Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

A Qualitative Research Synthesis Of Contextual Factors Contributing To Female Overweight And Obesity Over The Life Course In Sub-Saharan Africa, Ifeoma Ozodiegwu, Mary Ann Littleton, Christian Nwabueze, Oluwaseun Famojuro, Megan Quinn, Rick L. Wallace, Hadii M. Mamudu

ETSU Faculty Works

Objective: Adult women are disproportionately affected by overweight and obesity in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Existing evidence on the sociocultural context remains unconsolidated. In this qualitative research synthesis, we aggregate research literature on contextual factors that potentially predispose adult women and adolescent girls to overweight and obesity to inform research, policies and programs over the life course.

Methods: PubMed, CINAHL, PsychInfo, ProQuest Central, EMBASE, and Web of Science were searched to locate qualitative research articles conducted in SSA countries beginning in the year 2000. After assessment for eligibility and critical appraisal, 17 studies were included in the synthesis. Textual data …

Adventist Healthcare: A Qualitative Study Of 19th Century Founding Governing Principles In 21st Century Adventist Hospitals, Cesiah Yareth Pimentel Melendez

Dissertations

Problem and Purpose

Founding values and principles can help organizations stay focused on fulfilling their mission. This is especially true in faith-based organizations that seek to continue their founding principles as a governing commitment to their core identity. This study identified Adventist healthcare founding principles in Ellen G. White's early health visions and explored how Adventist healthcare leaders perceived these principles as governing principles applied to current Adventist healthcare practices.

Conceptual Framework and Research Design

Two metaphors and three areas of literature review guided my approach of this qualitative study of Adventist healthcare founding principles. My first metaphor of DNA …

Journey With Autism: Successful Educational And Social Interventions From A Single Case Study, Kwame M. De Jonge-Moore

Dissertations

Problem

Statistics indicate that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is on the increase in America and worldwide (Xu, Strathearn, Liu, & Bao, 2018; Baio et al., 2018). Autism spectrum disorder can impair an individual’s ability to engage in neurotypical behavior, which has the potential to increase their vulnerability to being shunned and bullied. This makes autism a major societal concern with significant costs to the individual, their family, private/public health insurance, state financial aid programs, and to the nation. This present study was undertaken to determine, in the opinions of those connected to the case, whether the interventions engaged in this …

Therapeutic Targeting Of Relaxin Signaling In Ischemic Heart Disease, Siva Teja Vk Devarakonda

Theses and Dissertations

Ischemic heart disease is characterized by reduced perfusion of oxygenated blood to the myocardium, potentially resulting in infarction upon occlusion of coronary arteries. While prompt reperfusion and advances in in-hospital care have led to a decline in short term mortality, sustained damage to the ventricle, along with reperfusion injury, can lead to progressive deterioration in cardiac function. Limiting the extent of this initial ischemia-reperfusion injury and combating the course of adverse remodeling remains the scope of several preclinical studies geared towards improving cardiac health after MI. To this, relaxin-2 – the peptide hormone that regulates maternal hemodynamic function during pregnancy …

Glycosaminoglycan Mimetics For The Treatment Of Cancer And Lung Inflammation, Shravan Morla

Theses and Dissertations

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are linear polysaccharides whose disaccharide building blocks consist of an amino sugar and either uronic acid or galactose. They are expressed on virtually all mammalian cells, usually covalently attached to proteins, forming proteoglycans. GAGs are highly negatively charged due to an abundance of sulfate and carboxylic acid groups, and are structurally very diverse, with differences arising from chain length, the type of monomeric units, the linkages between each monomeric unit, the position of sulfate groups, and the degree of sulfation. GAGs are known to interact with a multitude of proteins, impacting diverse physiological and pathological processes. In addition, …

Building A Risk Model For The Patient-Centred Care Of Multiple Chronic Diseases, Stephane Deparis, Pierpaolo Tommasi, Alessandra Pascale, Hicham Rifai, Julie Doyle, John Dinsmore

Conference papers

With the increase of multimorbidity due to population ageing, managing multiple chronic health conditions is a rising challenge. Machine-learning can contribute to a better understanding of persons with multimorbidity (PwMs) and how to design an effective framework of care and support for them. We present a risk model of older PwMs that was derived from the TILDA dataset, a longitudinal study of the ageing Irish population. This model is based on a 26-nodes Bayesian network that represents patients possibly having one or more chronic conditions among diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and arthritis, through a joint probability distribution of demographic, …

Multivariate Statistical Methodologies Used In In-Vitro Raman Spectroscopy: Simulations And Applications For Drug And Nanoparticle Interactions, Mark Edward Keating

Doctoral

Raman spectroscopy is a growing technology in the fields of in-vitro drug and nanoparticle screening. The label free capability provided by vibrational spectroscopy, as well as the ability of the technique to probe the chemical nature of samples, makes it a good candidate for use in these fields. Crucial to the progress of these methods is the development and validation of robust and accurate multivariate statistical analysis protocols. In this thesis, both established and novel methods are examined using both real and simulated datasets. In particular, simulated datasets are used to validate and assess the accuracy of these methods in …

Synthesis And Novel Applications Of Cerium Dioxide, Rafaela Cristina De Carvalho

Doctoral

Cerium dioxide nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesised using a novel precipitation procedure and their function explored in a range of applications. The impact of different factors on CeO2 NPs synthesis including temperature and reactant concentration were evaluated experimentally and optimised. The resulting nanoparticles (with an average size of 35 nm) was then characterised by a range of physical and spectroscopic techniques including dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy in conjunction with energy dispersive spectrometry, X-ray diffractometry,Brunauer–Emmett–Teller isotherm measurement, Raman spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A new nanoparticle synthetic route, the “frozen NH4(OH) cubes method”, was developed, resulting in a …

Usability Challenges With Insulin Pump Devices In Diabetes Care: What Trainers Observe With First-Time Pump Users, Helen Birkmann Hernandez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Insulin pumps are designed for the self-management of diabetes mellitus in patients and are known for their complexity of use. Pump manufacturers engage trainers to teach patients how to use the devices correctly to control the symptoms of their disease. Usability research related to insulin pumps and other infusion pumps with first-time users as participants has centered on the relationship between user interface design and the effectiveness of task completion. According to prior research, the characteristics of system behavior in a real life environment remain elusive. A suitable approach to acquire information about potential usability problems encountered by first-time users …

Differential Abundance And Clustering Analysis With Empirical Bayes Shrinkage Estimation Of Variance (Dasev) For Proteomics And Metabolomics Data, Zhengyan Huang

Theses and Dissertations--Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Mass spectrometry (MS) is widely used for proteomic and metabolomic profiling of biological samples. Data obtained by MS are often zero-inflated. Those zero values are called point mass values (PMVs). Zero values can be further grouped into biological PMVs and technical PMVs. The former type is caused by the absence of components and the latter type is caused by detection limit. There is no simple solution to separate those two types of PMVs. Mixture models were developed to separate the two types of zeros apart and to perform the differential abundance analysis. However, we notice that the mixture model can …

Commentary: Adherence With A Low-Fodmap Diet In Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Are Eating Disorders The Missing Link?, Bruno P Chumpitazi, Ligia Alfaro-Cruz, Jasmine K Zia, Robert J Shulman, Margaret M Heitkemper

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

No abstract provided.

Postoperative Intracranial Migration Of A C2 Odontoid Screw: A Case Report And Literature Review., Ankush Chandra, Seong-Jin Moon, Blake Walker, Emre Yilmaz, Marc Moisi, Robert Johnson

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Background: Intracranial migration of odontoid screws is a rare but serious complication of anterior odontoid screw fixation not often reported in literature by neurosurgeons. Here, we describe the second case in literature of intracranial migration of an odontoid screw.

Case Description: A 64-year-old neurologically intact patient with a type II odontoid fracture secondary to trauma underwent anterior odontoid screw fixation without any intraoperative complications. He tolerated the procedure well, and postoperative imaging demonstrated near anatomic correction of the fracture with satisfactory placement of the lag screw. Unfortunately, the patient was subsequently lost to follow up and he presented 7 months …

Precision Sensorimotor Control In Aging Fmr1 Gene Premutation Carriers., Walker S Mckinney, Zheng Wang, Shannon Kelly, Pravin Khemani, Su Lui, Stormi P White, Matthew W Mosconi

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Background: Individuals with premutation alleles of the

Materials and Methods: 26

Results: Relative to controls, premutation carriers showed reduced rates of initial force generation during rapid motor actions and longer durations of their initial pressing with their dominant hand. During sustained force, premutation carriers demonstrated reduced force complexity, though this effect was specific to younger premutation carries during dominant hand pressing and was more severe for younger relative to older premutation carriers at low and medium force levels. Increased reaction time and lower sustained force complexity each were associated with greater CGG repeat length for premutation carriers. Increased reaction time …

Discontinuation And Switching Patterns Of Tumour Necrosis Factor Inhibitors (Tnfis) In Tnfi-Naive And Tnfi-Experienced Patients With Psoriatic Arthritis: An Observational Study From The Us-Based Corrona Registry., Philip Mease, Chitra Karki, Mei Liu, Youfu Li, Bernice Gershenson, Hua Feng, Peter Hur, Jeffrey D Greenberg

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Objective: To examine patterns of tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) use in TNFi-naive and TNFi-experienced patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) in the USA.

Methods: All patients aged ≥18 years with PsA enrolled in the Corrona Psoriatic Arthritis/Spondyloarthritis Registry who initiated a TNFi (index therapy) between March 2013 and January 2017 and had ≥1 follow-up visit were included. Times to and rates of discontinuation/switch of the index TNFi were compared between TNFi-naive and TNFi-experienced cohorts. Patient demographics and disease characteristics at the time of TNFi initiation (baseline) were compared between cohorts and between patients who continued versus discontinued their index TNFi …

A Case Report Of Thalamic Infarction After Lumbar Drain: A Unique Cause Of Perioperative Stroke?, Daniel N Kianpour, Thomas M Nguyen, Arthur M Lam

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

In the case presented, a patient has an unexplained episode of hypertension during aneurysm clipping. Following the procedure, the patient was discovered to have bilateral thalamic infarctions unrelated to the vascular location of the aneurysm. After a review of the case, it becomes apparent that intracranial hypotension caused by lumbar over drainage of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is the likely cause of both the episode of intraoperative hypertension and the thalamic infarcts. It is often presumed that having an open dura protects against intracranial hypotension and subsequent herniation. We present this case to suggest that opening the dura might not be …

Bold Leadership Is Needed For Transforming Health Care., Dora Barilla, Huma Shah, Rick Rawson

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Health care in the United States is going through significant changes and is at the forefront of the political landscape. While the health care debate rages on, leaders need to forge ahead and continue to work towards population-based health care and investing in their communities in a fiscally conscious way. Many innovations are happening but more needs to be done, especially in upstream services improving the health of the community. Research shows that investing in social care services and community-based investments results in lower health care expenditures and better health outcomes. Efforts should be placed on exploring a blended medical/social …

Focused Transcranial Ultrasound For Treatment Of Neurodegenerative Dementia., Natalie Eleanor Nicodemus, Sergio Becerra, Taylor P Kuhn, Hannah R Packham, John Duncan, Kennedy Mahdavi, Jessica Iovine, Santosh Kesari, Scott Pereles, Mike Whitney, Michael Mamoun, Daniel Franc, Alexander Bystritsky, Sheldon Jordan

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Introduction: Preclinical studies support investigation of focused ultrasound for breakdown of cerebral pathologies in neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD).

Methods: A focused transcranial Doppler device with probes (2 MHz, 520 mW/cm

Results: Of all, 62.5% of patients had one or more improved cognitive scores without data incongruence, 87% had stable or improved fine motor scores, and 87.5% had stable or improved gross motor scores. No adverse events were reported.

Discussion: The safety of focused transcranial Doppler and possible enhancement in patient functioning were suggested by outcome data.

Harm Reduction Policy : Biopower, Race & Stigma At The Heart Of The 'Opioid Crisis', Cole Charles Melby

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Across the U.S., concerns regarding substance abuse, addiction, and treatment are coming to the forefront of public discourse, due to increased media coverage of the popularly dubbed ‘opioid crisis.’ As overdose rates increase, particularly in rural and suburban white communities, so have debates about the ethics and efficacy of harm reduction services. Through a review of existing literature and reflections on interviews from key informants at New York State Department of Health, grassroots harm reduction organizations, and a ‘mainstream’ addiction clinic, this thesis will critically examine the history of drug user stigmatization in the U.S. and how it has influenced …

Environmental Influences On Rates Of Osteo- And Rheumatoid Arthritis, Azad Abdulrahman Mohammed

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

Epidemiology Of Self-Reported Maternal Depression During Pregnancy And Association With Adverse Birth Outcomes In New York State, 2012-2017, Solita Julianna Jones

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Background

The Aids Volcano : Narratives Of Hiv/Aids In The Iranian Public Sphere, Elham Pourtaher

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Broadly construed, this thesis will examine the transformations in the socio-cultural construction of HIV/AIDS in Iran from the joint perspectives of media and medical sociology. Until recently, official public narratives in Iran primarily regarded AIDS to be a drug-related disease. However, beginning from the early 2010s, a new narrative frame (often called as “the third wave”) introduces a significant “alarming” collective shift in the transmissions modes of the disease toward sexual pathways. Having observed the rather rapid transformation of the public AIDS framing, this research began with an empirical question: considering the fact that the shift implied the prevalence of …

Impact Evaluation Of The Church Environment As An Enabler Of Physical Activity Among Church-Going African Americans In New York City, Moses Mansu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Background: While African Americans in NYC are more likely to have sedentary lifestyles than other racial groups, it is known that regular moderate to vigorous physical activity (PA) reduces their risks of chronic diseases. Recognizing that the church has a deep reach in the African American community, the NYCDOHMH in 2015 initiated a PA program in70 houses of worship, among which were 49 African American churches. Free exercise equipment and the services of paid fitness instructors were donated to participating organizations to conduct exercise classes.

Climate Change And Salmonella, New York State, Kevin Taylor Welch

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A study of climate change and Salmonella was conducted, serving as the evidence-based results for action to mitigate adverse Salmonella outcomes for the population of New York State (NYS), and to facilitate dissemination of findings in regard to validated approaches for broader use to mitigate climate change and adverse communicable disease outcomes in a variety of other settings. This study bolsters understanding of dynamic exposures and outcomes for improved and targeted public health approaches to localized climate change and communicable disease outcomes. The approach was developed and refined through continuously validated and calibrated methodology for the enhancement of disease control …

Anxiety Among Women Living With Hiv In Kazakhstan, Kathryn Emily Mishkin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Research shows that mental illness has an impact on the health and quality of life of women living with HIV. As a result, many countries have adopted integrated care models to provide holistic treatment to women living with HIV. However, some countries, where the HIV burden is particularly high, have been ineffective at addressing the mental health needs of these women, primarily because of a compartmentalized health care structure that limits interaction among sectors. By describing the prevalence of anxiety and comorbid anxiety-depression among women living with HIV in affected areas, there is an opportunity for effective policies to be …

Pregnant Women's Knowledge And Use Of Evidence-Based Practices During Labor And Childbirth After Participating In A Health Education Intervention : Senses Of Birth, Luisa Da Matta Machado Fernandes

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Background: Senses of Birth (SoB) is a health education intervention in Brazil that addresses reproductive rights, the benefits and risks of normal birth and cesarean, and use of evidence-based practices (EBP) during labor and childbirth, aiming to reduce unnecessary cesareans in the country. This mixed-method study had three objectives: 1) evaluate the impact of the SoB intervention on pregnant women’s perceived knowledge about normal birth, cesarean, and use of EBP in childbirth; 2) identify socio-demographic factors, obstetric characteristics, and aspects of women’s perceived knowledge that influence women’s use of EBP; and 3) analyze the outcomes, barriers and facilitators/strategies to use …

Changes In Fish Consumption Patterns And Knowledge Pre-/Post-Fish Consumption Education By Race In The Capital District Of New York State, Donghong Gao

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT

Examining The Association Between Toxocara Infection And Lung Function In A Nationally Representative Sample Of U.S. Adults Aged 18-79 Years, Tejaswini Chakravarthy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Introduction:

Descriptive And Risk Factor Analysis Of Infantile Cataracts, Marine Nalbandyan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Infantile cataract is a lens opacity diagnosed by 12 months of age. It is a major cause of childhood blindness, with about 200,000 children worldwide being blind because of bilateral cataracts. Blindness has a negative impact on the quality of a child’s life and is associated with increased healthcare costs. While reduction/elimination of childhood blindness is a priority issue in public health, risk factors remain unknown for about two-thirds of infantile cataract cases. The primary aims of this dissertation were to (1) identify, evaluate, and summarize observational studies investigating non-genetic risk factors for infantile cataracts, (2) estimate birth prevalence and …

Association Of Serum Pcsk9 With Carotid Artery Thickness And Carotid Lesions In Women With Hiv And Hepatitis C Virus, Michael Patrick Searles

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Background: Increase in risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) is a well-documented for HIV-infected (HIV+) populations. A precursor of cardiovascular events in HIV+ populations are non-calcified plaque (lesion) formations and can be associated with arterial inflammation, monocyte aggregation and dendritic cell activation. PCSK9 a known modulator of LDL cholesterol, has also been shown to contribute to inflammation, dendritic cell activation, monocyte aggregation and potentially plaque formations.

The Clinical Laboratory Workforce In New York State : A Study Of Supply And Demand, Stephanie H. Shulman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT