The Impact of the Farmers\u27 Market Nutrition Program on Participating Florida Farmers: A Research Note

The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) is a federally funded program designed to increase fresh fruit and vegetable consumption among WIC participants. Research to date has examined the effectiveness of this program in reaching that goal. The current study measures the impact this program is having on some farmers that participate in the program. Farmers are an overlooked group that not only must agree to participate for programs like this to be successful but also are often living below the poverty line as are their customers. Using survey data collected by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, we assess the program’s success from the perspective of the farmers. Results show that the responding farmers were overwhelmingly satisfied with the program and that their overall sales increased significantly

Understanding the Organization, Operation, and Victimization Process of Labor Trafficking in the United States

This study examines the organization, operation, and victimization process of labor trafficking across multiple industries in the United States. It examines labor trafficking victim abuse and exploitation along a continuum, from victims' recruitment for work in the United States; through their migration experiences (if any), employment victimization experiences, and efforts to seek help; to their ultimate escape and receipt of services. Data for this study came from a sample of 122 closed labor trafficking victim service records from service providers in four US cities. In addition, interviews were conducted with labor trafficking survivors, local and federal law enforcement officials, legal advocates, and service providers in each site to better understand the labor trafficking victimization experience, the networks involved in labor trafficking and the escape and removal process, and the barriers to investigation and prosecution of labor trafficking cases

The Prosecution of State-Level Human Trafficking Cases in the United States

In an effort to combat human trafficking, the United States federal government and all fifty states passed new laws that criminalise human trafficking and support the identification and prosecution of human trafficking perpetrators. Despite the passage of these laws, only a small number of human trafficking cases have been prosecuted in the last fifteen years. Guided by the notion that prosecutors seek to avoid uncertainty when making decisions to pursue criminal prosecution, we explore how human trafficking crimes are indicted under these newly defined state laws. Using a sample of cases from twelve US counties and interviews with police, prosecutors and court personnel, we examine the factors that influence the decision to prosecute crimes investigated as human trafficking in state court. This research informs our understanding of why so few human trafficking cases are prosecuted and why human trafficking suspects are rarely convicted of trafficking offenses

The effect of hearing loss on the Intelligibility of Synthetic Speech

Many factors affect the intelligibility of synthetic\ud speech. One aspect that has been severely neglected\ud in past work is hearing loss. In this study, we investigate\ud whether pure-tone audiometry thresholds\ud across a wide range of frequencies (0.25–20kHz)\ud are correlated with participants’ performance on a\ud simple task that involves accurately recalling and\ud processing reminders. Participants’ scores correlate\ud not only with thresholds in the frequency ranges\ud commonly associated with speech, but also with extended\ud high-frequency thresholds

Differences between international recommendations on breastfeeding in the presence of HIV and the attitudes and counselling messages of health workers in Lilongwe, Malawi

BACKGROUND: To prevent postnatal transmission of HIV in settings where safe alternatives to breastfeeding are unavailable, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding followed by early, rapid cessation of breastfeeding. Only limited data are available on the attitudes of health workers toward this recommendation and the impact of these attitudes on infant feeding counselling messages given to mothers. METHODS: As part of the Breastfeeding, Antiretroviral, and Nutrition (BAN) clinical trial, we carried out an in-depth qualitative study of the attitudes, beliefs, and counselling messages of 19 health workers in Lilongwe, Malawi. RESULTS: Although none of the workers had received formal training, several reported having counseled HIV-positive mothers about infant feeding. Health workers with counselling experience believed that HIV-infected mothers should breastfeed exclusively, rather than infant formula feed, citing poverty as the primary reason. Because of high levels of malnutrition, all the workers had concerns about early cessation of breastfeeding. CONCLUSION: Important differences were observed between the WHO recommendations and the attitudes and practices of the health workers. Understanding these differences is important for designing effective interventions

675 COVID-19 Instruction Style (In-Person, Virtual, Hybrid), School Start Times, and Sleep in a Large Nationwide Sample of Adolescents

This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or be any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted how and when adolescents attended school. This analysis used data from the Nationwide Education and Sleep in TEens During COVID (NESTED) study to examine the association of instructional format (in-person, virtual, hybrid), school start times, and sleep in a large diverse sample of adolescents from across the U.S. Methods: In October/November 2020, 5346 nationally representative students (grades 6–12, 49.8% female, 30.6% non-White) completed online surveys. For each weekday, participants identified if they attended school in person (IP), online-scheduled synchronous classes (O/S), online-no scheduled classes (asynchronous, O/A), or no school. Students reported school start times for IP or O/S days, and bedtimes (BT) and wake times (WT) for each applicable school type and weekends/no school days (WE). Sleep opportunity (SlpOpp, total sleep time proxy) was calculated from BT and WT. Night-to-night sleep variability was calculated with mean square successive differences. Results: Significant differences for teens’ sleep across instructional formats were found for all three sleep variables. With scheduled instructional formats (IP and O/S), students reported earlier BT (IP=10:54pm, O/S=11:24pm, O/A=11:36pm, WE=12:30am), earlier WT (IP=6:18am, O/S=7:36am, O/A=8:48am, WE=9:36am), and shorter SlpOpp (IP=7.4h, O/S=8.2h, O/A=9.2h, WE=9.2h). Small differences in BT, but large differences in WT were found, based on school start times, with significantly later wake times associated with later start times. Students also reported later WT on O/S days vs. IP days, even with the same start times. Overall, more students reported obtaining sufficient SlpOpp (>8h) for O/S vs. IP format (IP=40.0%, O/S=58.8%); when school started at/after 8:30am, sufficient SlpOpp was even more common (IP=52.7%, O/S=72.7%). Greater night-to-night variability was found for WT and SlpOpp for students with hybrid schedules with >1 day IP and >1 day online vs virtual schedules (O/S and O/A only), with no differences in BT variability reported between groups. Conclusion: This large study of diverse adolescents from across the U.S. found scheduled school start times were associated with early wake times and shorter sleep opportunity, with greatest variability for hybrid instruction. Study results may be useful for educators and policy makers who are considering what education will look like post-pandemic