Data-Driven Collective Impact: Driving Social Change as a Community

The last decade (or more) has experienced a transformation of data to an action-oriented asset that can draw insights necessary to describe, detect, predict, and evaluate factors to help our communities and the individuals in them to thrive. We’ve also witnessed threats to these opportunities in the forms of breaches, misinformation, and other erosions of trust that make access to and use of data much more complicated. As a community, it is imperative to take an interdisciplinary approach to data use grounded in public-private collaboration and focused on building trust with the communities we seek to serve

Technology for Civic Data Integration

Efforts to collect, manage, transform, and integrate data across administrative systems into actionable knowledge to inform better policy decisions are becoming more common. However, the technical processes, procedures, and infrastructure they employ vary substantially. Variety in approaching data infrastructure, transfer, linking, and security is expected in this emerging field, but both established and developing efforts would benefit from cohesive guidance regarding the technical considerations of data integration, with focus on presenting a range of options that can be weighted based on context specific restrictions (e.g. cost, staffing, or existing infrastructure). Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP), MetroLab Network, and the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, are convening a working group to shape and develop guidance on information architecture and technical approaches for data integration efforts such as those in the AISP and NNIP networks and the AISP Learning Community. This guidance will help newly emerging efforts as well as established ones looking to update their current approach. It will also inform policymakers and researchers who need a primer to better understand the technical components and considerations at play for data sharing and integration. This presentation will present findings, best practices and recommendations from this brief that will be released in Fall 2018

WWU AS Environmental Justice Program Intern

Because I was the only person in the ESP, I was the clear leader of the ESP but did not have the ESP director title. Despite this, I took on various roles of the director, a few of which were seats on committees. As a voting member of the Sustainability, Equity, and Justice Fund (SEJF) committee, I participated in biweekly meetings where we discussed incoming grant proposals. We saw proposals for many kinds of projects including travel to conferences for men of color in academia, film screenings on mental health in indigenous communities, work parties in environmental restoration for LEAD, and so many more. In the first few months, we approved nearly every grant we saw. SEJF had a surplus of money due to a deficit of proposals during the COVID years, so we were able to fund a wider range of projects. In addition to voting on the proposals, it was also important for me to promote SEJF to clubs and students, so that they knew there was a funding body which wanted to support their ideas for community and personal academic and professional development. Along with other SEJF members, I helped get the word out about the grant to Western in a post-COVID era where so many were unaware of what Western had to offer to students. It ended up being a successful campaign – by spring quarter we had to be far more selective about which projects to fund because the volume of proposals increased rapidly

Rinsability of Orthophthalaldehyde from Endoscopes

Orthophthalaldehyde high level disinfectants are contraindicated for use with urological instruments such as cystoscopes due to anaphylaxis-like allergic reactions during surveillance of bladder cancer patients. Allergic reactions and mucosal injuries have also been reported following colonoscopy, laryngoscopy, and transesophageal echocardiography with devices disinfected using orthophthalaldehyde. Possibly these endoscopes were not adequately rinsed after disinfection by orthophthalaldehyde. We examined this possibility by means of a zone-of-inhibition test, and also a test to extract residues of orthophthalaldehyde with acetonitrile, from sections of endoscope insertion tube materials, to measure the presence of alkaline glutaraldehyde, or glutaraldehyde plus 20% w/w isopropanol, or ortho-phthalaldehyde that remained on the endoscope materials after exposure to these disinfectants followed by a series of rinses in water, or by aeration overnight. Zones of any size indicated the disinfectant had not been rinsed away from the endoscope material. There were no zones of inhibition surrounding endoscope materials soaked in glutaraldehyde or glutaraldehyde plus isopropanol after three serial water rinses according to manufacturers' rinsing directions. The endoscope material soaked in orthophthalaldehyde produced zones of inhibition even after fifteen serial rinses with water. Orthophthalaldehyde was extracted from the rinsed endoscope material by acetonitrile. These data, and other information, indicate that the high level disinfectant orthophthalaldehyde, also known as 1,2-benzene dialdehyde, cannot be rinsed away from flexible endoscope material with any practical number of rinses with water, or by drying overnight

Dawn of a New RAMPage

Receptor activity-modifying proteins (RAMPs) interact with G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to modify their functions, imparting significant implications upon their physiological and therapeutic potentials. Resurging interest in identifying RAMP-GPCR interactions has recently been fueled by coevolution studies and orthogonal technological screening platforms. These new studies reveal previously unrecognized RAMP-interacting GPCRs, many of which expand beyond Class B GPCRs. The consequences of these interactions on GPCR function and physiology lays the foundation for new molecular therapeutic targets, as evidenced by the recent success of erenumab. Here, we highlight recent papers that uncovered novel RAMP-GPCR interactions, human RAMP-GPCR disease-causing mutations, and RAMP-related human pathologies, paving the way for a new era of RAMP-targeted drug development

The Making of a Nonfiction Children’s Book to Introduce the Issue of Banned Books in the United States to Younger Audiences

Through the creation of a children’s book, this project aims to educate children and adults about the act of banning books in the United States. This non-fiction picture book targets readers between four and ten years old. Research on the history of book banning and questions about why it happens and what books are often targeted, guided the content of this picture book. The book’s design is intentionally minimalistic to emphasize the content through typography and its interactive format.Keywords: banned books, challenged books, children’s book, writing, graphic desig

Informing Anti-Racism Health Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand

Racism is firmly established as a determinant of health and an underlying cause of ethnic health inequities. As an organised system, racism operates at multiple levels (including structurally and interpersonally). Racism and its many manifestations are breaches of international human rights obligations and, in the Aotearoa New Zealand context, te Tiriti o Waitangi. This article considers approaches to anti-racism in health and disability policy in the 30 years following the foundational publication Pūao-te-Ata-Tū (Ministerial Advisory Committee on a Māori Perspective for the Department of Social Welfare, 1988), which was one of the first government publications to name and call out the harmful impacts of institutional racism. The article then examines the ways in which government health and disability sector organisations have talked about and responded to racism at a national level since 1980. The results of this research urge a stronger organisational-level approach to antiracism in the health and disability system for more tangible results, requiring multi-level solutions, and transforming what is considered ‘business as usual’ in health and disability sector institutions

Eating disorder risk, exercise dependence, and body weight dissatisfaction among female nutrition and exercise science university majors

Background and Aims: Past research has examined eating disorder risk among college students majoring in Nutrition and has suggested an increased risk, while other studies contradict these results. Exercise Science majors, however, have yet to be fully examined regarding their risk for eating disorders and exercise dependence. Based on pressures to fit the image associated with careers related to these two disciplines, research is warranted to examine the potential risk for both eating disorder and exercise dependence. The purpose of this study is to compare eating disorder risk, exercise dependence, and body weight dissatisfaction (BWD) between Nutrition and Exercise Science majors, compared to students outside of these career pathways. Methods: Participants (n = 89) were divided into three groups based on major; Nutrition majors (NUTR; n = 31), Exercise Science majors (EXSC; n = 30), and other majors (CON; n = 28). Participants were given the EAT-26 questionnaire and the Exercise Dependence Scale. BWD was calculated as the discrepancy between actual BMI and ideal BMI. Results: The majority of participants expressed a desire to weigh less (83%) and EXSC had significantly (p = .03) greater BWD than NUTR. However, there were no significant differences in eating disorder risk or exercise dependence among majors. Discussion and Conclusions: This study suggested there was no significant difference in eating disorder risk or exercise dependence between the three groups (NUTR, EXSC, and CON)