) to make full use of the number of variables available in the birth cohort study data. Results from logistic regression analysis showed that co-sleeping was associated with a reduced risk of breathing difficulties (OR = 0.69, p = 0.027). The Random Forest algorithm placed high importance on socio-economic aspects of infant environment, and indicated that a number of maternal, child, and environmental variables predicted breathing distress. Co-sleeping by itself was not high in the Random Forest variable importance ranking. Together, the results suggest that co-sleeping may be associated with a modest reduction in risk of infant breathing difficulties.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1093/EMPH/EOAA014
Abstract: Kin-selected altruism is an evolutionary explanation for why biological kin other than parents are willing childcare providers or alloparents. Kin alloparents may increase lineage fitness by reducing maternal energy depletion and improving child survival through childcare activities. The aim of this research was to apply the hypothesis that kin-based alloparental care has benefits for child health in a western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic context. The hypothesis was tested using the first sweep of the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 18 552 infants). The outcome was number of hospitalizations by age 9 months, and the main predictors were kin-based alloparental care during work hours, socioeconomic position and infant health-related variables and their interactions with kin-based alloparenting. Analysis of hospitalizations was carried out using negative binomial regression. Kin alloparents were primary day carers in 17% of households. Infants whose main care arrangement during work hours was with kin allocarers had statistically significantly fewer hospitalizations than infants in all other care arrangements combined (Incidence rate ratio = 0.86, P & 0.03), and when contrasted with maternal day care (Incidence rate ratio = 0.79, P & 0.02). Kin-based allocare was associated with about a 15% reduction in the risk of infant hospitalization in the first 9 months. The difference appeared to be due in part to a difference in the risk of hospitalization for infectious diseases. Sensitivity analyses indicated that infants cared for by their mother during the day rather than in day-care facilities were most at risk of hospitalization compared with those in kin-based care. Modern industrialized societies are generally characterized by nuclear family households, with grandparents and other extended family often living a considerable distance away. Studies carried out in societies which have not undergone the fragmentation of extended families have shown that grandmothers and other biological kin reduce infant mortality, most likely because they distribute the burden of infant care so that it does not fall exclusively on the mother. Here, the hypothesis that grandparental and other family care would be beneficial for infant health in the contemporary UK was testing using the UK Millennium cohort. Infant health was measured as number of hospitalizations in the first 9 months from birth. The main findings were that kin-based infant care, which was most commonly by grandparents, was associated with a 15% reduction in the risk of hospitalization in infants up to 9 months of age. Further analysis suggested that the difference was larger for risk of infant hospitalization due to infectious diseases rather than non-infectious diseases. The results also suggested that the finding may have been driven by increased risk for infants of mothers caring for their infant during normal working hours with no other help, such as from the father or pay-for day-care.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 05-06-2023
Abstract: Psychomotor developmental delay in infants includes failure to acquire abilities such as sitting, walking, grasping objects and communication at the ages when most infants have acquired these abilities. Known risk factors include a large number of aspects of family environment, socioeconomic position, problems in pregnancy and birth and maternal health. It is clinically useful to be able to screen for developmental delay so that healthcare interventions can be considered. The present research used machine learning (random forest) to create an algorithm predicting psychomotor delay in 9-month-old infants using information ascertainable at birth and in early infancy. The dataset was the UK longitudinal Millennium Cohort study. In total, 53 predictors measuring socioeconomic indicators, paternal, family and social support for the mother, beliefs about good parenting, maternal health, pregnancy and birth were included in the initial algorithm. Feature reduction showed that of the 53 variables, birthweight, gestational age at birth, pre-pregnancy BMI, family income and parents’ ages had the highest feature importance scores and could alone correctly predict developmental delay with over 99% sensitivity and 100% specificity. No features measuring aspects of early infant care or environment meaningfully added to algorithm performance. The relationships between delay and some of the predictors, particularly income, were nonlinear and complex. The results suggest that the risk of psychomotor developmental delay can be identified in early infancy using machine learning, and that the best predictors are factors present prior to and at birth.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for David Waynforth.