Digital Commons Network^™

Standardizing Markers To Evaluate And Compare Their Performances, Margaret S. Pepe, Gary M. Longton

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Introduction: Markers that purport to distinguish subjects with a condition from those without a condition must be evaluated rigorously for their classification accuracy. A single approach to statistically evaluating and comparing markers is not yet established.

Methods: We suggest a standardization that uses the marker distribution in unaffected subjects as a reference. For an affected subject with marker value Y, the standardized placement value is the proportion of unaffected subjects with marker values that exceed Y.

Results: We apply the standardization to two illustrative datasets. In patients with pancreatic cancer placement values calculated for the CA 19-9 marker are smaller …

Combining Predictors For Classification Using The Area Under The Roc Curve, Margaret S. Pepe, Tianxi Cai, Zheng Zhang, Gary M. Longton

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

No single biomarker for cancer is considered adequately sensitive and specific for cancer screening. It is expected that the results of multiple markers will need to be combined in order to yield adequately accurate classification. Typically the objective function that is optimized for combining markers is the likelihood function. In this paper we consider an alternative objective function -- the area under the empirical receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). We note that it yields consistent estimates of parameters in a generalized linear model for the risk score but does not require specifying the link function. Like logistic regression it yields …

Materials-Handling Hazard Controls: Assessment Of Haddon’S Injury Control Strategies, Roger C. Jensen, P. Patton, J. Griffith, C. Hogan

Safety Health & Industrial Hygiene

This investigation assessed the applicability of Dr. William Haddon’s strategies for controlling hazards involving materials-handling operations in industrial and mining workplaces. Published over 20 years ago, Haddon’s strategies purport to include all strategies for preventing and mitigating harm to people, property, and the environment. Students in an undergraduate class were assigned to find tactical examples of each of Haddon’s strategies applicable to material handling. Haddon’s tenth strategy involving medical care and rehabilitation was not included. Their classifications were analyzed to identify points of confusion as well as points of general agreement. Students found numerous tactics for strategies involving engineering and …

Are Warnings On Plastic Films Adequate?, David S. Leonard, Roger C. Jensen, Tammy Lynn

Safety Health & Industrial Hygiene

Warnings are used to inform users of hazards that may be associated with many products. Often these warnings deal with the operation of tools, appliances, and other items for which the user may have some reason at least, to look for information on the product regarding its use. Plastic film presents a serious hazard to young children. Because the film will adhere to the flesh, if it covers the airways for the child, suffocation may result. Because young children may play with them, it is important that such films be kept away from them. Warnings need to be adequate to …

Safety Training: Flowchart Model Facilitates Development Of Effective Courses, Roger C. Jensen

Safety Health & Industrial Hygiene

Few SE&H professionals have time to keep up with the voluminous literature about safety and health training. An easier strategy involves adopting a model of the training process, such as the one described in this article. The model is presented as a flowchart to show the relationships among the component processes for all safet\' and health training. It is intended to be a flexible model, suitable for tailoring to organizational needs, and easy to conceptualize. By learning this model, SH&E professionals will have a solid understanding of Ihe processes involved in developing and implementing an effective safety training program.

Comparison Of Warning Labels On Plastic Bags, Tammy Lynn, Roger C. Jensen

Safety Health & Industrial Hygiene

Most plastic bags in our society contain a warning about the suffocation hazard, yet the U.S,. Consumer Product Safety Commission still receives approximately 24 reports annually describing deaths of children who suffocated due to plastic bags.

This study examined three of the warning features on plastic bags: (1) border versus no border, (2) position of the signal word relative to the text, (3) all capital letters versus sentence case. Ratings provided by more than fifty students indicated highly significant effects of the border on noticeability, and position and letter case on reading likelihood. Strongest effects were from presence of a …

Environmental Illness May Have Contributed To The Origins Of Transylvanian Vampire Myths, Catherine L. Zeman, Ioan Seuleanu, Miheal Sinca, Alin Sinca, Daniella Moga, Mariana Vlad

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

Field and ethnographic data are utilized to illustrate that significant contamination of rural wells with nitrates, bacteria and protozoa both currently and in the past are fertile ground for the development of myths surrounding spirit and blood stealing mythical creatures. The very real problem of methemoglobinemia, an environmentally induced hypoxia, in rural Transylvania is an ideal situation for physiological confirmation of and, perhaps, cultural etiology determination of the myth of vampirism. Ethnographic accounts of vampire and werewolf myths are correlated with the field data.

Psychological Distress And Back Pain, Richard Strunk

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

Chronic low back pain has become a major health problem in today's society. Low back pain disability is the most expensive benign condition in industrialized countries and is the number one cause of disability in people less than 45 years old (1). Low back pain lasting for longer than one day affects 40 percent of adults in any one-year period (2). In addition, there still is a lot uncertainty as to how structural or morphologic changes in the lumbar spine relate to a patient's clinical symptoms as seen on special imaging studies (3). Further investigations have showed this relationship to …

Managed Mental Health Care: Findings From The Literature, 1990–2005, D. Richard Mauery, Lissette Vaquerano, Rachel Sethi, Joanne Jee, Lisa Chimento

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Global Distribution Of Disease And Death, Jeffrey Colman Salloway

The University Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Information For Authors

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

No abstract provided.

Using Photography To Cross Generational, Linguistic, And Cultural Barriers To Develop Useful Survey Instruments., Ian Newman, Suree Kanjanawong

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Photographs are used as a research tool by anthropologists and as a technique to empower special populations, advocacy groups, and policymakers. This case describes how photography was used to develop a survey to study alcohol expectancies among Thai adolescents. A multicultural research team faced generational, linguistic, and cultural barriers in understanding Thai adolescent alcohol use well enough to write useful questions about alcohol expectancies. Asking adolescents to take and then discuss their photographs about alcohol allowed them to express themselves without the imposition of an organizational framework by the investigators. Group discussions of the photographs revealed nuances and subtleties of …

Mainecare And Its Role In Maine’S Healthcare System, Paul Saucier

Disability & Aging

No abstract provided.

Ukimwi : Hiv/Aids In Kenya, Virginia Wangui Gathua

Graduate Research Papers

This manuscript points out the deficiencies school counseling programs in Kenya for children/adolescents affected/infected by HIV/AIDS. In addition, the paper is intended to inform, guide, and encourage policy makers, program developers, and school counselors as they develop school counseling interventions for the disease. The focus of the paper is limited to children/adolescents because they bear the greatest burden of HIV/ AIDS infections. The paper also provides evidence for planning and implementation of culturally and developmentally relevant, school-based counseling interventions. The paper explores the impact of HIV/AIDS on Kenyan children/adolescents infected/affected by HIV/AIDS and points out the factors that hinder prevention …

Content Analysis Of Drug Offenders' Sketches On The Draw-An-Event Test For Risky Sexual Situations, Alan W. Stacy, Susan L. Ames, Barbara C. Leigh, Brian R. Houska, Julia Andsager

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Objectives: To evaluate the utility of the Draw-an-Event Test for risky sexual situations (DET-RS), a nonverbal memory-based assessment tool used for productions of spontaneous content associated with risky sex. Methods: Traditional holistic coding analysis of 298 drug offenders' content productions. Results: Content analyses of DET-RS sketches provided increased understanding of substance use and other context preceding risky sexual situations with different types of sex partners. None of the sketches including drugs depleted condoms, only one of the sketches with alcohol included a condom, and only 2 sketches mentioned sexually transmitted diseases. Conclusions: The DET-RS is a useful research tool for …

How Should Health Departments Manage Prenatal Care?, Julianne Nesbit

Master of Public Health Program Student Publications

Objective: To compare how health departments in the southwest district of Ohio manage prenatal care, defined as preventative care provided immediately preceding, during, and following pregnancy, to determine if there is a better management technique based on cost and/or characteristics of jurisdictions.

Design: Qualitative descriptive analysis of prenatal services at local health departments in the southwest district of Ohio for 2004.

Setting and Participants: Health Departments in the southwest district of Ohio.

Main Outcome Measures: Comparison of the types of services currently being used to provide prenatal care services (i.e., direct, contracted, combination, or no service) including budgeting and cost …

Understanding The Relative Importance Of Positive And Negative Social Exchanges: Examining Specific Domains And Appraisals, Jason T. Newsom, Karen S. Rook, Masami Nishishiba, Dara H. Sorkin, Tyrae Mahan

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Negative social exchanges have been more reliably related to psychological health than have positive social exchanges. Little research, however, has sought to understand how underlying appraisal processes link such exchanges to psychological health. This study examined the frequencies of occurrence and appraisals of four parallel domains of positive and negative exchanges in relation to positive well-being and psychological distress in a national sample of 916 older adults. Structural equation analyses revealed that negative exchanges were related both to less well-being and greater psychological distress, whereas positive exchanges were related only to positive well-being. Furthermore, results supported a process in which …

The Effects Of Ppa And Nicotine Gum On Cessation Rates And Post Cessation Weight Gain In Women., Theodore Cooper, R. Klesges, M. Debon, S. Zbikowski, K. Johnson, L. Clemens

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Community-Based Participatory Research: Defining Community Stakeholders, Laurene M. Tumiel-Berhalter, Robert Watkins, Carlos J. Crespo

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Community-based participatory research requires the participation of community stakeholders to inform the process. The West Side Community Asthma Project, a community-based participatory research program to study the effects of the environment on asthma conducted in Buffalo, N. Y, identified a stakeholders group of community leaders and activists. Creative strategies have been implemented to reach out to other community residents to invite them to participate in the participatory process.

Survey Of Camera Phone Awareness In Outpatient Community Behavioral Health Facilities, Tara Lynn Overton

Community & Environmental Health Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of camera phone awareness in outpatient community behavioral health facilities in a medium sized Mid-Atlantic state. Camera phones have been shown to have a detrimental effect on the protection of privacy in areas such as corporations, gym locker rooms, and court houses, but privacy issues have not yet been addressed in behavioral health. Privacy is an important issue in healthcare as shown through the implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This study used Rogers' (1995) Diftbsion of Innovations Theory as a framework for determining the stage …

Women And Family Health: The Role Of Mothers In Promoting Family And Child Health, Paula Y. Goodwin, Dean A. Garrett, Osman Galal

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

In many societies, women have been socialized to provide care and maintenance to the family unit by procuring and preparing food, giving care to dependent family members, and by socializing children to become productive adults. Thus, women's roles within families have positioned them to become health managers or promoters of overall family health, particularly for children in developing countries whose lives are directly linked to that of their mothers. The authors propose that efforts to improve the health of children should focus on the family unit as a whole, with a particular focus on the mother or mother figures of …

The Effects Of Childhood Obesity On Self-Esteem, Heather L. Paxton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Obesity is a growing health problem affecting children in the United States. The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically over the past 10 years across virtually all populations and age groups. Recent data suggest that 15 percent of U.S. children are severely overweight or obese (National Center for Health Statistics, 2002) . Obese children are at risk for significant health problems, but also face many psychological and social consequences, including low self-esteem. Children who are obese face an increased risk of emotional problems lasting well into adulthood. Factors such as peer rejection, weight-related teasing, and internalized social standards play a …

The Case Of South African And Chilean Health Systems: Comparison Of Financial, Economic And Health Indicators, Alberto Coustasse, Peter Hilsenrath, Patricio Silva Rojas

Management Faculty Research

The purpose of this study is to identify similarities and differences between healthcare systems of South Africa and Chile. The World Health Report 2000, the Human Development Index, and financial indicators were used for comparison. Chile showed better performance than South Africa in most of the measures used. Significant progress has been made in South Africa, bringing better education, healthcare and housing to the deprived black majority. However, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, weighs heavily on health indicators. Chile decentralized its health services and implemented economic reforms during the 1980's and has had steady improvement in its healthcare indicators. Finally, these counties …

Cover - Front Matter - Table Of Contents

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

No abstract provided.

Reassessing War Making In Our Post 9/11 World: Perspectives From Medicine And Public Health, Maureen Mccue

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

Despite December's association with peace, military conflicts rage around the world. War making is a central element resulting from and contributing to the bleak status of global health, the environment, human rights and ultimately global survival. War is the ultimate form of terrorism and thus ultimately counter-productive to securing peace. To further the search for healthy, sustainable alternatives to war and terrorism, war-making's too often hidden or obscured costs to human and environmental health are reviewed. National priorities are reassessed from a risk/benefit approach utilizing prevention based, medical and public health analytic frameworks including occupational and environmental health, community and …

Prenatal Malnutrition And Risk Of Schizophrenia, Andria Timmer

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

Characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that is estimated to have a lifetime risk of one percent (Liu et al., Allen 2002). Prevalence rates in different countries range from 0.2-2.0 percent with an average incidence rate of 28.1 per 100,000 remaining stable across a wide range of cultures, climates and ethnic groups (Thomas 2000). In the United States, at any given time there may be two to three million people who either have schizophrenia or are at risk of developing it (Allen 2002). The disease usually manifests itself in late …

Cover - Front Matter - Table Of Contents

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

No abstract provided.

Respiratory Hazards In Animal Confinement, Mary Kay Nissen

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

Production methods in animal farming have changed dramatically over the past 20 years. An emphasis on cheaper, more efficient ways of production has provided the impetus for larger, more concentrated systems. Improvements in building construction, heating and ventilation have been developed that provide the opportunity to increase the number of anima ls that can be raised in confinement. Improvements in animal health have reduced the risk of loss from disease. Confinement of large numbers of animals can have adverse effects on the environment and upon the health of employees exposed to such environments. As the trend toward large scale animal …

Massage Therapy For People With Hiv, Karen T. Boulanger

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

Massage therapists celebrated along with other complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners at the release of Eisenberg et al.'s follow-up of a national survey on the trends in the use of CAM in the United States from 1990-1997. Not only did the use of CAM increase from 33.8 percent to 42.1 percent, massage was one of the therapies that increased the most (Eisenberg et al., 1998). In addition, although 71.5 percent of the visits were not covered by any insurance, massage therapy was the second most popular CAM therapy used, accounting for 18.1 percent of the 628.8 million total visits …

Childhood Cancer Rates And Exposure To Vehicle Pollutants, Sara Jo Hill

International Journal of Global Health and Health Disparities

Cancer is the second leading cause of death among children ages zero to 15 in the United States (Gouveia-Vigeant & Tickner, 2003, p. 1). Rates for childhood cancer have increased nearly 21 percent between 1975 and 1998 (Gouveia-Vigeant & Tickner, p. 1). Multiple factors can be attributed to this increase. Possible explanations include: increased surveillance, changes in diagnostic criteria, improvements in medical imaging and diagnostic techniques, genetic predisposition as well as environmental factors. Experts recently concluded that genetic predisposition accounts for no more than 20 percent of all childhood cancers (Gouveia-Vigeant & Tickner, p. 1). While this demonstrates a significant …