Labor unions: a public health institution.

Using a social-ecological framework, we drew on a targeted literature review and historical and contemporary cases from the US labor movement to illustrate how unions address physical and psychosocial conditions of work and the underlying inequalities and social determinants of health. We reviewed labor involvement in tobacco cessation, hypertension control, and asthma, limiting articles to those in English published in peer-reviewed public health or medical journals from 1970 to 2013. More rigorous research is needed on potential pathways from union membership to health outcomes and the facilitators of and barriers to union-public health collaboration. Despite occasional challenges, public health professionals should increase their efforts to engage with unions as critical partners

Counselor in Training 360 Degree Case Conceptualization Process for Group Supervision

This article introduces a developmental process for case conceptualization practice during group supervision based on the underpinnings of the Integrative Developmental Model presented by Stoltenberg and McNeill (2010) and Mindsets by Dweck (2006). The design incorporates a strengths-based method encouraging reflective practice and risk-taking. Practical methods for group interaction and discussion are presented

Effects of Probiotics on Inflammatory Responses in Neuronal Tissue

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects more than 40 million people. While the pathophysiology has yet to be fully elucidated, some studies suggest AD associated chronic inflammation is caused by hyperactive microglia that produce pro-inflammatory factors. Probiotics have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties and may influence neurochemistry via the gut-brain-axis, which controls communication between the intestines and brain, crossing over the blood brain barrier (BBB). A model of the BBB was constructed with a double transwell system to clarify the effects of probiotics on cerebral inflammation. Microglia cells grown in the basolateral chamber were co-cultured with endothelial cells in the upper compartment while an astrocyte monolayer separated the two compartments. Once the system was exposed to human peripheral blood T-cells and combined with histamine (probiotic anti-inflammatory product), formic acid (probiotic inflammatory product), both, or neither, the microglial medium was collected and analyzed for tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) and interleukin-10 using ELISA. ANOVA and T-Tests were run and showed no significant results, except for the histamine and formic acid combination. In the combination treatment, levels of TNFα were slightly different than the control (p = 0.00006), contrary to what was expected. Under these conditions, probiotics do not reduce inflammation in the brain and thus cannot effectively treat AD patients. However, in the future, more experiments should be conducted with multiple inflammatory and anti-inflammatory molecules as there could be overlapping interactions between several probiotic products that produce advantageous metabolic effects and mitigate elevations in inflammatory responses

Engaging Citizens and Transforming Designers: Analysis of a Campus-Community Partnership Through the Lens of Children’s Rights to Participation

While an engaged citizenry is often the goal of community service learning, the rights of children to be active agents in this process are largely considered in a separate academic literature. Yet community service learning and children’s participation share much in their goals and approaches to engagement. This paper analyzes a campus-community partnership between undergraduate environmental design and middle school applied science students. The partnership began as a way to promote participatory design processes for the redesign of a middle school and evolved to a proactive co-design program. We describe the goals and approaches to service-learning employed through the partnership, and critique the evolution of the program through the realm of a participation model that has emerged from three decades of children’s participation research. By analyzing a campus-community partnership through this framework, we hope to deepen the discourse on approaches to and evaluation of successful service-learning programs

Engaging Citizens and Transforming Designers: Analysis of a Campus- Community Partnership Through the Lens of Children’s Rights to Participate

While an engaged citizenry is often the goal of community service learning, the rights of children to be active agents in this process are largely considered in a separate academic literature. Yet community service learning and children’s participation share much in their goals and approaches to engagement. This paper analyzes a campus-community partnership between undergraduate environmental design and middle school applied science students. The partnership began as a way to promote participatory design processes for the redesign of a middle school and evolved to a proactive co-design program. We describe the goals and approaches to service-learning employed through the partnership, and critique the evolution of the program through the realm of a participation model that has emerged from three decades of children’s participation research. By analyzing a campus-community partnership through this framework, we hope to deepen the discourse on approaches to and evaluation of successful service-learning programs

Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major U.S. Cities

The underground commercial sex economy (UCSE) generates millions of dollars annually, yet investigation and data collection remain under resourced. Our study aimed to unveil the scale of the UCSE in eight major US cities. Across cities, the UCSE's worth was estimated between $39.9 and$290 million in 2007, but decreased since 2003 in all but two cities. Interviews with pimps, traffickers, sex workers, child pornographers, and law enforcement revealed the dynamics central to the underground commercial sex trade -- and shaped the policy suggestions to combat it

A comparative analysis of governance and leadership in agricultural development policy networks

Agricultural development initiatives feature many public and private organizations working together across sectors and scales to pursue the goals of food security and climate resilience. Policy networks are considered a crucial ingredient for the learning and cooperation needed to effectively implement agricultural development projects and increase community resiliency, yet very little comparative empirical data has been collected to assess where and how these networks operate. We contribute to filling this gap by characterizing the governance and leadership patterns within agricultural development policy networks that connect organizations working on climate resilience and food security activities in 14 smallholder farming communities across 11 countries in East Africa, West Africa and South Asia. We integrate theories of network governance and leadership in international development settings with social network analysis methods to analyze network structures and understand the roles of various actors working collaboratively toward agricultural development goals. We present two critical findings that advance our theoretical understanding of network governance and have implications for agricultural development policy globally. First, we find evidence for three distinct network types: shared and brokered networks, as predicted by the network governance literature, as well as a class of fragmented networks that exhibit extremely low levels of coordination at their core. Additionally, we find that while the presence of international development organizations is associated with greater overall network coordination, it is local and regional organizations that fill central network leadership positions most frequently. These findings suggest that resources may be an important factor in overcoming the cost of coordination, but social capital among local actors may be more important for developing network leadership

COMBINATION EPIGENETIC THERAPY CAN SENSITIZE OVARIAN CANCER TO IMMUNE CHECKPOINT THERAPY

While immune checkpoint blockade is approved for other solid tumors, such as non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma, kidney cancer, and bladder cancer, it has not yet been successfully used in ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecological malignancies in the United States, and new therapies are needed. To study the relationship between the tumor, immune system, and immunotherapy, it is necessary to use an immunocompetent model of ovarian cancer. Therefore, we characterized four related syngeneic epithelial ovarian cell lines, MOSEC, Roby-ID8-luc2, Roby-ID8-nonluc, and ID8-VEGF-defensin, that can form tumors in C57Bl/6 mice and optimized the methods of measuring tumor burden in order to determine drug efficacy. Using the ID8-VEGF-defensin cell line, which grew the most quickly in mice, we have shown that combination epigenetic therapy improves tumor response to immune checkpoint blockade, including decreasing tumor burden and extending the survival of the mice. One epigenetic drug used, the demethylating agent 5-azacytidine (AZA), triggers immune gene upregulation, apoptosis, and cell cycle arrest in the tumor cells. AZA pre-treatment of tumor cells that are then injected into mice increases the number of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment and decreases tumor burden. In contrast, a combination of AZA and a histone deacetylase inhibitor is only effective when the tumor and an intact immune system are treated together, indicating that the combination has specific effects on immune cells. These include an increase in the percentage of activated T and NK cells, and a decrease in the number of macrophages in the tumor microenvironment. Furthermore, the combination therapy of AZA and the HDACi Givinostat sensitizes the tumors to immune checkpoint blockade (α-PD-1). Finally, the type I interferon signaling that is triggered in the tumor cells by AZA is important in the immune and tumor responses, because when the interferon-α receptor is blocked in vivo, the effects of AZA on tumor burden, survival, and some of the immune cells are rescued. In conclusion, combination epigenetic therapy affects both the tumor cells and the immune cells in the tumor microenvironment to sensitize ovarian cancer tumors to α-PD-1