Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Exploration Of Breastfeeding Concepts Among Current And Future Parents: Results Of Questionnaires Administered To Chinese And Us University Students And To New Mothers In China, Zixin Lou

Doctoral Dissertations

The objectives were to explore breastfeeding knowledge, attitudes, and intention of future parents, and to investigate indicators and causes of perceived insufficient milk (PIM) supply among Chinese mothers. Objectives were accomplished using a cross-sectional study design. Two questionnaires were developed, one targeting Chinese and US undergraduates, and a second targeting Chinese mothers. In total, 597 undergraduates (395 Chinese; 202 US) and 392 Chinese mothers participated in the study. Data cleaning resulted in a final sample size of 572 for undergraduates (383 Chinese; 189 US) and 341 for Chinese mothers. Results showed that undergraduates in both countries possessed some breastfeeding knowledge …

Geographic And Temporal Epidemiology Of Campylobacteriosis, Jennifer Weisent

Doctoral Dissertations

Campylobacteriosis is a leading cause of gastroenteritis in the United States. The focus of this research was to (i) analyze and predict spatial and temporal patterns and associations for campylobacteriosis risk and (ii) compare the utility of advanced modeling methods. Laboratory-confirmed Campylobacter case data, obtained from the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network were used in all investigations.

We compared the accuracy of forecasting techniques for campylobacteriosis risk in Minnesota, Oregon and Georgia and found that time series regression, decomposition, and Box-Jenkins Autoregressive Integrated Moving Averages reliably predict monthly risk of infection for campylobacteriosis. Decomposition provided the fastest, most accurate, user-friendly …