Perceived Effects of Community Gardening in Lower Mississippi Delta Gardening Participants

This article describes the perceived physical and psychological health impacts of community gardening on participants in the Mississippi Delta. Themes identified include the use of gardening as an educational tool and as a means to increase self-efficacy and responsibility for personal and community health. Additional benefits of gardening as identified by the study include exposure to new types of healthy foods, increased physical activity, and the building of a legacy. Incorporation of gardening into school curriculum could equip young residents with gardening skills and improve the likelihood that community gardens will be maintained

Measuring Client Experiences of Motivational Interviewing During a Lifestyle Intervention

The Client Evaluation of Motivational Interviewing was used to assess motivational interviewing experiences in a predominantly female, African American sample from the Southeastern United States who received motivational interviewing-based feedback during a multicomponent lifestyle intervention. Motivational interviewing was experienced differently than a primarily White, male, Northeastern mental health sample

Assessment of neighborhood street characteristics related to physical activity in the Lower Mississippi Delta

Background: Physical activity levels were low for pregnant and postpartum participants in a diet and physical activity intervention. To explore micro level characteristics of participants’neighborhoods related to physical activity, an ancillary study was conducted. Methods: This cross-sectional study encompassed the neighborhood street segments of women participating in a diet and physical activity intervention that was conducted in the Lower Mississippi Delta. A neighborhood was defined as all street segments within one-fourth walking mile of a participant’s home address. Street segments were measured using the Rural Active Living Assessment’s Street Segment Assessment tool. In the field and on foot, raters measured street segments using neighborhood maps with segments identified. Results: Mean street segment length was 0.22 miles (SD = 0.14). All segments had flat terrain with residential (98%), open spaces (74%), and public/civic (34%) as the most prevalent land uses. Almost three-fourths of segments did not have any sidewalks (69%), sidewalk buffers or defined shoulders (73%), crosswalks or pedestrian signage (69%), or posted speed limits (74%).However, 88% had stop signs and almost all (96%) had street lighting and were paved multi lane roads (95%) with low traffic volume (90%). Most residential structures present were single family detached homes (95%) and the most common public/civic and commercial structures were churches (24%) and convenience stores (9%), respectively. Almost all of the street segments were rated as walk able (99%) and aesthetically pleasing (94%). Conclusion: Neighborhood street segments surrounding Delta Healthy Sprouts participants’homes were walk able and aesthetically pleasing. However, safety features such as sidewalks,pedestrian signage, and posted speed limit signs were lacking. To address these inadequate pedestrian safety features, infrastructure changes are needed for small rural towns

Development of a Nutrition Education Program for the Mississippi Communities for Healthy Living Nutrition Intervention Using the Diffusion of Innovations Theory

This research identified themes when exploring the Dietary Guidelines for Americans’ (DGA) attributes of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability to provide information for the design and structure of a nutrition education program for the Mississippi Communities of Healthy Living Nutrition Intervention. Diffusion of Innovations theory was used to develop education sessions to promote the adoption and consumption of a DGAbased healthy diet innovation in the Lower Mississippi Delta. Two focus groups were conducted with a purposive sample of 13 women in the community as well as one expert panel of six registered dietitians. Major themes identified for the DGA were Balanced Nutrition, All-inclusive, and Protective as the relative advantage; Adaptability when exploring compatibility; low complexity as Simple to Follow and Convenient and Portable; Gradual Change and Taste Tests when discussing trialability; and Modeling for observability. A Generational theme reflected participants’ desire to impart healthy behaviors to future generations. Results were used to operationalize attributes and develop 12 lesson plans

Improvements in Blood Pressure Among Undiagnosed Hypertensive Participants in a Community-Based Lifestyle Intervention, Mississippi, 2010

Introduction Effective strategies are needed to reach and treat people who lack awareness of or have uncontrolled hypertension. We used data from a community-based participatory research initiative, Hub City Steps, to quantify the prevalence of undiagnosed hypertension and determine the relationship between hypertension status at baseline and postintervention improvements in blood pressure and health-related quality of life. Methods Hub City Steps was a 6-month preintervention–postintervention lifestyle intervention targeting hypertension risk factors. Outcome measures were collected at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months. Generalized linear mixed models were used to test for effects by time and hypertension status. Results Of the enrolled sample (N = 269), most were overweight or obese (91%), African American (94%), and women (85%). When considering hypertension status, 42% had self-reported diagnosis of hypertension (self-reported subgroup; 84% with antihypertensive medication use); 36% had no self-reported medical history of hypertension, but when blood pressure was measured they had a clinical diagnosis of prehypertension or hypertension (undiagnosed subgroup); and 22% had no self-reported or clinical hypertension diagnosis (no hypertension subgroup). From baseline to 6 months, systolic blood pressure significantly improved for participants with self-reported hypertension [8.2 (SD, 18.2) mm Hg] and undiagnosed hypertension [12.3 (SD, 16.3) mm Hg], with undiagnosed participants experiencing the greatest improvements (P \u3c .001). Effects remained significant after controlling for covariates. Health-related quality of life significantly improved for all 3 hypertension subgroups, with no apparent subgroup differences. Conclusion This study reveals advantages of a culturally appropriate community-based participatory research initiative to reach those with undetected hypertension and effectively improve blood pressure status and health-related quality of life

Search for gravitational wave bursts in LIGO's third science run

We report on a search for gravitational wave bursts in data from the three LIGO interferometric detectors during their third science run. The search targets subsecond bursts in the frequency range 100-1100 Hz for which no waveform model is assumed, and has a sensitivity in terms of the root-sum-square (rss) strain amplitude of hrss ~ 10^{-20} / sqrt(Hz). No gravitational wave signals were detected in the 8 days of analyzed data.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Amaldi-6 conference proceedings to be published in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Upper limits on the strength of periodic gravitational waves from PSR J1939+2134

The first science run of the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors presented the opportunity to test methods of searching for gravitational waves from known pulsars. Here we present new direct upper limits on the strength of waves from the pulsar PSR J1939+2134 using two independent analysis methods, one in the frequency domain using frequentist statistics and one in the time domain using Bayesian inference. Both methods show that the strain amplitude at Earth from this pulsar is less than a few times $10^{-22}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the 5th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Tirrenia, Pisa, Italy, 6-11 July 200

Improving the sensitivity to gravitational-wave sources by modifying the input-output optics of advanced interferometers

We study frequency dependent (FD) input-output schemes for signal-recycling interferometers, the baseline design of Advanced LIGO and the current configuration of GEO 600. Complementary to a recent proposal by Harms et al. to use FD input squeezing and ordinary homodyne detection, we explore a scheme which uses ordinary squeezed vacuum, but FD readout. Both schemes, which are sub-optimal among all possible input-output schemes, provide a global noise suppression by the power squeeze factor, while being realizable by using detuned Fabry-Perot cavities as input/output filters. At high frequencies, the two schemes are shown to be equivalent, while at low frequencies our scheme gives better performance than that of Harms et al., and is nearly fully optimal. We then study the sensitivity improvement achievable by these schemes in Advanced LIGO era (with 30-m filter cavities and current estimates of filter-mirror losses and thermal noise), for neutron star binary inspirals, and for narrowband GW sources such as low-mass X-ray binaries and known radio pulsars. Optical losses are shown to be a major obstacle for the actual implementation of these techniques in Advanced LIGO. On time scales of third-generation interferometers, like EURO/LIGO-III (~2012), with kilometer-scale filter cavities, a signal-recycling interferometer with the FD readout scheme explored in this paper can have performances comparable to existing proposals. [abridged]Comment: Figs. 9 and 12 corrected; Appendix added for narrowband data analysi