Encouraging attendance and engagement in parenting programs: Developing a smartphone application with fathers, for fathers

Building Bridges and Bonds (B3), a federally funded study of Responsible Fatherhood programs, is testing a set of innovative approaches designed to help fathers advance their parenting and employment skills. One of these innovations is a new smartphonebased application called DadTime. It is one of the first mobile applications specifically designed to help fathers improve their engagement with and attendance at parenting programs. This brief, the second in a series of publications on B3, describes how MDRC collaborated with fathers to develop DadTime. The first brief, “Three Innovative Approaches to Serving Low-Income Fathers,” which was published in April 2017, introduced the B3 study and described three new practices for Responsible Fatherhood programs, including the creation of DadTime, which is described in greater detail here.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149449/1/2018_Balu_b3_dadtime_brief_508.pd

A cluster randomized controlled trial of a modified vaccination clinical reminder for primary care providers

Objective: Adult vaccination rates in the United States fall short of national goals, and rates are particularly low for Black Americans. We tested a provider-focused vaccination uptake intervention: a modified electronic health record clinical reminder that bundled together three adult vaccination reminders, presented patient vaccination history, and included talking points for providers to address vaccine hesitancy. Method: Primary care teams at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who saw 28,941 patients during this period, were randomly assigned to receive either the modified clinical reminder (N = 44 teams) or the status quo (N = 40 teams). Results: Uptake of influenza and other adult vaccinations was 1.6 percentage points higher in the intervention group, which was not statistically significant (CI = [-1.3, 4.4], p = 0.28). The intervention had similar effects on Black and White patients and did not reduce the disparity in vaccination rates between these groups. Conclusion: Provider-focused interventions are a promising way to address vaccine hesitancy, but they may need to be more intensive than a modified clinical reminder to have appreciable effects on vaccination uptake

Lessons for COVID-19 vaccination from eight federal government direct communication evaluations

We discuss eight randomized evaluations intended to increase vaccination uptake conducted by the US General Services Administration’s Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES). These evaluations had a median sample size of 55,000, deployed a variety of behaviorally-informed direct communications, and used administrative data to measure vaccination uptake. The confidence interval from an internal meta-analysis shows changes in vaccination rates ranging from -0.004 to 0.394 percentage points. Two studies yielded statistically significant increases, of 0.59 and 0.16 percentage points. The other six were not statistically significant, although the studies were powered to detect effect sizes in line with published research. This work highlights the likely effects of government communications and demonstrates the value of conducting rapid evaluations to support COVID-19 vaccination efforts

Scoring Federal Legislation for Equity: Definition, Framework, and Potential Application

Federal legislation is fundamental to building a nation in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. Since our nation's founding, in many ways, federal legislation has created and exacerbated racial inequities, leaving one-third of the population experiencing material poverty and preventing our democracy from realizing the promise of equity. To ensure the federal government serves us all, we must accurately understand and assess whether every policy advances or impedes equity. The Equity Scoring Initiative (ESI) exists to establish the foundation for a new legislative scoring regime. By scoring for equity, we can begin to create an accountable, responsive democracy

Factors associated with stigma and manifestations experienced by Indian health care workers involved in COVID-19 management in India: A qualitative study

Healthcare personnel who deal with COVID-19 experience stigma. There is a lack of national-level representative qualitative data to study COVID-19-related stigma among healthcare workers in India. The present study explores factors associated with stigma and manifestations experienced by Indian healthcare workers involved in COVID-19 management. We conducted in-depth interviews across 10 centres in India, which were analysed using NVivo software version 12. Thematic and sentiment analysis was performed to gain deep insights into the complex phenomenon by categorising the qualitative data into meaningful and related categories. Healthcare workers (HCW) usually addressed the stigma they encountered when doing their COVID duties under the superordinate theme of stigma. Among them, 77.42% said they had been stigmatised in some way. Analyses revealed seven interrelated themes surrounding stigma among healthcare workers. It can be seen that the majority of the stigma and coping sentiments fall into the mixed category, followed by the negative sentiment category. This study contributes to our understanding of stigma and discrimination in low- and middle-income settings. Our data show that the emergence of fear of the virus has quickly turned into a stigma against healthcare workers

Health, education, and social care provision after diagnosis of childhood visual disability

Aim: To investigate the health, education, and social care provision for children newly diagnosed with visual disability.Method: This was a national prospective study, the British Childhood Visual Impairment and Blindness Study 2 (BCVIS2), ascertaining new diagnoses of visual impairment or severe visual impairment and blindness (SVIBL), or equivalent vi-sion. Data collection was performed by managing clinicians up to 1-year follow-up, and included health and developmental needs, and health, education, and social care provision.Results: BCVIS2 identified 784 children newly diagnosed with visual impairment/SVIBL (313 with visual impairment, 471 with SVIBL). Most children had associated systemic disorders (559 [71%], 167 [54%] with visual impairment, and 392 [84%] with SVIBL). Care from multidisciplinary teams was provided for 549 children (70%). Two-thirds (515) had not received an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP). Fewer children with visual impairment had seen a specialist teacher (SVIBL 35%, visual impairment 28%, χ2p < 0.001), or had an EHCP (11% vs 7%, χ2p < 0 . 01).Interpretation: Families need additional support from managing clinicians to access recommended complex interventions such as the use of multidisciplinary teams and educational support. This need is pressing, as the population of children with visual impairment/SVIBL is expected to grow in size and complexity.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Variation in Gas Exchange Characteristics in Clones of Eucalyptus сamaldulensis Under Varying Conditions of CO2

he Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding, Coimbatore, India has a long term systematic tree improvement programme for Eucalyptus species aimed at enhancing productivity and breeding for trait specific clones. In the process, thirty high yielding clones of Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh. were identified. Carbondioxide enrichment studies in special chambers help in understanding the changes at individual level, and also at physiological, biochemical and genetic level. It also provides valuable information for establishing plantations at different geographic locations. Considerable variations were observed when the selected 30 clones of E. camaldulensis were subjected to physiological studies under elevated CO2 conditions (600 mol mol-1). Ten clones exhibited superior growth coupled with favourable physiological characteristics including high photosynthetic rate, carboxylation and water use efficiency under elevated carbon di oxide levels. Clones with minimal variation in physiological characteristics under elevated levels of CO2 suggest their ability to overcome physiological stresses and adapt to varying climatic conditions

Evaluation of Sialic acid Levels in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract: Sialic acid-rich glycoprotein is found mainly in cell membrane