Digital Commons Network^™

Our Story, Our Song: Assessing And Addressing Black Women's Healthcare Experiences., Jason Deakings

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite advancements in medicine and health sciences, health disparities and declining life expectancy persists among Black women in the United States. Researchers and non-traditional healthcare providers suggest alternative healing (e.g., music and Sister Circles) and research methodologies to achieve a culturally conscious, traumainformed, quality, and holistic care and practice. The intersecting identities and cultural responsibility of Black women highly influences the barriers and facilitators on the uptake of healthcare services. Utilizing a community engaged research approach, this qualitative study assessed the healthcare experiences, as well as the role of music in the lived and retold experiences of Black women navigating …

A Systematic Review Of Research On Treatment & Prevention Of The Neglected Tropical Disease Leishmaniasis, Aryn Akerberg

All Theses

Leishmaniasis is a life-threatening neglected tropical disease that is caused by the protozoa parasite, Leishmania. Over one million new human leishmaniasis cases occur each all over the world, affecting most the deeply impoverished regions of the world. The disease presents in three different forms: cutaneous leishmaniasis, mucocutaneous (mucosal) leishmaniasis, and visceral leishmaniasis. Symptoms can range from self-limiting lesion to more life-threatening conditions such as fever, kidney disease, and anemia. The Leishmania parasite is transmitted via the bite of the female phlebotomine sandfly and can infect many other mammals such as canines, rodents, bats, etc. The canine leishmaniasis epidemic is also …

Medication Errors In Pediatric Care And Preventative Solutions, Tyler Tidwell

Political Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The research presented extensively examines previous reports covering pediatric medication errors (PMEs). Utilizing specific studies into the frequency and types of medication errors along with public surveys and policy discussion, the data and suggestions here provide commentary on the scope of PMEs, suggested institutional reform, and most importantly, legislative recommended action necessary to stymie the tide of PMEs. A significant portion of the research contained fixates on the literature review to provide ample familiarity with the background and scope of PMEs, but the subsequent sections will discuss their implication. After providing details on the magnitude of the issue, regulatory and …

A Pathophysiological, Clinical, And Epidemiological View Of Malaria, Alyssa Watt

Senior Honors Theses

Malaria is a parasitic disease that is common among all ages in tropical and subtropical countries. Annually, there are an estimated 3.3 billion people in 97 countries at risk of contracting malaria. Malaria has been a major global health problem throughout history and is a leading cause of death and disease for many within tropical regions. In the past decade, efforts, such advances in medicine and insecticide techniques, have reduced the prevalence of malaria by 50% which suggests that the elimination of this disease is possible. With the prevalence of malaria and recent reduction, it is vital to aid in …

High Prevalence Of Vaccine-Preventable Anal Human Papillomavirus Infections Is Associated With Hiv Infection Among Gay, Bisexual, And Men Who Have Sex With Men In Nairobi, Kenya, Myo Minn Oo, Samantha Moore, Suzanne Gibbons, Wendy Adhiambo, Peter Muthoga, Naomi Siele, Maureen Akolo, Henok Gebrebrhan, Aida Sivro, Blake T. Ball

School of Nursing & Midwifery, East Africa

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is associated with anal cancers and is more prevalent in gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men (gbMSM), partly due to their vulnerability to HIV infection. Baseline HPV genotype distributions and risk factors can inform the design of next-generation HPV vaccines to prevent anal cancer.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among gbMSM receiving care at a HIV/STI clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. Anal swabs were genotyped using a Luminex microsphere array. Multiple logistic regression methods were used to identify risk factors for four HPV outcomes (any HPV, any HR-HPV, and 4- …

Vaccines In The 20th Century, Samantha Valakos

Senior Honors Projects

In 1796 Edward Jenner marked a turning point in epidemiology after testing a theory and developing the first vaccination known to mankind: smallpox. Since his work, many scientists have discovered that virulent strains of a virus can be attenuated in humans, consequently aiding in the creation of many different vaccines. Nowadays, one of the most common vaccines for humans to receive is the influenza vaccine. The influenza vaccine is very effective in prevention of getting the virus, as well as reducing the risk of flu-like symptoms. However, each year many individuals continue to choose not to get the flu vaccine …

Healthcare Experiences By Race, Sex, And Weight Status In A Sample Of Low Wage Workers Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Michael Ampofo

Honors Scholar Theses

There is longstanding evidence of racial, sex-based, weight-based, and socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in the quality of healthcare. These disparities can result from provider bias and discrimination in the healthcare system and can contribute to disparities in health outcomes. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated differential treatment in healthcare due to the strain it placed on the healthcare system. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. healthcare experiences among low SES non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White patients. This secondary analysis utilized survey measures from 225 low-wage workers, ages …

Viral Particle Detection In Wastewater, Katelyn Clark

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Wastewater is an underutilized resource for recognizing the epidemiology of pathogen transmission and infections within a community that has the potential to mitigate disease outbreaks. Pathogens of public health concern, such as adenovirus, norovirus, and SARS-CoV-2, occur in wastewater from excretion of infected individuals. Despite the potential for wastewater pathogen data to predict future outbreaks, the relationship between viral shedding patterns in wastewater and case counts of infectious disease remains unclear. An evaluation of the peer-reviewed literature was conducted to compile characteristics of adenovirus, norovirus, and SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater environment. These characteristics were considered in prioritizing the key pathogens …

The Covid-19 Pandemic And On-Time Vaccine Completion In The Childhood Population: A Strategic Plan, Chris Elaine Mariano

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In March 2020, the entire world was placed into lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus, which impacted everyday life, including healthcare. People were scared to leave their homes and obtain preventative services, including vaccinations from birth to adulthood. There was a significant decrease in childhood vaccinations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A strategy mix is defined as an intervention utilized for vaccination improvement. Strategy mixes were implemented to improve vaccination administration, and ultimately, vaccination rates. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these strategy mixes or interventions were placed on hold causing immunization administration to decrease which could cause vaccine-preventable diseases …

National Cancer Control Plan Of The Korea: Current Status And The Fourth Plan (2021-2025), Kyu-Tae Han, Jae Kwan Jun, Jeong-Soo Im

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Cancer management has become a major policy goal for the government of the Korea. As such, the government introduced the National Cancer Control Plan (NCCP) to reduce the individual and social burdens caused by cancer and to promote national health. During the past 25 years, 3 phases of the NCCP have been completed. During this time, the NCCP has changed significantly in all aspects of cancer control from prevention to survival. The targets for cancer control are increasing, and although some blind spots remain, new demands are emerging. The government initiated the fourth NCCP in March 2021, with the vision …

Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory-Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna L. Mitchell

Honors Theses

Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks are invasive to the United States with potential to transmit several tick-borne pathogens that are native to the United States. Based on existing locations of H. longicornis in its native regions in Asia, as well as its invasive populations that are established in the United States, several geographic range prediction models have been produced to help understand future range expansion and distribution of this invasive tick in North America. Unfortunately, these models do not all agree and there is uncertainty associated with the potential geographic range expansion of H. longicornis ticks in North America. Climate can affect …

“I Know My Body Better Than Anyone Else” Perspectives Of People Who Inject Drugs On Antimicrobial Treatment Decision Making For Serious Infections, Amy Eckland, Michael Kohut Phd, Henry Stoddard, Debra Burris, Frank Chessa, Monica Sikka, Daniel Solomon, Colleen Kershaw, Ellen Eaton, Rebecca N. Hutchinson, Peter Friedmann, Thomas Stopka, Kathleen Fairfield, Kinna Thakarar

Costas T. Lambrew Research Retreat 2023

Introduction:

• Few studies have examined the perspectives of patients with lived experience regarding outpatient treatment options for injection drug use (IDU) associated infections.

• We sought to better understand the perspectives of both community partners with lived experience who work with people who inject drugs (PWID) and hospitalized patients with IDU-associated infections on shared treatment decision making.

Potential Public Health Impacts Of Louisiana House Bill 182, Corisandra Leyton-High

Journal of the Louisiana Public Health Association

No abstract provided.

Vol 3 May '23 Full Issue, Donna L. Williams

Journal of the Louisiana Public Health Association

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Public Health Units On Mpox, Covid-19 And Flu Vaccinations In Louisiana, David Holcombe, Arundhati Bakshi, Joshua Mjolsness

Journal of the Louisiana Public Health Association

No abstract provided.

Utilization Of Community Health Workers In Emergency Preparedness And Response: A Literature Review, Amelia P. Stoltman

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

As the frequency and magnitude of disasters worldwide continues to rise, so too does the devastation that follows. This devastation extends to the whole community. In guidance put forward by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), emergency preparedness must be represented in and reflective of the whole community, but marginalized groups or segments of the population may be left out of the conversation. Community Health Workers (CHW)s serve as a trusted liaisons and community advocates within the health care landscape. That landscape, as recent events demonstrate, includes emergency preparedness and response. This literature review is designed to assess available publications …

A Review Of Staphylococcus Aureus Pathogenesis, Global Impact, And The Rise Of Antibiotic-Resistant Clones, Anders Kleinbeck

Honors Scholar Theses

Staphylococcus aureus is a pathogen of grave concern to global public health. The pathogen has shown an unrivaled propensity to obtain resistance to nearly every antibiotic drug approved and prescribed for its treatment. This review will provide an overview of the history and evolution of S. aureus, including an analysis of its transition from the nosocomial setting to the community and the factors contributing to the species’ innate pathogenicity. This paper will also discuss the molecular mechanisms by which resistance to a wide range of popular antibiotic substances was obtained and will provide insight into the evolutionary patterns exhibited by …

Cardiovascular Disease In Central Appalachia, An Exploratory Study Of Behavioral, Community, And Patient-Centered Care Influences, Kristy Gagnon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Central Appalachian region of the United States disproportionately experiences higher rates of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and associated risk factors. Primary risk factors for CVD include hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and tobacco use, all of which have the potential to be mitigated through lifestyle behavior changes. Dietary and physical activity practices are the two main driving forces for the development of hypertension and hypercholesterolemia, while tobacco use is a behavioral choice on its own. Subsequentially, shifting lifestyle choices to emphasize healthier living has the potential to reduce CVDs within the Central Appalachian region. Considering behavioral choices are not made in isolation and …

Identification Of Molecular Markers Associated With Copd In Non-Smokers And Smokers: A Bioinformatics Analysis, Agede O. Ayodele, Isa M. Wasagu, Ademola E. Fawibe, Alakija K. Salami

The University of Louisville Journal of Respiratory Infections

Background

Even though the proportional burden of COPD among never-smokers is significant in both developing and developed nations, accounting for around 30% of all COPD in the community, there is little awareness of the prevalence of COPD in this population. Understanding the molecular processes that underlie COPD in nonsmokers is essential.

Methods

Dataset (GSE146560) was acquired from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). The limma and clusterProfiler software tools were used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and conduct a functional enrichment analysis respectively.

Results

In all, 10,583 DEGs were found, of which 1,065 were up-regulated and 9,518 were down-regulated. The …

Syphilis And Congenital Syphilis Among Women In San Bernardino County, Valerie Alfaro

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Background: Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection that mostly affects individuals from a lower income status. San Bernardino County has a high poverty rate and a high rate of Congenital Syphilis. Pregnant women who test positive for Syphilis run the risk of passing the infection on to the fetus. Babies born with Congenital Syphilis may experience many complications, and therefore, the treatment is more intense. The best prevention for Congenital Syphilis is regular screening during pregnancy.

Methods: This study used quantitative research based on secondary data collected from San Bernardino County, Department of Public Health. Data were gathered by an …

Emerging Tick-Borne Diseases In Northeast Tennessee, Jacob Schultz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tick populations have been immigrating into northeast Tennessee from east Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina. Counties in states bordering northeast Tennessee harbor tick species associated with human illness. Human diseases transmitted by ticks include ehrlichiosis, spotted fever rickettsial group diseases, tularemia, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Lyme disease, alpha-gal syndrome, Heartland virus, Powassan virus, and southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI). These diseases cause morbidity and mortality in human populations and may pose a high risk to individuals, wildlife, and livestock. The Cherokee National Forest covering the east Tennessee border provides a permissible environment for ticks to immigrate and thrive. Residents of northeast …

The Negative Influence Of External Stressors On Patient Outcomes: Why Physicians Should Consider More Than Outwardly Presenting Symptom(S), Gianna Meckler '23

Honor Scholar Theses

In this thesis, the influence of external stressors on patient health outcomes in the medical setting will be examined. There is an overwhelming amount of reputable research that suggests that the American healthcare system, at least as it operates now, does not effectively improve patient health outcomes. Simply focusing on outwardly apparent illness or disease does not address the full scope of patient need. Ample evidence will be provided in the form of a comprehensive literature review accompanied by supporting anecdotes from real physicians in hopes of encouraging healthcare professionals to increase the breadth of their considerations when it comes …

Synthetic Or Not: Implications Of Hormonal Birth Control On Women’S Hormones And The Cortisol Stress Response, Maddie Perry '23

Honor Scholar Theses

Women’s bodies are the subject of decision-making and control, yet women’s lives are dismally ignored. The field of women’s health is highly understudied, and the demand for that adequate research must be granted to the women’s health field. This interdisciplinary research study investigated stress response differences between hormonal birth control users and non-users. Hormonal birth control (HBC) is one of the greatest technologies afforded to women and further research is necessary to ensure women are guaranteed bodily autonomy and women’s health education. Due to altered hormonal signaling, HBC has been linked to behavioral and decision making differences in women. Building …

Covid-19 Challenges, Responses, And Resilience Among Rural Black Women: A Study Protocol, Fanghui Shi, Jiajia Zhang Ph.D., Chengbo Zeng, Xiaowen Sun, Zhenlong Li, Xueying Yang, Sharon Weissman, Bankole Olatosi Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Background

Timely linkage to care (LTC) is key in the HIV care continuum, as it enables people newly diagnosed with HIV (PNWH) to benefit from HIV treatment at the earliest stage. Previous studies have found LTC disparities by individual factors, but data are limited beyond the individual level, especially at the county level. This study examined the temporal and geographic variations of county-level LTC status across 46 counties in South Carolina (SC) from 2010 to 2018 and the association of county-level characteristics with LTC status.

Methods

All adults newly diagnosed with HIV from 2010 to 2018 in SC were included …

Updated Analysis To Reject The Laboratory-Engineering Hypothesis Of Sars-Cov-2, Fuqing Wu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

A clear understanding of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is important for future pandemic preparedness. Here, I provided an updated analysis of the type IIS endonuclease maps in genomes of alphacoronavirus, betacoronavirus, and SARS-CoV-2. Scenarios to engineer SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory and the associated workload was also discussed. The analysis clearly shows that the endonuclease fingerprint does not indicate a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2 and engineering a SARS-CoV-2 virus in the laboratory is extremely challenging both scientifically and financially. On the contrary, current scientific evidence does support the animal origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Social Reproduction And Covid-19, Caroline I. Donovan

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

As Covid-19 rips across the world we are collectively asked to examine the structures of society to see what is working and what we can change. What can we learn from the roughly 6.9 million deaths (and counting) worldwide? How can we prevent something like this from happening again? This paper follows the course of Covid-19 from its birth in Wuhan, China, to the present day of mid-April 2023. By looking at the ways in which we have reacted to the pandemic, we are able to look forward and imagine new ways of tackling future pandemics and other pressing problems …

Justification And Compliance: Public Health Ethics In A Post-Covid America, Nathan Alan Turner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the high-profile nature of the public health response make it a natural context for exploring the current state of public health ethics. This paper explores this topic from two perspectives: justification and compliance. Libertarianism and utilitarianism are two frameworks that dominate the question of how public health interventions are justified. Consequently, this paper analyzes the events of the pandemic to determine how these frameworks fared in terms of offering reliable means of justifying the interventions needed to curb the spread of COVID-19. Consideration of these events suggests that a framework centered around actionable …

Diagnosis Of Urinary Tract Infections And Rapid Molecular Characterization Of Antibiotic Resistance, Mohammed Harris

All Dissertations

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most common infectious clinical entities in both community and hospital settings. They have a broad range of clinical severity yet inflict large epidemiological burden of morbidity and mortality on patients and the healthcare system with billions of dollars in cost of treatment. Understanding what methods are optimal for diagnosing UTIs are critical to mitigate the marked impact and cost of these infections.

Chapter 1 and 2 in this work surveys the broad array of diagnostic modalities for UTIs and highlights their advantages and limitations in the context of the current standard of …

Cultivating A Robust Safety Culture Through Identifying And Overcoming Barriers Within Organizations, Morgan Shradar

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

The hierarchical power structure within healthcare and response teams may impede communication about safety risks and violations. In developing or enhancing the safety culture within the emergency response to infectious disease events in healthcare organizations, the hierarchy of controls can be utilized to evaluate successful transmission prevention or further harm to responding teams. Within the tool, administrative controls focus on policies, procedures, and practices that minimize the risk of exposure/transmission. The idea of a safe culture emerged following the Chernobyl Disaster, in which a combination of human and system failures led to this emergency. Safety culture has been integrated into …

Association Between Socioeconomic And Behavioral Characteristics With Urinary Neonicotinoid Levels In The United States, 2015-2016, Komi Nomessi Akliku

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides developed in the 1980s and widely used in agriculture and households. They are sources of health damage in mammals, as identified in experimental studies in rats. The health effects identified were acetamiprid: memory dysfunction, respiratory failure, and digestive troubles; imidacloprid: liver and brain cell necrosis through Nitric Oxide formation: Thiacloprid induces an increase of cytokine proinflammation and causes cell division disturbance and genotoxicity; thiamethoxam is incriminated in reproductive system toxicity and cardiotoxicity; clothianidin is found to be associated with fertility troubles affecting spermatozoids’ motility. They have been said to be associated with thyroid cancer …