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Young Black men who have sex with men (MSM) living with HIV evidence the lowest rates of linkage to care and viral suppression of all US MSM. Kentucky, identified by the US Department of Health and Human Services as a "hot spot" state with elevated HIV incidence compared to the rest of the country, exhibits similar racialized outcomes. Structural, interpersonal, and individual drivers of engagement along the HIV care continuum among people living with HIV have been identified, primarily through quantitative designs. However, the mechanisms by which these factors shape HIV care engagement, and the ways they may combine or reinforce each other, as well as from the lived experience of young Black MSM living with HIV, have been studied to a lesser extent. In this study, a purposive sample of n = 29 HIV-positive young Black MSM (age M = 25 years old; 38% retained in care) residing in Kentucky participated in in-depth interviews. Factors that were most influential on engagement varied along the continuum, with health insurance status and knowledge of HIV being relatively more influential to diagnosis, and housing stability, psychological processes, and interpersonal relationships being more influential on retention. For some participants, barriers to care at multiple levels had a mutually influencing and intensifying impact on care engagement. Additional efforts to center the voices of young Black MSM living with HIV will help illuminate acceptable and sustainable interventions for increasing their care engagement and narrowing persistent racial disparities in HIV morbidity and mortality.

As of April 2021, nine states and the District of Columbia had enacted state-specific paid family leave (PFL) programs, offering partial wage replacement to parents after the birth of a child. The Biden Administration also proposed the development of a national solution through the American Families Plan. Despite these advances, concerns with workforce disruptions and economic costs have hindered wider adoption of PFL. While studies have documented the potential health benefits of PFL for women and babies, less is known about the mechanisms that lead to PFL potentially impacting women's mental health. This mixed-methods study is based on focus groups with over 100 women in four states with operating programs and a secondary analysis of Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) data. It presents evidence of how PFL may facilitate longer leave that possibly leads to improved mental health outcomes by providing more time at home. It also demonstrates that PFL may directly support mental health by providing women with increased financial security and work/life boundaries. Implications of PFL design features on access and shortcomings are also discussed. These results aim to inform national or additional state-level PFL programs that may benefit working women, their families, and their employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional learning experiences (PLEs) provide teachers with opportunities to improve their understanding of mathematics content and teaching practices. However, PLEs are often conducted in person and in small groups--hence costly and localized. The purpose of the current study was to explore different ways for teachers to engage in PLEs and how these approaches might enable the field to scale up these efforts in a sustainable manner. We compared the impact of three PLE formats on the early algebra knowledge and teaching practices of elementary mathematics teachers: (1) a facilitated summer workshop, (2) a multimedia course completed on teachers' own time, and (3) learning resources provided in the algebra curriculum unit that teachers used individually. Our findings suggest that all three formats can be mapped against a set of principles for quality professional learning. Analysis of pre- and post-treatment measures indicate that participating teachers' knowledge of algebra content and best practices significantly increased, regardless of the PLE format with which they engaged. Interviews with a subset of the teachers from the three groups point to the key features of each of the formats that can be capitalized on by designers of PLEs.

Captive breeding programs are widely applied by conservation practitioners as a means of conserving, reintroducing, and supplementing populations of imperilled freshwater fishes and mussels. We conducted a systematic map to provide an overview of the existing literature on the effectiveness of captive breeding and release programs. A key finding is that there is limited evaluation of the effectiveness of such programs at all three stages (i.e., broodstock collection, rearing/ release methods, and post-release monitoring). We identified clusters of evidence for evaluating supplementation associated with rearing/release methods for fish growth and survival metrics, and the monitoring stage for fish genetic diversity, growth, and survival metrics, primarily focused on salmonids. However, many studies had inadequate experimental designs (i.e., lacked a comparator). Overall, there was a paucity of studies on the effectiveness of captive breeding programs for imperilled freshwater mussels, highlighting the need to make such information broadly available when studies are undertaken. Outputs from this systematic map (i.e., the map database and heatmaps) suggest that the effectiveness of captive breeding and release programs requires further systematic evaluation. Des programmes de reproduction en captivite sont largement utilises par les specialistes de la conservation comme moyen de conservation, de reintroduction et de supplementation de populations menacees de poissons d'eau douce et de mulettes. Nous avons realise une cartographie systematique pour dresser un portrait du corpus documentaire existant sur l'efficacite des programmes de reproduction en captivite et de lacher. Une des constatations cles est le fait que revaluation de l'efficacite des trois etapes de tels programmes (c.-a-d., prelevement de geniteurs, methodes d'elevage/de lacher et surveillance apres le lacher) est limitee. Nous avons cerne des groupements de donnees probantes pour les evaluations de la supplementation associees aux methodes d'elevage/de lacher pour des parametres relies a la croissance et la survie des poissons, et l'etape de surveillance pour des parametres relies a la diversite genetique, la croissance et la survie des poissons, axes principalement sur les salmonides. Le schema experimental de nombreuses etudes est toutefois inadequat (c.-a-d., absence de comparateur). Globalement, les etudes sur l'efficacite des programmes de reproduction en captivite pour les mulettes menacees sont rares, soulignant la necessite d'assurer une large disponibilite de ce type d'information quand de telles etudes sont realisees. Les extrants de cette cartographie systematique (c.-a-d., la base de donnees en decoulant et les cartes de densite) font ressortir la necessite d'une evaluation systematique plus poussee de l'efficacite de programmes de reproduction en captivite et de lacher. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction Global freshwater biodiversity has declined by over 80% since the 1970s, to the point where it is clearly in crisis (Harrison et al. 2018). Freshwater fishes have some of [...]

Black Americans bear the greatest burden of HIV, accounting for 43% of new diagnoses. Yet Black Americans also evidence the lowest utilization rates of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a highly effective biomedical strategy for preventing HIV infection. Predictors of PrEP acceptance vary; however, little is known about psychological distress, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, as a predictor. In this cross-sectional study, n = 195 Black Americans, evidencing behaviors found in the research literature to heighten risk for contracting HIV (e.g. sex work, injection drug use) ages 18-29, 55% cisgender women, 39.5% cisgender men, 3% transgender/non-binary, completed audio-computer-assisted self-interviews. Bivariate analyses indicated significant positive associations between PTSD symptoms and PrEP acceptance and self-confidence. In multinomial logistic regression analyses, after controlling for Perceived HIV Risk, participants had a higher likelihood of responding they 'probably would' take PrEP (as opposed to 'definitely would not' take PrEP) if they reported higher levels of PTSD symptoms. Post-hoc analyses revealed a curvilinear relationship between PTSD symptoms and PrEP acceptance with those reporting the highest level of PTSD in the sample having slightly lower PrEP acceptance than those reporting moderately high levels of PTSD. Findings are discussed in the context of the negative impacts of high levels of PTSD and potential positive adaptations subsequent to moderate levels of PTSD that could be relevant to advances in HIV prevention efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In drought-prone northern California, homeowners can collect rainwater to irrigate their waterintensive summer vegetable gardens. Rainwater harvesting requires a three-part system: a method of collection (commonly the roof), a form of storage (cistern) and a method of distribution (a pump, filter and soaker hose are proposed here). To optimize and properly size a rainwater harvesting system, homeowners should consider both their rainwater supply and their garden’s water demand. Gardeners can reduce demand by planting early to take advantage of spring rains and by grouping crops according to irrigation needs. The authors analyze the water use of a sample garden, which they adapt to both Berkeley and Sacramento. In both of these cities, one can collect more than enough rainwater to support a small vegetable garden: an individual homeowner’s water supply is more likely to be limited by storage capacity than rainfall. Ultimately, although rainwater harvesting can supply adequate quantities of water to irrigate vegetable gardens, the level of water treatment required to safely irrigate food crops adds dramatically to the cost of a system. For a smaller investment, rainwater harvesting can be used to irrigate landscaping vegetation.

Performance-based accountability along with budget tightening has increased pressure on publicly funded organizations to develop and deliver programs that produce meaningful social benefits. As a result, there is increasing need to undertake formative evaluations that estimate preliminary program outcomes and identify promising program components based on their effectiveness during implementation. By combining longitudinal administrative data, multiple comparison group designs, and a progressive series of analyses that test rival explanations, evaluators can strengthen causal arguments and provide actionable program information for key stakeholders to improve program outcomes. In this article, we illustrate the application of rigorous methods to estimate preliminary program effects and rule out alternative explanations for preliminary effects, including site selection bias, individual selection bias, and resentful demoralization through the evaluation of the Collaborative Project, a North Carolina educational improvement project that incorporated multiple components aimed at boosting student achievement.

Is a popular innovation for increasing human capital in the teaching profession--competitive college scholarships for teachers--effective? The authors show that one large and long-standing merit-based scholarship program (a) attracts teacher candidates who have high academic qualifications; (b) yields graduates who teach lower performing students, although not as challenging as the students of other beginning teachers; (c) produces teachers who raise high school and third- through eighth-grade mathematics test scores more than other traditionally prepared teachers do; and (d) produces teachers who stay in public school classrooms for 5 years or more at higher rates than alternative entry or other traditionally prepared teachers. (Contains 5 tables, 1 figure, and 5 notes.)

In American public schools, the bulk of financial decisions have been left up to local boards of education, local school superintendents, and individual school principals. Traditionally, principals have been considered the utmost leader in their schools. Agricultural education has been linked to student achievement in a variety of ways. The National Council for Agricultural Education's Strategic Plan for Agricultural Education included a "call to increase the number of quality agricultural education programs" around the nation. Currently, there are no data on how Florida decision makers perceive agricultural education programs and how their perceptions align with the values of principals. Additionally, the relative lack of growth in FFA Chapters around the country and in Florida is concerning. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of secondary agricultural education programs held by Florida secondary school principals. The results of this study found that Florida secondary school principals have positive perceptions of agricultural education programs. Additionally, the presence of a local secondary agricultural education program influences the perceptions of Florida secondary school principals. Demographics had many influences on the perceptions of Florida secondary school principals. A key finding was the influence of student achievement on funding decisions of principals. (Contains 11 tables.)

New federal and state policies require that teacher preparation programs (TPP) be held accountable for the effectiveness of their graduates as measured by test score gains of the students they teach. In this article, the authors review the approaches taken in several states that have already estimated TPP effects and analyze the proposals for incorporating students' test score gains into the evaluations of TPP by states that have received federal Race to the Top funds. The authors organize their review to focus on three types of decisions that are required to implement these new accountability requirements: (a) selection of teachers, students, subjects, and years of data; (b) methods for estimating teachers' effects on student test score gains; and (c) reporting and interpretation of effects. The purpose of the review is to inform the teacher preparation community on the state of current and near term practice for adding measures of teacher effectiveness to TPP accountability practices. Keywords teacher preparation, value-added models, program evaluation, quantitative methods, Introduction A new era of accountability for teacher preparation programs (TPP) is being ushered in across the country by recent federal and state policies, such as the Race to the [...]

Although a causal role of genetic alterations in human cancer is well established, it is still unclear whether dietary fat can modulate cancer risk in a predisposed population. Epidemiological studies [...]