Validation of the Factor Structure of the Health Professionals’ Attitudes Toward the Homeless Inventory (HPATHI)

Background - Considerable stigma exists toward persons experiencing homelessness (PEH)—a vulnerable population at greater risk for health disparities.1, 2 - Many healthcare students begin their programs without interacting with PEH and with preconceived notions influenced by societal stigma. - Interprofessional education programs, such as the Enhancing Services for People Experiencing Homelessness program below, have incorporated experiential learning into curricula to address student biases and develop understanding and compassion. Educating students to understand issues that PEH face can help mitigate healthcare disparities. - Evaluating the effectiveness of these interprofessional educational experiences requires valid assessment of the attitudes, interest, and confidence of students from various professions about working with PEH. - The Health Professional Attitudes Toward the Homeless Inventory (HPATHI) is frequently used for this purpose, including for ESHP, but has several limitations: Developed with a sample of medical students, overgeneralizing its validity for other health professions Standard-practice psychometric approaches were not used to support its validity. Final solution included several cross-loaded items.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/jcipeposters/1012/thumbnail.jp

DNA Topoisomerase II Is a Determinant of the Tensile Properties of Yeast Centromeric Chromatin and the Tension Checkpoint

Centromeric (CEN) chromatin is placed under mechanical tension and stretches as kinetochores biorient on the mitotic spindle. This deformation could conceivably provide a readout of biorientation to error correction mechanisms that monitor kinetochore–spindle interactions, but whether CEN chromatin acts in a tensiometer capacity is unresolved. Here, we report observations linking yeast Topoisomerase II (Top2) to both CEN mechanics and assessment of interkinetochore tension. First, in top2-4 and sumoylation-resistant top2-SNM mutants CEN chromatin stretches extensively during biorientation, resulting in increased sister kinetochore separation and preanaphase spindle extension. Our data indicate increased CEN stretching corresponds with alterations to CEN topology induced in response to tension. Second, Top2 potentiates aspects of the tension checkpoint. Mutations affecting the Mtw1 kinetochore protein activate Ipl1 kinase to detach kinetochores and induce spindle checkpoint arrest. In mtw1top2-4 and mtw1top2-SNM mutants, however, kinetochores are resistant to detachment and checkpoint arrest is attenuated. For top2-SNM cells, CEN stretching and checkpoint attenuation occur even in the absence of catenation linking sister chromatids. In sum, Top2 seems to play a novel role in CEN compaction that is distinct from decatenation. Perturbations to this function may allow weakened kinetochores to stretch CENs in a manner that mimics tension or evades Ipl1 surveillance