Predicting Sense Of Community in a Historic Latino/Latina Neighborhood Undergoing Gentrification

Neighborhoods with generational Mexican American populations may have high levels of block Social Cohesion and neighborhood Sense of Community. Streetcar-focused development via federal and local investment often spurs gentrification in neighborhoods with ethnic concentrations, which shifts neighborhood demographics towards more White and higher income households. The new residential and business investment in the neighborhood often has an impact on existing neighborhood social dynamics. This study includes mixed methods resident survey data of long term and newer residents. The qualitative data analysis informs quantitative data analysis in order to better understand resident descriptions of the impact of neighborhood streetcar focused gentrification on social factors in a generational Latino/Latina neighborhood at one point in time just before the streetcar opening. Specifically the study seeks to: (a) provide a description of generational and new resident experiences with block Social Cohesion and neighborhood Sense of Community; (b) determine differences (between Latino/Latina households and those with children present and other study participants) in block Social Cohesion, neighborhood Sense of Community, and Involvement in Neighborhood and Voluntary Associations; and (c) determine what factors predict neighborhood Sense of Community. The study highlights the Latino/Latina residents’ maintenance of a strong ethnic identity, generational neighborhood based social ties, and ongoing involvement in neighborhood schools and religious traditions that contribute to a strong neighborhood Sense of Community. Newer residents report being drawn to and supporting the maintenance of the neighborhood Sense of Community

Use of an index to reflect the aggregate burden of long-term exposure to criteria air pollutants in the United States.

Air pollution control in the United States for five common pollutants--particulate matter, ground-level ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide--is based partly on the attainment of ambient air quality standards that represent a level of air pollution regarded as safe. Regulatory and health agencies often focus on whether standards for short periods are attained; the number of days that standards are exceeded is used to track progress. Efforts to explain air pollution to the public often incorporate an air quality index that represents daily concentrations of pollutants. While effects of short-term exposures have been emphasized, research shows that long-term exposures to lower concentrations of air pollutants can also result in adverse health effects. We developed an aggregate index that represents long-term exposure to these pollutants, using 1995 monitoring data for metropolitan areas obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Aerometric Information Retrieval System. We compared the ranking of metropolitan areas under the proposed aggregate index with the ranking of areas by the number of days that short-term standards were exceeded. The geographic areas with the highest burden of long-term exposures are not, in all cases, the same as those with the most days that exceeded a short-term standard. We believe that an aggregate index of long-term air pollution offers an informative addition to the principal approaches currently used to describe air pollution exposures; further work on an aggregate index representing long-term exposure to air pollutants is warranted

The Hepatitis C Cascade of Care: Identifying Priorities to Improve Clinical Outcomes

Background: As highly effective hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapies emerge, data are needed to inform the development of interventions to improve HCV treatment rates. We used simulation modeling to estimate the impact of loss to follow-up on HCV treatment outcomes and to identify intervention strategies likely to provide good value for the resources invested in them. Methods: We used a Monte Carlo state-transition model to simulate a hypothetical cohort of chronically HCV-infected individuals recently screened positive for serum HCV antibody. We simulated four hypothetical intervention strategies (linkage to care; treatment initiation; integrated case management; peer navigator) to improve HCV treatment rates, varying efficacies and costs, and identified strategies that would most likely result in the best value for the resources required for implementation. Main measures Sustained virologic responses (SVRs), life expectancy, quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE), costs from health system and program implementation perspectives, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Results: We estimate that imperfect follow-up reduces the real-world effectiveness of HCV therapies by approximately 75%. In the base case, a modestly effective hypothetical peer navigator program maximized the number of SVRs and QALE, with an ICER compared to the next best intervention of $48,700/quality-adjusted life year. Hypothetical interventions that simultaneously addressed multiple points along the cascade provided better outcomes and more value for money than less costly interventions targeting single steps. The 5-year program cost of the hypothetical peer navigator intervention was$14.5 million per 10,000 newly diagnosed individuals. Conclusions: We estimate that imperfect follow-up during the HCV cascade of care greatly reduces the real-world effectiveness of HCV therapy. Our mathematical model shows that modestly effective interventions to improve follow-up would likely be cost-effective. Priority should be given to developing and evaluating interventions addressing multiple points along the cascade rather than options focusing solely on single points

Fundamental Flaws of Hormesis for Public Health Decisions

Hormesis (defined operationally as low-dose stimulation, high-dose inhibition) is often used to promote the notion that while high-level exposures to toxic chemicals could be detrimental to human health, low-level exposures would be beneficial. Some proponents claim hormesis is an adaptive, generalizable phenomenon and argue that the default assumption for risk assessments should be that toxic chemicals induce stimulatory (i.e., “beneficial”) effects at low exposures. In many cases, nonmonotonic dose–response curves are called hormetic responses even in the absence of any mechanistic characterization of that response. Use of the term “hormesis,” with its associated descriptors, distracts from the broader and more important questions regarding the frequency and interpretation of nonmonotonic dose responses in biological systems. A better understanding of the biological basis and consequences of nonmonotonic dose–response curves is warranted for evaluating human health risks. The assumption that hormesis is generally adaptive is an oversimplification of complex biological processes. Even if certain low-dose effects were sometimes considered beneficial, this should not influence regulatory decisions to allow increased environmental exposures to toxic and carcinogenic agents, given factors such as interindividual differences in susceptibility and multiplicity in exposures. In this commentary we evaluate the hormesis hypothesis and potential adverse consequences of incorporating low-dose beneficial effects into public health decisions

Productivity of mixtures and evolutionary populations of wheat, barley, beans and rice

Mixtures of different varieties of barley (Hordeum vulgare), wheat (Triticum ssp.) are grown by farmers in Ethiopia, Iran, Jordan, as a means of diversifying production and/or coping with difficult or uncertain growing conditions. Similarly, mixtures of different varieties of beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) were grown by farmers in Bhutan, Nepal and Uganda, with mixtures of Rice (Oryza sativa) were also grown by Bhutan and Nepal farmers. The mixture of all crops in all countries were grown for three consecutive years under IFAD – EPB project. Varietal diversity can improve farmers’ productivity, capabilities to manage pests and diseases and allows farmers to select suitable cultivars in response to varied or uncertain climatic conditions. Moreover, varietal diversification can improve the nutritional security of smallholder farmers