Public Health Commons^™

Entanglements Of Teenage Food Security Within High School Pantries In Pinellas County, Florida, Karen T. Díaz Serrano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Food insecurity has the ability to shape an individual’s or a family’s everyday life and take emotional, psychological, and physical tolls. Among adolescents, not having access to nutritious food could lead to physical effects during growth and development. Moreover, the stress and anxiety of not knowing where their next meal is coming from and the social stigma associated with being food insecure can have negative effects on mental health. A recent solution to these issues is locating food pantries in high schools. Purpose: This exploratory study examined how high school students in Pinellas County, Florida perceive the use of a …

Helping Frontline Workers In Texas-A Framework For Resource Development, Karima Lalani, Meredith O'Neal, Simone Lee Joannou, Bhanumathi Gopal, Tiffany Champagne-Langabeer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

First responders disproportionately experience occupational stress when compared to the general population, and COVID-19 has exacerbated this stress. The nature of their duties as law enforcement officers, firefighters, and medics exposes them to repeated trauma, increasing their risk of developing a broad array of mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder (SUD), and compassion fatigue. This paper describes the need for resources for frontline workers and provides a framework for creating and implementing resources. A team of interdisciplinary subject matter experts developed two major resources. The first resource was a 24/7 helpline to support first responders …

Surveillance Systems In Western Kenya: Methods, Perceptions, And Effectiveness, Marissa Duffy

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Surveillance is an important tool in monitoring and evaluating infectious disease patterns and trends. Surveillance is vital because it aids public health officials and medical professionals in creating better prevention methods and efficiently managing outbreaks. Kenya is home to many noncommunicable diseases making it an important location to conduct disease surveillance. Within Kenya, each county has its own surveillance unit which tracks and controls outbreaks. In addition, government run surveillance systems were established to determine disease burden, incidence, and patterns in specific at-risk communities around Kenya. One of these major surveillance systems is Population-Based Infectious Disease Surveillance (PBIDS) which has …

Roadway Characteristics And Car Accident Trends In Gettysburg, Pa, Max Smith, Jake H. Kennell, Russell H. Canova

Student Publications

This study addresses the rising motor vehicle accident and fatality rates in the United States (Moore, 2023). Focusing on the conditions in the Gettysburg Borough in an attempt to answer the following research questions: Are age of driver, weather conditions of car accidents, and traffic volume contributing to accidents in the Gettysburg Borough? What are the roadway characteristics of accident hot spot areas within the Gettysburg Borough? Utilizing Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) crash data from 2018 to 2022 and PennDot Average Annual Daily Traffic data, this study employs a comprehensive approach. Combining GIS analysis and statistical analysis to determine …

Discoverpath: A Knowledge Refinement And Retrieval System For Interdisciplinarity On Biomedical Research, Yu-Neng Chuang, Guanchu Wang, Chia-Yuan Chang, Kwei-Herng Lai, Daochen Zha, Ruixiang Tang, Fan Yang, Alfredo Costilla Reyes, Kaixiong Zhou, Xiaoqian Jiang, Xia Hu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The exponential growth in scholarly publications necessitates advanced tools for efficient article retrieval, especially in interdisciplinary fields where diverse terminologies are used to describe similar research. Traditional keyword-based search engines often fall short in assisting users who may not be familiar with specific terminologies. To address this, we present a knowledge graph based paper search engine for biomedical research to enhance the user experience in discovering relevant queries and articles. The system, dubbed DiscoverPath, employs Named Entity Recognition (NER) and part-of-speech (POS) tagging to extract terminologies and relationships from article abstracts to create a KG. To reduce information overload, DiscoverPath …

Geographic Differences In The Magnitude Of Black-White Disparities In Having Obesity, Steven A. Cohen, Monique J. Brown, Furong Xu, Caitlin C. Nash, Mary L. Greaney

Faculty Publications

Background

Obesity disparities in the United States are well documented, but the limited body of research suggests that geographic factors may alter the magnitude of these disparities. A growing body of evidence has identified a “rural mortality penalty” where morbidity and mortality rates are higher in rural than urban areas, even after controlling for other factors. Black-White differences in health and mortality are more pronounced in rural areas than in urban areas.

Objective

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore how rural-urban status and region moderate Black-White health disparities in obesity.

Methods

Data were abstracted from the 2012 …

Climate Change, Malnutrition, And Hiv: The Impact Of Food Insecurity On Hiv Response In Sub-Saharan Africa, Olivia Walshak

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Climate change is a key driver of an unprecedented global food crisis, exacerbated by rising temperatures and the vulnerability of crop yields. Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly susceptible, and case studies demonstrate the fragility of food systems in the region, leading to severe food insecurity and famine in the face of climate shocks.

There are a variety of health implications, particularly the syndemic relationship between malnutrition and HIV. HIV interacts bidirectionally with malnutrition, creating a vicious cycle of poor clinical outcomes. Expanding access to antiretroviral therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa is hindered by rampant food insecurity, including inadequate food intake, reduced dietary …

All-Cause And Opioid-Related Mortality Compared Between Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury And The Us General Population, Jaden Whitehead, Beatrice Ugiliweneza

The Cardinal Edge

Individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) are susceptible to the misuse of opioids due to the introduction of these substances for pain management. There are very few studies examining the relationship between unintentional deaths caused by opioid usage following spinal cord injury. The objective of this study was to evaluate the trend of opioid-related mortality of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) over the years and compare these findings to the mortality rates due to opioid misuse in the general population. In this study, we used data provided by the National Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems (NSCIMS) for SCI 1999-2016 …

Sugar-Sweetened Beverages And Artificially Sweetened Beverages Consumption And The Risk Of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver (Nafld) And Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (Nash), Tung Sung Tseng, Wei Ting Lin, Peng Sheng Ting, Chiung Kuei Huang, Po Hung Chen, Gabrielle V. Gonzalez, Hui Yi Lin

School of Public Health Faculty Publications

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are fast becoming the most common chronic liver disease and are often preventable with healthy dietary habits and weight management. Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is associated with obesity and NAFLD. However, the impact of different types of SSBs, including artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs), is not clear after controlling for total sugar intake and total caloric intake. The aim of this study was to examine the association between the consumption of different SSBs and the risk of NAFLD and NASH in US adults. The representativeness of 3739 US adults aged ≥20 years …

History And Current Status Of Mediterranean Spotted Fever (Msf) In The Crimean Peninsula And Neighboring Regions Along The Black Sea Coast, Muniver T. Gafarova, Marina E. Eremeeva

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Mediterranean spotted fever (MSF) is a tick-borne rickettsiosis caused by Rickettsia conorii subspecies conorii and transmitted to humans by Rhipicephalus sanguineus ticks. The disease was first discovered in Tunisia in 1910 and was subsequently reported from other Mediterranean countries. The first cases of MSF in the former Soviet Union were detected in 1936 on the Crimean Peninsula. This review summarizes the historic information and main features of MSF in that region and contemporary surveillance and control efforts for this rickettsiosis. Current data pertinent to the epidemiology of the disease, circulation of the ticks and distribution of animal hosts are discussed …

Microplastics In Water, Their Effects On The Aquatic Ecosystem And Human Public Health, And The Proposed Solutions, Mohanad Abouserie

The Undergraduate Research Journal

We could be swallowing a credit card's weight in plastic every week. Microplastic water pollution is becoming a threat to both humans and aquatic creatures. In this research, microplastic water contamination is discussed, and divergent solutions are proposed. This paper attempts to investigate the causes and effects of such pollution and analyze the current solutions for this issue. The adopted research method is secondary research, where several studies are explored and analyzed. This study explains numerous causes for this issue like cosmetics, cleaning products, factories, and sewage. Consequently, this contamination can negatively impact the organs and metabolisms of the living …

Pathogen-Driven Crispr Screens Identify Trex1as A Regulator Of Dna Self-Sensing During Influenza Virus Infection, Cason R King, Yiping Liu, Katherine A Amato, Grace A Schaack, Clayton Mickelson, Autumn E Sanders, Tony Hu, Srishti Gupta, Ryan A Langlois, Judith A Smith, Andrew Mehle

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Host:pathogen interactions dictate the outcome of infection, yet the limitations of current approaches leave large regions of this interface unexplored. Here, we develop a novel fitness-based screen that queries factors important during the middle to late stages of infection. This is achieved by engineering influenza virus to direct the screen by programming dCas9 to modulate host gene expression. Our genome-wide screen for pro-viral factors identifies the cytoplasmic DNA exonuclease TREX1. TREX1 degrades cytoplasmic DNA to prevent inappropriate innate immune activation by self-DNA. We reveal that this same process aids influenza virus replication. Infection triggers release of mitochondrial DNA into the …

The Public Health Impact Of Paxlovid Covid-19 Treatment In The United States, Yuan Bai, Zhanwei Du, Lin Wang, Eric H. Y. Lau, Isaac Fung, Petter Holme, Ben Cowling, Alison Galvani, Robert Krug, Lauren Ancel Meyers

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

The antiviral drug Paxlovid has been shown to rapidly reduce viral load. Coupled with vaccination, timely administration of safe and effective antivirals could provide a path towards managing COVID-19 without restrictive non-pharmaceutical measures. Here, we estimate the population-level impacts of expanding treatment with Paxlovid in the US using a multi-scale mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission that incorporates the within-host viral load dynamics of the Omicron variant. We find that, under a low transmission scenario (Re∼1.2) treating 20% of symptomatic cases would be life and cost saving, leading to an estimated 0.26 (95% CrI: 0.03, 0.59) million hospitalizations averted, 30.61 (95% …

Design, Analysis, And Interpretation Of Treatment Response Heterogeneity In Personalized Nutrition And Obesity Treatment Research, Roger S. Zoh, Bridget H. Esteves, Xiaoxin Yu, Amanda J. Fairchild, Ana I. Vazquez, Andrew G. Chapple, Andrew W. Brown, Brandon George, Derek Gordon, Douglas Landsittel, Gary L. Gadbury, Greg Pavela, Gustavo De Los Campos, Luis M. Mestre, David B. Allison

School of Public Health Faculty Publications

It is increasingly assumed that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to dietary recommendations for the management and treatment of chronic diseases such as obesity. This phenomenon that not all individuals respond uniformly to a given treatment has become an area of research interest given the rise of personalized and precision medicine. To conduct, interpret, and disseminate this research rigorously and with scientific accuracy, however, requires an understanding of treatment response heterogeneity. Here, we define treatment response heterogeneity as it relates to clinical trials, provide statistical guidance for measuring treatment response heterogeneity, and highlight study designs that can quantify treatment response …

Differences In Clinical Presentation At First Hospitalization And The Impact On Involuntary Admissions Among First-Generation Migrant Groups With Non-Affective Psychotic Disorders., Kelly K Anderson, Rebecca Rodrigues

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

BACKGROUND: Some migrant and ethnic minority groups have a higher risk of coercive pathways to care; however, it is unclear whether differences in clinical presentation contribute to this risk. We sought to assess: (i) whether there were differences in clinician-rated symptoms and behaviours across first-generation immigrant and refugee groups at the first psychiatric hospitalization after psychosis diagnosis, and (ii) whether these differences accounted for disparities in involuntary admission.

METHODS: Using population-based health administrative data from Ontario, Canada, we constructed a sample (2009-2013) of incident cases of non-affective psychotic disorder followed for two years to identify first psychiatric hospitalization. We compared …

Mpla Case: How Do You Lead As A Lead Physicist?, Patricia Sansourekidou, Leonard Kim, Lee Xu, Mary Gronberg, Cassandra Stambaugh, Dongxu Wang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

This work of fiction is part of a case study series developed by the Medical Physics Leadership Academy (MPLA). It is intended to facilitate the discussion of the managerial and leadership challenges faced by a clinical medical physicist. In this case, a physicist David used to work in a clinic where he thrived and felt like a leader, despite not having the title. After a job change, he is now officially the "Lead Physicist" at a hospital newly affiliated with a large academic healthcare system. He believes he will be equally successful. Yet he struggles to bring about changes and …

Significant Improvement Of Fidelity For Encoded Quantum Bell Pairs At Long And Short-Distance Communication Along With Generalized Circuit, Syed Emad Uddin Shubha, Md Saifur Rahman, M R C Mahdy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Quantum entanglement is a unique criterion of the quantum realm and an essential tool to secure quantum communication. Ensuring high-fidelity entanglement has always been a challenging task owing to interaction with the hostile channel environment created due to quantum noise and decoherence. Though several methods have been proposed, correcting almost all arbitrary errors is still a gigantic task. As one of the main contributions of this work, a new model for 'large distance communication' has been proposed, which may correct all bit flip errors or other errors quite extensively if proper encoding and subspace measurements are used. To achieve this …

Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors And Sociodemographic Characteristics Among Medical Students In Indonesia During The New Normal Era: A Cross-Sectional Study, Sharren Shera Vionnetta, Tommy Nugroho Tanumihardja, Kevin Kristian

Kesmas

This study aimed to identify medical students’ healthy lifestyle behaviors during the new normal era and to determine its relationship with sociodemographic factors, bearing in mind that, as future physicians and health role models, medical students play an important role in adopting and promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors to reduce the risk of future health problems as well as optimize communities’ health status. This cross-sectional study was conducted at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences of Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya, with 111 medical students selected through stratified random sampling. Data were collected using sociodemographic characteristics (sex, residence, year of …

Self-Reported Consumption Of Bottled Water V. Tap Water In Appalachian And Non-Appalachian Kentucky, Jason W. Marion

Journal of Appalachian Health

Introduction: Quantitative studies on drinking water perceptions in Appalachia are limited. High-profile water infrastructure failures in the U.S. and Eastern Kentucky, coupled with human-made and natural disasters in the Appalachian Region, have likely impacted opinions regarding tap water.

Purpose: To use existing unexplored data to describe baseline tap water v. bottled water consumption in Kentucky.

Methods: Telephone-based cross-sectional data were obtained from the 2013 Kentucky Health Issues Poll (KHIP) directed by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Among many items in KHIP, self-reported consumption of bottled water over tap water, reasons for bottled water use, and demographic data were obtained. …

Prediction Of Factors For Patients With Hypertension And Dyslipidemia Using Multilayer Feedforward Neural Networks And Ordered Logistic Regression Analysis: A Robust Hybrid Methodology, Wan Muhamad Amir W Ahmad, Mohamad Nasarudin Bin Adnan, Norhayati Yusop, Hazik Bin Shahzad, Farah Muna Mohamad Ghazali, Nor Azlida Aleng, Nor Farid Mohd Noor

Makara Journal of Health Research

Background: Hypertension is characterized by abnormally high arterial blood pressure and is a public health problem with a high prevalence of 20%–30% worldwide. This research combined multiple logistic regression (MLR) and multilayer feedforward neural networks to construct and validate a model for evaluating the factors linked with hypertension in patients with dyslipidemia.

Methods: A total of 1000 data entries from Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia and advanced computational statistical modeling methodologies were used to evaluate seven traits associated with hypertension. R-Studio software was utilized. Each sample's statistics were calculated using a hybrid model that included bootstrapping.

Results: Variable …

Characteristics And Source-Specific Health Risks Of Ambient Pm2.5-Bound Pahs In An Urban City Of Northern Taiwan, Yu-Chieh Ting, Chun-Hung Ku, Yu-Xuan Zou, Kai-Hsien Chi, Jhy-Charm Soo, Chin-Yu Hsu, Yu-Cheng Chen

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with highly toxic compounds mainly exist in small-sized particles and can induce considerable human health risks. Studies on PM2.5-bound PAHs and their source-specific human health risks still remain scarce. Daily PM2.5 samples (n = 119) were collected every three days from 2016 to 2017 in Taipei city, Taiwan. Fifteen PAHs in PM2.5 were analyzed via gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (GC/MS-MS). We utilized a positive matrix factorization (PMF) model, diagnostic ratios, and potential source contribution function (PSCF) to identify the origins of PM2.5-bound PAHs. The annual concentration of total PAHs (TPAH) was 0.79 ± 0.67 ng …

Stability Analyses On The Effect Of Vaccination And Contact Tracing In Monkeypox Virus Transmission, Solomon Eshun, Richmond Essieku, James Ladzekpo

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Monkeypox is a significant health concern due to its potential for morbidity and occasional mortality. Vaccination and effective contact tracing play pivotal roles in controlling infectious diseases, including monkeypox. This study aims to contribute to our understanding of monkeypox dynamics by developing a comprehensive mathematical model that incorporates key factors such as vaccination, quarantining, and contact tracing. Through rigorous sensitivity analysis, we explore the impact of varying vaccination coverage and contact tracing on the disease’s dynamics. In particular, we investigate the dynamics of the disease in relation to variable vaccination coverage and contact tracing. Our findings highlight the critical role …

Investigating The Impact On Private Water Supply Of Hydraulic Fracturing Communication With An Abandoned Conventional Gas Well In New Freeport, Pa, Kiley Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In June of 2022 a “frac out” occurred in New Freeport, PA when an unconventional gas well under development by hydraulic fracturing, communicated with an abandoned gas well to the surface. An initial “zone of impact” encompassed much of the town’s main thoroughfare. Water samples were obtained from 17 private water wells, 5 springs and 1 pond (31 total samples) and analyzed for cations, anions, and light hydrocarbons. Methane was found in 18 of the samples, both located within and outside of the “zone of impact”. Mass ratio analyses indicated contamination from both unconventional and conventional wells. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture …

Identifying Contributing Factors Associated With Dental Adverse Events Through A Pragmatic Electronic Health Record-Based Root Cause Analysis, Elsbeth Kalenderian, Suhasini Bangar, Alfa Yansane, Duong Tran, Emily Sedlock, Yan Xiao, Janelle Urata, Greg Olson, Amy Franklin, Krishna Kookal, Ana Ibarra-Noriega, Sayali Tungare, Oluwabunmi Tokede, Heiko Spallek, Joel M White, Muhammad F Walji

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: This study assessed contributing factors associated with dental adverse events (AEs).

METHODS: Seven electronic health record-based triggers were deployed identifying potential AEs at 2 dental institutions. From 4106 flagged charts, 2 reviewers examined 439 charts selected randomly to identify and classify AEs using our dental AE type and severity classification systems. Based on information captured in the electronic health record, we analyzed harmful AEs to assess potential contributing factors; harmful AEs were defined as those that resulted in temporary moderate to severe harm, required hospitalization, or resulted in permanent moderate to severe harm. We classified potential contributing factors according …

Weighted Mean Difference Statistics For Paired Data In The Presence Of Missing Values, Yuntong Li, Brent J. Shelton, William St Clair, Heidi L. Weiss, John L. Villano, Arnold Stromberg, Chi Wang, Li Chen

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Missing data is a common issue in many biomedical studies. Under a paired design, some subjects may have missing values in either one or both of the conditions due to loss of follow-up, insufficient biological samples, etc. Such partially paired data complicate statistical comparison of the distribution of the variable of interest between the two conditions. In this article, we propose a general class of test statistics based on the difference in weighted sample means without imposing any distributional or model assumption. An optimal weight is derived from this class of tests. Simulation studies show that our proposed test with …

Healthcare Built Environment And The Covid-19 Pandemic, A Mixed-Method Study, Mohammad Saleh Nikooopayan Tak

All Theses

The outbreak of COVID-19 presented an unparalleled risk to public health, leading to urgent scientific efforts in understanding transmission mechanisms and mitigating risks, especially in healthcare settings. This mixed-methods study examines knowledge advancement regarding indoor air quality in healthcare facilities during the pandemic. A systematic literature review of 163 post-COVID studies identifies key research thrusts and 31 recommendations related to building ventilation, air filtration, surface disinfection, and monitoring. Comparison with over 200 pre-pandemic publications reveals both reliance on established infection control principles and unique contributions, such as detecting viral RNA in air and surface samples indicating potential airborne and fomite …

Polygenic Risk Score Development And Validation For Early Detection And Risk Stratification Of Rheumatoid Arthritis And Osteoarthritis In Postmenopausal Women, Yingke Xu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction: Around one in four adults worldwide suffer from arthritis. There are more than one hundred different forms of arthritis; the two most common forms of arthritis are rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA). RA is an autoimmune disease that can cause joint inflammation. Around 1.3 million adults in the US suffer from RA, representing 0.6%–1% of the population. The RA diagnosis in its early stages is difficult since its signs and symptoms are similar to other arthritis. OA is the most common form of arthritis. In the US, around 30.8 million people are affected by this disease. However, OA …

Editorial, Al Asyary

Kesmas

No abstract provided.

The Screening Of The Protective Antigens Of Aeromonas Hydrophila Using The Reverse Vaccinology Approach: Potential Candidates For Subunit Vaccine Development, Ting Zhang, Minying Zhang, Zehua Xu, Yang He, Xiaoheng Zhao, Hanliang Cheng, Xiangning Chen, Jianhe Xu, Zhujin Ding

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The threat of bacterial septicemia caused by Aeromonas hydrophila infection to aquaculture growth can be prevented through vaccination, but differences among A. hydrophila strains may affect the effectiveness of non-conserved subunit vaccines or non-inactivated A. hydrophila vaccines, making the identification and development of conserved antigens crucial. In this study, a bioinformatics analysis of 4268 protein sequences encoded by the A. hydrophila J-1 strain whole genome was performed based on reverse vaccinology. The specific analysis included signal peptide prediction, transmembrane helical structure prediction, subcellular localization prediction, and antigenicity and adhesion evaluation, as well as interspecific and intraspecific homology comparison, thereby screening …

Exposure Characteristics Of Environmental Chemicals By Life Stages, Nisha Vijayakumar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Environmental chemicals are ubiquitous and can contribute to human exposure. These exposures can result in long-term health consequences if they occur in early life. However, exposures to environmental chemicals are not evenly distributed throughout childhood. As a result, there exists variation in the levels of chemical exposure depending on the developmental stages, pathways of exposure, and broader systemic factors. However, in early life, limited research exists on exposures to environmental chemicals, particularly phthalates, pesticides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In addition, environmental exposures to phthalates, pesticides, and PAHs, considering life stages, have not been fully explored. Hence it is imperative …