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Summary: Background: Community initiatives to promote physical activity in children are common, but evidence supporting their effectiveness is limited. Objectives: The objective of this study is to examine the relationships between community programmes and policies and children's physical activity in a large and diverse sample of US communities. Methods: Programmes and policies to promote children's physical activity were assessed in 130 communities by key informant interviews, and physical activity behaviours were measured by self‐report and parental report in samples of children in each community (total n = 5138). Associations between composite indices of community programmes and policies and indicators of total and moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity were examined without and with adjustment for demographic factors. Results: An index reflecting the 6‐year history of the number of behaviour change strategies used in community programmes and policies was positively associated with children's moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity. This association was attenuated with adjustment for demographic factors. Effect modification analyses found that the association was positive among non‐Hispanic children but was negative for Hispanic children. Conclusions: Community initiatives to promote physical activity in children were positively associated with children's physical activity in non‐Hispanic children. Such initiatives were negatively associated with physical activity in Hispanic children, suggesting that future research should consider unique cultural factors when designing community initiatives to promote activity in this population sub‐group. What is already known about this subject? Most children and youth in the USA do not meet current physical activity guidelines.Children's physical activity levels vary across gender and race/ethnicity groups, and they also vary across school and community groups.Previous community interventions to increase children's physical activity have yielded modest and inconsistent outcomes. What this study adds? An index that is reflective of community programmes and policies aimed at increasing physical activity was found to be positively related to children's physical activity but only in non‐Hispanic children.This study shows that community initiatives to promote children's physical activity operate inconsistently across ethnicity groups.Research is needed to identify community programmes and policies that positively influence physical activity in Hispanic children. This article is part of the supplement: The Healthy Communities Study: Examining Community Programs, Policies and Other Characteristics in Relation to Child Weight, Diet, and Physical Activity [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the United States, there are significant health inequities in perinatal care. This study examined differences in perinatal care provided to women based on the birthing person's designated race, within a large and diverse cohort of women., Methods: This retrospective electronic medical record review identified patients receiving perinatal care within a large hospital system between January 2012 and September 2018 and examined associations between maternal designated race/ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic [NH] Black, Asian or White) and various provider treatment decisions., Results: The study sample (N = 7056) was comprised of 36% Hispanic, 34% NH White, 21% NH Black, and 4% NH Asian women, aged 29.7 ± 6.3 years; 53% of the sample had private insurance, and 45% had Medicaid. Few differences by race were seen in perinatal care based on guidelines or expert recommendations (nondiscretionary care). Discretionary care, however, varied by race: Compared with NH White women, NH Black women were less likely to receive a prenatal depression screen (OR 0.8 [95% CI: 0.7, 0.9]) and more likely to have a urine drug test when denying drug use (OR 1.6 [95% CI 1.3, 2.0]), whereas Hispanic (OR 0.6 [95% CI: 0.5, 0.8]) and NH Asian (0.4 [95% CI 0.2, 0.9]) women were less likely to have a urine drug test completed when denying drug use., Discussion: Perinatal care differs by maternal race/ethnicity, particularly when guidelines or expert recommendations are absent. Greater efforts need to be made to identify and mitigate providers' implicit and explicit biases; expanded professional guidelines may offer some protections against inequitable, discretionary care., (© 2023 The Authors. Birth published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: In the United States, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the healthiest lunch option for students, yet participation is suboptimal and fruit and vegetable waste remains high. Improving school meal convenience, engaging teachers in the school-lunch program, and enhancing the cafeteria environment are promising strategies to improve participation and dietary intake, yet little evidence is available on their impact., Methods/design: The Multi-Pronged Intervention to Increase Secondary Student Participation in School Lunch (MPI) is a 3-year quasi-experimental study in a large urban school district in California. A total of 24 middle and high schools participated in the study: half received the intervention and half served as controls. The intervention consisted of additional school lunch points of sale (vending machines and mobile carts), a school meal outreach program for teachers, and cafeteria redesigns. School meal participation, student-reported fruit and vegetable consumption, and school lunch plate waste were assessed at baseline and in years 1 and 2 of the intervention. Change in meal participation and fruit and vegetable consumption were compared between intervention and control arms to determine the impact of the intervention on school meal participation and dietary intake., Discussion: This study is positioned to provide evidence on the feasibility and efficacy of a multi-level intervention to increase school meal participation and consumption of fruits and vegetables., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Following the recent use of a live vaccine against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) in Denmark, both American (vaccine) and European-type PRRSV now coexist in Danish herds. This situation highlighted a requirement for supplementary tests for precise virus-typing. As a result, we developed a RT-PCR assay able to detect as well as type PRRSV. To provide maximal sequence information, complete viral open reading frames (ORFs 5 and 7) were targeted for amplification. The RT-PCR test was able to amplify complete PRRSV ORFs from complex materials such as boar semen containing as little as 1 TCID50 ml(-1) of PRRSV. Typing of viruses was accomplished by any one of three strategies: (i) use of type-specific PCR primers, (ii) size determination of ORF 7 amplicons, (iii) DNA sequencing. All three typing strategies showed complete concordance with the currently used method of typing with monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) when used on a panel of PRRSV field isolates covering the period 1992-1997. The ORF 7-based test had particularly desirable characteristics, namely, highly sensitive detection of PRRSV without apparent type bias, typing of the detected virus, discrimination between pure and mixed virus populations, and semi-quantitative assessment of type ratios in mixed populations, all in a single PCR reaction. In addition, the obtained sequence data were used to predict two simple and rapid strategies (single-enzyme restriction length polymorphy analysis and oligonucleotide hybridization) for confirmation of the specificity of ORF 7 RT-PCR reactions. As such, the RT-PCR assay provides a new, powerful diagnostic tool to study the population dynamics between present and emerging PRRSV-types.

Effect of sometribove (methionyl bovine somatotropin) on mastitis in 15 full lactation trials (914 cows) in Europe and the US and 70 short-term studies (2697 cows) in eight countries was investigated. In full lactation studies, sometribove (500 mg/2 wk) was given for 252 d, commencing 60 d postpartum. Although herds varied considerably, incidence of clinical mastitis within a herd was similar for cows receiving control and sometribove treatments. Relative risk analyses indicated no treatment effect, and percentage of mastitis during treatment was similar for control and sometribove groups. A positive linear relationship existed between peak milk yield and mastitis incidence (percentage of cows contracting mastitis or cases per 100 cow days); sometribove treatment did not alter this relationship. Increases in mastitis related to milk yield increase from sometribove or related to genetic selection were similar. When expressed per unit of milk, mastitis incidence declined slightly as milk yield increased; this relationship was not altered by sometribove. No effect on clinical mastitis was observed in 70 commercial herds utilizing sometribove for 84 d. However, effects were significant for stage of lactation and milk yield. Overall, studies represented a wide range of research and commercial situations demonstrating that sometribove had no effect on incidence of clinical mastitis during the lactation of treatment. Furthermore, sometribove did not alter typical relationships between milk yield or herd factors and incidence of clinical mastitis.