To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Contemporary understanding of the mechanisms of disease increasingly points to examples of “genetic diseases” with an infectious component and of “infectious diseases” with a genetic component. Such blurred boundaries generate ethical, legal, and social issues and highlight historical contexts that must be examined when incorporating host genomic information into the prevention, outbreak control, and treatment of infectious diseases.
Collaboration with African religious congregations can promote psychosocial well-being with greater accessibility. Effective collaboration requires studying congregations as unique intervention contexts. This study explored how an intervention in western Kenya fit within and altered congregational discussion patterns. We conducted a cluster-randomized trial of a church-based intervention to improve family relationships, mental health and sexual health. For each intervention topic covered, we describe baseline and post-intervention changes in church leaders’ beliefs and communication as well as discussion frequency between leaders and members and among members. Mixed-effects logistic regression assessed pre-post change in member-reported discussion frequency. At baseline, members and leaders reported already discussing family, parenting, and emotions frequently and sexuality and finances less frequently. Leaders generally felt they should discuss all topics but were less comfortable and knowledgeable about sexuality and finances than other topics. After the intervention, leader comfort and knowledge increased and discussion frequency increased for nearly all topics, especially those discussed less initially. Good fit between the desires and activities of church members and leaders suggests the potential for further collaboration, especially on mental health and family well-being. Increased discussion of sensitive topics underscores the potential of community-level interventions to affect social norms.
People with schizophrenia on average are more socially isolated, lonelier, have more social cognitive impairment, and are less socially motivated than healthy individuals. People with bipolar disorder also have social isolation, though typically less than that seen in schizophrenia. We aimed to disentangle whether the social cognitive and social motivation impairments observed in schizophrenia are a specific feature of the clinical condition v. social isolation generally.
Methods
We compared four groups (clinically stable patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, individuals drawn from the community with self-described social isolation, and a socially connected community control group) on loneliness, social cognition, and approach and avoidance social motivation.
Results
Individuals with schizophrenia (n = 72) showed intermediate levels of social isolation, loneliness, and social approach motivation between the isolated (n = 96) and connected control (n = 55) groups. However, they showed significant deficits in social cognition compared to both community groups. Individuals with bipolar disorder (n = 48) were intermediate between isolated and control groups for loneliness and social approach. They did not show deficits on social cognition tasks. Both clinical groups had higher social avoidance than both community groups
Conclusions
The results suggest that social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, and high social avoidance motivation in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are distinct features of the clinical conditions and not byproducts of social isolation. In contrast, differences between clinical and control groups on levels of loneliness and social approach motivation were congruent with the groups' degree of social isolation.
This paper describes the development process of a mobile app-based version of the World Health Organization mental health Gap Action Programme Intervention Guide, testing of the app prototypes, and its functionality in the assessment and management of people with mental health conditions in Nepal. Health workers’ perception of feasibility and acceptability of using mobile technology in mental health care was assessed during the inspiration phase (N = 43); the ideation phase involved the creation of prototypes; and prototype testing was conducted over multiple rounds with 15 healthcare providers. The app provides provisional diagnoses and treatment options based on reported symptoms. Participants found the app prototype useful in reminding them of the process of assessment and management of mental disorders. Some challenges were noted, these included a slow app prototype with multiple technical problems, including difficulty in navigating ‘yes’/‘no’ options, and there were challenges reviewing detailed symptoms of a particular disorder using a “more information” icon. The initial feasibility work suggests that if the technical issues are addressed, the e-mhGAP warrants further research to understand if it is a useful method in improving the detection of people with mental health conditions and initiation of evidence-based treatment in primary healthcare facilities.
The purpose of this document is to highlight practical recommendations to assist acute care hospitals to prioritize and implement strategies to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), ventilator-associated events (VAE), and non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia (NV-HAP) in adults, children, and neonates. This document updates the Strategies to Prevent Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia in Acute Care Hospitals published in 2014. This expert guidance document is sponsored by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology (SHEA), and is the product of a collaborative effort led by SHEA, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Hospital Association, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, and The Joint Commission, with major contributions from representatives of a number of organizations and societies with content expertise.
We explore the long-term environmental and human history of a small outer coast archipelago on the Northwest Coast in western Canada. Using relative sea-level change, we reconstruct ancient landscapes to design archaeological surveys that document a rich archaeological record spanning at least 11 000 years and demonstrate the cultural centrality of this geographically marginal landscape.
Online grocery shopping could improve access to healthy food, but it may not be equally accessible to all populations – especially those at higher risk for food insecurity. The current study aimed to compare the socio-demographic characteristics of families who ordered groceries online v. those who only shopped in-store.
Design:
We analysed enrollment survey and 44 weeks of individually linked grocery transaction data. We used univariate χ2 and t-tests and logistic regression to assess differences in socio-demographic characteristics between households that only shopped in-store and those that shopped online with curbside pickup (online only or online and in-store).
Setting:
Two Maine supermarkets.
Participants:
863 parents or caregivers of children under 18 years old enrolled in two fruit and vegetable incentive trials.
Results:
Participants had a total of 32 757 transactions. In univariate assessments, online shoppers had higher incomes (P < 0 0001), were less likely to participate in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; P < 0 0001) and were more likely to be female (P = 0·04). Most online shoppers were 30–39 years old, and few were 50 years or older (P = 0·003). After controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, number of children, number of adults, income and SNAP participation, female primary shoppers (OR = 2·75, P = 0·003), number of children (OR = 1·27, P = 0·04) and income (OR = 3·91 for 186–300 % federal poverty line (FPL) and OR = 6·92 for >300 % FPL, P < 0·0001) were significantly associated with likelihood of shopping online.
Conclusions:
In the current study of Maine families, low-income shoppers were significantly less likely to utilise online grocery ordering with curbside pickup. Future studies could focus on elucidating barriers and developing strategies to improve access.
Female stroke patients may experience poorer functional outcomes than males following inpatient rehabilitation.
Methods:
Data from Alberta inpatient stroke rehabilitation units were examined to determine: (1) the impact of sex on time to inpatient rehabilitation, functional gains (using the Functional Independence Measure (FIM)), length of stay (LOS), and discharge destination; (2) if sex was related to age at the time of stroke, stroke severity, and living arrangement at discharge from rehabilitation; and (3) whether patients’ age and preadmission living arrangement had an influence on LOS in rehabilitation or discharge destination.
Results:
Two thousand two hundred sixty-six adult stroke patients (1283 males and 983 females) were subcategorized as mild (FIM >80; n = 1155), moderate (FIM 40–80; n = 994), or severe (FIM <40; n = 117). Fifty-five percent of males (45.7% females) had mild stroke; 39.5% of males (49.5% females) had moderate stroke; and 5.5% of males (4.8% females) had severe stroke. Females were significantly older than males (p = 2.4 × 10−4). No sex difference existed in time from acute care to rehabilitation admission (p = 0.73) or in mean FIM change (p = 0.294). Mean LOS was longer for females than males (p=0.018). Males were more likely than females to be discharged home (p = 1.8 × 10−13). Further, male patients (p = 6.4 × 10−7) and those < 65 years (p = 1.4 × 10−23) were more likely to be discharged home without homecare.
Conclusion:
There are significant sex and age differences in LOS in rehabilitation and discharge destination of stroke patients. These differences may suggest that sex and age of the patient need to be considered in care planning.
We examined the impact of stroke severity and timing to inpatient rehabilitation admission on length of stay (LOS), functional gains, and discharge destination.
Methods:
Alberta inpatient stroke rehabilitation data between April 2013 and March 2017 were analyzed. We evaluated the impact of stroke severity, as measured by the Functional Independence Measure (FIM), on timing to inpatient rehabilitation, functional gains, LOS, and discharge destination. Further, we examined whether timing to inpatient rehabilitation impacted the latter three factors.
Results:
The 2404 adults were subcategorized as mild (1237), moderate (1031), or severe (136) based on FIM at inpatient rehabilitation admission. Length of time to rehabilitation admission was not significantly (p = 0.232) different between stroke severities. Mean length of time (days) to rehabilitation admission was 19.79 (20.3 SD) for mild, 27.7 (35.7 SD) for moderate, and 37.70 (56.8 SD) for severe stroke. Mean FIM change for mild (M = 16.3, 9.9 SD) differed significantly (p = 5.1 × 10–9) from moderate (M = 30.4, 16.4 SD) and severe (M = 31.0, 25.7 SD) stroke. The mean LOS for mild stroke (M = 41.3, 31.9 SD) was significantly (p = 5.1 × 10–9) different from moderate stroke (M = 86.8, 76.4 SD) and severe stroke (M = 126.1, 104.2 SD). Time to inpatient rehabilitation admission showed a small, significant impact on FIM change (p = 1.4 × 10–9, partial η2 0.022) and LOS (p = 1.1 × 10–19, partial η2 0.042). Shorter times to rehabilitation admission and mild stroke were associated with discharging home without needing homecare.
Conclusion:
Stroke severity has a significant impact on the conduct of inpatient rehabilitation. Yet, despite suggestions shortening timing to rehabilitation should improve outcomes, the impact on functional gains and rehabilitation LOS was small.
OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Early life stress is known to greatly impact neurodevelopment during critical periods, conferring risk for various psychopathologies, including the onset and exacerbation of schizophrenia and anxiety disorders. The endocannabinoid system is highly integrated into the stress response and may be one means by which early life stress produces such deleterious effects. Using a naturalistic, ecologically valid animal model, this study explored interactions between the stress response and endocannabinoid systems within the cerebellum, a region dense with the CB1 endocannabinoid receptors and shown to be susceptible to stress. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This study explored behavioral and neural impacts of early life stress in Long-Evans rats reared with or without limited access to bedding material during postnatal day (PND) 2-9. Corticosterone (CORT) levels were measured at PND8 and 70. During PND50-70, rats were assessed on Novel Object Recognition to test memory, Rotarod to evaluate cerebellar integrity, Elevated Plus Maze to assay anxiety, Social Preference, and Eyeblink Conditioning, a cerebellar-dependent and endocannabinoid-mediated task. Lipid analysis was performed on PND70 tissue samples of cerebellar interpositus (IP) nucleus via high-performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Both male and female rats experiencing early life stress exhibited significantly impaired recognition memory (N = 16-20/group). Female rats having undergone stress exhibited decreased social preference compared to normally reared females (N = 11/group). Stressed males showed facilitated eyblink conditioning compared to normally reared males (N = 7-9/group). There were no group differences in rotarod or elevated plus maze performance or CORT levels at PND8 or 70 across rearing groups. At PND70, male rats experiencing early life stress exhibited a significant decrease in 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG) and arachidonic acid levels in the IP nucleus compared to normally reared males (N = 8-9/group). Compared to normally reared females, those experiencing early life stress exhibited a significant increase in prostaglandin E2 levels in the IP nucleus (N = 6-7/group). DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Early life stress, induced by limited bedding, resulted in sex-specific behavioral and lipid impairments. Results suggest that stress causes long-term alterations in endocannabinoid dynamics in males in the cerebellar IP nucleus and sex-related lipids in female cerebellum. These changes may contribute to observed long-term behavioral aberrations. Moreover, findings suggest these behavioral changes may be the result of negative-feedback dysfunction (as evidenced by decreased endocannabinoids in males) or increased neural inflammation or proliferation (as evidenced by increased prostaglandins in females). Future analysis will quantify mRNA and protein for cannabinoid receptors to better characterize aberrations to this system. Moreover, other neural regions dense with cannabinoid receptors (i.e., PFC, hippocampus) will be investigated. This work provides a basis for understanding stress impacts on the development of cognitive deficits observed in psychotic and anxiety disorders. Specifically, facilitation of eyblink conditioning complements research in humans with anxiety disorders. Broadly, understanding stress-related endocannabinoid dysregulation may provide insights into risks for, and the development of, psychopathology and uncover novel therapeutic targets with high translational power.
OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: To create a searchable public registry of all Quality Improvement (QI) projects. To incentivize the medical professionals at UF Health to initiate quality improvement projects by reducing startup burden and providing a path to publishing results. To reduce the review effort performed by the internal review board on projects that are quality improvement Versus research. To foster publication of completed quality improvement projects. To assist the UF Health Sebastian Ferrero Office of Clinical Quality & Patient Safety in managing quality improvement across the hospital system. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This project used a variant of the spiral software development model and principles from the ADDIE instructional design process for the creation of a registry that is web based. To understand the current registration process and management of quality projects in the UF Health system a needs assessment was performed with the UF Health Sebastian Ferrero Office of Clinical Quality & Patient Safety to gather project requirements. Biweekly meetings were held between the Quality Improvement office and the Clinical and Translational Science – Informatics and Technology teams during the entire project. Our primary goal was to collect just enough information to answer the basic questions of who is doing which QI project, what department are they from, what are the most basic details about the type of project and who is involved. We also wanted to create incentive in the user group to try to find an existing project to join or to commit the details of their proposed new project to a data registry for others to find to reduce the amount of duplicate QI projects. We created a series of design templates for further customization and feature discovery. We then proceed with the development of the registry using a Python web development framework called Django, which is a technology that powers Pinterest and the Washington Post Web sites. The application is broken down into 2 main components (i) data input, where information is collected from clinical staff, Nurses, Pharmacists, Residents, and Doctors on what quality improvement projects they intend to complete and (ii) project registry, where completed or “registered” projects can be viewed and searched publicly. The registry consists of a quality investigator profile that lists contact information, expertise, and areas of interest. A dashboard allows for the creation and review of quality improvement projects. A search function enables certain quality project details to be publicly accessible to encourage collaboration. We developed the Registry Matching Algorithm which is based on the Jaccard similarity coefficient that uses quality project features to find similar quality projects. The algorithm allows for quality investigators to find existing or previous quality improvement projects to encourage collaboration and to reduce repeat projects. We also developed the QIPR Approver Algorithm that guides the investigator through a series of questions that allows an appropriate quality project to get approved to start without the need for human intervention. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: A product of this project is an open source software package that is freely available on GitHub for distribution to other health systems under the Apache 2.0 open source license. Adoption of the Quality Improvement Project Registry and promotion of it to the intended audience are important factors for the success of this registry. Thanks goes to the UW-Madison and their QI/Program Evaluation Self-Certification Tool (https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3lVeNuKe8FhKc73) used as example and inspiration for this project. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: This registry was created to help understand the impact of improved management of quality projects in a hospital system. The ultimate result will be to reduce time to approve quality improvement projects, increase collaboration across the UF Health Hospital system, reduce redundancy of quality improvement projects and translate more projects into publications.
This paper uses data from a cohort of parents and guardians of young children living in Monrovia, Liberia collected before and after the 2014 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) to estimate the impact of EVD exposure on implicit preferences for harsh discipline. We hypothesized that parents exposed to EVD-related sickness or death would exhibit a stronger preference for harsh discipline practices compared with non-exposed parents.
Methods.
The data for this analysis come from two survey rounds conducted in Liberia as part of an intervention trial of a behavioral parenting skills intervention. Following a baseline assessment of 201 enrolled parents in July 2014, all program and study activities were halted due to the outbreak of EVD. Following the EVD crisis, we conducted a tracking survey with parents who completed the baseline survey 12 months prior. In both rounds, we presented parents with 12 digital comic strips of a child misbehaving and asked them to indicate how they would react if they were the parent in the stories.
Results.
Parents from households with reported EVD sickness or death became more ‘harsh’ (Glass's delta = 1.41) in their hypothetical decision-making compared with non-exposed parents, t (167)=−2.3, p < 0.05. Parents from households that experienced EVD-related sickness or death not only reported significantly more household conflict and anxiety, but also reported that their child exhibited fewer difficulties.
Conclusions.
Results support the need for family-based interventions, including strategies to help parents learn alternatives to harsh punishment.
The critical period for weed control (CPWC) is an integral component ofintegrated weed management strategies. Several studies have defined the CPWCin soybean under varying agronomic conditions, yet none have described themechanisms involved in crop yield losses caused by weed competition. Wehypothesized that under nonresource-limiting conditions, morphologicalchanges resulting from the expression of shade avoidance could be used todefine a period of developmental sensitivity to low red-to-far-red ratio (R: FR) that would overlap with the defined CPWC in soybean. Two experiments(a sequential harvest and a weed addition/removal series) were conducted in2008 and 2009 under controlled environmental conditions to address thishypothesis. Two light-quality treatments were used: (1) high R : FR ratio(i.e., weed-free), and (2) low R : FR ratio (i.e., weedy). The low R : FRratio treatment induced shade avoidance responses in soybean, which includedincreases in height, internode length, and the shoot : root ratio, as wellas a reduction in biomass accumulation and leaf number. Using themorphological changes in biomass and leaf number observed in the weedaddition/removal series, a period of developmental sensitivity to low R : FRwas defined between the first trifoliate (V1) and third trifoliate (V3)stages of soybean development. This period was found to be very similar tothe CPWC previously defined by field studies of soybean–weedcompetition.
Recent studies have suggested that soybeans express shade avoidance in response to low red : far-red (R : FR) light reflected from neighboring plants and that this response may determine the onset and outcome of crop–weed competition. We tested the hypothesis that the low R : FR ratio would trigger characteristic shade avoidance responses in soybean and that the subsequent phenotype would experience reproductive costs under non–resource-limiting conditions. Soybeans were grown in a fertigation system in field trials conducted in 2007 and 2008 under two light quality treatments: (1) high R : FR ratio (i.e., weed-free) i.e., upward reflected light from a baked clay medium (Turface MVP®), or (2) low R : FR ratio (i.e., weedy) of upward reflected light, from commercial turfgrass. Results of this study indicated that a reduction in the R : FR ratio of light reflected from the surface of turfgrass increased soybean internode elongation, reduced branching, and decreased yield per plant. Shade avoidance also increased the plant-to-plant variability in biomass and yield per plant. Per plant yield losses were, however, more closely associated with reductions in biomass accumulation than population variability as the expression of a shade avoidance response did not influence harvest index. While these results suggest that weed induced shade avoidance decreases soybean per plant yield by reducing branching, it is possible the productivity of a soybean stand as a whole may be buffered against these reduction by a similar, but opposite, expression of plasticity in branching.
Using data from the 1956–60 and 1972–76 National Election Studies (NES), we replicate the issues/party identification (PID) models set forth in Franklin (1992) and Franklin and Jackson (1983). Mild constraints on the signs of the parameters in a full-information model reduce to insignificance the apparent causal influence of issue proximities on partisanship. Furthermore, alternative specifications of the issues/PID relationship yield no evidence that citizens update their partisanship based on their ideological distance from the parties.
Standard estimates of the impact of Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) on inpatient lengths of stay (LOS) may overstate inpatient care costs attributable to CDI. In this study, we used multistate modeling (MSM) of CDI timing to reduce bias in estimates of excess LOS.
METHODS
A retrospective cohort study of all hospitalizations at any of 120 acute care facilities within the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) between 2005 and 2012 was conducted. We estimated the excess LOS attributable to CDI using an MSM to address time-dependent bias. Bootstrapping was used to generate 95% confidence intervals (CI). These estimates were compared to unadjusted differences in mean LOS for hospitalizations with and without CDI.
RESULTS
During the study period, there were 3.96 million hospitalizations and 43,540 CDIs. A comparison of unadjusted means suggested an excess LOS of 14.0 days (19.4 vs 5.4 days). In contrast, the MSM estimated an attributable LOS of only 2.27 days (95% CI, 2.14–2.40). The excess LOS for mild-to-moderate CDI was 0.75 days (95% CI, 0.59–0.89), and for severe CDI, it was 4.11 days (95% CI, 3.90–4.32). Substantial variation across the Veteran Integrated Services Networks (VISN) was observed.
CONCLUSIONS
CDI significantly contributes to LOS, but the magnitude of its estimated impact is smaller when methods are used that account for the time-varying nature of infection. The greatest impact on LOS occurred among patients with severe CDI. Significant geographic variability was observed. MSM is a useful tool for obtaining more accurate estimates of the inpatient care costs of CDI.
Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2015;36(9):1024–1030