Historical Demography

This chapter of Beginning Population Studies (3rd edition) gives an overview of the subject of historical demography. There are other chapters on contemporary demography

Consensual Unions

This chapter of Beginning Population Studies (3rd edition) discusses non-marital unions in the context of demography. A separate chapter discusses marriage

ESL Teacher-Education Programs: Measuring Up to the TESOL/NCATE Yardstick

English language learners (ELLs) in K-12 schools continue to increase in number across the country. In California alone, about 1.5 million students are not sufficiently proficient in English to perform optimally in mainstream classrooms. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 emphasizes the need for highly qualified teachers, but just who is qualified to apply best educational practices to help ELLs reach their potential in an academic environment? This article will discuss how the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)/National Council on the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) P-12 ESL teacher-preparation standards provide a nationally recognized framework for teacher preparation and evaluation, while at the same time providing for flexibility in the way in which certified ESOL teachers are prepared. Graduates of programs that follow these standards are ready to begin meeting the challenges of educating the next generation of ELLs in American classrooms

Method and System for Purifying Charged Radioisotopes

The present invention provides a simple and inexpensive method for removing metal and other impurities in a radioisotope solution. The invention further includes the development of a new parent/daughter generator system for collecting the daughter isotope in a concentrated solution

Diagnosis-based and external cause-based criteria to identify adverse drug reactions in hospital ICD-coded data: application to an Australia population-based study

Objectives: External cause International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes are commonly used to ascertain adverse drug reactions (ADRs) related to hospitalisation. We quantified ascertainment of ADR-related hospitalisation using external cause codes and additional ICD-based hospital diagnosis codes. Methods: We reviewed the scientific literature to identify different ICD-based criteria for ADR-related hospitalisations, developed algorithms to capture ADRs based on candidate hospital ICD-10 diagnoses and external cause codes (Y40–Y59), and incorporated previously published causality ratings estimating the probability that a specific diagnosis was ADR related. We applied the algorithms to the NSW Admitted Patient Data Collection records of 45 and Up Study participants (2011–2013). Results: Of 493 442 hospitalisations among 267 153 study participants during 2011–2013, 18.8% (n = 92 953) had hospital diagnosis codes that were potentially ADR related; 1.1% (n = 5305) had high/very high–probability ADR-related diagnosis codes (causality ratings: A1 and A2); and 2.0% (n = 10 039) had ADR-related external cause codes. Overall, 2.2% (n = 11 082) of cases were classified as including an ADR-based hospitalisation on either external cause codes or high/very high–probability ADR-related diagnosis codes. Hence, adding high/very high–probability ADR-related hospitalisation codes to standard external cause codes alone (Y40–Y59) increased the number of hospitalisations classified as having an ADR-related diagnosis by 10.4%. Only 6.7% of cases with high-probability ADR-related mental symptoms were captured by external cause codes. Conclusion: Selective use of high-probability ADR-related hospital diagnosis codes in addition to external cause codes yielded a modest increase in hospitalised ADR incidence, which is of potential clinical significance. Clinically validated combinations of diagnosis codes could potentially further enhance capture

Population data

This chapter of Beginning Population Studies (3rd edition) discusses sources of data for population studies, and their relative use and value. There are separate chapters in the book in which data sources for specific topics (eg. Mortality, Marriage) are discussed

Puberty timing associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and also diverse health outcomes in men and women: the UK Biobank study.

Early puberty timing is associated with higher risks for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease in women and therefore represents a potential target for early preventive interventions. We characterised the range of diseases and other adverse health outcomes associated with early or late puberty timing in men and women in the very large UK Biobank study. Recalled puberty timing and past/current diseases were self-reported by questionnaire. We limited analyses to individuals of White ethnicity (250,037 women; 197,714 men) and to disease outcomes with at least 500 cases (~ 0.2% prevalence) and we applied stringent correction for multiple testing (corrected threshold P < 7.48 × 10(-5)). In models adjusted for socioeconomic position and adiposity/body composition variables, both in women and men separately, earlier puberty timing was associated with higher risks for angina, hypertension and T2D. Furthermore, compared to the median/average group, earlier or later puberty timing in women or men was associated with higher risks for 48 adverse outcomes, across a range of cancers, cardio-metabolic, gynaecological/obstetric, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and neuro-cognitive categories. Notably, both early and late menarche were associated with higher risks for early natural menopause in women. Puberty timing in both men and women appears to have a profound impact on later health.This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource. This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [Unit Programme number MC_UU_12015/2].This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from NPG via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep1120

Protein Name Tagging Guidelines: Lessons Learned

Interest in information extraction from the biomedical literature is motivated by the need to speed up the creation of structured databases representing the latest scientific knowledge about specific objects, such as proteins and genes. This paper addresses the issue of a lack of standard definition of the problem of protein name tagging. We describe the lessons learned in developing a set of guidelines and present the first set of inter-coder results, viewed as an upper bound on system performance. Problems coders face include: (a) the ambiguity of names that can refer to either genes or proteins; (b) the difficulty of getting the exact extents of long protein names; and (c) the complexity of the guidelines. These problems have been addressed in two ways: (a) defining the tagging targets as protein named entities used in the literature to describe proteins or protein-associated or -related objects, such as domains, pathways, expression or genes, and (b) using two types of tags, protein tags and long-form tags, with the latter being used to optionally extend the boundaries of the protein tag when the name boundary is difficult to determine. Inter-coder consistency across three annotators on protein tags on 300 MEDLINE abstracts is 0.868 F-measure. The guidelines and annotated datasets, along with automatic tools, are available for research use

Variation in readmission and mortality following hospitalisation with a diagnosis of heart failure: prospective cohort study using linked data

BACKGROUND: Hospitalisation for heart failure is common and post-discharge outcomes, including readmission and mortality, are often poor and are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to examine patient- and hospital-level variation in the risk of 30-day unplanned readmission and mortality following discharge from hospital with a diagnosis of heart failure. METHODS: Prospective cohort study using data from the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study, linking baseline survey (Jan 2006-April 2009) to hospital and mortality data (to Dec 2011). Primary outcomes in those admitted to hospital with heart failure included unplanned readmission, mortality and combined unplanned readmission/mortality, within 30 days of discharge. Multilevel models quantified the variation in outcomes between hospitals and examined associations with patient- and hospital-level characteristics. RESULTS: There were 5074 participants with a heart failure admission discharged from 251 hospitals; 1052 (21%) had unplanned readmissions, 186 (3.7%) died, and 1146 (23%) had either/both outcomes within 30 days of discharge. Crude outcomes varied across hospitals, but between-hospital variation explained little of the total variation in outcomes (intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) after inclusion of patient factors: 30-day unplanned readmission ICC = 0.0125 (p = 0.24); death ICC = 0.0000 (p > 0.99); unplanned readmission/death ICC = 0.0266 (p = 0.07)). Patient characteristics associated with a higher risk of unplanned readmission included: being male (male vs female, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.00-1.37); prior hospitalisation for cardiovascular disease (aOR = 1.44, 1.08-1.91) and for anemia (aOR = 1.36, 1.14-1.63); comorbidities at admission (severe vs none: aOR = 1.26, 1.03-1.54); lower body-mass-index (obese vs normal weight: aOR = 0.77, 0.63-0.94); and lower social interaction scores. Similarly, risk of 30-day mortality was associated with patient- rather than hospital-level factors, in particular age (≥85y vs 45-< 75y: aOR = 3.23, 1.93-5.41) and comorbidity (severe vs none: aOR = 2.68, 1.82-3.94). CONCLUSIONS: The issue of high readmission and mortality rates in people with heart failure appear to be system-wide, with the variation in these outcomes essentially attributable to variation between patients rather than hospitals. The findings suggest that there are limitations in using these outcomes as hospital performance measures in this patient population and support the need for patient-centred strategies to optimise heart failure management and outcomes.This specific project was supported by NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation. Emily Banks is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia

The Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of a Universal Digital Parenting Intervention Designed and Implemented During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence From a Rapid-Implementation Randomized Controlled Trial Within a Cohort

Background: Children’s conduct and emotional problems increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: We tested whether a smartphone parenting support app, Parent Positive, developed specifically for this purpose, reversed these effects in a cost-effective way. Parent Positive includes 3 zones. Parenting Boosters (zone 1) provided content adapted from standard face-to-face parent training programs to tackle 8 specific challenges identified by parents and parenting experts as particularly relevant for parents during the pandemic. The Parenting Exchange (zone 2) was a parent-to-parent and parent-to-expert communication forum. Parenting Resources (zone 3) provided access to existing high-quality web-based resources on a range of additional topics of value to parents (eg, neurodevelopmental problems, diet, and sleep). Methods: Supporting Parents And Kids Through Lockdown Experiences (SPARKLE), a randomized controlled trial, was embedded in the UK-wide COVID-19: Supporting Parents, Adolescents and Children during Epidemics (Co-SPACE) longitudinal study on families’ mental health during the pandemic. Parents of children aged 4 to 10 years were randomized 1:1 to Parent Positive or follow-up as usual (FAU) between May 19, 2021, and July 26, 2021. Parent Positive provided advice on common parenting challenges and evidence-based web-based resources and facilitated parent-to-parent and expert-to-parent support. Child conduct and emotional problems and family well-being were measured before randomization (T1) and at 1 (T2) and 2 (T3) months after randomization. Service use, costs, and adverse events were measured, along with app use and satisfaction. The primary outcome was T2 parent-reported child conduct problems, which were analyzed using linear mixed regression models. Results: A total of 320 participants were randomized to Parent Positive, and 326 were randomized to FAU. The primary outcome analysis included 79.3% (512/646) of the participants (dropout: 84/320, 26% on Parent Positive and 50/326, 15% on FAU). There were no statistically significant intervention effects on conduct problems at either T2 (standardized effect=−0.01) or T3 (secondary outcome; standardized effect=−0.09) and no moderation by baseline conduct problems. Significant intervention-related reductions in emotional problems were observed at T2 and T3 (secondary outcomes; standardized effect=−0.13 in both cases). Parent Positive, relative to FAU, was associated with more parental worries at T3 (standardized effect=0.14). Few intervention-attributable adverse events were reported. Parent Positive was cost-effective once 4 outliers with extremely high health care costs were excluded. Conclusions: Parent Positive reduced child emotional problems and was cost-effective compared with FAU once outliers were removed. Although small when considered against targeted therapeutic interventions, the size of these effects was in line with trials of nontargeted universal mental health interventions. This highlights the public health potential of Parent Positive if implemented at the community level. Nevertheless, caution is required before making such an interpretation, and the findings need to be replicated in large-scale, whole-community studies