Food insecurity and foraging food from gardening, hunting, and fishing among supplemental nutrition assistance program and eligible supplemental nutrition assistance program families

Households participating in, or eligible for, USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) deploy many food acquisition strategies to enhance their food security because the SNAP program is intended to supplement rather than provide all a household's food needs. My research is aimed at 1) better understanding how SNAP participation, income levels and other household characteristics affect the likelihood that a household will use food acquisition strategies such as gardening, hunting or fishing, and shopping at dollar and club stores, and 2) if strategies such as gardening, fishing, and hunting are associated with greater household food security. The sustainable livelihood approach provides a framework to study everyday activities of individuals and households while examining the broader forces that affect their choices, especially how livelihoods are maintained in everyday life in a defined setting and environment. Using the USDA Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey data (FoodAPS), I examined the association between the choices of survey households and the broader structural context within which the actors are embedded. There is no statistically significant difference between SNAP and other low-income non-SNAP households in terms of the food acquisition strategies examined. Higher income households are more likely to get food from gardening, fishing and hunting and are more likely to shop at club stores than are SNAP households. SNAP households and other low income households are more likely to shop at dollar stores than are higher-income households. However, gardening, hunting and fishing are more common among households in rural areas, in the Midwest and with primary respondents who are white and married. Non-SNAP households with income levels above the poverty level are more likely to receive fruits and vegetables from others' gardens than are SNAP households. Households that receive fruits and vegetables from others' gardens may maintain good social lives, which in turn may increase the chance of reciprocity. An area for further research might be understanding why gardening, hunting, and fishing do not appear to be widely used by low-income households. That understanding may be critical for the success of efforts to enhance food security of low-income householdsIncludes bibliographical reference

Making Organisations Gender Equal—A long journey: Experience from a non-profit in India

Organisational leadership plays a key role in shaping the workspace. The collectively held beliefs, assumptions, and values which constitute the culture of an organisation are mostly influenced by its leadership. Monogamous patriarchal family structures—evolved based on male ownership and women’s subjugation—have led to the deep-seated idea of male supremacy. Organisations, including value-based non-profits, show the same pattern. Within organisations, patriarchal leadership exhibits sexism in order to maintain the status quo. The deep culture of gender inequality in organisations is apparently maintained as a means of maintaining male supremacy. This article demonstrates how, in two consecutive gender audits, Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), a non-profit organisation scored much lower in ‘willingness of leadership to make the organisation a better place for women to work’ in spite of the fact that PRADAN is among a small number that invested resources, financial and human, to bring about gender equality in the organisation. As members of the leadership group of PRADAN, the authors assert the need for a powerful Guiding Coalition, outside the normal hierarchy, to lead initiatives and to work with the leadership group, as a way forward to make the organisation a better place for women to work

Why are Women’s Self-help Groups on the Periphery of Adivasi Movements in India? Insights from Practitioners

‘Adivasi’ is an identity of protest against the oppressive practices of displacement and dispossession faced by tribal communities across India. As the social and political scenario of the vast Central Indian Plateau (CIP), the homeland of many such communities, is shaped by the social dynamics of oppression and resistance, any social or political organisation working in this region for justice and equity has to not only understand this adivasi consciousness of resistance against the concentration of capital and accumulation of surplus through a process of dispossession but also evolve their strategy in the context of adivasi consciousness. The authors have many years of experience of working with women’s group in the CIP. In this reflective piece they critique their own action as failing to assimilate the important socio-political dynamics of the adivasi consciousness. As a result the women’s groups promoted by them have remained peripheral in the struggle against dispossession. Non-inclusion of women in traditionally male dominated forums in adivasi society is a hindering factor for the women to take leading part in the adivasi movements. The authors conclude that it is important to work with both men and women to fight against dispossession which will also change the culture of male dominated committees within the Adivasi society

A nationwide study of adults admitted to hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis or hyperosmolar hyperglycaemic state and COVID‐19

AimsTo investigate characteristics of people hospitalized with coronavirus-disease-2019 (COVID-19) and diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) or hyperosmolar hyperglycaemic state (HHS), and to identify risk factors for mortality and intensive care admission.Materials and methodsRetrospective cohort study with anonymized data from the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists nationwide audit of hospital admissions with COVID-19 and diabetes, from start of pandemic to November 2021. The primary outcome was inpatient mortality. DKA and HHS were adjudicated against national criteria. Age-adjusted odds ratios were calculated using logistic regression.ResultsIn total, 85 confirmed DKA cases, and 20 HHS, occurred among 4073 people (211 type 1 diabetes, 3748 type 2 diabetes, 114 unknown type) hospitalized with COVID-19. Mean (SD) age was 60 (18.2) years in DKA and 74 (11.8) years in HHS (p < .001). A higher proportion of patients with HHS than with DKA were of non-White ethnicity (71.4% vs 39.0% p = .038). Mortality in DKA was 36.8% (n = 57) and 3.8% (n = 26) in type 2 and type 1 diabetes respectively. Among people with type 2 diabetes and DKA, mortality was lower in insulin users compared with non-users [21.4% vs. 52.2%; age-adjusted odds ratio 0.13 (95% CI 0.03-0.60)]. Crude mortality was lower in DKA than HHS (25.9% vs. 65.0%, p = .001) and in statin users versus non-users (36.4% vs. 100%; p = .035) but these were not statistically significant after age adjustment.ConclusionsHospitalization with COVID-19 and adjudicated DKA is four times more common than HHS but both associate with substantial mortality. There is a strong association of previous insulin therapy with survival in type 2 diabetes-associated DKA

Hemoptysis from intralobar pulmonary sequestration in an adult patient

A 20-year-old male patient with no previous medical history presented with new-onset hemoptysis for 2 days with episodes of severe coughing, which was initially nonproductive. However, he went on to have 10–15 episodes of expectoration of bright red blood. The patient did not complain of any dyspnea, chest pain, fever, light-headedness, abdominal pain, melena, nausea, or vomiting. Other review of symptoms was negative. He denied any smoking, alcohol, or drug use and had no significant family history

Simplifying large spin bootstrap in Mellin space

We set up the conventional conformal bootstrap equations in Mellin space and analyse the anomalous dimensions and OPE coefficients of large spin double trace operators. By decomposing the equations in terms of continuous Hahn polynomials, we derive explicit expressions as an asymptotic expansion in inverse conformal spin to any order, reproducing the contribution of any primary operator and its descendants in the crossed channel. The expressions are in terms of known mathematical functions and involve generalized Bernoulli (Norlund) polynomials and the Mack polynomials and enable us to derive certain universal properties. Comparing with the recently introduced reformulated equations in terms of crossing symmetric tree level exchange Witten diagrams, we show that to leading order in anomalous dimension but to all orders in inverse conformal spin, the equations are the same as in the conventional formulation. At the next order, the polynomial ambiguity in the Witten diagram basis is needed for the equivalence and we derive the necessary constraints for the same.Comment: 48 pages, 6 figures, typos corrected, to appear in JHE