Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Public Health Campaigns To Change Industry Practices That Damage Health: An Analysis Of 12 Case Studies, Nicholas Freudenberg, Sarah Picard Bradley, Monica Serrano

Publications and Research

Industry practices such as advertising, production of unsafe products, and efforts to defeat health legislation play a major role in current patterns of U.S. ill health. Changing these practices may be a promising strategy to promote health. The authors analyze 12 campaigns designed to modify the health-related practices of U.S. corporations in the alcohol, automobile, food and beverage, firearms, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries. The objectives are to examine the interactions between advocacy campaigns and industry opponents; explore the roles of government, researchers, and media; and identify characteristics of campaigns that are effective in changing health-damaging practices. The authors compared campaigns …

A Quantitative Synthesis Of The Medicinal Ethnobotany Of The Malinké Of Mali And The Asháninka Of Peru, With A New Theoretical Framework, Nathaniel Bletter

Publications and Research

Background: Although ethnomedically and taxonomically guided searches for new medicinal plants can improve the percentage of plants found containing active compounds when compared to random sampling, ethnobotany has fulfilled little of its promise in the last few decades to deliver a bounty of new, laboratory-proven medicinal plants and compounds. It is quite difficult to test, isolate, and elucidate the structure and mechanism of compounds from the plethora of new medicinal plant uses described each year with limited laboratory time and resources and the high cost of clinical trials of new drug candidates.

Methods: A new quantitative theoretical framework of mathematical …

Pregnancy Intentions And Happiness Among Pregnant Black Women At High Risk For Adverse Infant Health Outcomes, Susan M. Blake, Michele Kiely, Charlotte C. Gard, Ayman El-Mohandes, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, Nih-Dc Initiative

Publications and Research

CONTEXT:Unintended pregnancy is associated with risk behaviors and increased morbidity or mortality for mothers and infants, but a woman's feelings about pregnancy may be more predictive of risk and health outcomes than her intentions.

METHODS: A sample of 1,044 black women who were at increased risk were enrolled at prenatal care clinics in the District of Columbia in 2001-2003. Bivariate and multivariate analyses assessed associations between pregnancy intentions or level of happiness about being pregnant and multiple psychosocial and behavioral risk factors, and identified correlates of happiness to be pregnant.

RESULTS: Pregnancy intentions and happiness were strongly associated, but …

Reframing School Dropout As A Public Health Issue, Nicholas Freudenberg, Jessica Ruglis

Publications and Research

Good education predicts good health, and disparities in health and in educational achievement are closely linked. Despite these connections, public health professionals rarely make reducing the number of students who drop out of school a priority, although nearly one-third of all students in the United States and half of black, Latino, and American Indian students do not graduate from high school on time. In this article, we summarize knowledge on the health benefits of high school graduation and discuss the pathways by which graduating from high school contributes to good health. We examine strategies for reducing school dropout rates with …

Growth Environment And Sex Differences In Lipids, Bodyshape And Diabetes Risk, Mary Schooling, Tai Hing Lam, G. Neil Thomas, Benjamin J. Cowling, Michelle Heys, Edward D. Janus, Gabriel M. Leung

Publications and Research

Background
Sex differences in lipids and body shape, but not diabetes, increase at puberty. Hong Kong Chinese are mainly first or second generation migrants from China, who have shared an economically developed environment for years, but grew up in very different environments in Hong Kong or contemporaneously undeveloped Guangdong, China. We assessed if environment during growth had sex-specific associations with lipids and body shape, but not diabetes.

Methodology and Principal Findings
We used multivariable regression in a population-based cross-sectional study, undertaken from 1994 to 1996, of 2537 Hong Kong Chinese residents aged 25 to 74 years with clinical measurements of …

Recruitment And Retention Of Low-Income Minority Women In A Behavioral Intervention To Reduce Smoking, Depression, And Intimate Partner Violence During Pregnancy, M Nabil El-Khorazaty, Allan A. Johnson, Michele Kiely, Ayman El-Mohandes, Siva Subramanian, Haziel A. Laryea, Kennan B. Murray, Jutta S. Thornberry, Jill G. Joseph

Publications and Research

Background
Researchers have frequently encountered difficulties in the recruitment and retention of minorities resulting in their under-representation in clinical trials. This report describes the successful strategies of recruitment and retention of African Americans and Latinos in a randomized clinical trial to reduce smoking, depression and intimate partner violence during pregnancy. Socio-demographic characteristics and risk profiles of retained vs. non-retained women and lost to follow-up vs. dropped-out women are presented. In addition, subgroups of pregnant women who are less (more) likely to be retained are identified.

Methods
Pregnant African American women and Latinas who were Washington, DC residents, aged 18 years …

Human Mst But Not Mt Responds To Tactile Stimulation, Michael S. Beauchamp, Nafi E. Yasar, Neel Kishan, Tony Ro

Publications and Research

Previous reports of tactile responses in human visual area MT/V5 have used complex stimuli, such as a brush stroking the arm. These complex moving stimuli are likely to induce imagery of visual motion, which is known to be a powerful activator of MT. The area described as “MT” in previous reports consists of at least two distinct cortical areas, MT and MST. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we separately localized human MT and MST and measured their response to vibrotactile stimuli unlikely to induce imagery of visual motion. Strong vibrotactile responses were observed in MST but not in MT. Vibrotactile …

Behavioral Approaches To Weight Control: A Review Of Current Research, Angela Marinilli Pinto, Jessica Gokee-Larose, Rena R. Wing

Publications and Research

Weight management is a salient issue for women. Studies of behavioral, pharmacological and surgical interventions indicate that women comprise the majority of patients presenting for weight-loss treatment. In this review we discuss the health impact of obesity for women, review behavioral treatments for adult overweight and obesity, and address topics of particular relevance for women, including concerns that weight-loss treatment may precipitate the development of eating pathology, as well as time periods of high risk for weight gain such as pregnancy and menopause.

Low-Income Minority Mothers’ Reports Of Infant Health Care Utilisation Compared With Medical Records, Kennan D. Murray, Ayman El-Mohandes, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, Michele Kiely

Publications and Research

This study aimed to investigate mothers’ reporting of the nature, location, frequency and content of health care visits for their infants, as compared with data abstracted from the infants’ medical records. It was part of a community-based parenting intervention designed to improve preventive health care utilisation among minority mothers in Washington, DC. Mothers 18 years old with newborn infants and with poor or no prenatal care were enrolled in the study. A total of 160 mother–infant dyads completed the 12-month study. Mothers were interviewed when the infants were 4, 8 and 12 months old, and were asked to recall infant …

Overdose Prevention For Injection Drug Users: Lessons Learned From Naloxone Training And Distribution Programs In New York City, Tinka Markham Piper, Sasha Rudenstine, Sharon Stancliff, Susan Sherman, Vijay Nandi, Allan Clear, Sandro Galea

Publications and Research

Background: Fatal heroin overdose is a significant cause of mortality for injection drug users (IDUs). Many of these deaths are preventable because opiate overdoses can be quickly and safely reversed through the injection of Naloxone [brand name Narcan], a prescription drug used to revive persons who have overdosed on heroin or other opioids. Currently, in several cities in the United States, drug users are being trained in naloxone administration and given naloxone for immediate and successful reversals of opiate overdoses. There has been very little formal description of the challenges faced in the development and implementation of large-scale IDU naloxone …

Peer Victimization, Depression, And Suicidality In Adolescents, Anat Brunstein Klomek, Frank Marrocco, Marjorie Kleinman, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Madelyn S. Gould

Publications and Research

Objective: To assess the association between bullying behavior and depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts among adolescents. Method: A self-report survey was completed by 9th- through 12th-grade students (n = 2342) in six New York State high schools from 2002 through 2004. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between being victimized and bullying others with depression, ideation, and attempts. Results: Approximately 9% of the sample reported being victimized frequently, and 13% reported bullyingothers frequently. Frequent exposure to victimization or bullying others was related to high risks of depression, ideation, and suicide attempts compared …

Bullying, Depression, And Suicidality In Adolescents, Anat Brunstein-Klomek, Frank Marrocco, Marjorie Kleinman, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Madelyn S. Gould

Publications and Research

Objective: To assess the association between bullying behavior and depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts among adolescents. Method: A self-report survey was completed by 9th- through 12th-grade students (n = 2342) in six New York State high schools from 2002 through 2004. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between being victimized and bullying others with depression, ideation, and attempts. Results: Approximately 9% of the sample reported being victimized frequently, and 13% reported bullying others frequently. Frequent exposure to victimization or bullying others was related to high risks of depression, ideation, and suicide attempts compared with adolescents not involved …

Historical Perspective: The Historical Development Of The Society For Occupational Health Psychology, Leslie B. Hammer, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP) is the first professional group of its kind in the United States. The development of the Society can be traced to the development of the field of occupational health psychology (OHP). OHP is an interdisciplinary partnership of the psychological and occupational health sciences. The goals of this partnership include the improvement of the quality of people’s working lives and the enhancement of the safety, health, and well-being of workers. To our knowledge the first time the term occupational health psychology became visible in the research literature is in 1986 in a book chapter …

Brief Note From The Editor, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Recruiting New Members, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science took place in New York City from May 25 to May 28, 2006. We attended the convention and had a number of goals that we wanted to accomplish: assume a position on the graduate student board, present at a poster session, attend various conference events, and recruit conferees for the Society for Occupational Health Psychology. It is the last goal about which we are writing. We hope that this article will help our SOHP colleagues recruit, at some future time, new members for our organization.