Medicine and Health Commons^™

Integrating Feminist Approaches In Counseling Work With Adult Women, Kristen M. Toole

Adultspan Journal

The scope of ‘women’s issues’ in counseling is an ever-evolving landscape. Recent events such as the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on women serve as powerful reminders of the necessity of this focus while underscoring a deep-rooted history of oppressive patriarchal structures. Therefore, counselors must remain informed of the unique considerations surrounding adult women in counseling and acquire proficiency in versatile techniques to meet this population’s nuanced needs. This article examines the complexity of contemporary womanhood and explores the fundamentals of Feminist Counseling Theory (FCT), a holistic, multiculturally conscious, social justice theory in counseling. …

Social Vulnerability And The Prevalence Of Opioid Use Disorder Among Older Medicare Beneficiaries In U.S. Counties, Tse-Chuan Yang, Seulki Kim, Stephen A. Matthews, Carla Shoff

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Recent research has investigated the factors associated with the prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD) among older adults (65+), which has rapidly increased in the past decade. However, little is known about the relationship between social vulnerability and the prevalence of OUD, and even less about whether the correlates of the prevalence of OUD vary across the social vulnerability spectrum. This study aims to fill these gaps. Methods: We assemble a county-level data set in the contiguous United States (U.S.) by merging 2021 Medicare claims with the CDC’s social vulnerability index and other covariates. Using the total number of …

County Social Isolation And Opioid Use Disorder Among Older Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Medicare Data, 2013–2018, Tse-Chuan Yang, Carla Shoff, Seulki Kim, Benjamin A. Shaw

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study aims to fill three knowledge gaps: (1) unclear role of ecological factors in shaping older adults’ risk of opioid use disorder (OUD), (2) a lack of longitudinal perspective in OUD research among older adults, and (3) underexplored racial/ethnic differences in the determinants of OUD in older populations. This study estimates the effects of county-level social isolation, concentrated disadvantage, and income inequality on older adults’ risk of OUD using longitudinal data analysis. We merged the 2013–2018 Medicare population (aged 65+) data to the American Community Survey 5-year county-level estimates to create a person-year dataset (N = 47,291,217 person-years) and …

Making Forests, Making Communities: An Ethnography Of Reforestation In Monteverde, Costa Rica, Megan Brown

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Reforestation is not just planting trees in the ground. More than net increase in forest cover, reforestation is a complex political endeavor undertaken by both humans and non-humans and a popular climate change mitigation tactic. However, little research has examined the dynamics between selection of specific reforestation strategies, health, and community resilience, particularly with attention to entanglements between the lives of both human and non-human forest dwellers. This ethnographic work, based on six months of in-person fieldwork and six months of digital ethnography, examines reforestation and forest relations in Costa Rica’s Monte Verde zone, a region which experienced widespread deforestation, …

What Predicts How Safe People Feel In Their Neighborhoods And Does It Depend On Functional Status?, Alfredo J. Velasquez, Jason A. Douglas, Fangqi Guo, Jennifer W. Robinette

Health Sciences and Kinesiology Faculty Articles

Feeling unsafe in one's neighborhood is related to poor health. Features of the neighborhood environment have been suggested to inform perceptions of neighborhood safety. Yet, the relative contribution of these features (e.g., uneven sidewalks, crime, perceived neighborhood physical disorder) on perceived neighborhood safety, particularly among people with disabilities who may view themselves as more vulnerable, is not well understood. We examined whether sidewalk quality assessed by third party raters, county-level crime rates, and perceived neighborhood disorder would relate to neighborhood safety concerns, and whether functional limitations would exacerbate these links. Using data from the 2012/2014 waves of the Health and …

Senior Center Response To Covid-19: Social Engagement And Outreach, Ceara Somerville, Saralyn Collins, Caitlin Coyle, Jan Mutchler, Center For Social And Demographic Research On Aging, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

Social isolation can have devastating effects on an individual’s mental and physical wellbeing. The COVID-19 outbreak has put older adults at greater risk of isolation and has pushed efforts to address isolation to the forefront of public health in Massachusetts. Senior centers have been working to end isolation in their communities long before COVID-19 and have continued that work in the face of a global pandemic. This fact sheet describes what Massachusetts senior centers are doing during the pandemic to address isolation among older community members.

County-Level Factors That Influenced The Trajectory Of Covid-19 Incidence In The New York City Area, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

More than a century of research has shown that sociodemographic conditions affect infectious disease transmission. In the late spring and early summer of 2020, reports of the effects of sociodemographic variables on the spread of COVID- 19 were used in the media with minimal scientific proof attached. With new cases of COVID-19 surging in the United States at that time, it became essential to better understand how the spread of COVID-19 was varying across all segments of the population. We used hierarchical exponential growth curve modeling techniques to examine whether community socioeconomic characteristics uniquely influence the incidence of reported COVID-19 …

Food Insecurity Prevalence Across Diverse Sites During Covid-19: A Year Of Comprehensive Data, Meredith T. Niles, Francesco Acciai, Deanne Allegro, Alyssa Beavers, Emily H. Belarmino, Farryl Bertmann, Erin Biehl, Jessica Bishop-Royse, Brianna Bradley, Barrett P. Brenton, James Buszkiewicz, Brittney N. Cavaliere, Young Cho, Eric Clark, Lauren Clay, Kathryn Coakley, Jeanne Coffin-Schmitt, Sarah M. Collier, Casey Coombs, Marcelle Dougan, Anne Dressel, Adam Drewnowski, Tom Evans, Beth Feingold, Kathryn J. Fiorella, Katie Funderburk, Preety Gadhoke, Diana Gonzales-Pacheco, Amelia Greiner Safi, Sen Gu, Karla Hanson, Amy Harley, Kaitlyn Harper, Alan Ismach, Anna L. Josephson, Linnea Laestadius, Heidi Leblanc, Laura R. Lewis, Michelle Litton, Katie S. Martin, John Mazzeo, Scott Merrill, Roni Neff, Esther Nguyen, Punam Ohri-Vachaspati, Abigail Orbe, Jennifer J. Otten, Sondra Parmer, Salome Pemberton, Giselle Pignotti, Zain Al Abdeen Qusair, Victoria Rivkina, Joelle Robinson, Stephanie Rogus, Chelsea M. Rose, Saloumeh Sadeghzadeh, Mateja R. Savoie-Roskos, Rachel Schattman, Brinda Sivaramakrishnan, Mckenna Voorhees, Kate Yerxa, Rachel Zack

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Key Findings

1. NFACT includes 18 study sites in 15 states as well as a national poll, collectively representing a sample size of more than 26,000 people. Some sites have implemented multiple survey rounds, here we report results from 22 separate surveys conducted during the year since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020.
2. 18 out of 19 surveys in 14 sites with data for before and since the pandemic began found an increase in food insecurity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as compared to before the pandemic.
3. In nearly all surveys (18/19) that measured food insecurity both before …

Home Food Production And Food Security Since The Covid-19 Pandemic, Meredith T. Niles, Mattie Alpaugh, Farryl Bertmann, Emily H. Belarmino, Sam Bliss, Jennifer Laurent, Jonathan Malacarne, Ashley Mccarthy, Scott Merrill, Rachel E. Schattman, Kathryn Yerxa

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

We conducted a Northern New England survey to understand the initial and continued impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, food access, and home food production (HFP) (i.e. gardening, fishing, harvesting shellfish, foraging, hunting, trapping, raising animals for meat, dairy, or eggs, and food preservation such as canning, drying or freezing). The surveys were conducted in the Spring and Summer of 2021 (March – June). The survey was conducted in Maine (n = 562) and Vermont (n = 426). The cohort of respondents was representative of racial and ethnic identities of Vermont and Maine state populations. The data presented …

Climate Impacts Associated With Reduced Diet Diversity In Children Across Nineteen Countries, Meredith T. Niles, Benjamin F. Emery, Serge Wiltshire, Molly E. Brown, Brendan Fisher, Taylor H. Ricketts

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

It is widely anticipated that climate change will negatively affect both food security and diet diversity. Diet diversity is especially critical for children as it correlates with macro and micronutrient intake important for child development. Despite these anticipated links, little empirical evidence has demonstrated a relationship between diet diversity and climate change, especially across large datasets spanning multiple global regions and with more recent climate data. Here we use survey data from 19 countries and more than 107 000 children, coupled with 30 years of precipitation and temperature data, to explore the relationship of climate to child diet diversity while …

The Shocklet Transform: A Decomposition Method For The Identification Of Local, Mechanism-Driven Dynamics In Sociotechnical Time Series, David Rushing Dewhurst, Thayer Alshaabi, Dilan Kiley, Michael V. Arnold, Joshua R. Minot, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

We introduce a qualitative, shape-based, timescale-independent time-domain transform used to extract local dynamics from sociotechnical time series—termed the Discrete Shocklet Transform (DST)—and an associated similarity search routine, the Shocklet Transform And Ranking (STAR) algorithm, that indicates time windows during which panels of time series display qualitatively-similar anomalous behavior. After distinguishing our algorithms from other methods used in anomaly detection and time series similarity search, such as the matrix profile, seasonal-hybrid ESD, and discrete wavelet transform-based procedures, we demonstrate the DST’s ability to identify mechanism-driven dynamics at a wide range of timescales and its relative insensitivity to functional parameterization. As an …

Healthy Diets Can Create Environmental Trade-Offs, Depending On How Diet Quality Is Measured, Zach Conrad, Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, Eric D. Roy

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Background: There is an urgent need to assess the linkages between diet patterns and environmental sustainability in order to meet global targets for reducing premature mortality and improving sustainable management of natural resources. This study fills an important research gap by evaluating the relationship between incremental differences in diet quality and multiple environmental burdens, while also accounting for the separate contributions of retail losses, inedible portions, and consumer waste. Methods: Cross sectional, nationally-representative data on food intake in the United States were acquired from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005–2016), and were linked with nationally-representative data on food …

Chimera States And Seizures In A Mouse Neuronal Model, Henry M. Mitchell, Peter Sheridan Dodds, J. Matthew Mahoney, Christopher M. Danforth

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Chimera states - the coexistence of synchrony and asynchrony in a nonlocally-coupled network of identical oscillators - are often used as a model framework for epileptic seizures. Here, we explore the dynamics of chimera states in a network of modified Hindmarsh-Rose neurons, configured to reflect the graph of the mesoscale mouse connectome. Our model produces superficially epileptiform activity converging on persistent chimera states in a large region of a two-parameter space governing connections (a) between subcortices within a cortex and (b) between cortices. Our findings contribute to a growing body of literature suggesting mathematical models can qualitatively reproduce epileptic seizure …

Perspective Article: Actions To Reconfigure Food Systems, Ana Maria Loboguerrero, Philip Thornton, Jonathan Wadsworth, Bruce M. Campbell, Mario Herrero, Daniel Mason-D'Croz, Dhanush Dinesh, Sophia Huyer, Andy Jarvis, Alberto Millan, Eva Wollenberg, Stephen Zebiak

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

There is broad agreement that current food systems are not on a sustainable trajectory that will enable us to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly in the face of anthropogenic climate change. Guided by a consideration of some food system reconfigurations in the past, we outline an agenda of work around four action areas: rerouting old systems into new trajectories; reducing risks; minimising the environmental footprint of food systems; and realigning the enablers of change needed to make new food systems function. Here we highlight food systems levers that, along with activities within these four action areas, may …

Simulating Phase Transitions And Control Measures For Network Epidemics Caused By Infections With Presymptomatic, Asymptomatic, And Symptomatic Stages, Benjamin Braun, Başak Taraktaş, Brian Beckage, Jane Molofsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. We investigate phase transitions associated with three control methods for epidemics on small world networks. Motivated by the behavior of SARS-CoV-2, we construct a theoretical SIR model of a virus that exhibits presymptomatic, asymptomatic, and symptomatic stages in two possible pathways. Using agent-based simulations on small world networks, we observe phase transitions for epidemic spread related to: 1) Global social distancing with a fixed probability of …

Text Mining The Food Security Literature Reveals Substantial Spatial Bias And Thematic Broadening Over Time, Matthew W. Cooper, Molly E. Brown, Meredith T. Niles, Moataz M. Elqadi

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

We conducted text mining analyses on nearly the entirety of academic literature related to food security. Assessing the literature's spatial scope, we found a truly global body of research conducted across 187 different countries, but with significant spatial heterogeneities in where research is conducted. Comparing the spatial distribution of the literature to actual rates of food insecurity, we found only a slight association between where food security research is conducted and where food security needs are located. Using topic modeling to assess the thematic scope of the literature, we found that originally food security research focused on economic policy and …

Prevalence And Factors Associated With Food Insecurity Across An Entire Campus Population, Emilie S. Riddle, Meredith T. Niles, Amy Nickerson

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Comprehensive assessment of food insecurity across all college community members is lacking. This research surveyed a random sample of an entire campus population at a Northeast University in two surveys (spring 2017, n = 1,037 and fall 2017, n = 1,123). Analysis of variance, t-tests, and multivariable logit models were used to understand food insecurity outcomes and comparisons among groups. The overall rate of food insecurity on campus was 19.6% (spring) and 15.0% (fall). Food insecurity rates were highest among undergraduates, graduate and medical students, and staff as compared to faculty. First generation students and off-campus students were also more …

Novel Evolutionary Algorithm Identifies Interactions Driving Infestation Of Triatoma Dimidiata, A Chagas Disease Vector, John P. Hanley, Donna M. Rizzo, Lori Stevens, Sara Helms Cahan, Patricia L. Dorn, Leslie A. Morrissey, Antonieta Guadalupe Rodas, Lucia C. Orantes, Carlota Monroy

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Chagas disease is a lethal, neglected tropical disease. Unfortunately, aggressive insecticide-spraying campaigns have not been able to eliminate domestic infestation of Triatoma dimidiata, the native vector in Guatemala. To target interventions toward houses most at risk of infestation, comprehensive socioeconomic and entomologic surveys were conducted in two towns in Jutiapa, Guatemala. Given the exhaustively large search space associated with combinations of risk factors, traditional statistics are limited in their ability to discover risk factor interactions. Two recently developed statistical evolutionary algorithms, specifically designed to accommodate risk factor interactions and heterogeneity, were applied to this large combinatorial search space and used …

Creatively Exploring Self: Applying Organic Inquiry, A Transpersonal And Intuitive Methodology, Larisa J. Bardsley Phd

The Qualitative Report

This article explores the merit of using Organic Inquiry, a qualitative research approach that is most effectively applied to areas of psychological and spiritual growth. Organic Inquiry is a research approach where the psyche of the researcher becomes the instrument of the research, working in partnership with the experiences of participants and guided by liminal and spiritual influences. Organic Inquiry is presented as a unique methodology that can incorporate other non-traditional research methods, including intuitive, autoethnographic and creative techniques. The validity and application of Organic Inquiry, as well as its strengths and limitations are discussed in the light of the …

The Early Food Insecurity Impacts Of Covid‐19, Meredith T. Niles, Farryl Bertmann, Emily H. Belarmino, Thomas Wentworth, Erin Biehl, Roni Neff

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

COVID‐19 has disrupted food access and impacted food insecurity, which is associated with numerous adverse individual and public health outcomes. To assess these challenges and understand their impact on food security, we conducted a statewide population‐level survey using a convenience sample in Vermont from March 29 to April 12, 2020, during the beginning of a statewide stay‐at‐home order. We utilized the United States Department of Agriculture six‐item validated food security module to measure food insecurity before COVID‐19 and since COVID‐19. We assessed food insecurity prevalence and reported food access challenges, coping strategies, and perceived helpful interventions among food secure, consistently …

Environment And Global Health: Investments In Natural Capital Can Improve Human Health, Stephen Posner, Taylor Ricketts

Reports and Policy Briefs

Gund Fellows led several key “big data” studies on how investments in nature can benefit people’s health and economic prosperity in developing countries. This policy brief summarized research evidence on links between health and the environment for stakeholders and partners, including the Biodiversity Results and Integrated Development Gains Enhanced Project (BRIDGE) managed by USAID’s Forestry and Biodiversity Office.

Legume Genetics And Biology: From Mendel’S Pea To Legume Genomics, Petr Smýkal, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Kevin Mcphee

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Legumes have played an important part in cropping systems since the dawn of agriculture, both as human food and as animal feed. The legume family is arguably one of the most abundantly domesticated crop plant families. Their ability to symbiotically fix nitrogen and improve soil fertility has been rewarded since antiquity and makes them a key protein source. The pea was the original model organism used in Mendel’s discovery of the laws of inheritance, making it the foundation of modern plant genetics. This Special Issue provides up-to-date information on legume biology, genetic advances, and the legacy of Mendel.

Hahahahaha, Duuuuude, Yeeessss!: A Two-Parameter Characterization Of Stretchable Words And The Dynamics Of Mistypings And Misspellings, Tyler J. Gray, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Stretched words like 'heellllp' or 'heyyyyy' are a regular feature of spoken language, often used to emphasize or exaggerate the underlying meaning of the root word. While stretched words are rarely found in formal written language and dictionaries, they are prevalent within social media. In this paper, we examine the frequency distributions of 'stretchable words' found in roughly 100 billion tweets authored over an 8 year period. We introduce two central parameters, 'balance' and 'stretch', that capture their main characteristics, and explore their dynamics by creating visual tools we call 'balance plots' and 'spelling trees'. We discuss how the tools …

Effects Of Social Cues On Biosecurity Compliance In Livestock Facilities: Evidence From Experimental Simulations, Luke Trinity, Scott C. Merrill, Eric M. Clark, Christopher J. Koliba, Asim Zia, Gabriela Bucini, Julia M. Smith

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Disease outbreaks in U.S. animal livestock industries have economic impacts measured in hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Biosecurity, or procedures intended to protect animals against disease, is known to be effective at reducing infection risk at facilities. Yet, to the detriment of animal health, humans do not always follow biosecurity protocols. Human behavioral factors have been shown to influence willingness to follow biosecurity protocols. Here we show how social cues may affect cooperation with a biosecurity practice. Participants were immersed in a simulated swine production facility through a graphical user interface and prompted to make a decision that …

Forest Conservation: A Potential Nutrition-Sensitive Intervention In Low- And Middle-Income Countries, Ranaivo A. Rasolofoson, Taylor H. Ricketts, Anila Jacob, Kiersten B. Johnson, Ari Pappinen, Brendan Fisher

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Rasolofoson, Ricketts, Jacob, Johnson, Pappinen and Fisher. Childhood undernutrition yearly kills 3.1 million children worldwide. For those who survive early life undernutrition, it can cause motor and cognitive development problems that translate into poor educational performance and limited work productivity later in life. It has been suggested that nutrition-specific interventions (e.g., micronutrient supplementation) that directly address the immediate determinants of undernutrition (e.g., nutrient intake) need to be complemented by nutrition-sensitive interventions that more broadly address the underlying determinants of undernutrition (e.g., food insecurity). Here, we argue that forest conservation represents a potentially important but overlooked nutrition-sensitive intervention. Forests can address …

Agricultural Biosecurity: Reducing Risks And Impacts Of Livestock Diseases, Stephen Posner, Scott Merrill, Julie Smith

Reports and Policy Briefs

Gund Fellows co-developed timely, innovative research to reduce the risk of animal diseases like coronaviruses spreading among farms. This policy brief helped to inform decision makers at the US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, Department of State Biosecurity Engagement Program, and private sector stakeholders.

Open Knowledge Commons Versus Privatized Gain In A Fractured Information Ecology: Lessons From Covid-19 For The Future Of Sustainability, Martin Hensher, Katie Kish, Joshua Farley, Stephen Quilley, Katharine Zywert

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

COVID-19 has shone a bright light on a number of failings and weaknesses in how current economic models handle information and knowledge. Some of these are familiar issues that have long been understood but not acted upon effectively – for example, the danger that current systems of intellectual property and patent protection are actually inimical to delivering a cost-effective vaccine available to all, whereas treating knowledge as a commons and a public good is much more likely to deliver efficient outcomes for the entire global population. But COVID-19 has also demonstrated that traditional models of knowledge production and dissemination are …

A Tandem Evolutionary Algorithm For Identifying Causal Rules From Complex Data, John P. Hanley, Donna M. Rizzo, Jeffrey S. Buzas, Margaret J. Eppstein

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

We propose a new evolutionary approach for discovering causal rules in complex classification problems from batch data. Key aspects include (a) the use of a hypergeometric probability mass function as a principled statistic for assessing fitness that quantifies the probability that the observed association between a given clause and target class is due to chance, taking into account the size of the dataset, the amount of missing data, and the distribution of outcome categories, (b) tandem age-layered evolutionary algorithms for evolving parsimonious archives of conjunctive clauses, and disjunctions of these conjunctions, each of which have probabilistically significant associations with outcome …

Looking Into The Dragons Of Cultural Ecosystem Services, Rachelle K. Gould, Alison Adams, Luis Vivanco

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Cultural ecosystem services research is in a somewhat tumultuous state. The cultural ecosystem services (CES) idea is seen simultaneously as a welcoming, expansive addition to conservation policy-making and as a strange, square-peg-in-a-round-hole concept that should be replaced by a more appropriate metaphor or conceptual structure. This confluence of interest and skepticism suggests an opportune moment to take stock of CES, both as a concept and growing scholarly field. Here, we focus on dilemmas that characterize and constitute CES as a field of empirical inquiry and practice. We describe five tensions that characterize the field (and mirror tensions in interdisciplinary work …

The Woods Around The Ivory Tower: A Systematic Review Examining The Value And Relevance Of School Forests In The United States, Kimberly J. Coleman, Elizabeth E. Perry, Dominik Thom, Tatiana M. Gladkikh, William S. Keeton, Peter W. Clark, Ralph E. Tursini, Kimberly F. Wallin

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Throughout the United States, many institutions of higher education own forested tracts, often called school forests, which they use for teaching, research, and demonstration purposes. These school forests provide a range of benefits to the communities in which they are located. However, because administration is often decoupled from research and teaching, those benefits might not always be evident to the individuals who make decisions about the management and use of school forests, which may undervalue their services and put these areas at risk for sale, development, or over-harvesting to generate revenue. To understand what messages are being conveyed about the …