Linked randomised controlled trials of face-to-face and electronic brief intervention methods to prevent alcohol related harm in young people aged 14–17 years presenting to Emergency Departments (SIPS junior)

Background: Alcohol is a major global threat to public health. Although the main burden of chronic alcohol-related disease is in adults, its foundations often lie in adolescence. Alcohol consumption and related harm increase steeply from the age of 12 until 20 years. Several trials focusing upon young people have reported significant positive effects of brief interventions on a range of alcohol consumption outcomes. A recent review of reviews also suggests that electronic brief interventions (eBIs) using internet and smartphone technologies may markedly reduce alcohol consumption compared with minimal or no intervention controls. Interventions that target non-drinking youth are known to delay the onset of drinking behaviours. Web based alcohol interventions for adolescents also demonstrate significantly greater reductions in consumption and harm among ‘high-risk’ drinkers; however changes in risk status at follow-up for non-drinkers or low-risk drinkers have not been assessed in controlled trials of brief alcohol interventions

Providing alcohol-related screening and brief interventions to adolescents through health care systems: Obstacles and solutions

Duncan Clark and Howard Moss identify obstacles to alcohol-related screening and treatment for adolescents and propose policy solutions

Monitoring county-level chlamydia incidence in Texas, 2004 – 2005: application of empirical Bayesian smoothing and Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) methods

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chlamydia continues to be the most prevalent disease in the United States. Effective spatial monitoring of chlamydia incidence is important for successful implementation of control and prevention programs. The objective of this study is to apply Bayesian smoothing and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) methods to monitor Texas county-level chlamydia incidence rates by examining spatiotemporal patterns. We used county-level data on chlamydia incidence (for all ages, gender and races) from the National Electronic Telecommunications System for Surveillance (NETSS) for 2004 and 2005.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Bayesian-smoothed chlamydia incidence rates were spatially dependent both in levels and in relative changes. Erath county had significantly (p < 0.05) higher smoothed rates (> 300 cases per 100,000 residents) than its contiguous neighbors (195 or less) in both years. Gaines county experienced the highest relative increase in smoothed rates (173% – 139 to 379). The relative change in smoothed chlamydia rates in Newton county was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than its contiguous neighbors.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Bayesian smoothing and ESDA methods can assist programs in using chlamydia surveillance data to identify outliers, as well as relevant changes in chlamydia incidence in specific geographic units. Secondly, it may also indirectly help in assessing existing differences and changes in chlamydia surveillance systems over time.</p

Self-Censorship for Democrats

On the face of it, self-censorship is profoundly subversive of democracy, particularly in its talk-centric forms, and undermines the culture of openness and publicity on which it relies. This paper has two purposes. The first is to develop a conception of self-censorship that allows us to capture what is distinctive about the concept from a political perspective and which allows us to understand the democratic anxiety about self-censorship: if it is not obvious that biting our tongues is always wrong, we need a fuller account of the moral sensibility that finds it so troubling and this is elaborated here. The second is to develop an argument to the effect that this sensibility should not have the last, or only, word, but instead that self-censorship should be viewed as an ‘ordinary vice’ of democratic societies. The grounds for tolerating it rest on the democratic values that critics believe it threatens

Predictors of nurturant parenting in teen mothers living in three generational families

Direct and indirect effects of grandparents on maternal nurturance in teen mothers (TM) living in three-generational families were explored with path analytic techniques in a sample of 107 working-class families. Perceived support from the teen's mother, grandparents' nurturance toward the baby, and the presence of the grandfather as a father figure in the home were hypothesized as increasing TM nurturance. TM nurturance was found to be positively predicted by grandparent nurturance and negatively predicted by TM perceived support from her mother. The strongest predictor of TM nurturance was grandfather nurturance toward the baby.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43953/1/10578_2006_Article_BF02353198.pd