Speaking Foreign Languages in the United States: Correlates, Trends, and Possible Consequences
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Robinson, John P.; Rivers, William P.; Brecht, Richard D.
2006-01-01
With President George W. Bush's unprecedented call in January 2006 to expand the foreign language capacity of the United States, it has become clear that languages other than English (LOE) are of great interest to public policy in the United States. Yet the language capacity of the United States remains poorly documented. The 2000 General Social…
The United States and World Development: Agenda 1980.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sewell, John W.; And Others
This publication examines global problems facing the United States and offers a specific short-term program of action to deal with some of the problems. There are three major parts. Part I describes political and economic developments in both rich and poor countries and comments on the recent record of the United States in its relationships with…
Geographic Education--Where Have We Failed?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gritzner, Charles F.
1981-01-01
Discusses geography's rather low status and relatively poor public image in the United States and some of the consequences. Among the world's educated industrial nations, the United States ranks among the least literate in a geographical sense. (RM)
Minding the Gap: Factors Associated With Primary Care Coordination of Adults in 11 Countries.
Penm, Jonathan; MacKinnon, Neil J; Strakowski, Stephen M; Ying, Jun; Doty, Michelle M
2017-03-01
Care coordination has been identified as a key strategy in improving the effectiveness, safety, and efficiency of the US health care system. Our objective was to determine whether population or health care system issues are associated with primary care coordination gaps in the United States and other high-income countries. We analyzed data from the 2013 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy (IHP) survey with multivariate logistic regression analysis. Respondents were adult primary care patients from 11 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. Poor primary care coordination was defined as participants reporting at least 3 gaps in the coordination of care out of a maximum of 5. Analyses were based on 13,958 respondents. The rate of poor primary care coordination was 5.2% (724/13,958 respondents) overall and highest in the United States, at 9.8% (137/1,395 respondents). Multivariate regression analysis among all respondents found that they were less likely to experience poor primary care coordination if their primary care physician often or always knew their medical history, spent sufficient time, involved them, and explained things well (odds ratio = 0.6 for each). Poor primary care coordination was more likely to occur among patients with chronic conditions (odds ratios = 1.4-2.1 depending on number) and patients younger than 65 years (odds ratios = 1.6-2.3 depending on age-group). Among US respondents, insurance status, health status, household income, and sex were not associated with poor primary care coordination. The United States had the highest rate of poor primary care coordination among the 11 high-income countries evaluated. An established relationship with a primary care physician was significantly associated with better care coordination, whereas being chronically ill or younger was associated with poorer care coordination. © 2017 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.
Minding the Gap: Factors Associated With Primary Care Coordination of Adults in 11 Countries
Penm, Jonathan; MacKinnon, Neil J.; Strakowski, Stephen M.; Ying, Jun; Doty, Michelle M.
2017-01-01
PURPOSE Care coordination has been identified as a key strategy in improving the effectiveness, safety, and efficiency of the US health care system. Our objective was to determine whether population or health care system issues are associated with primary care coordination gaps in the United States and other high-income countries. METHODS We analyzed data from the 2013 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy (IHP) survey with multivariate logistic regression analysis. Respondents were adult primary care patients from 11 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. Poor primary care coordination was defined as participants reporting at least 3 gaps in the coordination of care out of a maximum of 5. RESULTS Analyses were based on 13,958 respondents. The rate of poor primary care coordination was 5.2% (724/13,958 respondents) overall and highest in the United States, at 9.8% (137/1,395 respondents). Multivariate regression analysis among all respondents found that they were less likely to experience poor primary care coordination if their primary care physician often or always knew their medical history, spent sufficient time, involved them, and explained things well (odds ratio = 0.6 for each). Poor primary care coordination was more likely to occur among patients with chronic conditions (odds ratios = 1.4–2.1 depending on number) and patients younger than 65 years (odds ratios = 1.6–2.3 depending on age-group). Among US respondents, insurance status, health status, household income, and sex were not associated with poor primary care coordination. CONCLUSIONS The United States had the highest rate of poor primary care coordination among the 11 high-income countries evaluated. An established relationship with a primary care physician was significantly associated with better care coordination, whereas being chronically ill or younger was associated with poorer care coordination. PMID:28289109
AN AMMONIA EMISSION INVENTORY FOR FERTILIZER APPLICATION IN THE UNITED STATES. (R826371C006)
Fertilizer application represents a significant fraction of ammonia emissions from all sources in the United States. Previously published ammonia inventories have generally suffered from poor spatial and temporal resolution, erroneous activity levels, and highly uncertain emis...
Position of the American Dietetic Association: food insecurity and hunger in the United States.
Holben, David H
2006-03-01
It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that systematic and sustained action is needed to bring an end to domestic food insecurity and hunger and to achieve food and nutrition security for all in the United States. The Association believes that immediate and long-range interventions are needed, including adequate funding for and increased utilization of food and nutrition assistance programs, the inclusion of food and nutrition education in all programs providing food and nutrition assistance, and innovative programs to promote and support the economic self-sufficiency of individuals and families, to end food insecurity and hunger in the United States. Food insecurity continues to exist in the United States, with over 38 million people experiencing it sometime in 2004. Negative nutritional and nonnutritional outcomes have been associated with food insecurity in adults, adolescents, and children, including poor dietary intake and nutritional status, poor health, increased risk for the development of chronic diseases, poor psychological and cognitive functioning, and substandard academic achievement. Dietetics professionals can play a key role in ending food insecurity and hunger and are uniquely positioned to make valuable contributions through provision of comprehensive food and nutrition education, competent and collaborative practice, innovative research related to accessing a safe and secure food supply, and advocacy efforts at the local, state, regional, and national levels.
Addressing Child Poverty: How Does the United States Compare With Other Nations?
Smeeding, Timothy; Thévenot, Céline
2016-04-01
Poverty during childhood raises a number of policy challenges. The earliest years are critical in terms of future cognitive and emotional development and early health outcomes, and have long-lasting consequences on future health. In this article child poverty in the United States is compared with a set of other developed countries. To the surprise of few, results show that child poverty is high in the United States. But why is poverty so much higher in the United States than in other rich nations? Among child poverty drivers, household composition and parent's labor market participation matter a great deal. But these are not insurmountable problems. Many of these disadvantages can be overcome by appropriate public policies. For example, single mothers have a very high probability of poverty in the United States, but this is not the case in other countries where the provision of work support increases mothers' labor earnings and together with strong public cash support effectively reduces child poverty. In this article we focus on the role and design of public expenditure to understand the functioning of the different national systems and highlight ways for improvements to reduce child poverty in the United States. We compare relative child poverty in the United States with poverty in a set of selected countries. The takeaway is that the United States underinvests in its children and their families and in so doing this leads to high child poverty and poor health and educational outcomes. If a nation like the United States wants to decrease poverty and improve health and life chances for poor children, it must support parental employment and incomes, and invest in children's futures as do other similar nations with less child poverty. Copyright © 2016 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Supporting Young English Learners in the United States
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Barrow, Lisa; Markman-Pithers, Lisa
2016-01-01
Simply put, children with poor English skills are less likely to succeed in school and beyond. What's the best way to teach English to young children who aren't native English speakers? In this article, Lisa Barrow and Lisa Markman-Pithers examine the state of English learner education in the United States and review the evidence behind different…
Nkansah-Amankra, Stephen; Agbanu, Samuel Kwami; Miller, Reuben Jonathan
2013-01-01
Problems of poverty, poor health, and incarceration are unevenly distributed among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. We argue that this is due, in part, to the ascendance of United States-style neoliberalism, a prevailing political and economic doctrine that shapes social policy, including public health and anti-poverty intervention strategies. Public health research most often associates inequalities in health outcomes, poverty, and incarceration with individual and cultural risk factors. Contextual links to structural inequality and the neoliberal doctrine animating state-sanctioned interventions are given less attention. The interrelationships among these are not clear in the extant literature. Less is known about public health and incarceration. Thus, the authors describe the linkages between neoliberalism, public health, and criminal justice outcomes. We suggest that neoliberalism exacerbates racial disparities in health, poverty, and incarceration in the United States. We conclude by calling for a new direction in public health research that advances a pro-poor public health agenda to improve the general well-being of disadvantaged groups.
Differences in Nutrient Adequacy among Poor and Non-Poor Children.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cook, John T.; Martin, Katie S.
This study compared the proportion of 1- to 5-year-olds in poor and non-poor households whose intakes of key nutrients were inadequate. Data were obtained from the 1986 United States Department of Agriculture Nationwide Food Consumption Survey and Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals. An intake below 70 percent of the Recommended Daily…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) of soybean is the major cause of poor seed quality in the United States, especially in the mid-southern United States. In 2009, due to the prevalence of hot and humid environments from pod fill to harvest, PSD caused over 0.33 MMT losses in 16 states. To identify new sourc...
Assessing pine regeneration for the South Central United States
William H. McWilliams
1990-01-01
Poor regeneration of pine following harvest on nonindustrial timberland has been identified as a major cause for loss of pine forests and slowdown of softwood growth in the Southern United States.Developing a strategy for regeneration assessment requires clear definition of sampling objectives, sampling design, and analytical processes. It is important that...
Apprenticeship Past and Present.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Manpower Administration (DOL), Washington, DC. Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training.
For thousands of years men have transferred skills from one generation to another by apprenticeships. In Egypt, Greece, Rome, Europe, and finally in the United States apprenticeships became an accepted practice. In the United States in the 1700's poor boys 14 years or younger were often indentured to masters who agreed to teach them a trade. They…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ducey, Sara Bachman; And Others
This study examined low birth weight and infant mortality in the 50 states and the 54 largest American cities between 1979 and 1984. Its findings confirm that progress in reducing low birth weight and infant mortality has slowed, and in some cases the progress has actually reversed. Some states and many cities had higher rates of low birth weight…
NEUTRALIZING THE DISINHERITED--SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF UNDERSTANDING THE POOR.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
RAINWATER, LEE
MEMBERS OF THE DOMINANT SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES, BOTH SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND LAYMEN, PERCEIVE THE POOR IN WAYS WHICH ALLOW THEM TO RESOLVE THE ANXIETY THEY EXPERIENCE WHEN THEY RECOGNIZE THAT THE POOR LIVE A LIFE WHICH IS OSTENSIBLY UNLIVABLE. ONE MODE OF PERCEPTION, WHICH UNDERLIES SEEMINGLY SOPHISTICATED VIEWS, AND IS FOUND IN THE ATTITUDE…
Patterns of Risk: The Nutritional Status of the Rural Poor.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shotland, Jeffrey; Loonin, Deanne
Nutrition and health are underlying influences to education performance. This report is a collection and analysis of data on nutrition and the rural poor in the United States. It presents an empirical assessment of critical nutritional and social-service problems experienced by the rural poor population. The first section of the report uses data…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Strunk, Julie A.
2008-01-01
Teenage pregnancy outcomes have become an increasing concern in the United States. Education and support of pregnant teens are critical factors that may determine good or poor pregnancy outcomes. Poor outcomes may include low birth weight, developmental delays, and poor academic performance. Although the number of teenagers experiencing pregnancy…
The Impact of Migration on Poverty Concentrations in the United States, 1995-2000
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Foulkes, Matt; Schafft, Kai A.
2010-01-01
Poverty is frequently conceptualized as an attribute of either people or places. Yet residential movement of poor people can redistribute poverty across places, affecting and reshaping the spatial concentration of economic disadvantage. In this article, we utilize 1995 to 2000 county-to-county migration data from the 2000 United States decennial…
Two Perspectives on Inclusion in the United States
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dudley-Marling, Curt; Burns, Mary Bridget
2014-01-01
The history of schooling for students with disabilities in the United States is marked by exclusion and, until the passage of the "Education for All Children Act" in the 1970s, a substantial number of students with disabilities were denied free public education and many more were poorly served by public schools. The requirement that all…
Power laws in cone production of longleaf pine across its native range in the United States
Xiongwen Chen; Qinfeng Guo; Dale G. Brockway
2017-01-01
Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forests in the southeastern United States are considered endangered ecosystems, because of their dramatic decrease in area since European colonization and poor rates of recovery related to episodic natural regeneration. Sporadic seed production constrains restoration efforts and complicates sustainable management of this species....
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Barber, Katie W.
2013-01-01
There is no question that economic deprivation has an adverse impact on student achievement. In the United States, the gaps in achievement among poor and advantaged students are substantial. Through multiple studies, the United States Department of Education (2006) indicated results that "clearly demonstrated that poverty adversely affected…
Continuous Cover Forestry in the United States--Experience With Southern Pines
James M. Guldin
2002-01-01
Continuous cover forestry (CCF) has not been common in the southern United States, but if does exist. The best record of reseurch and practice exists for mixed loblolly-shortleaf pine (Pinus taeda L.-P. echinata Mill.) stands in the Upper West Gulf Coastal Plain west of the Mississippi River. After 60 years, the Good and Poor...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rustvold, Susan Romano
2012-01-01
A self-perpetuating cycle of poor health literacy and poor oral health knowledge and behavior affects approximately 90 million people in the United States, most especially those from low-income groups and other at-risk populations such as those with addiction. Poor oral health can result from lack of access to regular preventive dental…
Poor Kids in a Rich Nation: Eating the Seed Corn.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Garrett, Patricia
This paper examines the problem of having many poor children in the wealthy United States and the need to find answers to this problem. Despite much recent talk about "family values," the dominant U.S. ideology holds that family welfare is a private rather than a public responsibility. Poor children are seen as a special population that diverts…
Smaller Slices of the Pie. The Growing Economic Vulnerability of Poor and Moderate Income Americans.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Porter, Kathryn; And Others
Data which demonstrate increasing poverty in the United States are collected in this report. Following a brief introduction, six sections present information to support these major findings: (1) Today there is a growing trend toward income disparity between rich and poor. Americans of moderate incomes as well as those classified as poor have lost…
No Way Out: Working Poor Women in the United States.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
National Commission on Working Women, Washington, DC.
This report examines the situation of the one-half of the nation's nine million working poor who are female. It begins by looking at just who the working poor are. Two areas of study are education levels and types of jobs. The discussion then shifts to minimum wage earners and their characteristics, the current status of the minimum wage, and the…
Thomas P. Albright; Anna M. Pidgeon; Chadwick D. Rittenhouse; Murray K. Clayton; Brian D. Wardlow; Curtis H. Flather; Patrick D. Culbert; Volker C. Radeloff
2010-01-01
Increasing surface temperatures and climatic variability associated with global climate change are expected to produce more frequent and intense heat waves and droughts in many parts of the world. Our goal was to elucidate the fundamental, but poorly understood, effects of these extreme weather events on avian communities across the conterminous United States....
Hemphill, Sheryl A.; Kotevski, Aneta; Herrenkohl, Todd I.; Smith, Rachel; Toumbourou, John W.; Catalano, Richard F.
2013-01-01
School suspension has been not only associated with negative behaviours but is predictive of future poor outcomes. The current study investigates a) whether school suspension is a unique predictor of youth nonviolent antisocial behaviour (NVAB) relative to other established predictors, and b) whether the predictors of NVAB are similar in Australia and the United States (U.S.). The data analysed here draws on two state-wide representative samples of Grade 7 and 9 students in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, U.S., resurveyed at 12-month follow-up (N = 3,677, 99% retention). School suspension did not uniquely predict NVAB in the final model. The predictors of NVAB, similar across states, included previous student NVAB; current alcohol and tobacco use; poor family management; association with antisocial friends; and low commitment to school. An implication of the findings is that U.S. evidence-based prevention programs targeting the influences investigated here could be trialled in Australia. PMID:24860192
Gorey, Kevin M.; Luginaah, Isaac N.; Hamm, Caroline; Fung, Karen Y.; Holowaty, Eric J.
2010-01-01
This study examined the differential effect of extreme impoverishment on breast cancer care in urban Canada and the United States. Ontario and California registry-based samples diagnosed between 1998 and 2000 were followed until 2006. Extremely poor and affluent neighborhoods were compared. Poverty was associated with non-localized disease, surgical and radiation therapy (RT) waits, nonreceipt of breast conserving surgery, RT and hormonal therapy, and shorter survival in California, but not in Ontario. Extremely poor Ontario women were consistently advantaged on care indices over their California counterparts. More inclusive health insurance coverage in Canada seems the most plausible explanation for such Canadian breast cancer care advantages. PMID:19840902
Starting School at a Disadvantage: The School Readiness of Poor Children. The Social Genome Project
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Isaacs, Julia B.
2012-01-01
Poor children in the United States start school at a disadvantage in terms of their early skills, behaviors, and health. Fewer than half (48 percent) of poor children are ready for school at age five, compared to 75 percent of children from families with moderate and high income, a 27 percentage point gap. This paper examines the reasons why poor…
Lin, Yu-Hsiu; McLain, Alexander C; Probst, Janice C; Bennett, Kevin J; Qureshi, Zaina P; Eberth, Jan M
2017-01-01
The purpose of this study was to develop county-level estimates of poor health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among aged 65 years and older U.S. adults and to identify spatial clusters of poor HRQOL using a multilevel, poststratification approach. Multilevel, random-intercept models were fit to HRQOL data (two domains: physical health and mental health) from the 2011-2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Using a poststratification, small area estimation approach, we generated county-level probabilities of having poor HRQOL for each domain in U.S. adults aged 65 and older, and validated our model-based estimates against state and county direct estimates. County-level estimates of poor HRQOL in the United States ranged from 18.07% to 44.81% for physical health and 14.77% to 37.86% for mental health. Correlations between model-based and direct estimates were higher for physical than mental HRQOL. Counties located in the Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi exhibited the worst physical HRQOL scores, but this pattern did not hold for mental HRQOL, which had the highest probability of mentally unhealthy days in Illinois, Indiana, and Vermont. Substantial geographic variation in physical and mental HRQOL scores exists among older U.S. adults. State and local policy makers should consider these local conditions in targeting interventions and policies to counties with high levels of poor HRQOL scores. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
R.A. Payn; M.N. Gooseff; B.L. McGlynn; K.E. Bencala; S.M. Wondzell
2009-01-01
Channel water balances of contiguous reaches along streams represent a poorly understood scale of stream-subsurface interaction. We measured reach water balances along a headwater stream in Montana, United States, during summer base flow recessions. Reach water balances were estimated from series of tracer tests in 13 consecutive reaches delineated evenly along a 2.6-...
Methods of Cost Reduction for United States Coast Guard Telephone Systems.
1981-03-01
System (’FTS) for a single low utilization command is questionable. Small FAX machines such as EXXON’s QWIP /FAX can be purchased at approxi- mately...unsatisfactory operating condi- tion. Electrical faults, such as leakage or poor insulation, noise induction, crosstalk, or poor transmission
2016-01-01
This paper evaluates racial/ethnic differences in self-rated mental health for adults in the United States, while controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as length of stay in the country. Using data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey Cancer Control Supplement (NHIS-CCS), binomial logistic regression models are fit to estimate the association between race/ethnicity and poor/fair self-reported mental health among US Adults. The size of the analytical sample was 22,844 persons. Overall prevalence of poor/fair self-rated mental health was 7.72%, with lower prevalence among Hispanics (6.93%). Non-Hispanic blacks had the highest prevalence (10.38%). After controls for socioeconomic characteristics are incorporated in the models, Hispanics were found to have a lower probability of reporting poor/fair self-rated mental health in comparison to non-Hispanic whites (OR = 0.70; 95% CI [0.55–0.90]). No difference was found for other minority groups when compared to the reference group in the final model. Contrary to global self-rated health, Hispanics were found to have a lower probability of reporting poor/fair self-rated mental health in comparison to non-Hispanic whites. No difference was found for non-Hispanic blacks when they were compared to non-Hispanic whites. Self-rated mental health is therefore one case of a self-rating of health in which evidence supporting the epidemiological paradox is found among adults in the United States. PMID:27688982
Conway, Sadie H; Cayuela, Ana; Delclos, George L; Pompeii, Lisa A; Ronda, Elena
2016-12-01
The relationship between hours worked per week and self-reported general health (SRGH) has not been assessed in Latin American immigrant and native workers across host countries. Cross-sectional study of the association between long work hours (LWH) (i.e., >51 hr per week) and poor SRGH using data from 2,626 workers in the United States (immigrants = 10.4%) and 8,306 workers in Spain (immigrants = 4.1%). Both countries' natives working >51 hr per week had increased odds of reporting poor SRGH compared to those working fewer hours (U.S.: OR = 1.59; 95%CI = 1.01-2.49; Spain: OR = 2.17; 95%CI = 1.71-2.75); when stratified by sex, increased odds also were observed among immigrant female workers in Spain (OR = 3.47; 95%CI = 1.15-10.5). LWH were associated with differential health outcomes in populations of native and Latin American immigrant workers in the United States and Spain, which may reflect social or occupational inequalities in general or resulting from the 2008 financial crisis. Am. J. Ind. Med. 59:1105-1111, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The 2011 National Wetland Condition Assessment
The ecological condition of wetland resources across the conterminous United States is poorly understood. To address this issue, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), in collaboration with states, tribes, and other federal partners, is conducting the first-ever Natio...
Hofmeister, Megan G; Foster, Monique A; Teshale, Eyasu H
2018-04-30
There are many similarities in the epidemiology and transmission of hepatitis A virus (HAV) and hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype (gt)3 infections in the United States. Both viruses are enterically transmitted, although specific routes of transmission are more clearly established for HAV than for HEV: HAV is restricted to humans and primarily spread through the fecal-oral route, while HEV is zoonotic with poorly understood modes of transmission in the United States. New cases of HAV infection have decreased dramatically in the United States since infant vaccination was recommended in 1996. In recent years, however, outbreaks have occurred among an increasingly susceptible adult population. Although HEV is the most common cause of acute viral hepatitis in developing countries, it is rarely diagnosed in the United States. Copyright © 2018 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; all rights reserved.
Gebreab, Samson Y; Davis, Sharon K; Symanzik, Jürgen; Mensah, George A; Gibbons, Gary H; Diez-Roux, Ana V
2015-01-01
Background Improving cardiovascular health (CVH) of all Americans by 2020 is a strategic goal of the American Heart Association. Understanding the sources of variation and identifying contextual factors associated with poor CVH may suggest important avenues for prevention. Methods and Results Cross-sectional data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for the year 2011 were linked to state-level coronary heart disease and stroke mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System and to state-level measures of median household income, income inequality, taxes on soda drinks and cigarettes, and food and physical activity environments from various administrative sources. Poor CVH was defined according to the American Heart Association definition using 7 self-reported CVH metrics (current smoking, physical inactivity, obesity, poor diet, hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol). Linked micromap plots and multilevel logistic models were used to examine state variation in poor CVH and to investigate the contributions of individual- and state-level factors to this variation. We found significant state-level variation in the prevalence of poor CVH (median odds ratio 1.32, P<0.001). Higher rates of poor CVH and cardiovascular disease mortality were clustered in the southern states. Minority and low socioeconomic groups were strongly associated with poor CVH and explained 51% of the state-level variation in poor CVH; state-level factors explained an additional 28%. State-level median household income (odds ratio 0.89; 95% CI 0.84–0.94), taxes on soda drinks (odds ratio 0.94; 95% CI 0.89–0.99), farmers markets (odds ratio 0.91; 95% CI 0.85–0.98), and convenience stores (odds ratio 1.09; 95% CI 1.01–1.17) were predictive of poor CVH even after accounting for individual-level factors. Conclusions There is significant state-level variation in poor CVH that is partly explained by individual- and state-level factors. Additional longitudinal research is warranted to examine the influence of state-level policies and food and physical activity environments on poor CVH. PMID:26019131
Neglected diseases amid wealth in the United States and Europe.
Hotez, Peter
2009-01-01
Neglected tropical diseases are not exclusive to low-income countries. In the United States, such infections account for a sizable but largely hidden disease burden among minority populations living in poverty and among people of African descent in particular. Similar infections also occur in Europe. As efforts to control neglected tropical diseases expand throughout Africa, parallel efforts should also target poor and forgotten people in wealthy nations.
Arsenic Species in the Ground Water
Abstract Arsenic concentrations in ground varies widely and regionally across the United States and exists as oxyanions having two oxidation states: As(+III) and As(+V). As(V) is effectively removed by most arsenic treatment processes whereas uncharged As(III) is poorly removed...
How a SURFing Social Skills Curriculum Can Impact Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cavanaugh, Lauren Katrina; Rademacher, Sarah Beth
2014-01-01
An average of one in 88 children in the United States are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). Individuals with ASD demonstrate poor social interaction, poor social competence, and lowered self-esteem. Early intervention treatment can improve social development. In recent years more…
Punishment and Welfare: Paternal Incarceration and Families' Receipt of Public Assistance
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sugie, Naomi F.
2012-01-01
The United States criminal justice and welfare systems are two important government institutions in the lives of the poor. Despite many theoretical discussions about their relationship, their operation at the level of offenders and families remains poorly understood. This paper utilizes Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data to examine how…
The Dietary Guidelines For Americans 2005: Executive Summary
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Health Educator, 2005
2005-01-01
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans [Dietary Guidelines] provides science-based advice to promote health and to reduce risk for major chronic diseases through diet and physical activity. Major causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States are related to poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle. Some specific diseases linked to poor diet and…
Planning and Research for Program Expansion.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Greenblatt, Sadelle T.
Little Brothers--Friends of the Elderly is a non-profit, non-sectarian federation of agencies devoted to meeting the needs of the elderly poor, those poor not merely in worldly goods, but in love. The organization examined how it might more effectively spread its services and assure the establishment throughout the United States of programs with…
Searching for Solutions: Supervising Student Employees
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Comer, Alberta Davis
2003-01-01
Lending services units at Indiana State University's Cunningham Memorial Library depend heavily on student employees to fulfill their specific missions. Problems attributed to poor communication and lack of motivation among student employees were causing negative impacts on the units' abilities to function well. To resolve these problems,…
DOT National Transportation Integrated Search
2017-08-01
Highway networks in the United States have been suffering from poor operational and structural condition states for the past decades. The consequent congestion problems often result in major delays, safety issues, and large amounts of additional fuel...
Frías, Sonia M; Angel, Ronald J
2012-01-01
We employ two surveys to identify similarities and differences in the risk of abuse among poor urban Mexican-origin women in the United States and Mexico. While the two surveys reveal basic structural similarity in the predictors of partner violence, the rate of violence among Mexican women is far lower than among either foreign-born or native-born Mexican origin women in the United States. While these differences may reflect reality, we argue that survey data must be interpreted cautiously and with an understanding of the cultural, economic, and political context in which the information is collected as well as methodological differences between the surveys.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
General Accounting Office, Washington, DC. Health, Education, and Human Services Div.
Noting Congressional interest in encouraging low-income mothers to seek employment as an alternative to receiving welfare, this report describes a study of the impact of child care expenditures on mothers' decision to work and compares the differences in costs for poor, near-poor, and non-poor mothers. The study developed measures for predicted…
Dussel, Veronica; Bona, Kira; Heath, John A; Hilden, Joanne M; Weeks, Jane C; Wolfe, Joanne
2011-03-10
Financial concerns represent a major stressor for families of children with cancer but remain poorly understood among those with terminally ill children. We describe the financial hardship, work disruptions, income loss, and coping strategies of families who lost children to cancer. Retrospective cross-sectional survey of 141 American and 89 Australian bereaved parents whose children died between 1990 and 1999 and 1996 to 2004, respectively, at three tertiary-care pediatric hospitals (two American, one Australian). Response rate: 63%. Thirty-four (24%) of 141 families from US centers and 34 (39%) of 88 families from the Australian center reported a great deal of financial hardship resulting from their children's illness. Work disruptions were substantial (84% in the United States, 88% in Australia). Australian families were more likely to report quitting a job (49% in Australia v 35% in the United States; P = .037). Sixty percent of families lost more than 10% of their annual income as a result of work disruptions. Australians were more likely to lose more than 40% of their income (34% in Australia v 19% in the United States; P = .035). Poor families experienced the greatest income loss. After accounting for income loss, 16% of American and 22% of Australian families dropped below the poverty line. Financial hardship was associated with poverty and income loss in all centers. Fundraising was the most common financial coping strategy (52% in the United States v 33% in Australia), followed by reduced spending. In these US and Australian centers, significant household-level financial effects of a child's death as a result of cancer were observed, especially for poor families. Interventions aimed at reducing the effects of income loss may ease financial distress.
Teaching the Movement: The State Standards We Deserve
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shuster, Kate
2012-01-01
The September 2011 report, "Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education in the United States 2011," was prompted by the news that American high school seniors knew little about the civil rights movement. Knowing that low expectations often contribute to poor student achievement, the report took a close look at the content…
Poverty and the Underclass. Changing Domestic Priorities Discussion Paper.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sawhill, Isabel V.
The United States has one of the highest poverty rates in the industrialized world, especially among its children and the working poor. The underclass is comprised of a group of 2.5 million chronically poor people who live in inner-city communities where crime, drug abuse, teenage childbearing, dropping out of school, and welfare dependency are…
Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting: The Comparative Study of Intergenerational Mobility
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Smeeding, Timothy M., Ed.; Erikson, Robert, Ed.; Jantti, Markus, Ed.
2011-01-01
Americans like to believe that theirs is the land of opportunity, but the hard facts are that children born into poor families in the United States tend to stay poor and children born into wealthy families generally stay rich. Other countries have shown more success at lessening the effects of inequality on mobility--possibly by making public…
Poor People, Poor Places and Access to Health Care in the United States
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kirby, James B.
2008-01-01
Research suggests that community-level poverty is associated with access to health care net of individual-level characteristics, but no research investigates whether this association differs by individual-level income. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Health Resource and Services Administration,…
Contextual Factors Related to Math Anxiety in Second-Grade Children
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jameson, Molly M.
2014-01-01
As the United States falls farther behind other countries in standardized math assessments, the author seeks to understand why U.S. students perform so poorly. One of the possible explanations to U.S. students' poor math performance may be math anxiety. However, math anxiety in elementary school children is a neglected area in the research. The…
Latino Child Poverty in the United States.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Miranda, Leticia C.
Poverty among Latino children has soared during the past decade, accounting for half of the total growth in the number of American children who are poor. One in three Latino children was living in poverty as of 1989. Many Latino children are poor despite their parents' best efforts to pull their families out of poverty and despite the fact that…
Is the United States Really Losing the International Horse Race in Academic Achievement?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Boe, Erling E.; Shin, Sujie
2005-01-01
It is widely believed and lamented that U.S. students perform poorly on international comparisons of academic achievement. For example, Edward Silver reports that U.S. seventh- and eighth-grade students performed poorly on the mathematics section of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 1995) and that this indicates "a…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jones, Stephanie
2012-01-01
Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, this article engages post-structural theories of language and critical feminist theories of social class to examine two fourth-grade, White, working-poor girls' narratives about their urban neighbourhood in the United States. The author argues that young girls should be perceived as social theorists…
Is acculturation always adverse to Korean immigrant health in the United States?
Ra, Chaelin Karen; Cho, Youngtae; Hummer, Robert A
2013-06-01
This study examined the association between individuals' proportion of life spent in the United States and the health status and health behaviors among Korean immigrants aged 25 and above. The analysis is stratified by level of education to test whether a higher proportion of time spent in the United States is associated with poorer health among both less educated and highly educated Korean immigrants. California health interview survey data from 2005 to 2007 were used to estimate logistic regression models of health and health behaviour among Korean immigrants, stratified by educational attainment. The health and health behaviour of less educated Korean immigrants tended to be worse among those with a higher proportion of residence in the United States. However, more highly educated Korean immigrants tended to exhibit lower odds of being unhealthy and lower odds of poor health behavior with a higher proportion of life spent in the United States. Acculturation is not always associated with poorer immigrant health outcomes. A higher proportion of life spent in the United States tends to be associated with more favorable health and health behavior among highly educated Korean immigrants.
Soil-transmitted Helminthiasis in the United States: a systematic review--1940-2010.
Starr, Michelle C; Montgomery, Susan P
2011-10-01
The epidemiology of soil-transmitted helminth infections (hookworm, Trichuris trichiura, Ascaris lumbricoides, and Strongyloides stercoralis) in the United States is poorly understood. To gain understanding of the status of disease, a systematic review was performed to assess the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth infections in the United States. Of all studies reviewed, 14 were designated as high-quality. High-quality studies were published from 1942 to 1982 and showed that infection was prevalent throughout the southern United States and Appalachia as recently as 1982, finding that hookworm (19.6%), T. trichiura (55.2%), A. lumbricoides (49.4%), and S. stercoralis (3.8%) affected significant percentages of the population. However, because the most recent high-quality studies were published over 25 years ago, the literature does not provide sufficient data to assess current endemic transmission. Because the status of disease remains unclear, there is a need for additional studies to determine if soil-transmitted helminths remain endemic in the United States.
Patterns and causes of observed piñon pine mortality in the southwestern United States
Meddens, Arjan J.H.; Hicke, Jeff H.; Macalady, Alison K.; Buotte, P.C.; Cowles, T.R.; Allen, Craig D.
2015-01-01
Recently, widespread piñon pine die-off occurred in the southwestern United States. Here we synthesize observational studies of this event and compare findings to expected relationships with biotic and abiotic factors. Agreement exists on the occurrence of drought, presence of bark beetles and increased mortality of larger trees. However, studies disagree about the influences of stem density, elevation and other factors, perhaps related to study design, location and impact of extreme drought. Detailed information about bark beetles is seldom reported and their role is poorly understood. Our analysis reveals substantial limits to our knowledge regarding the processes that produce mortality patterns across space and time, indicating a poor ability to forecast mortality in response to expected increases in future droughts.
Schneider, Daniel; Hastings, Orestes P
2015-12-01
The United States has become increasingly characterized by stark class divides in family structure. Poor women are less likely to marry than their more affluent counterparts but are far more likely to have a birth outside of marriage. Recent theoretical and qualitative work at the intersection of demography and cultural sociology suggests that these patterns are generated because poor women have high, nearly unattainable, economic standards for marriage but make a much weaker connection between economic standing and fertility decisions. We use the events of the Great Recession, leveraging variation in the severity of the crisis between years and across states, to examine how exposure to worse state-level economic conditions is related to poor women's likelihood of marriage and of having a nonmarital birth between 2008 and 2012. In accord with theory, we find that women of low socioeconomic status (SES) exposed to worse economic conditions are indeed somewhat less likely to marry. However, we also find that unmarried low-SES women exposed to worse economic conditions significantly reduce their fertility; economic standing is not disconnected from nonmarital fertility. Our results suggest that economic concerns were connected to fertility decisions for low-SES unmarried women during the Great Recession.
State Policy Responses to Ensuring Excellent Educators in Rural Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gagnon, Douglas J.; Mattingly, Marybeth J.
2015-01-01
The Excellent Educators for All initiative is the most recent federal policy effort to address unequal access to teacher quality in the United States. States were required to submit equity plans to the U.S. Department of Education that detailed how to ensure that poor and minority children do not receive instruction from less qualified teachers.…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Soybean Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) causes poor seed quality and suppresses yield in most of soybean-growing states in United States. In 2009, PSD caused over 12 million bushel yield loss in 16 southern states. The disease is primarily caused by Phomopsis longicolla along with other Phomopsis and Dia...
Rosero-Bixby, Luis; Dow, William H
2016-02-02
Mortality in the United States is 18% higher than in Costa Rica among adult men and 10% higher among middle-aged women, despite the several times higher income and health expenditures of the United States. This comparison simultaneously shows the potential for substantially lowering mortality in other middle-income countries and highlights the United States' poor health performance. The United States' underperformance is strongly linked to its much steeper socioeconomic (SES) gradients in health. Although the highest SES quartile in the United States has better mortality than the highest quartile in Costa Rica, US mortality in its lowest quartile is markedly worse than in Costa Rica's lowest quartile, providing powerful evidence that the US health inequality patterns are not inevitable. High SES-mortality gradients in the United States are apparent in all broad cause-of-death groups, but Costa Rica's overall mortality advantage can be explained largely by two causes of death: lung cancer and heart disease. Lung cancer mortality in the United States is four times higher among men and six times higher among women compared with Costa Rica. Mortality by heart disease is 54% and 12% higher in the United States than in Costa Rica for men and women, respectively. SES gradients for heart disease and diabetes mortality are also much steeper in the United States. These patterns may be partly explained by much steeper SES gradients in the United States compared with Costa Rica for behavioral and medical risk factors such as smoking, obesity, lack of health insurance, and uncontrolled dysglycemia and hypertension.
Transforming the University through Community Engagement
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Yapa, Lakshman
2009-01-01
The universal belief that poverty is a matter of low income and correctable through economic growth, more jobs, and increased income is precisely why poverty has persisted in the United States and elsewhere. We view the poor as those not yet in the middle class, but it can be shown that not all the poor can join the middle class, even in the…
Litigation and School Finance: A Cautionary Tale
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Russo, Charles J.
2010-01-01
Beginning in the early 1970s, plaintiffs initiated a veritable tidal wave of litigation over financing public education in states with unequal funding for students in poor school systems. In the only case on school finance to reach the United States Supreme Court, "San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez" (1973), the…
Reinventing School Finance: Falling Forward
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Picus, Lawrence O.; Odden, Allan R.
2011-01-01
States and school districts are facing unprecedented financial pressure due to the continued poor performance of the United States's economy. Dramatic shortfalls in funding due to reduced tax collections were held off for 2 years thanks to federal stimulus funds, but with these revenues already consumed and little likelihood of more in the near…
Osborn, Robin; Squires, David; Doty, Michelle M; Sarnak, Dana O; Schneider, Eric C
2016-12-01
Surveys of patients' experiences with health care services can reveal how well a country's health system is meeting the needs of its population. Using data from a 2016 survey conducted in eleven countries-Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States-we found that US adults reported poor health and well-being and were the most likely to experience material hardship. The United States trailed other countries in making health care affordable and ranked poorly on providing timely access to medical care (except specialist care). In all countries, shortfalls in patient engagement and chronic care management were reported, and at least one in five adults experienced a care coordination problem. Problems were often particularly acute for low-income adults. Overall, the Netherlands performed at the top of the eleven-country range on most measures of access, engagement, and coordination. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Abraham, Sidney; And Others
This report presents data on dietary intake obtained to assess the nutritional status of the United States population, aged 1-74 years. Age, sex, race, and income level differences in dietary intake are among the variables considered. Data are analyzed for certain groups at high risk of malnutrition (e.g., the poor, preschool children, women of…
United States Policy Options in the Western Indian Ocean.
1982-06-01
Into this new arena rushed the superpowers of the 19 709: the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. Economic factors were partly responsible ...area, and rising fear about the safe navigation of oil vessels from the PG the U.S. response in the area has increased. U.S. naval activity in the 10...development has been made more difficult by the country’ s terrain and its isolation from external markets . These factors when added to the poor
Kennedy, Jae; Morgan, Steve
2006-08-01
In Canada and the United States, patients who have difficulty paying for prescribed medications are less likely to obtain them and may experience increased risks for morbidity and mortality and/or increased health care costs due to nonadherence. As prescription drug costs have risen, the ability to pay for medications has emerged as a critical public health issue. The objectives of this study were to estimate the rates of cost-associated nonadherence in Canada and the United States, and to identify factors that predict cost-associated nonadherence in both countries. This original analysis used data from the 2002/2003 Joint Canada-US Survey of Health, a household phone survey jointly conducted by Statistics Canada (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) and the US National Center for Health Statistics (Hyattsville, Maryland). The sample included 3505 adults in Canada and 5183 adults in the United States. Weighted group comparisons and logistic regression analyses were used to identify population factors predictive of cost-associated prescription nonadherence. Residents of Canada were much less likely than residents of the United States to report cost-associated nonadherence (5.1% vs 9.9%; P < 0.001). Americans without health insurance (28.2%) and Americans and Canadians without prescription-drug coverage (16.2%) were significantly more likely than those with insurance (6.2%) to report cost-associated nonadherence (P < 0.001). In addition to country of residence and insurance coverage, significant risk factors predictive of nonadherence were young age, poor health, chronic pain, and low household income. The results of this analysis suggest that people with low incomes and inadequate insurance, as well as those with poor health and/or chronic symptoms, are more likely to report failing to fill a prescription due to cost. The overall rate of cost-associated nonadherence was significantly higher in the United States than in Canada, even when other person-level factors were controlled for, including health insurance and prescription-drug coverage.
The Other Twenty Percent: A Statistical Analysis of Poverty in the South.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
MacLachlan, Gretchen
Of the 27 million poor people in the United States in 1970, 10 million lived in the 11 Southern states. This was 38% of the nation's poverty population, making the South's poverty rate twice that of the remaining 39 states. This study, essentially a statistical analysis of regional poverty data derived from the 1970 Census, identifies the South's…
Rosero-Bixby, Luis; Dow, William H.
2016-01-01
Mortality in the United States is 18% higher than in Costa Rica among adult men and 10% higher among middle-aged women, despite the several times higher income and health expenditures of the United States. This comparison simultaneously shows the potential for substantially lowering mortality in other middle-income countries and highlights the United States’ poor health performance. The United States’ underperformance is strongly linked to its much steeper socioeconomic (SES) gradients in health. Although the highest SES quartile in the United States has better mortality than the highest quartile in Costa Rica, US mortality in its lowest quartile is markedly worse than in Costa Rica’s lowest quartile, providing powerful evidence that the US health inequality patterns are not inevitable. High SES-mortality gradients in the United States are apparent in all broad cause-of-death groups, but Costa Rica’s overall mortality advantage can be explained largely by two causes of death: lung cancer and heart disease. Lung cancer mortality in the United States is four times higher among men and six times higher among women compared with Costa Rica. Mortality by heart disease is 54% and 12% higher in the United States than in Costa Rica for men and women, respectively. SES gradients for heart disease and diabetes mortality are also much steeper in the United States. These patterns may be partly explained by much steeper SES gradients in the United States compared with Costa Rica for behavioral and medical risk factors such as smoking, obesity, lack of health insurance, and uncontrolled dysglycemia and hypertension. PMID:26729886
7 CFR 51.1166 - Poorly colored.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
2010-01-01
... FRESH FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND OTHER PRODUCTS 1,2 (INSPECTION, CERTIFICATION, AND STANDARDS) United States... applied to common oranges means that not more than 25 percent of the surface may be solid dark green color. ...
Characteristics of Endophthalmitis after Cataract Surgery in the United States Medicare Population.
Gower, Emily W; Keay, Lisa J; Stare, Dianne E; Arora, Pallavi; Cassard, Sandra D; Behrens, Ashley; Tielsch, James M; Schein, Oliver D
2015-08-01
Endophthalmitis is a rare but sight-threatening infection after cataract surgery. Roughly one third of eyes remain blind after treatment. We report United States population-based data on microbiological investigations and treatment patterns plus risk factors for poor outcomes. Retrospective cohort study. Medicare beneficiaries from 5 states in whom endophthalmitis developed within 6 weeks after cataract surgery in 2003 and 2004. We identified endophthalmitis cases occurring after cataract surgery using Medicare billing claims. We contacted treating physicians and requested they complete a questionnaire on clinical and microbiological data and submit relevant medical records. Two independent observers reviewed materials to confirm that cases met a standardized definition. Positive culture results, vitrectomy status, microbiology spectrum, and final visual acuity. In total, 615 cases met our case definition. Initial visual acuity was counting fingers or worse for 72%. Among 502 cases with known culture results, 291 (58%) had culture positive results. Twelve percent had positive results for streptococci. More than 99% of cases were treated with intravitreal vancomycin. Vitrectomy was performed in 279 cases (45%), including 201 cases with initial acuity better than light perception. Rates of vitrectomy varied across states, with California having the highest rate and Michigan having the lowest (56% and 19% of cases, respectively). Overall, 43% of individuals achieved visual acuity of 20/40 or better. Poor initial acuity (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.08; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-1.12 per 0.10 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution units), older age at diagnosis (OR, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.03-1.45 per 5-year increase), and more virulent organisms were important predictors of poor final visual acuity. Cases with streptococci infection were 10 times more likely to have poor final acuity than coagulase-negative staphylococci cases (adjusted OR, 11.28; 95% CI, 3.63-35.03). Vitrectomy was not predictive of final visual acuity (adjusted OR, 1.26; 95% CI, 0.78-2.04). Population-based data on the microbiology of acute postoperative endophthalmitis in the United States after cataract surgery are consistent with prior reports. Vitrectomy usage is higher than that recommended from the Endophthalmitis Vitrectomy Study, with no evidence of increased benefit. Copyright © 2015 American Academy of Ophthalmology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zandniapour, Lily; Conway, Maureen
The benefits of sectoral workforce development programs to the working poor were examined in a 3-year longitudinal study of participants in six sectoral employment training programs across the United States. The programs, which were all designed to serve low-income clients, provided training in a diverse set of industries, including the following:…
Social Studies Teacher Education in an Era of "Haves" and "Have Nots."
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Myers, Charles B.
Serious concerns are being raised by the poor and uneducated underclass in the United States. Four main points are given which expand upon these concerns. (1) The affluent and middle class white U.S. population does not have enough interest and commitment to the poor and undereducated population to pay the price it will take to educate the U.S.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
O'Connor, Rollanda E.; Beach, Kristen D.; Sanchez, Victoria M.; Bocian, Kathleen M.; Flynn, Lindsay J.
2015-01-01
We tested the effects of teaching reading skills through U.S. history content for 38 eighth-grade poor readers whose reading ability ranged from second-to fourth-grade levels. Half of the students received special education services, and half of the students were English language learners. Students were taught to decode multisyllabic words, learn…
Adolescents' Theories about Economic Inequality: Why Are Some People Poor While Others Are Rich?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Flanagan, Constance A.; Kim, Taehan; Pykett, Alisa; Finlay, Andrea; Gallay, Erin E.; Pancer, Mark
2014-01-01
Open-ended responses of an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of 593 12- to 19-year-olds (M = 16 years old, SD = 1.59) were analyzed to explain why some people in the United States are poor and others are rich. Adolescents had more knowledge and a more complex understanding of wealth than of poverty and older adolescents had more…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. Senate Special Committee on Aging.
This Congressional oversight hearing was convened to examine evidence that many of the nation's nursing homes restrict or deny access to the elderly poor and disabled, leaving the 18 million Americans dependent on Medicaid especially vulnerable to neglect and exploitation. Evidence was heard on discriminatory admissions, on the practice of…
The Poor Ye Need Not Have with You; Lessons from the War on Poverty.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Levine, Robert A.
The book provides a dichotomy of the general technique of problem handling in the United States; i.e., getting even or punishing the adversary, and the reverse of this, problem solving; and discusses the two aspects in the context of the war on poverty. The second and third chapters discuss various definitions of the Poor, and provide objectives…
Jessica Miesel; P. Goebel; R. Corace; David Hix; Randall Kolka; Brian Palik; David Mladenoff
2012-01-01
Fire-adapted forests of the Lake States region are poorly studied relative to those of the western and southeastern United States and our knowledge base of regional short- and long-term fire effects on soils is limited. We compiled and assessed the body of literature addressing fire effects on soils in Lake States forests to facilitate the re-measurement of previous...
Food Insecurity and Risk of Poor Health Among US-Born Children of Immigrants
Black, Maureen M.; Berkowitz, Carol; Casey, Patrick H.; Cook, John; Cutts, Diana; Jacobs, Ruth Rose; Heeren, Timothy; de Cuba, Stephanie Ettinger; Coleman, Sharon; Meyers, Alan; Frank, Deborah A.
2009-01-01
Objectives. We investigated the risk of household food insecurity and reported fair or poor health among very young children who were US citizens and whose mothers were immigrants compared with those whose mothers had been born in the United States. Methods. Data were obtained from 19 275 mothers (7216 of whom were immigrants) who were interviewed in hospital-based settings between 1998 and 2005 as part of the Children's Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program. We examined whether food insecurity mediated the association between immigrant status and child health in relation to length of stay in the United States. Results. The risk of fair or poor health was higher among children of recent immigrants than among children of US-born mothers (odds ratio [OR] = 1.26; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.02, 1.55; P < .03). Immigrant households were at higher risk of food insecurity than were households with US-born mothers. Newly arrived immigrants were at the highest risk of food insecurity (OR = 2.45; 95% CI = 2.16, 2.77; P < .001). Overall, household food insecurity increased the risk of fair or poor child health (OR = 1.74; 95% CI = 1.57, 1.93; P < .001) and mediated the association between immigrant status and poor child health. Conclusions. Children of immigrant mothers are at increased risk of fair or poor health and household food insecurity. Policy interventions addressing food insecurity in immigrant households may promote child health. PMID:19106417
Teacher Technology Acceptance and Usage for the Middle School Classroom
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Stone, Wilton, Jr.
2014-01-01
According to the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, students in the United States routinely perform poorly on international assessments. This study was focused specifically on the problem of the decrease in the number of middle school students meeting the requirements for one state's standardized tests for…
Compromised Futures: Indiana's Children in Poverty. Occasional Paper No. 2.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Erickson, Judith B.
The number of poor children in the United States is high, and estimates suggest that poverty among Indiana's children is increasing at twice the national rate. Presently, Indiana does not have readily available, comprehensive information about the state's children and adolescents. There are few ways to link Indiana's poverty data to other…
Halperin, Edward C
2007-07-01
When the practice of hands-on anatomical dissection became popular in United States medical education in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, demand for cadavers exceeded the supply. Slave bodies and thefts by grave robbers met this demand. Members of the public were aware that graves were being robbed and countered with various protective measures. Since the deterrence of grave robbing took time and money, those elements of society who were least economically and socially advantaged were the most vulnerable. Enslaved and free African Americans, immigrants, and the poor were frequently the target of grave robbing. The politically powerful tolerated this behavior except when it affected their own burial sites. Slave owners sold the bodies of their deceased chattel to medical schools for anatomic dissection. Stories of the "night doctors" buying and stealing bodies became part of African American folklore traditions. The physical and documentary evidence demonstrates the disproportionate use of the bodies of the poor, the Black, and the marginalized in furthering the medical education of white elites. Copyright 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
National Coastal Condition Report I (2001)
Thousands of pieces of information on the condition of the estuarine and Great Lakes resources of the United States were collected from 1990 to 1997 with results showing estuaries to be in fair to poor condition.
Gonzales, Gilbert; Ehrenfeld, Jesse M
2018-06-01
A large body of research has documented disparities in health and access to care for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people in the United States. Less research has examined how the level of legal protection afforded to LGB people (the state policy environment) affects health disparities for sexual minorities. This study used data on 14,687 sexual minority adults and 490,071 heterosexual adults from the 2014⁻2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to document differences in health. Unadjusted state-specific prevalence estimates and multivariable logistic regression models were used to compare poor/fair self-rated health by gender, sexual minority status, and state policy environments (comprehensive versus limited protections for LGB people). We found disparities in self-rated health between sexual minority adults and heterosexual adults in most states. On average, sexual minority men in states with limited protections and sexual minority women in states with either comprehensive or limited protections were more likely to report poor/fair self-rated health compared to their heterosexual counterparts. This study adds new findings on the association between state policy environments and self-rated health for sexual minorities and suggests differences in this relationship by gender. The associations and impacts of state-specific policies affecting LGB populations may vary by gender, as well as other intersectional identities.
Dussel, Veronica; Bona, Kira; Heath, John A.; Hilden, Joanne M.; Weeks, Jane C.; Wolfe, Joanne
2011-01-01
Purpose Financial concerns represent a major stressor for families of children with cancer but remain poorly understood among those with terminally ill children. We describe the financial hardship, work disruptions, income loss, and coping strategies of families who lost children to cancer. Methods Retrospective cross-sectional survey of 141 American and 89 Australian bereaved parents whose children died between 1990 and 1999 and 1996 to 2004, respectively, at three tertiary-care pediatric hospitals (two American, one Australian). Response rate: 63%. Results Thirty-four (24%) of 141 families from US centers and 34 (39%) of 88 families from the Australian center reported a great deal of financial hardship resulting from their children's illness. Work disruptions were substantial (84% in the United States, 88% in Australia). Australian families were more likely to report quitting a job (49% in Australia v 35% in the United States; P = .037). Sixty percent of families lost more than 10% of their annual income as a result of work disruptions. Australians were more likely to lose more than 40% of their income (34% in Australia v 19% in the United States; P = .035). Poor families experienced the greatest income loss. After accounting for income loss, 16% of American and 22% of Australian families dropped below the poverty line. Financial hardship was associated with poverty and income loss in all centers. Fundraising was the most common financial coping strategy (52% in the United States v 33% in Australia), followed by reduced spending. Conclusion In these US and Australian centers, significant household-level financial effects of a child's death as a result of cancer were observed, especially for poor families. Interventions aimed at reducing the effects of income loss may ease financial distress. PMID:21205758
A quantitative analysis of the state of knowledge of turtles of the United States and Canada
Lovich, Jeffrey E.; Ennen, Joshua R.
2013-01-01
The “information age” ushered in an explosion of knowledge and access to knowledge that continues to revolutionize society. Knowledge about turtles, as measured by number of published papers, has been growing at an exponential rate since the early 1970s, a phenomenon mirrored in all scientific disciplines. Although knowledge about turtles, as measured by number of citations for papers in scientific journals, has been growing rapidly, this taxonomic group remains highly imperiled suggesting that knowledge is not always successfully translated into effective conservation of turtles. We reviewed the body of literature on turtles of the United States and Canada and found that: 1) the number of citations is biased toward large-bodied species, 2) the number of citations is biased toward wide-ranging species, and 3) conservation status has little effect on the accumulation of knowledge for a species, especially after removing the effects of body size or range size. The dispersion of knowledge, measured by Shannon Weiner diversity and evenness indices across species, was identical from 1994 to 2009 suggesting that poorly studied species remained poorly-studied species while well-studied species remained well studied. Several species listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (e.g., Pseudemys alabamensis, Sternotherus depressus, and Graptemys oculifera) remain poorly studied with the estimated number of citations for each ranging from only 13-24. The low number of citations for these species could best be explained by their restricted distribution and/or their smaller size. Despite the exponential increase in knowledge of turtles in the United States and Canada, no species of turtle listed under the Endangered Species Act has ever been delisted for reason of recovery. Therefore, increased knowledge does not necessarily contribute appreciably to recovery of threatened turtles.
Subramanian, S V; Kawachi, Ichiro
2006-06-01
The empirical relationship between income inequality and health has been much debated and discussed. Recent reviews suggest that the current evidence is mixed, with the relationship between state income inequality and health in the United States (US) being perhaps the most robust. In this paper, we examine the multilevel interactions between state income inequality, individual poor self-rated health, and a range of individual demographic and socioeconomic markers in the US. We use the pooled data from the 1995 and 1997 Current Population Surveys, and the data on state income inequality (represented using Gini coefficient) from the 1990, 1980, and 1970 US Censuses. Utilizing a cross-sectional multilevel design of 201,221 adults nested within 50 US states we calibrated two-level binomial hierarchical mixed models (with states specified as a random effect). Our analyses suggest that for a 0.05 change in the state income inequality, the odds ratio (OR) of reporting poor health was 1.30 (95% CI: 1.17-1.45) in a conditional model that included individual age, sex, race, marital status, education, income, and health insurance coverage as well as state median income. With few exceptions, we did not find strong statistical support for differential effects of state income inequality across different population groups. For instance, the relationship between state income inequality and poor health was steeper for whites compared to blacks (OR=1.34; 95% CI: 1.20-1.48) and for individuals with incomes greater than $75,000 compared to less affluent individuals (OR=1.65; 95% CI: 1.26-2.15). Our findings, however, primarily suggests an overall (as opposed to differential) contextual effect of state income inequality on individual self-rated poor health. To the extent that contemporaneous state income inequality differentially affects population sub-groups, our analyses suggest that the adverse impact of inequality is somewhat stronger for the relatively advantaged socioeconomic groups. This pattern was found to be consistent regardless of whether we consider contemporaneous or lagged effects of state income inequality on health. At the same time, the contemporaneous main effect of state income inequality remained statistically significant even when conditioned for past levels of income inequality and median income of states.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Holzer, Harry J.; Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore; Duncan, Greg J.; Ludwig, Jens
2007-01-01
In this paper, we review a range of rigorous research studies that estimate the average statistical relationships between children growing up in poverty and their earnings, propensity to commit crime, and quality of health later in life. We also review estimates of the costs that crime and poor health per person impose on the economy. Then we…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Comptroller General of the U.S., Washington, DC.
Agency for International Development (AID) education and training assistance to developing countries is herein reviewed by the General Accounting Office (GAO), with particular attention paid to the changes in emphasis since the 1973 New Directions Mandate by Congress and to the nature of recurring problems in improving education of the poor. One…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
O'Connor, Rollanda E.; Beach, Kristen D.; Sanchez, Victoria; Bocian, Kathleen M.; Flynn, Lindsay
2015-01-01
We tested the effects of teaching reading skills through U.S. History content for 38 eighth-grade poor readers whose reading ability ranged from 2nd to 4th grade levels. Half of the students received special education services and half of the students were English Language Learners. Students were taught to decode multisyllabic words, learn…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wertheimer, Richard
With increasing unemployment in the United States, the nation has seen a drop in the percentage of children in poverty with one or more parents in the workforce, a reverse of trends evident in the late 1990s. This research brief presents a statistical snapshot of working poor families with children in 2001. Analyses revealed that in 2001 children…
Lewin, J C
1989-03-01
Recently, Hawaii's mental health care system has been in the news because of its alleged infamy as one of the poorest systems in the United States of America today. Hawaii has not always been considered a state with a conspicuously poor commitment to mental health. The Department of Health (DOH), the oldest department of health in the United States of America, was formed in 1850 by King Kamehameha III. In fact, Kamehameha III, recognizing the importance of developing programs in mental health, was one of the earliest political leaders in history to support government-sponsored mental health services.
State Clean Indoor Air Laws and smoking among adults with poor mental health.
Larson, Anne; Bovbjerg, Victor; Luck, Jeff
2016-12-01
Persons with mental illness smoke at twice the rate of the general United States (US) population and die an average of 25-years younger, often from preventable diseases. This study seeks to determine whether disparities in smoking have increased over the past decade and whether Clean Indoor Air Laws (CIALs) are associated with changes in smoking among those with poor mental health. We used a fixed-effects model for estimation. CIALs were associated with 15 per cent decreased odds of smoking among adults in the US. Among those with poor mental health, these same laws had no effect. Between 2000 and 2010, the disparity in smoking rates between these two populations has steadily increased from 1.8 to 2.2 times greater. Given the lack of association between tobacco laws and smoking among those with poor mental health, alternative and more targeted tobacco reduction efforts may be necessary.
Asphalt surface treatment practice in southeastern United States.
DOT National Transportation Integrated Search
2014-07-01
It costs less to maintain roads in good condition than in poor condition. Pavement preservation is a set of : activities to extend pavement life, improve safety, and meet road user expectations. Surface treatments are : pavement preservation treatmen...
Recent Trends in Survival of Patients With Pancreatic Cancer in Germany and the United States.
Sirri, Eunice; Castro, Felipe Andres; Kieschke, Joachim; Jansen, Lina; Emrich, Katharina; Gondos, Adam; Holleczek, Bernd; Katalinic, Alexander; Urbschat, Iris; Vohmann, Claudia; Brenner, Hermann
2016-07-01
Survival improvement for pancreatic cancer has not been observed in the last 4 decades. We report the most up-to-date population-based relative survival (RS) estimates and recent trends in Germany and the United States. Data for patients diagnosed in 1997 to 2010 and followed up to 2010 were drawn from 12 population-based German cancer registries and the US SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results) 13 registries database. Using period analysis, 5-year RS for 2007 to 2010 was derived. Model-based period analysis was used to assess 5-year RS time trends, 2002-2010. In total 28,977 (Germany) and 34,793 (United States) patients aged 15 to 74 years were analyzed. Five-year RS was 10.7% and 10.3% in Germany and the United States, respectively, and strongly decreased with age and tumor spread. Prognosis slightly improved from the period 2002-2004 to 2008-2010 (overall age-adjusted RS: +2.5% units in Germany and +3.4% units in the United States); improvement was particularly strong for regional stage and head and body subsites in Germany and for localized and regional stages and tail subsite in the United States. Although pancreatic cancer survival continues to be poor for advanced-stage patients, our study disclosed encouraging indications of first improvements in 5-year RS after decades of stagnation.
Historic surface faulting in continental United States and adjacent parts of Mexico
Bonilla, M.G.
1967-01-01
This report summarizes geometric aspects of approximately 35 instances of historic faulting of the ground surface in the continental United States and adjacent parts of Mexico. This information is of immediate importance in the selection and evaluation of sites for vital structures such as nuclear power plants. The data are presented in a table and graphs which show the quantitative relations between various aspects of the faulting. Certain items in the table that are uncertain, poorly known, or not in the published literature are briefly described in the text.
Children, Families, and Disparities: Pediatric Provisions in the Affordable Care Act.
Grace, Aimee M; Horn, Ivor; Hall, Robert; Cheng, Tina L
2015-10-01
The Affordable Care Act has caused and continues to cause sweeping changes throughout the health system in the United States. Poorly explained, complex, controversial, confusing, and subject to continuous legal and regulatory definition, the law stands as a hallmark piece of legislation that will change the health sector in America forever. This article summarizes the Affordable Care Act with a focus on children, families, and disparities. Also provided is the context of the current system of health care coverage in the United States. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Fisher conservation in the Pacific States: field data meet genetics.
Jonathan Thompson
2005-01-01
Overtrapping of fishers in the early 1900s, combined with widespread habitat loss from clearcut logging, has resulted in the extirpation of this forest-dwelling carnivore throughout much of its former range in the Western United States. Poor dispersal abilities, low-density populations, and low reproductive rates all hinder the recovery of this little-known relative of...
Policy Brief: The Four Horsemen
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hickrod, G. Alan
2006-01-01
In this policy brief, the author contends that there are four other principal causes of the collective poor showing on reaching state equity goals in the United States. These are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the school finance world. The first horseman rides an economic horse, the second a sociological horse, the third a political horse,…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Soybean Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) causes poor seed quality and suppresses yield in most soybean production areas of the United States. In 2009, PSD caused a yield loss of over 12 million bushels in 16 southern states. The disease is primarily caused by Phomopsis longicolla along with other Phomopsi...
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Soybean Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) is primarily caused by Phomopsis longicolla along with other Phomopsis and Diaporthe spp. This disease causes poor seed quality and suppresses yield in most soybean-growing states in the United States. In 2009, PSD caused yield loss of over 12 million bushels in 16...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hanushek, Eric A.; Lindseth, Alfred A.
2009-01-01
Spurred by court rulings requiring states to increase public-school funding, the United States now spends more per student on K-12 education than almost any other country. Yet American students still achieve less than their foreign counterparts, their performance has been flat for decades, millions of them are failing, and poor and minority…
Rural Principal Attitudes toward Poverty and the Poor
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gholson, Melissa L.
2015-01-01
This study used Yun and Weaver's (2010) Attitudes toward Poverty Short Form (ATP-SF) of twenty-one items on a Likert-type scale to determine the poverty attitudes of 309 principals in a rural Appalachian state in the United States. The study compared the poverty attitudes from the ATP-SF scaled score as a dependent variable to the following…
Forest cutting and impacts on carbon in the eastern United States
Zhou, Decheng; Liu, Shuguang; Oeding, Jennifer; Zhao, Shuqing
2013-01-01
Forest cutting is a major anthropogenic disturbance that affects forest carbon (C) storage and fluxes. Yet its characteristics and impacts on C cycling are poorly understood over large areas. Using recent annualized forest inventory data, we estimated cutting-related loss of live biomass in the eastern United States was 168 Tg C yr−1 from 2002 to 2010 (with C loss per unit forest area of 1.07 Mg ha−1 yr−1), which is equivalent to 70% of the total U.S. forest C sink or 11% of the national annual CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion over the same period. We further revealed that specific cutting-related C loss varied with cutting intensities, forest types, stand ages, and geographic locations. Our results provide new insights to the characteristics of forest harvesting activities in the eastern United States and highlight the significance of partial cutting to regional and national carbon budgets.
Obesity and excess mortality among the elderly in the United States and Mexico.
Monteverde, Malena; Noronha, Kenya; Palloni, Alberto; Novak, Beatriz
2010-02-01
Increasing levels of obesity could compromise future gains in life expectancy in low- and high-income countries. Although excess mortality associated with obesity and, more generally, higher levels of body mass index (BAI) have been investigated in the United States, there is little research about the impact of obesity on mortality in Latin American countries, where very the rapid rate of growth of prevalence of obesity and overweight occur jointly with poor socioeconomic conditions. The aim of this article is to assess the magnitude of excess mortality due to obesity and overweight in Mexico and the United States. For this purpose, we take advantage of two comparable data sets: the Health and Retirement Study 2000 and 2004 for the United States, and the Mexican Health and Aging Study 2001 and 2003 for Mexico. We find higher excess mortality risks among obese and overweight individuals aged 60 and older in Mexico than in the United States. Yet, when analyzing excess mortality among different socioeconomic strata, we observe greater gaps by education in the United States than in Mexico. We also find that although the probability of experiencing obesity-related chronic diseases among individuals with high BMI is larger for the U.S. elderly, the relative risk of dying conditional on experiencing these diseases is higher in Mexico.
Relationships between nurse- and physician-to-population ratios and state health rankings.
Bigbee, Jeri L
2008-01-01
To evaluate the relationship between nurse-to-population ratios and population health, as indicated by state health ranking, and to compare the findings with physician-to-population ratios. Secondary analysis correlational design. The sample consisted of all 50 states in the United States. Data sources included the United Health Foundation's 2006 state health rankings, the 2004 National Sample Survey for Registered Nurses, and the U.S. Health Workforce Profile from the New York Center for Health Workforce Studies. Significant relationships between nurse-to-population ratio and overall state health ranking (rho=-.446, p tf?>=.001) and 11 of the 18 components of that ranking were found. Significant components included motor vehicle death rate, high school graduation rate, violent crime rate, infectious disease rate, percentage of children in poverty, percentage of uninsured residents, immunization rate, adequacy of prenatal care, number of poor mental health days, number of poor physical health days, and premature death rate, with higher nurse-to-population ratios associated with higher health rankings. Specialty (public health and school) nurse-to-population ratios were not as strongly related to state health ranking. Physician-to-population ratios were also significantly related to state health ranking, but were associated with different components than nurses. These findings suggest that greater nurses per capita may be uniquely associated with healthier communities; however, further multivariate research is needed.
The Primary Care Physician Workforce: Ethical and Policy Implications
Starfield, Barbara; Fryer, George E.
2007-01-01
PURPOSE We undertook a study to examine the characteristics of countries exporting physicians to the United States according to their relative contribution to the primary care supply in the United States. METHODS We used data from the World Health Organization and from the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile to gather sociodemographic, health system, and health characteristics of countries and the number of international medical graduates (IMGs) for the countries, according to the specialty of their practice in the United States. RESULTS Countries whose medical school graduates added a relatively greater percentage of the primary care physicians than the overall percentage of primary care physicians in the United States (31%) were poor countries with relatively extreme physician shortages, high infant mortality rates, lower life expectancies, and lower immunization rates than countries contributing relatively more specialists to the US physician workforce. CONCLUSION The United States disproportionately uses graduates of foreign medical schools from the poorest and most deprived countries to maintain its primary care physician supply. The ethical aspects of depending on foreign medical graduates is an important issue, especially when it deprives disadvantaged countries of their graduates to buttress a declining US primary care physician supply. PMID:18025485
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gannett, Cassandra Dunn
2012-01-01
The inequities in learning between the rich and the poor have become pervasive in United States. This is evidenced by the high school graduation rates, college attendance percentages, and employment statistics. Upon another wave of reform, the Common Core State Standards in mathematics are currently being adopted in hopes of increasing learning…
Principals' Perceptions of Factors Associated with the Implementation of School Wellness Policies
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Davis, Melissa
2012-01-01
Approximately 1/3 of the children in the United States are overweight or obese. Children in Mississippi have the highest rate of obesity among all other states. The outcome of this epidemic presents an increase in poor health. To address the problems associated with overweight and obesity among children, schools in the U.S. were required to…
Trends in Gastroenteritis-Associated Mortality in the United States, 1985-2005
Worldwide, gastrointestinal infections are a major, and often preventable, cause of mortality. In much of the developing world, mortality due to gastrointestinal infections disproportionately impacts children and is often associated with poor hygienic conditions (e.g., contaminat...
Bridge deck cracking and composite action analyses : final report, March 2010.
DOT National Transportation Integrated Search
2010-03-01
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers Report Card (ASCE, 2005), United States infrastructure received a grade point average of "D"(i.e., poor rating) in 2005. Moreover, the National Bridge Inventory (Federal Highway Administration, 200...
DOT National Transportation Integrated Search
2015-05-01
Nearly two-thirds of highways in the United States are constructed on in-place soils : with poor or undesirable characteristics. These materials demonstrate undesirable : engineering behavior, such as low bearing capacity, high shrink/swell potential...
Is the United States a good model for reducing social exclusion in Europe?
Schmitt, John; Zipperer, Ben
2007-01-01
Advocates of U.S.-style labor market flexibility have long argued that Europe could generate jobs and lower unemployment if the continent's economies followed the example of the United States. More recently, proponents of the U.S. model have suggested that labor market deregulation also holds out the possibility of reducing the problem of "social exclusion" in Europe, primarily because unemployment is one of the worst forms of social exclusion and contributes to other forms of social marginalization. The authors review a broad range of social and economic indicators and conclude that the United States fares poorly compared with much of Europe on social measures. Meanwhile, U.S.-style flexibility has had only mixed success in improving employment outcomes, and the U.S. economy consistently provides lower levels of economic mobility than economies in Europe.
Ebola Virus: a Clear and Present Danger
2014-01-01
An epidemic of Ebola virus disease is occurring in Western Africa on a scale not seen before, particularly in the countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The continued spread is facilitated by insufficient medical facilities, poor sanitation, travel, and unsafe burial practices. Several patients diagnosed with Ebola virus disease in Africa have been evacuated to the United States for treatment, and several other patients have been diagnosed in the United States. It is important for laboratories to be aware of available tests, especially those granted emergency use authorization, as hospitals prepare protocols for the diagnosis and management of high-risk patients. PMID:25392362
Impact on the world poultry industry of the global shift to biofuels.
Aho, P
2007-11-01
The shift to biofuels is a worldwide phenomenon, but the most notable recent development has been the rapid increase in the production of ethanol in the United States. Ethanol production in the United States enjoys a substantial subsidy, tariff protection, and mandated use. The consequence of increasing biofuels production is to raise the cost of feed and food worldwide. Those that suffer from this policy include all consumers of food, most notably the urban poor of developing countries. Those that benefit from the policy are farmers everywhere, including farmers in developing countries.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rothstein, Richard
2008-01-01
Closing or substantially narrowing achievement gaps requires combining school improvement with reforms to narrow the vast socioeconomic inequalities in the United States. Recognizing the effects of socioeconomic disparities on student learning is not "making excuses" for poor instruction or "letting schools off the hook" for raising student…
Economic Dominance with Political Incompetence
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tienken, Christopher H.
2014-01-01
The fraudulent claims by policymakers and pundits that the United States is losing its economic competitiveness due to a failing education system continue unabated. However, the latest data on competitiveness suggest that it is poor economic policy, not education, that is holding back the economy.
Report on Condition Assessment Technology of Wastewater Collection Systems
The wastewater collection system infrastructure in the United States is recognized as being in poor condition and in urgent need of condition assessment and rehabilitation. As part of an effort to address aging infrastructure needs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEP...
Health practices among Russian and Ukrainian immigrants.
Duncan, L; Simmons, M
1996-01-01
Since 1990, due to political and legislative changes, immigration from the former Soviet Union to the United States has increased significantly. Population reports from 1988 indicate that there were approximately 406,000 Soviet immigrants in the United States at that time. This number is expected to increase due to the Immigration Reform Act of 1990, which raised the Soviet refugee ceiling to 50,000 per year. Currently, very little is known about the health status and health practices of this population, although some published data indicate that life expectancy and infant mortality rates compare poorly with those of the general population in the United States. Although the former Soviet republics experienced universal health care coverage, there was little emphasis on promoting a healthy lifestyle. Heavy cigarette use, high alcohol intake, poor dietary intake, little attention to physical fitness, and crowded living conditions have been described. Environmental pollution and poor occupational safety are common and have contributed to the health problems of the population. As the influx of immigrants continues, the consequences of these health conditions will impose a burden on health care services in this country. As with any immigrant group, an understanding of the potential health conditions and cultural values can facilitate appropriate medical care. This research was conducted to explore these issues. Interviews and a physical assessment were conducted with 30 adults from the former Soviet Union. The major health problems identified included various dental conditions requiring treatment, obesity, and the absence of basic health screening measures such as cholesterol testing, high blood pressure screening, Pap smears, and mammograms. The authors also identified a need for translators and for education regarding preventative self-care, such as breast self-examinations.
Altshuler, Lori L.; Leverich, Gabriele S.; Nolen, Willem A.; Kupka, Ralph; Grunze, Heinz; Frye, Mark A.; Suppes, Trisha; McElroy, Susan L.; Keck, Paul E.; Rowe, Mike
2014-01-01
Objective: Many patients with bipolar disorder in the United States experience a deteriorating course of illness despite naturalistic treatment in the community. We examined a variety of factors associated with this pattern of illness progression. Method: From 1995 to 2002, we studied 634 adult outpatients with bipolar disorder (mean age of 40 years) emanating from 4 sites in the United States. Patients gave informed consent and completed a detailed questionnaire about demographic, vulnerability, and course-of-illness factors and indicated whether their illness had shown a pattern of increasing frequency or severity of manic or depressive episodes. Fifteen factors previously linked in the literature to a poor outcome were examined for their relationship to illness progression using Kruskal-Wallis test, followed by a 2-sample Wilcoxon rank sum (Mann-Whitney) test, χ2, and logistical regression. Results: All of the putative poor prognosis factors occurred with a high incidence, and, with the exception of obesity, were significantly (P < .05) associated with illness progression. These factors included indicators of genetic and psychosocial risk and loss of social support, early onset, long delay to first treatment, anxiety and substance abuse comorbidity, rapid cycling in any year, and the occurrence of more than 20 prior episodes prior to entering the network. A greater number of factors were linearly associated with the likelihood of a progressively worsening course. Conclusions: Multiple genetic, psychosocial, and illness factors were associated with a deteriorating course of bipolar disorder from onset to study entry in adulthood. The identification of these factors provides important targets for earlier and more effective therapeutic intervention in the hope of achieving a more benign course of bipolar disorder. PMID:25834764
2007-01-01
the Hounsfield - unit ranges established by Gattinoni et al. [23] (air: hyperinflated, normal, poorly aerated, and non-aerated lung). The fraction of...T. J., Wolf S. E., 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) United States Army...Abnormally low V/Q is ɘ.1 and abnormally high is V/Q > 10. Shunt is specified as blood flow in units with V/Q < 0.005 and dead space as ventilation
Christopher A. Armatas; Tyron J. Venn; Alan E. Watson
2014-01-01
The underlying validity of stated preference non-market valuation methods relies on the analyst's ability to identify, select, define, and articulate the goods being valued in a way that is relevant and understandable to the respondent, which requires detailed understanding of the respondents' experiences and points of view. Poor articulation of the good...
Immigration Policies and Mental Health Morbidity among Latinos: A State-Level Analysis
Hatzenbuehler, Mark L.; Prins, Seth; Flake, Morgan; Philbin, Morgan; Frazer, Somjen; Hagen, Daniel; Hirsch, Jennifer
2017-01-01
Rationale Despite abundant state-level policy activity in the U.S. related to immigration, no research has examined the mental health impact of the overall policy climate for Latinos, taking into account both inclusionary and exclusionary legislation. Objective To examine associations between the state-level policy climate related to immigration and mental health outcomes among Latinos. Methods We created a multi-sectoral policy climate index that included 14 policies in four domains (immigration, race/ethnicity, language, and agricultural worker protections). We then examined the relation of this policy climate index to two mental health outcomes (days of poor mental health and psychological distress) among Latinos from 31 states in the 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a population-based health survey of non-institutionalized individuals aged 18 years or older. Results Individuals in states with more exclusionary immigration policies had higher rates of poor mental health days than participants in states with less exclusionary policies (RR: 1.05, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.10). The association between state policies and the rate of poor mental health days was significantly higher among Latinos versus non-Latinos (RR for interaction term: 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.06). Furthermore, Latinos in states with more exclusionary policies had 1.14 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.25) times the rate of poor mental health days than Latinos in states with less exclusionary policies. Results were robust to individual- and state-level confounders. Sensitivity analyses indicated that results were specific to immigration policies, and not indicators of state political climate or of residential segregation. No relationship was observed between the immigration policy index and psychological distress. Conclusion These results suggest that restrictive immigration policies may be detrimental to the mental health of Latinos in the United States. PMID:28043019
A synthesis and comparative evaluation of drainage water management
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Viable large-scale crop production in the United States requires artificial drainage in humid and poorly drained agricultural regions. Excess water removal is generally achieved by installing tile drains that export water to open ditches that eventually flow into streams. Drainage water management...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gandara, Patricia
2010-01-01
Latinos are, after whites, the most segregated student group in the United States, and their segregation is closely tied to poor academic outcomes. Latinos experience a triple segregation: by race/ethnicity, poverty, and language. Racial segregation perpetuates negative stereotypes, reduces the likelihood of a strong teaching staff, and is often…
Overweight and poor nutritional status in Mexican American youth
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Children in the United States have consistently been shown to have less than the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommended daily allowances (RDA) of nutrients. Mexican American children have been shown to have the most nutritionally deficient diets. Obesity is increasingly becoming associa...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Slone, Debra J.
2008-01-01
Public libraries were indispensable resources for newcomers during the height of European immigration to the United States. They were havens for the poor and jobless during the Great Depression and bridges between rural and urban communities during times of major demographic change. An increase in the Spanish-speaking population has inspired…
Listening: The Neglected Language Art.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Edwards, Peter
A number of educators have expressed concern over the poor quality of listening skills exhibited by United States public school students. Furthermore, there is concern regarding "automaticity," or "passive" listening, which involves the perception of sounds without understanding. Not until a 1978 amendment to the Elementary and…
Using Microenterprise Programs in the Rural United States.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wallace, George
2000-01-01
Directed at the chronically unemployed, poor single parents, and welfare recipients, microenterprise programs provide access to loans and technical training for the express purpose of creating small-scale self-sufficient entrepreneurs no longer dependent on public support. Lessons from international microenterprise programs, federal funding…
Global geologic mapping of Mars: The western equatorial region
Scott, D.H.
1985-01-01
Global geologic mapping of Mars was originally accomplished following acquisition of orbital spacecraft images from the Mariner 9 mission. The mapping program represented a joint enterprise by the U.S. Geological Survey and other planetary scientists from universities in the United States and Europe. Many of the Mariner photographs had low resolution or poor albedo contrast caused by atmospheric haze and high-sun angles. Some of the early geologic maps reflect these deficiencies in their poor discrimination and subdivision of rock units. New geologic maps made from higher resolution and better quality Viking images also represent a cooperative effort, by geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University, and the University of London. This second series of global maps consists of three parts: 1) western equatorial region, 2) eastern equatorial region, and 3) north and south polar regions. These maps, at 1:15 million scale, show more than 60 individual rock-stratigraphic units assigned to three Martian time-stratigraphic systems. The first completed map of the series covers the western equatorial region of Mars. Accompanying the map is a description of the sequence and distribution of major tectonic, volcanic, and fluvial episodes as recorded in the stratigraphic record. ?? 1985.
Glymour, M. Maria; Banks, James; Mackenbach, Johan P.
2009-01-01
Objectives. We compared the health of older US, English, and other European adults, stratified by wealth. Methods. Representative samples of adults aged 50 to 74 years were interviewed in 2004 in 10 European countries (n = 17 481), England (n = 6527), and the United States (n = 9940). We calculated prevalence rates of 6 chronic diseases and functional limitations. Results. American adults reported worse health than did English or European adults. Eighteen percent of Americans reported heart disease, compared with 12% of English and 11% of Europeans. At all wealth levels, Americans were less healthy than were Europeans, but differences were more marked among the poor. Health disparities by wealth were significantly smaller in Europe than in the United States and England. Odds ratios of heart disease in a comparison of the top and bottom wealth tertiles were 1.94 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.69, 2.24) in the United States, 2.13 (95% CI = 1.73, 2.62) in England, and 1.38 (95% CI = 1.23, 1.56) in Europe. Smoking, obesity, physical activity levels, and alcohol consumption explained a fraction of health variations. Conclusions. American adults are less healthy than Europeans at all wealth levels. The poorest Americans experience the greatest disadvantage relative to Europeans. PMID:19150903
Vitamin D, cod-liver oil, sunlight, and rickets: a historical perspective.
Rajakumar, Kumaravel
2003-08-01
Rickets, a disease of vitamin D deficiency, is rarely confronted by the practicing pediatrician in the United States today. At the turn of the 20th century, rickets was rampant among the poor children living in the industrialized and polluted northern cities of the United States. With the discovery of vitamin D and the delineation of the anti-rachitic properties of cod-liver oil by the 1930s, it became possible to not only treat but also eradicate rickets in the United States. Rickets was a common disease in 17th century England. Frances Glisson's treatise on rickets published in 1650, a glorious contribution to English medicine, described the clinical and anatomic features of rickets in great detail. The exact etiology of rickets had been elusive until the 1920s. During the Glissonian era, rickets was a mysterious disease. By the late 19th and early 20th century, faulty diet or faulty environment (poor hygiene, lack of fresh air and sunshine) or lack of exercise was implicated in its etiology. Animal experiments, appreciation of folklore advocating the benefits of cod-liver oil, and the geographical association of rickets to lack of sunshine were all relevant factors in the advancement of knowledge in the conquest of this malady. In this article, the history of rickets pertaining to the discovery of vitamin D, cod-liver oil, and sunlight is reviewed.
McKetta, Sarah; Hatzenbuehler, Mark L; Pratt, Charissa; Bates, Lisa; Link, Bruce G; Keyes, Katherine M
2017-08-01
Racism, whether defined at individual, interpersonal, or structural levels, is associated with poor health among Blacks. This association may arise because exposure to racism causes poor health, but geographic mobility patterns pose an alternative explanation-namely, Black individuals with better health and resources can move away from racist environments. We examine the evidence for selection effects using nationally representative, longitudinal data (1990-2009) from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics (n = 33,852). We conceptualized state-level racial animus as an ecologic measure of racism and operationalized it as the percent of racially-charged Google search terms in each state. Among those who move out of state, Blacks reporting good self-rated health (SRH) are more likely to move to a state with less racial animus than Blacks reporting poor SRH (P = .01), providing evidence for at least some selection into environments with less racial animus. However, among Blacks who moved states, over 80% moved to a state within the same quartile of racial animus, and fewer than 5% resided in states with the lowest level of racial animus. Geographic mobility patterns are therefore likely to explain only a small part of the relationship between racial animus and SRH. These results require replication with alternative measures of racist attitudes and health outcomes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Farmer, W. H.; Archfield, S. A.; Over, T. M.; Kiang, J. E.
2015-12-01
In the United States and across the globe, the majority of stream reaches and rivers are substantially impacted by water use or remain ungaged. The result is large gaps in the availability of natural streamflow records from which to infer hydrologic understanding and inform water resources management. From basin-specific to continent-wide scales, many efforts have been undertaken to develop methods to estimate ungaged streamflow. This work applies and contrasts several statistical models of daily streamflow to more than 1,700 reference-quality streamgages across the conterminous United States using a cross-validation methodology. The variability of streamflow simulation performance across the country exhibits a pattern familiar to other continental scale modeling efforts performed for the United States. For portions of the West Coast and the dense, relatively homogeneous and humid regions of the eastern United States models produce reliable estimates of daily streamflow using many different prediction methods. Model performance for the middle portion of the United States, marked by more heterogeneous and arid conditions, and with larger contributing areas and sparser networks of streamgages, is consistently poor. A discussion of the difficulty of statistical interpolation and regionalization in these regions raises additional questions of data availability and quality, hydrologic process representation and dominance, and intrinsic variability.
A Community Health Approach to Asthma in the Schools
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weiss-Randall, Debra
2014-01-01
Asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism in the United States, especially in poor and minority communities, where prevalence and hospitalization rates are significantly higher than average. A community health approach can help poorer school districts hire full-time nurses and access other health resources.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dreier, Peter
1998-01-01
The widening disparity between wealth and poverty is the major obstacle to racial conciliation in the United States. Organized labor is the most important vehicle for challenging the widening gap between rich and poor to work for racial and economic justice. (SLD)
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Although crested wheatgrass (CWG; Agropyron cristatum [L.] Gaertn.) has been one of the most commonly seeded exotic species in the western United States, long-term successional trajectories of seeded sites are poorly characterized, especially for big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentana Nutt.) ecosystems...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Margolis, Jane; Goode, Joanna; Bernier, David
2011-01-01
Broadening computer science learning to include more students is a crucial item on the United States' education agenda, these authors say. Although policymakers advocate more computer science expertise, computer science offerings in high schools are few--and actually shrinking. In addition, poorly resourced schools with a high percentage of…
Senseless Extravagance, Shocking Gaps
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weissbourd, Richard; Dodge, Trevor
2012-01-01
Although most people in the United States believe, at least theoretically, in educational equality, fewer and fewer appear to care about the resource gaps between affluent and poor schools, says Weissbourd. He illustrates these gaps with vivid descriptions of what he calls an "opulence arms race" among affluent independent schools, but…
Feeding behavior and injury caused by Lygus hesperus
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Despite the importance of Lygus hesperus as a crop pest in the western United States, key aspects of its feeding behavior and consequent injury to cotton are poorly understood. Previous studies of Lygus stage-dependent injury to cotton produced conflicting results. We sought to clarify these relat...
Peer Victimization and Perceived Life Satisfaction among Early Adolescents in the United States
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Valois, Robert F.; Kerr, Jelani C.; Huebner, E. Scott
2012-01-01
Background: Peer victimization among adolescents has been linked to increased psychological stress, psychosomatic illness, anxiety, depression, lower self-esteem, suicide ideation and poor physical health. Purpose: This study explored associations between peer victimization and adolescents' perceptions of life satisfaction. Methods: Public middle…
Segregation and preterm birth: The effects of neighborhood racial composition in North Carolina
Epidemiologic research suggests that racial segregation is associated with poor health among blacks in the United States (US). We used geocoded birth records and US census data to investigate whether neighborhood-level percent black is associated with preterm birth (PTB) for blac...
Health and the Economy in the United States, from 1750 to the Present
Costa, Dora
2014-01-01
I discuss the health transition in the United States, bringing new data to bear on health indicators, and investigating the changing relationship between health, income, and the environment. I argue that scientific advances played an outsize role and that health improvements were largest among the poor. Health improvements were not a precondition for modern economic growth. The gains to health are largest when the economy has moved from “brawn” to “brains” because this is when the wage returns to education are high, leading the healthy to obtain more education. More education may improve use of health knowledge, producing a virtuous cycle. PMID:26401057
Multidimensional poverty and child survival in India.
Mohanty, Sanjay K
2011-01-01
Though the concept of multidimensional poverty has been acknowledged cutting across the disciplines (among economists, public health professionals, development thinkers, social scientists, policy makers and international organizations) and included in the development agenda, its measurement and application are still limited. OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY: Using unit data from the National Family and Health Survey 3, India, this paper measures poverty in multidimensional space and examine the linkages of multidimensional poverty with child survival. The multidimensional poverty is measured in the dimension of knowledge, health and wealth and the child survival is measured with respect to infant mortality and under-five mortality. Descriptive statistics, principal component analyses and the life table methods are used in the analyses. The estimates of multidimensional poverty are robust and the inter-state differentials are large. While infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate are disproportionately higher among the abject poor compared to the non-poor, there are no significant differences in child survival among educationally, economically and health poor at the national level. State pattern in child survival among the education, economical and health poor are mixed. Use of multidimensional poverty measures help to identify abject poor who are unlikely to come out of poverty trap. The child survival is significantly lower among abject poor compared to moderate poor and non-poor. We urge to popularize the concept of multiple deprivations in research and program so as to reduce poverty and inequality in the population.
Prophylactic Sacral Dressing for Pressure Ulcer Prevention in High-Risk Patients.
Byrne, Jaime; Nichols, Patricia; Sroczynski, Marzena; Stelmaski, Laurie; Stetzer, Molly; Line, Cynthia; Carlin, Kristen
2016-05-01
Patients in intensive care units are likely to have limited mobility owing to hemodynamic instability and activity orders for bed rest. Bed rest is indicated because of the severity of the disease process, which often involves intubation, sedation, paralysis, surgical procedures, poor nutrition, low flow states, and poor circulation. These patients are predisposed to the development and/or the progression of pressure ulcers not only because of their underlying diseases, but also because of limited mobility and deconditioned states of health. To assess whether treating high-risk patients with a prophylactic sacral dressing decreases the incidence of unit-acquired sacral pressure ulcers. An evidence-based tool for identifying patients at high risk for pressure ulcers was used in 3 intensive care units at an urban tertiary care hospital and academic medical center. Those patients deemed at high risk had a prophylactic sacral dressing applied. Incidence rates were collected and compared for the 7 months preceding use of the dressings and for 7 months during the trial period when the dressing was used. After the sacral dressing began being used, the number of unit-acquired sacral pressure ulcers decreased by 3.4 to 7.6 per 1000 patient days depending on the unit. A prophylactic sacral dressing may help prevent unit-acquired sacral pressure ulcers. Implementation of an involved care team with heightened awareness and increased education along with a prophylactic sacral dressing in patients deemed high risk for skin breakdown are all essential for success. ©2016 American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.
On the Implications of aerosol liquid water and phase separation for modeled organic aerosol mass
Current chemical transport models assume that organic aerosol (OA)-forming compounds partition mostly to a water-poor, organic-rich phase in accordance with their vapor pressures. However, in the southeast United States, a significant fraction of ambient organic compounds are wat...
Vulnerability of Rhode Island Salt Marshes to Sea Level Rise and Poor Water Quality
Across the northeastern Unites States, salt marshes are losing ground. Edges are eroding, tidal channel networks are expanding, and new ponds are forming and expanding within salt marshes. This leaves shorelines - and in some cases houses - more vulnerable to nor'easters and tr...
REGIONAL ASSESSMENT OF METHANE EMISSION RATES FROM RESERVOIRS IN THE MIDWESTERN UNITED STATES
Reservoirs are a globally significant source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere, but regional and global emission estimates are poorly constrained due to high variability in emission rates among reservoirs and a lack of measurements in some areas geographic areas. Methane emissi...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Oguntoyinbo, Lekan
2012-01-01
Many experts give the nation's schools a poor grade for their approach to teaching mathematics and for their preparation of mathematics teachers. While many policymakers make much of data that suggest children in the United States lag behind many other advanced countries in math, many experts call for a change in mathematics education,…
Implications of the Physical Educator's Broadened Wellness Role
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Melville, Scott
2009-01-01
The United States is experiencing a health crisis because of poor dietary habits and insufficient physical activity. Unless something changes, more of the population will become overweight or obese and suffer from debilitating and life-threatening diseases. The federal government has responded by charging schools with the establishment of…
Sustaining Institutional Mission through "Pilgrimage"
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weiss, Charles S.
2009-01-01
Among the distinguishing characteristics of higher education in the United States is the stunning range of founding belief systems and missions. Many of the nation's colleges and universities were created out of passion to educate women, ministers, African Americans, immigrants, the rural poor; to advance causes, to educate within a particular…
Adolescence and Poverty: Challenge for the 1990s.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Edelman, Peter B., Ed.; Ladner, Joyce, Ed.
The current situation for poor adolescents in the United States is reviewed in this collection of essays, and some strategies and insights for policymakers are presented. The essays of this volume cover the basic interactions of adolescence and poverty from theoretical and anecdotal perspectives. Critical issues of education and employment are…
Poor Results for High Achievers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bui, Sa; Imberman, Scott; Craig, Steven
2012-01-01
Three million students in the United States are classified as gifted, yet little is known about the effectiveness of traditional gifted and talented (G&T) programs. In theory, G&T programs might help high-achieving students because they group them with other high achievers and typically offer specially trained teachers and a more advanced…
Graphics Technology Study. Volume 1. State of Graphics Technology
1986-12-01
reaction of special heat sensitive paper when exposed to the heated elements of a thermal print head. Copy quality was poor due to characteristics...Vendors are now attempting to offer smaller units aimed at applications such as typography , graphic arts, CAD, and office automation. The key element in
Education & Justice: A View from the Back of the Bus.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gordon, Edmund W.
This collection of essays reflects a lifetime commitment to education and democracy, bringing together views on race, justice, and equity for all students. The essays are: (1) "Educating the Poor in the United States"; (2) "Human Social Divisions and Human Intelligence: Putting Them in Their Place"; (3) "Cultural…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Many agricultural drainage ditches that border farm fields of the Midwestern United States are degraded headwater streams that possess communities of crayfish. We hypothesized that crayfish communities at sites with low instream habitat diversity and poor water quality would show greater evidence of...
Contributions of hydrology to Vesicular Stomatitis Virus emergence in the Western United States
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Relationships between environmental variables associated with the spread of vector-borne pathogens, such as RNA viruses transmitted to humans and animals, remain poorly understood. Vesicular stomatitis (VS) is caused by a vector-borne, zoonotic RNA virus (VSV), and is the most common vesicular dise...
75 FR 4490 - Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Summer Flounder Fishery; Quota Transfer
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
2010-01-28
...; Quota Transfer AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric... granted safe harbor in Virginia due to poor weather conditions and a navigation hazard on January 2, 2010.... Emily H. Menashes, Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hughes, Bill
2009-01-01
The United States' poor performance in teaching math and science eliminates many of the best and brightest school children from the ranks of future scientists and engineers. With little chance to learn in school how science and math skills might translate into professionally useful knowledge, students are unable to make informed choices about…
Evaluation of sectrally-selective materials for multi-layer solar thermal crop drying (abstract)
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Solar thermal (ST) drying is a ubiquitous method in widespread use for fruit and vegetable crop preservation in developing countries; however, it has had limited commercialization in the United States due to concerns about slow drying rates, poor product quality, and predicted low return-on-investme...
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
The phytomanagement technology is recognized as an inexpensive and environmental friendly strategy for managing natural-occurring selenium (Se) in soils and in poor quality waters. Multi-year field and greenhouse studies were conducted with different plant species in California, USA and Punjab, Indi...
Statistics of Poverty: A Bibliography.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cameron, Colin; And Others
This bibliography is a collection of citations and illustrative tables which is meant to complement and supplement a 1976 work by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. That work included an analysis of several social service programs such as food stamps, public welfare, housing, and the education of the poor. The…
Governance and Free Education: Directions, Mechanisms and Policy Tensions
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bray, Mark
2007-01-01
In 2006, the Department for International Development (DfID) of the United Kingdom Government issued a White Paper entitled "Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for Poor People." The DfID document observed that good governance requires attention to State capability, described at "the extent to which leaders and…
Health Behaviour and Academic Achievement in Icelandic School Children
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sigfusdottir, Inga Dora; Kristjansson, Alfgeir Logi; Allegrante, John P.
2007-01-01
Interest in the relationship between health behaviours and academic achievement has recently intensified in the face of an epidemic of childhood and adolescent obesity and converging school reforms in the United States and other nations with advanced economies. Epidemiologic research has demonstrated that poor diet and lack of adequate physical…
Colombia: Educating the Most Disadvantaged Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Luschei, Thomas F.; Vega, Laura
2015-01-01
The United States has long struggled with the challenge of educating children experiencing extreme disadvantage, including the poor, ethnic and racial minorities, English language learners, and foster children. In this article, we argue that solutions to this problem lie not to the east or west, but to the south. Specifically, we offer the…
Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
MDRC, 2017
2017-01-01
As the first major effort to use a behavioral economics lens to examine human services programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States, the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project demonstrated the value of applying behavioral insights to improve the efficacy of human services programs. The BIAS…
Investigating Team Cohesion in COCOMO II.2000
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Snowdeal-Carden, Betty A.
2013-01-01
Software engineering is team oriented and intensely complex, relying on human collaboration and creativity more than any other engineering discipline. Poor software estimation is a problem that within the United States costs over a billion dollars per year. Effective measurement of team cohesion is foundationally important to gain accurate…
Peer Victimization and School Safety: The Role of Coping Effectiveness
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harper, Christopher R.; Parris, Leandra N.; Henrich, Christopher C.; Varjas, Kris; Meyers, Joel
2012-01-01
Peer victimization is a documented antecedent of poor mental health outcomes for children and adolescents. This article explored the role of coping effectiveness in the association between victimization and perceived school safety. A sample of urban middle school students (N = 509) in the southeastern United States were surveyed regarding…
Long-Term Memory for a Common Object.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nickerson, Raymond S.; Adams, Marilyn Jager
1979-01-01
Five experiments investigated how completely and accurately adults remember the visual details of the common United States penny. Subjects had to draw a penny from unaided recall and select the correct representation of a penny. Performance was poor on all tasks. Implications for long-term memory models were discussed. (Author/RD)
What's (Not) Wrong with Low-Income Marriages
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Trail, Thomas E.; Karney, Benjamin R.
2012-01-01
In the United States, low marriage rates and high divorce rates among the poor have led policymakers to target this group for skills- and values-based interventions. The current research evaluated the assumptions underlying these interventions; specifically, the authors examined whether low-income respondents held less traditional values toward…
Source partitioning of methane emissions and its seasonality in the U.S. Midwest
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
The methane (CH4) budget and its source partitioning are poorly constrained in the Midwestern, United States. We used tall tower (185 m) aerodynamic flux measurements and atmospheric scale factor Bayesian inversions (SFBI) to constrain the monthly budget and to partition the total budget into natura...
Old, Black and Poor: Reports from Five Countries.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chappell, Neena, Ed.; And Others
1995-01-01
This special issue provides international comparisons of black seniors in South Africa, Ghana, Jamaica, Bermuda, and the United States, focusing on policy and program issues. The challenge is to ensure true equality of opportunity so that black seniors in the future will not be in the disadvantaged position of today. (Author)
Strengthening Fragile Families through Research and Practice
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bembry, James X.
2011-01-01
Almost one third of all children in the United States are born to unmarried parents. This figure is even higher among poor and minority populations. Because of their heightened risk for economic and social problems and family dissolution, disadvantaged, unmarried parents have been called "fragile families." In 2002 the Bush administration…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ferguson, Christopher J.
2008-01-01
A perennial talking point of politicians and scientists, since the time of the Greeks, is to lament how American youth are sliding into moral decrepitude, lawlessness, and poor mental health. Indeed, to hear some observers talk, particularly in this election year, young people in the United States are being battered by a coarsened culture that…
Not just maternalism: marriage and fatherhood in American welfare policy.
Geva, Dorit
2011-01-01
The United States' 1996 welfare reforms are often interpreted as a historical break in transitioning from supporting motherhood to commodifiying women's labor. However, this cannot account for welfare reform's emphasis upon heterosexual marriage and fatherhood promotion. The paper traces continuities and shifts in over a century of familial regulation through American welfare policy, specifying the place of marriage promotion within welfare policy. Up until 1996, families were key sites of intervention through which the American welfare state was erected, especially through single women as mothers - not wives. However, as of the 1960s, concern with African American men's "failed" familial commitments turned policymakers toward concern over marriage promotion for women and men. While marriage "disincentives" for aid recipients were lifted in the 1960s, the 1996 reforms structured a new form of nuclear family governance actively promoting marriage rooted in, but distinct from, the previous. Given the historical absence of welfare policies available to poor men, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families' (TANF) marriage promotion policies have positioned poor women as nodes connecting the state to poor men, simultaneously structuring poor women as breadwinners, mothers, and wives. Recent welfare reform has also started to target poor men directly, especially in fatherhood and marriage promotion initiatives. The article highlights how, in addition to workfare policies, marriage promotion is a neoliberal policy shifting risk to the shoulders of the poor, aiming to produce "strong families" for the purposes of social security.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bogard, Kimber; Takanishi, Ruby
2005-01-01
The United States is as known for its high-quality universities as for its poor-quality public schools. Many states are taking steps to improve the likelihood that their children will succeed in grades K-12 by providing funding for pre-kindergarten (PK). More than $2.4 billion dollars is spent on these programs, and the number of children…
Stephen R. Shifley; Neal Sullivan
2001-01-01
The Lake States (MN, WI, MI) have 47 million acres of forest--36 percent of the total land area. Nearly all of that acreage is capable of producing commercial crops of timber. The growing stock volume on those forests is 60 billion cubic feet. In addition to growing stock volume there are 7 billion cubic feet of volume on trees of noncommercial species, trees with poor...
Downer, Brian; González-González, Cesar; Goldman, Noreen; Pebley, Anne R; Wong, Rebeca
2018-01-01
The increased risk for poor physical and mental health outcomes for older parents in Mexico who have an adult child living in the United States may contribute to an increased risk for cognitive impairment in this population. The objective of this study was to examine if older adults in Mexico who have one or more adult children living in the United States are more or less likely to develop cognitive impairment over an 11-year period compared to older adults who do not have any adult children living in the United States. Data for this study came from Wave I (2001) and Wave III (2012) of the Mexican Health and Aging Study. The final sample included 2609 participants aged 60 and over who were not cognitively impaired in 2001 and had one or more adult children (age ≥15). Participants were matched using a propensity score that was estimated with a multivariable logistic regression model that included sociodemographic characteristics and migration history of the older parents. Having one or more adult children living in the United States is associated with lower socioeconomic status and higher number of depressive symptoms, but greater social engagement for older parents living in Mexico. No significant differences in the odds for developing cognitive impairment according to having one or more adult children living in the United States were detected. In summary, having one or more adult children living in the United States was associated with characteristics that may increase and decrease the risk for cognitive impairment. This may contribute to the non-significant relationship between migration status of adult children and likelihood for cognitive impairment for older parents living in Mexico.
Payne, Collin F
2018-01-11
To estimate and compare disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) and current age patterns of disability onset and recovery from disability between the United States and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Disability is measured using the activities of daily living scale. Data come from longitudinal surveys of older adult populations in Costa Rica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United States. Age patterns of transitions in and out of disability are modeled with a discrete-time logistic hazard model, and a microsimulation approach is used to estimate DFLE. Overall life expectancy for women aged 65 is 20.11 years in Costa Rica, 19.2 years in Mexico, 20.4 years in Puerto Rico, and 20.5 years in the United States. For men, these figures are 19.0 years in Costa Rica, 18.4 years in Mexico, 18.1 years in Puerto Rico, and 18.1 years in the United States. Proportion of remaining life spent free of disability for women at age 65 is comparable between Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United States, with Costa Rica trailing slightly. Male estimates of DFLE are similar across the four populations. Though the older adult population of Latin America and the Caribbean lived many years exposed to poor epidemiological and public health conditions, their functional health in later life is comparable with the older adult population of the United States. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Emergency warning for people with disabilities.
Putkovich, Kenneth
2013-01-01
The intent of this article is to assess the current state of Emergency Warning capabilities in the United States and make recommendations on what needs to be done to cost effectively establish a National Emergency Warning System to best serve the people of the United States, including those with disabilities. As part of this assessment, terminology will be defined, existing systems will be examined, critical needs and functions will be explained, and recommendations made for a system to deliver emergency messages to those people immediately at risk from natural and human-caused disasters in a timely and effective manner, regardless of location or situational circumstance. The assessment will include the needs and available technologies for delivering emergency warnings to people with disabilities, which are generally little understood, poorly addressed, and often ignored.
A perioperative nurse's experience in Haiti.
Stobinski, J X
1999-02-01
Haiti is a poor Caribbean nation plagued by years of political uncertainty and a wealth of unmet health care needs. A significant amount of its health care, especially for indigent people, is provided by volunteer nongovernment organizations, including military medical staff members from the United States and Canada. One perioperative nurse, who served with a US Navy surgical company in Port au Prince, Haiti, shares his impressions and experiences of providing surgical care to United Nations troops and Haitian citizens at five hospitals in the Port au Prince area.
The United States should forego a damage-limitation capability against China
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Glaser, Charles L.
2017-11-01
Bottom Lines • THE KEY STRATEGIC NUCLEAR CHOICE. Whether to attempt to preserve its damage-limitation capability against China is the key strategic nuclear choice facing the United States. The answer is much less clear-cut than when the United States faced the Soviet Union during the Cold War. • FEASIBILITY OF DAMAGE LIMITATION. Although technology has advanced significantly over the past three decades, future military competition between the U.S. and Chinese forces will favor large-scale nuclear retaliation over significant damage limitation. • BENEFITS AND RISKS OF A DAMAGE-LIMITATION CAPABILITY. The benefits provided by a modest damage-limitation capability would be small, because the United States can meet its most important regional deterrent requirements without one. In comparison, the risks, which include an increased probability of accidental and unauthorized Chinese attacks, as well as strained U.S.—China relations, would be large. • FOREGO DAMAGE LIMITATION. These twin findings—the poor prospects for prevailing in the military competition, and the small benefits and likely overall decrease in U.S. security—call for a U.S. policy that foregoes efforts to preserve or enhance its damage-limitation capability.
Hunninghake, Gary M.; Weiss, Scott T.; Celedón, Juan C.
2006-01-01
Hispanic individuals trace their ancestry to countries that were previously under Spanish rule, including Mexico, large parts of Central and South America, and some Caribbean islands. Most—but not all—Hispanics have variable proportions of European, Amerindian, and African ancestry. Hispanics are diverse with regard to many factors, including racial ancestry, country of origin, area of residence, socioeconomic status, education, and access to health care. Recent findings suggest that there is marked variation in the prevalence, morbidity, and mortality of asthma in Hispanics in the United States and in Hispanic America. The reasons for differences in asthma and asthma morbidity among and within Hispanic subgroups are poorly understood but are likely due to the interaction between yet-unidentified genetic variants and other factors, including environmental tobacco smoke exposure, obesity, allergen exposure, and availability of health care. Barriers to optimal management of asthma in Hispanics in the United States and in Hispanic America include inadequate access to health care, suboptimal use of antiinflammatory medications, and lack of reference values for spirometric measures of lung function in many subgroups (e.g., Puerto Ricans). Future studies of asthma in Hispanics should include large samples of subgroups that are well characterized with regard to self-reported ethnicity, country of origin, place of birth, area of residence, and indicators of socioeconomic status. Because Hispanics are disproportionately represented among the poor in the United States, implementation of adequate access to health care and social reforms (e.g., improving housing conditions) would likely have a major impact on reducing asthma morbidity in this population. PMID:16210666
Mathematics Achievement of Children in China and the United States.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Stevenson, Harold W.; And Others
1990-01-01
Performance of U.S. first and fifth graders was consistently inferior to that of Chinese children on both problems requiring computation and problems requiring application of knowledge about mathematics. The poor performance of U.S. students appeared to be attributable to low motivation of students, low standards of parents, and low interest of…
An Examination of the Validity of Two Measures of Student Engagement
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Reschly, Amy L.; Betts, Joseph; Appleton, James J.
2014-01-01
This study evaluated the psychometric properties of two measures of student engagement, the Student Engagement Instrument (SEI) and the Motivation-Engagement Scale (MES), with adolescents in the southeastern United States. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed an acceptable fit of the SEI and a relatively poor fit of the MES in this sample.…
Family Income and Early Achievement across the Urban-Rural Continuum
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Miller, Portia; Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth; Setodji, Claude Messan
2013-01-01
Rural and suburban children account for the majority of poor children in the United States. Yet, most research examining poverty's associations with child development is focused on urban samples. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (N ˜ 6,600), this study examines whether the form and…
Crowding out Latinos: Mexican Americans in the Public Consciousness.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Portales, Marco
Despite efforts to improve perceptions about Mexican Americans and other Spanish-speaking people in the United States, Chicanos and other Latinos are not yet seen as typical American citizens. Latinos continue to receive poor educations, and the media continue to represent them in ways unaffected by the emergence of Chicano literature. This book…
Rural Dimensions of Welfare Reform.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weber, Bruce A., Ed.; Duncan, Greg J., Ed.; Whitener, Leslie A., Ed.
The 16 chapters in this five-part book, each by different authors, trace the effects of welfare reform (mandated by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996), upon poor people in rural areas of the United States. The book begins with an introduction called "As the Dust Settles: Welfare Reform and Rural…
Early Adolescents Perceptions of Health and Health Literacy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brown, Stephen L.; Teufel, James A.; Birch, David A.
2007-01-01
Background: Health illiteracy is a societal issue that, if addressed successfully, may help to reduce health disparities. It has been associated with increased rates of hospital admission, health care expenditures, and poor health outcomes. Because of this, much of the research in the United States has focused on adults in the health care system.…
Migrant Farmworker Stress: Mental Health Implications
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hiott, Ann E.; Grzywacz, Joseph G.; Davis, Stephen W.; Quandt, Sara A.; Arcury, Thomas A.
2008-01-01
Context: The number of Latinos in rural regions of the United States is increasing. Little is known about factors that undermine the mental health of this segment of the rural population. Purpose: The goal of this study is to determine which stressors inherent in farmwork and the farmworker lifestyle contribute to poor mental health. Methods: An…
Advocating for the McKinney-Vento Homelessness Act: The Role of Professional Counselors
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sosa, Sandra I.; Peek, Sarah; Muhammad, Sharien; Gonder, Ty; Cook, Janice; Bolton, Jessica; Parrish, Mark S.
2015-01-01
Homeless youth in the United States is rapidly increasing with more children living in unstable or temporary environments. They may encounter difficulties meeting enrollment requirements, have poor attendance, low academic performance, and experience behavioral and emotional issues. The reauthorization of McKinney-Vento Act (MCKV) in 2002 was…
Experiences of Male Undergraduates That Lead to Academic Failure
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Musser, Terry; St. Pierre, Tanja; Wilson, Douglas; Schwartz, Marion
2017-01-01
We examined the lived experiences of male undergraduates on the campus of a high-research-activity university in the northeastern United States. Interviews with 8 male undergraduates with a grade-point average lower than 2.0 revealed that their poor academic performances resulted from a combination of the following experiences: a disconnect…
Troubled Transitions into College and the Effects of a Small Intervention Course
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mellor, David T.; Brooks, Wesley R.; Gray, Steven A.; Jordan, Rebecca C.
2015-01-01
Student attrition from colleges in the United States is a widespread phenomenon, posing real stresses to students, their families, and to universities. We examined the causes of poor academic performance in students' first semester through interviews and questionnaires and administered a small intervention course to freshmen on academic probation…
The Relationship between School Mobility and the Acquisition of Early Literacy Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Franco, Amy C.
2013-01-01
The relationship between frequent mobility and student achievement is complex. While studies have shown that frequent mobility may have a detrimental effect on student achievement, the suggestion that poverty is an underlying cause for poor academic progress has been proposed (Buerkle & Christenson, 1999; United States GAO Report, 2010). The…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Grigg, Jeffrey
2012-01-01
Students in the United States change schools often, and frequent changes are associated with poor outcomes along numerous dimensions. These moves occur for many reasons, including both promotional transitions between educational levels and nonpromotional moves. Promotional student mobility is less likely than nonpromotional mobility to suffer from…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Eisenstein, Marie A.; Clark, April K.
2013-01-01
The link between religion and political tolerance in the United States, which has focused predominantly on Christianity, is replete with unfavorable images. Often, religious adherents (largely Evangelicals or the Christian right) are characterized as uneducated, poor, and white, suggesting that members of these groups may act in an intolerant…
First Nations and Higher Education: The Four R's--Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, Responsibility
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kirkness, Verna J.; Barnhardt, Ray
2016-01-01
American Indian/First Nations/Native People have been historically under-represented in the ranks of college and university graduates in Canada and the United States. From an institutional perspective, the problem has been typically defined in terms of low achievement, high attrition, poor retention, weak persistence, etc., thus placing the onus…
Darren A. Miller; Ronald E. Thill; M. Anthony Melchiors; T. Bently Wigley; Philip A. Tappe
2004-01-01
Streamside management zones (SMZs), composed primarily of hardwoods in the southeastern United States, provide habitat diversity within intensively managed pine (Pinus spp.) plantations. However, effects of SMZ width and adjacent plantation structure on riparian wildlife communities are poorly understood. Therefore, during 1990-1995, we examined small mammal...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Charing, Sarah
1995-01-01
Discusses the passage in the United Kingdom of the Public Libraries Act of 1850 and its reflections of social and political attitudes prevalent at the time, particularly laissez-faire and utilitarianism. Individualism, national education, and middle class concern for the poor are discussed. (60 references) (LRW)
Development of soybean with novel sources of resistance to Phomopsis seed decay
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) is an important soybean disease that results in poor seed quality in most soybean production areas of the United States. PSD is caused primarily by the fungal pathogen Phomopsis longicolla. In 2009, due to the prevalence of hot and humid environments from pod fill to harve...
Evaluating soybean germplasm and commercial varieties for resistance to Phomopsis seed decay
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Soybean Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) is the major cause of poor seed quality in most soybean production areas of the United States. Very few soybean cultivars currently available for planting in the US have resistance to PSD. To identify new sources of resistance to PSD, a multistate and multiyear res...
Education and the Many Faces of the Disadvantaged: Cultural and Historical Perspectives.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brickman, William W., Ed.; Lehrer, Stanley, Ed.
This book examines various types of the disadvantaged in the United States, uncovers reasons for the multifaceted problem of social deprivation, and indicates constructive ways, through education, of helping the disadvantaged. Attention is also focused on the poor and disadvantaged in foreign lands. There are ten parts to the volume: the…
Psychotherapy Training for IMGs: Attending to the "How to" and "What to" Teach
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weerasekera, Priyanthy
2012-01-01
International Medical Graduates (IMGs) make up a significant portion of the United States and Canadian workforce, and are well represented in psychiatry residency training programs. A review of the literature indicates that before entering residency training, many IMGs have minimal exposure to the behavioral sciences and poor communication…
A 5 year (2002-2006) simulation of CMAQ covering the eastern United States is evaluated using principle component analysis in order to identify and characterize statistically significant patterns of model bias. Such analysis is useful in that in can identify areas of poor model ...
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Solar thermal (ST) drying is a ubiquitous method that has had widespread use for fruit and vegetable crop preservation in developing countries. Conversely, in the United States solar thermal drying has found limited commercialization due to concerns about slow drying rates and poor product quality. ...
The Crisis in Black and Black.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hutchinson, Earl Ofari
These essays explore why the historic conflict between blacks and whites in the United States has become a crisis that divides many African Americans. The changing racial dynamic is not marked by conflicts. between the black middle class and the poor, black men and women, the black intellectual elite and rappers, black politicians and the urban…
How Our Culture Keeps out of Science
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wood, Peter
2008-01-01
In this article, the author points out that the cultural bias against serious study of science and technology is rarely recognized as a reason for American students' poor performance. Students respond more profoundly to cultural imperatives than to market forces. In the United States, students are insulated from the commercial market's demand for…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Lygus hesperus Knight (Hemiptera: Miridae) is a key pest of fruit, vegetable, and field crops in the western United States but many aspects of L. hesperus ecology are poorly documented. A sound understanding of oviposition behavior and characterization of the phases of embryonic development would be...
Michael E. Akresh; David I. King; Robert T. Brooks
2015-01-01
Shrubland birds have experienced widespread declines in the eastern United States. Habitat for shrubland birds is typically dynamic, in which available habitat changes temporally and spatially in response to disturbance and succession. Despite widespread concerns among conservationists about shrubland birds, much is still poorly understood regarding fundamental...
Contextualizing Trump: Education for Communism
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Malott, Curry
2017-01-01
In this article, Dr. Malott challenges the conclusion that the primary factor that led to Trump's victory in the 2016 United States presidential election was the racism of poor whites. Rejecting this position for its capitulation to bourgeois caricatures of segments of the working class, Malott points to the fall of communism for a more…
The Unanswered Question: How Will We Pay for Aggressive Attainment Goals?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jones, Dennis
2014-01-01
The concern about the United States' education attainment levels as compared with those of other countries, and the consequences of this poor showing, were given visibility by the inclusion of international statistics in the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education publication, "Measuring Up 2008." That concern was…
Policy Implications of Latino Poverty.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Enchautegui, Maria E.
The growing Latino presence in the United States underscores the need to address Latino poverty, previously overlooked in public policy discussions. Latinos are the fastest growing U.S. minority group, and Latino poverty is also rising. In 1990, one in every four Latinos was poor, and 40 percent of Latino children lived in poverty. Latino poverty…
The Online School Librarian: Roles and Responsibilities
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Beck, Dennis
2015-01-01
Children across the United States of America are maturing in a media-saturated society. Unfortunately, this often results in poor content choices and evaluative skills. North American schools have attempted to address this problem through information literacy skills. One role key to teaching these skills is the role of the school librarian.…
Sub-Saharan African Students and Their Experiences in American Higher Education
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Osikomaiya, Olujide
2014-01-01
The purpose of this research project is to study the experiences of Sub-Saharan African students, who have earned professional degrees from American institutions and are currently living in the United States. Acculturative stressors have been identified by researchers as predictors of loneliness, depression, homesickness, and poor mental health…
Early-Life Origins of Life-Cycle Well-Being: Research and Policy Implications
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Currie, Janet; Rossin-Slater, Maya
2015-01-01
Mounting evidence across different disciplines suggests that early-life conditions can have consequences on individual outcomes throughout the life cycle. Relative to other developed countries, the United States fares poorly on standard indicators of early-life health, and this disadvantage may have profound consequences not only for population…
The Comic Book Project: Forging Alternative Pathways to Literacy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bitz, Michael
2004-01-01
Many deep-rooted problems in urban areas of the United States--including crime, poverty, and poor health--correlate with illiteracy. The statistics reported by organizations such as the National Alliance for Urban Literacy Coalitions are telling. Urban citizens who cannot read sufficiently are at a clear disadvantage in life. They are more likely…
Poverty, Violence, and Health: The Impact of Domestic Violence during Pregnancy on Newborn Health
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Aizer, Anna
2011-01-01
Two percent of women in the United States suffer from intimate partner violence annually, with poor and minority women disproportionately affected. I provide evidence of an important negative externality associated with domestic violence by estimating a negative and causal relationship between violence during pregnancy and newborn health,…
F.H. Koch; H.M. Cheshire; H.A. Devine
2006-01-01
After causing substantial mortality in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States, the hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae Annand (Homoptera: Adelgidae), has recently invaded the southern Appalachian region. Although general estimates of regional spread exist, the landscape level dynamics of A. tsugae invasion are poorly...
Hearing the Cries of the Poor: Healthcare as Human Response
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Robinson, Adam M., Jr.
2010-01-01
The keynote address of Vice Admiral Adam Robinson, Surgeon General of the United States Navy, summarizes the integration of healthcare humanitarian assistance as central to the Navy's mission of defending and promoting world peace. Citing various examples of current programs and initiatives, the address explores the critical place of human hope as…
One Nation, Divided: Culture, Civic Institutions, and the Marriage Divide
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wilcox, W. Bradford; Wolfinger, Nicholas H.; Stokes, Charles E.
2015-01-01
Since the 1960s, the United States has witnessed a dramatic retreat from marriage, marked by divorce, cohabitation, single parenthood, and lower overall marriage rates. Marriage is now less likely to anchor adults' lives or provide a stable framework for childrearing, especially among poor and working-class Americans. Much research on the retreat…
Contribution of actinorhizal shrubs to site fertility in a northern California mixed pine forest
Matt D. Busse; Martin F. Jurgensen; Deborah S. Page-Dumroese; Robert F. Powers
2007-01-01
Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata) and mahala mat (Ceanothus prostratus) are common N-fixing shrubs in interior forests of the western United States, yet their contribution to ecosystem N pools is poorly characterized. We compared N fixation and soil N accretion by these shrubs in old-growth ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa...
The United States and the Indian Constitution.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weil, Jonathan S.
India, a huge land with the second largest population in the world, socially and economically poor, and culturally and linguistically diverse, became the largest democracy in the world on November 26, 1949 with the adoption of the Indian Constitution. The goals of that constitution are: (1) the achievement of national unity and stability; (2) the…
Family Structure, Race, and the Feminization of Poverty.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kniesner, Thomas J.; And Others.
For women, leaving home, marriage, childbearing, and remarriage can create drastic changes in income. Divorce or giving birth out of wedlock frequently accompanies entry into poverty, while marriage or remarriage often results in exit from poverty. In the United States since 1970, the increase in the number of poor women greatly exceeded that of…
Raising Our Children's Children.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Doucette-Dudman, Deborah; LaCure, Jeffrey R.
There are 3.2 million children in the United States living with their grandparents or other kin, a 40 percent increase since 1980. This exploding sociological trend with far-reaching implications for our future spans every segment of our society--rich and poor, black and white, Asian and Hispanic, urban and suburban. Based on interviews with…
Modeling containment of large wildfires using generalized linear mixed-model analysis
Mark Finney; Isaac C. Grenfell; Charles W. McHugh
2009-01-01
Billions of dollars are spent annually in the United States to contain large wildland fires, but the factors contributing to suppression success remain poorly understood. We used a regression model (generalized linear mixed-model) to model containment probability of individual fires, assuming that containment was a repeated-measures problem (fixed effect) and...
Parental Engagement in a Reggio Emilia-Inspired Head Start Program
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Smith, Stephanie C.
2014-01-01
In the United States, progressive education programs have historically failed to take hold among low-income families, even when that population has been their initial focus. Instead, these programs tend to become popular among middle-class or affluent families. Some research suggests that working-class/poor families' expectations of education may…
Martinez, Michael E; Ward, Brian W
2016-10-01
Data from the National Health Interview Survey, 2013-2015 •From 2013 through 2015, the percentage of adults aged 18-64 who were uninsured at the time of interview decreased for poor (40.0% to 26.2%), near-poor (37.8% to 23.9%), and not-poor (11.7% to 7.7%) adults. •The percentage of adults aged 18-64 who had a usual place to go for medical care increased for poor (66.9% to 73.6%) and near-poor (71.1% to 75.9%) adults. •The percentage of adults aged 18-64 who had seen or talked to a health professional in the past 12 months increased for poor (73.2% to 75.8%) and near-poor (71.9% to 75.9%) adults. •The percentage of adults aged 18-64 who did not obtain needed medical care due to cost at some time during the past 12 months decreased for poor (16.8% to 12.4%), near-poor (14.6% to 11.0%), and not-poor (4.9% to 3.8%) adults. In 2014, U.S. adults could purchase a private health insurance plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace or state-based exchanges established as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Additionally, under ACA some states opted to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income adults. Individuals living in or near poverty may have benefited disproportionately from these changes given their lower rates of health insurance coverage (1). Data from the 2013-2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) are used to describe recent changes in health insurance coverage and selected measures of health care access and utilization for adults aged 18-64 by family poverty level. All material appearing in this report is in the public domain and may be reproduced or copied without permission; citation as to source, however, is appreciated.
Health and economic development: introduction to the symposium.
Clay, Joy A; Mirvis, David M
2008-01-01
This symposium explores the role of health as an 'economic engine' in the lower Mississippi River Delta region of the United States. The health as an economic engine model proposes that health is an important and perhaps critical determinant of economic growth and development. This model is the reverse of the more commonly considered paradigm in which economic conditions are major determinants of health status. This reframing of the conventional pathway draws upon an existing and extensive internationally-based body of knowledge, predominantly from research done in Africa and Asia. We suggest, in this symposium, that the health as an economic engine model can also be applied within the United States, particularly in regions that are economically underdeveloped and have poor health. This reframing has significant implications for population health policy as public health advancement can be legitimately argued to be an investment rather than just an expense. Viewing health as an economic engine supports a call to community-based participatory action on the part of policy makers, researchers, and educators to further both public and private investment in health, particularly for children and the poor.
Deportation Experiences of Women Who Inject Drugs in Tijuana, Mexico
Robertson, Angela M.; Lozada, Remedios; Vera, Alicia; Palinkas, Lawrence A.; Burgos, José Luis; Magis-Rodriguez, Carlos; Rangel, Gudelia; Ojeda, Victoria D.
2013-01-01
Deportation from the United States for drug offenses is common, yet the consequences of deportation for women drug users are poorly documented. In 2008, in Tijuana, Mexico, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study of migration, deportation, and drug abuse by interviewing 12 Mexican injection-drug-using women reporting U.S. deportation. Women reported heavy drug use before and after deportation, but greater financial instability and physical danger following deportation than when in the United States. We identified an unmet need for health and social services among deported drug-using women, including HIV prevention, drug treatment, physical and mental health services, and vocational training. Binational coordination is needed to help deported women resettle in Mexico. PMID:21917563
Multidimensional Poverty and Child Survival in India
Mohanty, Sanjay K.
2011-01-01
Background Though the concept of multidimensional poverty has been acknowledged cutting across the disciplines (among economists, public health professionals, development thinkers, social scientists, policy makers and international organizations) and included in the development agenda, its measurement and application are still limited. Objectives and Methodology Using unit data from the National Family and Health Survey 3, India, this paper measures poverty in multidimensional space and examine the linkages of multidimensional poverty with child survival. The multidimensional poverty is measured in the dimension of knowledge, health and wealth and the child survival is measured with respect to infant mortality and under-five mortality. Descriptive statistics, principal component analyses and the life table methods are used in the analyses. Results The estimates of multidimensional poverty are robust and the inter-state differentials are large. While infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate are disproportionately higher among the abject poor compared to the non-poor, there are no significant differences in child survival among educationally, economically and health poor at the national level. State pattern in child survival among the education, economical and health poor are mixed. Conclusion Use of multidimensional poverty measures help to identify abject poor who are unlikely to come out of poverty trap. The child survival is significantly lower among abject poor compared to moderate poor and non-poor. We urge to popularize the concept of multiple deprivations in research and program so as to reduce poverty and inequality in the population. PMID:22046384
Why We Need to Build a Culture of Health in the United States.
Lavizzo-Mourey, Risa
2015-07-01
The United States spends $2.7 trillion a year on health care, more than any other country by far, and yet the U.S. population is not healthy. In fact, the United States loses $227 billion in productivity each year because of poor health. This is not sustainable-and it is the reason behind the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health initiative. Culture of Health means so much more than simply not being sick. It means embracing a definition of health as outlined by the World Health Organization-a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. And it means shifting the values-and the actions-in the United States so that health becomes a part of everything we do. Health is the bedrock of personal fulfillment. It is the backbone of prosperity and the key to creating a strong and competitive nation. With health, children can grow up making the most of life's opportunities. Businesses can rely on the vitality of workers to stay competitive, and the military can perform at its highest level. But there is no single way to cultivate health. This Commentary explores the principles behind the Culture of Health initiative and examines the role of academic medicine in achieving this vision. Different communities must come up with the approaches that serve them best. Only by working toward a common goal in unique ways will a true Culture of Health be attainable in the United States.
US Intervention in Failed States: Bad Assumptions=Poor Outcomes
2002-01-01
OUTCOMES THOMAS G. KNIGHT COURSE 5601 FUNDAMENTALS OF STRATEGIC LOGIC SEMINAR A PROFESSOR DR JANET BRESLIN-SMITH ADVISOR COL JACK... Outcomes 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7...in minor areas. - CNN effect - Post-Cold War ‘defense dividend’ possible imperative to ‘use it or lose it…’ - State failure = regional impacts
Evangelical Protestants and the ACA: An Opening for Community-Based Primary Care?
Franz, Berkeley; Skinner, Daniel
2016-07-01
Evangelical Protestants make up the largest religious subgroup in the United States, and previous research has shown that Evangelical churches are disproportionately active in community engagement and efforts toward social change. Although Evangelical Protestant perspectives have been considered with regard to persistent socioeconomic stratification and racial discrimination, less focus has been given to how churches interpret poor health outcomes within the United States. In particular, this research addresses how enduring health disparities are understood within the larger discussion of healthcare reform. Due to the similarity of approaches favored by participants in this study and community-based philosophy, a suggestion is made for future health policy dialogue. Although Evangelical Protestants have been most likely to reject all aspects of the Affordable Care Act, in many ways the findings of this study suggest the potential for successful future health policy collaboration. In particular, community-based primary care might appeal to Evangelicals and health professionals in the ongoing effort to improve population health and the quality of healthcare in the United States.
Hurley, Donna S.; Sukal-Moulton, Theresa; Msall, Michael E.; Gaebler-Spira, Deborah; Krosschell, Kristin J.; Dewald, Julius P.
2011-01-01
Cerebral palsy is the most common neurodevelopmental motor disability in children. The condition requires medical, educational, social, and rehabilitative resources throughout the life span. Several countries have developed population-based registries that serve the purpose of prospective longitudinal collection of etiologic, demographic, and functional severity. The United States has not created a comprehensive program to develop such a registry. Barriers have been large population size, poor interinstitution collaboration, and decentralized medical and social systems. The Cerebral Palsy Research Registry was created to fill the gap between population and clinical-based cerebral palsy registries and promote research in the field. This is accomplished by connecting persons with cerebral palsy, as well as their families, to a network of regional researchers. This article describes the development of an expandable cerebral palsy research registry, its current status, and the potential it has to affect families and persons with cerebral palsy in the United States and abroad. PMID:21677201
External built residential environment characteristics that affect mental health of adults.
Ochodo, Charles; Ndetei, D M; Moturi, W N; Otieno, J O
2014-10-01
External built residential environment characteristics include aspects of building design such as types of walls, doors and windows, green spaces, density of houses per unit area, and waste disposal facilities. Neighborhoods that are characterized by poor quality external built environment can contribute to psychosocial stress and increase the likelihood of mental health disorders. This study investigated the relationship between characteristics of external built residential environment and mental health disorders in selected residences of Nakuru Municipality, Kenya. External built residential environment characteristics were investigated for 544 residents living in different residential areas that were categorized by their socioeconomic status. Medically validated interview schedules were used to determine mental health of residents in the respective neighborhoods. The relationship between characteristics of the external built residential environment and mental health of residents was determined by multivariable logistic regression analyses and chi-square tests. The results show that walling materials used on buildings, density of dwelling units, state of street lighting, types of doors, states of roofs, and states of windows are some built external residential environment characteristics that affect mental health of adult males and females. Urban residential areas that are characterized by poor quality external built environment substantially expose the population to daily stressors and inconveniences that increase the likelihood of developing mental health disorders.
United States of America: health system review.
Rice, Thomas; Rosenau, Pauline; Unruh, Lynn Y; Barnes, Andrew J; Saltman, Richard B; van Ginneken, Ewout
2013-01-01
This analysis of the United States health system reviews the developments in organization and governance, health financing, health-care provision, health reforms and health system performance. The US health system has both considerable strengths and notable weaknesses. It has a large and well-trained health workforce, a wide range of high-quality medical specialists as well as secondary and tertiary institutions, a robust health sector research program and, for selected services, among the best medical outcomes in the world. But it also suffers from incomplete coverage of its citizenry, health expenditure levels per person far exceeding all other countries, poor measures on many objective and subjective measures of quality and outcomes, an unequal distribution of resources and outcomes across the country and among different population groups, and lagging efforts to introduce health information technology. It is difficult to determine the extent to which deficiencies are health-system related, though it seems that at least some of the problems are a result of poor access to care. Because of the adoption of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the United States is facing a period of enormous potential change. Improving coverage is a central aim, envisaged through subsidies for the uninsured to purchase private insurance, expanded eligibility for Medicaid (in some states) and greater protection for insured persons. Furthermore, primary care and public health receive increased funding, and quality and expenditures are addressed through a range of measures. Whether the ACA will indeed be effective in addressing the challenges identified above can only be determined over time. World Health Organization 2013 (acting as the host organization for, and secretariat of, the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies).
Comparison of Motivational Factors between Japanese and United States High School Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kavanaugh, Debbie
2009-01-01
Spanning multiple subjects and age groups, U.S. students rate poorly while Japanese students rate highly when subject to international testing. Japanese children complete twice as much homework as their U.S. counterparts and sometimes attend school on Saturdays. The literature review looks at motivation in both U.S. American and Japanese students…
Learning the Hard Way: The Poor Environment of America's Schools.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wakefield, Julie
2002-01-01
This article asserts that a significant number of schoolchildren and teachers in the United States are exposed on an almost daily basis to environmental hazards including volatile organic chemicals, airborne lead and asbestos, and noise pollution while they are at school. Some school hazards are linked to the aging of many of the nation's schools,…
Effect of Vocabulary Test Preparation on Low-Income Black Middle School Students' Reading Scores
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mitchell, Ingrid; Nistor, Nicolae; Baltes, Beate; Brown, Michelle
2016-01-01
Black middle school students in the United States continue to perform poorly on standardized reading achievement tests in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups. The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of a vocabulary-focused test preparation program for Black middle school students. The theoretical framework…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Male breast cancer makes up approximately 1% of all breast cancers and less than 1% of all cancers in men in the United States. However, it is an aggressive disease with poor prognosis and the incidence of male breast cancer is on the rise. The present study investigated the effects of dietary sup...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Price, Barbara A.; Randall, Cindy H.; Frederick, Joshua; Gáll, József; Jones, Thomas W.
2012-01-01
In recent decades, Hungary and the United States have embraced new philosophies in their approach to teaching mathematics. Hungary's changes were driven by social and economic shifts, the U.S. by the creation of national standards. In both countries, university faculty members complain about students' poor math skills. Professors from three…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
The native generalist predator community of Halyomorpha halys, an invasive species in the United States and Europe, remains poorly studied. The aims of the current study were to determine which generalist predators that are commonly found in mid-Atlantic orchards and vegetable crops are capable of ...
FastFeedback Questions: A New Teaching Method
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Elnashar, Magdy Mahmoud
2018-01-01
In Australian Universities, based on a study from 1992 to 2014, the Feedback item has been consistently poorly rated by students. In addition, Biochemistry is a complex STEM subject which many students find difficult and was considered the hardest subject according to a recent study by Antigua medical school in the United States. In this work, a…
Creating Change in the Large Urban Public Schools of the United States
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Heyman, Ernest L.; Vigil, Peter
2008-01-01
Minority groups make up a large share of the working and the non-working poor. Moreover, throughout the last several decades, many minority students in the large urban schools, particularly Hispanic, Native and African-American, have had a difficult time taking advantage of a public education. The major tension points and associated problems…
Children in Poverty: Trends, Consequences, and Policy Options. Child Trends Research Brief.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Moore, Kristin Anderson; Redd, Zakia
Noting that the U.S. child poverty rate is no longer declining, this research brief uses 2001 Census data to present a statistical portrait of poor children in the United States. The research brief also highlights some consequences of poverty for children and considers promising approaches for decreasing poverty among low-income children and their…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Soybean Phomopsis seed decay (PSD), primarily caused by Phomopsis longicolla, is a major cause of poor seed quality in the United States, especially in the mid-southern region. To identify new sources of soybean lines resistant to PSD, 16 commercial soybean varieties (MG IV and MGV) were planted on ...
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Soybean Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) is the major cause of poor seed quality in the United States, especially in the mid-south region. The disease is primarily caused by Phomopsis longicolla along with other Phomopsis and Diaporthe spp. There are few management strategies for this disease, and these s...
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
Phomopsis seed decay (PSD) of soybean is a major cause of poor seed quality in most soybean production areas, especially in the mid-southern region of the United States. Breeding for PSD-resistance is the most effective long-term strategy to control this disease. To breed soybean lines with resistan...
Research into the Current Plight of Farmworkers in the United States.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Thedinger, Bob
Farmworkers suffer from the same economic and social problems as other poor people but to a greater degree. Among classes of the disadvantaged designated for special Federal attention, only farmworkers are an occupational group. Their plight is unique because it is their working conditions which give rise to most of the other problems endemic to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shelton, Angela
2012-01-01
Many United States secondary students perform poorly on standardized summative science assessments. Situated Assessments using Virtual Environments (SAVE) Science is an innovative assessment project that seeks to capture students' science knowledge and understanding by contextualizing problems in a game-based virtual environment called…
Decreasing Excessive Media Usage while Increasing Physical Activity: A Single-Subject Research Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Larwin, Karen H.; Larwin, David A.
2008-01-01
The Kaiser Family Foundation released a report entitled "Kids and Media Use" in the United States that concluded that children's use of media--including television, computers, Internet, video games, and phones--may be one of the primary contributor's to the poor fitness and obesity of many of today's adolescents. The present study examines the…
Two new species of Corticeus from Mexico and honduras (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)
Charles A. Triphlehorn; John C. Moser
1970-01-01
The genus Cortiecus Piller and Mitterpacher is represented on every continent except Antartica. Blackwelder (1945, p. 533) lists 10 species from Central and South America and Arnett (1963, p. 685) lists 13 from the United States. Most occur with bark beetles (Family Scolytidae), but their roles are poorly understood. Some authors have called them...
Food Insecurity, Poor Diet Quality, and Obesity among Food Pantry Participants in Hartford, CT
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Robaina, Kate A.; Martin, Katie S.
2013-01-01
Objective: Examine relationships between food security, diet quality, and body mass index (BMI) among food pantry users. Methods: Convenience sample of 212 food pantry clients in Hartford, CT from June, 2010 to May, 2011. Main outcomes included food security (United States Department of Agriculture module), fruit and vegetable consumption (Block…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Claassen, Cynthia A.; Trivedi, Madhukar H.; Shimizu, Iris; Stewart, Sunita; Larkin, Gregory Luke; Litovitz, Toby
2006-01-01
The absence of validated U.S. rates of nonfatal suicidal behavior places risk management and injury prevention programs at danger of being poorly informed and inadequately conceptualized. In this study we compare estimated rates of intentional self-harm from two ongoing surveys (National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury…
Righting Technologies: How Large-Scale Assessment Can Foster a More Equitable Education System
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Behizadeh, Nadia; Lynch, Tom Liam
2017-01-01
For the last century, the quality of large-scale assessment in the United States has been undermined by narrow educational theory and hindered by limitations in technology. As a result, poor assessment practices have encouraged low-level instructional practices that disparately affect students from the most disadvantaged communities and schools.…
Children of Incarcerated Parents: A Handbook for Researchers and Practitioners
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Eddy, J. Mark, Ed.; Poehlmann, Julie, Ed.
2010-01-01
For the nearly 2 million children in the United States whose parents are in prison, caretaking necessary for optimal development is disrupted. These vulnerable youth--a population that has shot up 80 percent in the last 20 years--are more likely to experience learning difficulties, poor health, and substance abuse, and eventually be incarcerated…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lee, Letha A.
1987-01-01
Reports the findings of a 10-year study that examined the continuing conflicts between poor Blacks and Southeast Asian refugees in the United States. Focuses on two areas, economics and race, and argues that government policy has done much to inflame the conflict. Argues that the current refugee policies are diluting already inadequate social…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
The cleptoparasitic bee genus Townsendiella is a rare group restricted to the southwestern United States and adjacent Mexico, whose taxonomy and biology remain poorly known. This paper describes Townsendiella ensifera sp. n., apparently restricted to the South Coast and Transverse Ranges of Californ...
Acorn viability following prescribed fire in upland hardwood forests
Katie Greenberg; Tara Keyser; Stan Zarnoch; Kris Connor
2012-01-01
Restoration of structure and function of mixed-oak (Quercus spp.) forests is a focal issue of forest land managers in the eastern United States due to widespread regeneration failure and poor overstory recruitment of oaks, particularly on productive sites. Prescribed fire is increasingly used as a tool in oak ecosystem restoration, with the goal of reducing competition...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Allen, Vikki Renee
2012-01-01
Critical issues are confronting educators regarding increasing student achievement levels in reading, math and science in United States' public schools. Educators and legislators are attempting to make radical changes in instructional methodology and to find viable and sustainable solutions to problems associated with poor student achievement.…
A Program to Improve Access to Health Care Among Mexican Immigrants in Rural Colorado
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Diaz-Perez, Maria de Jesus; Farley, Tillman; Cabanis, Clara Martin
2004-01-01
Migration to the United States from Mexico is increasing every year. Mexican immigrants tend to be poor, uninsured, monolingual Spanish speakers without adequate access to appropriate medical care. As a further barrier, many are also undocumented. This article describes a program developed to improve access to health care among Mexican immigrants…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Li, Yong
2007-01-01
England is the oldest nation of industry revolution and the earliest industrialized country in the world. With the colonization system breakdown and economic giants, the United States, Germany, Japan, etc. rising, today England has already lost former days of elegant appearance. The disadvantageous vocational education is one of essential factor…
Exploring Student Perceptions of Retention Issues in a 3-Year Baccalaureate-Level Nursing Program
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Taulbee, Rebecca
2017-01-01
The nursing shortage, a major concern for the United States, has a multitude of causative factors. Nursing education has been tasked with helping to decrease the shortage of qualified registered nurses. Poor retention of nursing students in higher education is impacting the number of qualified nurses entering the workforce. Nursing education has…
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women living in the United States, with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounting for approximately 15% of diagnoses. While chemotherapy is the standard-of-care in TNBC, resistance is common and associated with poor prognosis.
Marie Russo: An Oral History of the Italian Settlement House
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Beard, Kathryn H.
2010-01-01
The Settlement House Movement in the United States was a response by progressive reformers to meet the needs of urban poor and immigrant families in the early years of the 20th century. Some settlements were outreach services of churches. There are limited accounts of the experiences of the individuals who used the settlement houses. This study…
Integrating Physical Activity into Academic Pursuits
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gaus, Mark D.; Simpson, Cynthia G.
2009-01-01
Children of today may be the first generation in the United States in more than 200 years to have a life expectancy shorter than their parents. Low levels of fitness caused by physical inactivity and poor nutritional habits of many of today's youth may be a contributing factor. Combating low fitness levels with physical activity is of utmost…
Women and the Economics of Divorce in the Contemporary United States.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Arendell, Terry J.
1987-01-01
Households headed by women are more likely to be poor than those headed by men. The number of impoverished female-headed families is increasing due in part to the rising divorce rate. Other factors are the following: (1) lack of child care; (2) wage discrimination; (3) unfair divorce settlements; and (4) inadequate public assistance. (VM)
Source partitioning of methane emissions and its seasonality in the U.S. Midwest
Zichong Chen; Timothy J. Griffis; John M. Baker; Dylan B. Millet; Jeffrey D. Wood; Edward J. Dlugokencky; Arlyn E. Andrews; Colm Sweeney; Cheng Hu; Randall K. Kolka
2018-01-01
The methane (CH4) budget and its source partitioning are poorly constrained in the Midwestern United States. We used tall tower (185 m) aerodynamic flux measurements and atmospheric scale factor Bayesian inversions to constrain the monthly budget and to partition the total budget into natural (e.g., wetlands) and anthropogenic (e.g., livestock,...
The Role of Institutional Factors on On-Campus Reported Rape Prevalence.
Stotzer, Rebecca L; MacCartney, Danielle
2016-10-01
Sexual assault is a serious concern on college and university campuses across the United States. However, the institutional factors that may make campuses more or less prone to rape are poorly understood. This study utilizes routine activities theory (RAT) to examine campus-related factors across 524 four-year campuses in the United States to determine what features of a campus community are most closely associated with increased reports of sexual assault. Results suggest that the type of athletic program, the number of students who live on campus, and the institution's alcohol policy were all found to be related to reported sexual assaults. Implications for understanding campus communities and prevention of sexual assaults are discussed. © The Author(s) 2015.
Food Insecurity is Associated with Poor HIV Outcomes Among Women in the United States.
Spinelli, Matthew A; Frongillo, Edward A; Sheira, Lila A; Palar, Kartika; Tien, Phyllis C; Wilson, Tracey; Merenstein, Daniel; Cohen, Mardge; Adedimeji, Adebola; Wentz, Eryka; Adimora, Adaora A; Metsch, Lisa R; Turan, Janet M; Kushel, Margot B; Weiser, Sheri D
2017-12-01
Women in the general population experience more food insecurity than men. Few studies have examined food insecurity's impact on HIV treatment outcomes among women. We examined the association between food insecurity and HIV outcomes in a multi-site sample of HIV-infected women in the United States (n = 1154). Two-fifths (40%) of participants reported food insecurity. In an adjusted multivariable Tobit regression model, food insecurity was associated with 2.08 times higher viral load (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04, 4.15) and lower CD4+ counts (- 42.10, CI: - 81.16, - 3.03). Integration of food insecurity alleviation into HIV programs may improve HIV outcomes in women.
Seid, Michael; Castañeda, Donna; Mize, Ronald; Zivkovic, Mirjana; Varni, James W
2003-01-01
To examine prevalence and correlates of cross-border health care for children of Latino farm workers in counties near the US-Mexico border and to compare access and primary care in the United States and Mexico. Two hundred ninety-seven parents at Head Start centers in San Diego and Imperial counties were surveyed regarding percentage of health care received in Mexico and the United States, access, and primary care characteristics. More than half of all health care was reported as received in Mexico. Reasons for Mexican use revolved around cost, accessibility, and perceptions of effectiveness. Parents of insured children reported slightly more US care, yet even this group reported approximately half of health care in Mexico. Insurance status was related to having a regular source of care, while uninsured children reporting most care in Mexico were less likely than uninsured children in the United States to have had a routine health care visit. Primary care characteristics were related to insurance status and source of care. Uninsured children reporting most care in Mexico fared better in some aspects of primary care than uninsured children reporting most care in the United States and as well as children with insurance receiving care in the United States or Mexico. Children of farm workers living along the US-Mexico border, almost irrespective of insurance status, receive a large proportion of care in Mexico. Especially for uninsured children, parent reports of Mexican care characteristics compare favorably with that received in the United States. Mexican health care might be a buffer against vulnerability to poor health outcomes for these children.
Maternal healthcare financing: Gujarat's Chiranjeevi Scheme and its beneficiaries.
Bhat, Ramesh; Mavalankar, Dileep V; Singh, Prabal V; Singh, Neelu
2009-04-01
Maternal mortality is an important public-health issue in India, specifically in Gujarat. Contributing factors are the Government's inability to operationalize the First Referral Units and to provide an adequate level of skilled birth attendants, especially to the poor. In response, the Gujarat state has developed a unique public-private partnership called the Chiranjeevi Scheme. This scheme focuses on institutional delivery, specifically emergency obstetric care for the poor. The objective of the study was to explore the targeting of the scheme, its coverage, and socioeconomic profile of the beneficiaries and to assess financial protection offered by the scheme, if any, in Dahod, one of the initial pilot districts of Gujarat. A household-level survey of beneficiaries (n=262) and non-users (n=394) indicated that the scheme is well-targeted to the poor but many poor people do not use the services. The beneficiaries saved more than Rs 3000 (US$ 75) in delivery-related expenses and were generally satisfied with the scheme. The study provided insights on how to improve the scheme further. Such a financing scheme could be replicated in other states and countries to address the cost barrier, especially in areas where high numbers of private specialists are available.
Geologic and societal factors affecting the international oceanic transport of aggregate
Langer, W.H.
1995-01-01
Crushed stone and sand and gravel are the two main sources of natural aggregate, and together comprise approximately half the volume and tonnage of mined material in the United States. Natural aggregate is a bulky, heavy material without special or unique properties, and it is commonly used near its source of production to minimize haulage cost. However, remoteness is no longer an absolute disqualifier for the production of aggregate. Today interstate aggregate routinely is shipped hundreds of kilometers by rail and barge. In addition, during 1992, the United States imported 1,317,000 metric tons of aggregate from Canada and 1,531,000 metric tons from Mexico. A number of ports on the Atlantic Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States receive imports of crushed stone from foreign sources for transport to various parts of the eastern United States. These areas either lack adequate supplies of aggregate or are augmenting their supplies because they have difficulties meeting current demand. These difficulties may include poor stone quality, environmental permitting problems, or transportation. Certain societal and geologic conditions of New York City and Philadelphia along the Atlantic Coast, and Tampa and New Orleans along the Gulf Coast, are discussed to demonstrate the different combinations of issues that contribute to the economic viability of importing crushed stone. ?? 1995 Oxford University Press.
Bifurcation of the Yellowstone plume driven by subduction-induced mantle flow
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Kincaid, C.; Druken, K. A.; Griffiths, R. W.; Stegman, D. R.
2013-05-01
The causes of volcanism in the northwestern United States over the past 20 million years are strongly contested. Three drivers have been proposed: melting associated with plate subduction; tectonic extension and magmatism resulting from rollback of a subducting slab; or the Yellowstone mantle plume. Observations of the opposing age progression of two neighbouring volcanic chains--the Snake River Plain and High Lava Plains--are often used to argue against a plume origin for the volcanism. Plumes are likely to occur near subduction zones, yet the influence of subduction on the surface expression of mantle plumes is poorly understood. Here we use experiments with a laboratory model to show that the patterns of volcanism in the northwestern United States can be explained by a plume upwelling through mantle that circulates in the wedge beneath a subduction zone. We find that the buoyant plume may be stalled, deformed and partially torn apart by mantle flow induced by the subducting plate. Using plausible model parameters, bifurcation of the plume can reproduce the primary volcanic features observed in the northwestern United States, in particular the opposite progression of two volcanic chains. Our results support the presence of the Yellowstone plume in the northwestern United States, and also highlight the power of plume-subduction interactions to modify surface geology at convergent plate margins.
Short Sleep Duration Among Middle School and High School Students - United States, 2015.
Wheaton, Anne G; Jones, Sherry Everett; Cooper, Adina C; Croft, Janet B
2018-01-26
Insufficient sleep among children and adolescents is associated with increased risk for obesity, diabetes, injuries, poor mental health, attention and behavior problems, and poor academic performance (1-4). The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has recommended that, for optimal health, children aged 6-12 years should regularly sleep 9-12 hours per 24 hours and teens aged 13-18 years should sleep 8-10 hours per 24 hours (1). CDC analyzed data from the 2015 national, state, and large urban school district Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBSs) to determine the prevalence of short sleep duration (<9 hours for children aged 6-12 years and <8 hours for teens aged 13-18 years) on school nights among middle school and high school students in the United States. In nine states that conducted the middle school YRBS and included a question about sleep duration in their questionnaire, the prevalence of short sleep duration among middle school students was 57.8%, with state-level estimates ranging from 50.2% (New Mexico) to 64.7% (Kentucky). The prevalence of short sleep duration among high school students in the national YRBS was 72.7%. State-level estimates of short sleep duration for the 30 states that conducted the high school YRBS and included a question about sleep duration in their questionnaire ranged from 61.8% (South Dakota) to 82.5% (West Virginia). The large percentage of middle school and high school students who do not get enough sleep on school nights suggests a need for promoting sleep health in schools and at home and delaying school start times to permit students adequate time for sleep.
Decompressive craniectomy in severe traumatic brain injury: prognostic factors and complications
Grille, Pedro; Tommasino, Nicolas
2015-01-01
Objective To analyze the clinical characteristics, complications and factors associated with the prognosis of severe traumatic brain injury among patients who undergo a decompressive craniectomy. Methods Retrospective study of patients seen in an intensive care unit with severe traumatic brain injury in whom a decompressive craniectomy was performed between the years 2003 and 2012. Patients were followed until their discharge from the intensive care unit. Their clinical-tomographic characteristics, complications, and factors associated with prognosis (univariate and multivariate analysis) were analyzed. Results A total of 64 patients were studied. Primary and lateral decompressive craniectomies were performed for the majority of patients. A high incidence of complications was found (78% neurological and 52% nonneurological). A total of 42 patients (66%) presented poor outcomes, and 22 (34%) had good neurological outcomes. Of the patients who survived, 61% had good neurological outcomes. In the univariate analysis, the factors significantly associated with poor neurological outcome were postdecompressive craniectomy intracranial hypertension, greater severity and worse neurological state at admission. In the multivariate analysis, only postcraniectomy intracranial hypertension was significantly associated with a poor outcome. Conclusion This study involved a very severe and difficult to manage group of patients with high morbimortality. Intracranial hypertension was a main factor of poor outcome in this population. PMID:26340150
Marijuana Use and Self-reported Quality of Eyesight.
Akano, Obinna F
2017-05-01
There is increasing use of marijuana among young adults and more states in the United States are legalizing medical marijuana use. A number of studies have revealed both the beneficial and harmful effects of marijuana to the human system. Despite some beneficial effects, studies have shown marijuana to have a lot of deleterious effects on the visual system, which subsequently reduces the quality of eyesight. The aim of this study was to investigate if heavy marijuana smoking is associated with a poor quality of eyesight compared with light/no use of marijuana. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youths (NLSY79), a nationally representative sample of 12,686 young men and women surveyed in 1979 to 2010 was used for this study. The quality of eyesight of 1304 heavy marijuana users was compared with 1304 respondents with light or no marijuana use. The t test, multivariate and weighted logistic regression were used in the data analysis. There was no statistically significant difference in the self-reported quality of eyesight among heavy marijuana smokers compared with youths who never used marijuana or are light marijuana users. Among heavy marijuana smokers, males and high school graduates have decreased odds of reporting a poor quality of eyesight, whereas blacks have increased odds of reporting a poor quality of eyesight. The self-reported quality of eyesight among marijuana users can aid clinicians and other health practitioners facilitate the development of sex-, racial/ethnic-, and educational level-informed prevention and early intervention programs and also help characterize public opinions regarding cannabis, which are particularly relevant given the ongoing debate concerning the medicalization and legalization of cannabis in the United States.
The ecology of mixed severity fire regimes in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California
David Perry; Paul Hessburg; Carl Skinner; Thomas Spies; Scott Stephens; Alan Henry Taylor; Jerry Franklin; Brenda McComb; Greg Riegel
2011-01-01
Forests characterized by mixed-severity fires occupy a broad moisture gradient between lower elevation forests typified by low-severity fires and higher elevation forests in which high-severity, stand replacing fires are the norm. Mixed-severity forest types are poorly documented and little understood but likely occupy significant areas in the western United States. By...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bold, Tessa; Kimenyi, Mwangi; Mwabu, Germano; Sandefur, Justin
2013-01-01
Existing studies from the United States, Latin America and Asia provide scant evidence that private schools dramatically improve academic performance relative to public schools. Using data from Kenya--a poor country with weak public institutions--we find a large effect of private schooling on test scores, equivalent to one full standard deviation.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Safren, Steven A.; O'Cleirigh, Conall M.; Bullis, Jacqueline R.; Otto, Michael W.; Stein, Michael D.; Pollack, Mark H.
2012-01-01
Objective: Depression and substance use, the most common comorbidities with HIV, are both associated with poor treatment adherence. Injection drug users comprise a substantial portion of individuals with HIV in the United States and globally. The present study tested cognitive behavioral therapy for adherence and depression (CBT-AD) in patients…
Elephantiasis Nostras Verrucosa (ENV): a complication of congestive heart failure and obesity.
Baird, Drew; Bode, David; Akers, Troy; Deyoung, Zachariah
2010-01-01
Congestive heart failure (CHF) and obesity are common medical conditions that have many complications and an increasing incidence in the United States. Presented here is a case of a disfiguring skin condition that visually highlights the dermatologic consequences of poorly controlled CHF and obesity. This condition will probably become more common as CHF and obesity increase in the US.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Skemer, Melanie; Valentine, Erin Jacobs
2016-01-01
Large numbers of young people in the United States were in foster care or in juvenile justice custody as teenagers, and many of them have a difficult time making a successful transition to independent adulthood as they leave these systems. Most of them faced a number of disadvantages during childhood and often have poor outcomes across several…
Survival and growth of thirteen tree species in coastal Oregon.
James T. Krygier
1958-01-01
Extraordinary growth of introduced tree speciessuch as Monterey and other pines in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and Sitka spruce, Douglas-fir, and grand fir in Great Britainhas lent impetus to tests of exotic species. Planting of most exotics in the United States has generally met with poor success. Yet there is always speculation that...
Beyond "Doing School": From "Stressed-out" to "Engaged in Learning"
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pope, Denise
2010-01-01
A study of over 5,000 students in 13 high-achieving public and private middle and high schools in the United States found evidence of disengagement and poor physical and mental health. The students in the study were exhausted, many getting significantly less than the recommended nine hours of sleep each night. More than 70% of the high school…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Darling-Hammond, Linda
2007-01-01
In the knowledge-based economy that characterizes the 21st century, most previously industrialized countries are making massive investments in education. The United States ranks poorly on many leading indicators, however, primarily because of the great inequality in educational inputs and outcomes between White students and non-Asian…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gouin, Rhoda D.
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to address the problem of poor student achievement and high discipline referrals in a rural middle school in the southeastern United States. The theoretical foundations for this study were Bandura's social cognitive theory of self-efficacy and Glasser's choice theory. Research questions involved understanding the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
French, Robert
2010-01-01
Low pay, meager benefits, poor morale, and high turnover impact the daily experience of many early childhood educators in the United States. While public spending in early childhood education has substantially increased in recent years, it has mainly fueled expansion, not quality enhancement to help programs attract, compensate, and retain…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lanvers, Ursula
2017-01-01
Britain's already poor record for language learning might be exacerbated by the Global English phenomenon, in that utilitarian reasons for learning languages other than English are increasingly undermined (Lanvers, 2014; Lo Bianco, 2014). This article offers a state-of-the-art review of UK research on second language (L2) learning motivation and…
Understanding Earnings Inequality in Appalachia: Skill Upgrading versus Rising Returns to Skill
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, 2007
2007-01-01
The Appalachian region is one of the most persistently poor areas of the United States. A focal explanation for the weak economic performance over the years is the fact that Appalachia has long lagged behind other regions in terms of the supply of skilled workers, particularly those with higher levels of education attainment, and this lack of…
Out-FOXing Pancreatic Cancer | Center for Cancer Research
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancer types worldwide with increasing incidence and mortality rates in the United States. Consequently, it is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer death by 2020. Poor patient outcomes are due to a combination of diagnosis at an advanced stage and a lack of effective treatments. However, a better understanding of
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dechausay, Nadine; Miller, Cynthia; Quiroz-Becerra, Victoria
2014-01-01
In 2007, New York City launched the first test of a conditional cash transfer program in the United States. Called Family Rewards, the program sought to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty by offering cash assistance to poor families to reduce immediate hardship, but conditioned this assistance on families' efforts to improve their…
Walnut wood characteristics in relation to soil-site conditions
R.R. Maeglin; N.D. Nelson; H.E. Wahlgren
1968-01-01
It takes little scanning of "Timber Trends in the United States" (U.S. Forest Service 1965) to realize that the hardwood timber of our country needs a great deal of improvement. About 27 percent of the total growing stock of the Nation is hardwoods, 90 percent of the hardwoods are eastern species, and most of them are of poor quality.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lipina, Sebastian J.; Colombo, Jorge A.
2009-01-01
Poverty remains an urgent crisis worldwide. In the United States, 28.6 million children live in low-income families and 12.7 million children live in poor families. In nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 47 million children live below national poverty lines. These figures pertain to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Castro, Yessenia; Fernández, Maria E.; Strong, Larkin L.; Stewart, Diana W.; Krasny, Sarah; Hernandez Robles, Eden; Heredia, Natalia; Spears, Claire A.; Correa-Fernández, Virmarie; Eakin, Elizabeth; Resnicow, Ken; Basen-Engquist, Karen; Wetter, David W.
2015-01-01
More than 60% of cancer-related deaths in the United States are attributable to tobacco use, poor nutrition, and physical inactivity, and these risk factors tend to cluster together. Thus, strategies for cancer risk reduction would benefit from addressing multiple health risk behaviors. We adapted an evidence-based intervention grounded in social…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chakwera, Elias; Khembo, Dafter; Sireci, Stephen G.
2004-01-01
In the United States, tests are held to high standards of quality. In developing countries such as Malawi, psychometricians must deal with these same high standards as well as several additional pressures such as widespread cheating, test administration difficulties due to challenging landscapes and poor resources, difficulties in reliably scoring…
Joanne Rebbeck; Todd Hutchinson; Louis Iverson; Daniel Yaussy; Timothy Fox
2017-01-01
Ailanthus altissima ((Mill.) Swingle, tree-of-heaven), an exotic invasive tree that is common throughout much of the eastern United States, can invade and expand dramatically when forests are disturbed. Anecdotal evidence suggests that fire facilitates its spread, but the relationship between fire and this prolific invasive tree is poorly...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Murray, Christopher; Lombardi, Allison; Bender, Franklin; Gerdes, Hillary
2013-01-01
Students with disabilities are underrepresented in 4-year colleges and universities in the United States and those that do attend are at an increased risk of performing poorly in these settings. These difficulties for college students with disabilities may be compounded by additional stress related to financial concerns. The current study was…
Aid as Obstacle: Twenty Questions about Our Foreign Aid and the Hungry.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lappe, Frances Moore; And Others
Reasons why U.S. foreign aid fails to alleviate hunger and poverty are discussed and a solution to the problem is presented. The United States now channels more foreign aid than ever to the world's poor and hungry through the Agency for International Development, food aid programs, the World Bank, and other multilateral aid agencies, which report…
High-severity fire: Evaluating its key drivers and mapping its probability across western US forests
Sean A. Parks; Lisa M. Holsinger; Matthew H. Panunto; W. Matt Jolly; Solomon Z. Dobrowski; Gregory K. Dillon
2018-01-01
Wildland fire is a critical process in forests of the western United States (US). Variation in fire behavior, which is heavily influenced by fuel loading, terrain, weather, and vegetation type, leads to heterogeneity in fire severity across landscapes. The relative influence of these factors in driving fire severity, however, is poorly understood. Here, we explore the...
Health of Children of the Working Poor: Description and Intervention.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tinsley, Barbara J.; Wang, Shirley J.; Kwasman, Alan; Green, Delores; Morton, Linda
More and more often, children in the United States are denied services that help keep them healthy or heal them when they are ill. This study examines the demographic, psychological, and physical health status of a group of children (N=293) with no access to health care, and who experienced an acute health problem. The children ranged in age from…
Winter prey selection of Canada lynx in northwestern Montana
John R. Squires; Leonard F. Ruggiero
2007-01-01
The roles that diet and prey abundance play in habitat selection of Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) in the contiguous United States is poorly understood. From 1998-2002, we back-tracked radiocollared lynx (6 F, 9 M) for a distance of 582 km and we located 86 kills in northwestern Montana, USA. Lynx preyed on 7 species that included blue grouse (Dendragapus...
A Strategy for American Power: Energy, Climate and National Security
2008-06-01
principle applies to the suppliers of energy, particularly oil, since the United States gets...outlined four principles : • Human-induced climate change is real; • The consequences of climate change will be significant and will hit the poor...savings, in terms of higher macroeconomic output in times of energy price volatility, associated with the development of nuclear capacity in Japan.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McKoon, Gai; Ratcliff, Roger
2016-01-01
Millions of adults in the United States lack the necessary literacy skills for most living wage jobs. For students from adult learning classes, we used a lexical decision task to measure their knowledge of words and we used a decision-making model (Ratcliff's, 1978, diffusion model) to abstract the mechanisms underlying their performance from…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Groen, Janet
2005-01-01
Earl Shorris launched his presentation to 20 potential applicants for his newly developed humanities course directed toward the poor and disenfranchised in New York City. Since this inaugural course in New York, the Clemente Course has been launched in numerous centres across the United States, Canada, Australia, and Mexico. The course is named…
Do fungi have a role as soil stabilizers and remediators after forest fire?
Andrew W. Claridge; James M. Trappe; Karen Hansen
2009-01-01
The functional roles of fungi in recovery of forest ecosystems after fire remain poorly documented. We observed macrofungi soon after fire at two widely separated sites, one in the Pacific Northwest United States and the other in southeastern mainland Australia. The range of species onsite was compared against macrofungi reported after the volcanic eruption at Mount St...
Geomorphic controls on Great Basin riparian vegetation at the watershed and process zone scales
Blake Meneken Engelhardt
2009-01-01
Riparian ecosystems supply valuable resources in all landscapes, but especially in semiarid regions such as the Great Basin of the western United States. Over half of Great Basin streams are thought to be in poor ecological condition and further deterioration is of significant concern to stakeholders. A thorough understanding of how physical processes acting at...
Implementation of the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program. Final Report
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Temkin, Kenneth; Hong, Grace; Davis, Laurel; Bavin, William
2008-01-01
The number of charter schools has grown rapidly from 250 in 1995 to about 4,000 by 2007, now enrolling more than 1.1 million students in the United States. Charter schools face many challenges when they attempt to purchase or lease permanent facilities and frequently operate in temporary space that is poorly suited for delivering educational…
The Need for a Black Financial Infrastructure for Black Economic Development.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lloyd, R. Grann
1979-01-01
The underdevelopment of Blacks in the United States is due primarily to the lack of equal educational opportunities and to the denial of opportunity for on-the-job experience and training. If it is true that most capital formation must come from the savings of the developing group, the Black economy is likely to remain poor. (Author/RLV)
Environmental Assessment for the Replacement of Water Reservoirs
2005-03-25
Intensive extraction of groundwater does not occur at Travis because of poor water- bearing subsurface geology. Intensive extraction SECTION 3.0...largest contiguous estuarine marsh and the largest wetland in the continental United States (CH2M HILL, 2001). Suisun Marsh drains into Grizzly and...and other support facilities. • Community (Commercial) – Uses include the exchange, commissary, banking, dining facilities, eating
Makaroun, Lena K; Taylor, Laura; Rosen, Tony
2018-02-01
At least 10% of older adults experience abuse, neglect, or exploitation annually in the United States, and this problem is expected to grow as our population ages. Little is known about the prevalence and characteristics of elder abuse of veterans, but it is likely that this population is at high risk based on established elder abuse risk factors. Veterans who receive their care through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) have a higher prevalence of poor psychological health, poor physical health, functional impairment, cognitive impairment, and social isolation than the general population. As the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, the VHA has long been a leader in the development of innovative, integrated care programs for older adults. The VHA has another opportunity to lead by promoting research, clinical care, and education on elder abuse, furthering their mission of serving those who served. This article outlines the rationale for developing a research agenda for elder abuse in the VHA, as well as potential first steps toward understanding more about this complex problem affecting veterans. © 2017, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation © 2017, The American Geriatrics Society.
Understanding Trends in Concentrated Poverty: 1980 to 2014*
Iceland, John; Hernandez, Erik
2016-01-01
Trends in concentrated neighborhood poverty in the United States have been volatile over the past several decades. Using data from the 1980 to 2000 decennial census and the 2010-2014 American Community Survey, we examine the association between concentrated poverty across metropolitan areas in the United States and key proximate factors, including overall changes in poverty, racial residential segregation, and income segregation. One of our unique contributions is assessing the relative contribution of each of these to long-term trends in such poverty using a decomposition analysis. We find that changes in the segregation of the poor explained the largest share of the change in concentrated poverty over most of the time period, with the exception of the 1990s, where the plunge in both black and white poverty rates had the largest role in explaining the considerable decline in concentrated poverty in that decade for both groups. The association between racial segregation and black concentrated poverty is positive but weaker, indicating that without declines in black segregation, concentrated poverty would have been higher. Overall, growing income segregation, along with weak economic performance in recent years, have put more poor people at risk for living in high-poverty communities. PMID:28126115
Breast cancer statistics, 2011.
DeSantis, Carol; Siegel, Rebecca; Bandi, Priti; Jemal, Ahmedin
2011-01-01
In this article, the American Cancer Society provides an overview of female breast cancer statistics in the United States, including trends in incidence, mortality, survival, and screening. Approximately 230,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 39,520 breast cancer deaths are expected to occur among US women in 2011. Breast cancer incidence rates were stable among all racial/ethnic groups from 2004 to 2008. Breast cancer death rates have been declining since the early 1990s for all women except American Indians/Alaska Natives, among whom rates have remained stable. Disparities in breast cancer death rates are evident by state, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. While significant declines in mortality rates were observed for 36 states and the District of Columbia over the past 10 years, rates for 14 states remained level. Analyses by county-level poverty rates showed that the decrease in mortality rates began later and was slower among women residing in poor areas. As a result, the highest breast cancer death rates shifted from the affluent areas to the poor areas in the early 1990s. Screening rates continue to be lower in poor women compared with non-poor women, despite much progress in increasing mammography utilization. In 2008, 51.4% of poor women had undergone a screening mammogram in the past 2 years compared with 72.8% of non-poor women. Encouraging patients aged 40 years and older to have annual mammography and a clinical breast examination is the single most important step that clinicians can take to reduce suffering and death from breast cancer. Clinicians should also ensure that patients at high risk of breast cancer are identified and offered appropriate screening and follow-up. Continued progress in the control of breast cancer will require sustained and increased efforts to provide high-quality screening, diagnosis, and treatment to all segments of the population. Copyright © 2011 American Cancer Society, Inc.
Punishment and Welfare: Paternal Incarceration and Families' Receipt of Public Assistance.
Sugie, Naomi F
2012-01-01
The United States criminal justice and welfare systems are two important government institutions in the lives of the poor. Despite many theoretical discussions about their relationship, their operation at the level of offenders and families remains poorly understood. This paper utilizes Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data to examine how recent paternal incarceration is associated with families' receipt of TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid/SCHIP. Results robust to multiple tests find that incarceration is not related to subsequent TANF receipt but is significantly associated with increased receipt of food stamps and Medicaid/SCHIP. The findings suggest that greater government involvement among poor families is an unexpected consequence of mass imprisonment; however, increased participation does not include TANF-the cash assistance program of most concern to theorists.
Palimaru, Alina; Cunningham, William E; Dillistone, Marcus; Vargas-Bustamante, Arturo; Liu, Honghu; Hays, Ron D
2017-11-01
To identify which aspects of life are most important to adults with spinal cord injury (SCI) and compare perspectives in the United States and the United Kingdom. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with adults with SCI (ten in the US and ten in the UK). Verbatim transcriptions were independently analyzed line-by-line by two coders using an inductive approach. Codes were grouped into themes about factors that constitute and affect quality of life (QOL). Five overarching themes emerged: describing QOL in the context of SCI; functional adjustment; medical care; financial resources; and socio-political issues. Twenty subthemes emerged on factors that affect QOL. Participants in both samples identified medical care as a key influence on QOL. The US group talked about a predominantly negative influence (e.g., fragmented primary and specialist care, insurance constraints, bureaucracy), whereas UK interviewees mentioned a predominantly positive influence (e.g., universal provision, including free and continuous care, free wheelchairs and home care, and length of rehabilitation commensurate with level of injury). Functional adjustment, such as physical and mental adjustment post-discharge and aging with SCI, was another important contributor to QOL, and varied by country. Most US interviewees reported poor knowledge about self-care post-discharge and poor quality of home adaptations compared to the UK group. For adults living with SCI, good QOL is essential for successful rehabilitation. Differences between interviewees from the two countries in perceived medical care and functional adjustment suggest that factors affecting QOL may relate to broader health system characteristics.
Mental Health Correlates of Cigarette Use in LGBT Individuals in the Southeastern United States.
Drescher, Christopher F; Lopez, Eliot J; Griffin, James A; Toomey, Thomas M; Eldridge, Elizabeth D; Stepleman, Lara M
2018-05-12
Smoking prevalence for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals is higher than for heterosexual, cisgender individuals. Elevated smoking rates have been linked to psychiatric comorbidities, substance use, poverty, low education levels, and stress. This study examined mental health (MH) correlates of cigarette use in LGBT individuals residing in a metropolitan area in the southeastern United States. Participants were 335 individuals from an LGBT health needs assessment (mean age 34.7; SD = 13.5; 63% gay/lesbian; 66% Caucasian; 81% cisgender). Demographics, current/past psychiatric diagnoses, number of poor MH days in the last 30, the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) 2 depression screener, the Three-Item Loneliness Scale, and frequency of cigarette use were included. Analyses included bivariate correlations, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and regression. Multiple demographic and MH factors were associated with smoker status and frequency of smoking. A logistic regression indicated that lower education and bipolar disorder were most strongly associated with being a smoker. For smokers, a hierarchical regression model including demographic and MH variables accounted for 17.6% of the variance in frequency of cigarette use. Only education, bipolar disorder, and the number of poor MH days were significant contributors in the overall model. Conclusions/Importance: Less education, bipolar disorder, and recurrent poor MH increase LGBT vulnerability to cigarette use. Access to LGBT-competent MH providers who can address culturally specific factors in tobacco cessation is crucial to reducing this health disparities.
Predictive value of EEG in postanoxic encephalopathy: A quantitative model-based approach.
Efthymiou, Evdokia; Renzel, Roland; Baumann, Christian R; Poryazova, Rositsa; Imbach, Lukas L
2017-10-01
The majority of comatose patients after cardiac arrest do not regain consciousness due to severe postanoxic encephalopathy. Early and accurate outcome prediction is therefore essential in determining further therapeutic interventions. The electroencephalogram is a standardized and commonly available tool used to estimate prognosis in postanoxic patients. The identification of pathological EEG patterns with poor prognosis relies however primarily on visual EEG scoring by experts. We introduced a model-based approach of EEG analysis (state space model) that allows for an objective and quantitative description of spectral EEG variability. We retrospectively analyzed standard EEG recordings in 83 comatose patients after cardiac arrest between 2005 and 2013 in the intensive care unit of the University Hospital Zürich. Neurological outcome was assessed one month after cardiac arrest using the Cerebral Performance Category. For a dynamic and quantitative EEG analysis, we implemented a model-based approach (state space analysis) to quantify EEG background variability independent from visual scoring of EEG epochs. Spectral variability was compared between groups and correlated with clinical outcome parameters and visual EEG patterns. Quantitative assessment of spectral EEG variability (state space velocity) revealed significant differences between patients with poor and good outcome after cardiac arrest: Lower mean velocity in temporal electrodes (T4 and T5) was significantly associated with poor prognostic outcome (p<0.005) and correlated with independently identified visual EEG patterns such as generalized periodic discharges (p<0.02). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis confirmed the predictive value of lower state space velocity for poor clinical outcome after cardiac arrest (AUC 80.8, 70% sensitivity, 15% false positive rate). Model-based quantitative EEG analysis (state space analysis) provides a novel, complementary marker for prognosis in postanoxic encephalopathy. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Food Insecurity in the United States.
Holben, David H; Marshall, Michelle Berger
2017-12-01
It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that systematic and sustained action is needed to achieve food and nutrition security in the United States. To achieve food security, effective interventions are needed, along with adequate funding for, and increased utilization of, food and nutrition assistance programs; inclusion of nutrition education in such programs; strategies to support individual and household economic stability; and research to measure impact on food insecurity- and health-related outcomes. Millions of individuals living in the United States experience food insecurity. Negative nutritional and non-nutritional outcomes are associated with food insecurity across the lifespan, including substandard academic achievement, inadequate intake of key nutrients, increased risk for chronic disease, and poor psychological and cognitive functioning. Registered dietitian nutritionists and nutrition and dietetics technicians, registered, play key roles in addressing food insecurity and are uniquely positioned to make valuable contributions through competent and collaborative practice, provision of comprehensive food and nutrition education and training, innovative research related to all aspects of food insecurity, and advocacy efforts at the local, state, regional, and national levels. Copyright © 2017 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Blackburn, Jason K; McNyset, Kristina M; Curtis, Andrew; Hugh-Jones, Martin E
2007-12-01
The ecology and distribution of Bacillus anthracis is poorly understood despite continued anthrax outbreaks in wildlife and livestock throughout the United States. Little work is available to define the potential environments that may lead to prolonged spore survival and subsequent outbreaks. This study used the genetic algorithm for rule-set prediction modeling system to model the ecological niche for B. anthracis in the contiguous United States using wildlife and livestock outbreaks and several environmental variables. The modeled niche is defined by a narrow range of normalized difference vegetation index, precipitation, and elevation, with the geographic distribution heavily concentrated in a narrow corridor from southwest Texas northward into the Dakotas and Minnesota. Because disease control programs rely on vaccination and carcass disposal, and vaccination in wildlife remains untenable, understanding the distribution of B. anthracis plays an important role in efforts to prevent/eradicate the disease. Likewise, these results potentially aid in differentiating endemic/natural outbreaks from industrial-contamination related outbreaks or bioterrorist attacks.
Gutierrez, Kristie S; LePrevost, Catherine E
2016-02-03
Climate justice is a local, national, and global movement to protect at-risk populations who are disproportionately affected by climate change. The social context for this review is the Southeastern region of the United States, which is particularly susceptible to climate change because of the geography of the area and the vulnerabilities of the inhabiting populations. Negative human health effects on variable and vulnerable populations within the Southeast region due to changing climate are concerning, as health threats are not expected to produce parallel effects among all individuals. Vulnerable communities, such as communities of color, indigenous people, the geographically isolated, and those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and already experiencing poor environmental quality, are least able to respond and adapt to climate change. Focusing on vulnerable populations in the Southeastern United States, this review is a synthesis of the recent (2010 to 2015) literature-base on the health effects connected to climate change. This review also addresses local and regional mitigation and adaptation strategies for citizens and leaders to combat direct and indirect human health effects related to a changing climate.
Schroeder, Dixie; Schwei, Kelsey; Chyou, Po-Huang
2017-01-01
This study sought to re-characterize trends and factors affecting electronic dental record (EDR) and technologies adoption by dental practices and the impact of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act on adoption rates through 2012. A 39-question survey was disseminated nationally over 3 months using a novel, statistically-modeled approach informed by early response rates to achieve a predetermined sample. EDR adoption rate for clinical support was 52%. Adoption rates were higher among: (1) younger dentists; (2) dentists ≤ 15 years in practice; (3) females; and (4) group practices. Top barriers to adoption were EDR cost/expense, cost-benefit ratio, electronic format conversion, and poor EDR usability. Awareness of the Federal HITECH incentive program was low. The rate of chairside computer implementation was 72%. Adoption of EDR in dental offices in the United States was higher in 2012 than electronic health record adoption rates in medical offices and was not driven by the HITECH program. Patient portal adoption among dental practices in the United States remained low. PMID:29229631
Emery, Isaac; Mueller, Steffen; Qin, Zhangcai; Dunn, Jennifer B
2017-01-03
Land availability for growing feedstocks at scale is a crucial concern for the bioenergy industry. Feedstock production on land not well-suited to growing conventional crops, or marginal land, is often promoted as ideal, although there is a poor understanding of the qualities, quantity, and distribution of marginal lands in the United States. We examine the spatial distribution of land complying with several key marginal land definitions at the United States county, agro-ecological zone, and national scales, and compare the ability of both marginal land and land cover data sets to identify regions for feedstock production. We conclude that very few land parcels comply with multiple definitions of marginal land. Furthermore, to examine possible carbon-flow implications of feedstock production on land that could be considered marginal per multiple definitions, we model soil carbon changes upon transitions from marginal cropland, grassland, and cropland-pastureland to switchgrass production for three marginal land-rich counties. Our findings suggest that total soil organic carbon changes per county are small, and generally positive, and can influence life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of switchgrass ethanol.
Seismic imaging of extended crust with emphasis on the western United States
McCarthy, J.; Thompson, G.A.
1988-01-01
Understanding of the crust has improved dramatically following the application of seismic reflection and refraction techniques to studies of the deep crust. This is particularly true in areas where the last tectonic event was extensional, such as the Basin and Range province of the western United States and much of western Europe. In these regions, a characteristic reflective pattern has emerged, whereby the lower crust is highly reflective and the upper crust and upper mantle are either poorly reflective or strikingly nonreflective. In the metamorphic-core-complex belt in the western United States, where extension can be as much as an order of magnitude greater than in the more classic continental rift zones, the lower crustal reflectivity thickens and rises, yielding a picture of a crust that is reflective throughout. If metamorphic core complexes are representative of extended continental crust world-wide, then these results suggest that magmatism and ductile flow have also contributed to the evolution of the middle and lower crust in many other areas around the world. -from Authors
Return Migration to Mexico: Does Health Matter?
Arenas, Erika; Goldman, Noreen; Pebley, Anne R.; Teruel, Graciela
2015-01-01
We use data from three rounds of the Mexican Family Life Survey to examine whether migrants in the United States returning to Mexico in the period 2005–2012 have worse health than those remaining in the United States. Despite extensive interest by demographers in health-related selection, this has been a neglected area of study in the literature on U.S.-Mexico migration, and the few results to date have been contradictory and inconclusive. Using five self-reported health variables collected while migrants resided in the United States and subsequent migration history, we find direct evidence of higher probabilities of return migration for Mexican migrants in poor health as well as lower probabilities of return for migrants with improving health. These findings are robust to the inclusion of potential confounders reflecting the migrants’ demographic characteristics, economic situation, family ties, and origin and destination characteristics. We anticipate that in the coming decade, health may become an even more salient issue in migrants’ decisions about returning to Mexico, given the recent expansion in access to health insurance in Mexico. PMID:26385111
Return Migration to Mexico: Does Health Matter?
Arenas, Erika; Goldman, Noreen; Pebley, Anne R; Teruel, Graciela
2015-12-01
We use data from three rounds of the Mexican Family Life Survey to examine whether migrants in the United States returning to Mexico in the period 2005-2012 have worse health than those remaining in the United States. Despite extensive interest by demographers in health-related selection, this has been a neglected area of study in the literature on U.S.-Mexico migration, and the few results to date have been contradictory and inconclusive. Using five self-reported health variables collected while migrants resided in the United States and subsequent migration history, we find direct evidence of higher probabilities of return migration for Mexican migrants in poor health as well as lower probabilities of return for migrants with improving health. These findings are robust to the inclusion of potential confounders reflecting the migrants' demographic characteristics, economic situation, family ties, and origin and destination characteristics. We anticipate that in the coming decade, health may become an even more salient issue in migrants' decisions about returning to Mexico, given the recent expansion in access to health insurance in Mexico.
Bullying Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth.
Earnshaw, Valerie A; Bogart, Laura M; Poteat, V Paul; Reisner, Sari L; Schuster, Mark A
2016-12-01
Bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth is prevalent in the United States, and represents LGBT stigma when tied to sexual orientation and/or gender identity or expression. LGBT youth commonly report verbal, relational, and physical bullying, and damage to property. Bullying undermines the well-being of LGBT youth, with implications for risky health behaviors, poor mental health, and poor physical health that may last into adulthood. Pediatricians can play a vital role in preventing and identifying bullying, providing counseling to youth and their parents, and advocating for programs and policies to address LGBT bullying. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The Long-Run Impact of Cash Transfers to Poor Families†
Aizer, Anna; Eli, Shari; Ferrie, Joseph; Lleras-Muney, Adriana
2017-01-01
We estimate the long-run impact of cash transfers to poor families on children’s longevity, educational attainment, nutritional status, and income in adulthood. To do so, we collected individual-level administrative records of applicants to the Mothers’ Pension program—the first government-sponsored welfare program in the United States (1911–1935)—and matched them to census, WWII, and death records. Male children of accepted applicants lived one year longer than those of rejected mothers. They also obtained one-third more years of schooling, were less likely to be underweight, and had higher income in adulthood than children of rejected mothers. PMID:28713169
Projected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Romps, David M.; Seeley, Jacob T.; Vollaro, David; Molinari, John
2014-11-01
Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. Here we propose that the lightning flash rate is proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation explains 77% of the variance in the time series of total cloud-to-ground lightning flashes over the contiguous United States (CONUS). Storms convert CAPE times precipitated water mass to discharged lightning energy with an efficiency of 1%. When this proxy is applied to 11 climate models, CONUS lightning strikes are predicted to increase 12 ± 5% per degree Celsius of global warming and about 50% over this century.
Nursing, social contexts, and ideologies in the early United States birth control movement.
Lagerwey, M D
1999-12-01
Using historical discourse analysis, this study provides a thematic analysis of writings of nursing and birth control as found in The Birth Control Review from 1917 to 1927. The author contrasts this publication with the official journal of the American Nurses Association, the American Journal of Nursing from the same years to explore nursing voices and silences in early birth control stories. In dialogue with social contexts, nursing endeavors and inactivity have played important yet conflicting roles in the birth control movement in the United States. Nursing writings from the early twentieth century reflect eugenic beliefs, national fears of immigrants, and ambivalence about women's roles in society and the home. Nurses simultaneously empowered women to choose when to become pregnant and reinforced nativist and paternalistic views of the poor.
Climate change and skin disease.
Lundgren, Ashley D
2018-04-01
Despite commanding essentially universal scientific consensus, climate change remains a divisive and poorly understood topic in the United States. Familiarity with this subject is not just for climate scientists. The impact of climate change on human morbidity and mortality may be considerable; thus, physicians also should be knowledgeable in this realm. Climate change science can seem opaque and inferential, creating fertile ground for political polemics and undoubtedly contributing to confusion among the general public. This puts physicians in a pivotal position to facilitate a practical understanding of climate change in the public sphere by discussing changes in disease patterns and their possible relationship to a changing climate. This article provides a background on climate change for dermatologists and highlights how climate change may impact the management of skin disease across the United States.
McGuire, Amy L.; Knoppers, Bartha Maria; Zawati, Ma’n H.; Clayton, Ellen Wright
2014-01-01
Genomic researchers increasingly are faced with difficult decisions about whether, under what circumstances, and how to return research results and significant incidental findings to study participants. Many have argued that there is an ethical—maybe even a legal—obligation to disclose significant findings under some circumstances. At the international level, over the last decade there has begun to emerge a clear legal obligation to return significant findings discovered during the course of research. However, there is no explicit legal duty to disclose in the United States. This creates legal uncertainty that may lead to unmanaged variation in practice and poor quality care. This article discusses liability risks associated with the disclosure of significant research findings for investigators in the United States. PMID:24676095
Physician supply and medical education in California. A comparison with national trends.
Grumbach, K; Coffman, J M; Young, J Q; Vranizan, K; Blick, N
1998-01-01
Concerns have been voiced about an impending oversupply of physicians in the United States. Do these concerns also apply to California, a state with many unique demographic characteristics? We examined trends in physician supply and medical education in California and the United States between 1980 and 1995 to better inform the formulation of workforce policies appropriate to the state's requirements for physicians. We found that similar to the United States, California has more than an ample supply of physicians in the aggregate, but too many specialists, too few underrepresented racial/ethnic minority physicians, and poor distribution of physicians across the state. However, recent growth in the supply of practicing physicians and resident physicians per capita in California has been much less dramatic than in the country overall. The state's unusually high rate of population growth has enabled California, unlike the United States as a whole, to absorb large increases in the number of practicing physicians and residents during 1980 to 1995 without substantially increasing the physician-to-population ratio. Due to a projected slowing of the state's rate of population growth, the supply of physicians per capita in the state will begin to rise steeply in coming years unless the state implements prompt reductions in the production of specialists. An immediate 25% reduction in specialist residency positions would be necessary to bring the state's supply of practicing specialists in line with projected physician requirements for the state by 2020. We conclude that major changes will be required if the state's residency programs and medical schools are to produce the number and mix of physicians the state requires. California's medical schools and residency programs will need to act in concert with federal and state government to develop effective policies to address the imbalance between physician supply and state requirements. Images Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. PMID:9614798
Low birth weight in the United States.
Goldenberg, Robert L; Culhane, Jennifer F
2007-02-01
Pregnancy outcomes in the United States and other developed countries are considerably better than those in many developing countries. However, adverse pregnancy outcomes are generally more common in the United States than in other developed countries. Low-birth-weight infants, born after a preterm birth or secondary to intrauterine growth restriction, account for much of the increased morbidity, mortality, and cost. Wide disparities exist in both preterm birth and growth restriction among different population groups. Poor and black women, for example, have twice the preterm birth rate and higher rates of growth restriction than do most other women. Low birth weight in general is thought to place the infant at greater risk of later adult chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Of interest, maternal thinness is a strong predictor of both preterm birth and fetal growth restriction. However, in the United States, several nutritional interventions, including high-protein diets, caloric supplementation, calcium and iron supplementation, and various other vitamin and mineral supplementations, have not generally reduced preterm birth or growth restriction. Bacterial intrauterine infections play an important role in the etiology of the earliest preterm births, but, at least to date, antibiotic treatment either before labor for risk factors such as bacterial vaginosis or during preterm labor have not consistently reduced the preterm birth rate. Most interventions have failed to reduce preterm birth or growth restriction. The substantial improvement in newborn survival in the United States over the past several decades is mostly due to better access to improved neonatal care for low-birth-weight infants.
Soil heating during burning of forest slash piles and wood piles
Matt D. Busse; Carol J. Shestak; Ken R. Hubbert
2013-01-01
Pile burning of conifer slash is a common fuel reduction practice in forests of the western United States that has a direct, yet poorly quantified effect on soil heating. To address this knowledge gap, we measured the heat pulse beneath hand-built piles ranging widely in fuel composition and pile size in sandy-textured soils of the Lake Tahoe Basin. The soil heat pulse...
Department of Defense June 2003 Youth Poll 5 Overview Report
2003-12-01
deficit and hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD ), respondents will not necessarily self- enhance. Since the media portrays these conditions as common and...people experience anxiety disorders. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed disorder among...about one child in every classroom in the United States needs help for this disorder. Characterized by poor concentration, impulsivity, and/or
Thomas E. Ingersoll; Brent J. Sewall; Sybill K. Amelon
2013-01-01
Bats are diverse and ecologically important, but are also subject to a suite of severe threats. Evidence for localized bat mortality from these threats is well-documented in some cases, but long-term changes in regional populations of bats remain poorly understood. Bat hibernation surveys provide an opportunity to improve understanding, but analysis is complicated by...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Green, Shekitra
2013-01-01
Children from the United States score poorly on international math tests compared to their cohorts in other countries. These gaps grow as students enter high school and develop a dislike and fear of mathematics, suggesting the need to improve mathematics education in middle school. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of reading…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Carter, Bruce J.
2017-01-01
A problem recognized in the United States is that a K-12 public education in urban communities is more likely to support existing patterns of inequality than to serve as a pathway to opportunity. The specific focus of this research was on the poor academic performance in U.S. K-12 urban communities. Using Benet's polarities of democracy theory as…
Vulnerability and Resiliency: A Longitudinal Study of Asian Americans from Birth to Age 30.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Werner, Emmy E.
A 30-year longitudinal study was undertaken in order to document the course, and determine the outcome, of all pregnancies in a community of Asian Americans on Kauai, the western most of the Hawaiian Islands and equidistant from the continental United States and Japan. The project's goal was to document both the good and poor outcomes of the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sharfstein, Joshua; Sandel, Megan
Through an Internet campaign, the Doc4Kids Project gathered stories from pediatric caregivers about children whose health has been compromised by poor housing and whose health has been improved by housing assistance. The medical literature was also reviewed to estimate the total impact of inadequate housing on child health in the United States.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Austin, Sarah E.
2014-01-01
As an instructor at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and USAFA Preparatory School, where the male-to-female ratio is generally around eight to one, the author has found that feminist ideals are poorly understood, if they are known at all. This annotated bibliography teaches students how Aristotle's rhetorical situation, which focuses on…
Yanzhuo Zhang; James L. Hanula; Scott Horn; Kristine Braman; Jianghua Sun
2011-01-01
The biology of Leptoypha hospita Drake et Poor (Hemiptera: Tingidae), a potential biological control agent from China for Chinese privet, Ligustrum sinense Lour., was studied in quarantine in the United States. Both nymphs and adults feed on Chinese privet mesophyll cells that lead to a bleached appearance of leaves and dieback of branch tips. L. hospita has five...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shannon, Thomas A.
The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 established a community action program -- an all-out community attack against poverty. One goal of this program -- law reform -- has since been implemented by both traditional legal aid societies and newly-created agencies that select unusual cases for special treatment. Responses to inquiries made of over 80…
USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database
The seasonality of E. coli O157:H7 prevalence in feedlot cattle in the United States has been well documented but poorly understood. Our hypothesis, that this phenomenon is related to hormonal changes within the animal in response to changing day-length, is supported by the data from numerous studi...
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Oleson, Amanda K.; Hora, Matthew T.; Benbow, Ross J.
2014-01-01
The fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, more ubiquitously known by the acronym "STEM," have received a substantial amount of attention in recent years. As part of a research study investigating the alignment (or lack thereof) between the goals and priorities of educators and employers, we found it difficult to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rudd, Timothy; Rodriguez, Jonathan; Greenberg, David
2016-01-01
Family Rewards was an innovative approach to poverty reduction in the United States that was modelled on the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs common in lower- and middle-income countries. The program offered cash assistance to poor families to reduce immediate hardship, provided they met certain criteria related to family health care,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Reyes, Lilia M.; Waxman, Laura DeKoven
This survey assesses the status of hunger, homelessness, and poverty in cities in the United States during 1987. The findings include the following: (1) the number of the homeless and the poor had increased and was expected to continue to increase; (2) the demand for emergency food assistance and emergency shelter assistance had increased and was…
"Coming Home" to New Homes and New Schools: Critical Race Theory and the New Politics of Containment
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Smith, Janet L.; Stovall, David
2008-01-01
Older cities in the United States have long been trying to "bring back" the middle class in order to increase tax base. The poor quality of schools and the presence of public housing often were cited as deterrents for attracting higher income families. When the 2000 Census data revealed improvements in many cities, some elected officials…
Hook, C Christopher
2010-07-01
The challenges before science and medicine are these: science must explore the natural world as thoroughly as possible, while still honoring, protecting, serving and preserving the subject of its investigations, and the human beings for whom it is a tool; medicine must confront disease and disability as effectively as possible, while also honoring, protecting, and preserving those beings for whom it serves - all of those beings, not just some, or even most, at the potential expense of others. These goals are challenged by embryo-destructive human embryonic stem cell research. The human embryo is a human being as clearly defined by embryology, and as such should be protected by the codes governing human subject research. However, because of the "potential" benefits offered by pluripotent stem cells, coupled with abortion politics and a very poorly regulated infertility industry, United States governmental advisory commissions and the scientific, medical, and political communities have attempted to define away the humanity of the human embryo, with a few notable exceptions. Because infertility treatments in the United States are poorly regulated, there are large numbers of supernumerary embryos in cryopreservation. However, only a tiny portion of these will ever be potentially available for research, and thus are not a realistic source of the cells necessary to provide treatments to the millions who might benefit from proposed stem cell based therapies. Cloning will not be the answer either, given the millions of women who must be exploited to provide sufficient numbers of eggs to generate the cloned cell lines. Moreover, the disposition decisions parents must make for their extra embryos are often agonizing, and not uncommonly change. The use of supernumerary embryos as a source for human embryonic stem cells is unethical, will never be a sufficient source for the medical treatments expected from stem cell research, and is often a source of great distress for the conceiving parents. The United States experience is not a positive model for other countries to emulate.
Alyeshmerni, Daniel; Froehlich, James B; Lewin, Jack; Eagle, Kim A
2014-07-01
Despite its status as a world leader in treatment innovation and medical education, a quality chasm exists in American health care. Care fragmentation and poor coordination contribute to expensive care with highly variable quality in the United States. The rising costs of health care since 1990 have had a huge impact on individuals, families, businesses, the federal and state governments, and the national budget deficit. The passage of the Affordable Care Act represents a large shift in how health care is financed and delivered in the United States. The objective of this review is to describe some of the economic and social forces driving health care reform, provide an overview of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), and review model cardiovascular quality improvement programs underway in the state of Michigan. As health care reorganization occurs at the federal level, local and regional efforts can serve as models to accelerate improvement toward achieving better population health and better care at lower cost. Model programs in Michigan have achieved this goal in cardiovascular care through the systematic application of evidence-based care, the utilization of regional quality improvement collaboratives, community-based childhood wellness promotion, and medical device-based competitive bidding strategies. These efforts are examples of the direction cardiovascular care delivery will need to move in this era of the Affordable Care Act.
Tada, Toshifumi; Kumada, Takashi; Toyoda, Hidenori; Ohisa, Masayuki; Akita, Tomoyuki; Tanaka, Junko
2018-04-19
The relationship between the hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) seroconversion and the long-term natural history of liver disease has not been sufficiently investigated. A total of 408 [4352 person-year (PY) units] patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) without antiviral therapy were enrolled. The study patients were divided into three groups, as follows: Group A (2666 PY units), seroconverted of HBeAg at age < 40; Group B (413 PY units), seroconverted of HBeAg at age ≥ 40; Group C (1273 PY units), persistently HBeAg positive. Yearly transition probabilities from each liver state [chronic HBV infection, chronic hepatitis B, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) negativity] were calculated using the Markov chain model. In the analysis of 1 year liver disease state transition probabilities, the liver states remained almost the same in Group A. In Groups B and C, each liver state tended to progress to a worse state. Assuming a chronic hepatitis B state at age 40 as the starting condition for simulation over the next 40 years, the chronic hepatitis B state accounted for approximately 60% of males aged ≥ 50 and approximately 40% of females aged ≥ 60 in Group A, and the HBsAg-negative state accounted for approximately 30-40% of males and females aged ≥ 60. In Groups B and C, the probabilities of patients with cirrhosis and HCC gradually increased with age. Not only patients with persistent HBeAg positive, but also patients with delayed HBeAg seroconversion showed poor prognosis of liver-related natural history.
Melnyk, Bernadette Mazurek; Feinstein, Nancy Fischbeck
2009-01-01
More than 500,000 premature infants are born in the United States every year. Preterm birth results in a multitude of negative adverse outcomes for children, including extended stays in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), developmental delays, physical and mental health/behavioral problems, increased medical utilization, and poor academic performance. In addition, parents of preterms experience a higher incidence of depression and anxiety disorders along with altered parent-infant interactions and overprotective parenting, which negatively impact their children. The costs associated with preterm birth are exorbitant. In 2005, it is estimated that preterm birth cost the United States $26.2 billion. The purpose of this study was to perform a cost analysis of the Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment (COPE) program for parents of premature infants, a manualized educational-behavioral intervention program comprising audiotaped information and an activity workbook that is administered to parents in 4 phases, the first phase commencing 2 to 4 days after admission to the NICU. Findings indicated that the COPE program resulted in cost savings of at least $4864 per infant. In addition to improving parent and child outcomes, routine implementation of COPE in NICUs across the United States could save the healthcare system more than $2 billion per year.
Morishita, Fukushi; Garfin, Anna Marie Celina Gonzales; Lew, Woojin; Oh, Kyung Hyun; Yadav, Rajendra-Prasad; Reston, Janeth Cuencaho; Infante, Lenie Lucio; Acala, Maria Rebethia Crueldad; Palanca, Dean Lim; Kim, Hee Jin; Nishikiori, Nobuyuki
2017-01-01
Globally, case detection of tuberculosis (TB) has stabilized in recent years. Active case finding (ACF) has regained an increased attention as a complementary strategy to fill the case detection gap. In the Philippines, the DetecTB project implemented an innovative ACF strategy that offered a one-stop diagnostic service with a mobile unit equipped with enhanced diagnostic tools including chest X-ray (CXR) and Xpert®MTB/RIF (Xpert). The project targeted the rural poor, the urban poor, prison inmates, indigenous population and high school students. This is a retrospective review of TB screening data from 25,103 individuals. A descriptive analysis was carried out to compare screening and treatment outcomes across target populations. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify predictors of TB for each population. The composition of bacteriologically-confirmed cases by smear and symptom status was further investigated. The highest yield with lowest number needed to screen (NNS) was found in prison (6.2%, NNS: 16), followed by indigenous population (2.9%, NNS: 34), the rural poor (2.2%, NNS: 45), the urban poor (2.1%, NNS: 48), and high school (0.2%, NNS: 495). The treatment success rate for all populations was high with 89.5% in rifampicin-susceptible patients and 83.3% in rifampicin-resistant patients. A relatively higher loss to follow-up rate was observed in indigenous population (7.5%) and the rural poor (6.4%). Only cough more than two weeks showed a significant association with TB diagnosis in all target populations (Adjusted Odds Ratio ranging from 1.71 to 6.73) while other symptoms and demographic factors varied in their strength of association. The urban poor had the highest proportion of smear-positive patients with cough more than two weeks (72.0%). The proportion of smear-negative (Xpert-positive) patients without cough more than two weeks was the highest in indigenous population (39.3%), followed by prison inmates (27.7%), and the rural poor (22.8%). The innovative ACF strategy using mobile unit yielded a substantial number of TB patients and achieved successful treatment outcomes. TB screening in prison, indigenous population, and urban and rural poor communities was found to be effective. The combined use of CXR and Xpert largely contributed to increased case detection.
Morishita, Fukushi; Garfin, Anna Marie Celina Gonzales; Lew, Woojin; Oh, Kyung Hyun; Yadav, Rajendra-Prasad; Reston, Janeth Cuencaho; Infante, Lenie Lucio; Acala, Maria Rebethia Crueldad; Palanca, Dean Lim; Kim, Hee Jin; Nishikiori, Nobuyuki
2017-01-01
Background Globally, case detection of tuberculosis (TB) has stabilized in recent years. Active case finding (ACF) has regained an increased attention as a complementary strategy to fill the case detection gap. In the Philippines, the DetecTB project implemented an innovative ACF strategy that offered a one-stop diagnostic service with a mobile unit equipped with enhanced diagnostic tools including chest X-ray (CXR) and Xpert®MTB/RIF (Xpert). The project targeted the rural poor, the urban poor, prison inmates, indigenous population and high school students. Methods This is a retrospective review of TB screening data from 25,103 individuals. A descriptive analysis was carried out to compare screening and treatment outcomes across target populations. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify predictors of TB for each population. The composition of bacteriologically-confirmed cases by smear and symptom status was further investigated. Results The highest yield with lowest number needed to screen (NNS) was found in prison (6.2%, NNS: 16), followed by indigenous population (2.9%, NNS: 34), the rural poor (2.2%, NNS: 45), the urban poor (2.1%, NNS: 48), and high school (0.2%, NNS: 495). The treatment success rate for all populations was high with 89.5% in rifampicin-susceptible patients and 83.3% in rifampicin-resistant patients. A relatively higher loss to follow-up rate was observed in indigenous population (7.5%) and the rural poor (6.4%). Only cough more than two weeks showed a significant association with TB diagnosis in all target populations (Adjusted Odds Ratio ranging from 1.71 to 6.73) while other symptoms and demographic factors varied in their strength of association. The urban poor had the highest proportion of smear-positive patients with cough more than two weeks (72.0%). The proportion of smear-negative (Xpert-positive) patients without cough more than two weeks was the highest in indigenous population (39.3%), followed by prison inmates (27.7%), and the rural poor (22.8%). Conclusions The innovative ACF strategy using mobile unit yielded a substantial number of TB patients and achieved successful treatment outcomes. TB screening in prison, indigenous population, and urban and rural poor communities was found to be effective. The combined use of CXR and Xpert largely contributed to increased case detection. PMID:28152082
US Fertility Prevention as Poverty Prevention
Romero, Diana; Agénor, Madina
2009-01-01
Purpose This paper examines the impact of the United States (US) welfare reform family-cap policy on the childbearing decisions of poor and low-income women by posing two complementary questions, both placed within a broader historical context. Specifically, it raises an empirical question pertaining to the family cap’s effectiveness and a social justice question pertaining to the policy’s ethical and legal justification in terms of human and reproductive rights. Methods In order to address the first question, a thorough review of past and current research pertaining to the family cap at both the state and national level is provided. The second question is addressed with an overview of international human and reproductive rights documents of relevance to the family-cap policy, as well as an analysis of the covenants’ numerous components with which the family cap is in conflict. Finally, this paper situates the family cap in its historical context by investigating previous governmental attempts to control and regulate the reproductive health and rights of poor women and women of color in the US. Main findings The majority of empirical analyses of the family cap have found that the policy has not had an impact on poor women’s reproductive health behaviors. In addition, the exclusive application of this policy to poor women receiving cash assistance is demonstrated to be in violation of 8 international human and reproductive rights documents, several of which the US is a signatory. Conclusion These two findings make a strong case that policymakers and social and health researchers alike critically re-examine whether a policy that has not achieved its ostensible goal and is applied in a disparate manner—primarily to poor women and families, and women of color—should continue to be implemented by the states. PMID:19879450
US fertility prevention as poverty prevention: an empirical question and social justice issue.
Romero, Diana; Agénor, Madina
2009-01-01
This paper examines the impact of the US welfare reform family-cap policy on the childbearing decisions of poor and low-income women by posing two complementary questions, both placed within a broader historical context. Specifically, it raises an empirical question pertaining to the family cap's effectiveness and a social justice question pertaining to the policy's ethical and legal justification in terms of human and reproductive rights. To address the first question, a thorough review of past and current research pertaining to the family cap at both the state and national levels is provided. The second question is addressed with an overview of international human and reproductive rights documents of relevance to the family-cap policy, as well as an analysis of the covenants' numerous components with which the family cap is in conflict. Finally, this paper situates the family cap in its historical context by investigating previous governmental attempts to control and regulate the reproductive health and rights of poor women and women of color in the United States. The majority of empirical analyses of the family cap have found that the policy has not had an impact on poor women's reproductive health behaviors. In addition, the exclusive application of this policy to poor women receiving cash assistance is demonstrated to be in violation of eight international human and reproductive rights documents, several of which the US is a signatory. These two findings make a strong case that policy makers and social and health researchers alike critically reexamine whether a policy that has not achieved its ostensible goal and is applied in a disparate manner-primarily to poor women and families and women of color-should continue to be implemented by the states.
Nomenclature of regional hydrogeologic units of the Southeastern Coastal Plain aquifer system
Miller, J.A.; Renken, R.A.
1988-01-01
Clastic sediments of the Southeastern Coastal Plain aquifer system can be divided into four regional aquifers separated by three regional confining units. The four regional aquifers have been named for major rivers that cut across their outcrop areas and expose the aquifer materials. From youngest to oldest, the aquifers are called the Chickasawhay River, Pearl River, Chattahoochee River, and Black Warrior River aquifers, and the regional confining units separating them are given the same name as the aquifer they overlie. Most of the regional hydrogeologic units are subdivided within each of the four States that comprise the study area. Correlation of regional units is good with hydrogeologic units delineated by a similar regional study to the west and southwest. Because of complexity created by a major geologic structure to the northeast of the study area and dramatic facies change from clastic to carbonate strata to the southeast, correlation of regional hydrogeologic units is poor in these directions. (Author 's abstract)
Siqueira, Mariana Santiago; Rosa, Roger Dos Santos; Bordin, Ronaldo; Nugem, Rita de Cássia
2017-01-01
to describe the occurrence, characteristics and expenditures of hospitalizations due to diseases associated with poor sanitation funded by the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) among residents of the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil, from 2010 to 2014. descriptive study with data from SUS Hospital Information System (SIH/SUS). out of 13,929 hospitalizations for diseases associated with poor sanitation, 93.7% were related to fecal-oral transmission diseases and 20.4% were children from 1 to 4 years of age (28.1 hospitalizations/10,000 inhabitants/year); hospital fatality rate was of 2.2%, fecal-oral transmission diseases were the main causes of death; intensive care unit (ICU) was used in 2.0% of hospitalizations; total expenditures on hospitalizations was around BRL6.1 million. diseases associated with poor sanitation are still an important issue in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre-RS, although this region presents good development indicators.
The effect of social integration on outcomes after major lower extremity amputation.
Hawkins, Alexander T; Pallangyo, Anthony J; Herman, Ayesiga M; Schaumeier, Maria J; Smith, Ann D; Hevelone, Nathanael D; Crandell, David M; Nguyen, Louis L
2016-01-01
Major lower extremity (MLE) amputation is a common procedure that results in a profound change in a patient's life. We sought to determine the association between social support and outcomes after amputation. We hypothesized that patients with greater social support will have better post amputation outcomes. From November 2011 to May 2013, we conducted a cross-sectional, observational, multicenter study. Social integration was measured by the social integration subset of the Short Form Craig Handicap Assessment and Reporting Technique. Systemic social support was assessed by comparing a United States and Tanzanian population. Walking function was measured using the 6-minute walk test and quality of life (QoL) was measured using the EuroQol-5D. We recruited 102 MLE amputees. Sixty-three patients were enrolled in the United States with a mean age of 58.0. Forty-two (67%) were male. Patients with low social integration were more likely to be unable to ambulate (no walk 39% vs slow walk 23% vs fast walk 10%; P = .01) and those with high social integration were more likely to be fast walkers (no walk 10% vs slow walk 59% vs fast walk 74%; P = .01). This relationship persisted in a multivariable analysis. Increasing social integration scores were also positively associated with increasing QoL scores in a multivariable analysis (β, .002; standard error, 0.0008; P = .02). In comparing the United States population with the Tanzanian cohort (39 subjects), there were no differences between functional or QoL outcomes in the systemic social support analysis. In the United States population, increased social integration is associated with both improved function and QoL outcomes among MLE amputees. Systemic social support, as measured by comparing the United States population with a Tanzanian population, was not associated with improved function or QoL outcomes. In the United States, steps should be taken to identify and aid amputees with poor social integration. Copyright © 2016 Society for Vascular Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
TRMM-3B43 Bias Correction over the High Elevations of the Contiguous United States
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Hashemi, H.; Nordin, K. M.; Lakshmi, V.; Knight, R. J.
2016-12-01
Precipitation can be quantified using a rain gauge network, or a remotely sensed precipitation product. Ultimately, the choice of dataset depends on the particular application, the catchment size, climate and the time period of study. In a region with a long record and a dense rain gauge network, the elevation-modified ground-based precipitation product, PRISM, has been found to work well. However, in poorly gauged regions the use of remotely sensed precipitation products is an absolute necessity. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has provided valuable precipitation datasets for hydrometeorological studies over the past two decades (1998-2015). One concern regarding the usage of TRMM data is the accuracy of the precipitation estimates, when compared to those obtained using PRISM. The reason for this concern is that TRMM and PRISM do not always agree and, typically, TRMM underestimates PRISM over the mountainous regions of the United States. In this study, we develop a correction function to improve the accuracy of the TRMM monthly product (TRMM-3B43) by estimating and removing the bias in the satellite data using the ground-based precipitation product, PRISM. We observe a strong relationship between the bias and land surface elevation; TRMM-3B43 tends to underestimate the PRISM product at altitudes greater than 1500 m above mean sea level (m.amsl) in the contiguous United States. A relationship is developed between TRMM-PRISM bias and elevation. The correction function is used to adjust the TRMM monthly precipitation using PRISM and elevation data. The model is calibrated using 25% of the available time period and the remaining 75% of the time period is used for validation. The corrected TRMM-3B43 product is verified for the high elevations over the contiguous United States and two local regions in the mountainous areas of the western United States. The results show a significant improvement in the accuracy of the TRMM product in the high elevations of the contiguous United States.
Immigration and the health of U.S. black adults: does country of origin matter?
Hamilton, Tod G; Hummer, Robert A
2011-11-01
Previous work suggests that regional variation in pre-migration exposure to racism and discrimination, measured by a region's racial composition, predicts differences in individual-level health among black immigrants to the United States. We exploit data on both region and country of birth for black immigrants in the United States and methodology that allows for the identification of arrival cohorts to test whether there are sending country differences in the health of black adults in the United States that support this proposition. While testing this hypothesis, we also document heterogeneity in health across arrival cohorts and by duration of U.S. residence among black immigrants. Using data on working-age immigrant and U.S.-born blacks taken from the 1996-2010 waves of the March Current Population Survey, we show that relative to U.S.-born black adults, black immigrants report significantly lower odds of fair/poor health. After controlling for relevant social and demographic characteristics, immigrants' cohort of arrival, and immigrants' duration in the United States, our models show only modest differences in health between African immigrants and black immigrants who migrate from the other major sending countries or regions. Results also show that African immigrants maintain their health advantage over U.S.-born black adults after more than 20 years in the United States. In contrast, black immigrants from the Caribbean who have been in the United States for more than 20 years appear to experience some downward health assimilation. In conclusion, after accounting for relevant factors, we find that there are only modest differences in black immigrant health across countries of origin. Black immigrants appear to be very highly selected in terms of good health, although there are some indications of negative health assimilation for black immigrants from the Caribbean. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Child Poverty in the United States: A Tale of Devastation and the Promise of Hope.
McCarty, Alyn T
2016-07-01
The child poverty rate in the United States is higher than in most similarly developed countries, making child poverty one of America's most pressing social problems. This article provides an introduction of child poverty in the US, beginning with a short description of how poverty is measured and how child poverty is patterned across social groups and geographic space. I then examine the consequences of child poverty with a focus educational outcomes and child health, and three pathways through which poverty exerts its influence: resources, culture, and stress. After a brief review of the anti-poverty policy and programmatic landscape, I argue that moving forward we must enrich the communities in which poor families live in addition to boosting incomes and directly supporting children's skill development. I conclude with emerging research questions.
Projected Increase in Lightning Strikes in the United States Due to Global Warming
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Romps, D. M.; Seeley, J.; Vollaro, D.; Molinari, J.
2014-12-01
Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. The lightning flash rate is proposed here to be proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation is found to explain the majority of variance in the time series of total cloud-to-ground lightning flashes over the contiguous United States (CONUS) on timescales ranging from diurnal to seasonal. The observations reveal that storms convert the CAPE of water mass to discharged lightning energy with an efficiency of about 1%. This proxy can be applied to global climate models, which provide predictions for the increase in lightning due to global warming. Results from 11 GCMs will be shown.
Child Poverty in the United States: A Tale of Devastation and the Promise of Hope
McCarty, Alyn T.
2017-01-01
The child poverty rate in the United States is higher than in most similarly developed countries, making child poverty one of America’s most pressing social problems. This article provides an introduction of child poverty in the US, beginning with a short description of how poverty is measured and how child poverty is patterned across social groups and geographic space. I then examine the consequences of child poverty with a focus educational outcomes and child health, and three pathways through which poverty exerts its influence: resources, culture, and stress. After a brief review of the anti-poverty policy and programmatic landscape, I argue that moving forward we must enrich the communities in which poor families live in addition to boosting incomes and directly supporting children’s skill development. I conclude with emerging research questions. PMID:28890733
Kohler, Iliana V.; Martikainen, Pekka; Smith, Kirsten P.; Elo, Irma T.
2008-01-01
Using life table measures, we compare educational differentials in all-cause mortality at ages 40 to 70 in Bulgaria to those in Finland and the United States. Specifically, we assess whether the relationship between education and mortality is modified by marital status. Although high education and being married are associated with lower mortality in all three countries, absolute educational differences tend to be smaller among married than unmarried individuals. Absolute differentials by education are largest for Bulgarian men, but in relative terms educational differences are smaller among Bulgarian men than in Finland and the U.S. Among women, Americans experience the largest education-mortality gradients in both relative and absolute terms. Our results indicate a particular need to tackle health hazards among poorly educated men in countries in transition. PMID:19165349
Foster, RoseMarie Perez; Goldstein, Marjorie F
2007-04-01
Long-term mental health sequelae of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster have been documented for exposed populations who remained in the former Soviet Union (FSU) (Havenaar et al., 1997), and in a cohort migrated to Israel (Cwikel et al., 1997). This paper reports on Chernobyl disaster sequelae in émigrés (n = 321) to the United States. Demographic characteristics, migration factors, and self-reported physical health were considered. Both geographical proximity to the 1986 disaster, and perception of radiation risk stood as long-term indicators of current psychological distress. Proximity was related to poor self-perceived physical health, as well as current symptoms of depression (p<.05), anxiety (p<.01), and Chernobyl-related trauma distress (p<.001) on standardized measures. Environmental contamination as a reason for migration was also associated with greater mental health symptomatology.
Influence of Packing on Low Energy Vibrations of Densified Glasses
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Carini, Giovanni, Jr.; Carini, Giuseppe; D'Angelo, Giovanna; Tripodo, Gaspare; Di Marco, Gaetano; Vasi, Cirino; Gilioli, Edmondo
2013-12-01
A comparative study of Raman scattering and low temperature specific heat capacity has been performed on samples of B2O3, which have been high-pressure quenched to go through different glassy phases having growing density to the crystalline state. It has revealed that the excess volume characterizing the glassy networks favors the formation of specific glassy structural units, the boroxol rings, which produce the boson peak, a broad band of low energy vibrational states. The decrease of boroxol rings with increasing pressure of synthesis is associated with the progressive depression of the excess low energy vibrations until their full disappearance in the crystalline phase, where the rings are missing. These observations prove that the additional soft vibrations in glasses arise from specific units whose formation is made possible by the poor atomic packing of the network.
The space shuttle program: a policy failure?
Logsdon, J M
1986-05-30
The 5 January 1972 announcement by President Richard Nixon that the United States would develop during the 1970's a new space transportation system-the space shuttle-has had fundamental impacts on the character of U.S. space activities. In retrospect, it can be argued that the shuttle design chosen was destined to fail to meet many of the policy objectives established for the system; the shuttle's problems in serving as the primary launch vehicle for the United States and in providing routine and cost-effective space transportation are in large part a result of the ways in which compromises were made in the 1971-72 period in order to gain White House and congressional approval to proceed with the program. The decision to develop a space shuttle is an example of a poor quality national commitment to a major technological undertaking.
Climate change. Projected increase in lightning strikes in the United States due to global warming.
Romps, David M; Seeley, Jacob T; Vollaro, David; Molinari, John
2014-11-14
Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. Here we propose that the lightning flash rate is proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation explains 77% of the variance in the time series of total cloud-to-ground lightning flashes over the contiguous United States (CONUS). Storms convert CAPE times precipitated water mass to discharged lightning energy with an efficiency of 1%. When this proxy is applied to 11 climate models, CONUS lightning strikes are predicted to increase 12 ± 5% per degree Celsius of global warming and about 50% over this century. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Social Work and Prison Labor: A Restorative Model.
Sliva, Shannon M; Samimi, Ceema
2018-04-01
The prison industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States, fueled largely by prison privatization. UN guidelines and U.S. federal policy outline standards for prison workers, but evidence suggests that protections have been ignored or circumvented. The current prison labor system allows corporations to profit from punishment that is disproportionately allocated to people of color and the poor. This article provides a critical analysis of prison labor policies in the United States and proposes a position for social workers on the ethical and restorative use of inmate labor. This model uses the framework of restorative justice to explore how successful models of social enterprise can benefit inmates and their communities. Meaningful prison enterprises may offer the ability to return resources to communities depleted by crime and incarceration, and to restore inmates to full citizenship.
Status of knowledge of the Pallid Sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus Forbes and Richardson, 1905)
Jordan, G. R.; Heist, E.J.; Braaten, Patrick; Delonay, Aaron J.; Hartfield, P.; Herzog, D.P.; Kappenman, K.M.; Web, M.A.H.
2016-01-01
The Pallid Sturgeon is listed as federally endangered under the Endangered Species Act in the United States. When the species was listed in 1990 it was considered extremely rare and was poorly understood. Habitat alteration, commercial harvest, environmental contaminants, and other factors were identified as threats. Today our scientific understanding of the species and its life history requirements have increased greatly as summarized below.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cross, Jennifer Riedl; O'Reilly, Colm; Kim, Mihyeon; Mammadov, Sakhavat; Cross, Tracy L.
2015-01-01
Social coping and self-concept were explored among Irish (n = 115) and American (n = 134) grades 3-8 students. Denying one's giftedness or the impact it has on peer relationships were associated with poor self-concept in both samples. Among Irish students, denying giftedness was associated with more positive self-concept when paired with a high…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Weber, Bruce; Jensen, Leif; Miller, Kathleen; Mosley, Jane; Fisher, Monica
2005-01-01
Poverty rates are highest in the most urban and most rural areas of the United States, and are higher in nonmetropolitan than metropolitan areas. Yet, perhaps because only one-fifth of the nation's 35 million poor people live in nonmetropolitan areas, rural poverty has received less attention than urban poverty from both policymakers and…
Are the Leonid Meteor Storms Coming?
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Yeomans, D. K.; Yau, K.; Weissman, P. R.
1995-01-01
On Nov. 17, 1996 an extraordinary Leonid meteor storm (144,000 per hour) was witnessed by observers in central and western United States. With an orbital period of 33 years, the next return to perihelion will be Feb. 28, 1998. Because the distribution of the particles flying in formation with the parent comet is poorly known, no secure predictions can be made for Leonid meteor storms in the coming years.
Justice for the Poor in a Land of Plenty: A Place at the Table
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Brady, Judith Ann
2006-01-01
This article examines the dramatic increase in poverty in the United States of America. An analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2004 reveals the extent of poverty. The official poverty threshold is lower than what is needed for a person or family to provide for the necessities of life. The effects of poverty on women and children are…
Federal Research and Development Agenda for Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Green Buildings
2008-10-21
transportation combined by 2050 (DOE 2007a). Figure 1. Energy Consumption in the United States Source: 2007 DOE Buildings Energy Data Book , Tables...poor indoor air quality (IAQ) include Legionnaires’ disease, heart disease and lung cancer from secondhand smoke, and carbon monoxide poisoning. More...www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/highperformance/commercialbuildin gsroadmap.pdf DOE. 2007a. Buildings energy data book . http
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
HATHAWAY, DALE E.
THE RISE OF THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM IN THE SOUTH, REAPPORTIONMENT, AND POPULATION SHIFTS HAVE REMOVED THE SOUTH'S DOMINANCE IN AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS AND INCREASED THE POWER OF THE LARGER COMMERCIALIZED FARMS OF THE WEST. EXTENSION PROGRAMS FOR THE RURAL POOR, WHO ARE LARGELY IN THE SOUTH, WILL FIND LITTLE SUPPORT FROM THE TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL…
Controversies in Persistent (Chronic) Lyme Disease
2016-01-01
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 300 000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year in the United States and that 10% to 20% of these patients will remain symptomatic despite receiving appropriate antibiotic therapy. Many elements of the disease are poorly understood and have generated considerable controversy. This paper discusses the medical controversies related to posttreatment manifestations and their potential impact on infusion nurses. PMID:27755213
Mexican Industrial Development Plans: Implications for United States Policy.
1981-04-01
of strate- gies involving investments, credit, subsidies, insur- ance, commercialization, and a mass media approach to improving nutritional habits... nutrition to the poor, rural sectors. The instruments for seeking this re- sult are: 1. Preferential rates of credit for the production of corn and...storehouses and distribution centers in priority rural areas. SAM identifies 782 townships as "critical nutrition zones" which will receive the brunt of
Assessing Educational Outcomes: Are We Doing Good, Can We Do Better? IHE Newsletter.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fincher, Cameron
The United States is not doing as well as it could in assessing educational outcomes in the 1980s. The assessment movement of the 1980s indicates that its institutional memory is poor, and when coping with outside pressures, it is slow to recall how it coped the last time it was under pressure. It is important to remember such events and pressures…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Roome, Anna Kathryn
2016-01-01
The issue within education reform of high dropout rates has been an enduring problem for education in the United States (U.S.) since the 1960s. Dropping out of high school is associated with a broad range of social pathologies in adulthood, including poor job prospects, the propensity to engage in criminal behavior, out-of-wedlock births, low…
2010-04-01
different countries are understood; (4) Poor radios and transmission quality contribute to the unintelligibility of some controller transmissions; (5...going into a foreign country; (7) Differences associated with U.S. and ICAO phraseology need to be resolved and procedural ambiguities eliminated...affect you most related to differences in the word(s) used to describe a clearance, instruction, advisory, or request? Please list some examples
Listening to Historys Rhyme:Preparing the United States Army for Future Irregular Warfare
2014-04-01
of the most likely, which typically results in developing technologically advanced, conventional solutions to potential rivals, options poorly...What makes hybrid wars so challenging is that different elements execute the various modes of warfare and are typically coordinated at various... Morocco to train its forces on logistics, combined arms maneuver, and other skills. 72 Atlas Accord is a new exercise started in 2012 to provide
Baker, Fiona C; Wolfson, Amy R; Lee, Kathryn A
2009-06-01
To investigate factors associated with poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness in women living in the United States. Data are presented from the National Sleep Foundation's 2007 Sleep in America Poll that included 959 women (18-64 years of age) surveyed by telephone about their sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and sociodemographic, health, and lifestyle factors. Poor sleep quality was reported by 27% and daytime sleepiness was reported by 21% of respondents. Logistic multivariate regression analyses revealed that poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness were both independently associated with poor health, having a sleep disorder, and psychological distress. Also, multivariate analyses showed that women who consumed more caffeinated beverages and those who had more than one job were more likely to report poor sleep quality but not daytime sleepiness. Daytime sleepiness, on the other hand, was independently associated with being black/African American, younger, disabled, having less education, and daytime napping. Poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness are common in American women and are associated with health-related, as well as sociodemographic, factors. Addressing sleep-related complaints in women is important to improve their daytime functioning and quality of life.
An Ethnographic Study of the Social Context of Migrant Health in the United States
Holmes, Seth M
2006-01-01
Background Migrant workers in the United States have extremely poor health. This paper aims to identify ways in which the social context of migrant farm workers affects their health and health care. Methods and Findings This qualitative study employs participant observation and interviews on farms and in clinics throughout 15 months of migration with a group of indigenous Triqui Mexicans in the western US and Mexico. Study participants include more than 130 farm workers and 30 clinicians. Data are analyzed utilizing grounded theory, accompanied by theories of structural violence, symbolic violence, and the clinical gaze. The study reveals that farm working and housing conditions are organized according to ethnicity and citizenship. This hierarchy determines health disparities, with undocumented indigenous Mexicans having the worst health. Yet, each group is understood to deserve its place in the hierarchy, migrant farm workers often being blamed for their own sicknesses. Conclusions Structural racism and anti-immigrant practices determine the poor working conditions, living conditions, and health of migrant workers. Subtle racism serves to reduce awareness of this social context for all involved, including clinicians. The paper concludes with strategies toward improving migrant health in four areas: health disparities research, clinical interactions with migrant laborers, medical education, and policy making. PMID:17076567
Exploring Agricultural Drainage's Influence on Wetland and ...
Artificial agricultural drainage (i.e. surface ditches or subsurface tile) is an important agricultural management tool. Artificial drainage allows for timely fieldwork and adequate root aeration, resulting in greater crop yields for farmers. This practice is widespread throughout many regions of the United States and the network of artificial drainage is especially extensive in flat, poorly-drained regions like the glaciated Midwest. While beneficial for crop yields, agricultural drains often empty into streams within the natural drainage system. The increased network connectivity may lead to greater contributing area for watersheds, altered hydrology and increased conveyance of pollutants into natural water bodies. While studies and models at broader scales have implicated artificial drainage as an important driver of hydrological shifts and eutrophication, the actual spatial extent of artificial drainage is poorly known. Consequently, metrics of wetland and watershed connectivity within agricultural regions often fail to explicitly include artificial drainage. We use recent agricultural census data, soil drainage data, and land cover data to create estimates of potential agricultural drainage across the United States. We estimate that agricultural drainage in the US is greater than 31 million hectares and is concentrated in the upper Midwest Corn Belt, covering greater than 50% of available land for 114 counties. Estimated drainage values for numerous countie
Mechling, Brandy M
2011-03-01
Young caregivers of mentally ill parents are a vulnerable population. These vulnerabilities include risks for developmental issues, poor socialization, and poor school performance. The purpose of this background review of the literature is to explore the experiences of young caregivers of mentally ill parents and detect the gaps in the literature. The guiding research questions were: What is the experience of young caregivers of mentally ill parents? and What is the experience for those who witness or must assist their parent during a crisis? The majority of research has been conducted outside the United States, primarily in the United Kingdom, and studies have focused mostly on young caregivers of parents with physical rather than mental illness. No studies focused on young caregivers who witnessed or assisted their mentally ill parent in crisis. Information gained through this review will add to the body of knowledge for child mental health and build a case for additional research. Copyright 2011, SLACK Incorporated.
Semantic network analysis of vaccine sentiment in online social media.
Kang, Gloria J; Ewing-Nelson, Sinclair R; Mackey, Lauren; Schlitt, James T; Marathe, Achla; Abbas, Kaja M; Swarup, Samarth
2017-06-22
To examine current vaccine sentiment on social media by constructing and analyzing semantic networks of vaccine information from highly shared websites of Twitter users in the United States; and to assist public health communication of vaccines. Vaccine hesitancy continues to contribute to suboptimal vaccination coverage in the United States, posing significant risk of disease outbreaks, yet remains poorly understood. We constructed semantic networks of vaccine information from internet articles shared by Twitter users in the United States. We analyzed resulting network topology, compared semantic differences, and identified the most salient concepts within networks expressing positive, negative, and neutral vaccine sentiment. The semantic network of positive vaccine sentiment demonstrated greater cohesiveness in discourse compared to the larger, less-connected network of negative vaccine sentiment. The positive sentiment network centered around parents and focused on communicating health risks and benefits, highlighting medical concepts such as measles, autism, HPV vaccine, vaccine-autism link, meningococcal disease, and MMR vaccine. In contrast, the negative network centered around children and focused on organizational bodies such as CDC, vaccine industry, doctors, mainstream media, pharmaceutical companies, and United States. The prevalence of negative vaccine sentiment was demonstrated through diverse messaging, framed around skepticism and distrust of government organizations that communicate scientific evidence supporting positive vaccine benefits. Semantic network analysis of vaccine sentiment in online social media can enhance understanding of the scope and variability of current attitudes and beliefs toward vaccines. Our study synthesizes quantitative and qualitative evidence from an interdisciplinary approach to better understand complex drivers of vaccine hesitancy for public health communication, to improve vaccine confidence and vaccination coverage in the United States. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
The slavery hypothesis for hypertension among African Americans: the historical evidence.
Curtin, P D
1992-01-01
The slavery hypothesis for hypertension has stated that the high blood pressures sometimes measured in African Americans are caused by one or more of these conditions: first, salt deficiency in the parts of Africa that supplied slaves for the Americas; second, the trauma of the slave trade itself; third, conditions of slavery in the United States. A review of the historical evidence shows that there was no salt deficiency in those parts of Africa, nor do present-day West Africans have a high incidence of hypertension. Historical evidence does not support the hypothesis that deaths aboard slave ships were caused mainly by conditions that might be conductive to hypertension, such as salt-depleting diseases. Finally, the hypothesis has depended heavily on evidence from the West Indies, which is not relevant for the United States. There is no evidence that diet or the resulting patterns of disease and demography among slaves in the American South were significantly different from those of other poor southerners. Images p1682-a p1684-a PMID:1456349
Oral Health Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices of Albanian Immigrants in the United States.
Xhihani, Blerina; Rainchuso, Lori; Smallidge, Dianne; Dominick, Christine
2017-04-01
Research indicates a high prevalence of oral disease among Albanians. There is a lack of evidence regarding oral health beliefs and practices among Albanian immigrants in the United States and abroad. This research seeks to better understand the oral health beliefs, attitudes, and practices among Albanian immigrants living in the United States. A descriptive study was employed with a purposive sample (n = 211) of Albanian adult immigrants. A cross-sectional validated questionnaire was provided in both English and Albanian, with a response rate of 66 %. Results revealed a high use of dental services among respondents, with 68 % reported as having a dental visit and cleaning within the past year. Although 25 % of participants stated their parents and grandparents have used folk remedies, 88 % of them stated that use of folk remedies did not influence their decision to seek professional dental care. Increasing age was inversely associated with the belief in the importance of retaining natural teeth, as older respondents were less likely to agree with the prior statement; older respondents were more likely to agree with the statement "bleeding gums are normal." Low oral health care access and utilization was not a factor among the majority of the Albanian immigrants studied. Focusing on providing age appropriate oral health education and behavioral strategies could increase oral health knowledge and potentially improve poor oral health status among this population.
Cleveland, Lisa M; Minter, Monica L; Cobb, Kathleen A; Scott, Anthony A; German, Victor F
2008-11-01
In the United States the risk of lead exposure is far higher among poor, urban, and immigrant populations than among other groups. And even slightly elevated blood lead levels increase children's risk of significant neurobehavioral problems extending through adolescence. Research has shown that blood lead levels in pregnant women well below the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "level of concern" of 10 micrograms per deciliter can cause miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight, and subsequent developmental delays in their children. Despite these well-established dangers of lead exposure, routine prenatal lead screening and education is not a standard of care in the United States. Part 1 of this two-part article (October) presented the case of a pregnant woman with lead poisoning and described the epidemiology of lead exposure in the United States, the main sources of it, and its effects on a pregnant woman and her developing fetus and child. Part 2 describes recommendations for prenatal screening and strategies for dealing with lead exposure when it occurs: education, reduction in environmental exposure, treatment options, and developmental surveillance.
Status of adolescent pelvic inflammatory disease management in the United States.
Trent, Maria
2013-10-01
Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is a common and serious reproductive health disorder and disease rates remain unacceptably high among adolescent girls and young adult women in the United States. Despite data demonstrating that women experience major adverse health outcomes after PID, national recommendations for management of adolescents have become increasingly less cautious in an era of cost-containment. In this review, we take an alternative look at published data on adolescents with PID to frame the next steps for optimizing management for this vulnerable population. Several findings emerge from review of the literature. First, there is limited evidence to guide the best practice strategies for adolescents with PID due to low enrolment of early and middle adolescents in national trials. Second, adolescents and adult women in the United States receive suboptimal treatment regimens per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) standards. Third, available evidence suggests that adolescents are at an increased risk for poor adherence to CDC recommendations for self-care, reacquisition of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and PID, and subsequent adverse reproductive health outcomes. Efforts to develop and integrate adolescent-focused, evidence-based strategies for PID management and prevention of subsequent STIs and recurrent PID are warranted.
Gutierrez, Kristie S.; LePrevost, Catherine E.
2016-01-01
Climate justice is a local, national, and global movement to protect at-risk populations who are disproportionately affected by climate change. The social context for this review is the Southeastern region of the United States, which is particularly susceptible to climate change because of the geography of the area and the vulnerabilities of the inhabiting populations. Negative human health effects on variable and vulnerable populations within the Southeast region due to changing climate are concerning, as health threats are not expected to produce parallel effects among all individuals. Vulnerable communities, such as communities of color, indigenous people, the geographically isolated, and those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and already experiencing poor environmental quality, are least able to respond and adapt to climate change. Focusing on vulnerable populations in the Southeastern United States, this review is a synthesis of the recent (2010 to 2015) literature-base on the health effects connected to climate change. This review also addresses local and regional mitigation and adaptation strategies for citizens and leaders to combat direct and indirect human health effects related to a changing climate. PMID:26848673
Realization of the international human right to health in an economically integrated North America.
Kinney, Eleanor D
2009-01-01
With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the health care sectors of the United States, Canada, and Mexico are becoming more economically integrated. NAFTA poses major challenges to the realization of the international human right. These include: (1) Cross Border Trade in Medical Products, (2) Cross Border Trade in Medical Services, and the attendant investment protections, (3) Portability and Comparability of Health Insurance Coverage, and (4) Protection of Public Health Insurance Programs. The United States, Mexico, and Canada all provide public health insurance programs either to the entire population as in Canada or to vulnerable groups as in the United States. In none of these countries have private, for-profit providers and insurers been able to provide universal and affordable health coverage and care in a truly free market. Private insurers and for-profit providers should not profit from the care of the healthy and wealthy in ways that compromise the public programs that serve the poor and seriously ill. Nor should they be allowed to use NAFTA processes to compromise public programs. Policy makers must consider implications of NAFTA and move toward assuring access to affordable health care for all people on the North American continent.
Emery, Isaac; Mueller, Steffen; Qin, Zhangcai; ...
2016-12-01
Land availability for growing feedstocks at scale is a crucial concern for the bioenergy industry. Feedstock production on land not well-suited to growing conventional crops, or marginal land, is often promoted as ideal, although there is a poor understanding of the qualities, quantity, and distribution of marginal lands in the United States. In this paper, we examine the spatial distribution of land complying with several key marginal land definitions at the United States county, agro-ecological zone, and national scales, and compare the ability of both marginal land and land cover data sets to identify regions for feedstock production. We concludemore » that very few land parcels comply with multiple definitions of marginal land. Furthermore, to examine possible carbon-flow implications of feedstock production on land that could be considered marginal per multiple definitions, we model soil carbon changes upon transitions from marginal cropland, grassland, and cropland–pastureland to switchgrass production for three marginal land-rich counties. Finally, our findings suggest that total soil organic carbon changes per county are small, and generally positive, and can influence life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of switchgrass ethanol.« less
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Emery, Isaac; Mueller, Steffen; Qin, Zhangcai
Land availability for growing feedstocks at scale is a crucial concern for the bioenergy industry. Feedstock production on land not well-suited to growing conventional crops, or marginal land, is often promoted as ideal, although there is a poor understanding of the qualities, quantity, and distribution of marginal lands in the United States. In this paper, we examine the spatial distribution of land complying with several key marginal land definitions at the United States county, agro-ecological zone, and national scales, and compare the ability of both marginal land and land cover data sets to identify regions for feedstock production. We concludemore » that very few land parcels comply with multiple definitions of marginal land. Furthermore, to examine possible carbon-flow implications of feedstock production on land that could be considered marginal per multiple definitions, we model soil carbon changes upon transitions from marginal cropland, grassland, and cropland–pastureland to switchgrass production for three marginal land-rich counties. Finally, our findings suggest that total soil organic carbon changes per county are small, and generally positive, and can influence life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of switchgrass ethanol.« less
Price, James H.; Braun, Robert
2013-01-01
Racial/ethnic minorities are 1.5 to 2.0 times more likely than whites to have most of the major chronic diseases. Chronic diseases are also more common in the poor than the nonpoor and this association is frequently mediated by race/ethnicity. Specifically, children are disproportionately affected by racial/ethnic health disparities. Between 1960 and 2005 the percentage of children with a chronic disease in the United States almost quadrupled with racial/ethnic minority youth having higher likelihood for these diseases. The most common major chronic diseases of youth in the United States are asthma, diabetes mellitus, obesity, hypertension, dental disease, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, mental illness, cancers, sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, and a variety of genetic and other birth defects. This review will focus on the psychosocial rather than biological factors that play important roles in the etiology and subsequent solutions to these health disparities because they should be avoidable and they are inherently unjust. Finally, this review examines access to health services by focusing on health insurance and dental insurance coverage and access to school health services. PMID:24175301
Integration of potential-field and digital geologic data for two North American geoscience transects
Phillips, J.D.
1990-01-01
Two North American contributions to the Global Geoscience Transects Program, the Quebec-Maine-Gulf of Maine transect and the Great Lakes portion of the United States-Canadian Border transect, are among the first to produce digital geology in a form that can be combined with gridded gravity and aeromagnetic data. Maps of shaded relief and color-composite bandpass-filtered potential-field data combined with overlays of digitized geologic contacts and faults reveal significant new geologic information, including the relative thickness of plutons, the structure of poorly exposed or concealed magnetic units, and possible evidence for mineralized ground. -from Author
Abortion in the United States' bible belt: organizing for power and empowerment
2011-01-01
Over the last 30 years, conservative power in the United States, financed and organized by Christian fundamentalist sects, the Catholic Church, and conservative corporate and political leadership, has become more threatening and potentially destabilizing of progressive democratic principles and practices. Powerful interlocking political, financial and social forces are arrayed against women in many Southern and Western states. They are having destructive effects on women's ability to control their fertility and maintain bodily integrity and health. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately affected by restrictions on abortion services. Strategically developed interventions must be initiated and managed at every level in these localities. It is urgent to coordinate and empower individuals, multiple organizations and communities to engender effective changes in attitudes, norms, behavior and policies that will enable women to obtain reproductive health services, including abortion care. This paper describes contextual factors that continue to decimate U.S. women's right to health and, then, describes a community organizing-social action project in a number of US' states aimed at reversing the erosion of women's right to have or not to have children. PMID:21208420
Abortion in the United States' Bible Belt: organizing for power and empowerment.
Castle, Mary Ann
2011-01-05
Over the last 30 years, conservative power in the United States, financed and organized by Christian fundamentalist sects, the Catholic Church, and conservative corporate and political leadership, has become more threatening and potentially destabilizing of progressive democratic principles and practices. Powerful interlocking political, financial and social forces are arrayed against women in many Southern and Western states. They are having destructive effects on women's ability to control their fertility and maintain bodily integrity and health. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately affected by restrictions on abortion services. Strategically developed interventions must be initiated and managed at every level in these localities. It is urgent to coordinate and empower individuals, multiple organizations and communities to engender effective changes in attitudes, norms, behavior and policies that will enable women to obtain reproductive health services, including abortion care. This paper describes contextual factors that continue to decimate U.S. women's right to health and, then, describes a community organizing-social action project in a number of US' states aimed at reversing the erosion of women's right to have or not to have children.
Comparison of behavioral characteristics of dogs in the United States and Japan.
Nagasawa, Miho; Kanbayashi, Shunichi; Mogi, Kazutaka; Serpell, James A; Kikusui, Takefumi
2016-02-01
This study examined the difference in dog owning between Japan and the United States, and the effect of these differences on dogs' behavioral characteristics. Behavioral evaluations of privately-owned dogs were obtained by using online questionnaire. We compared background and demographic information from the two countries and analyzed the effects of these differences on behavioral characteristics in dogs. The results indicated that there was a bias in the dog breeds kept in Japan compared to the United States and that Japanese dogs' body weight was lower than the US dogs. The main source of dog acquisition was pet stores in Japan and breeders and/or shelters in the United States. Multiple linear regression analysis found that Japanese dogs showed more aggression to household members and higher energy, restlessness and fear of non-social stimuli than US dogs, while US dogs showed more fear of unfamiliar persons, separation-related behavior and excitability. US dogs also showed higher levels of trainability and attachment to owners. The lower dog's body weight was, the higher the behavioral scores except for trainability were. When dogs that were obtained under 3 months of age were analyzed, the younger the dogs were when their owners obtained them, the higher the scores on some behavioral problem factors were. The higher rates of problem behaviors among Japanese dogs compared with US dogs suggest that the preference for small breed dogs and poor early development environment influenced the behavioral characteristics of dogs.
Custodians of the Coast: History of the United States Army Engineers at Galveston
1977-01-01
along with western roads and other projects such as beacon lights, monuments, bridges , and aqueducts. Surveying for river and harbor improvements 11...involved in tunnel- ing, bridging , and spanning gullies. Lt. Amiel W. Whipple, exploring the thirty-fifth parallel, retraced the junior Abert’s route...preoccupation with transportation. In Texas, roads were poor; streams were not bridged and, in many cases, not navigable. Onerous freight expenses cut
Introduction to section 1: financial considerations.
Hannenberg, Alexander A
2009-03-01
Achieving fundamental reform of the health care system to improve patient outcomes will take decades of effort and a major shift in financial, medical, and political behaviors that have built up since the beginning of health insurance in the United States. To the extent that the present payment systems contribute to the high cost, poor quality, and lack of accountability that characterizes today's health care delivery system, there is hope that reforms are within reach.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Webster, Jeff; McQueen, Carla; Creusere, Marlena; Lukens, Leslie
2008-01-01
The credit market in the United States currently suffers from a rare and serious disruption. Once flowing with liquidity, the creativity and vibrancy of these markets helped fuel an economy that had been the envy of the world. Poor repayment performance in the subprime mortgage market has now reduced the availability of funds needed for other…
The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: Tactical Airlift
1983-01-01
in the upper panhandle, resulted in near- disaster . Ten Air Force and eight Air America helicopters successfully inserted the two hundred- man assault...details at squadron level, and the dilemma of the leader tempering his zeal for the mission with the knowledge that one accident resulting from poor...one hundred resupply flights daily. Twenty French battalions in Laos. meanwhile, became entirely dependent on air supply as a result of fresh
2011-07-30
contractor purchasing system review of Anham. Management Comments and Audit Response The Defense Contract Mangement Agency and the U.S. Central... Introduction 1 Background 1 Government Agency Roles and Oversight Responsibilities 4 Objectives 7 Weak Government Oversight Resulted in Significant...Subcontracting Procedures Allowed Questionable Costs To Go Undetected SIGIR 11-022 July 30, 2011 Introduction Since 2003, the United States Government
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Richburg-Hayes, Lashawn; Anzelone, Caitlin; Dechausay, Nadine; Datta, Saugato; Fiorillo, Alexandra; Potok, Louis; Darling, Matthew; Balz, John
2014-01-01
The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project is the first major opportunity to use a behavioral economics lens to look at programs that serve poor and vulnerable people in the United States. Sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
American Association of School Administrators, Arlington, VA.
The United States has the highest rate of youthful drug abuse of any industrialized country in the world. There is a growing awareness that drug and alcohol use are closely connected to other problems such as teenage suicide, adolescent pregnancy, traffic fatalities, juvenile delinquency, poor school performance, runaways, and dropouts. Youthful…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs.
This report, prepared by the staff of the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs of the U. S. Senate, is intended as a profile of the "half-full, half-empty plate which the Federal food programs represent to the nation's poor." The report focuses on various aspects of poverty and hunger such as: (1) poverty in the nation--the poverty line,…
End-of-life decisions in Dutch neonatal intensive care units.
Verhagen, A A Eduard; Dorscheidt, Jozef H H M; Engels, Bernadette; Hubben, Joep H; Sauer, Pieter J
2009-10-01
To clarify the practice of end-of-life decision making in severely ill newborns. Retrospective descriptive study with face-to-face interviews. The 10 neonatal intensive care units in the Netherlands from October 2005 to September 2006. All 367 newborn infants who died in the first 2 months of life in Dutch neonatal intensive care units. Adequate documentation was available in 359 deaths. Presence of end-of-life decisions, classification of deaths in 3 groups, and physicians' considerations leading to end-of-life decisions. An end-of-life decision preceded death in 95% of cases, and in 5% treatment was continued until death. Of all of the deaths, 58% were classified as having no chance of survival and 42% were stabilized newborns with poor prognoses. Withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy was the main mode of death in both groups. One case of deliberate ending of life was found. In 92% of newborns with poor prognoses, end-of-life decisions were based on patients' future quality of life and mainly concerned future suffering. Considerations regarding the infant's present state were made in 44% of infants. Virtually all deaths in Dutch neonatal intensive care units are preceded by the decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment and many decisions are based on future quality of life. The decision to deliberately end the life of a newborn may occur less frequently than was previously assumed.
Time allocation and dietary habits in the United States: Time for re-evaluation?
Fiese, Barbara H
2018-02-21
In this non-exhaustive narrative review, time allocation and its relation to dietary habits are discussed. Drawing from reports relying on time use surveys, the amount of time dedicated to cooking and dining is found to be associated with health outcomes such as BMI and cardiovascular risk. Important modifiers include gender, race, ethnicity and household income. Perception of time intensity is also discussed. Individuals who perceive time pressure or strain may be less likely to engage in healthy food related activities and be at greater risk for poor health outcomes. Finally, the direct observation of allocation during meal occasions is discussed. The author calls for a socio-ecological approach to the study of time allocation and dietary habits in the United States and further consideration of direct observation of time use. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Changes in the Mechanisms Causing Rapid Drought Cessation in the Southeastern United States
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Maxwell, Justin T.; Knapp, Paul A.; Ortegren, Jason T.; Ficklin, Darren L.; Soulé, Peter T.
2017-12-01
The synoptic processes that end droughts are poorly understood, yet have significant climatological implications. Here we examined the spatiotemporal patterns of rapid drought cessation (RDC) in the southeastern United States during the1979-2013 warm season (April-November) for three storm types: Frontal, Tropical, and Air mass. We defined RDC as a 1 month shift in soil moisture sufficient to alleviate an existing drought. We found that 73% of all warm-season droughts were ended by RDC events and the three storm-type groups ended droughts over similar spatial areas. Frontal storms were the most frequent mechanism for RDC events, yet their occurrences significantly decreased and were negatively related to increases in Northern Hemisphere air temperatures. Projected future warming in the Northern Hemisphere suggests a continued decline in the frequency and relative contribution of Frontal storms as RDC events, potentially influencing the timing and spatial scale of drought cessation in the southeastern U.S.
Readability of Online Health Information: A Meta-Narrative Systematic Review.
Daraz, Lubna; Morrow, Allison S; Ponce, Oscar J; Farah, Wigdan; Katabi, Abdulrahman; Majzoub, Abdul; Seisa, Mohamed O; Benkhadra, Raed; Alsawas, Mouaz; Larry, Prokop; Murad, M Hassan
2018-01-01
Online health information should meet the reading level for the general public (set at sixth-grade level). Readability is a key requirement for information to be helpful and improve quality of care. The authors conducted a systematic review to evaluate the readability of online health information in the United States and Canada. Out of 3743 references, the authors included 157 cross-sectional studies evaluating 7891 websites using 13 readability scales. The mean readability grade level across websites ranged from grade 10 to 15 based on the different scales. Stratification by specialty, health condition, and type of organization producing information revealed the same findings. In conclusion, online health information in the United States and Canada has a readability level that is inappropriate for general public use. Poor readability can lead to misinformation and may have a detrimental effect on health. Efforts are needed to improve readability and the content of online health information.
Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Parenting Responsibility, and Women’s Smoking in the United States
Jun, Hee-Jin; Subramanian, S.V.; Gortmaker, Steven; Kawachi, Ichiro
2004-01-01
Objectives. We carried out analyses of smoking in relation to poverty and child care responsibility among women aged 18–54 years residing in the United States. Methods. With data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we assessed the interaction effects of poverty and living with young children on maternal smoking behavior among 61 700 women aged 18–54 years in 4 different racial/ethnic groups. Results. For non-White racial/ethnic groups, the prevalence of smoking among women with small children in the household was lower than that among women without small children. However, White women were more likely to smoke if they were poor and living with small children (odds ratio=1.14, 95% confidence interval=1.03, 1.26). Conclusions. These results suggest that child care responsibility confers an increased risk of smoking among low-income White women. PMID:15569970
Neglected Parasitic Infections in the United States: Trichomoniasis
Secor, W. Evan; Meites, Elissa; Starr, Michelle C.; Workowski, Kimberly A.
2014-01-01
Trichomonas vaginalis is one of the most common human parasitic infections in the United States, as well as the most prevalent non-viral sexually transmitted infection. However, it has long received much less consideration than other parasitic and sexually transmitted diseases. Much of this inattention can be attributed to a poor understanding of the public health impact of trichomoniasis. Increasing recognition of the sequelae of infection, including increased risk of infection with human immunodeficiency virus and adverse outcomes of pregnancy, has led to increased interest in T. vaginalis. Recent innovations include development of diagnostic tests that could improve detection of the parasite. A number of important questions, such as the epidemiology among men and women, the true public health burden of symptomatic and asymptomatic T. vaginalis infections, and whether current treatments will be adequate to reduce the substantial health disparities and costs associated with trichomoniasis, need consideration to remedy neglect of this important disease. PMID:24808247
Berthold, S Megan; Loomis, Alysse Melville; Kuoch, Theanvy; Scully, Mary; Hin-McCormick, Mui Mui; Casavant, Bryce; Buckley, Thomas
2018-05-23
Studies of relatively recently resettled refugees have noted social disconnection, linked to various physical and mental health outcomes, as a concern. Limited studies have examined whether social disconnection and its effects persists within refugee populations resettled more than 3 decades prior. The relationship between social disconnection and self-reported health was explored in a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional needs assessment survey with a snowball sample of 100 Cambodian refugees residing in Connecticut. Social disconnectedness and comorbid health conditions were prevalent. Lack of religious and community engagement were associated with poor health outcomes, while individuals with a lack of ethnic engagement reported better overall health. This study underscores the importance of understanding the specific risks that social disconnection poses to refugees who have resettled many years before and their offspring that may assist in better serving currently settling refugees within the United States.
United States import safety, environmental health, and food safety regulation in China.
Nyambok, Edward O; Kastner, Justin J
2012-01-01
China boasts a rapidly growing economy and is a leading food exporter. Since China has dominated world export markets in food, electronics, and toys, many safety concerns about Chinese exports have emerged. For example, many countries have had problems with Chinese food products and food-processing ingredients. Factors behind food safety and environmental health problems in China include poor industrial waste management, the use of counterfeit agricultural inputs, inadequate training of farmers on good farm management practices, and weak food safety laws and poor enforcement. In the face of rising import safety problems, the U.S. is now requiring certification of products and foreign importers, pursuing providing incentives to importers who uphold good safety practices, and considering publicizing the names of certified importers.
A Rights-Based Approach to Food Insecurity in the United States
Rose, Donald
2009-01-01
Food insecurity is a serious public health problem associated with poor cognitive and emotional development in children and with depression and poor health in adults. Despite sizable continued investments in federal food assistance, food insecurity still affects 11.1% of US households—almost the same rate as in 1995, when annual measurement began. As a fresh approach to solving the problem of food insecurity, we suggest adoption of a human rights framework. This approach could actively engage those affected and would ensure that food security monitoring would be compared to benchmarks in national action plans. We describe key elements of a right-to-food approach, review challenges to implementing it, and suggest actions to foster its adoption. PMID:19443834
The State of US Health, 1990-2016: Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Among US States.
Mokdad, Ali H; Ballestros, Katherine; Echko, Michelle; Glenn, Scott; Olsen, Helen E; Mullany, Erin; Lee, Alex; Khan, Abdur Rahman; Ahmadi, Alireza; Ferrari, Alize J; Kasaeian, Amir; Werdecker, Andrea; Carter, Austin; Zipkin, Ben; Sartorius, Benn; Serdar, Berrin; Sykes, Bryan L; Troeger, Chris; Fitzmaurice, Christina; Rehm, Colin D; Santomauro, Damian; Kim, Daniel; Colombara, Danny; Schwebel, David C; Tsoi, Derrick; Kolte, Dhaval; Nsoesie, Elaine; Nichols, Emma; Oren, Eyal; Charlson, Fiona J; Patton, George C; Roth, Gregory A; Hosgood, H Dean; Whiteford, Harvey A; Kyu, Hmwe; Erskine, Holly E; Huang, Hsiang; Martopullo, Ira; Singh, Jasvinder A; Nachega, Jean B; Sanabria, Juan R; Abbas, Kaja; Ong, Kanyin; Tabb, Karen; Krohn, Kristopher J; Cornaby, Leslie; Degenhardt, Louisa; Moses, Mark; Farvid, Maryam; Griswold, Max; Criqui, Michael; Bell, Michelle; Nguyen, Minh; Wallin, Mitch; Mirarefin, Mojde; Qorbani, Mostafa; Younis, Mustafa; Fullman, Nancy; Liu, Patrick; Briant, Paul; Gona, Philimon; Havmoller, Rasmus; Leung, Ricky; Kimokoti, Ruth; Bazargan-Hejazi, Shahrzad; Hay, Simon I; Yadgir, Simon; Biryukov, Stan; Vollset, Stein Emil; Alam, Tahiya; Frank, Tahvi; Farid, Talha; Miller, Ted; Vos, Theo; Bärnighausen, Till; Gebrehiwot, Tsegaye Telwelde; Yano, Yuichiro; Al-Aly, Ziyad; Mehari, Alem; Handal, Alexis; Kandel, Amit; Anderson, Ben; Biroscak, Brian; Mozaffarian, Dariush; Dorsey, E Ray; Ding, Eric L; Park, Eun-Kee; Wagner, Gregory; Hu, Guoqing; Chen, Honglei; Sunshine, Jacob E; Khubchandani, Jagdish; Leasher, Janet; Leung, Janni; Salomon, Joshua; Unutzer, Jurgen; Cahill, Leah; Cooper, Leslie; Horino, Masako; Brauer, Michael; Breitborde, Nicholas; Hotez, Peter; Topor-Madry, Roman; Soneji, Samir; Stranges, Saverio; James, Spencer; Amrock, Stephen; Jayaraman, Sudha; Patel, Tejas; Akinyemiju, Tomi; Skirbekk, Vegard; Kinfu, Yohannes; Bhutta, Zulfiqar; Jonas, Jost B; Murray, Christopher J L
2018-04-10
Several studies have measured health outcomes in the United States, but none have provided a comprehensive assessment of patterns of health by state. To use the results of the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) to report trends in the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors at the state level from 1990 to 2016. A systematic analysis of published studies and available data sources estimates the burden of disease by age, sex, geography, and year. Prevalence, incidence, mortality, life expectancy, healthy life expectancy (HALE), years of life lost (YLLs) due to premature mortality, years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 333 causes and 84 risk factors with 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) were computed. Between 1990 and 2016, overall death rates in the United States declined from 745.2 (95% UI, 740.6 to 749.8) per 100 000 persons to 578.0 (95% UI, 569.4 to 587.1) per 100 000 persons. The probability of death among adults aged 20 to 55 years declined in 31 states and Washington, DC from 1990 to 2016. In 2016, Hawaii had the highest life expectancy at birth (81.3 years) and Mississippi had the lowest (74.7 years), a 6.6-year difference. Minnesota had the highest HALE at birth (70.3 years), and West Virginia had the lowest (63.8 years), a 6.5-year difference. The leading causes of DALYs in the United States for 1990 and 2016 were ischemic heart disease and lung cancer, while the third leading cause in 1990 was low back pain, and the third leading cause in 2016 was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Opioid use disorders moved from the 11th leading cause of DALYs in 1990 to the 7th leading cause in 2016, representing a 74.5% (95% UI, 42.8% to 93.9%) change. In 2016, each of the following 6 risks individually accounted for more than 5% of risk-attributable DALYs: tobacco consumption, high body mass index (BMI), poor diet, alcohol and drug use, high fasting plasma glucose, and high blood pressure. Across all US states, the top risk factors in terms of attributable DALYs were due to 1 of the 3 following causes: tobacco consumption (32 states), high BMI (10 states), or alcohol and drug use (8 states). There are wide differences in the burden of disease at the state level. Specific diseases and risk factors, such as drug use disorders, high BMI, poor diet, high fasting plasma glucose level, and alcohol use disorders are increasing and warrant increased attention. These data can be used to inform national health priorities for research, clinical care, and policy.
Perception of health, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempt among adults in the community.
Goodwin, Renee D; Marusic, Andrej
2011-01-01
There is a well-known association between perception of poor physical health and higher rates of physical and psychological morbidity. However, little is known about the possible link between perception of health and suicidality. The study examines the relationship between perception of poor health and suicidal ideation and suicide attempt among adults in the community. Data were drawn from the National Comorbidity Survey (n = 5,877), a representative sample of individuals 15-54 years of age in the United States. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to determine the relationship between perception of poor health and the likelihood of suicidal ideation and suicide attempt. Sociodemographic characteristics, comorbid mental disorders, and physical illnesses were adjusted for in the final model. Perception of poor health was associated with a significantly increased likelihood of suicidal ideation (OR = 2.14 (1.36, 3.35) and suicide attempt (OR = 2.03 (1.06, 3.91)), which persisted after adjusting for differences in sociodemographic characteristics, mental disorders, and self-reported physical illnesses. Our findings provide initial evidence that perception of poor health is associated with a significantly increased likelihood of suicidal ideation and suicide attempt among adults in the community.
Early-onset schizophrenia: Symptoms and social class of origin.
Gallagher, Bernard J; Jones, Brian J
2017-09-01
The genesis of schizophrenia is multifactorial, including biological and environmental risk factors. We tested for an interactive effect between early-onset schizophrenia (EOS) and social class of origins (socioeconomic status (SES)). Data were further analyzed for a possible connection to type of schizophrenic symptoms. Sampling/Methods: Data for the study are taken from the medical records of 642 patients from a large state hospital in the northeastern United States. Clinical assessments were divided into positive and negative symptomatology through application of the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Detailed information about age of onset and SES of origin was obtained through Social Service Assessment interviews. We uncovered a significant impact of EOS among the poor that elevates risk for negative symptomatology. Poor SES alone does not increase the likelihood of EOS, but it magnifies the deleterious effect of EOS on negative symptoms. Future research on these variables may inform the relative contribution of each.
Gee, Rebekah E; Johnson, Kay A
2012-01-01
The costs of poor birth outcomes to the United States in both human and fiscal terms are large and a continuing concern. Louisiana has among the worst birth outcomes in our nation, which include preterm and low birth weight births, and maternal and infant mortality. In response to these poor birth outcomes, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is implementing a statewide, multi-faceted Birth Outcomes Initiative at the level of the secretary. The Birth Outcomes Initiative aims to adopt evidence-based and best practices along the continuum of care for women and infants. Of particular importance is ending all non-medically indicated deliveries prior to 39 weeks, administration of the hormone 17-hydroxyprogesterone to eligible women for prematurity prevention, optimal behavioral health counseling and referral for reproductive aged women, and ensuring optimal health for women between pregnancies. Opportunities exist to improve outcomes for primary care and obstetrical providers. Louisiana is the first state to aim at improving birth outcomes with interventions before, during, and after pregnancy.
Lapish, Christopher C.; Durstewitz, Daniel; Chandler, L. Judson; Seamans, Jeremy K.
2008-01-01
Successful decision making requires an ability to monitor contexts, actions, and outcomes. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is thought to be critical for these functions, monitoring and guiding decisions especially in challenging situations involving conflict and errors. A number of different single-unit correlates have been observed in the ACC that reflect the diverse cognitive components involved. Yet how ACC neurons function as an integrated network is poorly understood. Here we show, using advanced population analysis of multiple single-unit recordings from the rat ACC during performance of an ecologically valid decision-making task, that ensembles of neurons move through different coherent and dissociable states as the cognitive requirements of the task change. This organization into distinct network patterns with respect to both firing-rate changes and correlations among units broke down during trials with numerous behavioral errors, especially at choice points of the task. These results point to an underlying functional organization into cell assemblies in the ACC that may monitor choices, outcomes, and task contexts, thus tracking the animal's progression through “task space.” PMID:18708525
Clearing the haze: the complexities and challenges of research on state marijuana laws.
Choo, Esther K; Emery, Sherry L
2017-04-01
As states increasingly liberalize marijuana laws, high-quality research is needed that will inform the public and policymakers about the health and societal impact of these laws. However, there are many challenges to studying marijuana policy, including the heterogeneity of the drug and its use, the variability in the laws and their implementation from state to state, the need to capture a wide variety of relevant outcomes, and the poorly understood influence of marijuana commercialization. Furthermore, current instruments generally fail to distinguish between types of users and lack accurate and detailed measures of use. This review provides a background on marijuana laws in the United States and an overview of existing policy research, discusses methodological considerations when planning analysis of state marijuana laws, and highlights specific topics needing further development and investigation. © 2016 New York Academy of Sciences.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. Senate Special Committee on Aging.
This document is an information paper prepared for the Senate Special Committee on Aging which analyzes 1980 census data on living conditions of older Americans. The analysis provides the following conclusions: (1) older women are more likely to be poor, widowed, and living alone than are older men; (3) labor force participation and median income…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mawdsley, Ralph D.; Visser, P. J. Hans; Permuth, Steven B.
2006-01-01
The opportunity for and expectation of parents' involvement in the education of their children is a staple of the American educational system. The absence of parent participation in their children's education has been decried by educators as a contributing factor to a range of problems in schools, from poor academic performance to disciplinary…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Huery, Shonda Latite
2010-01-01
Poverty is on the rise, especially among our youngest citizens. In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau reported 37 million people living in poverty in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Out of 37 million people living in poverty in the United States, 13 million of those individuals were children under the age of 18. This represents an increase of 11%…
Out-FOXing Pancreatic Cancer | Center for Cancer Research
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancer types worldwide with increasing incidence and mortality rates in the United States. Consequently, it is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer death by 2020. Poor patient outcomes are due to a combination of diagnosis at an advanced stage and a lack of effective treatments. However, a better understanding of the molecular pathways at work in pancreatic cancers may lead to the identification of novel therapeutic targets.
Johnson, Timothy; Dalton, Vanessa
2013-01-01
Purpose Poor and disparate reproductive health outcomes in the United States may be related to inadequate and differential women’s health care utilization. We investigated trends in and determinants of adult U.S. women’s health service use, 2006–2010. Methods We analyzed population data from 7,897 women aged 25–44yrs in the National Survey of Family Growth from 2006 to 2010 using multivariable logistic regression. Results Women’s health service utilization in the past year was reported by 74% of the sample. Among non-fertile, sexually active women, 47% used contraceptive services; fewer used pregnancy (21%) and STI (14%) services. In multivariable models, the odds of service use were greater among older, poor, unemployed women and women with less educational attainment than younger and socioeconomically advantaged women. Black women had greater odds of using pregnancy, STI and gynecological exam services than White women (ORs 1.4–1.6). Lack of insurance was associated with service use in all models (ORs 0.4–0.8). Conclusion While age-related differences in women’s health service use may reflect fertility transitions, social disparities mirror reproductive inequalities among U.S. women. Research on women’s health service utilization and outcomes across the reproductive life course and forthcoming sociopolitical climates is needed. PMID:24332620
Cleveland, Lisa M; Minter, Monica L; Cobb, Kathleen A; Scott, Anthony A; German, Victor F
2008-10-01
Poor, urban, and immigrant populations are at far greater risk for lead exposure than are other groups in the United States. Children with even slightly elevated blood lead levels are at increased risk for significant neurobehavioral problems that can extend through adolescence. Research has shown that elevated blood lead levels in pregnant women, even those well below 10 micrograms per deciliter-the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "level of concern"-can cause miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight, and subsequent developmental delays in their children. Despite these well-established dangers, routine prenatal lead screening and lead education is not a standard of care. Part 1 of this two-part article presents a short case example of a pregnant mother with lead poisoning and describes the epidemiology of lead exposure in the United States, the main sources of lead exposure, and the effects of lead on the pregnant mother and the developing fetus and child. Prevention is crucial. Treatment options such as chelation must be used selectively and will not reverse damage once it's occurred. Part 2 will describe recommendations for screening, education, nutrition, reducing environmental exposures, and treatment.
Caplan, Susan; Buyske, Steven
2015-01-01
Latinos, the largest minority group in the United States, experience mental health disparities, which include decreased access to care, lower quality of care and diminished treatment engagement. The purpose of this cross-sectional study of 177 Latino immigrants in primary care is to identify demographic factors, attitudes and beliefs, such as stigma, perceived stress, and ethnic identity that are associated with depression, help-seeking and self-recognition of depression. Results indicated that 45 participants (25%) had depression by Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) criteria. Factors most likely to be associated with depression were: poverty; difficulty in functioning; greater somatic symptoms, perceived stress and stigma; number of chronic illnesses; and poor or fair self-rated mental health. Fifty-four people endorsed help-seeking. Factors associated with help-seeking were: female gender, difficulty in functioning, greater somatic symptoms, severity of depression, having someone else tell you that you have an emotional problem, and poor or fair self-rated mental health. Factors most likely to be associated with self-recognition were the same, but also included greater perceived stress. This manuscript contributes to the literature by examining attitudinal factors that may be associated with depression, help-seeking and self-recognition among subethnic groups of Latinos that are underrepresented in research studies. PMID:26343691
Califf, Robert M; Berglund, Lars
2010-03-01
A comprehensive system for translating basic biomedical research into useful and effectively implemented clinical diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic practices is essential to the nation's health. The state of clinical and translational research (CTR) in the United States, however, has been characterized as fragmented, slow, expensive, and poorly coordinated. As part of its Roadmap Initiative, the National Institutes of Health instituted the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA), a sweeping and ambitious program designed to transform the conduct of biomedical research in the United States by speeding the translation of scientific discoveries into useful therapies and then developing methods to ensure that those therapies reach the patients who need them the most. The authors review the circumstances of the U.S. biomedical research enterprise that led to the creation of the CTSA and discuss the initial strategic plan of the CTSA, which was developed from the first three years of experience with the program and was designed to overcome organizational, methodological, and cultural barriers within and among research institutions. The authors also describe the challenges encountered during these efforts and discuss the promise of this vital national health care initiative, which is essential to creating a pipeline for the scientific workforce needed to conduct research that will, in turn, provide a rational evidence base for better health in the United States.
Califf, Robert M.; Berglund, Lars
2015-01-01
A comprehensive system for translating basic biomedical research into useful and effectively implemented clinical diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic practices is essential to the nation’s health. The state of clinical and translational research (CTR) in the United States, however, has been characterized as fragmented, slow, expensive, and poorly coordinated. As part of its Roadmap Initiative, the National Institutes of Health instituted the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA), a sweeping and ambitious program designed to transform the conduct of biomedical research in the United States by speeding the translation of scientific discoveries into useful therapies and then developing methods to ensure that those therapies reach the patients who need them the most. The authors review the circumstances of the U.S. biomedical research enterprise that led to the creation of the CTSA and discuss the initial strategic plan of the CTSA, which was developed from the first 3 years of experience with the program and was designed to overcome organizational, methodological, and cultural barriers within and among research institutions. The authors also describe the challenges encountered during these efforts and discuss the promise of this vital national health care initiative, which is essential to creating a pipeline for the scientific workforce needed to conduct research that will in turn provide a rational evidence base for better health in the United States. PMID:20182118
Estrada, Mica; Eroy-Reveles, Alegra; Matsui, John
2018-01-01
The United States’ inability to achieve equitable workforce development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career pathways is well-recognized and has been attributed to the poor retention of a diverse stream of students in academia. Social science theory and research provide evidence that social contextual variables—specifically kindness cues affirming social inclusion—influence chronic underrepresentation of some groups within STEM career pathways. Review of the literature suggests that the current STEM academic context does not consistently provide cues that affirm social inclusion to all members of the academic population, and that policies that address this disparity are essential to broadening STEM workforce development in the United States. PMID:29657577
2011-01-01
The United States pediatric population with chronic health conditions is expanding. Currently, this demographic comprises 12-18% of the American child and youth population. Affected children often receive fragmented, uncoordinated care. Overall, the American health care delivery system produces modest outcomes for this population. Poor, uninsured and minority children may be at increased risk for inferior coordination of services. Further, the United States health care delivery system is primarily organized for the diagnosis and treatment of acute conditions. For pediatric patients with chronic health conditions, the typical acute problem-oriented visit actually serves as a barrier to care. The biomedical model of patient education prevails, characterized by unilateral transfer of medical information. However, the evidence basis for improvement in disease outcomes supports the use of the chronic care model, initially proposed by Dr. Edward Wagner. Six inter-related elements distinguish the success of the chronic care model, which include self-management support and care coordination by a prepared, proactive team. United States health care lacks a coherent policy direction for the management of high cost chronic conditions, including rheumatic diseases. A fundamental restructure of United States health care delivery must urgently occur which places the patient at the center of care. For the pediatric rheumatology workforce, reimbursement policies and the actions of health plans and insurers are consistent barriers to chronic disease improvement. United States reimbursement policy and overall fragmentation of health care services pose specific challenges for widespread implementation of the chronic care model. Team-based multidisciplinary care, care coordination and self-management are integral to improve outcomes. Pediatric rheumatology demand in the United States far exceeds available workforce supply. This article reviews the career choice decision-making process at each medical trainee level to determine best recruitment strategies. Educational debt is an unexpectedly minor determinant for pediatric residents and subspecialty fellows. A two-year fellowship training option may retain the mandatory scholarship component and attract an increasing number of candidate trainees. Diversity, work-life balance, scheduling flexibility to accommodate part-time employment, and reform of conditions for academic promotion all need to be addressed to ensure future growth of the pediatric rheumatology workforce. PMID:21843335
Henrickson, Michael
2011-01-01
The United States pediatric population with chronic health conditions is expanding. Currently, this demographic comprises 12-18% of the American child and youth population. Affected children often receive fragmented, uncoordinated care. Overall, the American health care delivery system produces modest outcomes for this population. Poor, uninsured and minority children may be at increased risk for inferior coordination of services. Further, the United States health care delivery system is primarily organized for the diagnosis and treatment of acute conditions. For pediatric patients with chronic health conditions, the typical acute problem-oriented visit actually serves as a barrier to care. The biomedical model of patient education prevails, characterized by unilateral transfer of medical information. However, the evidence basis for improvement in disease outcomes supports the use of the chronic care model, initially proposed by Dr. Edward Wagner. Six inter-related elements distinguish the success of the chronic care model, which include self-management support and care coordination by a prepared, proactive team. United States health care lacks a coherent policy direction for the management of high cost chronic conditions, including rheumatic diseases. A fundamental restructure of United States health care delivery must urgently occur which places the patient at the center of care. For the pediatric rheumatology workforce, reimbursement policies and the actions of health plans and insurers are consistent barriers to chronic disease improvement. United States reimbursement policy and overall fragmentation of health care services pose specific challenges for widespread implementation of the chronic care model. Team-based multidisciplinary care, care coordination and self-management are integral to improve outcomes. Pediatric rheumatology demand in the United States far exceeds available workforce supply. This article reviews the career choice decision-making process at each medical trainee level to determine best recruitment strategies. Educational debt is an unexpectedly minor determinant for pediatric residents and subspecialty fellows. A two-year fellowship training option may retain the mandatory scholarship component and attract an increasing number of candidate trainees. Diversity, work-life balance, scheduling flexibility to accommodate part-time employment, and reform of conditions for academic promotion all need to be addressed to ensure future growth of the pediatric rheumatology workforce.
The role of race and poverty on steps to kidney transplantation in the Southeastern United States.
Patzer, R E; Perryman, J P; Schrager, J D; Pastan, S; Amaral, S; Gazmararian, J A; Klein, M; Kutner, N; McClellan, W M
2012-02-01
Racial disparities in access to renal transplantation exist, but the effects of race and socioeconomic status (SES) on early steps of renal transplantation have not been well explored. Adult patients referred for renal transplant evaluation at a single transplant center in the Southeastern United States from 2005 to 2007, followed through May 2010, were examined. Demographic and clinical data were obtained from patient's medical records and then linked with United States Renal Data System and American Community Survey Census data. Cox models examined the effect of race on referral, evaluation, waitlisting and organ receipt. Of 2291 patients, 64.9% were black, the mean age was 49.4 years and 33.6% lived in poor neighborhoods. Racial disparities were observed in access to referral, transplant evaluation, waitlisting and organ receipt. SES explained almost one-third of the lower rate of transplant among black versus white patients, but even after adjustment for demographic, clinical and SES factors, blacks had a 59% lower rate of transplant than whites (hazard ratio = 0.41; 95% confidence interval: 0.28-0.58). Results suggest that improving access to healthcare may reduce some, but not all, of the racial disparities in access to kidney transplantation. © 2011 The American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.
Womb Outsourcing: Commercial Surrogacy in India.
Frankford, David M; Bennington, Linda K; Ryan, Jane Greene
2015-01-01
Infertility affects more than 7 million American couples. As traditional treatments fail and the costs of hiring a surrogate increase in the United States, transnational commercial surrogacy becomes a feasible alternative for many couples. Infertile couples may opt for this choice after reading enticing Internet advertisements of global medical tourism offering "special deals" on commercial surrogacy. This is particularly true in India where couples from the United States can purchase transnational surrogacy for less than one-half or even one-third of the costs in the United States, including the cost of travel. The majority of surrogate mothers in India come from impoverished, poorly educated rural areas of India. Commercial surrogacy offers the lure of earning the equivalent of 5 years of family income. This multidisciplinary review of the literature suggests that the issue of commercial surrogacy is complex and influenced by a number of factors including expensive infertility costs, ease of global travel, and the financial vulnerability of Indian commercial surrogate mothers and their families. Questions are being raised about decision making by the surrogate mother particularly as influenced by gender inequities, power differentials, and inadequate legal protection for the surrogate mother. More research is needed to understand commercial surrogacy, especially research inclusive of the viewpoints of the Indian mothers and their families involved in these transactions.
Listing Practices for Morbidly Obese Patients at Liver Transplantation Centers in the United States.
Halegoua-De Marzio, Dina L; Wong, She-Yan; Fenkel, Jonathan M; Doria, Cataldo; Sass, David A
2016-12-01
The effect of morbid obesity on liver transplant outcomes has yielded mixed results. The aim of this study was to determine listing practices for morbidly obese patients at liver transplant centers in the United States. A 19-item survey was created to assess liver transplant evaluation and listing practices for morbidly obese patients. All adult liver transplant medical and surgical directors in the United States were contacted by e-mail, which provided an Internet link to an online survey. We sent a total of 187 surveys by e-mail, with responses received from 46 physicians (24.7% response rate). A policy on evaluation and listing of obese patients was present at 70.5% of institutions, with most (54.5%) reporting that their body mass index cutoff for transplant was 40 kg/m2, but a range of 35 kg/m2 to unlimited was noted. Most respondents agreed that patients with high body mass index were less likely to be evaluated for transplant. Respondents reported increased complication rates among obese patients, with the most common being poor wound healing and increased infection rates. Most medical and surgical liver transplant directors have a strong appreciation of the possible morbidity risks associated with performing liver transplants in morbidly obese patients and have policies in effect to minimize these risks.
Sachs-Barrable, Kristina; Conway, Jocelyn; Gershkovich, Pavel; Ibrahim, Fady; Wasan, Kishor M
2014-11-01
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are infections which are endemic in poor populations in lower- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Approximately one billion people have now or are at risk of getting an NTD and yet less than 5% of research dollars are focused on providing treatments and prevention of these highly debilitating and deadly conditions. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Orphan Drug Designation program (ODDP) provides orphan status to drugs and biologics, defined as those intended for the safe and effective treatment, diagnosis or prevention of rare diseases and/or disorders that affect fewer than 200 000 people in the United States, or that affect more than 200 000 persons but are not expected to recover the costs of developing and marketing a treatment drug. These regulations have led to the translation of rare disease knowledge into innovative rare disease therapies. The FDA Guidance for Industry on developing drugs for the treatment and prevention of NTDs describes the following regulatory strategies: Orphan Product Designation, Fast Track Designation, Priority Review Designation, Accelerated Approval and Tropical Disease Priority Review Voucher. This paper will discuss how these regulations and especially the ODDP can improve the clinical development and accessibility of drug products for NTDs.
Schulz, Klaus J.; Chandler, Val W.; Nicholson, Suzanne W.; Piatak, Nadine M.; Seal, Robert R.; Woodruff, Laurel G.; Zientek, Michael L.
2010-01-01
Magmatic sulfide deposits containing nickel (Ni) and copper (Cu), with or without (?) platinum-group elements (PGEs), account for approximately 60 percent of the world's Ni production and are active exploration targets in the United States and elsewhere. On the basis of their principal metal production, magmatic sulfide deposits in mafic rocks can be divided into two major types: those that are sulfide-rich, typically with 10 to 90 percent sulfide minerals, and have economic value primarily because of their Ni and Cu contents; and those that are sulfide-poor, typically with 0.5 to 5 percent sulfide minerals, and are exploited principally for PGE. Because the purpose of this deposit model is to facilitate the assessment for undiscovered, potentially economic magmatic Ni-Cu?PGE sulfide deposits in the United States, it addresses only those deposits of economic significance that are likely to occur in the United States on the basis of known geology. Thus, this model focuses on deposits hosted by small- to medium-sized mafic and (or) ultramafic dikes and sills that are related to picrite and tholeiitic basalt magmatic systems generally emplaced in continental settings as a component of large igneous provinces (LIPs). World-class examples (those containing greater than 1 million tons Ni) of this deposit type include deposits at Noril'sk-Talnakh (Russia), Jinchuan (China), Pechenga (Russia), Voisey's Bay (Canada), and Kabanga (Tanzania). In the United States, this deposit type is represented by the Eagle deposit in northern Michigan, currently under development by Kennecott Minerals.
Associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy in the United States
Hamidi, Shima; Ewing, Reid; Tatalovich, Zaria; Grace, James B.; Berrigan, David
2018-01-01
In recent years, the United States has had a relatively poor performance with respect to life expectancy compared to the other developed nations. Urban sprawl is one of the potential causes of the high rate of mortality in the United States. This study investigated cross-sectional associations between sprawl and life expectancy for metropolitan counties in the United States in 2010. In this study, the measure of life expectancy in 2010 came from a recently released dataset of life expectancies by county. This study modeled average life expectancy with a structural equation model that included five mediators: annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per household, average body mass index, crime rate, and air quality index as mediators of sprawl, as well as percentage of smokers as a mediator of socioeconomic status. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, this study found that life expectancy was significantly higher in compact counties than in sprawling counties. Compactness affects mortality directly, but the causal mechanism is unclear. For example, it may be that sprawling areas have higher traffic speeds and longer emergency response times, lower quality and less accessible health care facilities, or less availability of healthy foods. Compactness affects mortality indirectly through vehicle miles traveled, which is a contributor to traffic fatalities, and through body mass index, which is a contributor to many chronic diseases. This study identified significant direct and indirect associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy. These findings support further research and practice aimed at identifying and implementing changes to urban planning designed to support health and healthy behaviors.
Gender, race + geography = jeopardy: marginalized women, human rights and HIV in the United States.
Fried, Susana T; Kelly, Brook
2011-11-01
Across the United States, laws, policies, and practices put women living with HIV in jeopardy. In particular, the dignity, health, and well-being of women living with and at risk for HIV as well as the health and well-being of their families and communities is hampered by punitive laws and policies. Laws and policies that do not meet, or worse, criminalize women's sexual and reproductive rights result in the economic, social and political deprivation of marginalized women and girls-and especially those living with and at risk of HIV. These laws and policies exacerbate an already outsized HIV epidemic in underserved communities, and communities of color in the United States. This article draws from and builds on a human rights workshop that took place as part of the forum "Bringing Gender Home: Implementing Gender Responsive HIV/AIDS Programming for US Women and Girls," sponsored by the Office of Women's Health. It focuses on the damaging impact of laws, policies, and practices that criminalize women's sexuality. These laws significantly impact the well-being of women living with and at risk for HIV, and have an impact on the capacity of poor women of color in the United States to fully exercise their rights. When laws that purport to protect public health have the result of limiting women's reproductive choices, or have a disproportionate impact on marginalized groups such as sex workers, fundamental breaches of women's rights occur. Copyright © 2011 Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States
Ewing, Reid; Tatalovich, Zaria; Berrigan, David
2018-01-01
In recent years, the United States has had a relatively poor performance with respect to life expectancy compared to the other developed nations. Urban sprawl is one of the potential causes of the high rate of mortality in the United States. This study investigated cross-sectional associations between sprawl and life expectancy for metropolitan counties in the United States in 2010. In this study, the measure of life expectancy in 2010 came from a recently released dataset of life expectancies by county. This study modeled average life expectancy with a structural equation model that included five mediators: annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per household, average body mass index, crime rate, and air quality index as mediators of sprawl, as well as percentage of smokers as a mediator of socioeconomic status. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, this study found that life expectancy was significantly higher in compact counties than in sprawling counties. Compactness affects mortality directly, but the causal mechanism is unclear. For example, it may be that sprawling areas have higher traffic speeds and longer emergency response times, lower quality and less accessible health care facilities, or less availability of healthy foods. Compactness affects mortality indirectly through vehicle miles traveled, which is a contributor to traffic fatalities, and through body mass index, which is a contributor to many chronic diseases. This study identified significant direct and indirect associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy. These findings support further research and practice aimed at identifying and implementing changes to urban planning designed to support health and healthy behaviors. PMID:29701644
Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States.
Hamidi, Shima; Ewing, Reid; Tatalovich, Zaria; Grace, James B; Berrigan, David
2018-04-26
In recent years, the United States has had a relatively poor performance with respect to life expectancy compared to the other developed nations. Urban sprawl is one of the potential causes of the high rate of mortality in the United States. This study investigated cross-sectional associations between sprawl and life expectancy for metropolitan counties in the United States in 2010. In this study, the measure of life expectancy in 2010 came from a recently released dataset of life expectancies by county. This study modeled average life expectancy with a structural equation model that included five mediators: annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per household, average body mass index, crime rate, and air quality index as mediators of sprawl, as well as percentage of smokers as a mediator of socioeconomic status. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, this study found that life expectancy was significantly higher in compact counties than in sprawling counties. Compactness affects mortality directly, but the causal mechanism is unclear. For example, it may be that sprawling areas have higher traffic speeds and longer emergency response times, lower quality and less accessible health care facilities, or less availability of healthy foods. Compactness affects mortality indirectly through vehicle miles traveled, which is a contributor to traffic fatalities, and through body mass index, which is a contributor to many chronic diseases. This study identified significant direct and indirect associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy. These findings support further research and practice aimed at identifying and implementing changes to urban planning designed to support health and healthy behaviors.
Predictors of Donor Heart Utilization for Transplantation in United States.
Trivedi, Jaimin R; Cheng, Allen; Gallo, Michele; Schumer, Erin M; Massey, H Todd; Slaughter, Mark S
2017-06-01
Optimum use of donor organs can increase the reach of the transplantation therapy to more patients on waiting list. The heart transplantation (HTx) has remained stagnant in United States over the past decade at approximately 2,500 HTx annually. With the use of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) deceased donor database (DCD) we aimed to evaluate donor factors predicting donor heart utilization. UNOS DCD was queried from 2005 to 2014 to identify total number of donors who had at least one of their organs donated. We then generated a multivariate logistic regression model using various demographic and clinical donor factors to predict donor heart use for HTx. Donor hearts not recovered due to consent or family issues or recovered for nontransplantation reasons were excluded from the analysis. During the study period there were 80,782 donors of which 23,606 (29%) were used for HTx, and 38,877 transplants (48%) were not used after obtaining consent because of poor organ function (37%), donor medical history (13%), and organ refused by all programs (5%). Of all, 22,791 donors with complete data were used for logistic regression (13,389 HTx, 9,402 no-HTx) which showed significant predictors of donor heart use for HTx. From this model we assigned probability of donor heart use and identified 3,070 donors with HTx-eligible unused hearts for reasons of poor organ function (28%), organ refused by all programs (15%), and recipient not located (9%). An objective system based on donor factors can predict donor heart use for HTx and may help increase availability of hearts for transplantation from existing donor pool. Copyright © 2017 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Hardy, Bradley; Smeeding, Timothy; Ziliak, James P
2018-02-01
Refundable tax credits and food assistance are the largest transfer programs available to able-bodied working poor and near-poor families in the United States, and simultaneous participation in these programs has more than doubled since the early 2000s. To understand this growth, we construct a series of two-year panels from the 1981-2013 waves of the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement to estimate the effect of state labor-market conditions, federal and state transfer program policy choices, and household demographics governing joint participation in food and refundable tax credit programs. Overall, changing policy drives much of the increase in the simultaneous, biennial use of food assistance and refundable tax credits. This stands in stark contrast from the factors accounting for the growth in food assistance alone, where cyclical and structural labor market factors account for at least one-half of the growth, and demographics play a more prominent role. Moreover, since 2000, the business cycle factors as the leading determinant in biennial participation decisions in food programs and refundable tax credits, suggesting a recent strengthening in the relationship between economic conditions and transfer programs.
Nitrogen use efficiency in the US economy: Towards mitigation of climate change impacts
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Houlton, B. Z.; Boyer, E. W.; Finzi, A. C.; Galloway, J. N.; Leach, A.; Liptzin, D.; Melillo, J. M.; Rosenstock, T.; Sobota, D. J.; Townsend, A. R.
2011-12-01
Nitrogen (N) interacts strongly with climate change in determining the severity and extent of many human health and environmental issues, such as eutrophication, poor air quality, and the maintenance of a secure food system. We were motivated by such N-climate interactions and their environmental impacts as part of a broader assessment of N in the continental United States. We here seek to identify and quantify inefficiencies associated with intentional N creation (i.e., creating synthetic N fertilizers and cultivating N-fixing legumes) among the major N-dependent sectors of the United States economy. We define efficiency of N use as the proportion N directly incorporated into food, fiber, biofuel, and industrial goods from the pool of intentionally created N. We are interested in whether reductions in N use could be achieved without changing the current functioning of the major N-dependent economic sectors. Our analysis points to substantial inefficiencies in N use at the national scale. A large percentage of the N applied as synthetic fertilizer and fixed by legumes annually fails to enter the United States food supply. Much of the unincorporated N enters air, land and water, where it can impact human health and ecosystems. The climate change forcing of N is uncertain, though it appears that the combined effects of intentionally and unintentionally created N on climate is roughly neutral in the United States (i.e., net effect of N-enhanced C storage, nitrous oxide emissions, N-based aerosols, and tropospheric ozone on climate forcing). Thus, it is reasonable to expect that improved efficiencies in N use would have minimal negative side effects on the United States economy, human health and the environment. We suggest that policies aimed at improving N-use efficiencies are an alternative to direct climate mitigation strategies in offsetting several impacts of climate change on human health and ecosystem functioning.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. Senate Committee on Finance.
This Congressional report contains the testimony and documents presented for the record of a hearing to gather input regarding the Strengthening Working Families Act of 2001, which was drafted to provide the assistance needed by former welfare recipients and other poor working parents to remain employed and advance in the labor market. The…
Anatomy of a system accident: the crash of Avianca Flight 052.
Helmreich, R L
1994-01-01
On January 25, 1990, Avianca Flight 052 crashed after running out of fuel following a missed approach to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. Weather was poor on the East Coast of the United States that day, and the flight had experienced several holding patterns enroute from Medellín, Colombia, to New York. The accident is analyzed in terms of Helmreich and Foushee's (1993) model of crew performance and Reason's (1990) model of latent pathogens in system operations.
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. A key issue in treating colon cancer patients is inability to accurately predict tumors that have metastatic potential and require adjuvant chemotherapy. This project will test the model that tumor metastases arise from intra-tumor heterogeneity generated by DNA methylation events, and that detecting these events can provide a predictve signature of tumors with poor outcome
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kalleberg, Arne L.
2013-01-01
The economic boom of the 1990s veiled a grim reality: in addition to the growing gap between rich and poor, the gap between good and bad quality jobs was also expanding. The postwar prosperity of the mid-twentieth century had enabled millions of American workers to join the middle class, but as author Arne L. Kalleberg shows, by the 1970s this…
1998-01-01
jungle by following discarded orange peels . *a The main risk was from ambush by the poorly armed tacos, most of whom did not even possess outdated...Haiti (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1994), 73-78. 10. Lester D. Langley, nze Banana Wars: UnitedStates Intervention in the Caribbean 1898- 1934...episodes took the form of active intervention, America’s so-called “ Banana Wars.” During this period, U.S. military commanders roamed the tropics
2012-12-14
maintain order and to deliver minimum essential public services; 3) The private sector to ensure the orderly functioning of the economy and the...the private sector’s capability to ensure the orderly functioning of the economy and delivery of essential services 5 Have a negative effect on the... economy through the cascading disruption of other critical infrastructure and key resources 6 Undermine the public’s morale and confidence in our
Anatomy of a system accident: The crash of Avianca Flight 052
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Helmreich, Robert L.
1994-01-01
On January 25, 1990, Avianca Flight 052 crashed after running out of fuel following a missed approach to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. Weather was poor on the East Coast of the United States that day, and the flight had experienced several holding patterns enroute from Medellin, Colombia, to New York. The accident is analyzed in terms of Helmreich and Foushee's (1993) model of crew performance and Reason's (1990) model of latent pathogens in system operations.
East Europe Report, Economic and Industrial Affairs, No. 2447
1983-09-14
capitaiper year . The production of eggs also fell by 340 million, that is, by 21 percent. Restrictions on cocoa bean imports caused a drop in the...17,000 tons in 1982. Last year Poland planned to supply to the United States a total of around 120,000 tons of metallurgical items, but it supplied in...than the machines. A tool which should last 10 years sometimes lasts half that time. It is simple—a poor man and a fool buy twice. I would see
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs.
The Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs held hearings on the "Food Distribution Program." The Program--often referred to as the "commodity distribution,""surplus distribution," or "direct distribution program"--has the dual purpose of alleviating farm surpluses and helping the poor. It presently feeds about 3.6 million Americans…
Desired Destinations of Homeless Women: Realizing Aspirations Within the Context of Homelessness.
Biederman, Donna J; Forlan, Nicole
2016-08-01
Despite recent decreases, homelessness remains a substantial problem in the United States. Homelessness is associated with poor health, and homeless women experience earlier mortality than their housed counterparts. Understanding the aspirations of homeless women may offer service providers avenues for intervention to increase well-being among this vulnerable population. This study, a secondary analysis of transcribed interviews (n = 20), provides insight into the aspirations of homeless women. Opportunities for service providers to intervene on these aspirations within the context of homelessness are offered.
Perreira, Krista M; Gotman, Nathan; Isasi, Carmen R; Arguelles, William; Castañeda, Sheila F; Daviglus, Martha L; Giachello, Aida L; Gonzalez, Patricia; Penedo, Frank J; Salgado, Hugo; Wassertheil-Smoller, Sylvia
2015-09-01
We examined the association between exposure to the U.S. and symptoms of poor mental health among adult Hispanic/Latinos (N = 15,004) overall and by Hispanic/Latino background. Using data from the Hispanic Community Health Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL), we estimated logistic regressions to model the risk of moderate to severe symptoms of psychological distress, depression, and anxiety as a function of years in the U.S. and six key psychosocial risk and protective factors. In unadjusted models, increased time in the U.S. was associated with higher risk of poor mental health. After adjustment for just three key factors--perceived discrimination, perceived U.S. social standing, and the size of close social networks--differences in the odds of poor mental health by years in the U.S became insignificant for Hispanics/Latinos overall. However, analyses by Hispanic/Latino background revealed different patterns of association with exposure to the U.S. that could not be fully explained.
New combination treatments in the management of asthma: focus on fluticasone/vilanterol
Tan, Laren D; Chan, Andrew L; Albertson, Timothy E
2014-01-01
Despite the 2007 National Asthma Education and Prevention Program Expert Panel 3 guidelines for the treatment of uncontrolled asthma, many patients with poorly controlled asthma still continue to tax the health care system. Controlling asthma symptoms and preventing acute exacerbations have been the foundation of care. Using long-term controller treatments such as inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and inhaled long-acting beta2-agonists (LABAs) is a common approach. While patient responses to recommended pharmacotherapy may vary, poor adherence to therapy also contributes to poor asthma control. A once-daily combination inhaler, such as fluticasone furoate, an ICS, in combination with vilanterol, a LABA, offers increased convenience and potential improved adherence, which should result in enhanced clinical outcomes and reduced exacerbations. The ICS/LABA combination inhaler of fluticasone furoate and vilanterol is currently approved in the United States for use in the maintenance of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and to reduce exacerbations. This paper reviews the expanding literature on the efficacy of fluticasone furoate and vilanterol in treating asthma. PMID:24833910
Grubert, Emily; Sanders, Kelly T
2018-06-05
The United States (US) energy system is a large water user, but the nature of that use is poorly understood. To support resource comanagement and fill this noted gap in the literature, this work presents detailed estimates for US-based water consumption and withdrawals for the US energy system as of 2014, including both intensity values and the first known estimate of total water consumption and withdrawal by the US energy system. We address 126 unit processes, many of which are new additions to the literature, differentiated among 17 fuel cycles, five life cycle stages, three water source categories, and four levels of water quality. Overall coverage is about 99% of commercially traded US primary energy consumption with detailed energy flows by unit process. Energy-related water consumption, or water removed from its source and not directly returned, accounts for about 10% of both total and freshwater US water consumption. Major consumers include biofuels (via irrigation), oil (via deep well injection, usually of nonfreshwater), and hydropower (via evaporation and seepage). The US energy system also accounts for about 40% of both total and freshwater US water withdrawals, i.e., water removed from its source regardless of fate. About 70% of withdrawals are associated with the once-through cooling systems of approximately 300 steam cycle power plants that produce about 25% of US electricity.
[Drug supplies in primary care units at the Ministry of Health in Mexico].
Gómez-Dantés, O; Garrido-Latorre, F; Tirado-Gómez, L L; Ramírez, D; Macías, C
2001-01-01
To identify the availability of some essential drugs (ED) at primary health care units of the Mexican Ministry of Health (SSA), using data from a research work conducted in 1996 and 1997. A random sample of the 18 sanitary jurisdictions of states participating in the Extension of Coverage Program (ECP) was drawn. All primary care units from selected jurisdictions were evaluated through an inspection visit, using a checklist that included 36 ED. In phase I of the analysis, the absolute number and proportion of units without a single item of any of the 36 drugs were calculated. In the units with available drugs, the median of the distribution was also calculated. In phase II, the medians according to the type of health unit and state was obtained. The statistic utilized for the comparison of the medians was the Scheffé test with one way variance analysis. In addition, the drugs were classified according to their therapeutic indication and the medians and proportion of available drugs were calculated. The differences in proportion were evaluated with the statistic chi 2. During the visits, on average, 18 of the 36 drugs included in the list of the study were found in the health units. The availability of antibiotics, antituberculosis drugs, and antimalarial drugs was particularly poor. In contrast, oral rehydration salts, family planning methods and vaccines were usually available. In general, the PAC3 states presented the best availability figures. The Ministry of Health of México will have to develop an enormous effort to overcome the obstacles related to the supply of essential drugs in primary health care units. Otherwise, all other efforts directed to meet the needs of the non-insured population will end up being useless, and enormous amounts of the already scarce resources of the health sector will be wasted since drugs are a vital component of the long chain of health care.
Mechanically induced intramolecular electron transfer in a mixed-valence molecular shuttle
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Barnes, J. C.; Fahrenbach, A. C.; Dyar, S. M.
2012-06-08
The kinetics and thermodynamics of intramolecular electron transfer (IET) can be subjected to redox control in a bistable [2]rotaxane comprised of a dumbbell component containing an electron-rich 1,5-dioxynaphthalene (DNP) unit and an electron-poor phenylene-bridged bipyridinium (P-BIPY2+) unit and a cyclobis (paraquat-p-phenylene) (CBPQT4+) ring component. The [2]rotaxane exists in the ground-state co-conformation (GSCC) wherein the CBPQT4+ ring encircles the DNP unit. Reduction of the CBPQT4+ leads to the CBPQT2(•+) diradical dication while the P-BIPY2+ unit is reduced to its P-BIPY•+ radical cation. A radical-state co-conformation (RSCC) results from movement of the CBPQT2(•+) ring along the dumbbell to surround the P-BIPY•+ unit.more » This shuttling event induces IET to occur between the pyridinium redox centers of the P-BIPY•+ unit, a property which is absent between these redox centers in the free dumbbell and in the 1:1 complex formed between the CBPQT2(•+) ring and the radical cation of methyl-phenylene-viologen (MPV•+). Using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, the process of IET was investigated by monitoring the line broadening at varying temperatures and determining the rate constant (kET = 1.33 × 107 s-1) and activation energy (ΔG‡ = 1.01 kcal mol-1) for electron transfer. These values were compared to the corresponding values predicted, using the optical absorption spectra and Marcus–Hush theory.« less
Kambayashi, Atsushi; Blume, Henning; Dressman, Jennifer B
2014-07-01
The objective of this research was to characterize the dissolution profile of a poorly soluble drug, diclofenac, from a commercially available multiple-unit enteric coated dosage form, Diclo-Puren® capsules, and to develop a predictive model for its oral pharmacokinetic profile. The paddle method was used to obtain the dissolution profiles of this dosage form in biorelevant media, with the exposure to simulated gastric conditions being varied in order to simulate the gastric emptying behavior of pellets. A modified Noyes-Whitney theory was subsequently fitted to the dissolution data. A physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model for multiple-unit dosage forms was designed using STELLA® software and coupled with the biorelevant dissolution profiles in order to simulate the plasma concentration profiles of diclofenac from Diclo-Puren® capsule in both the fasted and fed state in humans. Gastric emptying kinetics relevant to multiple-units pellets were incorporated into the PBPK model by setting up a virtual patient population to account for physiological variations in emptying kinetics. Using in vitro biorelevant dissolution coupled with in silico PBPK modeling and simulation it was possible to predict the plasma profile of this multiple-unit formulation of diclofenac after oral administration in both the fasted and fed state. This approach might be useful to predict variability in the plasma profiles for other drugs housed in multiple-unit dosage forms. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Use of preventive care by the working poor in the United States
Ross, Joseph S.; Bernheim, Susannah M.; Bradley, Elizabeth H.; Teng, Hsun-Mei; Gallo, William T.
2007-01-01
Objective Examine the association between poverty and preventive care use among older working adults. Method Cross-sectional analysis of the pooled 1996, 1998 and 2000 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative sample of older community-dwelling adults, studying self-reported use of cervical, breast, and prostate cancer screening, as well as serum cholesterol screening and influenza vaccination. Adults with incomes within 200% of the federal poverty level were defined as poor. Results Among 10,088 older working adults, overall preventive care use ranged from 38% (influenza vaccination) to 76% (breast cancer screening). In unadjusted analyses, the working poor were significantly less likely to receive preventive care. After adjustment for insurance coverage, education, and other socio-demographic characteristics, the working poor remained significantly less likely to receive breast cancer (RR 0.92, 95% CI, 0.86–0.96), prostate cancer (RR 0.89, 95% CI, 0.81–0.97), and cholesterol screening (RR 0.91, 95% CI, 0.86–0.96) than the working non-poor, but were not significantly less likely to receive cervical cancer screening (RR 0.96, 95% CI, 0.90–1.01) or influenza vaccination (RR 0.92, 95% CI, 0.84–1.01). Conclusion The older working poor are at modestly increased risk for not receiving preventive care. PMID:17196642
Collective Narcissism: Americans Exaggerate the Role of Their Home State in Appraising U.S. History.
Putnam, Adam L; Ross, Morgan Q; Soter, Laura K; Roediger, Henry L
2018-06-01
Collective narcissism-a phenomenon in which individuals show excessively high regard for their own group-is ubiquitous in studies of small groups. We examined how Americans from the 50 U.S. states ( N = 2,898) remembered U.S. history by asking them, "In terms of percentage, what do you think was your home state's contribution to the history of the United States?" The mean state estimates ranged from 9% (Iowa) to 41% (Virginia), with the total contribution for all states equaling 907%, indicating strong collective narcissism. In comparison, ratings provided by nonresidents for states were much lower (but still high). Surprisingly, asking people questions about U.S. history before they made their judgment did not lower estimates. We argue that this ethnocentric bias is due to ego protection, selective memory retrieval processes involving the availability heuristic, and poor statistical reasoning. This study shows that biases that influence individual remembering also influence collective remembering.
Papoulias, Diana M.; Parcher, Jean W.
2013-01-01
Many of the diverse, fragile ecosystems of the United States–Mexican border region are reaching unsustainable levels because of rapid population growth and changes in land use. Water shortages and pollution, poor air quality, increased soil salinities, and pesticides and heavy metal contaminants are some of the many stressors that are degrading the quality of life in the Borderlands. Lack of water treatment and wastewater infrastructure on both sides of the United States–Mexican border contributes to elevated rates of various communicable diseases most commonly found in developing countries: tuberculosis, intestinal infections, and hepatitis. Chronic diseases (diabetes, cancer, and heart disease) also prevail at high rates along the border, resembling trends observed in developed countries. In addition, the subtropical climate of the Borderlands is particularly suited for vectors of tropical diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever.
The role of Abraham Lincoln in securing a charter for a homeopathic medical college.
Spiegel, Allen D; Kavaler, Florence
2002-10-01
In 1854, Abraham Lincoln was retained to prepare a state legislative proposal to charter a homeopathic medical college in Chicago. This was a complex task in view of the deep-seated animosity between allopathic or orthodox medical practitioners and irregular healers. Homeopathy was regarded as a cult by the nascent American Medical Association. In addition, the poor reputation of medical education in the United States in general, further complicated the project. Lincoln and influential individuals in Illinois lobbied legislators and succeeded in securing the charter. Subsequently, the Hahnemann Homeopathic Medical College accepted its first class in 1860 and with its successors remained in existence for almost sixty-five years.
Asada, Yukiko; Whipp, Alyce; Kindig, David; Billard, Beverly; Rudolph, Barbara
2014-06-13
Regular reporting of health inequalities is essential to monitoring progress of efforts to reduce health inequalities. While reporting of population health became increasingly common, reporting of a subpopulation group breakdown of each indicator of the health of the population is rarely a standard practice. This study reports education-, sex-, and race-related inequalities in four health outcomes in each of the selected 93 counties in the United States in a systematic and comparable manner. This study is a cross-sectional analysis of large, publicly available data, 2008, 2009, and 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Selected Metropolitan/Micropolitan Area Risk Trends (SMART) and 2008, 2009, and 2010 United States Birth Records from the National Vital Statistics System. The study population is American adults older than 25 years of age residing in the selected 93 counties, representing about 30% of the US population, roughly equally covering all geographic regions of the country. Main outcome measures are: (1) Attribute (group characteristic)-specific inequality: education-, sex-, or race-specific inequality in each of the four health outcomes (poor or fair health, poor physical health days, poor mental health days, and low birthweight) in each county; (2) Overall inequality: the average of these three attribute-specific inequalities for each health outcome in each county; and (3) Summary inequality in total morbidity: the weighted average of the overall inequalities across the four health outcomes in each county. The range of inequality across the counties differed considerably by health outcome; inequality in poor or fair health had the widest range and the highest median among inequalities in all health outcomes. In more than 70% of the counties, education-specific inequality was the largest in all health outcomes except for low birthweight. It is feasible to extend population health reporting to include reporting of a subpopulation group breakdown of each indicator of the health of the population at a small jurisdictional level using publicly available data. No single group characteristic or health outcome represents the whole picture of health inequalities in a population. Examining multiple group characteristics and outcomes in a comparable manner is essential in reporting health inequalities.
Lippert, Adam M.; Evans, Clare Rosenfeld; Razak, Fahad; Subramanian, S. V.
2017-01-01
Abstract Limitations of extant research on neighborhood disadvantage and health include general reliance on point-in-time neighborhood measures and sensitivity to residential self-selection. Using data from the US Census and the 1995–2008 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we applied conventional methods and coarsened exact matching to assess how cardiometabolic health varies among those entering, exiting, or remaining in poor and nonpoor neighborhoods. Within the full sample (n = 11,767), we found significantly higher systolic and diastolic blood pressures among those who entered or consistently lived in poor neighborhoods relative to those who never lived in poor neighborhoods. Obesity was similarly more common among those who originated from poor neighborhoods than among those who originated from nonpoor neighborhoods. Having exited poor neighborhoods was associated with lower systolic blood pressure than was consistent residence in low-income communities. Among the matched sample (n = 9,727), results adjusted for confounders and residential self-selection revealed fewer significant contrasts. Compared with peers who had no neighborhood poverty exposure, those who consistently lived in poor neighborhoods had 46% and 52% higher odds of being obese or hypertensive, respectively. Those who exited neighborhood poverty had significantly higher diastolic blood pressures than those who had never lived in poor neighborhoods. These findings underscore the importance of past as well as current residential circumstances for cardiometabolic health. PMID:28379315
Privatization in a publicly funded health care system: the U.S. experience.
Himmelstein, David U; Woolhandler, Steffie
2008-01-01
The United States has four decades of experience with the combination of public funding and private health care management and delivery, closely analogous to reforms recently enacted or proposed in many other nations. Extensive research, herein reviewed, shows that for-profit health institutions provide inferior care at inflated prices. The U.S. experience also demonstrates that market mechanisms nurture unscrupulous medical businesses and undermine medical institutions unable or unwilling to tailor care to profitability. The commercialization of care in the United States has driven up costs by diverting money to profits and by fueling a vast increase in management and financial bureaucracy, which now consumes 31 percent of total health spending. The Veterans Health Administration system--a network of government hospitals and clinics--has emerged as the leader in quality improvement and information technology, indicating the potential for public sector excellence and innovation. The poor performance of U.S. health care is directly attributable to reliance on market mechanisms and for-profit firms, and should warn other nations from this path.
Bonanno, George A; Papa, Anthony; Lalande, Kathleen; Zhang, Nanping; Noll, Jennie G
2005-02-01
In this study, the authors measured grief processing and deliberate grief avoidance and examined their relationship to adjustment at 4 and 18 months of bereavement for 2 types of losses (spouse, child) in 2 cultures (People's Republic of China, United States). Three hypotheses were compared: the traditional grief work assumption, a conditional grief work hypothesis, and a view of grief processing as a form of rumination absent among resilient individuals. Although cultural differences in grief processing and avoidance were observed, the factor structure of these measures proved invariant across cultures. Consistent with the grief work as rumination hypothesis, both grief processing and deliberate grief avoidance predicted poor long-term adjustment for U.S. participants. Furthermore, initial grief processing predicted later grief processing in both cultures. However, among the participants in the People's Republic of China, neither grief processing nor deliberate avoidance evidenced clear psychological consequences. Copyright 2005 APA.
Infectious Diseases and the Criminal Justice System.
Nijhawan, Ank E
2016-10-01
The United States leads the world in incarceration, which disproportionately affects disadvantaged individuals, including those who are mentally ill, poor, homeless and racial minorities. Incarceration is disruptive to families and communities and contributes to health disparities in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The objective of this grand rounds is to review (1) the epidemiology of incarceration in the United States, (2) the social factors which contribute to high rates of STIs in incarcerated individuals and (3) the HIV care cascade in incarcerated and recently released individuals. Routine screening and treatment for STIs and HIV in the criminal justice system can identify many new infections and has the potential to both improve individual outcomes and reduce transmission to others. Increased collaboration between the department of health and department of corrections, as well as partnerships between academic institutions and the criminal justice system, have the potential to improve outcomes in this vulnerable population. Copyright © 2016 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Clinical outcomes in pediatric hemodialysis patients in the USA: lessons from CMS' ESRD CPM Project.
Neu, Alicia M; Frankenfield, Diane L
2009-07-01
Although prospective randomized trials have provided important information and allowed the development of evidence-based guidelines in adult hemodialysis (HD) patients, with approximately 800 prevalent pediatric HD patients in the United States, such studies are difficult to perform in this population. Observational data obtained through the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS') End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Clinical Performance Measures (CPM) Project have allowed description of the clinical care provided to pediatric HD patients as well as identification of risk factors for failure to reach adult targets for clinical parameters such as hemoglobin, single-pool Kt/V (spKt/V) and serum albumin. In addition, studies linking data from the ESRD CPM Project and the United States Renal Data System have allowed evaluation of associations between achievement of those targets and the outcomes of hospitalization and death. The results of those studies, while unable to prove cause and effect, suggest that the adult ESRD CPM targets may assist in identifying pediatric HD patients at risk for poor outcomes.
Mechanic, David
2014-08-01
The high prevalence of mental illness and substance abuse disorders and their significant impact on disability, mortality, and other chronic diseases have encouraged new initiatives in mental health policy including important provisions of the Affordable Care Act and changes in Medicaid. This article examines the development and status of the behavioral health services system, gaps in access to and quality of care, and the challenges to implementing aspirations for improved behavioral and related medical services. Although many more people than ever before are receiving behavioral health services in the United States-predominantly pharmaceutical treatments-care is poorly allocated and rarely meets evidence-based standards, particularly in the primary care sector. Ideologies, finances, and pharmaceutical marketing have shaped the provision of services more than treatment advances or guidance from a growing evidence base. Among the many challenges to overcome are organizational and financial realignments and improved training of primary care physicians and the behavioral health workforce. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.
Dharod, Jigna M
2015-01-01
This study was conducted with the Montagnard refugee women (n = 42) to understand their pre-resettlement living conditions and estimate pre- and post-resettlement differences in their intake of major food groups. In-depth interviews were conducted with the participants in their homes by multilingual Montagnard women fluent in English and their tribal languages. Most of the participants did not receive education and 39% reported household incomes of $500 or less per month. Participants had a very limited or no experience in weekly food shopping and budgeting before moving to the United States. In comparison of food habits, intake of different types of meat increased upon resettlement (P < .05). Pre-resettlement food shortage experience and receiving ≥ $500 in SNAP increased the odds of high meat intake. Due to a significant shift in food choices and environment, refugees are at a higher risk of experiencing poor health after moving to the United States.
Workplace discrimination and health among Filipinos in the United States.
de Castro, Arnold B; Gee, Gilbert C; Takeuchi, David T
2008-03-01
We examined the association between work discrimination and morbidity among Filipinos in the United States, independent of more-global measures of discrimination. Data were collected from the Filipino American Community Epidemiological Survey. Our analysis focused on 1652 participants who were employed at the time of data collection, and we used negative binomial regression to determine the association between work discrimination and health conditions. The report of workplace discrimination specific to being Filipino was associated with an increased number of health conditions. This association persisted even after we controlled for everyday discrimination, a general assessment of discrimination; job concerns, a general assessment of unpleasant work circumstances; having immigrated for employment reasons; job category; income; education; gender; and other sociodemographic factors. Racial discrimination in the workplace was positively associated with poor health among Filipino Americans after we controlled for reports of everyday discrimination and general concerns about one's job. This finding shows the importance of considering the work setting as a source of discrimination and its effect on morbidity among racial minorities.
Marsiglia, Flavio F.; Kulis, Stephen; Hussaini, Syed Khaleel; Nieri, Tanya A.; Becerra, David
2010-01-01
This study tested for gender differences in the impact of linguistic acculturation on pro-drug norms, substance use intentions, and actual substance use among youth of Mexican heritage in a large metropolitan area in the Southwest United States. The authors analyzed baseline survey data provided by 2,487 middle school students of Mexican heritage who were part of a larger, multiethnic randomized efficacy trial of a drug abuse prevention program. Using multi-group structural equation modeling, the authors found that linguistic acculturation was positively and directly related to adherence to pro-drug norms, substance use intentions, and recent alcohol use, controlling for age, poor grades, and socioeconomic status. In addition, linguistic acculturation had an indirect effect on substance use intentions and recent alcohol use through pro-drug norms. The direct effect of linguistic acculturation on pro-drug norms was stronger for girls than for boys, as was its indirect effect on substance use intentions. PMID:20390972
Rivera, Luis M.
2014-01-01
The presence of diverse ethnic-racial groups in the United States today is a source of national pride. However, this cultural sentiment is overshadowed by the reality that those ethnic-racial groups that are stigmatized carry a disproportionate burden of negative physical health outcomes. These systematic differences are referred to as health disparities. Although this phenomenon is fairly well documented, relatively little is understood about the social contexts and the psychological processes they activate that contribute to poor health. More importantly, to demonstrate the processes underlying health disparities does not single-handedly address the issue of social injustice in the health of disadvantaged people. Scientists must assume the burden of facilitating the translation of their laboratory and community-based research to public policy recommendations. This volume of the Journal of Social Issues brings together social, developmental, cognitive, and clinical psychological research on the physical health of ethnic-racial stigmatized individuals in the United States. Each contribution explicitly discusses the implications of research for public health policy. PMID:25530632
Patterns of gun deaths across US counties 1999-2013.
Kalesan, Bindu; Galea, Sandro
2017-05-01
We examined the socio-demographic distribution of gun deaths across 3143 counties in 50 United States' states to understand the spatial patterns and correlates of high and low gun deaths. We used aggregate counts of gun deaths and population in all counties from 1999 to 2013 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER). We characterized four levels of gun violence, as distinct levels of gun death rates of relatively safe, unsafe, violent, and extremely violent counties, based on quartiles of 15-year county-specific gun death rates per 100,000 and used negative binomial regression models allowing clustering by state to calculate incidence rate ratios and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). Most states had at least one violent or extremely violent county. Extremely violent gun counties were mostly rural, poor, predominantly minority, had high unemployment rate and homicide rate. Overall, homicide rate was significantly associated with gun deaths (incidence rate ratios = 1.08, 95% CI = 1.06-1.09). In relatively safe counties, this risk was 1.09 (95% CI = 1.05-1.13) and in extremely violent gun counties was 1.03 (95% CI = 1.03-1.04). There are broad differences in gun death rates across the United States representing different levels of gun death rates in each state with distinct socio-demographic profiles. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Thai, Chan L; Serrano, Katrina J; Yaroch, Amy L; Nebeling, Linda; Oh, April
2017-08-01
The advertising and marketing of energy-dense, nutrient-poor (EDNP) food and drink has been cited as one contributor to unhealthy eating behaviors in adolescents. The present study examines perceptions about and trust in food advertising and their association with consumption of EDNP foods and drinks among adolescents in the United States. Data (n = 1,384) come from the U.S. National Cancer Institute's Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating Survey. One way ANOVAs were conducted to assess differences between population subgroups in advertising perceptions. Bivariate and multivariable linear regression models were used to examine the associations between perceptions toward and trust in food advertising and consumption of EDNP foods and drinks, controlling for sociodemographic factors. Results show that there are significant differences between racial/ethnic groups on advertising perceptions (F = 16.32, p = < .0001). As positive perceptions toward food advertising increase among adolescents, there is an associated increase in daily frequency of consumption of EDNP foods and drinks (β = 0.10, p < .01). Similarly, the more adolescents agreed that they trusted food advertising, the higher the reported daily frequency of EDNP food and drink consumption (β = 0.08, p = .01). Targeting perceptions about food advertising may be a worthy intervention strategy to reduce the impact of food marketing and the consumption of heavily advertised EDNP foods and drinks among adolescents.
Too poor for transplant: finance and insurance issues in transplant ethics.
Laurentine, Kyle Alexander; Bramstedt, Katrina A
2010-06-01
Donor organs are a scarce gift. Additionally, transplantation is very expensive and the United States lacks universal health insurance for all citizens. These facts combine to make personal finance and insurance some of the criteria for wait listing at US transplant centers. Previous research has shown that the poor and the uninsured (as well as women and nonwhites) are less likely to receive a transplant. Living donor candidates are also limited by the US insurance system. To determine the effect of finance and insurance variables on access to transplant and living donation. A qualitative descriptive study of ethics consultation data contained in a research registry approved by the institutional review board at California Pacific Medical Center. This study analyzes research registry data from a large community hospital in Northern California that serves patients from California, Oregon, and Nevada. The registry data are derived from transplant ethics consultations occurring between January 1, 2007, and June 30, 2009. This study explores the restriction of access to transplantation and of participation in living donation. More than a quarter of all transplant ethics consultation reports described the restriction of transplant-related treatment for reasons rooted in finance or insurance. Individuals on the recipient side and on the donor side were hindered with regard to access. Insurance status and personal ability to pay significantly affect access to transplantation in the United States, and this theme is a frequent feature of ethics consultations at California Pacific Medical Center.
Huang, Hsien-Liang; Cheng, Shao-Yi; Lee, Long-Teng; Yao, Chien-An; Chu, Chia-Wei; Lu, Chia-Wen; Chiu, Tai-Yuan; Huang, Kuo-Chin
2013-01-01
College freshmen living in dormitories are at increased risk for meningococcal disease. Many students become a high-risk population when they travel to the United States. This study surveyed the knowledge, attitudes toward, and behavior surrounding the disease among Taiwanese college students planning to study in the United States, and to identify factors that may affect willingness to accept meningococcal vaccination. A cross-sectional survey of college students going to study in the United States was conducted in a medical center-based travel medicine clinic. Background information, attitudes, general knowledge, preventive or postexposure management, and individual preventive practices were collected through a structured questionnaire. A total of 358 students were included in the final analysis. More than 90% of participants believed that preventing meningococcal disease was important. However, fewer than 50% of students accurately answered six of nine questions exploring knowledge of the disease, and only 17.3% of students knew the correct management strategy after close contact with patients. Logistic regression analysis showed that students who understood the mode of transmission (odds ratio: 3.21, 95% CI = 1.117-9.229), medication management (1.88, 1.045-3.38), and epidemiology (2.735, 1.478-5.061) tended to be vaccinated. Despite an overall positive attitude toward meningococcal vaccination, there was poor knowledge about meningococcal disease. Promoting education on the mode of transmission, epidemiology, and pharmacological management of the disease could increase vaccination rates. Both the governments and travel medicine specialists should work together on developing an education program for this high-risk group other than just requiring vaccination. © 2013 International Society of Travel Medicine.
Groenewald, Cornelius B; Rabbitts, Jennifer A; Gebert, J Thomas; Palermo, Tonya M
2016-05-01
Prescription opioid misuse is a major public health concern in the United States, yet little is known about national prescription patterns. We aimed to assess trends in opioid prescriptions made to children and adolescents, to their families, and to adults in the United States from 1996 to 2012. The sample was drawn from nationally representative data, the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys. We used survey design methods to examine trends in prescription opioid use over time and a logistic regression analysis to examine predictors associated with opioid use. Findings indicated that from 1996 to 2012 opioid prescriptions to children and adolescents remained stable and low. In 1996, 2.68% of children received an opioid prescription, and in 2012, 2.91% received an opioid prescription. In contrast, opioid prescriptions to family members of children and adolescents and adults in general significantly increased during this period. The most common opioid prescriptions to children and adolescents in 2012 were codeine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. Using multivariate logistic regression models, the white non-Hispanic race, older age, health insurance, and parent-reported fair to poor general health were associated with higher rates of opioid prescriptions in children and adolescents. Our main finding was that although the rates of opioid prescriptions have increased among adults in the United States, the rates have not changed among children and adolescents. Recent epidemiologic association studies have identified a strong link between increased opioid prescriptions and increased rates of opioid misuse and abuse in adults. Future studies should assess the association between adult opioid prescriptions and children or adolescent opioid misuse.
Goldstein, Daniel A; Clark, Jonathon; Tu, Yifan; Zhang, Jie; Fang, Fenqi; Goldstein, Robert; Stemmer, Salomon M; Rosenbaum, Eli
2017-09-22
There are major differences in cancer drug prices around the world. However, the patterns of affordability of these drugs are poorly understood. The objective of this study was to compare patterns of affordability of cancer drugs in Australia, China, India, Israel, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Cancer drug prices are highest in the United States. Cancer drugs are the least affordable in India by a large margin. Despite lower prices than in the USA, cancer drugs are less affordable in middle-income countries than in high-income countries. We obtained the prices of a basket of cancer drugs in all 7 countries, and converted the prices to US$ using both foreign exchange rates and purchasing power parity. We assessed international differences in wealth by collecting values for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in addition to average salaries. We compared patterns of affordability of cancer drugs by dividing the drug prices by the markers of wealth. Cancer drugs are less affordable in middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Differential pricing may be an acceptable policy to ensure global affordability and access to highly active anti-cancer therapies.
King, Matthew D; Buchanan, William D; Korter, Timothy M
2011-03-14
The effects of applying an empirical dispersion correction to solid-state density functional theory methods were evaluated in the simulation of the crystal structure and low-frequency (10 to 90 cm(-1)) terahertz spectrum of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, naproxen. The naproxen molecular crystal is bound largely by weak London force interactions, as well as by more prominent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, and thus serves as a good model for the assessment of the pair-wise dispersion correction term in systems influenced by intermolecular interactions of various strengths. Modifications to the dispersion parameters were tested in both fully optimized unit cell dimensions and those determined by X-ray crystallography, with subsequent simulations of the THz spectrum being performed. Use of the unmodified PBE density functional leads to an unrealistic expansion of the unit cell volume and the poor representation of the THz spectrum. Inclusion of a modified dispersion correction enabled a high-quality simulation of the THz spectrum and crystal structure of naproxen to be achieved without the need for artificially constraining the unit cell dimensions.
Dendritic brushes under theta and poor solvent conditions
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Gergidis, Leonidas N.; Kalogirou, Andreas; Charalambopoulos, Antonios; Vlahos, Costas
2013-07-01
The effects of solvent quality on the internal stratification of polymer brushes formed by dendron polymers up to third generation were studied by means of molecular dynamics simulations with Langevin thermostat. The distributions of polymer units, of the free ends, the radii of gyration, and the back folding probabilities of the dendritic spacers were studied at the macroscopic states of theta and poor solvent. For high grafting densities we observed a small decrease in the height of the brush as the solvent quality decreases. The internal stratification in theta solvent was similar to the one we found in good solvent, with two and in some cases three kinds of populations containing short dendrons with weakly extended spacers, intermediate-height dendrons, and tall dendrons with highly stretched spacers. The differences increase as the grafting density decreases and single dendron populations were evident in theta and poor solvent. In poor solvent at low grafting densities, solvent micelles, polymeric pinned lamellae, spherical and single chain collapsed micelles were observed. The scaling dependence of the height of the dendritic brush at high density brushes for both solvents was found to be in agreement with existing analytical results.
Poverty Dynamics and Academic Trajectories of Children of Immigrants
Zhang, Liwei
2017-01-01
Using Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 (ECLS-K), we investigated the relationship between poverty and academic trajectories for children in immigrant families in the United States. We used family socioeconomic status (SES) which considers parental education, parental occupation, and family income to define poverty in correspondence with the U.S. federal poverty threshold. Three dimensions of poverty were examined including depth (i.e., not-poor, near-poor, poor or extreme poor), stability (i.e., continuously or intermittently), and duration (i.e., for how many times in poverty). Our results indicated that living in poverty, particularly when it was extreme, volatile, and for long spell could compromise children’s reading and math achievements during the first nine schooling years. Children of immigrants were doing as well as, if not better than, children of native-borns in certain areas (i.e., math) or in facing of certain pattern of poverty (i.e., long-spell). However, deep poverty and volatile changes in family SES could compromise academic achievements for children of immigrants throughout their first nine years of schooling, a period holds important key to their future success. Implications to practice and policy as well as future directions were discussed. PMID:28926964
Poverty Dynamics and Academic Trajectories of Children of Immigrants.
Zhang, Liwei; Han, Wen-Jui
2017-09-16
Using Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K), we investigated the relationship between poverty and academic trajectories for children in immigrant families in the United States. We used family socioeconomic status (SES) which considers parental education, parental occupation, and family income to define poverty in correspondence with the U.S. federal poverty threshold. Three dimensions of poverty were examined including depth (i.e., not-poor, near-poor, poor or extreme poor), stability (i.e., continuously or intermittently), and duration (i.e., for how many times in poverty). Our results indicated that living in poverty, particularly when it was extreme, volatile, and for long spell could compromise children's reading and math achievements during the first nine schooling years. Children of immigrants were doing as well as, if not better than, children of native-borns in certain areas (i.e., math) or in facing of certain pattern of poverty (i.e., long-spell). However, deep poverty and volatile changes in family SES could compromise academic achievements for children of immigrants throughout their first nine years of schooling, a period holds important key to their future success. Implications to practice and policy as well as future directions were discussed.
Hall, Carina M; Busch, Joseph D; Shippy, Kenzie; Allender, Christopher J; Kaestli, Mirjam; Mayo, Mark; Sahl, Jason W; Schupp, James M; Colman, Rebecca E; Keim, Paul; Currie, Bart J; Wagner, David M
2015-01-01
The global distribution of the soil-dwelling bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, causative agent of melioidosis, is poorly understood. We used established culturing methods developed for B. pseudomallei to isolate Burkholderia species from soil collected at 18 sampling sites in three states in the southern United States (Arizona (n = 4), Florida (n = 7), and Louisiana (n = 7)). Using multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) of seven genes, we identified 35 Burkholderia isolates from these soil samples. All species belonged to the B. cepacia complex (Bcc), including B. cenocepacia, B. cepacia, B. contaminans, B. diffusa, B. metallica, B. seminalis, B. vietnamiensis and two unnamed members of the Bcc. The MLST analysis provided a high level of resolution among and within these species. Despite previous clinical cases within the U.S. involving B. pseudomallei and its close phylogenetic relatives, we did not isolate any of these taxa. The Bcc contains a number of opportunistic pathogens that cause infections in cystic fibrosis patients. Interestingly, we found that B. vietnamiensis was present in soil from all three states, suggesting it may be a common component in southern U.S. soils. Most of the Burkholderia isolates collected in this study were from Florida (30/35; 86%), which may be due to the combination of relatively moist, sandy, and acidic soils found there compared to the other two states. We also investigated one MLST gene, recA, for its ability to identify species within Burkholderia. A 365bp fragment of recA recovered nearly the same species-level identification as MLST, thus demonstrating its cost effective utility when conducting environmental surveys for Burkholderia. Although we did not find B. pseudomallei, our findings document that other diverse Burkholderia species are present in soils in the southern United States.
Hall, Carina M.; Busch, Joseph D.; Shippy, Kenzie; Allender, Christopher J.; Kaestli, Mirjam; Mayo, Mark; Sahl, Jason W.; Schupp, James M.; Colman, Rebecca E.; Keim, Paul; Currie, Bart J.; Wagner, David M.
2015-01-01
The global distribution of the soil-dwelling bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, causative agent of melioidosis, is poorly understood. We used established culturing methods developed for B. pseudomallei to isolate Burkholderia species from soil collected at 18 sampling sites in three states in the southern United States (Arizona (n = 4), Florida (n = 7), and Louisiana (n = 7)). Using multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) of seven genes, we identified 35 Burkholderia isolates from these soil samples. All species belonged to the B. cepacia complex (Bcc), including B. cenocepacia, B. cepacia, B. contaminans, B. diffusa, B. metallica, B. seminalis, B. vietnamiensis and two unnamed members of the Bcc. The MLST analysis provided a high level of resolution among and within these species. Despite previous clinical cases within the U.S. involving B. pseudomallei and its close phylogenetic relatives, we did not isolate any of these taxa. The Bcc contains a number of opportunistic pathogens that cause infections in cystic fibrosis patients. Interestingly, we found that B. vietnamiensis was present in soil from all three states, suggesting it may be a common component in southern U.S. soils. Most of the Burkholderia isolates collected in this study were from Florida (30/35; 86%), which may be due to the combination of relatively moist, sandy, and acidic soils found there compared to the other two states. We also investigated one MLST gene, recA, for its ability to identify species within Burkholderia. A 365bp fragment of recA recovered nearly the same species-level identification as MLST, thus demonstrating its cost effective utility when conducting environmental surveys for Burkholderia. Although we did not find B. pseudomallei, our findings document that other diverse Burkholderia species are present in soils in the southern United States. PMID:26600238
Griswold, Terry; Ikerd, Harold W; Orr, Michael Christopher
2018-01-01
Abstract Background The native bee fauna of Mississippi, USA has been historically poorly sampled, but is of particular relevance to determine range limits for species that occur in the southern United States. Currently published literature includes 184 species of bees that occur within the state of Mississippi. Additions to the list of native bees known for Mississippi are reported with notes on range, ecology and resources for identification. New information The geographic ranges of seven additional species are extended into the state of Mississippi: Andrena (Melandrena) obscuripennis Smith, 1853, Anthemurgus passiflorae Robertson, 1902, Dieunomia bolliana (Cockerell 1910), Diadasia (Diadasia) enavata (Cresson 1872), Peponapis crassidentata (Cockerell 1949), Triepeolus subnitens Cockerell and Timberlake, 1929 and Brachynomada nimia (Snelling and Rozen 1987). These records raise the total number of published species known from the state to 191. Anthemurgus and Brachynomada are also genera new to Mississippi. PMID:29853776
Parys, Katherine; Griswold, Terry; Ikerd, Harold W; Orr, Michael Christopher
2018-01-01
The native bee fauna of Mississippi, USA has been historically poorly sampled, but is of particular relevance to determine range limits for species that occur in the southern United States. Currently published literature includes 184 species of bees that occur within the state of Mississippi. Additions to the list of native bees known for Mississippi are reported with notes on range, ecology and resources for identification. The geographic ranges of seven additional species are extended into the state of Mississippi: Andrena (Melandrena) obscuripennis Smith, 1853, Anthemurgus passiflorae Robertson, 1902, Dieunomia bolliana (Cockerell 1910), Diadasia (Diadasia) enavata (Cresson 1872), Peponapis crassidentata (Cockerell 1949), Triepeolus subnitens Cockerell and Timberlake, 1929 and Brachynomada nimia (Snelling and Rozen 1987). These records raise the total number of published species known from the state to 191. Anthemurgus and Brachynomada are also genera new to Mississippi.
Left behind: widening disparities for males and females in US county life expectancy, 1985–2010
2013-01-01
Background The United States spends more than any other country on health care. The poor relative performance of the US compared to other high-income countries has attracted attention and raised questions about the performance of the US health system. An important dimension to poor national performance is the large disparities in life expectancy. Methods We applied a mixed effects Poisson statistical model and Gaussian Process Regression to estimate age-specific mortality rates for US counties from 1985 to 2010. We generated uncertainty distributions for life expectancy at each age using standard simulation methods. Results Female life expectancy in the United States increased from 78.0 years in 1985 to 80.9 years in 2010, while male life expectancy increased from 71.0 years in 1985 to 76.3 years in 2010. The gap between female and male life expectancy in the United States was 7.0 years in 1985, narrowing to 4.6 years in 2010. For males at the county level, the highest life expectancy steadily increased from 75.5 in 1985 to 81.7 in 2010, while the lowest life expectancy remained under 65. For females at the county level, the highest life expectancy increased from 81.1 to 85.0, and the lowest life expectancy remained around 73. For male life expectancy at the county level, there have been three phases in the evolution of inequality: a period of rising inequality from 1985 to 1993, a period of stable inequality from 1993 to 2002, and rising inequality from 2002 to 2010. For females, in contrast, inequality has steadily increased during the 25-year period. Compared to only 154 counties where male life expectancy remained stagnant or declined, 1,405 out of 3,143 counties (45%) have seen no significant change or a significant decline in female life expectancy from 1985 to 2010. In all time periods, the lowest county-level life expectancies are seen in the South, the Mississippi basin, West Virginia, Kentucky, and selected counties with large Native American populations. Conclusions The reduction in the number of counties where female life expectancy at birth is declining in the most recent period is welcome news. However, the widening disparities between counties and the slow rate of increase compared to other countries should be viewed as a call for action. An increased focus on factors affecting health outcomes, morbidity, and mortality such as socioeconomic factors, difficulty of access to and poor quality of health care, and behavioral, environmental, and metabolic risk factors is urgently required. PMID:23842281
Unit cohesion, traumatic exposure and mental health of military personnel.
Kanesarajah, J; Waller, M; Zheng, W Y; Dobson, A J
2016-06-01
The benefit of military unit cohesion to morale and psychological resilience is well established. But it remains unclear whether unit cohesion modifies the association between deployment-related traumatic exposure and mental health problems. To examine the association between unit cohesion, traumatic exposure and poor mental health [symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychological distress and alcohol dependency] and assess whether the relationship between traumatic exposure and poor mental health differs by level of unit cohesion. A self-reported cross-sectional survey of Australian military personnel deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan between 2001 and 2009. Among 11411 participants, those with low levels of unit cohesion had higher odds of PTSD symptoms [aOR (95% CI): 2.54 (1.88, 3.42)], very high psychological distress [aOR (95% CI): 4.28 (3.04, 6.02)] and a high level of alcohol problems [aOR (95% CI): 1.71 (1.32, 2.22)] compared with those reporting high unit cohesion on deployment. Higher exposure to traumatic events on deployment was associated with greater risk of PTSD symptoms, very high levels of psychological distress and high levels of alcohol problems in this cohort. However, there was no evidence of a statistically significant interaction between unit cohesion and traumatic exposures in influencing poor mental health. Our findings suggest that both unit cohesion and traumatic exposure are independently associated with poor mental health. Efforts to improve military unit cohesion may help to improve the mental health resilience of military personnel, regardless of their level of traumatic exposure. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Hosterman, John W.
1984-01-01
The Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain produces approximately 85 percent of the ball clay used in the United States. The best commercial-grade clay deposits are composed of poorly crystalline kaolinite and small amounts of Md illite and (or) smectite. Sand and silt and iron oxide minerals are virtually absent, but quartz is present in the clay-size fraction. The best grade ball clays are found as lenses limited to the Wilcox Group (Paleocene and lower Eocene) and Claiborne Group (middle Eocene). Reserves of ball clay are sufficient for the present, but because of the lenticular nature of the clay bodies, close-spaced drilling, detailed sampling, mineralogic analyses, and ceramic testing are needed to prove future reserves.Approximately 11 percent of the total bentonite produced in the United States comes from the Gulf Coast region. The commercial-grade bentonites are composed primarily of smectite with little or no Md illite and kaolinite. The nonclay impurities are quartz, feldspar, muscovite, biotite, calcite, dolomite, gypsum, and heulandite. Commercial bentonites occur in the Upper Cretaceous formations in Alabama and Mississippi, in Paleocene formations in Mississippi and Tennessee, and in Eocene and Miocene formations in Texas. The demand for low-swelling bentonite of the Gulf Coastal Plain has not increased along with the demand for swelling bentonite; therefore the reserves are adequate.