Integrating research, surveillance, and practice in environmental public health tracking.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is working with selected state and local health departments, academic centers, and others to develop an environmental public health tracking initiative to improve geographic and temporal surveillance of environmental hazards, exposures, and related health outcomes. The objective is to support policy strategies and interventions for disease prevention by communities and environmental health agencies at the federal, state, and local levels. The first 3 years of the initiative focused on supporting states and cities in developing capacity, information technology infrastructure, and pilot projects to demonstrate electronic linkage of environmental hazard or exposure data and disease data. The next phase requires implementation across states. This transition could provide opportunities to further integrate research, surveillance, and practice through attention to four areas. The first is to develop a shared and transparent knowledge base that draws on environmental health research and substantiates decisions about what to track and the interpretation of results. The second is to identify and address information needs of policy and stakeholder audiences in environmental health. The third is to adopt mechanisms for coordination, decision making, and governance that can incorporate and support the major entities involved. The fourth is to promote disease prevention by systematically identifying and addressing population-level environmental determinants of health and disease

Use of an index to reflect the aggregate burden of long-term exposure to criteria air pollutants in the United States.

Air pollution control in the United States for five common pollutants--particulate matter, ground-level ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide--is based partly on the attainment of ambient air quality standards that represent a level of air pollution regarded as safe. Regulatory and health agencies often focus on whether standards for short periods are attained; the number of days that standards are exceeded is used to track progress. Efforts to explain air pollution to the public often incorporate an air quality index that represents daily concentrations of pollutants. While effects of short-term exposures have been emphasized, research shows that long-term exposures to lower concentrations of air pollutants can also result in adverse health effects. We developed an aggregate index that represents long-term exposure to these pollutants, using 1995 monitoring data for metropolitan areas obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Aerometric Information Retrieval System. We compared the ranking of metropolitan areas under the proposed aggregate index with the ranking of areas by the number of days that short-term standards were exceeded. The geographic areas with the highest burden of long-term exposures are not, in all cases, the same as those with the most days that exceeded a short-term standard. We believe that an aggregate index of long-term air pollution offers an informative addition to the principal approaches currently used to describe air pollution exposures; further work on an aggregate index representing long-term exposure to air pollutants is warranted

Mental Health Resources for the Pediatric and Adolescent Populations in the Rural Setting

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a mainstay of treatment for problems such as anxiety and depression. However, access to this form of psychotherapy treatment is limited in rural areas, especially in pediatrics. The purpose of this project was to increase access to CBT through the use of smart phone CBT applications for patients at one rural midwest pediatric clinic. An extensive literature review revealed that mobile cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) applications can be an effective option for adjunct therapy when provider access is limited. Two CBT mobile applications were selected for the project and training was provided to clinic providers. Patient “CBT homework” sheets were provided as adjunct therapy to patients who presented with anxiety and depression over a three-month period in 2020. Providers assigned seventeen CBT homework sheets over the course of the project, of which twelve patients followed up in clinic and eleven reported using the CBT application. A post project interview with stakeholders and clinic staff found that the “CBT homework” instructions had to be simplified based on the reading level of the parents and patient maturity level. Limitations of the project included inconsistent follow up by patients, choosing the right application for school aged children, decreased follow up due to COVID-19, and limited options for applications for patients to use. For future use, CBT homework sheets should be simplified and include a rationale for how particular techniques work. Future projects should seek to simplify CBT homework sheets and video instructions for the patients

The Syllabus as a Student Privacy Document in an Age of Learning Analytics

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reveal how instructors discuss student data and information privacy in their syllabi. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected a mixture of publicly accessible and privately disclosed syllabi from 8,302 library and information science (LIS) courses to extract privacy language. Using privacy concepts from the literature and emergent themes, the authors analyzed the corpus. Findings Most syllabi did not mention privacy (98 percent). Privacy tended to be mentioned in the context of digital tools, course communication, policies and assignments. Research limitations/implications The transferability of the findings is limited because they address only one field and professional discipline, LIS, and address syllabi for only online and hybrid courses. Practical implications The findings suggest a need for professional development for instructors related to student data privacy. The discussion provides recommendations for creating educational experiences that support syllabi development and constructive norming opportunities. Social implications Instructors may be making assumptions about the degree of privacy literacy among their students or not value student privacy. Each raises significant concerns if privacy is instrumental to intellectual freedom and processes critical to the educational experience. Originality/value In an age of educational data mining and analytics, this is one of the first studies to consider if and how instructors are addressing student data privacy in their courses, and the study initiates an important conversation for reflecting on privacy values and practices

Adaptation Advantage to Climate Change Impacts on Road Infrastructure in Africa through 2100

The African continent is facing the potential of a US$183.6 billion liability to repair and maintain roads damaged from temperature and precipitation changes related to climate change through 2100. As detailed, the central part of the continent faces the greatest impact from climate change with countries facing an average cost of US$22 million annually, if they adopt a proactive adaptation policy and a US$54 million annual average, if a reactive approach is adopted. Additionally, countries face an average loss of opportunity to expand road networks from a low of 22 per cent to a high of 235 per cent in the central region.infrastructure, climate change, roads, cost estimates

Student Privacy in the Datafied Classroom: Privacy Practices in an Interconnected World

In an interconnected world, student privacy concerns take on increasingly higher stakes. To address the imminent concerns of student privacy, this work-in-progress study investigates faculty perspectives of student privacy and their practices in relation to emerging learning analytics tools and initiatives. The project is motivated by the team’s previous research (Jones & VanScoy, 2019) that analyzed more than 8,000 library and information science syllabi and found that there is a need to better understand how faculty perceive student privacy issues and strategize to address them in practice. The current project consists of three phases; during the first phase, , the research team is conducting a survey with faculty from diverse disciplinary backgrounds who have online and face-to-face instructional experience. For the second phase, the team will use phase-one data to pursue interviews with faculty members who participate in the survey. In the third and final phase, the team will aggregate key findings from the research phases and the extant literature to facilitate discussions between faculty and librarians. Results from the phase one survey will be available to present on the poster. Focusing on instructors’ attitudes toward personal privacy and student privacy, their knowledge of privacy policies and learning analytics, and their instructional practices, the findings will deepen our understanding of student privacy in the interconnected educational environment. Jones, K. M., & VanScoy, A. (2019). The syllabus as a student privacy document in an age of learning analytics. Journal of Documentation, 75(6), 1333-1355

Sustaining an ethical digital learning environment: Perceptions of student privacy among faculty, librarians, and instructional designers

Despite educators’ eagerness to return to “normal,” the pandemic has demonstrated the importance and usefulness of online learning and its accompanying technologies, especially in times of crisis. No one wants to re-experience the chaos of the Spring 2020 transition to online learning, so taking care to plan ahead and make deliberate choices is important. In the rush to convert courses to the online format, the increased student privacy risks that result from online learning technologies were likely not at the forefront of educators’ minds. But with time to reflect and make rational decisions, educators can consider their values about student privacy and whether or not their instructional choices reflect these values. Just as the pandemic was beginning, our team surveyed instructors from a variety of disciplines and institutions in the United States. We found that educators highly valued student privacy. Although privacy can be defined in many ways, most defined personal privacy and student privacy in the same way, generally with a focus on limiting information access. Instructors’ discipline, rank, and personal demographics did not influence their views of student privacy. We are currently interviewing instructors, librarians, and instructional designers to provide context for the survey findings and to explore how these groups can productively discuss student privacy issues and make informed decisions. By sharing the results of the ongoing project, our aim is to stimulate conversation among library and information science educators about our student privacy values and actions, and to discuss how we prepare future academic librarians to support faculty in ethical decision-making about student privacy

Integrating Health Literacy Questions into a Statewide Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Questionnaire

Objectives. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility of adding health literacy questions to a state health assessment questionnaire. Methods. Researchers conducted a series of telephone interviews (N = 20) to test the telephone administration of three health literacy screening questions with a convenience sample. Feedback obtained during the telephone interviews was used to revise the questions for clarity. The revised questions were proposed as an addition to the Kansas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Results. Pilot data included minor modifications to the language of the questions to broaden their interpretation outside of a hospital setting. Most participants (90%, n = 18) had adequate health literacy. The proposed questions were approved for addition to the BRFSS questionnaire. Prompts were added to a telephone script to aid BRFSS survey administrators. Conclusion. As one of the first statewide health literacy assessments, this study has demonstrated one method for collecting baseline data. This new methodology has the potential to impact both patient care and broad public health efforts