Nevada Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): Washoe County Comparison Report, 2017-2019

Priority health risk behaviors (i.e. preventable behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality) are often established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood. Ongoing surveillance of youth risk behaviors is critical for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health interventions to improve adolescent health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a national surveillance system that was established in 1991 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth. YRBS data are routinely collected on high school students, but only a few states collect data in middle schools. The Nevada Middle School YRBS is biennial, anonymous and voluntary survey of students in 6th through 8th grade in regular public, charter, and alternative schools. Students self-report their behaviors in five major areas of health that directly lead to morbidity and mortality, these include: 1) Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; 2) Tobacco use; 3) Alcohol and other drug use; 4) Unhealthy dietary behaviors; and 5) Physical inactivity. The Nevada Middle School YRBS provides prevalence estimates for priority risk behaviors and can be used to monitor trends over time. If you have any questions or comments please contact https://www.unr.edu/public-health/research-activities/nevada-youth-risk-behavior-surve

Development of a GPU-based Monte Carlo dose calculation code for coupled electron-photon transport

Monte Carlo simulation is the most accurate method for absorbed dose calculations in radiotherapy. Its efficiency still requires improvement for routine clinical applications, especially for online adaptive radiotherapy. In this paper, we report our recent development on a GPU-based Monte Carlo dose calculation code for coupled electron-photon transport. We have implemented the Dose Planning Method (DPM) Monte Carlo dose calculation package (Sempau et al, Phys. Med. Biol., 45(2000)2263-2291) on GPU architecture under CUDA platform. The implementation has been tested with respect to the original sequential DPM code on CPU in phantoms with water-lung-water or water-bone-water slab geometry. A 20 MeV mono-energetic electron point source or a 6 MV photon point source is used in our validation. The results demonstrate adequate accuracy of our GPU implementation for both electron and photon beams in radiotherapy energy range. Speed up factors of about 5.0 ~ 6.6 times have been observed, using an NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU card against a 2.27GHz Intel Xeon CPU processor.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, and 1 table. Paper revised. Figures update

Negative Regulation of Endogenous Stem Cells in Sensory Neuroepithelia: Implications for Neurotherapeutics

Stem cell therapies to treat central nervous system (CNS) injuries and diseases face many obstacles, one of which is the fact that the adult CNS often presents an environment hostile to the development and differentiation of neural stem and progenitor cells. Close examination of two regions of the nervous system – the olfactory epithelium (OE), which regenerates, and the neural retina, which does not – have helped identify endogenous signals, made by differentiated neurons, which act to inhibit neurogenesis by stem/progenitor cells within these tissues. In this chapter, we provide background information on these systems and their neurogenic signaling systems, with the goal of providing insight into how manipulation of endogenous signaling molecules may enhance the efficacy of stem cell neurotherapeutics

Childhood adversity, substance use, and mental health problems: The protective influence of resilience and assets

Youth exposed to childhood adversity are at increased risk for substance use and mental health problems. There is increasing evidence that resilience and youth assets can offer protection; however, few studies have examined whether such protective factors can modify the influence of childhood adversity on substance use and mental health problems. The main aims pursued in my dissertation were to: 1) determine whether resilience and assets offer protection against substance use and mental health problems in the face of adversity (direct protective effect), 2) determine whether resilience or assets can buffer the relationship between adversity and substance use and mental health problems (interactive protective effect). To achieve these aims, data from three separate studies were analyzed. In the first cohort study of 1,111 youth, I assessed the direct and interacting influence of assets within individual, family, and community domains on the relationship between negative life events and binge drinking using generalized estimating equation (GEE) models. In the second study, I used data from large, representative samples of approximately 5,000 middle school and 5,000 high school youth in Nevada to evaluate the direct and interacting influence of family communication and school connectedness on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and suicidal behaviors using GEE models. In the third study, I used data from a sample of juvenile justice involved youth to assess the direct and interacting influence of internal resilience and four assets on the relationship between (ACEs) and co-occurrence of substance abuse and psychological distress using multinomial logistic regression. Interaction was assessed on the multiplicative and additive scales; relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI) was used to evaluate additive interaction. In all three studies, there was evidence that resilience and assets offered direct protection against substance use and mental health problems in the presence of adversity (aim 1). In the second and third study, there was also evidence of buffering by resilience and/or assets on the multiplicative scale (aim 2). Despite the protective influence of resilience and assets, childhood adversity (particularly ACEs) continued to be a strong predictor of substance use, mental health problems, and co-occurrence.The findings highlight the need for the development, implementation, and evaluation of strength-based interventions designed to build resilience and assets among youth. Given the negative influence of adversity on substance use and mental health problems, trauma-informed interventions are also warranted, especially for juvenile justice involved youth

Nevada Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): Clark County Comparison Report, 2017-2019

Priority health risk behaviors (i.e. preventable behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality) are often established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood. Ongoing surveillance of youth risk behaviors is critical for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health interventions to improve adolescent health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a national surveillance system that was established in 1991 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth. YRBS data are routinely collected on high school students, but only a few states collect data in middle schools. The Nevada Middle School YRBS is biennial, anonymous and voluntary survey of students in 6th through 8th grade in regular public, charter, and alternative schools. Students self-report their behaviors in five major areas of health that directly lead to morbidity and mortality, these include: 1) Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; 2) Tobacco use; 3) Alcohol and other drug use; 4) Unhealthy dietary behaviors; and 5) Physical inactivity. The Nevada Middle School YRBS provides prevalence estimates for priority risk behaviors and can be used to monitor trends over time. If you have any questions or comments please contact https://www.unr.edu/public-health/research-activities/nevada-youth-risk-behavior-surve

2019 Nevada Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Special Report

Priority health risk behaviors (i.e. preventable behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality) are often established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood. Ongoing surveillance of youth risk behaviors is critical for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health interventions to improve adolescent health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a national surveillance system that was established in 1991 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth. YRBS data are routinely collected on middle school students, but only a few states collect data in middle schools. The Nevada Middle School YRBS is biennial, anonymous and voluntary survey of students in 6th through 8th grade in regular public, charter, and alternative schools. This special report compares the 2019 Nevada YRBS prevalence estimates of behavioral health outcomes for students with different levels of exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). If you have any questions or comments please contact https://www.unr.edu/public-health/research-activities/nevada-youth-risk-behavior-surve

2019 Nevada High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Special Report

Priority health risk behaviors (i.e. preventable behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality) are often established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood. Ongoing surveillance of youth risk behaviors is critical for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health interventions to improve adolescent health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a national surveillance system that was established in 1991 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth. The Nevada High School YRBS is a biennial, anonymous, and voluntary survey of students in 9th through 12th grade in regular public, charter, and alternative schools. This special report compares the 2019 Nevada YRBS prevalence estimates of behavioral health outcomes for students with different levels of exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). If you have any questions or comments please contact https://www.unr.edu/public-health/research-activities/nevada-youth-risk-behavior-surve

Nevada High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): Washoe County Comparison Report, 2017-2019

Priority health risk behaviors (i.e. preventable behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality) are often established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood. Ongoing surveillance of youth risk behaviors is critical for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health interventions to improve adolescent health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a national surveillance system that was established in 1991 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth. The Nevada High School YRBS is a biennial, anonymous, and voluntary survey of students in 9th through 12th grade in regular public, charter, and alternative schools. The survey asks students to self-report their behaviors in six major areas of health that directly lead to morbidity and mortality, these include: 1) Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; 2) Sexual behaviors that contribute to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unintended pregnancy; 3) Tobacco use; 4) Alcohol and other drug use; 5) Unhealthy dietary behaviors; and 6) Physical inactivity. The Nevada High School YRBS provides prevalence estimates for priority risk behaviors and can be used to monitor trends over time. If you have any questions or comments please contact https://www.unr.edu/public-health/research-activities/nevada-youth-risk-behavior-surve

Nevada High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): Clark County Comparison Report, 2017-2019

Priority health risk behaviors (i.e. preventable behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality) are often established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood. Ongoing surveillance of youth risk behaviors is critical for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health interventions to improve adolescent health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a national surveillance system that was established in 1991 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth. The Nevada High School YRBS is a biennial, anonymous, and voluntary survey of students in 9th through 12th grade in regular public, charter, and alternative schools. The survey asks students to self-report their behaviors in six major areas of health that directly lead to morbidity and mortality, these include: 1) Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; 2) Sexual behaviors that contribute to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unintended pregnancy; 3) Tobacco use; 4) Alcohol and other drug use; 5) Unhealthy dietary behaviors; and 6) Physical inactivity. The Nevada High School YRBS provides prevalence estimates for priority risk behaviors and can be used to monitor trends over time. If you have any questions or comments please contact https://www.unr.edu/public-health/research-activities/nevada-youth-risk-behavior-surve