Healthcare Providers' Beliefs and Attitudes About Electronic Cigarettes and Preventive Counseling for Adolescent Patients

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are battery-powered nicotine delivery systems that may serve as a “gateway” to tobacco use by adolescents. Use of e-cigarettes by U.S. adolescents rose from 3% in 2011 to 7% in 2012. We sought to describe healthcare providers’ awareness of e-cigarettes and to assess their comfort with and attitudes toward discussing e-cigarettes with adolescent patients and their parents

Forgone vaccination during childhood and adolescence: Findings of a statewide survey of parents

Widespread immunization confers both individual- and community-level protection against vaccine-preventable diseases. To better understand vaccine hesitancy, we assessed correlates of forgone vaccination for children and adolescents

HPV Vaccine Hesitancy: Findings From a Statewide Survey of Health Care Providers

Healthcare provider recommendations are critical for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake. We sought to describe providers' HPV vaccine recommendation practices and explore their perceptions of parental hesitancy

Do correlates of HPV vaccine initiation differ between adolescent boys and girls?

Guidelines now recommend that adolescents routinely receive human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Because little is known about uptake among boys, we assessed HPV vaccine initiation in a population-based sample of adolescent boys and girls

Genetic Selection for Enhanced Folding In Vivo Targets the Cys14-Cys38 Disulfide Bond in Bovine Pancreatic Trypsin Inhibitor

The periplasm provides a strongly oxidizing environment; however, periplasmic expression of proteins with disulfide bonds is often inefficient. Here, we used two different tripartite fusion systems to perform in vivo selections for mutants of the model protein bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) with the aim of enhancing its expression in Escherichia coli. This trypsin inhibitor contains three disulfides that contribute to its extreme stability and protease resistance. The mutants we isolated for increased expression appear to act by eliminating or destabilizing the Cys14-Cys38 disulfide in BPTI. In doing so, they are expected to reduce or eliminate kinetic traps that exist within the well characterized in vitro folding pathway of BPTI. These results suggest that elimination or destabilization of a disulfide bond whose formation is problematic in vitro can enhance in vivo protein folding. The use of these in vivo selections may prove a valuable way to identify and eliminate disulfides and other rate-limiting steps in the folding of proteins, including those proteins whose in vitro folding pathways are unknown. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 14, 973-984.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90494/1/ars-2E2010-2E3712.pd

The Vaccination Confidence Scale: A brief measure of parents’ vaccination beliefs

The success of national immunization programs depends on the public’s confidence in vaccines. We sought to develop a scale for measuring confidence about adolescent vaccination in diverse populations of parents

Vaccination Confidence and Parental Refusal/Delay of Early Childhood Vaccines

Objective: To support efforts to address parental hesitancy towards early childhood vaccination, we sought to validate the Vaccination Confidence Scale using data from a large, population-based sample of U.S. parents. Methods: We used weighted data from 9,354 parents who completed the 2011 National Immunization Survey. Parents reported on the immunization history of a 19- to 35-month-old child in their households. Healthcare providers then verified children’s vaccination status for vaccines including measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), varicella, and seasonal flu. We used separate multivariable logistic regression models to assess associations between parents’ mean scores on the 8-item Vaccination Confidence Scale and vaccine refusal, vaccine delay, and vaccination status. Results: A substantial minority of parents reported a history of vaccine refusal (15%) or delay (27%). Vaccination confidence was negatively associated with refusal of any vaccine (odds ratio [OR] = 0.58, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.54–0.63) as well as refusal of MMR, varicella, and flu vaccines specifically. Negative associations between vaccination confidence and measures of vaccine delay were more moderate, including delay of any vaccine (OR = 0.81, 95% CI, 0.76–0.86). Vaccination confidence was positively associated with having received vaccines, including MMR (OR = 1.53, 95% CI, 1.40–1.68), varicella (OR = 1.54, 95% CI, 1.42–1.66), and flu vaccines (OR = 1.32, 95% CI, 1.23–1.42). Conclusions: Vaccination confidence was consistently associated with early childhood vaccination behavior across multiple vaccine types. Our findings support expanding the application of the Vaccination Confidence Scale to measure vaccination beliefs among parents of young children

Adolescent Males' Awareness of and Willingness to Try Electronic Cigarettes

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are a new type of device that delivers vaporized nicotine without the tobacco combustion of regular cigarettes. We sought to understand awareness of and willingness to try e-cigarettes among adolescent males, a group that is at risk for smoking initiation and may use e-cigarettes as a “gateway” to smoking

Longitudinal Predictors of Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Among a National Sample of Adolescent Males

Objectives. We conducted a longitudinal study to examine human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake among male adolescents and to identify vaccination predictors