Title:   Living Today: Issues of modern living -- SHIFT WORK   Summary:     Working odd hours, Sep 24, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- evenings or overnights -- doesn't just cause sleep pattern disruptions, gastrointestinal disorders, cardiovascular problems, increased accidents and decrease in performance. Researchers report in the medical journal, The Lancet, that there also are problems for children in such families. Source:  UPI Date:  09/24/2001 04:48 Price:  $ 0.00 Document Size:  Short (1 or 2 pages) Document ID:  FA20010924770000057 Subject(s):  UPI; Business; Canada; Cardiovascular; Children; Community; Education; Family; Food; Grocery; Health; Medicine; Montreal; New York; Research; Salaries; Science; Silver; Statistics; Teachers; Toronto; University; Washington

Story Filed: Monday, September 24, 2001 4:48 AM EST

Working odd hours, Sep 24, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- evenings or overnights -- doesn't just cause sleep pattern disruptions, gastrointestinal disorders, cardiovascular problems, increased accidents and decrease in performance. Researchers report in the medical journal, The Lancet, that there also are problems for children in such families.

"With family life there's changes in opportunities for communication and intimacy between the parents. Communication between adults and children becomes a little more scattered," said Ellen Burkemper, assistant professor at the St. Louis University School of Social Science.

She said the problem affects professionals as well as factory and service workers, and noted her own personal experience.

"As a mother of four, it took a lot of coordination with my husband and myself to even do shift work," she said. "The logistics were hard for me. When you think about single parenting, this becomes a very massive problem for people who have to work off-shift when the children are home rather than at school. So socially there's a problem as well."

The problems for school-age children of parents doing shift work can be intense. According to Jody Heymann, author of "The Widening Gap" and associate professor of health and social behavior at Harvard's schools of Public Health and Medicine, shift work impacts children dramatically.

"Parents having no choice but to work evenings or nights have a significant impact on how their kids fare educationally," Heymann said, and added fathers who work at night makes just as much difference as moms who work at night.

He said children whose parents work nights score 17 percent lower on math tests for each additional hour the parent is out of the home -- even when adjusting for variables such as income, education, marital status and gender. Children whose parents work nights are nearly three times as likely to be suspended from school as children who parents do not.

The number of workers in the United States working outside regular business hours is approaching 30 percent of the workforce.

(Thanks to UPI's Joe Grossman in Santa Cruz, Calif.)

U.S. STUDENTS HEAD FOR THE (NORTHERN) BORDER

The number of American students applying to Canadian universities has risen sharply in recent years, and the number of admission inquires jumped even further after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington.

Florence Silver of the University of Toronto said they've had many inquiries since Sept. 11 -- both from Canadian students wanting to transfer back home and many foreign students, including Americans, seeking enrollment in Canada.

Silver said the number of American students being admitted has risen sharply in recent years, but this may have had more to do with the rising tuition costs in the United States. The University of Toronto charges foreign students, including Americans, some $5,000 ($8,000 Canadian) in tuition fees. That's about 10 percent of what they'd pay at comparable universities in the United States, where tuitions can be as much as $40,000 to $50,000 a year, she said.

At McGill University in Montreal, spokeswoman Anne-Marie Bourdouxhe confirmed that there had been a sharp rise in the number of American students registering in the past few years as they fled high tuition fees at home.

Robin Geller, director of admissions, said McGill already had the largest number of American students compared to any other university in Canada. She said there had been a large number of calls from U.S. students after Sept. 11, but the university kept no statistics on inquiries, so there was no way to compare with the number before the incidents.

SMALLER SCHOOLS

Though parents and teachers agree smaller schools are better at delivering education and spotting troubled youth, a new poll finds little thought is being given to ways to reduce the size of public schools.

Instead, parents and teachers focus on such issues as discipline, smaller classes and teacher salaries.

The survey of 801 parents with children and 920 public high school teachers was conducted by Public Agenda, founded by former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and pollster Daniel Yankelovich. It survey found 80 percent of parents and 85 percent of teachers saw the merits of smaller schools -- defined as one with fewer than 500 students -- but only 32 percent of parents had given any thought to reducing school size, and teachers considered other reforms more pressing.

Additionally, 62 percent of parents and 59 percent of teachers said the size of a school doesn't matter as long as it's not overcrowded.

The survey found parents and teachers both felt smaller schools foster a feeling of community and are better able to tailor instruction to individual needs. Respondents also said smaller schools would be better able to spot non-performing teachers. However, only 48 percent of parents and 44 percent of teachers said they would be inclined to support their own district if it moved to break up large high schools into schools of less than 500 students -- with at least half of those not supporting the idea, citing costs.

GROCERY STORES

Dirty-looking grocery stores and food handlers who don't wash their hands before preparing food are big turn-offs to consumers considering whether or not to shop at a particular store.

That's according to a national survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation International on behalf of Kimberly-Clark Professional.

When asked what they'd be most likely to do if they visited a grocery store that appeared to be dirty or unsanitary, 64 percent of those questioned said they'd leave the store immediately without purchasing anything. Nearly one-fifth (17 percent) said they would purchase items at that visit, but they would probably not shop at the store again.

Only 13 percent said they would complain about the dirty conditions to a store employee, and one percent said they would simply ignore the dirty conditions.

Food handlers who don't wash their hands when they should was another big turn-off for grocery store consumers. People were asked what they would do if they saw a food handler at a grocery store or other food service establishment touch their food without first washing their hands. One-third (34 percent) of respondents said they would not patronize that store or food service establishment in the future, while 24 percent said they would tell their friends and family not to patronize the establishment.

Slightly more than one-quarter (27 percent) indicated they would speak up and ask the food handler to start over with their order after washing their hands.

September is National Food Safety Month.

By United Press International

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

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