Epidemiology Commons^™

Using Administrative Healthcare Records To Identify Determinants Of Amputee Residuum Outcomes, Judith Gail Walden

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the United States, the number of major limb amputees is predicted to exceed several million in the coming decades. For those amputees using a prosthesis, their quality of life (QoL) is often modulated by residuum limb problems resultant from its use. Multiple factors preclude quality evidence-based medicine (EBM) research in the field of prosthetics, leading to greater health risk from prosthetic prescription ambiguity. Positive social change is integral to good QoL; studies support administrative healthcare (AHc) as useful to support such, especially in the absence of EBM. This study utilized Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA) AHc data to discriminate determinants …

Differences In Survival Times, By Gender, Among Those Diagnosed With Necrotizing Fasciitis, Ashley Elizabeth Hill

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Necrotizing fasciitis infections have high mortality rates especially when treatment is delayed. Despite the abundance of research in many areas of necrotizing fasciitis infection, there are limited and conflicting studies focusing on gender-related outcomes for those diagnosed and died with necrotizing fasciitis infection. The purpose of this study was to determine the association that gender plays on survival time of patients who have been diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis using a cross-sectional study design. Succeeding the conceptual design of the life course model, the research question tested whether there was a significant difference in survival time between the genders while in …

Retired, Unmarried, Male Baby Boomer Attitudes And Behaviors Toward Disease Prevention, Irene Nyawira Ruminjo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Preventive health care is effective in reducing both infectious diseases and chronic conditions among the elderly. Despite efforts to prevent or decrease the risk of illness, unmarried men are less likely to receive selected preventive services compared to married men. The purpose of this cross-sectional survey was to describe disease prevention attitudes and behaviors of retired, unmarried, male baby boomers residing in Harlingen, Texas. Further, the study examined the effects of socioeconomic status on disease prevention attitudes and behaviors. The health belief theory framed the study. A validated questionnaire collected disease prevention attitudes, behaviors, and sociodemographic characteristics data. Data inquiry …

Assessment Of Postoperative And Postdischarge Wound Infection After Abdominal Hysterectomy, Jinni J. Amin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Surgical site infection (SSI) is the most common healthcare-associated infection. Approximately 2% to 14% of surgical patients are diagnosed with SSI, which may extend length of stay in the hospital or lead to readmission and may necessitate another surgical procedure. Patient readmission due to SSI costs health care industries about $3,000 to $29,000 per case and a total of $10 billion per year. The purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional retrospective study was to examine the association between SSI and teaching status, hospital ownership, and number of beds in the hospital. The epidemiological triad was used as a framework to describe …

Children's Oncology Group Hospital Membership And Survival Of Pediatric Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Paul David Betts

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) predominates in children ages 0-14 years and has an excellent prognosis for cure with 5-year survival exceeding 90% in the United States. However, not all children experience such positive outcomes. The purpose of this quantitative, retrospective cohort study was to evaluate differences in survival of ALL among children who reside in the 32-county Texas-Mexico border region. While factors such as poverty and health insurance have been strongly associated with poorer cancer outcomes, additional factors such as geographic isolation and treatment disparities are not as well-documented in children. This study examined the association between use of Texas …

The Strategic Prevention Framework: Effectiveness Of Substance Abuse Prevention System, John Jinoh Park

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The strategic prevention framework (SPF) is a data-driven operating system to assist designing evidence-based substance abuse prevention programs. The study performed here was to assess the effectiveness of the SPF as a prevention planning system. One purpose of this study was to determine the implementation fidelity of the programs that used the SPF process; the other purpose was to assess effectiveness of the SPF process. This study utilized a set of data collected by the national cross site evaluation team on all jurisdictions that implemented the SPF. A subset of communities collected and reported at least 2 pre-implementation and at …

Religiosity As A Predictor Of Hpv Awareness And Knowledge, Karen Adelheid Reiner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is a common sexually transmitted infection (STI) and etiological agent of cervical cancer. It has been suggested that religiosity may promote a generalized disassociation between all STIs/STDs, including HPV, and personal relevance thus contributing to lower levels of HPV awareness and knowledge among certain groups. This study sought to identify the role of religiosity as a predictor of HPV awareness and knowledge among women in a Christian university. Religiosity was defined and measured using the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL). The schemata and social identity theories provided the theoretical framework for this study. A total of …

Safety Practices On Lead Poisoning Among Battery Technicians In Lagos Nigeria, Tajudeen Olusegun Rasheed

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Maintaining due diligence on safety practices at the workplace of battery technicians is the most cost-effective intervention against lead-related hazards. The safety practice on lead poisoning in Nigeria is below average, and the compliance level is far from the expected target of 90%. Using Dejoy's workplace self-protective behavior theory, this study investigated multilevel factors that influence safety practices on lead poisoning and compared the rate of utilization of personal protective equipment by battery technicians in the organized and roadside settings. The study was a quantitative, cross-sectional survey design, and a multistage and systematic sampling technique was used to select 293 …

Pathopoiesis Mechanism Of Smoking And Shared Genes In Pancreatic Cancer, Ulysses Labilles

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Pancreatic cancer (PC) remains a significant, unresolved issue because of its complex genetic blueprint and lack of reliable detection markers. The purpose of this study was to examine the possible correlation between tobacco use, gender, and age in the etiopathogenesis of PC and other cancer types with a shared-gene association (CTSG-A). The unified paradigm of cancer causation was used to understand the pathopoiesis mechanism of smoking and shared genes in PC. A cross-sectional study was performed using secondary data from the cancer survivorship module of the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey. Results of ordinal logistic regression analyses indicated …

Sugar Intake And The Five Personality Traits Of Millennials, Flora Gashi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Sugar intake continues to be connected to an increased risk of heart diseases, diabetes, arthritis, and certain forms of cancers, depression, and schizophrenia. The purpose of the study was to examine if sugar intake is related to personality traits in the Millennial population. The health belief model was used as the theoretical framework for conducting the study. The research questions addressed in the current study were in regards to the relationships between Millennials daily sugar intake and openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. This study was a cross-sectional design in which a panel of randomly selected United States Millennials (N …

Physical Activity, Body Mass Index, And Clustered Metabolic Risk In U.S. Adolescents: 2007-2012 Nhanes., Bethany Dawn Williams

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: To examine variation in clustered metabolic risk (cMetS) in adolescents classified as not overweight/active (NOA), not overweight/not active (NONA), overweight/active (OA), and overweight/not active (ONA).

Background: While studies to date have shown that children and adolescents who meet the current physical activity (PA) recommendations and maintain a healthy body weight demonstrate significantly lower cardiometabolic risk, there are some studies that suggest the relationship between PA and metabolic risk may be mediated by adiposity.

Methods: The sample included adolescent participants (n=875; 12-17 years) of the 2007-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The cMetS score included triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein …

Unintended Pregnancies Among Married Women In Sindh Pakistan: Role Of Lady Health Workers, Sumera Aziz Ali, Unaib Rabbani

Community Health Sciences

Background: Unintended pregnancies, which pose substantial risks to both mothers and children, account for 24% of all pregnancies in Pakistan. Door to door visits and service provision by lady health workers (LHWs) may be related to the reduction of such pregnancies, particularly in rural areas. This study aimed to determine the association of knowledge about Lady Health Visitors (LHWs) and door to door visits by LHWs with unintended pregnancies among rural women.
Methods: We conducted a community-based, nested case-control study of 800 pregnant women, identified from the database of an active surveillance mechanism, which registers and follows all pregnant women …

The Effect Of Breastfeeding On The Cognitive And Language Development Of Children Under 3 Years Of Age: Results Of Balochistan-Early Childhood Development Project, Meesha Iqbal Iqbal, Ghazala Rafique, Sumera Aziz Ali

Community Health Sciences

Background: Breastfeeding is known to be an important factor in the overall growth and development of children. Breastfeeding is thought to lead to enhance cognitive and language development of a child. However, this association has not yet been scientifically and statistically established. This study aimed to explore this association in children under 3 years of age.
Methods: This was a secondary data-analysis of the baseline data of “Balochistan – Early Childhood Development Project”. The final sample comprised of 604 children less than 3 years of age. The children were selected by three-stage stratified random sampling from three districts of Balochistan …

Prevalence And Molecular Epidemiology Of Clostridium Difficile Infection In Indonesia, Deirdre Collins, M. H. Gasem, T. H. Habibie, I. G. Arinton, P. Hendriyanto, A. P. Hartana, T. V. Riley

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Clostridium difficile has not been studied in detail in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia. We thus performed a prevalence study across four hospitals in Central Java province, Indonesia. Stool samples were collected from patients with diarrhoea and tested by enzyme immunoassay for glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) and toxin A/B (C DIFF QUIK CHEK COMPLETE, TechLab). Specimens were cultured and molecular typing was performed. In total, 340 samples were tested, of which 70 (20.6%) were GDH positive, with toxin detected in 19 (5.6%). Toxigenic C. difficile was isolated from 37 specimens (10.9%), while a further 36 (10.6%) nontoxigenic isolates were identified. The most …

Prospecting For An Hiv Vaccine, David Brett-Major, T. A. Crowell, N. L. Michael

Journal Articles: Epidemiology

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sets several challenges for the development of a preventative HIV vaccine. Predictable, protective natural immunity against HIV does not occur and so unlike most other diseases for which vaccines exist, there are few guideposts from natural infection. Nonetheless, six vaccine efficacy trials have occurred. One in particular, the Thai trial called RV144, showed partial protective efficacy and potential ways ahead to a better vaccine approach. This coupled with other lessons from studies of acute infections as well as an increasingly complex knowledge of HIV-related vaccine immunology bring hope that a vaccine solution might be reached for …

Mosquitoes Transmit Unique West Nile Virus Populations During Each Feeding Episode, Nathan D. Grubaugh, Joseph R. Fauver, Claudia Rückert, James Weger-Lucarelli, Selene Garcia-Luna, Reyes A. Murrieta, Alex Gendernalik, Darci R. Smith, Doug E. Brackney, Gregory D. Ebel

Journal Articles: Epidemiology

Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses), such as Zika virus, chikungunya virus, and West Nile virus (WNV), pose continuous threats to emerge and cause large epidemics. Often, these events are associated with novel virus variants optimized for local transmission that first arise as minorities within a host. Thus, the conditions that regulate the frequency of intrahost variants are important determinants of emergence. Here, we describe the dynamics of WNV genetic diversity during its transmission cycle. By temporally sampling saliva from individual mosquitoes, we demonstrate that virus populations expectorated by mosquitoes are highly diverse and unique to each feeding episode. After transmission to birds, …

Impact Of The Affordable Care Act On The Hiv Care Continuum, Ebere Erugo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

People living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS; PLWHA) are at increased risk of insufficient medical care due to lack of insurance. Inadequate medical care for PLWHA contributes to increases in HIV transmission rates. The U.S. Surveillance Report noted that in 2015, over 1.2 million people were living with HIV infection, and there were approximately 50,000 new infections every year. The report further stated that about 675,000 people have died from HIV-related illnesses since its discovery in 1981. The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014 was intended to provide Americans, including people at …

Educational Intervention For Engaging Adolescents And Their Parents In Hpv Vaccination, Alvin Mena Cantero

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the United States, 79 million people are currently infected with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and it is estimated that an additional 14 to 20 million people will be infected with HPV every year. Infection with HPV increased to 52.7 % of preventable infections within the United States in 2012, and 39.6% of the infected population are adolescents engaged in sexual activities. The practice-focused question that this project addressed was: To what extent can an educational program influence the HPV vaccination rate in a small family practice clinic located in Texas? The main purpose of this project was to increase …

Individual And Socioeconomic Factors Associated With Childhood Immunization Coverage In Nigeria, Obinna Ositadimma Oleribe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Immunization remains one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions worldwide. The purpose of this study was to examine the individual and socioeconomic factors that influence childhood immunization coverage in Nigeria. The health belief model and the social ecological model were used as the theoretical framework for the study, which examined the effects of individual, parental, and socioeconomic factors on complete immunization among Nigerian children. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate tests were conducted within a secondary analysis of 2013 Nigerian National Demographic and Health Survey was done. Of 27,571 children aged 0 to 59 months, 22.1% had full vaccination …

The Impact Of Palliative Care On Health Status In Hiv-Positive Children, Aabid Abdulmajid Ahmed

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

HIV-positive children in sub-Saharan Africa have numerous challenges to overcome. These challenges increase psychosocial stress as well as symptom burden including fatigue, weight loss, pain, and mental changes. The symptoms may persist even after initiation of antiretroviral therapy, so such children need additional care. Palliative care lays emphasis on holistic patient-centered care, including physical, psychological, social, and spiritual symptoms, alongside antiretroviral therapy. There is limited data on the impact of integrating palliative care with standard HIV care and treatment in children. The purpose of this study was to fill the gap in the literature by investigating the impact of palliative …