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Examining Parental Perceptions And Decisions To Uptake Child Influenza Immunizations: Assessing Pandemic And Policy Impacts On Vaccination Rates Following The H1n1 Pandemic, And The Acip Laiv Preferential Recommendation Revocation, Amir H. Mehrabi

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction

2009 H1N1 Pandemic: The historical 2009 H1N1 Influenza pandemic, which had a CDC estimated accrued disease burden of 100.5 million illnesses, 936,000 hospitalizations, and 75,000 deaths from 2009 to 2018, resulted in a declared state of emergency nationally, with ensuing diminished vaccine confidence and amplified fears of infection, prompting some to pursue flu vaccination, and others to forego. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommend an annual flu vaccine for individuals 6 months of age and older as the “first and best” defense against influenza, a low percentage …

The Role Of A Community-Driven, Structured Exercise Program On Children's And Adolescent's Quality Of Life, Padgett Singley Powe

Senior Theses

Childhood obesity is a long-standing epidemic in the United States as of 2020, and the problem is continuing to worsen. Childhood obesity has been shown to have many unhealthy effects, such as increasing prevalence of cardiovascular disease, depression, and social anxiety, which all can contribute to a worsened quality of life. Research suggests that summer is the most critical time period to combat childhood obesity is because children’s lives are less structured over the summer, which can lead to increased unhealthy behaviors, obesity, and a decrease in quality of life. The current study, the Skybrook Swim Team Study, aimed to …

Differences In Food Spending On Groceries And Eating Out Between Two Dietary Groups: The New Soul Study, Carly Fassler

Senior Theses

Background: Heart disease is now the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. Obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are all risk factors for heart disease. Research has shown that increasing consumption of plant-based foods may be effective in reducing risk factors for chronic disease, especially heart disease. A plant-based diet consists of nutrient-dense plant foods and minimizes the consumption of processed animal products. High costs of eating a healthier diet are a commonly cited barrier that prevents individuals from making dietary changes that could potentially decrease their chronic disease risk.

Objective: To …

Treatment Of Chronic Pain In U.S. Veterans: The Effectiveness Of Interdisciplinary Programs, Morgan L. Compton

Senior Theses

Chronic pain is a prevalent issue amongst US veterans. Experts suggest that interdisciplinary pain treatment is the most effective method of treating chronic pain, specifically due to targeting functioning and quality of life. These programs combine cognitive behavioral therapy and physical therapy by utilizing a variety of exercise and education regimens. The pain department at Columbia VA Health Care System offers both a comprehensive interdisciplinary treatment, Outpatient Interdisciplinary Pain Program (OIPP), and a flexible, multidisciplinary option (OIPP-Lite) for veterans suffering from chronic pain. The goal of this program is to improve knowledge for coping with chronic pain and to create …

First Aid And Emergency Preparedness: Improving Health Outcomes Among Aging Adults, Anna J. Kulangara

Senior Theses

As the United States population demographic shifts and the baby boomer population enters seniority, the health sector must adjust and prepare to provide efficient and adequate healthcare to the people. The Silver Tsunami, a metaphor for the expected wave of aging adults, will inevitably strain healthcare professionals and can be partly relieved by promoting risk-minimizing behavior in baby boomers before severe conditions develop. Through this effort, a health education course, titled First Aid and Emergency Preparedness, was developed and taught twice at a local senior center to target senior citizens and promote proactivity and healthy behaviors. Course development founded largely …

Explainable Ai Using Knowledge Graphs, Manas Gaur, Ankit Desai, Keyur Faldu, Amit Sheth

Publications

During the last decade, traditional data-driven deep learning (DL) has shown remarkable success in essential natural language processing tasks, such as relation extraction. Yet, challenges remain in developing artificial intelligence (AI) methods in real-world cases that require explainability through human interpretable and traceable outcomes. The scarcity of labeled data for downstream supervised tasks and entangled embeddings produced as an outcome of self-supervised pre-training objectives also hinders interpretability and explainability. Additionally, data labeling in multiple unstructured domains, particularly healthcare and education, is computationally expensive as it requires a pool of human expertise. Consider Education Technology, where AI systems fall along a …

Association Of Patient-Centered Medical Home Designation And Quality Indicators Within Hrsa-Funded Community Health Center Delivery Sites, Nathaniel Bell, Rebecca Wilkerson, Kathy Mayfield-Smith, Ana Lopez-De Fede

Publications

Background: Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) adoption is an important strategy to help improve primary care quality within Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) community health centers (CHC), but evidence of its effect thus far remains mixed. A limitation of previous evaluations has been the inability to account for the proportion of CHC delivery sites that are designated medical homes. Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional study using HRSA Uniform Data System (UDS) and certification files from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Joint Commission (JC). Datasets were linked through geocoding and an approximate string-matching algorithm. Predicted probability scores were regressed …

Community Social Determinants And Health Outcomes Drive Availability Of Patient-Centered Medical Homes, Nathaniel Bell, Rebecca Wilkerson, Kathy Mayfield-Smith, Ana Lopez-De Fede

Publications

The collaborative design of America’s patient-centered medical homes places these practices at the forefront of emerging efforts to address longstanding inequities in the quality of primary care experienced among socially and economically marginalized populations. We assessed the geographic distribution of the country’s medical homes and assessed whether they are appearing within communities that face greater burdens of disease and social vulnerability. We assessed overlapping spatial clusters of mental and physical health surveys; health behaviors, including alcohol-impaired driving deaths and drug overdose deaths; as well as premature mortality with clusters of medical home saturation and community socioeconomic characteristics. Overlapping spatial clusters …