Closing the Gap: How Improving Information Flow Can Help Community-Based Organizations Keep Uninsured Kids From Falling Through the Cracks

Evaluates how community-based organizations used a tool for systematic, ongoing data exchange with the state to monitor children's enrollment and redetermination status in public health insurance. Explores its potential to boost outreach and enrollment

Optimizing Outreach and Application Assistance Services in Community-based Organizations: Evaluation Findings from The Colorado Trust's Outreach and Enrollment for Children and Youth Grant Strategy

This report discusses findings from the evaluation of The Colorado Trust's three-year, $3.3 million grant strategy (2009-2011) to help expand enrollment of children and youth in public health insurance programs in Colorado. These findings focus on how 12 community-based organizations, with little previous experience in providing application assistance to families to enroll children and youth in public health insurance, offered targeted outreach and application assistance services. These findings provide new insights into the time, effort and outcomes associated with implementing outreach and application assistance services, reinforcing and expanding upon previous literature demonstrating the promise and potential pitfalls of this approach

Case Study: Boulder County Healthy Kids - A Collaborative Community Approach to Public Health Insurance Enrollment for Children and Families

In the past decade, a number of national efforts have endeavored to increase enrollment of eligible children and families in public health insurance programs, but enrolling this population continues to be a struggle due to systemic barriers at the state, county and local levels. In response, foundations like The Colorado Trust have invested in community-based outreach efforts to improve the enrollment, retention and utilization of Medicaid and Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+). This case study highlights the work of one such effort: employing a unique network model of county government and community-based organization coordination, Healthy Kids has successfully bridged the gap between the organizations targeting eligible but not enrolled children and families, the county technicians who process Medicaid or CHP+ applications in the Colorado Benefits Management System, and the health clinics that ultimately serve eligible clients

External fishing effort regulates positive effects of no-take marine protected areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established across the globe to mitigate the effects of multiple stressors on marine communities. In many locations, MPAs have generated positive effects on fish communities, but the impacts of fishing pressure—the primary stressor MPAs seek to manage—have not been well investigated. We examined changes in fish biomass inside and outside of no-take MPAs over 14 years in central California, USA. Using data from the community-based science program, the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program, we tested which environmental and human-induced stressors most influence the strength of MPA responses. While temperature and productivity were included in the best fit model, we found that fine-scale fishing effort data, following reserve implementation, best explained the spatial variation in fish community responses to MPAs. Specifically, differences in fish biomass between MPAs and sites open to fishing were larger for reserves near heavily fished locations and these areas exhibited the highest rate of change in fish biomass, indicating strong positive effects of the MPA on the most heavily exploited fish communities. As MPAs continue to be used as a prominent conservation strategy in coastal systems, managers should consider both the suite of human-induced (socio-ecological interactions) and environmental conditions that may alter MPA success as well as establish long-term monitoring programs to fully assess the functionality of marine reserves into the future

Participation in collaborative fisheries research improves the perceptions of recreational anglers towards marine protected areas

Collaborative fisheries research programs engage stakeholders in data collection efforts, often with the benefit of increasing transparency about the status and management of natural resources. These programs are particularly important in marine systems, where management of recreational and commercial fisheries have historically been contentious. One such program is the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP), which was designed in 2006 to engage recreational anglers in the scientific process and evaluate the efficacy of California’s network of marine protected areas. CCFRP began on the Central Coast of California and expanded statewide in 2017 to include six partner institutions in three regions: Northern, Central, and Southern California. To date, over 2,000 volunteer anglers have participated in the program, with many anglers volunteering for multiple years. However, the impacts of outreach, education, and collaborative research on those anglers at the statewide scale are currently unknown. Thus, the objective of the current study was to survey the statewide pool of volunteer anglers to assess the degree to which participation in CCFRP has influenced angler perceptions of MPAs, fisheries management, and conservation. We received 259 completed surveys out of a pool of 1,386 active anglers, equating to an 18.7% response rate. Participation in CCFRP resulted in a significant, positive impact on anglers’ attitudes towards MPAs in California across all regions. Anglers who participated in six or more CCFRP fishing trips had a more positive perception of MPAs than those who participated in fewer trips. Volunteer anglers across all regions perceived that they caught larger fishes, a higher abundance of fishes, and a greater diversity of species inside MPAs, consistent with the ecological findings of the program. These results highlight the benefits of involving community members in collaborative scientific research. Collaboration between researchers and the broader community increases transparency and trust between stakeholders, and results in greater understanding of natural resource dynamics, ultimately producing better management outcomes

Abnormal Frontostriatal Activity During Unexpected Reward Receipt in Depression and Schizophrenia: Relationship to Anhedonia.

Alterations in reward processes may underlie motivational and anhedonic symptoms in depression and schizophrenia. However it remains unclear whether these alterations are disorder-specific or shared, and whether they clearly relate to symptom generation or not. We studied brain responses to unexpected rewards during a simulated slot-machine game in 24 patients with depression, 21 patients with schizophrenia, and 21 healthy controls using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We investigated relationships between brain activation, task-related motivation, and questionnaire rated anhedonia. There was reduced activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum, inferior temporal gyrus, and occipital cortex in both depression and schizophrenia in comparison with healthy participants during receipt of unexpected reward. In the medial prefrontal cortex both patient groups showed reduced activation, with activation significantly more abnormal in schizophrenia than depression. Anterior cingulate and medial frontal cortical activation predicted task-related motivation, which in turn predicted anhedonia severity in schizophrenia. Our findings provide evidence for overlapping hypofunction in ventral striatal and orbitofrontal regions in depression and schizophrenia during unexpected reward receipt, and for a relationship between unexpected reward processing in the medial prefrontal cortex and the generation of motivational states.Supported by a MRC Clinician Scientist award (G0701911), a Brain and Behaviour Research Foundation Young Investigator, and an Isaac Newton Trust award to Dr Murray; an award to Dr Segarra from the Secretary for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia and the European Union; by the University of Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, funded by a joint award from the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust (G1000183 and 093875/Z/10Z respectively); by awards from the Wellcome Trust (095692) and the Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund to Professor Fletcher, and by awards from the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (097814/Z/11) and Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. The authors are grateful for the help of clinical staff in CAMEO, in the Cambridge Rehabilitation and Recovery service and Pathways, and in the Cambridge IAPT service, for help with participant recruitment.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.37

VX-659–Tezacaftor–Ivacaftor in patients with cystic fibrosis and one or two Phe508del alleles

BACKGROUND: The next-generation cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) corrector VX-659, in triple combination with tezacaftor and ivacaftor (VX-659–tezacaftor–ivacaftor), was developed to restore the function of Phe508del CFTR protein in patients with cystic fibrosis. METHODS: We evaluated the effects of VX-659–tezacaftor–ivacaftor on the processing, trafficking, and function of Phe508del CFTR protein using human bronchial epithelial cells. A range of oral VX-659–tezacaftor–ivacaftor doses in triple combination were then evaluated in randomized, controlled, double-blind, multicenter trials involving patients with cystic fibrosis who were heterozygous for the Phe508del CFTR mutation and a minimal-function CFTR mutation (Phe508del–MF genotypes) or homozygous for the Phe508del CFTR mutation (Phe508del–Phe508del genotype). The primary end points were safety and the absolute change from baseline in the percentage of predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1). RESULTS: VX-659–tezacaftor–ivacaftor significantly improved the processing and trafficking of Phe508del CFTR protein as well as chloride transport in vitro. In patients, VX-659–tezacaftor–ivacaftor had an acceptable safety and side-effect profile. Most adverse events were mild or moderate. VX-659–tezacaftor–ivacaftor resulted in significant mean increases in the percentage of predicted FEV1 through day 29 (P<0.001) of up to 13.3 points in patients with Phe508del–MF genotypes; in patients with the Phe508del–Phe508del genotype already receiving tezacaftor–ivacaftor, adding VX-659 resulted in a further 9.7-point increase in the percentage of predicted FEV1. The sweat chloride concentrations and scores on the respiratory domain of the Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire–Revised improved in both patient populations. CONCLUSIONS: Robust in vitro activity of VX-659–tezacaftor–ivacaftor targeting Phe508del CFTR protein translated into improvements for patients with Phe508del–MF or Phe508del–Phe508del genotypes. VX-659 triple-combination regimens have the potential to treat the underlying cause of disease in approximately 90% of patients with cystic fibrosis. (Funded by Vertex Pharmaceuticals; VX16-659-101 and VX16-659-001 ClinicalTrials.gov numbers, NCT03224351. opens in new tab and NCT03029455. opens in new tab.

Data Descriptor: An open resource for transdiagnostic research in pediatric mental health and learning disorders

Technological and methodological innovations are equipping researchers with unprecedented capabilities for detecting and characterizing pathologic processes in the developing human brain. As a result, ambitions to achieve clinically useful tools to assist in the diagnosis and management of mental health and learning disorders are gaining momentum. To this end, it is critical to accrue large-scale multimodal datasets that capture a broad range of commonly encountered clinical psychopathology. The Child Mind Institute has launched the Healthy Brain Network (HBN), an ongoing initiative focused on creating and sharing a biobank of data from 10,000 New York area participants (ages 5–21). The HBN Biobank houses data about psychiatric, behavioral, cognitive, and lifestyle phenotypes, as well as multimodal brain imaging (resting and naturalistic viewing fMRI, diffusion MRI, morphometric MRI), electroencephalography, eyetracking, voice and video recordings, genetics and actigraphy. Here, we present the rationale, design and implementation of HBN protocols. We describe the first data release (n =664) and the potential of the biobank to advance related areas (e.g., biophysical modeling, voice analysis