Search

A growing body of literature suggests that post-secondary students experience food insecurity (FI) at greater rates than the general population. However, these rates vary dramatically across institutions and studies. FI assessment methods commonly used in studies with college students have not been scrutinized for psychometric properties, and varying protocols may influence resulting FI prevalence estimates. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of standard food security assessment protocols and to evaluate their agreement as well as the relative accuracy of these protocols in identifying student FI. A randomized sample of 4,000 undergraduate students were invited to participate in an online survey (Qualtrics, LLC, Provo, Utah, USA) that evaluated sociodemographic characteristics and FI with the 2-item food sufficiency screener and the 10-item USDA Adult Food Security Survey Module (FSSM; containing the abbreviated 6-item module). Four hundred sixty-two eligible responses were included in the final sample. The psychometric analysis revealed inconsistencies in college student response patterns on the FSSM when compared to national evaluations. Agreement between FI protocols was generally high (>90%) but was lessened when compared with a protocol that incorporated the 2-item screener. The 10-item FSSM with the 2-item screener had the best model fit (McFadden's R2 = 0.15 and Bayesian Information Criterion = -2049.72) and emerged as the tool providing the greatest relative accuracy for identifying students with FI. Though the 10-item FSSM and 2-item screener yields the most accuracy in this sample, it is unknown why students respond to FSSM items differently than the general population. Further qualitative and quantitative evaluations are needed to determine which assessment protocol is the most valid and reliable for use in accurately identifying FI in post-secondary students across the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trial objective was to compare the performance and animal health parameters of pigs raised according to one of 3 antibiotic (AB) protocols: standard AB medication consisting of mass treatment on days 4 and 21 and judicious AB therapy given therapeutically thereafter as group medication in water and feed or by individual injection (group T1, N = 702); modified AB medication identical to group T1 but with mass treatment only on day 4 and without subsequent therapeutic feed medication (group T2, N = 675); or an antibiotic-free (ABF) regimen (group T3, N = 702). All pigs were vaccinated with a modified-live porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) vaccine 3 days after weaning. Using a seeder pig model to mimic endemic field infection dynamics, pigs were contact-challenged with virulent PRRSV lineage 1 strain 174 four weeks after vaccination. At finishing, average daily gain (ADG) and mean feed conversion ratio (FCR) were significantly better (p ≤ 0.05) for the T1 and T2 groups compared to the T3 group. There were no significant differences in post-weaning ADG and FCR between the T1 and T2 groups. Mortality and removals significantly favored (p ≤0.05) the T1 and T2 groups (20.94% and 24.89%, respectively) versus the T3 group (57.98%). Net revenue per pig was $105.43, $98.79, and $33.81 for the T1, T2 and T3 groups, respectively. Under the conditions of this study, these results indicate that in a PRRSV-endemic setting involving bacterial co-infections, an ABF production strategy may leave pigs at considerable risk of exposure to severe clinical disease and that judicious use of antibiotics can significantly improve animal health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]