The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?

The industry is putting the health of its employees, adult film perfomers, at risk by insisting that they work without condoms

Spatial video geonarratives and health: case studies in post-disaster recovery, crime, mosquito control and tuberculosis in the homeless

A call has recently been made by the public health and medical communities to understand the neighborhood context of a patient’s life in order to improve education and treatment. To do this, methods are required that can collect “contextual” characteristics while complementing the spatial analysis of more traditional data. This also needs to happen within a standardized, transferable, easy-to-implement framework. The Spatial Video Geonarrative (SVG) is an environmentally-cued narrative where place is used to stimulate discussion about fine-scale geographic characteristics of an area and the context of their occurrence. It is a simple yet powerful approach to enable collection and spatial analysis of expert and resident health-related perceptions and experiences of places. Participants comment about where they live or work while guiding a driver through the area. Four GPS-enabled cameras are attached to the vehicle to capture the places that are observed and discussed by the participant. Audio recording of this narrative is linked to the video via time stamp. A program (G-Code) is then used to geotag each word as a point in a geographic information system (GIS). Querying and density analysis can then be performed on the narrative text to identify spatial patterns within one narrative or across multiple narratives. This approach is illustrated using case studies on post-disaster psychopathology, crime, mosquito control, and TB in homeless populations. SVG can be used to map individual, group, or contested group context for an environment. The method can also gather data for cohorts where traditional spatial data are absent. In addition, SVG provides a means to spatially capture, map and archive institutional knowledge. SVG GIS output can be used to advance theory by being used as input into qualitative and/or spatial analyses. SVG can also be used to gain near-real time insight therefore supporting applied interventions. Advances over existing geonarrative approaches include the simultaneous collection of video data to visually support any commentary, and the ease-of-application making it a transferable method across different environments and skillsets.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12942-015-0014-

Psychiatric Context of Acute/Early HIV Infection. The NIMH Multisite Acute HIV Infection Study: IV

Acute/early HIV infection is a period of high risk for HIV transmission. Better understanding of behavioral aspects during this period could improve interventions to limit further transmission. Thirty-four participants with acute/early HIV infection from six US cities were assessed with the Mini International Diagnostic Interview, Beck Depression Inventory II, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Brief COPE, and an in-depth interview. Most had a pre-HIV history of alcohol or substance use disorder (85%); a majority (53%) had a history of major depressive or bipolar disorder. However, post-diagnosis coping was predominantly adaptive, with only mild to moderate elevations of anxious or depressive mood. Respondents described challenges managing HIV in tandem with pre-existing substance abuse problems, depression, and anxiety. Integration into medical and community services was associated with adaptive coping. The psychiatric context of acute/early HIV infection may be a precursor to infection, but not necessarily a barrier to intervention to reduce forward transmission of HIV among persons newly infected

Cost-Effectiveness of Pooled Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing for Acute HIV Infection after Third-Generation HIV Antibody Screening and Rapid Testing in the United States: A Comparison of Three Public Health Settings

Angela Hutchinson and colleagues conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis of pooled nucleic acid amplification testing following HIV testing and show that it is not cost-effective at recommended antibody testing intervals for high-risk persons except in very high-incidence settings

Screenshot of the Web site of Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation

<p>Screenshot of the Web site of Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation</p

Condom distribution in jail to prevent HIV infection.

To determine if a structural intervention of providing one condom a week to inmates in the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail MSM unit reduces HIV transmissions and net social cost, we estimated numbers of new HIV infections (1) when condoms are available; and (2) when they are not. Input data came from a 2007 survey of inmates, the literature and intervention program records. Base case estimates showed that condom distribution averted 1/4 of HIV transmissions. We predict .8 new infections monthly among 69 HIV-negative, sexually active inmates without condom distribution, but .6 new infections with condom availability. The discounted future medical costs averted due to fewer HIV transmissions exceed program costs, so condom distribution in jail reduces total costs. Cost savings were sensitive to the proportion of anal sex acts protected by condoms, thus allowing inmates more than one condom per week could potentially increase the program's effectiveness