Georgia Environmental Advocacy Groups Health Education Needs Assessment

Georgia State University’s Institute of Public Health along with the Georgia Department of Public Health’s Chemical Hazards Program conducted a needs assessment survey to learn more about the concerns of environmental advocates and other community leaders in Georgia regarding exposure to toxic chemicals. The purpose of the Georgia Environmental Advocacy Groups Health Education Needs Assessment was to better understand community concerns, to identify hazardous waste sites that might warrant some degree of public health evaluation, to find community leaders and personnel interested in assisting the Chemical Hazards Program in implementing public health interventions, to inform the community about the services offered to the public by the Georgia Department of Public Health and to better understand the best methods for distributing health education material. This is the first time the Chemical Hazards Program has conducted an environmental advocacy group leader needs assessment. The results of this pilot study will help the development of future needs assessments conducted by the CHP. Survey development began in August of 2011 and Georgia State University Institutional Review Board approval was granted January 2012. Participants were selected due to their current leadership role of a Georgia environmental advocacy group/organization. Contact information was found for 137 environmental group leaders. Depending on available contact information, potential participants either received the survey through the mail or electronically via email. Surveys were distributed on January 13, 2012 and had to be returned by February 20, 2012. Twenty-one Georgia environmental advocacy group leaders participated in the survey. A majority of participants cited protect/restore natural habitats as the main purpose of their organization, but the survey did reveal 10 environmental groups that focused on protecting human health. Seven of participants that were dedicated to protecting human health expressed interest in working further with the GDPH to develop or implement public health interventions. The survey was also successful in informing participants about the Chemical Hazards Program. Prior to the needs assessment, more than 80% of participants were not aware of the program. Many pertinent suggestions were also made to aid in the development of the brochure aimed at educating community members about the services offered by the CHP. Although a variety of environmental health concerns were cited by the participants, water quality was most often mentioned. More participants reported they were very concerned about drinking water than any other environment. Ninety percent also reported being either concerned or very concerned about contamination in oceans, lakes and streams. A section of the survey also addressed hazards found within the home, unclean drinking water was selected by far the most often as being of greatest concern compared to all other indoor hazards. Many participants listed specific waste or industrial sites that are of concern among members of their community as a source of contaminants. A few contaminated environments were also listed including specific rivers and lakes. Though many did not list specific sources, the majority of participants cited water contamination as being a chemical contamination issue that has the greatest impact on human health. The survey helped reveal specific community concerns regarding potential chemical contaminants and sites that may lead to the CHP conducting public health assessments/consultations and exposure investigations. The survey also revealed the need for general environmental health education and intervention activities based on concerns of the participants as well as the lack of concern by many. The survey was also successful in identifying individuals that may help the CHP gain future partnerships and identifying creative methods for distributing health education material. The CHP plans to follow-up with many of the participants and the survey will be further developed and used to survey other leaders, community members, and public health workers etc. to further investigate the needs and concerns of communities across Georgia

Teachers’ Confidence in Addressing Student Mental Health Concerns

Teacher-led student mental health initiatives are recommended; however, do teachers receive adequate training to provide these services? This study aimed to examine what individual teacher variables directly relate to teachers’ knowledge and skills regarding general schoolwide behavioral policies and individualized support and practices, and what influence they exert on teachers’ confidence. The study was a quantitative method cross-sectional design using survey methods. Results demonstrated that both years of teaching experience and the number of resources available were statistically significant predictors of teachers’ general behavioral programming knowledge. Additionally, both mental-health related college coursework and assigned grade level predicted teachers’ individualized student supports knowledge and skills. Lastly, results demonstrated that teachers with higher individualized support and practices knowledge reported increased confidence in providing mental health interventions. Limitations include restricted generalizability due to limited response rate and uneven district representation. Implications and future directions emphasizing targeted professional development opportunities designed to increase teacher knowledge and skills related to evidence-based mental health practices are discussed

Development of a label-free Raman imaging technique for differentiation of malaria parasite infected from non-infected tissue

During malarial infection, the host uses the spleen to clear the malaria parasites, however, the parasites have evolved the ability to bind to endothelial receptors in blood vessels of tissues to avoid removal, known as sequestration, and this is largely responsible for the symptoms and severity of infection. So a technique which could non-invasively diagnose tissue burden could be utilised as an aid for localised malaria diagnosis within tissue. Raman spectroscopy is a label-free imaging technique and can provide unique and chemically specific Raman ‘fingerprint’ spectrum of biological samples such as tissue. Within this study, Raman imaging was used to observe the changes to the molecular composition of mice spleen tissue under malarial infection, compared with non-infected samples. From analysis of the Raman imaging data, both tissue types showed very similar spectral profiles, which highlighted that their biochemical compositions were closely linked. Principal component analysis showed very clear separation of the two sample groups, with an associated increase in concentration of heme-based Raman vibrations within the infected dataset. This was indicative of the presence of hemozoin, the malaria pigment, being detected within the infected spleen. Separation also showed that as the hemozoin content within the tissue increased, there was a corresponding change to hemoglobin and some lipid/nucleic acid vibrations. These results demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy can be used to easily discriminate the subtle changes in tissue burden upon malarial infection

Survey of Community Pharmacy Customers’ Medication Storage and Disposal Methods

Many people store medications in bathrooms, which provide a moist, humid environment that speeds up the breakdown process of medications. The proper way to store medicines is in a cool, dry place out of the reach of children. Every year medications are also disposed of improperly presenting a risk to both humans and the environment. About one-third of all sold medications are unused. The most common ways patients dispose of medications in the United States are flushing down the toilet or sink, and throwing them away. Because of this pharmaceuticals have been found in groundwater, and drinking water proving hazardous to both humans and ecosystems. In Congress today, both the Drug Free Water Act and the Safe Drug Disposal Act have been proposed to limit the disposal of pharmaceuticals in sewage systems, and provide the means of controlled substance disposal through take-back programs. In February 2007 the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) established guidelines for the disposal of prescription medications. ONDCP guidelines are: take unused, unneeded or expired medications out of the original container, mix with an undesirable substance (such as coffee grounds), securely seal in impermeable containers, such as sealable bags, and throw into the trash. ONDCP recommends only flushing if the label or patient information specifies to do so. Taking advantage of community pharmaceutical take-back programs is highly encouraged

Glioblastoma and the search for non-hypothesis driven combination therapeutics in academia

Glioblastoma (GBM) remains a cancer of high unmet clinical need. Current standard of care for GBM, consisting of maximal surgical resection, followed by ionisation radiation (IR) plus concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide (TMZ), provides less than 15-month survival benefit. Efforts by conventional drug discovery to improve overall survival have failed to overcome challenges presented by inherent tumor heterogeneity, therapeutic resistance attributed to GBM stem cells, and tumor niches supporting self-renewal. In this review we describe the steps academic researchers are taking to address these limitations in high throughput screening programs to identify novel GBM combinatorial targets. We detail how they are implementing more physiologically relevant phenotypic assays which better recapitulate key areas of disease biology coupled with more focussed libraries of small compounds, such as drug repurposing, target discovery, pharmacologically active and novel, more comprehensive anti-cancer target-annotated compound libraries. Herein, we discuss the rationale for current GBM combination trials and the need for more systematic and transparent strategies for identification, validation and prioritisation of combinations that lead to clinical trials. Finally, we make specific recommendations to the preclinical, small compound screening paradigm that could increase the likelihood of identifying tractable, combinatorial, small molecule inhibitors and better drug targets specific to GBM.Peer reviewe

Supporting community energy development in Malawi : a scoping study for the Scottish Government

The Scotland and Malawi Co-operation Agreement sets out the ways in which the respective country’s governments engage and work with each other. Key elements of the Co-operation Agreement include regular discussion, learning and expertise exchange between the countries, and a Scottish Government (SG) financed International Development Fund, which supports discrete projects within Malawi. Under the auspices of the Co-operation Agreement, Ministerial discussion during the UN Climate Change Summit in Cancun in December 2010 highlighted the Government of Malawi’s target of increasing electricity access in Malawi from 8% to 15% of the population by 2015. It was agreed that the SG would consider how best it could contribute to this ambition through the Co-operation Agreement’s existing mechanisms. Against this background, the following scoping study was commissioned by the SG. The study commences with an overview of the broad energy and electricity sectors in Malawi, but its specific purpose is to understand how off-grid, community-level renewable energy technology can contribute towards meeting Malawi’s energy needs. To an extent, the scoping study also has its roots in one of the first projects to be supported through the SG’s International Development Fund. The University of Strathclyde-led Community Rural Electrification and Development (CRED) project aimed to improve the sustainability of rural solar panel deployments in Malawi by focussing on community engagement and empowerment, local responsibility and income generation. Learning captured through the project indicated that, aside from the obvious energy provision, community-level generation had the potential to bring considerable socio-economic benefits to rurally isolated Malawians. Given this grounding and experience, the SG invited the University of Strathclyde to lead this scoping study

Changes to population-based emergence of climate change from CMIP5 to CMIP6

Abstract The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) model ensemble projects climate change emerging soonest and most strongly at low latitudes, regardless of the emissions pathway taken. In terms of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios of average annual temperatures, these models project earlier and stronger emergence under the Shared Socio-economic Pathways than the previous generation did under corresponding Representative Concentration Pathways. Spatial patterns of emergence also change between generations of models; under a high emissions scenario, mid-century S/N is lower than previous studies indicated in Central Africa, South Asia, and parts of South America, West Africa, East Asia, and Western Europe, but higher in most other populated areas. We show that these global and regional changes are caused by a combination of higher effective climate sensitivity in the CMIP6 ensemble, as well as changes to emissions pathways, component-wise effective radiative forcing, and region-scale climate responses between model generations. We also present the first population-weighted calculation of climate change emergence for the CMIP6 ensemble, quantifying the number of people exposed to increasing degrees of abnormal temperatures now and into the future. Our results confirm the expected inequity of climate change-related impacts in the decades between now and the 2050 target for net-zero emissions held by many countries. These findings underscore the importance of concurrent investments in both mitigation and adaptation.</jats:p

Changes to population-based emergence of climate change from CMIP5 to CMIP6

The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) model ensemble projects climate change emerging soonest and most strongly at low latitudes, regardless of the emissions pathway taken. In terms of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios of average annual temperatures, these models project earlier and stronger emergence under the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) than the previous generation did under corresponding Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Spatial patterns of emergence also change between generations of models; under a high emissions scenario, mid-century S/N is lower than previous studies indicated in Central Africa, South Asia, and parts of South America, West Africa, East Asia, and Western Europe, but higher in most other populated areas. We show that these global and regional changes are caused by a combination of higher effective climate sensitivity (ECS) in the CMIP6 ensemble, as well as changes to emissions pathways, component-wise effective radiative forcing (ERF), and region-scale climate responses between model generations. We also present the first population-weighted calculation of climate change emergence for the CMIP6 ensemble, quantifying the number of people exposed to increasing degrees of abnormal temperatures now and into the future. Our results confirm the expected inequity of climate change-related impacts in the decades between now and the 2050 target for net-zero emissions held by many countries. These findings underscore the importance of concurrent investments in both mitigation and adaptation

Acceleration of infectious disease drug discovery and development using a humanized model of drug metabolism

A key step in drug discovery, common to many disease areas, is preclinical demonstration of efficacy in a mouse model of disease. However, this demonstration and its translation to the clinic can be impeded by mouse-specific pathways of drug metabolism. Here we show that a mouse line extensively humanized for the cytochrome P450 gene superfamily (“8HUM”) can circumvent these problems. The pharmacokinetics, metabolite profiles and magnitude of drug-drug interactions of a test set of approved medicines were in much closer alignment with clinical observations than in wild-type mice. Infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Leishmania donovani and Trypanosoma cruzi was well tolerated in 8HUM, permitting efficacy assessment. During such assessments, mouse-specific metabolic liabilities were bypassed while the impact of clinically relevant active metabolites and DDI on efficacy were well-captured. Removal of species differences in metabolism by replacement of wild-type mice with 8HUM therefore reduces compound attrition while improving clinical translation, accelerating drug discovery