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Creators/Authors contains: "Saunders, Jessica"

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  1. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed many aspects of American life online, including sexual intimacy. Increases in sexting and other forms of virtual intimacy may also have increased the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images (NDII), a form of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). This study is among the first to quantitatively examine the holistic downstream consequences of NDII victimization among U.S. adults (N= 3,150) during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that (a) emerging adults would be more likely to experience NDII during the pandemic than other age groups, (b) that victims would experience more negative downstream consequences than nonvictims across nine health and well-being outcomes, and (c) that victims of marginalized identity groups would experience more severe negative outcomes than their nonvictim peers, as compared to those in more privileged identity groups. Multivariate analyses of variance were used to examine the effects of victimization, gender, race, and sexual orientation on all outcomes. Results supported hypothesis 2 but did not fully support hypotheses 1 and 3. During the pandemic, victims experienced worse well-being on all nine outcomes than nonvictims, and, unexpectedly, some of these outcomes (e.g., alcohol consumption) were further exacerbated in men (vs. women) victims. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 25, 2026
  2. In a large and diverse sample of U. S. adults, we assessed participants’ experience with pre-COVID in-person intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization and with sextortion victimization during COVID to better understand the relationship between these phenomena. Experiencing sexual IPV pre-COVID increased the likelihood that men and women would experience sextortion during COVID. Men, Black and Native women, LGBTQ individuals, and emerging adults more often experienced sextortion during COVID than other groups. Implications for research on technology-facilitated sexual violence and practice with survivors are explored. 
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  3. Abstract ObjectivesInvestigations of early childhood growth among small‐scale populations are essential for understanding human life history variation and enhancing the ability to serve such communities through global public health initiatives. This study characterizes early childhood growth trajectories and identifies differences in growth patterns relative to international references among Daasanach semi‐nomadic pastoralist children living in a hot, arid region of northern Kenya. MethodsA large sample of height and weight measures were collected from children (N = 1756; total observations = 4508; age = 0–5 years) between 2018 and 2020. Daasanach growth was compared to international reference standards and Daasanach‐specific centile growth curves and pseudo‐velocity models were generated using generalized additive models for location scale and size. ResultsCompared to World Health Organization (WHO) reference, relatively few Daasanach children were stunted (14.3%), while a large proportion were underweight (38.5%) and wasted (53.6%). Additionally, Daasanach children had a distinctive pattern of growth, marked by an increase in linear growth velocity after 24 months of age and relatively high linear growth velocity throughout the rest of early childhood. ConclusionsThese results identify a unique pattern of early childhood growth faltering among children in a small‐scale population and may reflect a thermoregulatory adaptation to their hot, arid environment. As linear growth and weight gain remain important indicators of health, the results of this study provide insight into growth velocity variations. This study has important implications for global public health efforts to identify and address sources of early growth faltering and undernutrition in small‐scale populations. 
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