There is a growing focus on understanding the complexity of dietary patterns and how they relate to health and other factors. Approaches that have not traditionally been applied to characterise dietary patterns, such as latent class analysis and machine learning algorithms, may offer opportunities to characterise dietary patterns in greater depth than previously considered. However, there has not been a formal examination of how this wide range of approaches has been applied to characterise dietary patterns. This scoping review synthesised literature from 2005 to 2022 applying methods not traditionally used to characterise dietary patterns, referred to as novel methods. MEDLINE, CINAHL and Scopus were searched using keywords including latent class analysis, machine learning and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. Of 5274 records identified, 24 met the inclusion criteria. Twelve of twenty-four articles were published since 2020. Studies were conducted across seventeen countries. Nine studies used approaches with applications in machine learning, such as classification models, neural networks and probabilistic graphical models, to identify dietary patterns. The remaining studies applied methods such as latent class analysis, mutual information and treelet transform. Fourteen studies assessed associations between dietary patterns characterised using novel methods and health outcomes, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and asthma. There was wide variation in the methods applied to characterise dietary patterns and in how these methods were described. The extension of reporting guidelines and quality appraisal tools relevant to nutrition research to consider specific features of novel methods may facilitate consistent reporting and enable synthesis to inform policies and programs.

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.

The prioritization of English language in clinical research is a barrier to translational science. We explored promising practices to advance the inclusion of people who speak languages other than English in research conducted within and supported by NIH Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) hubs. Key informant interviews were conducted with representatives (n = 24) from CTSA hubs (n = 17). Purposive sampling was used to identify CTSA hubs focused on language inclusion. Hubs electing to participate were interviewed via Zoom. Thematic analysis was performed to analyze interview transcripts. We report on strategies employed by hubs to advance linguistic inclusion and influence institutional change that were identified. Strategies ranged from translations, development of culturally relevant materials and consultations to policies and procedural changes and workforce initiatives. An existing framework was adapted to conceptualize hub strategies. Language justice is paramount to bringing more effective treatments to all people more quickly. Inclusion will require institutional transformation and CTSA hubs are well positioned to catalyze change.

Among 8,678 vaccinated healthcare personnel (HCP) with previous coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), by August 28, 2023, 909 (10%) had an infection of severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) omicron XBB variant. Reinfection risk was comparable irrespective of previous infection type except for the omicron BQ.1 variant. Bivalent vaccination had a protective effect. COVID-19 vaccines remain vital to protect HCP, including those with hybrid immunity.

This roundtable takes up old themes and new perspectives in the field of political history. Scholars engage with six questions across three main categories: the scope of the field, current debates, and teaching. The first two questions ask how we should think about political power and the boundaries of what constitute political history. The section on current debates interrogates the relationship between governing and social movements during the GAPE, and how to situate the political violence of the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot in historical perspective. The final section on teaching takes up two very different challenges. One question is a perennial concern about connecting with students in the classroom about political history. The other dilemma is how to respond to the growing cascade of censorship laws passed by state legislatures that prohibit the teaching of so-called “divisive concepts.”

In a dynamic term of the United States Supreme Court in 2021-2022 a series of critical cases raise manifold changes and impacts on individual and communal health through 10 key areas ranging from abortions to vaccinations.

Most academics in philosophy departments accept that the discipline needs to change for the better. In this piece, Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting offer several proposals for how to make philosophy a more inclusive place for everyone.

Recent studies implicate maternal gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in differential methylation of infant DNA. Folate and vitamin B12 play a role in DNA methylation, and these vitamins may also influence GDM risk. The aims of this study were to determine folate and vitamin B12 status in obese pregnant women and investigate associations between folate and vitamin B12 status, maternal dysglycaemia and neonatal DNA methylation at cytosine-phosphate-guanine sites previously observed to be associated with dysglycaemia. Obese pregnant women who participated in the UK Pregnancies Better Eating and Activity Trial were included. Serum folate and vitamin B12 were measured at the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) visit. Cord blood DNA methylation was assessed using the Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip. Regression models with adjustment for confounders were used to examine associations. Of the 951 women included, 356 (37.4%) were vitamin B12 deficient, and 44 (4.6%) were folate deficient. Two-hundred and seventy-one women (28%) developed GDM. Folate and vitamin B12 concentrations were not associated with neonatal DNA methylation. Higher folate was positively associated with 1-h plasma glucose after OGTT (β = 0.031, 95% CI 0.001–0.061, p = 0.045). There was no relationship between vitamin B12 and glucose concentrations post OGTT or between folate or vitamin B12 and GDM. In summary, we found no evidence to link folate and vitamin B12 status with the differential methylation of neonatal DNA previously observed in association with dysglycaemia. We add to the evidence that folate status may be related to maternal glucose homoeostasis although replication in other maternal cohorts is required for validation.

Anecdotal evidence suggests the use of bolus tube feeding is increasing in the long-term home enteral tube feed (HETF) patients. A cross-sectional survey to assess the prevalence of bolus tube feeding and to characterise these patients was undertaken. Dietitians from ten centres across the UK collected data on all adult HETF patients on the dietetic caseload receiving bolus tube feeding (n 604, 60 % male, age 58 years). Demographic data, reasons for tube and bolus feeding, tube and equipment types, feeding method and patients’ complete tube feeding regimens were recorded. Over a third of patients receiving HETF used bolus feeding (37 %). Patients were long-term tube fed (4·1 years tube feeding, 3·5 years bolus tube feeding), living at home (71 %) and sedentary (70 %). The majority were head and neck cancer patients (22 %) who were significantly more active (79 %) and lived at home (97 %), while those with cerebral palsy (12 %) were typically younger (age 31 years) but sedentary (94 %). Most patients used bolus feeding as their sole feeding method (46 %), because it was quick and easy to use, as a top-up to oral diet or to mimic mealtimes. Importantly, oral nutritional supplements (ONS) were used for bolus feeding in 85 % of patients, with 51 % of these being compact-style ONS (2·4 kcal (10·0 kJ)/ml, 125 ml). This survey shows that bolus tube feeding is common among UK HETF patients, is used by a wide variety of patient groups and can be adapted to meet the needs of a variety of patients, clinical conditions, nutritional requirements and lifestyles.

Growth mixture modeling with a sample of 749 Mexican heritage families identified parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their mothers’ heritage cultural values and parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their fathers’ heritage cultural values from Grades 5 to 10. Parallel trajectory profiles were then used to test cultural gap-distress theory that predicts increased parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology over time when adolescents become less aligned with Mexican heritage values compared to their parents. Six similar parallel profiles were identified for the mother–youth and father–youth dyads, but only one of the six was consistent with the hypothesized problem gap pattern in which adolescents’ values were declining over time to become more discrepant from their parents. When compared to families in the other trajectory groups as a whole, mothers in the mother–adolescent problem gap trajectory group reported higher levels of mother–adolescent conflict in the 10th grade that accounted for subsequent increases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms assessed in 12th grade. Although the findings provided some support for cultural gap-distress predictions, they were not replicated with adolescent report of conflict nor with the father–adolescent trajectory group analyses. Exploratory pairwise comparisons between all six mother–adolescent trajectory groups revealed additional differences that qualified and extended these findings.

Ethnic–racial and socioeconomic residential segregation are endemic in the United States, representing societal-level sociocultural processes that likely shape development. Considered alongside communities’ abilities to respond to external forces, like stratification, in ways that promote youth adaptive functioning and mitigate maladaptive functioning, it is likely that residence in segregated neighborhoods during adolescence has both costs and benefits. We examined the influences that early adolescents’ neighborhood structural characteristics, including Latino concentration and concentrated poverty, had on a range of developmentally salient downstream outcomes (i.e., internalizing, externalizing, prosocial behaviors, and ethnic–racial identity resolution) via implications for intermediate aspects of adolescents’ community participation and engagement (i.e., ethnic–racial identity exploration, ethnic–racial discrimination from peers, and school attachment). These mediational mechanisms were tested prospectively across three waves (Mage w1-w3 = 12.79, 15.83, 17.37 years, respectively) in a sample of 733 Mexican-origin adolescents (48.8% female). We found higher neighborhood Latino concentration during early adolescence predicted greater school attachment and ethnic–racial identity exploration and lower discrimination from peers in middle adolescence. These benefits, in turn, were associated with lower externalizing and internalizing and higher ethnic–racial identity resolution and prosocial behaviors in late adolescence. Findings are discussed relative to major guidelines for integrating culture into development and psychopathology.

This paper aims to advance the scientific understanding of the role of culture, particularly cultural orientation, in development and psychopathology. We advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes cultural orientation as a developmental construct represented by multiple psychological dimensions and social identities, and influenced by the contexts in which individuals are embedded. This perspective suggests that cultural orientation changes within individuals over time as a function of their experiences with and memberships in multiple groups, including the mainstream and ethnic culture groups, as well as a function of their normative developmental changes (i.e., the development of cognitive, social, and emotional capabilities). In addition, this framework places the development of an ethnic culture social identity (e.g., an ethnic identity) and a mainstream culture social identity in broader developmental perspectives that recognize these as two of the many social identities that are simultaneously embedded within the individual's self-concept and that simultaneously influence one's cultural orientation. To support the successful integration of culture into the study of development and psychopathology, we describe how highly reliable and valid measures of cultural orientation, indexed by individuals’ social identities, are essential for generating a scientifically credible understanding of the role of cultural orientation in development and psychopathology. Further, we detail some best research practices associated with our developmental and contextual framework, and note some important considerations for researchers interested in studying cultural orientation, development, and psychopathology.