Factors Correlating Perceptions of HPV and Vaccine Uptake among High School Students

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is arguably the most prevalent sexually transmitted infection, and has been linked to a variety of health complications including cervical cancer, anal cancer, and anogenital warts. The HPV vaccine can prevent these health complications, but few studies have investigated the specific factors that impact HPV vaccine uptake. Methods: Two hundred seventy-five male and female high school students were surveyed in an ethnically diverse school district in southern California regarding HPV vaccine uptake and perceptions. Results: Less than one third of students reported their physician had discussed HPV vaccine with them, and fewer still for males (p<0.01). Students who did discuss HPV vaccination with their physician were significantly more likely to get vaccinated (p<0.01). Conclusion: These findings suggest the merit of the physician taking on a more active role during office visits to promote knowledge of HPV and HPV vaccine to all youth in this age group

On social and cognitive influences: relating adolescent networks, generalized expectancies, and adolescent smoking.

We examine the moderating role of friendship and school network characteristics in relationships between 1) youths' friends smoking behavior and youths' own generalized expectancies regarding risk and future orientation and 2) generalized expectancies of youths' friends and youths' own generalized expectancies. We then relate these constructs to smoking. Using a longitudinal sample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 15,142), the relationship between friends' generalized expectancies and youths' expectancies is stronger for those more central in the network, with more reachability, or stronger network ties, and weaker for those with denser friendship networks. Risk expectancies exhibited an inverted U shaped relationship with smoking at the next time point, whereas future orientation expectancies displayed a nonlinear accelerating negative relationship. There was also a feedback effect in which smoking behavior led to higher risk expectancies and lower future orientation expectancies in instrumental variable analyses

Socio-Spatial Health Disparities in Covid-19 Cases and Deaths in U.S. Skilled Nursing Facilities over 30 Months

BackgroundThis study investigated whether socio-spatial factors surrounding U.S. skilled nursing facilities related to Covid-19 case counts among residents, staff, and facility personnel and deaths among residents.MethodsWith data on 12,403 U.S. skilled nursing facilities and Census data we estimated multilevel models to assess relationships between facility and surrounding area characteristics from June 2020 to September 2022 for cumulative resident and facility personnel case counts and resident deaths.ResultsFacilities with more Black or Latino residents experienced more cases (IRR = 1.005; 1.004) and deaths (IRR = 1.008) among residents during the first six months of the pandemic, but were no different thereafter. Facilities with more racial/ethnic heterogeneity and percent Black or Latino in the surrounding buffer experienced more Covid-19 cases and deaths in the first six months, but no such differences were observed in the subsequent 24 months. Facilities surrounded by higher percent Latino consistently experienced more cases among staff and facility personnel over the study period (IRR = 1.006; 1.001).ConclusionsFindings indicated socio-spatial health disparities in cases among residents, staff, and facility personnel in the first six months of the pandemic, with some disparities fading thereafter. This pattern likely suggests the importance of the adoption and adherence to pandemic related safety measures in skilled nursing facilities nationwide