The Unanticipated Benefits of Behavioral Assessments and Interviews on Anxiety, Self-Esteem and Depression Among Women Engaging in Transactional Sex

Women engaging in transactional sex have disproportional mental health co-morbidity and face substantial barriers to accessing social services. We hypothesized that participation in a longitudinal research study, with no overt intervention, would lead to short-term mental health improvements. For 4-weeks, 24 women disclosed information about their lives via twice daily cell-phone diaries and weekly interviews. We used t tests to compare self-esteem, anxiety, and depression at baseline and exit. Tests were repeated for hypothesized effect modifiers (e.g., substance abuse severity; age of sex work debut). For particularly vulnerable women (e.g., less educated, histories of abuse, younger initiation of sex work) participation in research conferred unanticipated mental health benefits. Positive interactions with researchers, as well as discussing lived experiences, may explain these effects. Additional studies are needed to confirm findings and identify mechanisms of change. This work contributes to the growing body of literature documenting that study participation improves mental health

‘I Got it off my Chest’: An Examination of how Research Participation Improved the Mental Health of Women Engaging in Transactional Sex

Ecologic momentary assessment (EMA) is a form of close-ended diary writing. While it has been shown that participating in a study that incorporates EMA improves mental health of participants, no study to date has examined the pathways through which benefits may occur. For 4-weeks, twice-daily EMAs and weekly interviews captured mood, daily activities and HIV risk behavior of 25 women who engage in transactional sex. Qualitative analysis of exit interviews was performed to examine how participation impacted women's mental health. The majority of participants felt that EMAs heightened awareness of emotions and behavior. Most reported experiencing catharsis from the interviews; specifically, from having a non-judgmental, trusting listener. Participants felt responsible for completing tasks, a sense of accomplishment for completing the study, and altruism. This study demonstrates there are direct benefits associated with participation in an EMA and interview study

Acetylation of PAMAM dendrimers for cellular delivery of siRNA

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The advancement of gene silencing via RNA interference is limited by the lack of effective short interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery vectors. Rational design of polymeric carriers has been complicated by the fact that most chemical modifications affect multiple aspects of the delivery process. In this work, the extent of primary amine acetylation of generation 5 poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers was studied as a modification for the delivery of siRNA to U87 malignant glioma cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PAMAM dendrimers were reacted with acetic anhydride to obtain controlled extents of primary amine acetylation. Acetylated dendrimers were complexed with siRNA, and physical properties of the complexes were studied. Dendrimers with up to 60% of primary amines acetylated formed ~200 nm complexes with siRNA. Increasing amine acetylation resulted in reduced polymer cytotoxicity to U87 cells, as well as enhanced dissociation of dendrimer/siRNA complexes. Acetylation of dendrimers reduced the cellular delivery of siRNA which correlated with a reduction in the buffering capacity of dendrimers upon amine acetylation. Confocal microscopy confirmed that escape from endosomes is a major barrier to siRNA delivery in this system.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Primary amine acetylation of PAMAM dendrimers reduced their cytotoxicity to U87 cells, and promoted the release of siRNA from dendrimer/siRNA complexes. A modest fraction (approximately 20%) of primary amines of PAMAM can be modified while maintaining the siRNA delivery efficiency of unmodified PAMAM, but higher degrees of amine neutralization reduced the gene silencing efficiency of PAMAM/siRNA delivery vectors.</p

Redefining the Social Geography of Community STI Risk: An Ecological Study of the Association, Mediators, and Moderators of Area-Level Prostitution Arrests

Background: Core groups such as sex workers have been implicated in contributing to higher area STI risk but no studies have analyzed mediators and moderators of this relationship using population data. Objectives: Assess the overall association of area-level prostitution and STI risk, and mediators and moderators of the relationship. Methods: Point-level prostitution and drug arrests were geocoded and aggregated by Census blockgroup. Chlamydia (CT), gonorrhea (GC), syphilis and incident HIV positive test results were aggregated by blockgroup after eliminating same-organism positive tests within 14 days of an initial positive test. Census data also defined moderators: blockgroups with >75% black and >20% Latino (top decile) and >60% below 200% of the federal poverty line (top quartile). Negative binomial and zero-inflated negative binomial regressions were used to estimate incident rate ratios (IRR) of each STI. Results: There was a dose-response relationship between prostitution arrest blockgroup quintiles and IRR of each STI. In models including drug arrest data, this association was completely eliminated. Though % black blockgroup composition had significant interaction with prostitution arrest rates and with respect to its relationship with STI IRR, % Latino did not consistently have this association. Blockgroups with proportions of low minority and low poverty had highest drug arrest IRR for each STI. In these areas, prostitution arrest IRR were only significant for CT and GC and were consistently lower than drug arrest IRRs. Conclusions: Though prostitution arrests are associated with STI risk, this relationship is mediated by drug arrests. Associations of both arrest rates are strongest in low minority, low poverty communities, indicating that high baseline STI prevalence is not moderated by levels of drug and prostitution arrests. Implications for Programs, Policy, and Research: These data suggest that important relationships exist for prostitution and, to a greater degree, drug arrests within communities traditionally defined as ‘low-risk’

Use of Cell Phone Diaries to Understand Risk Contexts of Sexual Events Among Female Sex Workers

Background Data collection using mobile technologies, such as cell phones, allows more frequent and real-time data collection and is less prone to recall bias. We describe the feasibility of using twice daily cell phone diaries to capture contextual features of STI/HIV-risk that could impact disease acquisition among female sex workers (FSW). Methods Women engaging in transactional sex in the prior 90 days were recruited utilising incentivized snowball sampling. Participants completed STI testing and baseline/exit surveys. Over 4-weeks, they completed twice-daily electronic diaries assessing event-level sexual behaviour, condom use, and drug use. Weekly in-person interviews used open-ended questions to explore geographical characteristics of sexual encounter locations as well as acceptability of event-level monitoring. Results 25/26 participants (median age 43.5 years) completed the 4-week study. At baseline, 27% tested positive for a STI. Participants completed 84.5% of 1,518 expected surveys and 95% of 106 expected interviews. Patterns of diary compliance were stable over time. Partnered sexual activity was captured in 21.4% of diaries. At the participant-level, most reported giving oral sex (84.7%) or vaginal sex (96.1%); fewer (19.2%) reported engaging in anal sex. Among women reporting partnered sexual behaviour with any partner type (i.e., new/regular customers, romantic partners), using condoms was reported 39.2%, 45.5% and 83.3% of the time for giving oral sex, vaginal sex, and anal sex respectively. At the event-level, the frequency of giving oral sex, vaginal sex or anal sex did not significantly change over time. Conclusions It is feasible to engage and retain FSW in a technologically-advanced study to characterise risk contexts of sexual events. Adherence to study protocol was high indicating event-level monitoring using cell phone based diaries is acceptable. These data can be utilised to improve our understanding of the individual, relational and environmental factors that influence STI/HIV acquisition among FSW

Dealing with negative stereotypes in sports: the role of cognitive anxiety when multiple identities are activated in sensorimotor tasks

Based on research on stereotype threat and multiple identities, this work explores the beneficial effects of activating a positive social identity when a negative identity is salient on women’s performance in sports. Further, in line with research on the effects of anxiety in sports, we investigate whether the activation of a positive social identity buffers performance from cognitive anxiety associated with a negative stereotype. Two experiments tested these predictions in field settings. Experiment 1 (N = 83) shows that the simultaneous activation of a positive (i.e., member of a soccer team) and a negative social identity (i.e., woman) led to better performance than the activation of only a negative social identity for female soccer players. Experiment 2 (N = 46) demonstrates that identity condition moderated the effect of cognitive anxiety on performance for female basketball players. Results are discussed concerning multiple identities’ potential for dealing with stressful situations

Nutrition Campaign Knowledge and Dietary Behavior in Middle School Students

Background and Purpose: Federal nutrition campaigns are designed to make dietary recommendations accessible but have not been extensively evaluated. This paper explores whether knowledge of nutrition campaigns is associated with dietary behavior among young adolescents. Methods: Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 4,773 middle school students in Southern California. Hierarchical logistic regression models were used to assess the association between dietary behaviors and nutrition campaign knowledge, controlling for gender and ethnicity. Results: Knowledge of the Fruit &amp; VeggiesMore Matters campaign was associated with increased odds of high fruit and vegetable consumption, knowledge of the MyPlate campaign was associated with neither, and both were associated with increased odds of not consuming soda. Conclusion: Overall, low percentages of students demonstrated knowledge of nutrition campaigns, and knowledge was associated with some dietary behaviors. More research is needed to examine the impact of nutrition campaigns while also accounting for other psychosocial and environmental factors that may affect soda, fruit, and vegetable consumption

Chronic Exercise Modifies Age-Related Telomere Dynamics in a Tissue-Specific Fashion

We evaluated the impact of long-term exercise on telomere dynamics in wild-derived short telomere mice (CAST/Ei) over 1 year. We observed significant telomere shortening in liver and cardiac tissues in sedentary 1-year-old mice compared with young (8 weeks) baseline mice that were attenuated in exercised 1-year-old animals. In contrast, skeletal muscle exhibited significant telomere shortening in exercise mice compared with sedentary and young mice. Telomerase enzyme activity was increased in skeletal muscle of exercise compared with sedentary animals but was similar in cardiac and liver tissues. We observed significant age-related decreases in expression of telomere-related genes that were attenuated by exercise in cardiac and skeletal muscle but not liver. Protein content of TRF1 was significantly increased in plantaris muscle with age. In summary, long-term exercise altered telomere dynamics, slowing age-related decreases in telomere length in cardiac and liver tissue but contributing to shortening in exercised skeletal muscle

Real-time analysis and display of quantitative measures to track and improve clinical workflow

PURPOSE: Radiotherapy treatment planning is a complex process with multiple, dependent steps involving an interdisciplinary patient care team. Effective communication and real-time tracking of resources and care path activities are key for clinical efficiency and patient safety. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We designed and implemented a secure, interactive web-based dashboard for patient care path, clinical workflow, and resource utilization management. The dashboard enables visualization of resource utilization and tracks progress in a patient\u27s care path from the time of acquisition of the planning CT to the time of treatment in real-time. It integrates with the departmental electronic medical records (EMR) system without the creation and maintenance of a separate database or duplication of work by clinical staff. Performance measures of workflow were calculated. RESULTS: The dashboard implements a standardized clinical workflow and dynamically consolidates real-time information queried from multiple tables in the EMR database over the following views: (1) CT Sims summarizes patient appointment information on the CT simulator and patient load; (2) Linac Sims summarizes patient appointment times, setup history, and notes, and patient load; (3) Task Status lists the clinical tasks associated with a treatment plan, their due date, status and ownership, and patient appointment details; (4) Documents provides the status of all documents in the patients\u27 charts; and (5) Diagnoses and Interventions summarizes prescription information, imaging instructions and whether the plan was approved for treatment. Real-time assessment and quantification of progress and delays in a patient\u27s treatment start were achieved. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates it is feasible to develop and implement a dashboard, tailored to the needs of an interdisciplinary team, which derives and integrates information from the EMR database for real-time analysis and display of resource utilization and clinical workflow in radiation oncology. The framework developed facilitates informed, data-driven decisions on clinical workflow management as we seek to optimize clinical efficiency and patient safety