Predictors of English Health Literacy among U.S. Hispanic Immigrants: The importance of language, bilingualism and sociolinguistic environment

In the United States, data confirm that Spanish-speaking immigrants are particularly affected by the negative health outcomes associated with low health literacy. Although the literature points to variables such as age, educational background and language, only a few studies have investigated the factors that may influence health literacy in this group. Similarly, the role that bilingualism and/or multilingualism play in health literacy assessment continues to be an issue in need of further research. The purpose of this study was to examine the predictors of English health literacy among adult Hispanic immigrants whose self-reported primary language is Spanish, but who live and function in a bilingual community. It also explored issues related to the language of the instrument. An analysis of data collected through a randomized controlled study was conducted. Results identified English proficiency as the strongest predictor of health literacy (p < 0.001). The results further point to the importance of primary and secondary language in the assessment of heath literacy level. This study raises many questions in need of further investigation to clarify how language proficiency and sociolinguistic environment affect health literacy in language minority adults; proposes language approaches that may be more appropriate for measuring health literacy in these populations; and recommends further place-based research to determine whether the connection between language proficiency and health is generalizable to border communities

Transfer student analysis and retention: a collaborative endeavor

This paper aims to describe a multifaceted campus-wide initiative to retain transfer students that was undertaken when it was recognized that their retention rates were lower than those of first-time, full-time students. The “all-hands-on-deck” approach described in this paper demonstrates how strategic collaborations among the many institutional stakeholders at a public research university were marshalled to have a significant and positive impact on student retention

Estrategias de las tabaqueras para captar fumadores jóvenes en España: una revisión de los documentos internos

Fundamento: Las estrategias de las compañías tabaqueras para promocionar el tabaquismo y bloquear las políticas de control son un factor clave en el consumo de tabaco entre jóvenes. La documentos internos pueden ayudar a identificar estas estrategias, conseguir apoyo social para las políticas de control y planificar actuaciones de salud pública en España. Este estudio identificó y analizó documentos relacionados con las actividades que las tabaqueras realizaron durante los años 80 y 90 para mantener y aumentar el tabaquismo entre los jóvenes españoles. Métodos: Búsqueda electrónica por palabra clave de documentos internos de las compañías tabaqueras en la base de datos digital Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. Resultados: Se identificaron y revisaron más de 1.000 documentos internos, como cartas, mensajes, memorandos y otros documentos. En este análisis se incluyen 17 documentos directamente relacionados con el propósito del estudio. Conclusiones: Las tabaqueras financiaron y ejecutaron actividades de investigación, diseño, propaganda y manipulación política y social con el objetivo de mantener una alta incidencia y prevalencia de fumadores jóvenes en España. Estas actividades pueden haber influido en las actuales cifras de tabaquismo

Un currículo interdisciplinario de base teórica para enseñar inglés como segunda lengua1

Among Hispanic immigrants in the United States (US), learning English is considered necessary for economic and social achievement. As a consequence, there is a high demand for English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Despite the recognized benefits of ESL programs, both at the individual and social levels, more research is needed to identify education strategies that effectively promote all aspects of learning English as a second language. This article describes an ESL curriculum that incorporates a theory-based pedagogical approach specifically designed for immigrant Hispanic adults on the US-Mexico border region. The article also describes the implementation of the curriculum as well as the results of the evaluation, which was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative results indicate that the participants significantly improved their English proficiency (L2). Qualitative results suggest that participants were positively impacted by both the content and pedagogical approaches used by the curriculum. Their experience with the ESL class was positive in general. It can be concluded that the curriculum achieved its objective. This approach could serve as a model for second language teaching for adults.Para los inmigrantes hispanos de los Estados Unidos (EEUU) aprender inglés (L2) es considerado necesario para progresar y funcionar en la sociedad, y hay una gran demanda de clases de inglés como segunda lengua o English as a Second Language (ESL). A pesar del reconocido beneficio individual y social de los programas de ESL, todavía se debe potenciar la investigación de estrategias educativas eficaces en los diferentes aspectos del aprendizaje del inglés como segunda lengua. Este artículo describe una estrategia pedagógica de base teórica incorporada en un currículo de ESL para hispanos inmigrantes adultos en la frontera entre EEUU y México. Igualmente el presente artículo describe la implementación y evaluación del currículo mediante métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos. Los resultados cuantitativos indican que los participantes mejoraron significativamente su nivel de L2. Además, los resultados cualitativos sugieren que los participantes recibieron satisfactoriamente tanto el contenido como la metodología pedagógica del currículo, y en general declararon haber tenido una experiencia positiva con la clase. Este trabajo podría servir de modelo para la enseñanza de una segunda lengua para adultos

An Interdisciplinary Theory-Based ESL Curriculum to Teach English as a Second Language

Among Hispanic immigrants in the United States (US), learning English is considered necessary for economic and social achievement. Asa consequence, there is a high demand for English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Despite the recognized benefits of ESL programs,both at the individual and social levels, more research is needed to identify education strategies that effectively promote all aspects of learningEnglish as a second language. This article describes an ESL curriculum that incorporates a theory-based pedagogical approach specificallydesigned for immigrant Hispanic adults on the US-Mexico border region. The article also describes the implementation of the curriculum aswell as the results of the evaluation, which was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative results indicate thatthe participants significantly improved their English proficiency (L2). Qualitative results suggest that participants were positively impactedby both the content and pedagogical approaches used by the curriculum. Their experience with the ESL class was positive in general. It canbe concluded that the curriculum achieved its objective. This approach could serve as a model for second language teaching for adult

Hispanic physicians' tobacco intervention practices: a cross-sectional survey study

BACKGROUND: U.S. Hispanic physicians constitute a considerable professional collective, and they may be most suited to attend to the health education needs of the growing U.S. Hispanic population. These educational needs include tobacco use prevention and smoking cessation. However, there is a lack of information on Hispanic physicians' tobacco intervention practices, their level of awareness and use of cessation protocols, and the type of programs that would best address their tobacco training needs. The purpose of this study was to assess the tobacco intervention practices and training needs of Hispanic physicians. METHODS: Data was collected through a validated survey instrument among a cross-sectional sample of self-reported Hispanic physicians. Data analyses included frequencies, descriptive statistics, and factorial analyses of variance. RESULTS: The response rate was 55.5%. The majority of respondents (73.3%) were middle-age males. Less than half of respondents routinely performed the most basic intervention: asking patients about smoking status (44.4%) and advising smoking patients to quit (42.2%). Twenty-five percent assisted smoking patients by talking to them about the health risks of smoking, providing education materials or referring them to cessation programs. Only 4.4% routinely arranged follow-up visits or phone calls for smoking patients. The majority of respondents (64.4%) indicated that they prescribe cessation treatments to less than 20% of smoking patients. A few (4.4%) routinely used behavioral change techniques or programs. A minority (15.6%) indicated that they routinely ask their patients about exposure to tobacco smoke, and 6.7% assisted patients exposed to secondhand smoke in understanding the health risks associated with environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). The most frequently encountered barriers preventing respondents from intervening with patients who smoke included: time, lack of training, lack of receptivity by patients, and lack of reimbursement by third party payers. There was no significant main effect of type of physician, nor was there an interaction effect (gender by type of physician), on tobacco-related practices. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that Hispanic physicians, similarly to U.S. physicians in general, do not meet the level of intervention recommended by health care agencies. The results presented will assist in the development of tobacco training initiatives for Hispanic physicians

A Viral Dynamic Model for Treatment Regimens with Direct-acting Antivirals for Chronic Hepatitis C Infection

We propose an integrative, mechanistic model that integrates in vitro virology data, pharmacokinetics, and viral response to a combination regimen of a direct-acting antiviral (telaprevir, an HCV NS3-4A protease inhibitor) and peginterferon alfa-2a/ribavirin (PR) in patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C (CHC). This model, which was parameterized with on-treatment data from early phase clinical studies in treatment-naïve patients, prospectively predicted sustained virologic response (SVR) rates that were comparable to observed rates in subsequent clinical trials of regimens with different treatment durations in treatment-naïve and treatment-experienced populations. The model explains the clinically-observed responses, taking into account the IC50, fitness, and prevalence prior to treatment of viral resistant variants and patient diversity in treatment responses, which result in different eradication times of each variant. The proposed model provides a framework to optimize treatment strategies and to integrate multifaceted mechanistic information and give insight into novel CHC treatments that include direct-acting antiviral agents

Abstracts from the 8th International Conference on cGMP Generators, Effectors and Therapeutic Implications

This work was supported by a restricted research grant of Bayer AG

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Translation of the health brochure and impact on the target reader: A contrastive analysis of the structural and pragmatic features of texts translated into Spanish versus texts written originally in Spanish

This study involved the analysis of a corpus of health brochures in Spanish, contrasting the way this particular genre is formed and understood in the United States and Mexico. The corpus is made up of two subcorpora: a collection of health brochures published in the United States (translated from English into Spanish), and a collection of brochures from Mexico (written originally in Spanish). These subcorpora were analyzed and compared from many different angles, providing a comprehensive view of how the texts are structured and organized. Analysis at the microlinguistic level, grounded in Speech Act Theory, shows differences in the linguistic realization of the persuasive interactional goals in the two text types. At the macrolinguistic level, a factor analysis reveals differences between the two text types in terms of the patterning and co-occurrence of linguistic features serving the overall informational and persuasive functions characteristic of the health brochure. These differences are attributed to the interpersonal relations and cultural and social contexts in which the two text types are embedded. A subset of texts from both subcorpora was field tested with the aim of assessing the impact of the two text types on readers, in addition to readers' perceptions of the texts. Fifty-four Spanish-speaking adults from Mexico participated in this part of the study. Field testing involved a three pronged approach: a pretest-posttest protocol, recall protocol, and interviews. Responses provide a look at the brochures from the perspective of the reader, and shed light on the role of the two text types in the Mexican community. Results of both parts of this study contribute to the fields of translation studies, translator training, contrastive rhetoric, corpus linguistics, genre analysis, cross-cultural communication, and health education and communication