Employing Participatory Methods to Engage an Under-Researched Group: opportunities and challenges

In this article, we report on our experience of working on an exploratory project where the primary objective was to involve homeless service users with food-based participatory qualitative approaches. The project FLM aimed to explore food experiences and behaviours in a sample of users of homelessness services in a south west UK coastal city, in order to create solutions to improve their wellbeing. A mixture of qualitative methods was used, including observations, photo-elicitation and focus group discussions. We aimed to be participatory and ‘creative’ in our approach and in our analysis. Here, we focus on detailing and critiquing our approach to the collection and analysis of data.</jats:p

Hyperglycemia in pregnancy and developmental outcomes in children at 18-60 months of age: the PANDORA Wave 1 study

First published online: 4 April 2022This study aimed to explore the association between hyperglycemia in pregnancy (type 2 diabetes (T2D) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM)) and child developmental risk in Europid and Aboriginal women.PANDORA is a longitudinal birth cohort recruited from a hyperglycemia in pregnancy register, and from normoglycemic women in antenatal clinics. The Wave 1 substudy included 308 children who completed developmental and behavioral screening between age 18 and 60 months. Developmental risk was assessed using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) or equivalent modified ASQ for use with Aboriginal children. Emotional and behavioral risk was assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the association between developmental scores and explanatory variables, including maternal T2D in pregnancy or GDM.After adjustment for ethnicity, maternal and child variables, and socioeconomic measures, maternal hyperglycemia was associated with increased developmental "concern" (defined as score ≥1 SD below mean) in the fine motor (T2D odds ratio (OR) 5.30, 95% CI 1.77-15.80; GDM OR 3.96, 95% CI 1.55-10.11) and problem-solving (T2D OR 2.71, 95% CI 1.05-6.98; GDM OR 2.54, 95% CI 1.17-5.54) domains, as well as increased "risk" (score ≥2 SD below mean) in at least one domain (T2D OR 5.33, 95% CI 1.85-15.39; GDM OR 4.86, 95% CI 1.95-12.10). Higher maternal education was associated with reduced concern in the problem-solving domain (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.11-0.69) after adjustment for maternal hyperglycemia.Maternal hyperglycemia is associated with increased developmental concern and may be a potential target for intervention so as to optimize developmental trajectories.Angela Titmuss, Anita D, Aprano, Federica Barzi, Alex D.H. Brown, Anna Wood, Christine Connors, Jacqueline A. Boyle, Elizabeth Moore, Kerin O'Dea, Jeremy Oats, H. David McIntyre, Paul Zimmet, Jonathan E. Shaw, Maria E. Craig and Louise J. Maple-Brow

Culturally appropriate training for remote Australian Aboriginal Health Workers: Evaluation of an early child development training intervention.

International Pediatric Congres

Polymer-surfactant interactions: an ultrasonic relaxation study.

Polymer-surfactant interactions in water-poly(vinylpyrrolidone)-Na dodecyl sulfate systems have been investigated, at 25°, by ultrasonic relaxation methods as a function of polymer and surfactant concn. At fixed polymer content, three regions, characterized by significant differences in their kinetic behavior, have been obsd. In the first region the relaxation time increases with the surfactant content, in the second it is nearly const., and in the third region it decreases with increasing surfactant concn. Such behavior has been ascribed to the binding of the surfactant aggregates on the polymer backbone and to micelle formation above the satn. threshold. To account for the reported behavior, a kinetic model has been developed from the theory of ultrasonic relaxation in micellar solns. Some thermodn. quantities related to polymer-surfactant interactions, i.e. the Gibbs energy of binding per monomer, ΔGbind/〈m〉, where 〈m〉 is the no. of monomers in polymer-bound micelles, and the vol. change of binding of the surfactant to the polymer, ΔVbind, have been obtained from the data anal