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Childhood Maltreatment And Early Alcohol Use Among High-Risk Adolescents, Merle E. Hamburger, Rebecca T. Leeb, Monica H. Swahn

Public Health Faculty Publications

Objective: Child maltreatment (CM) is prevalent among U.S. youth and has been associated with subsequent maladaptive behaviors, including substance use. The current study examines the associations between early child maltreatment and (1) preteen alcohol-use initiation and (2) heavy episodic drinking among students in a large study of adolescents. Method: The Youth Violence Survey is a cross-sectional survey of public school students enrolled in Grades 7,9, 11, and 12 in a school district in a high-risk community. The analysis sample was limited to students who provided complete data on all relevant variables (N = 3,559). Fifty-two percent of the analysis sample …

Mathematical Assessment Of Canada’S Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan, Abba B. Gumel, Miriam Nuño, Gerardo Chowell

Public Health Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVE: The presence of the highly pathogenic avian H5N1 virus in wild bird populations in several regions of the world, together with recurrent cases of H5N1 influenza arising primarily from direct contact with poultry, have highlighted the urgent need for preparedness and coordinated global strategies to effectively combat a potential influenza pandemic. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the Canadian pandemic influenza preparedness plan.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A mathematical model of the transmission dynamics of influenza was used to keep track of the population according to risk of infection (low or high) and infection status (susceptible, exposed …

Optimization Of Epidemiologic Interventions: Evaluation Of Spatial And Non-Spatial Methods That Identify Johne’S Disease-Infected Subpopulations Targeted For Intervention, Ariel L. Rivas, Marcelo Chaffer, Gerardo Chowell, Daniel Elad, Ori Koren, Stephen Smith, Steven J. Schwager

Public Health Faculty Publications

The potential costs and/or benefits associated with two epidemiological methods were compared. Using the same epidemiologic dataset (74 Israeli dairy herds tested for bovine paratuberculosis of which 57 farms were regarded to be infected, and 619 non-tested herds), the efficacy associated with the identification of the target population where control or preventive measures could be applied was evaluated by: 1) A method that applied geographical information systems (GIS), spatial statistics, network analysis (infective spatial links or ISL); and 2) A method that only partially applied spatial techniques. Based on the herd size of tested and non-tested farms, the geographical area …

Protecting Residential Care Facilities From Pandemic Influenza, Miriam Nuño, Thomas A. Reichert, Gerardo Chowell, Abba B. Gumel

Public Health Faculty Publications

It is widely believed that protecting health care facilities against outbreaks of pandemic influenza requires pharmaceutical resources such as antivirals and vaccines. However, early in a pandemic, vaccines will not likely be available and antivirals will probably be of limited supply. The containment of pandemic influenza within acute-care hospitals anywhere is problematic because of open connections with communities. However, other health care institutions, especially those providing care for the disabled, can potentially control community access. We modeled a residential care facility by using a stochastic compartmental model to address the question of whether conditions exist under which nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) …

Rurality And Pandemic Influenza: Geographic Heterogeneity In The Risks Of Infection And Death In Kanagawa, Japan (1918–1919), Hiroshi Nishiura, Gerardo Chowell

Public Health Faculty Publications

Aim

To characterise the impact of rurality on the spread of pandemic influenza by exploring both the numbers of cases and deaths in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, from October 1918 to April 1919 inclusive.

Method

In addition to the numbers of influenza cases and deaths, population sizes were extracted from census data, permitting estimations of morbidity, mortality, and case fatality by 199 different regions (population 1.4 million). These outcomes were compared between four groups; cities (n=6), larger towns (38), smaller towns (101), and villages (54).

Results

Whereas crude mortality in villages was lower than those of other population groups, the morbidity …