STRENGTHENING ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS: ADDRESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOUSING AND NUTRITION SECURITY AMONG MAJORITY-MINORITY COMMUNITIES IN DURHAM COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

To better address the broad spectrum of health in Durham County, North Carolina, this capstone offers a series of housing and nutritional policy reforms that aim to improve the economic security of Durham County residents by addressing the bidirectional nature of housing and food insecurity. The following proposal explains the impact economic precarity and instability has on Durham County residents’ health and how it impacts how residents live, work, and play. The proposal details how reforming zoning laws for affordable housing, coupled with community gardens and nutrition education can help improve economic security for Durham County residents and how such policies will improve the County’s public health. These proposals also include a detailed budget its zoning reform policy and program evaluation for its community gardens program. The proposal also includes an appendix with an additional housing reform policy to build additional permanent low-income housing.Master of Science in Public Healt

Predictors of outcome after 6 and 12 months following anthroposophic therapy for adult outpatients with chronic disease: a secondary analysis from a prospective observational study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Anthroposophic medicine is a physician-provided complementary therapy system involving counselling, artistic and physical therapies, and special medications. The purpose of this analysis was to identify predictors of symptom improvement in patients receiving anthroposophic treatment for chronic diseases.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>913 adult outpatients from Germany participated in a prospective cohort study. Patients were starting anthroposophic treatment for mental (30.4% of patients, n = 278/913), musculoskeletal (20.2%), neurological (7.6%), genitourinary (7.4%) or respiratory disorders (7.2%) or other chronic indications. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis was performed with the improvement of Symptom Score (patients' assessment, 0: not present, 10: worst possible) after 6 and 12 months as dependent variables. 61 independent variables pertaining to socio-demographics, life style, disease status, co-morbidity, health status (SF-36), depression, and therapy factors were analysed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared to baseline, Symptom Score improved by average 2.53 points (95% confidence interval 2.39-2.68, p < 0.001) after six months and by 2.49 points (2.32-2.65, p < 0.001) after 12 months. The strongest predictor for improvement after six months was baseline Symptom Score, which alone accounted for 25% of the variance (total model 32%). Improvement after six months was also positively predicted by better physical function, better general health, shorter disease duration, higher education level, a diagnosis of respiratory disorders, and by a higher therapy goal documented by the physician at baseline; and negatively predicted by the number of physiotherapy sessions in the pre-study year and by a diagnosis of genitourinary disorders. Seven of these nine variables (not the two diagnoses) also predicted improvement after 12 months. When repeating the 0-6 month analysis on two random subsamples of the original sample, three variables (baseline Symptom Score, physical function, general health) remained significant predictors in both analyses, and three further variables (education level, respiratory disorders, therapy goal) were significant in one analysis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In adult outpatients receiving anthroposophic treatment for chronic diseases, symptom improvement after 6 and 12 months was predicted by baseline symptoms, health status, disease duration, education, and therapy goal. Other variables were not associated with the outcome. This secondary predictor analysis of data from a pre-post study does not allow for causal conclusions; the results are hypothesis generating and need verification in subsequent studies.</p

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

STRENGTHENING ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS: ADDRESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOUSING AND NUTRITION SECURITY AMONG MAJORITY-MINORITY COMMUNITIES IN DURHAM COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

To better address the broad spectrum of health in Durham County, North Carolina, this capstone offers a series of housing and nutritional policy reforms that aim to improve the economic security of Durham County residents by addressing the bidirectional nature of housing and food insecurity. The following proposal explains the impact economic precarity and instability has on Durham County residents’ health and how it impacts how residents live, work, and play. The proposal details how reforming zoning laws for affordable housing, coupled with community gardens and nutrition education can help improve economic security for Durham County residents and how such policies will improve the County’s public health. These proposals also include a detailed budget its zoning reform policy and program evaluation for its community gardens program. The proposal also includes an appendix with an additional housing reform policy to build additional permanent low-income housing.Master of Public Healt

STRENGTHENING ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS: ADDRESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOUSING AND NUTRITION SECURITY AMONG MAJORITY-MINORITY COMMUNITIES IN DURHAM COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

To better address the broad spectrum of health in Durham County, North Carolina, this capstone offers a series of housing and nutritional policy reforms that aim to improve the economic security of Durham County residents by addressing the bidirectional nature of housing and food insecurity. The following proposal explains the impact economic precarity and instability has on Durham County residents’ health and how it impacts how residents live, work, and play. The proposal details how reforming zoning laws for affordable housing, coupled with community gardens and nutrition education can help improve economic security for Durham County residents and how such policies will improve the County’s public health. These proposals also include a detailed budget its zoning reform policy and program evaluation for its community gardens program. The proposal also includes an appendix with an additional housing reform policy to build additional permanent low-income housing.Master of Public Healt