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Scientists, public servants, and patient advocates alike increasingly question the validity of published scientific results, endangering the public’s acceptance of science. Here, I argue that emerging flaws in the integrity of the peer review system are largely responsible. Distortions in peer review are driven by economic forces and enabled by a lack of accountability of journals, editors, and authors. One approach to restoring trust in the validity of published results may be to establish basic rules that render peer review more transparent, such as publishing the reviews (a practice already embraced by some journals) and monitoring not only the track records of authors but also of editors and journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1950s, the number of doctorate recipients has risen dramatically in the United States. In this paper, we investigate whether the longevity of doctorate recipients’ publication careers has changed. This is achieved by matching 1951–2010 doctorate recipients with rare names in astrophysics, chemistry, economics, genetics and psychology in the dissertation database ProQuest to their publications in the publication database Web of Science. Our study shows that pre-PhD publication careers have changed: the median year of first publication has shifted from after the PhD to several years before PhD in most of the studied fields. In contrast, post-PhD publication career spans have not changed much in most fields. The share of doctorate recipients who have published for more than twenty years has remained stable over time; the shares of doctorate recipients publishing for shorter periods also remained almost unchanged. Thus, though there have been changes in pre-PhD publication careers, post-PhD career spans remained quite stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Based on single cross-sectional data, prior research finds evidence of “transportation assimilation” among U.S. immigrants: the length of stay in the U.S. is negatively correlated with public transit use. This paper revisits this question by using repeated cross-sectional data, and examines the trend of transportation assimilation over time. Methods and results: Using 1980, 1990, 2000 1% census and 2010 (1%) American Community Survey, I examine the relationship between the length of stay in the U.S. and public transit ridership among immigrants. I first run regressions separately in four data sets: I regress public transit ridership on the length of stay, controlling for other individual and geographic variables. I then compare the magnitudes of the relationship in four regressions. To study how the rate of transportation assimilation changes over time, I pool the data set and regress public transit ridership on the length of stay and its interactions with year dummies to compare the coefficients across surveys. Results confirm the conclusion of transportation assimilation: as the length of stay in the U.S. increases, an immigrant’s public transit use decreases. However, the repeated cross-section analysis suggests the assimilation rate has been decreasing in the past few decades. Conclusions: This paper finds evidence of transportation assimilation: immigrants become less likely to ride public transit as the length of stay in the U.S. increases. The assimilation rate, however, has been decreasing over time. This paper finds that the rate of public transit ridership among new immigrants upon arrival, the geographic distribution of immigrants, and the changing demographics of the U.S. immigrants play roles in affecting the trend of transportation assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual design, learning sciences, and nanotechnology may be strange bedfellows; yet, as this paper highlights, peer interaction between a designer and a scientist is an effective method for helping scientists acquire visual design skills. We describe our findings from observing twelve sessions at the Design Help Desk, a tutoring center at the University of Washington. At each session, a scientist (who is expert in his own domain but a novice in design) consulted a designer (who is expert in design but a novice in science) in order to receive advice and guidance on how to improve a scientific visualization. At the Design Help Desk, this pairing consistently produced a momentary disequilibrium in the scientist’s thought process: a disequilibrium that led to agency (where the scientist gained ownership of his/her own learning) and conceptual change in the scientist’s understanding of visual design. Scientists who visited the Design Help Desk were satisfied with their experience, and their published work demonstrated an improved ability to visually communicate research findings—a skill critical to the advancement of science. To our knowledge, the Design Help Desk is a unique effort to educate scientists in visual design; we are not aware of any other design-advice/tutoring centers at public or private universities in the United States or abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While the high prevalence of preterm births and its impact on infant mortality in the US have been widely acknowledged, recent data suggest that even full-term births in the US face substantially higher mortality risks compared to European countries with low infant mortality rates. In this paper, we use the most recent birth records in the US to more closely analyze the primary causes underlying mortality rates among full-term births.Methods and Findings: Linked birth and death records for the period 2010-2012 were used to identify the state- and cause-specific burden of infant mortality among full-term infants (born at 37-42 weeks of gestation). Multivariable logistic models were used to assess the extent to which state-level differences in full-term infant mortality (FTIM) were attributable to observed differences in maternal and birth characteristics. Random effects models were used to assess the relative contribution of state-level variation to FTIM. Hypothetical mortality outcomes were computed under the assumption that all states could achieve the survival rates of the best-performing states. A total of 10,175,481 infants born full-term in the US between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2012, were analyzed. FTIM rate (FTIMR) was 2.2 per 1,000 live births overall, and ranged between 1.29 (Connecticut, 95% CI 1.08, 1.53) and 3.77 (Mississippi, 95% CI 3.39, 4.19) at the state level. Zero states reached the rates reported in the 6 low-mortality European countries analyzed (FTIMR < 1.25), and 13 states had FTIMR > 2.75. Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) accounted for 43% of FTIM; congenital malformations and perinatal conditions accounted for 31% and 11.3% of FTIM, respectively. The largest mortality differentials between states with good and states with poor FTIMR were found for SUDI, with particularly large risk differentials for deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (odds ratio [OR] 2.52, 95% CI 1.86, 3.42) and suffocation (OR 4.40, 95% CI 3.71, 5.21). Even though these mortality differences were partially explained by state-level differences in maternal education, race, and maternal health, substantial state-level variation in infant mortality remained in fully adjusted models (SIDS OR 1.45, suffocation OR 2.92). The extent to which these state differentials are due to differential antenatal care standards as well as differential access to health services could not be determined due to data limitations. Overall, our estimates suggest that infant mortality could be reduced by 4,003 deaths (95% CI 2,284, 5,587) annually if all states were to achieve the mortality levels of the best-performing state in each cause-of-death category. Key limitations of the analysis are that information on termination rates at the state level was not available, and that causes of deaths may have been coded differentially across states.Conclusions: More than 7,000 full-term infants die in the US each year. The results presented in this paper suggest that a substantial share of these deaths may be preventable. Potential improvements seem particularly large for SUDI, where very low rates have been achieved in a few states while average mortality rates remain high in most other areas. Given the high mortality burden due to SIDS and suffocation, policy efforts to promote compliance with recommended sleeping arrangements could be an effective first step in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There have been growing recommendations to include education in multi-disciplinary interventions targeting chronic pain management. However, effects of this strategy on short- and long-term self-management of chronic pain, remain largely unexplored. Objectives: 1. To provide an updated overview of studies that report on the impact of patient education in multi-disciplinary interventions, on self-management of chronic pain; 2. To explore associations between education and chronic pain self-management techniques; and 3. To identify the format and duration of suitable chronic pain interventions targeted at patient self-management. Methods: Design: Narrative systematic literature review of randomised or controlled study designs. Data Sources: PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO. Participants: Adult patients with chronic pain of any aetiology participating in multi-disciplinary programs that included education. Main outcome measures: Assessments of level of pain, function, quality of life, self-efficacy, self-management, and any other relevant assessments. Study Appraisal and Synthesis Methods: PRISMA guidelines, Cochrane Risk of Bias tool, and TIDieR model. Results: Database searching identified 485 potential papers. After removal of duplicates, and irrelevant articles by title and abstract, 120 full-text articles were reviewed and 27 studies were included in this systematic review. Studies were predominantly from the United States (n = 8; 29.6%). Over one hundred outcome measures were identified across all studies, with significant variation also observed in terms of how chronic pain duration was defined, and how education was delivered to participants. Overall, positive benefits of education were reported. Conclusions: Education, as part of multi-disciplinary programs, is likely to improve self-management and self-efficacy in people with chronic pain of any aetiology. Heterogeneity in terms of: chronic pain duration; educational resources; healthcare professionals; and outcome measures, were identified as limitations. Further research, in the form of Randomised Controlled Trials addressing these limitations, is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing critical global health issues, such as antimicrobial resistance, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters, requires strong coordination and management across sectors. The One Health approach is the integrative effort of multiple sectors working to attain optimal health for people, animals, and the environment, and is increasingly recognized by experts as a means to address complex challenges. However, practical application of the One Health approach has been challenging. The One Health Systems Mapping and Analysis Resource Toolkit (OH-SMART) introduced in this paper was designed using a multistage prototyping process to support systematic improvement in multi-sectoral coordination and collaboration to better address complex health concerns through an operational, stepwise, and practical One Health approach. To date, OH-SMART has been used to strengthen One Health systems in 17 countries and has been deployed to revise emergency response frameworks, improve antimicrobial resistance national action plans and create multi agency infectious disease collaboration protocols. OH-SMART has proven to be user friendly, robust, and capable of fostering multi-sectoral collaboration and complex system-wide problem solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People in different subgroups age at different rates. Surveys containing biomarkers can be used to assess these subgroup differences. We illustrate this using hand-grip strength to produce an easily interpretable, physical-based measure that allows us to compare characteristic-based ages across educational subgroups in the United States. Hand-grip strength has been shown to be a good predictor of future mortality and morbidity, and therefore a useful indicator of population aging. Data from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) were used. Two education subgroups were distinguished, those with less than a high school diploma and those with more education. Regressions on hand-grip strength were run for each sex and race using age and education, their interactions and other covariates as independent variables. Ages of identical mean hand-grip strength across education groups were compared for people in the age range 60 to 80. The hand-grip strength of 65 year old white males with less education was the equivalent to that of 69.6 (68.2, 70.9) year old white men with more education, indicating that the more educated men had aged more slowly. This is a constant characteristic age, as defined in the Sanderson and Scherbov article “The characteristics approach to the measurement of population aging” published 2013 in Population and Development Review. Sixty-five year old white females with less education had the same average hand-grip strength as 69.4 (68.2, 70.7) year old white women with more education. African-American women at ages 60 and 65 with more education also aged more slowly than their less educated counterparts. African American men with more education aged at about the same rate as those with less education. This paper expands the toolkit of those interested in population aging by showing how survey data can be used to measure the differential extent of aging across subpopulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calculates the distribution of an adjusted measure of income that deducts damages due to exposure to air pollution from reported market income in the United States from 2011 to 2014. The Gini coefficient for this measure of adjusted income is 0.682 in 2011, as compared to 0.482 for market income. By 2014, we estimate that the Gini for adjusted income fell to 0.646, while the market income Gini did not appreciably change. The inclusion of air pollution damage acts like a regressive tax: with air pollution, the bottom 20% of households lose roughly 10% of the share of income, while the top 20% of households gain 10%. We find that, unlike the case for market income, New England is not the most unequal division with respect to adjusted income. Further, the difference between adjusted income for white and Hispanics is smaller than expected. However, the gap in augmented income between whites and African-Americans is widening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding trends in the diverse resources provided by large rivers will help balance tradeoffs among stakeholders and inform strategies to mitigate the effects of landscape scale stressors such as climate change and invasive species. Absent a cohesive coordinated effort to assess trends in important large river resources, a logical starting point is to assess our ability to draw inferences from existing efforts. In this paper, we use a common analytical framework to analyze data from five disparate fish monitoring programs to better understand the nature of spatial and temporal trends in large river fish assemblages. We evaluated data from programs that monitor fishes in the Colorado, Columbia, Illinois, Mississippi, and Tallapoosa rivers using non-metric dimensional scaling ordinations and associated tests to evaluate trends in fish assemblage structure and native fish biodiversity. Our results indicate that fish assemblages exhibited significant spatial and temporal trends in all five of the rivers. We also document native species diversity trends that were variable within and between rivers and generally more evident in rivers with higher species richness and programs of longer duration. We discuss shared and basin-specific landscape level stressors. Having a basic understanding of the nature and extent of trends in fish assemblages is a necessary first step towards understanding factors affecting biodiversity and fisheries in large rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fish consumption in Mexico is considered low (around 12 kg per person per year) and non-homogeneously distributed across the country. One of the reasons for this situation is the scarcity of wholesale selling sites. In this context, the Mercado del Mar (MM), located in Guadalajara city, Jalisco, is the second biggest wholesale fish market in Mexico, with a distribution of about 500 tons per day and a variety of about 350 different species of fish. In this paper, we argue that MM has accumulated social capital, which is formed from two main resources: buyer and seller relationships, and reputation. Specifically, the MM manages a broad and intensive interaction among business actors and the already achieved reputation allows the MM to adapt to market changes. To validate our hypotheses, an empirical study was conducted in 2015 by means of interviews to fish wholesalers in the MM and a sample of their suppliers and buyers. For simplicity we have only considered fresh water fish. We have followed snow-ball sampling as the survey strategy. Results show that the MM has responded to fish market dynamics organizing a complex network of buyers and suppliers whose relationships can be explained in the form of strong and weak ties. At the same time, reputation has been the central resource to build this social capital and also gives place to market transactions. Additionally, the strategic position of Guadalajara city and the well-connected routes have facilitated fish bulking and distribution in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social functions of urbanized areas are highly dependent on and supported by the convenient access to public transportation systems, particularly for the less privileged populations who have restrained auto ownership. To accurately evaluate the public transit accessibility, it is critical to capture the spatiotemporal variation of transit services. This can be achieved by measuring the shortest paths or minimum travel time between origin-destination (OD) pairs at each time-of-day (e.g. every minute). In recent years, General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data has been gaining popularity for between-station travel time estimation due to its interoperability in spatiotemporal analytics. Many software packages, such as ArcGIS, have developed toolbox to enable the travel time estimation with GTFS. They perform reasonably well in calculating travel time between OD pairs for a specific time-of-day (e.g. 8:00 AM), yet can become computational inefficient and unpractical with the increase of data dimensions (e.g. all times-of-day and large network). In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm that is computationally elegant and mathematically efficient to address this issue. An open-source toolbox written in C++ is developed to implement the algorithm. We implemented the algorithm on City of St. George’s transit network to showcase the accessibility analysis enabled by the toolbox. The experimental evidence shows significant reduction on computational time. The proposed algorithm and toolbox presented is easily transferable to other transit networks to allow transit agencies and researchers perform high resolution transit performance analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper forecasts the 2016 canine Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence in the United States from eight climate, geographic and societal factors. The forecast’s construction and an assessment of its performance are described. The forecast is based on a spatial-temporal conditional autoregressive model fitted to over 11 million Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence test results for dogs conducted in the 48 contiguous United States during 2011–2015. The forecast uses county-level data on eight predictive factors, including annual temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, county elevation, forestation coverage, surface water coverage, population density and median household income. Non-static factors are extrapolated into the forthcoming year with various statistical methods. The fitted model and factor extrapolations are used to estimate next year’s regional prevalence. The correlation between the observed and model-estimated county-by-county Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence for the five-year period 2011–2015 is 0.902, demonstrating reasonable model accuracy. The weighted correlation (accounting for different sample sizes) between 2015 observed and forecasted county-by-county Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence is 0.987, exhibiting that the proposed approach can be used to accurately forecast Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence. The forecast presented herein can a priori alert veterinarians to areas expected to see Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence beyond the accepted endemic range. The proposed methods may prove useful for forecasting other diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Heroin use in the United States has reached epidemic proportions. The objective of this paper is to estimate the annual societal cost of heroin use disorder in the United States in 2015 US dollars. Methods: An analytic model was created that included incarceration and crime; treatment for heroin use disorder; chronic infectious diseases (HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and Tuberculosis) and their treatments; treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome; lost productivity; and death by heroin overdose. Results: Using literature-based estimates to populate the model, the cost of heroin use disorder was estimated to be $51.2 billion in 2015 US dollars ($50,799 per heroin user). One-way sensitivity analyses showed that overall cost estimates were sensitive to the number of heroin users, cost of HCV treatment, and cost of incarcerating heroin users. Conclusion: The annual cost of heroin use disorder to society in the United States emphasizes the need for sustained investment in healthcare and non-healthcare related strategies that reduce the likelihood of abuse and provide care and support for users to overcome the disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many US biomedical PhD programs receive more applications for admissions than they can accept each year, necessitating a selective admissions process. Typical selection criteria include standardized test scores, undergraduate grade point average, letters of recommendation, a resume and/or personal statement highlighting relevant research or professional experience, and feedback from interviews with training faculty. Admissions decisions are often founded on assumptions that these application components correlate with research success in graduate school, but these assumptions have not been rigorously tested. We sought to determine if any application components were predictive of student productivity measured by first-author student publications and time to degree completion. We collected productivity metrics for graduate students who entered the umbrella first-year biomedical PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008–2010 and analyzed components of their admissions applications. We found no correlations of test scores, grades, amount of previous research experience, or faculty interview ratings with high or low productivity among those applicants who were admitted and chose to matriculate at UNC. In contrast, ratings from recommendation letter writers were significantly stronger for students who published multiple first-author papers in graduate school than for those who published no first-author papers during the same timeframe. We conclude that the most commonly used standardized test (the general GRE) is a particularly ineffective predictive tool, but that qualitative assessments by previous mentors are more likely to identify students who will succeed in biomedical graduate research. Based on these results, we conclude that admissions committees should avoid over-reliance on any single component of the application and de-emphasize metrics that are minimally predictive of student productivity. We recommend continual tracking of desired training outcomes combined with retrospective analysis of admissions practices to guide both application requirements and holistic application review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to estimate peer influence in video gaming time among adolescents. Using a nationally representative sample of the U.S. school-aged adolescents in 2009–2010, we estimate a structural model that accounts for the potential biases in the estimate of the peer effect. Our peer group is exogenously assigned and includes one year older adolescents in the same school grade as the respondent. The peer measure is based on peers’ own reports of video gaming time. We find that an additional one hour of playing video games per week by older grade-mates results in .47 hours increase in video gaming time by male responders. We do not find significant peer effect among female responders. Effective policies aimed at influencing the time that adolescents spend video gaming should take these findings into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common policy approach to reducing childhood obesity aims to shape the environment in which children spend most of their time: neighborhoods and schools. This paper uses richly detailed data on the body mass index (BMI) of all New York City public school students in grades K-8 to assess the potential for place-based approaches to reduce child obesity. We document variation in the prevalence of obesity across NYC public schools and census tracts, and then estimate the extent to which this variation can be explained by differences in individual-level predictors (such as race and household income). Both unadjusted and adjusted variability across neighborhoods and schools suggest place-based policies have the potential to meaningfully reduce child obesity, but under most realistic scenarios the improvement would be modest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Reductions in smoking in Arizona and California have been shown to be associated with reduced per capita healthcare expenditures in these states compared to control populations in the rest of the US. This paper extends that analysis to all states and estimates changes in healthcare expenditure attributable to changes in aggregate measures of smoking behavior in all states.Methods and Findings: State per capita healthcare expenditure is modeled as a function of current smoking prevalence, mean cigarette consumption per smoker, other demographic and economic factors, and cross-sectional time trends using a fixed effects panel data regression on annual time series data for each the 50 states and the District of Columbia for the years 1992 through 2009. We found that 1% relative reductions in current smoking prevalence and mean packs smoked per current smoker are associated with 0.118% (standard error [SE] 0.0259%, p < 0.001) and 0.108% (SE 0.0253%, p < 0.001) reductions in per capita healthcare expenditure (elasticities). The results of this study are subject to the limitations of analysis of aggregate observational data, particularly that a study of this nature that uses aggregate data and a relatively small sample size cannot, by itself, establish a causal connection between smoking behavior and healthcare costs. Historical regional variations in smoking behavior (including those due to the effects of state tobacco control programs, smoking restrictions, and differences in taxation) are associated with substantial differences in per capita healthcare expenditures across the United States. Those regions (and the states in them) that have lower smoking have substantially lower medical costs. Likewise, those that have higher smoking have higher medical costs. Sensitivity analysis confirmed that these results are robust.Conclusions: Changes in healthcare expenditure appear quickly after changes in smoking behavior. A 10% relative drop in smoking in every state is predicted to be followed by an expected $63 billion reduction (in 2012 US dollars) in healthcare expenditure the next year. State and national policies that reduce smoking should be part of short term healthcare cost containment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The “fetal origins” hypothesis suggests that fetal conditions not only affect birth characteristics such as birth weight and gestational age, but also have lifelong health implications. Despite widespread interest in this hypothesis, few methodological advances have been proposed to improve the measurement and modeling of fetal conditions. A Statistics in Medicine paper by Bollen, Noble, and Adair examined favorable fetal growth conditions (FFGC) as a latent variable. Their study of Filipino children from Cebu provided evidence consistent with treating FFGC as a latent variable that largely mediates the effects of mother’s characteristics on birth weight, birth length, and gestational age. This innovative method may have widespread utility, but only if the model applies equally well across diverse settings. Our study assesses whether the FFGC model of Cebu replicates and generalizes to a very different population of children from North Carolina (N = 705) and Pennsylvania (N = 494). Using a series of structural equation models, we find that key features of the Cebu analysis replicate and generalize while we also highlight differences between these studies. Our results support treating fetal conditions as a latent variable when researchers test the fetal origins hypothesis. In addition to contributing to the substantive literature on measuring fetal conditions, we also discuss the meaning and challenges involved in replicating prior research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV incidence estimates are used to monitor HIV-1 infection in the United States. Use of laboratory biomarkers that distinguish recent from longstanding infection to quantify HIV incidence rely on having accurate knowledge of the average time that individuals spend in a transient state of recent infection between seroconversion and reaching a specified biomarker cutoff value. This paper describes five estimation procedures from two general statistical approaches, a survival time approach and an approach that fits binomial models of the probability of being classified as recently infected, as a function of time since seroconversion. We compare these procedures for estimating the mean duration of recent infection (MDRI) for two biomarkers used by the U.S. National HIV Surveillance System for determination of HIV incidence, the Aware BED EIA HIV-1 incidence test (BED) and the avidity-based, modified Bio-Rad HIV-1/HIV-2 plus O ELISA (BRAI) assay. Collectively, 953 specimens from 220 HIV-1 subtype B seroconverters, taken from 5 cohorts, were tested with a biomarker assay. Estimates of MDRI using the non-parametric survival approach were 198.4 days (SD 13.0) for BED and 239.6 days (SD 13.9) for BRAI using cutoff values of 0.8 normalized optical density and 30%, respectively. The probability of remaining in the recent state as a function of time since seroconversion, based upon this revised statistical approach, can be applied in the calculation of annual incidence in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies with a focus on the interrelationships among health information seeking behavior (HISB), and health status or use of preventive health measures for U.S. adults both with and without a high school diploma. Key results of ordinal and binary logistic regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for demographic factors, (1) adults with a high school diploma use more text-based health information sources while adults without a high school diploma use more oral sources, (2) using the Internet as a source of health information is more strongly related to reporting excellent/very good health status than having a high school diploma, (3) those without a high school diploma who use the Internet report the largest increase in health status over any other health information source, and (4) for those with learning disability or vision problem, a high facility in reading English is an important predictor of whether the Internet is used as a health information source. The Internet appears to play a key role in both enhancing health status and enabling use of preventive measures for those with and without a high school diploma; although, individuals without a high school diploma who use the Internet for health information derive substantial benefit in health status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey in the United States revealed that an alarmingly large percentage of university psychologists admitted having used questionable research practices that can contaminate the research literature with false positive and biased findings. We conducted a replication of this study among Italian research psychologists to investigate whether these findings generalize to other countries. All the original materials were translated into Italian, and members of the Italian Association of Psychology were invited to participate via an online survey. The percentages of Italian psychologists who admitted to having used ten questionable research practices were similar to the results obtained in the United States although there were small but significant differences in self-admission rates for some QRPs. Nearly all researchers (88%) admitted using at least one of the practices, and researchers generally considered a practice possibly defensible if they admitted using it, but Italian researchers were much less likely than US researchers to consider a practice defensible. Participants’ estimates of the percentage of researchers who have used these practices were greater than the self-admission rates, and participants estimated that researchers would be unlikely to admit it. In written responses, participants argued that some of these practices are not questionable and they have used some practices because reviewers and journals demand it. The similarity of results obtained in the United States, this study, and a related study conducted in Germany suggest that adoption of these practices is an international phenomenon and is likely due to systemic features of the international research and publication processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas past wolf management in the United States was restricted to recovery, managers must now contend with publicly contentious post-recovery issues including regulated hunting seasons. Understanding stakeholder concerns associated with hunting can inform stakeholder engagement, communication, and policy development and evaluation. Social identity theory (SIT) has been used to understand how groups interact, why they conflict, and how collaboration may be achieved. Applying SIT to stakeholder conflicts about wolf hunting may help delineate groups according to their concern about, support for or opposition to the policy choice of hunting wolves. Our objective was to assess concerns about hunting as a tool to resolve conflict in Michigan, using SIT as a framework. We used a mixed-modal sampling approach (e.g., paper, Internet) with wolf hunting-related public meeting participants in March 2013. Survey questions focused on 12 concerns previously identified as associated with hunting as a management tool to resolve conflict. Respondents (n  =  666) cared greatly about wolves but were divided over hunting wolves. Wolf conflicts, use of science in policy decisions, and maintaining a wolf population were the highest ranked concerns. Principle components analysis reduced concerns into three factors that explained 50.7% of total variance; concerns crystallized over justifications for hunting. General linear models revealed a lack of geographic influence on care, fear and support for hunting related to wolves. These findings challenge assumptions about regional differences and suggest a strong role for social identity in driving dichotomized public perceptions in wildlife management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti (L.) and Ae. (Stegomyia) albopictus (Skuse) mosquitoes can transmit dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika viruses. Limited surveillance has led to uncertainty regarding the geographic ranges of these vectors globally, and particularly in regions at the present-day margins of habitat suitability such as the contiguous United States. Empirical habitat suitability models based on environmental conditions can augment surveillance gaps to describe the estimated potential species ranges, but model accuracy is unclear. We identified previously published regional and global habitat suitability models for Ae. aegypti (n = 6) and Ae. albopictus (n = 8) for which adequate information was available to reproduce the models for the contiguous U.S. Using a training subset of recently updated county-level surveillance records of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus and records of counties conducting surveillance, we constructed accuracy-weighted, probabilistic ensemble models from these base models. To assess accuracy and uncertainty we compared individual and ensemble model predictions of species presence or absence to both training and testing data. The ensemble models were among the most accurate and also provided calibrated probabilities of presence for each species. The quantitative probabilistic framework enabled identification of areas with high uncertainty and model bias across the U.S. where improved models or additional data could be most beneficial. The results may be of immediate utility for counties considering surveillance and control programs for Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus. Moreover, the assessment framework can drive future efforts to provide validated quantitative estimates to support these programs at local, national, and international scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is strong epidemiological evidence that poor diet is associated with depression. The reverse has also been shown, namely that eating a healthy diet rich in fruit, vegetables, fish and lean meat, is associated with reduced risk of depression. To date, only one randomised controlled trial (RCT) has been conducted with elevated depression symptoms being an inclusion criterion, with results showing that a diet intervention can reduce clinical levels of depression. No such RCTs have been performed in young adults. Young adults with elevated levels of depression symptoms and who habitually consume a poor diet were randomly allocated to a brief 3-week diet intervention (Diet Group) or a habitual diet control group (Control Group). The primary and secondary outcome measures assessed at baseline and after the intervention included symptoms of depression (Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale; CESD-R; and Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale– 21 depression subscale; DASS-21-D), current mood (Profile of Mood States), self-efficacy (New General Self-Efficacy Scale) and memory (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test). Diet compliance was measured via self-report questionnaires and spectrophotometry. One-hundred-and-one individuals were enrolled in the study and randomly assigned to the Diet Group or the Control Group. Upon completion of the study, there was complete data for 38 individuals in each group. There was good compliance with the diet intervention recommendations assessed using self-report and spectrophotometry. The Diet group had significantly lower self-reported depression symptoms than the Control Group on the CESD-R (p = 0.007, Cohen’s d = 0.65) and DASS-21 depression subscale (p = 0.002, Cohen’s d = 0.75) controlling for baseline scores on these scales. Reduced DASS-21 depression subscale scores were maintained on follow up phone call 3 months later (p = .009). These results are the first to show that young adults with elevated depression symptoms can engage in and adhere to a diet intervention, and that this can reduce symptoms of depression. The findings provide justification for future research into the duration of these benefits, the impacts of varying diet composition, and their biological basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aim to determine whether a game-theoretic model between an insurer and a healthcare practice yields a predictive equilibrium that incentivizes either player to deviate from a fee-for-service to capitation payment system. Using United States data from various primary care surveys, we find that non-extreme equilibria (i.e., shares of patients, or shares of patient visits, seen under a fee-for-service payment system) can be derived from a Stackelberg game if insurers award a non-linear bonus to practices based on performance. Overall, both insurers and practices can be incentivized to embrace capitation payments somewhat, but potentially at the expense of practice performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to contribute to conservation planning efforts for golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in the western U.S., we developed nest site models using >6,500 nest site locations throughout a >3,483,000 km2 area of the western U.S. We developed models for twelve discrete modeling regions, and estimated relative density of nest sites for each region. Cross-validation showed that, in general, models accurately estimated relative nest site densities within regions and sub-regions. Areas estimated to have the highest densities of breeding golden eagles had from 132–2,660 times greater densities compared to the lowest density areas. Observed nest site densities were very similar to those reported from published studies. Large extents of each modeling region consisted of low predicted nest site density, while a small percentage of each modeling region contained disproportionately high nest site density. For example, we estimated that areas with relative nest density values <0.3 represented from 62.8–97.8% ( = 82.5%) of each modeling area, and those areas contained from 14.7–30.0% ( = 22.1%) of the nest sites. In contrast, areas with relative nest density values >0.5 represented from 1.0–12.8% ( = 6.3%) of modeling areas, and those areas contained from 47.7–66.9% ( = 57.3%) of the nest sites. Our findings have direct application to: 1) large-scale conservation planning efforts, 2) risk analyses for land-use proposals such as recreational trails or wind power development, and 3) identifying mitigation areas to offset the impacts of human disturbance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coordinates a labor-intensive process to measure the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among children in the United States. Random forests methods have shown promise in speeding up this process, but they lag behind human classification accuracy by about 5%. We explore whether more recently available document classification algorithms can close this gap. Materials and methods: Using data gathered from a single surveillance site, we applied 8 supervised learning algorithms to predict whether children meet the case definition for ASD based solely on the words in their evaluations. We compared the algorithms’ performance across 10 random train-test splits of the data, using classification accuracy, F1 score, and number of positive calls to evaluate their potential use for surveillance. Results: Across the 10 train-test cycles, the random forest and support vector machine with Naive Bayes features (NB-SVM) each achieved slightly more than 87% mean accuracy. The NB-SVM produced significantly more false negatives than false positives (P = 0.027), but the random forest did not, making its prevalence estimates very close to the true prevalence in the data. The best-performing neural network performed similarly to the random forest on both measures. Discussion: The random forest performed as well as more recently available models like the NB-SVM and the neural network, and it also produced good prevalence estimates. NB-SVM may not be a good candidate for use in a fully-automated surveillance workflow due to increased false negatives. More sophisticated algorithms, like hierarchical convolutional neural networks, may not be feasible to train due to characteristics of the data. Current algorithms might perform better if the data are abstracted and processed differently and if they take into account information about the children in addition to their evaluations. Conclusion: Deep learning models performed similarly to traditional machine learning methods at predicting the clinician-assigned case status for CDC’s autism surveillance system. While deep learning methods had limited benefit in this task, they may have applications in other surveillance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Drug abuse and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), remain significant public health concerns in the United States. Youth are at disproportionate risk of drug use and STIs/HIV, yet interventions aimed at improving STI and HIV testing and reducing STI/HIV risk behaviors through technology-based engagement in clinic settings are limited. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility and acceptability of Storytelling 4 Empowerment (S4E), a multilevel mobile-health drug abuse and STI/HIV preventive application (app) for clinic settings. We also explored uptake of STI/HIV testing among youth immediately post-intervention. Method: Employing community-based participatory research principles and a multi-method research design, we developed a clinician-facing app, and examined the feasibility and acceptability of S4E among clinicians (n = 6) and youth (n = 20) in an urban youth-centered community health clinic. S4E aimed to improve clinician–youth risk communication and youths’ drug use and STI/HIV knowledge, self-efficacy, and refusal skills. We also explored youths’ uptake of STI and HIV testing. Quantitative data were analyzed by computing mean scores and proportions, and qualitative analyses followed the tenets of content analysis. Results: Among eligible participants, 86.9% of youth and 85.7% of clinicians enrolled in the study, suggesting the feasibility of recruiting participants from the targeted clinic. Most clinicians identified as non-Hispanic white (83%) and female (66.7%). Among the youth, 70% identified as non-Hispanic white, followed by 30% African American, and 50% identified as female with a mean age of 19.6 (SD = 1.5, Range = 16–21). The quantitative findings suggest that the acceptability of S4E is high, as indicated by the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (mean score = 25.2, SD: 4.8). Immediately post-intervention, all youth who reported past 90-day condomless sex or having never been tested for STIs or HIV in their lifetime, were tested for both STIs and HIV. Qualitative themes revealed four overarching themes, including S4E: (1) faciliated timely, targeted, and tailored prevention and risk reduction strategies; (2) shaped clinician and youth communication and interaction during the clinic visit; (3) may have improved uptake of STI/HIV testing and increased STI/HIV knowledge and self-efficacy; and (4) had high feasibiliy and acceptability among youth and clninicans. Conclusions: Findings suggest the feasibility and acceptability of S4E in an urban community-based health clinic setting. A next important step is to examine the efficacy of S4E in a randomized controlled trial design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although kidney transplant improves reproductive function in women with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), pregnancy in kidney transplant recipients’ remains challenging due to the risk of adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Methods: We evaluated a retrospective cohort of 7,966 women who were aged 15–45 years and received a kidney transplant between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2011 from the United States Renal Data System with Medicare as the primary payer for the entire three years after the date of transplantation. Unadjusted and adjusted rates of pregnancy in the first three post-transplant years were calculated, using Poisson regression for the adjustment. Factors associated with pregnancy, including race, were examined using logistic regression. Results: Overall, 293 pregnancies were identified in 7966 women. The unadjusted pregnancy rate was 13.8 per thousand person-years (PTPY) (95% confidence interval (CI), 12.3–15.5). Pregnancy rates were roughly constant in the years 2005–2011 except in 2005 and 2010. The rate of pregnancy was highest in Hispanic women (21.4 PTPY; 95% CI, 17.2–26.4) and Hispanic women had a higher likelihood of pregnancy as compared to white women (OR, 1.56; CI, 1.12–2.16). Pregnancy rates were lowest in women aged 30–34 years and 35–45 years at transplant, and women aged 30–34 years and 35–45 years at transplant were less likely to ever become pregnant during the follow-up (odds ratio [OR], 0.69; CI, 0.49–0.98 and OR, 0.14; CI 0.09–0.21 respectively) as compared to women aged 25–29 years at time of transplant. Women had higher rates of pregnancy in the second and third-year post-transplant (16.0 PTPY, CI 13.2–19.2 and 16.9 PTPY, CI 14.0–20.4) than in the first-year post-transplant (9.0 PTPY, CI 7.0–11.4). In transplant recipients, pregnancy was more likely in women with ESKD due to cystic disease (OR, 2.42; CI, 1.02–5.74) or glomerulonephritis (OR, 2.14; CI, 1.07–4.31) as compared to women with ESKD due to diabetes. Conclusion: Hispanic race, younger age, and ESKD cause due to cystic disease or glomerulonephritis are significant factors associated with a higher likelihood of pregnancy. Pregnancy rates have been fairly constant over the last decade. This study improves our understanding of factors associated with pregnancy in kidney transplant recipients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies from the social and health sciences have tended to view the household as the locus of access to and distribution of care, resources, monitoring and modeling for children’s wellbeing. Obesity may present a special case for the study of investments in children, being a component of health for which more of certain inputs may not lead to better outcomes. We expanded on common measures of household structure in the child health literature by considering co-residence and relatedness of parents, grandparents, other relatives, and other children. Data were from a longitudinal sample of 6,700 children participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K), the largest U.S. national dataset with measures of child anthropometrics and household structure at seven time-points over nine years. We used lagged survey-adjusted regressions to estimate associations between household structure and subsequent changes in children’s weight between ages 5 and 14 years in terms of BMI gain and incident obesity. Adjusting for household structure more thoroughly, children living in households with two parents rather than one parent did not experience advantages in terms of less excess weight gain or lower incidence of obesity during elementary and middle school. Children living with a grandmother gained more weight than children not living with a grandmother. Living with siblings and with non-related adults was associated with less weight gain. These findings corroborate a scenario in which, for health problems associated with caloric surplus, classic household factors have more complex associations with child wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Medical Monitoring Project (MMP) is an HIV surveillance system that provides national estimates of HIV-related behaviors and clinical outcomes. When first implemented, MMP excluded persons living with HIV not receiving HIV care. This analysis will describe new case-surveillance-based methods to identify and recruit persons living with HIV who are out of care and at elevated risk for mortality and ongoing HIV transmission. Stratified random samples of all persons living with HIV were selected from the National HIV Surveillance System in five public health jurisdictions from 2012–2014. Sampled persons were located and contacted through seven different data sources and five methods of contact to collect interviews and medical record abstractions. Data were weighted for non-response and case reporting delay. The modified sampling methodology yielded 1159 interviews (adjusted response rate, 44.5%) and matching medical record abstractions for 1087 (93.8%). Of persons with both interview and medical record data, 264 (24.3%) would not have been included using prior MMP methods. Significant predictors were identified for successful contact (e.g., retention in care, adjusted Odds Ratio [aOR] 5.02; 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.98–12.73), interview (e.g. moving out of jurisdiction, aOR 0.24; 95% CI: 0.12–0.46) and case reporting delay (e.g. rural residence, aOR 3.18; 95% CI: 2.09–4.85). Case-surveillance-based sampling resulted in a comparable response rate to existing MMP methods while providing information on an important new population. These methods have since been adopted by the nationally representative MMP surveillance system, offering a model for public health program, research and surveillance endeavors seeking inclusion of all persons living with HIV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Downscaled climate projections need to be linked to downscaled projections of population and economic growth to fully develop implications for land, natural resources, and ecosystems for future scenarios. We develop an empirical spatiotemporal approach for jointly projecting population and income at the county scale in the United States that is consistent with neoclassical economic growth theory and overlapping labor markets and that accounts for labor migration and spatial spillovers. Downscaled projections generated for the five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways used to support global scenario analysis generally show growth focused around relatively few centers especially in the southeast and western regions, with some areas in the Midwest and northeast experiencing population declines. Results are consistent with economic growth theory and with historical trends in population change and convergence of per capita personal income across US counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the U.S., and Latina women represent the largest portion of minority births, having the highest birth rate in the U.S. for over 20 years. In addition, Latina women are at increased risk of entering pregnancy being overweight or having obesity and gaining excess gestational weight. Excess gestational weight gain (GWG) has short- and long-term adverse health outcomes for the woman and her child. Although culturally tailored interventions show promise toward promoting healthy GWG among Latina women, findings from current interventions have had mixed results, suggesting the need for further tailoring to meet the needs of this heterogeneous population group. This qualitative study was designed to explore first-time pregnant, low-income Latina women’s beliefs, attitudes, and experiences with GWG. The study employed qualitative research using semi-structured interviews conducted with 23 first-time pregnant Latina women between 22 and 36 weeks of gestation. Interviews were conducted by trained bilingual staff, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results showed that participants were uncertain if their GWG was within a healthy range. Although the majority of participants knew that GWG should be limited, they were not sure what the amount should be. In addition, the majority of participants reported attitudes of acceptance of and resignation to excessive GWG as being part of pregnancy. Several women appeared to believe that they did not have control over their weight gain during pregnancy. Moreover, analysis identified that sociocultural and interpersonal factors such as social support influence the beliefs, attitudes, and experiences with GWG of the low-income, majority immigrant Latina women who participated in this study. Study findings can be used to further tailor prenatal care practices and interventions aimed at altering modifiable risk factors associated with excess GWG among Latinas. Future interventions designed for low-income, immigrant Latina women that consider sociocultural influences on women’s beliefs and attitudes related to GWG, as well as the influence of social support networks on women’s health behaviors during pregnancy, will likely be more effective in preventing excessive GWG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Exposure to fine particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) is hazardous to health. Our aim was to directly estimate the health and longevity impacts of current PM2.5 concentrations and the benefits of reductions from 1999 to 2015, nationally and at county level, for the entire contemporary population of the contiguous United States.Methods and Findings: We used vital registration and population data with information on sex, age, cause of death, and county of residence. We used four Bayesian spatiotemporal models, with different adjustments for other determinants of mortality, to directly estimate mortality and life expectancy loss due to current PM2.5 pollution and the benefits of reductions since 1999, nationally and by county. The covariates included in the adjusted models were per capita income; percentage of population whose family income is below the poverty threshold, who are of Black or African American race, who have graduated from high school, who live in urban areas, and who are unemployed; cumulative smoking; and mean temperature and relative humidity. In the main model, which adjusted for these covariates and for unobserved county characteristics through the use of county-specific random intercepts, PM2.5 pollution in excess of the lowest observed concentration (2.8 μg/m3) was responsible for an estimated 15,612 deaths (95% credible interval 13,248-17,945) in females and 14,757 deaths (12,617-16,919) in males. These deaths would lower national life expectancy by an estimated 0.15 years (0.13-0.17) for women and 0.13 years (0.11-0.15) for men. The life expectancy loss due to PM2.5 was largest around Los Angeles and in some southern states such as Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama. At any PM2.5 concentration, life expectancy loss was, on average, larger in counties with lower income and higher poverty rate than in wealthier counties. Reductions in PM2.5 since 1999 have lowered mortality in all but 14 counties where PM2.5 increased slightly. The main limitation of our study, similar to other observational studies, is that it is not guaranteed for the observed associations to be causal. We did not have annual county-level data on other important determinants of mortality, such as healthcare access and quality and diet, but these factors were adjusted for with use of county-specific random intercepts.Conclusions: According to our estimates, recent reductions in particulate matter pollution in the USA have resulted in public health benefits. Nonetheless, we estimate that current concentrations are associated with mortality impacts and loss of life expectancy, with larger impacts in counties with lower income and higher poverty rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In the United States, gonadectomy is common and widely promoted as a component of responsible pet ownership. The recent publication of several studies examining the effect of gonadectomy on future health has challenged long-held assumptions and recommendations for gonadectomy in companion animals. The purpose of this study was to characterize the associations between gonadectomy and two outcomes: overweight/obesity and orthopedic injuries, in a large prospective study of Golden Retrievers. Methods: Age at gonadectomy was divided into four categories: intact (reference), ≤ 6 months, > 6 months ‒ ≤ 12 months, and > 12 months. Dogs with a Purina Body Condition Score of 7 or greater were classified as overweight or obese. Orthopedic injuries considered were the first instance of veterinary-reported cranial cruciate ligament injury and clinically evident osteoarthritis. We performed survival analyses on a cohort of Golden Retrievers to estimate the associations of interest using proportional hazards. We adjusted for age at study enrollment, owner-reported activity level, and dog’s sex. Results: Compared to intact dogs, all gonadectomy age categories showed increased risk for the development of overweight/obesity. (≤ 6 months, HR: 1.81, 95% CI: 1.36–2.40), p-value: <0.0001; 6 months to ≤ 12 months, HR: 2.21, 95% CI: 1.77–2.73, p-value: < 0.0001; > 12 months, HR: 1.56, 95% CI: 1.24–1.96, p-value: 0.0001). Compared to intact dogs, dogs who were ≤ 6 months at gonadectomy had increased risk for orthopedic injury (HR: 4.06, 95% CI: 2.15–7.67, p-value: <0.00001). Discussion: This study presents prospectively acquired data demonstrating that gonadectomy is a risk factor for both overweight/obesity and chronic non-traumatic orthopedic injuries in a prospective cohort of Golden Retrievers. Our data suggest that gonadectomy at any age is a risk factor for overweight or obesity, but delaying gonadectomy until dogs are at least 6–12 months of age may help to decrease the risk for orthopedic injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representation of women in science drops substantially at each career stage, from early student to senior investigator. Disparities in opportunities for women to contribute to research metrics, such as distinguished speaker events and authorship, have been reported in many fields in the U.S.A. and Europe. However, whether female representation in scientific contributions differs in other regions, such as Latin America, is not well understood. In this study, in order to determine whether female authorship is influenced by gender or institutional location of the last (senior) author or by subfield within ecology, we gathered author information from 6849 articles in ten ecological and zoological journals that publish research articles either in or out of Latin America. We found that female authorship has risen marginally since 2002 (27 to 31%), and varies among Latin American countries, but not between Latin America and other regions. Last author gender predicted female co-authorship across all journals and regions, as research groups led by women published with over 60% female co-authors whereas those led by men published with less than 20% female co-authors. Our findings suggest that implicit biases and stereotype threats that women face in male-led laboratories could be sources of female withdrawal and leaky pipelines in ecology and zoology. Accordingly, we encourage every PI to self-evaluate their lifetime percentage of female co-authors. Female role models and cultural shifts–especially by male senior authors–are crucial for female retention and unbiased participation in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: College affirmative action programs seek to expand socioeconomic opportunities for underrepresented minorities. Between 1996 and 2013, 9 US states-including California, Texas, and Michigan-banned race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Because economic opportunity is known to motivate health behavior, banning affirmative action policies may have important adverse spillover effects on health risk behaviors. We used a quasi-experimental research design to evaluate the association between college affirmative action bans and health risk behaviors among underrepresented minority (Black, Hispanic, and Native American) adolescents.Methods and Findings: We conducted a difference-in-differences analysis using data from the 1991-2015 US national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). We compared changes in self-reported cigarette smoking and alcohol use in the 30 days prior to survey among underrepresented minority 11th and 12th graders in states implementing college affirmative action bans (Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington) versus outcomes among those residing in states not implementing bans (n = 35 control states). We also assessed whether underrepresented minority adults surveyed in the 1992-2015 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS) who were exposed to affirmative action bans during their late high school years continued to smoke cigarettes between the ages of 19 and 30 years. Models adjusted for individual demographic characteristics, state and year fixed effects, and state-specific secular trends. In the YRBS (n = 34,988 to 36,268, depending on the outcome), cigarette smoking in the past 30 days among underrepresented minority 11th-12th graders increased by 3.8 percentage points after exposure to an affirmative action ban (95% CI: 2.0, 5.7; p < 0.001). In addition, there were also apparent increases in past-30-day alcohol use, by 5.9 percentage points (95% CI: 0.3, 12.2; p = 0.041), and past-30-day binge drinking, by 3.5 percentage points (95% CI: -0.1, 7.2, p = 0.058), among underrepresented minority 11th-12th graders, though in both cases adjustment for multiple comparisons resulted in failure to reject the null hypothesis (adjusted p = 0.083 for both outcomes). Underrepresented minority adults in the TUS-CPS (n = 71,575) exposed to bans during their late high school years were also 1.8 percentage points more likely to report current smoking (95% CI: 0.1, 3.6; p = 0.037). Event study analyses revealed a discrete break for all health behaviors timed with policy discussion and implementation. No substantive or statistically significant effects were found for non-Hispanic White adolescents, and the findings were robust to a number of additional specification checks. The limitations of the study include the continued potential for residual confounding from unmeasured time-varying factors and the potential for recall bias due to the self-reported nature of the health risk behavior outcomes.Conclusions: In this study, we found evidence that some health risk behaviors increased among underrepresented minority adolescents after exposure to state-level college affirmative action bans. These findings suggest that social policies that shift socioeconomic opportunities could have meaningful population health consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioinformatics has become an indispensable part of life science over the past 2 decades. However, bioinformatics education is not well integrated at the undergraduate level, especially in liberal arts colleges and regional universities in the United States. One significant obstacle pointed out by the Network for Integrating Bioinformatics into Life Sciences Education is the lack of faculty in the bioinformatics area. Most current life science professors did not acquire bioinformatics analysis skills during their own training. Consequently, a great number of undergraduate and graduate students do not get the chance to learn bioinformatics or computational biology skills within a structured curriculum during their education. To address this gap, we developed a module-based, week-long short course to train small college and regional university professors with essential bioinformatics skills. The bioinformatics modules were built to be adapted by the professor-trainees afterward and used in their own classes. All the course materials can be accessed at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As emerging and re-emerging infectious arboviruses like dengue, chikungunya, and Zika threaten new populations worldwide, officials scramble to assess local severity and transmissibility, with little to no epidemiological history to draw upon. Indirect estimates of risk from vector habitat suitability maps are prone to great uncertainty, while direct estimates from epidemiological data are only possible after cases accumulate and, given environmental constraints on arbovirus transmission, cannot be widely generalized beyond the focal region. Combining these complementary methods, we use disease importation and transmission data to improve the accuracy and precision of a priori ecological risk estimates. We demonstrate this approach by estimating the spatiotemporal risks of Zika virus transmission throughout Texas, a high-risk region in the southern United States. Our estimates are, on average, 80% lower than published ecological estimates—with only six of 254 Texas counties deemed capable of sustaining a Zika epidemic—and they are consistent with the number of autochthonous cases detected in 2017. Importantly our method provides a framework for model comparison, as our mechanistic understanding of arbovirus transmission continues to improve. Real-time updating of prior risk estimates as importations and outbreaks arise can thereby provide critical, early insight into local transmission risks as emerging arboviruses expand their global reach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since January 1, 2017, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has fully implemented the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) final rule aimed at facilitating the judicious use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals. The objective of this study was to identify the common perceptions of Tennessee (TN) cattle producers regarding the VFD. We used a combination of focus groups and survey questionnaires to explore TN cattle producers’ perceptions regarding the VFD. Preliminary findings from seven focus groups of 62 producers were used in the development of the questionnaire sent both online and in-print to rest of cattle producers in TN. The beef focus group participants perceived the VFD: to be a top-down policy; to have led to unregulated access to in-feed antimicrobials; a regulation that has limited the producers’ ability to prevent disease and leading to economic losses; to negatively affect small producers; and to be affected by challenges related to prescription writing and disposal of un-used medicines. The dairy focus group participants perceived the VFD as unnecessary and burdensome, to have affected small producers, and introduced additional costs. Among the survey questionnaire respondents, 35 (15.4%) beef producers and 6 (13.6%) dairy producers respectively were not familiar at all with the VFD. Forty-eight (21.1%) beef producers and 11 (25%) dairy producers were slightly familiar with VFD. Gender was significantly associated (P = 0.02) with the beef producers’ belief in the usefulness of the VFD. Similarly, for dairy producers, herd size was significantly associated (P = 0.002) with their perceptions regarding the usefulness of the VFD. The findings of this study could inform future VFD policy review processes. More awareness regarding the VFD and its benefits is needed among both beef and dairy producers in TN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Reviews of violence against children in disaster settings focus on armed conflict. Little is understood about natural disasters which has implications in planning humanitarian response. We examined the magnitude and direction of the association between exposure to natural disasters and physical, emotional, and sexual violence against children, and assessed the quality of the evidence. Methods: We searched 15 health and social science databases from first record until May 16, 2018. Publications describing all types of quantitative study design were eligible for inclusion. We presented study characteristics and quality in a narrative form and generated pooled estimates using a three-level random effects model. We evaluated Cochrane’s Q with p-values below 0.10 and radial plots to assess heterogeneity. Planned subgroup analyses explored differential results by violence form, study design, and analysis method. Results: 11 publications met inclusion criteria. The majority were cross-sectional studies examining physical or sexual violence in the United States. We found no evidence of a consistent association or directional influence between natural disasters and violence against children. Combined categorical violence outcomes had substantial heterogeneity [Q (df = 66) = 252.83, p < 0.001]. Subgroups without evidence of heterogeneity had confidence intervals that included a possible null effect. Our findings were mainly limited by inconsistencies in operational definitions of violence, a lack of representative sampling, and unclear establishment of temporal order between natural disaster exposure and violence outcomes. Conclusions: Based on the available evidence, we cannot confidently conclude that natural disasters increase the level or severity of violence against children above non-disaster settings, however heterogeneity and study quality hamper our ability to draw firm conclusions. More nuanced and rigorous research is needed to inform practice and policy as natural disasters increasingly affect human populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fat talk and citizen science: Fat talk is a spontaneous verbal interaction in which interlocutors make self-disparaging comments about the body, usually as a request for assessment. Fat talk often reflects concerns about the self that stem from broader sociocultural factors. It is therefore an important target for sociocultural linguistics. However, real-time studies of fat talk are uncommon due to the resource and time burdens required to capture these fleeting utterances. This limits the scope of data produced using standard sociolinguistic methods. Citizen science may alleviate these burdens by producing a scale of social observation not afforded via traditional methods. Here we present a proof-of-concept for a novel methodology, citizen sociolinguistics. This research approach involves collaborations with citizen researchers to capture forms of conversational data that are typically inaccessible, including fat talk. Aims and outcomes: This study had two primary aims. Aim 1 focused on scientific output, testing a novel research strategy wherein citizen sociolinguists captured fat talk data in a diverse metropolitan region (Southwestern United States). Results confirm that citizen sociolinguistic research teams captured forms of fat talk that mirrored the scripted responses previously reported. However, they also capture unique forms of fat talk, likely due to greater diversity in sample and sampling environments. Aim 2 focused on the method itself via reflective exercises shared by the citizen sociolinguists throughout the project. In addition to confirming that the citizen sociolinguistic method produces reliable, scientifically valid data, we contend that citizen sociolinguist inclusion has broader scientific benefits which include applied scientific training, fostering sustained relationships between professional researchers and the public, and producing novel, meaningful scientific output that advances professional discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cross-cultural study of the relationship among the subsistence strategies, the environmental setting and the food sharing practices of 22 modern small-scale societies located in America (n = 18) and Siberia (n = 4). Ecological, geographical and economic variables of these societies were extracted from specialized literature and the publicly available D-PLACE database. The approach proposed comprises a variety of quantitative methods, ranging from exploratory techniques aimed at capturing relationships of any type between variables, to network theory and supervised-learning predictive modelling. Results provided by all techniques consistently show that the differences observed in food sharing practices across the sampled populations cannot be explained just by the differential distribution of ecological, geographical and economic variables. Food sharing has to be interpreted as a more complex cultural phenomenon, whose variation over time and space cannot be ascribed only to local adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercial captive breeding and trade in body parts of threatened wild carnivores is an issue of significant concern to conservation scientists and policy-makers. Following a 2016 decision by Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, South Africa must establish an annual export quota for lion skeletons from captive sources, such that threats to wild lions are mitigated. As input to the quota-setting process, South Africa’s Scientific Authority initiated interdisciplinary collaborative research on the captive lion industry and its potential links to wild lion conservation. A National Captive Lion Survey was conducted as one of the inputs to this research; the survey was launched in August 2017 and completed in May 2018. The structured semi-quantitative questionnaire elicited 117 usable responses, representing a substantial proportion of the industry. The survey results clearly illustrate the impact of a USA suspension on trophy imports from captive-bred South African lions, which affected 82% of respondents and economically destabilised the industry. Respondents are adapting in various ways, with many euthanizing lions and becoming increasingly reliant on income from skeleton export sales. With rising consumer demand for lion body parts, notably skulls, the export quota presents a further challenge to the industry, regulators and conservationists alike, with 52% of respondents indicating they would adapt by seeking ‘alternative markets’ for lion bones if the export quota allocation restricted their business. Recognizing that trade policy toward large carnivores represents a ‘wicked problem’, we anticipate that these results will inform future deliberations, which must nonetheless also be informed by challenging inclusive engagements with all relevant stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maximum entropy model, a commonly used species distribution model (SDM) normally combines observations of the species occurrence with environmental information to predict the geographic distributions of animal or plant species. However, it only produces point estimates for the probability of species existence. To understand the uncertainty of the point estimates, we analytically derived the variance of the outputs of the maximum entropy model from the variance of the input. We applied the analytic method to obtain the standard deviation of dengue importation probability and Aedes aegypti suitability. Dengue occurrence data and Aedes aegypti mosquito abundance data, combined with demographic and environmental data, were applied to obtain point estimates and the corresponding variance. To address the issue of not having the true distributions for comparison, we compared and contrasted the performance of the analytical expression with the bootstrap method and Poisson point process model which proved of equivalence of maximum entropy model with the assumption of independent point locations. Both Dengue importation probability and Aedes aegypti mosquito suitability examples show that the methods generate comparatively the same results and the analytic method we introduced is dramatically faster than the bootstrap method and directly apply to maximum entropy model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both academic and popular literatures have repeatedly contended that emerging adults are the most narcissistic and entitled age-group in modern times. Although this contention is fiercely debated, the message that emerging adults are narcissistic and entitled has saturated popular culture. Despite this saturation, relatively little empirical work has examined how emerging adults might react to such labels. Across three studies in five samples in the U.S., the present work sought to address this deficit in research. Results from cross-sectional samples of university students at two universities, as well as an online convenience sample of web-using adults (Study 1), indicated that emerging adults believe their age-group and the one following them (e.g., adolescents) to be the most narcissistic and entitled age-groups, that they have generally negative opinions of narcissism and entitlement, and that they respond negatively to being labeled as narcissistic and entitled. Additionally, results from adult web-users revealed that, while all age groups tend to view adolescents and emerging adults as more narcissistic and entitled than older age-groups, these opinions are more exaggerated among members of older age-groups. Finally, across two experimental studies (Studies 2 & 3), results indicated that emerging adults react negatively to labeling of their age-group as narcissistic and entitled, but no more negatively than they do to potentially related undesirable labels (e.g., oversensitive). Collectively, these results indicate that emerging adults are aware of and somewhat distressed by messaging that casts their age-group as the most narcissistic and entitled age-group ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Background: Infections caused by extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) producing Gram-negative bacteria has emerge as a global threat in clinical practices. The treat is more serious in developing countries due to inappropriate use, poor adherence, use of counterfeit, sub-standard antibiotics and poor infection control practices. Data on ESBL producing Gram-negative bacteria are limited in developing countries including Ethiopia. The aim of this study was therefore, to describe the burden of ESBL producing Gram negative pathogens isolated from patients attending at Felege Hiwot Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Bahir Dar, Amhara region. Materials and methods: A total of 532 clinical samples of blood, urine, stool, wound, abscess, ear discharge, nasal discharge, cervical discharge and body fluid specimens were aseptically collected and bacteriologically processed. Identification of the bacterial species was performed using an automated system (Vitek-2 Compact 27530, USA) and antibiotic susceptibility test was determined by disk diffusion method and selection of antibiotics were in accordance with CLSI guidelines. The MDR pattern of the Gram-negative pathogens was assessed using phenotypic methods of ESBL and carbapenemase production following standard procedure. Result: A total of 532 samples were processed and 263 pathogens were isolated. Of these, 185 (70.3%) were Gram-negative and 78 (29.7%) Gram-positive. Of the Gram-negative bacteria the high proportion of the isolates were identified from blood 146/185 (78.9%) and 29/185 (15.7%) were from urine cultures. The most common isolate in all clinical samples was Klebsiella pneumoniae 97/185 (52.4%) followed by Escherichia coli 23/185 (12.4%), Acinetobacter baumannii 15/185 (17.6%) and Enterobacter aerogenes 12/185(6.5%). Of the total Gram negatives, the prevalence of MDR was 148/185 (80.0%). Of the MDR isolates the prevalence of ESBL producers were, 127/148 (85.8%) and 24/148 (16.2%) were carbapenemase producers. Conclusion and recommendation: Prevalence of MDR and ESBL producing Gram-negative pathogens in this hospital is alarmingly high. Therefore, continuous monitoring of the problem with effective infection prevention and careful selection of empirical therapy are warranted in the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Racial/ethnic disparities in rates of influenza vaccinations in the US remain an issue even among those with access, no out-of-pocket costs, and after adjusting for confounders. We used an approach called the Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) decomposition method to ascertain the contribution of covariates individually and in aggregate to the racial disparity in influenza vaccination. Methods: We included members > = 18 years of age as of 05/01/2014 with continuous enrollment through 04/30/2015. Influenza vaccination was defined by diagnosis, procedure, or medication codes, or documentation in the immunization table. Characteristics were reported by race. Logistic regression models estimated the odds of vaccination associated with: (1) race; and (2) covariates stratified by race. The Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) method calculated the contribution of covariates to the difference or disparity in vaccination between Blacks and Whites. Results: We found that among adults, 44% were vaccinated; 55% were Black; and 45% were White. Black members have 42% lower odds of vaccination than White members. The contribution of the differences in the average value of the study covariates between Black and White members (the OB covariate effect) accounted for 29% of the racial disparity. The contributions to the total White-Black disparity in vaccination included: age (16%), neighborhood median income (11%), and registration on the online patient portal (13%). The contribution of the differences in how the covariates impact vaccination (OB coefficient effect) accounted for 71% of the disparity in vaccination between Blacks and Whites. Conclusion: In conclusion, equalizing average covariate values in Blacks and Whites could reduce the racial disparity in influenza vaccination by 29%. For health system vaccine campaigns, improving registration on the patient portal may be a target component of an effective system-level strategy to reduce racial disparities in vaccination. Additional information on patient-centered factors could further improve the value of the OB approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]