12,483 research outputs found
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Status Among University Freshmen in Hawaiāi
Purpose/Background: The HPV vaccine provides immunity against nine HPV strains that cause cancer and genital warts. It is recommended for 11 to 12 year olds, and catch-up immunization is recommended for females 13 to 26 years old and males 13 to 21 years old. College students represent an important population for HPV vaccination due to their increased risk for HPV infection. Despite the benefits of the HPV vaccine, its coverage rates are low in Hawaii. Hawaiāi is the home of two large universities on two islands that are representative of Hawaiāiās populations, including Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, and Pacific Islanders. The purpose of this study was to assess the current HPV and HPV vaccine knowledge, barriers and beliefs among incoming Freshmen university students at University of Hawaiāi at MÄnoa and University of Hawaiāi at Hilo.
Materials & Methods: In 2016, 200 University of Hawaiāi at MÄnoa (UHM) and University of Hawaiāi at Hilo (UHH) Freshmen students responded to a survey that assessed their knowledge and awareness of HPV, the HPV vaccine, their current vaccination status, and barriers and motivators to vaccination. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize each survey variable first for all students and then separately for each campus.
Results: Overall 76% of Freshmen from both campuses heard of the HPV vaccine and 54% reported hearing it from their health care provider. Only 28% UHM and 23% UHH Freshmen students have received partial (1-2 shots) or completed doses of the HPV vaccine. For those who received the vaccine, 45% reported that they were told by their parent and 43% were told by their doctor. For the 147 students who did not receive the vaccine, 28% reported that they are still not sure to get it and 20% need more information. Their main reasons for not receiving the HPV vaccine were: their doctor did not mention the vaccine to him/her (44%), he/she never knew about the vaccine (18%), and they don\u27t know enough about the vaccine (17%).
Discussion/Conclusion: Although the HPV vaccine has been available for 13 years, young adults remain unvaccinated. Freshmen students reported that they are informed about the vaccine, but were not vaccinated because of the lack of parental and/or healthcare provider recommendation. With no active education campaigns in Hawaii promoting the HPV vaccine at college campuses, a first step to increasing vaccination rates is to develop a health education campaign to inform students of the HPV vaccine and its availability at campus clinics and neighboring pharmacies
Fractal dimension evolution and spatial replacement dynamics of urban growth
This paper presents a new perspective of looking at the relation between
fractals and chaos by means of cities. Especially, a principle of space filling
and spatial replacement is proposed to explain the fractal dimension of urban
form. The fractal dimension evolution of urban growth can be empirically
modeled with Boltzmann's equation. For the normalized data, Boltzmann's
equation is equivalent to the logistic function. The logistic equation can be
transformed into the well-known 1-dimensional logistic map, which is based on a
2-dimensional map suggesting spatial replacement dynamics of city development.
The 2-dimensional recurrence relations can be employed to generate the
nonlinear dynamical behaviors such as bifurcation and chaos. A discovery is
made that, for the fractal dimension growth following the logistic curve, the
normalized dimension value is the ratio of space filling. If the rate of
spatial replacement (urban growth) is too high, the periodic oscillations and
chaos will arise, and the city system will fall into disorder. The spatial
replacement dynamics can be extended to general replacement dynamics, and
bifurcation and chaos seem to be related with some kind of replacement process.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
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