Consumer e-health education in HIV/AIDS: a pilot study of a web-based video workshop

BACKGROUND: Members of the HIV/AIDS community are known to use web-based tools to support learning about treatment issues. Initial research indicated components such as message forums or web-based documentation were effectively used by persons with HIV/AIDS. Video has also shown promise as a technology to aid consumer health education. However, no research has been published thus far investigating the impact of web-based environments combining these components in an educational workshop format. METHODS: In this qualitative study HIV/AIDS community members provided feedback on an integrated web-based consumer health education environment. Participants were recruited through organizations that serve the HIV/AIDS community located in Toronto, Canada. Demographics, data on Internet use, including messages exchanged in the study environment were collected. A group interview provided feedback on usability of the study environment, preferences for information formats, use of the message forum, and other sources for learning about treatment information. RESULTS: In this pilot study analysis of the posted messages did not demonstrate use for learning of the workshop content. Participants did not generally find the environment of value for learning about treatment information. However, participants did share how they were meeting these needs. It was indicated that a combination of resources are being used to find and discuss treatment information, including in-person sources. CONCLUSION: More research on the ways in which treatment information needs are being met by HIV/AIDS community members and how technology fits in this process is necessary before investing large amounts of money into web-based interventions. Although this study had a limited number of participants, the findings were unexpected and, therefore, of interest to those who intend to implement online consumer health education initiatives or interventions

The hip fracture incidence curve is shifting to the right: A forecast of the age-quake

Background The number of hip fractures has doubled in the last 30–40 years in many countries. Age-adjusted incidence has been reported to be decreasing in Europe and North America, but is there a decreasing trend in all age groups

Food venue choice, consumer food environment, but not food venue availability within daily travel patterns are associated with dietary intake among adults, Lexington Kentucky 2011

Objective The retail food environment may be one important determinant of dietary intake. However, limited research focuses on individuals’ food shopping behavior and activity within the retail food environment. This study’s aims were to determine the association between six various dietary indicators and 1) food venue availability; 2) food venue choice and frequency; and 3) availability of healthy food within food venue. Methods In Fall, 2011, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among adults (n=121) age 18 years and over in Lexington, Kentucky. Participants wore a global position system (GPS) data logger for 3-days (2 weekdays and 1 weekend day) to track their daily activity space, which was used to assess food activity space. They completed a survey to assess demographics, food shopping behaviors, and dietary outcomes. Food store audits were conducted using the Nutrition Environment Measurement Survey-Store Rudd (NEMS-S) in stores where respondents reported purchasing food (n=22). Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine associations between six dietary variables with food venue availability within activity space; food venue choice; frequency of shopping; and availability of food within food venue. Results 1) Food venue availability within activity space – no significant associations. 2) Food Venue Choice – Shopping at farmers’ markets or specialty grocery stores reported higher odds of consuming fruits and vegetables (OR 1.60 95% CI [1.21, 2.79]). Frequency of shopping - Shopping at a farmers’ markets and specialty stores at least once a week reported higher odds of consumption of fruits and vegetables (OR 1.55 95% CI [1.08, 2.23]). Yet, shopping frequently at a super market had higher odds of consuming sugar-sweetened beverages (OR 1.39 95% CI [1.03, 1.86]). 3) Availability of food within store – those who shop in supermarkets with high availability of healthy food has lower odds of consuming sugar-sweetened beverages (OR 0.65 95% CI [0.14, 0.83]). Conclusion Interventions aimed at improving fruit and vegetable intake need to consider where individuals’ purchase food and the availability within stores as a behavioral and environmental strategy

Validation of food store environment secondary data source and the role of neighborhood deprivation in Appalachia, Kentucky

Background Based on the need for better measurement of the retail food environment in rural settings and to examine how deprivation may be unique in rural settings, the aims of this study were: 1) to validate one commercially available data source with direct field observations of food retailers; and 2) to examine the association between modified neighborhood deprivation and the modified retail food environment score (mRFEI). Methods Secondary data were obtained from a commercial database, InfoUSA in 2011, on all retail food outlets for each census tract. In 2011, direct observation identifying all listed food retailers was conducted in 14 counties in Kentucky. Sensitivity and positive predictive values (PPV) were compared. Neighborhood deprivation index was derived from American Community Survey data. Multinomial regression was used to examine associations between neighborhood deprivation and the mRFEI score (indicator of retailers selling healthy foods such as low-fat foods and fruits and vegetables relative to retailers selling more energy dense foods). Results The sensitivity of the commercial database was high for traditional food retailers (grocery stores, supermarkets, convenience stores), with a range of 0.96-1.00, but lower for non-traditional food retailers; dollar stores (0.20) and Farmer’s Markets (0.50). For traditional food outlets, the PPV for smaller non-chain grocery stores was 38%, and large chain supermarkets was 87%. Compared to those with no stores in their neighborhoods, those with a supercenter [OR 0.50 (95% CI 0.27. 0.97)] or convenience store [OR 0.67 (95% CI 0.51, 0.89)] in their neighborhood have lower odds of living in a low deprivation neighborhood relative to a high deprivation neighborhood. Conclusion The secondary commercial database used in this study was insufficient to characterize the rural retail food environment. Our findings suggest that neighborhoods with high neighborhood deprivation are associated with having certain store types that may promote less healthy food options

Search for Gravitational Waves from Primordial Black Hole Binary Coalescences in the Galactic Halo

We use data from the second science run of the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors to search for the gravitational waves from primordial black hole (PBH) binary coalescence with component masses in the range 0.2--$1.0 M_\odot$. The analysis requires a signal to be found in the data from both LIGO observatories, according to a set of coincidence criteria. No inspiral signals were found. Assuming a spherical halo with core radius 5 kpc extending to 50 kpc containing non-spinning black holes with masses in the range 0.2--$1.0 M_\odot$, we place an observational upper limit on the rate of PBH coalescence of 63 per year per Milky Way halo (MWH) with 90% confidence.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev.

DJ-1 contributes to adipogenesis and obesity-induced inflammation

Adipose tissue functions as an endocrine organ, and the development of systemic inflammation in adipose tissue is closely associated with metabolic diseases, such as obesity and insulin resistance. Accordingly, the fine regulation of the inflammatory response caused by obesity has therapeutic potential for the treatment of metabolic syndrome. In this study, we analyzed the role of DJ-1 (PARK7) in adipogenesis and inflammation related to obesity in vitro and in vivo. Many intracellular functions of DJ-1, including oxidative stress regulation, are known. However, the possibility of DJ-1 involvement in metabolic disease is largely unknown. Our results suggest that DJ-1 deficiency results in reduced adipogenesis and the down-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines in vitro. Furthermore, DJ-1-deficient mice show a low-level inflammatory response in the high-fat diet-induced obesity model. These results indicate previously unknown functions of DJ-1 in metabolism and therefore suggest that precise regulation of DJ-1 in adipose tissue might have a therapeutic advantage for metabolic disease treatment.open0

First RNA-seq approach to study fruit set and parthenocarpy in zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L.)

[EN] Background: Zucchini fruit set can be limited due to unfavourable environmental conditions in off-seasons crops that caused ineffective pollination/fertilization. Parthenocarpy, the natural or artificial fruit development without fertilization, has been recognized as an important trait to avoid this problem, and is related to auxin signalling. Nevertheless, differences found in transcriptome analysis during early fruit development of zucchini suggest that other complementary pathways could regulate fruit formation in parthenocarpic cultivars of this species. The development of next-generation sequencing technologies (NGS) as RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) opens a new horizon for mapping and quantifying transcriptome to understand the molecular basis of pathways that could regulate parthenocarpy in this species. The aim of the current study was to analyze fruit transcriptome of two cultivars of zucchini, a non-parthenocarpic cultivar and a parthenocarpic cultivar, in an attempt to identify key genes involved in parthenocarpy. Results: RNA-seq analysis of six libraries (unpollinated, pollinated and auxin treated fruit in a non-parthenocarpic and parthenocarpic cultivar) was performed mapping to a new version of C. pepo transcriptome, with a mean of 92% success rate of mapping. In the non-parthenocarpic cultivar, 6479 and 2186 genes were differentially expressed (DEGs) in pollinated fruit and auxin treated fruit, respectively. In the parthenocarpic cultivar, 10,497 in pollinated fruit and 5718 in auxin treated fruit. A comparison between transcriptome of the unpollinated fruit for each cultivar has been performed determining that 6120 genes were differentially expressed. Annotation analysis of these DEGs revealed that cell cycle, regulation of transcription, carbohydrate metabolism and coordination between auxin, ethylene and gibberellin were enriched biological processes during pollinated and parthenocarpic fruit set. Conclusion: This analysis revealed the important role of hormones during fruit set, establishing the activating role of auxins and gibberellins against the inhibitory role of ethylene and different candidate genes that could be useful as markers for parthenocarpic selection in the current breeding programs of zucchini.Research worked is supported by the project RTA2014-00078 from the Spanish Institute of Agronomy Research INIA (Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Tecnologia Agraria y Alimentaria) and also PP.AVA.AVA201601.7, FEDER y FSE (Programa Operativo FSE de Andalucia 2007-2013 "Andalucia se mueve con Europa"). TPV is supported by a FPI scholarship from RTA2011-00044-C02-01/02 project of INIA. The funding agencies were not involved in the design of the study, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.Pomares-Viciana, T.; Del Rio-Celestino, M.; Roman, B.; Die, J.; Picó Sirvent, MB.; Gómez, P. (2019). First RNA-seq approach to study fruit set and parthenocarpy in zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L.). BMC Plant Biology. 19:1-20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-019-1632-2S12019Varga A, Bruinsma J. Tomato. In: Monselise SP, editor. CRC Handbook of Fruit Set and Development. Boca Raton: CRC Press; 1986. p. 461–80.Nepi M, Cresti L, Guarnieri M, Pacini E. Effect of relative humidity on water content, viability and carbohydrate profile of Petunia hybrid and Cucurbita pepo pollen. Plant Syst Evol. 2010;284:57–64.Gustafson FG. Parthenocarpy: natural and artificial. Bot Rev. 1942;8:599–654.Robinson RW, Reiners S. Parthenocarpy in summer squash. Hortscience. 1999;34:715–7.Pomares-Viciana T, Die J, Del Río-Celestino M, Román B, Gómez P. Auxin signalling regulation during induced and parthenocarpic fruit set in zucchini. Mol Breeding. 2017;37:56.Ozga JA, Reinecke DM. Hormonal interactions in fruit development. J Plant Growth Regul. 2003;22:73–81.Kim IS, Okubo H, Fujieda K. Endogenous levels of IAA in relation to parthenocarpy in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L). Sci Hortic. 1992;52:1–8.Olimpieri I, Siligato F, Caccia R, Mariotti L, Ceccarelli N, Soressi GP, et al. Tomato fruit set driven by pollination or by the parthenocarpic fruit allele are mediated by transcriptionally regulated gibberellin biosynthesis. Planta. 2007;226:877–88.Cui L, Zhang T, Li J, Lou Q, Chen J. Cloning and expression analysis of Cs-TIR1/AFB2: the fruit development-related genes of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). Acta Physiol Plant. 2014;36:139–49.De Jong M, Wolters-Arts J, Feron R, Mariani C, Vriezen WH. The Solanum lycopersicum auxin response factor 7 (SlARF7) regulates auxin signalling during tomato fruit set and development. Plant J. 2009;57:160–70.Wang H, Jones B, Li Z, Frasse P, Delalande C, Regad F, Chaabouni S, Latché A, Pech JC, Bouzayen M. The tomato aux/IAA transcription factor IAA9 is involved in fruit development and leaf morphogenesis. Plant Cell. 2005;17(10):2676–92.Goetz M, Vivian-Smith A, Johnson SD, Koltunow AM. AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR 8 is a negative regulator of fruit initiation in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 2006;18(8):1873–86.Mazzucato A, Cellini F, Bouzayen M, Zouine M, Mila I, Minoia S et al. A TILLING allele of the tomato aux/IAA9 gene offers new insights into fruit set mechanisms and perspectives for breeding seedless tomatoes. Mol Breeding. 2015; 35(22):1-15.Blanca J, Cañizares J, Roig C, Ziarsolo P, Nuez F, Picó B. Transcriptome characterization and high throughput SSRs and SNPs discovery in Cucurbita pepo (Cucurbitaceae). BMC Genomics. 2011;12:104.Wang Z, Gerstein M, Snyder M. RNA-Seq: a revolutionary tool for transcriptomics. Nat Rev Genet. 2009;10(1):57–63.Da Fonseca RR, Albrechtsen A, Themudo GE, Ramos-Madrigal J, Sibbesen JA, Maretty L, et al. Next-generation biology: sequencing and data analysis approaches for non-model organisms. Mar Genomics. 2016;30:3–13.Conesa A, Madrigal P, Tarazona S, Gomez-Cabrero D, Cervera A, McPherson A, et al. A survey of best practices for RNA-seq data analysis. Genome Biol. 2016;17:13.Li J, Cui ZWJ, Zhang T, Guo Q, Xu J, Li J, et al. Transcriptome comparison of global distinctive features between pollination and parthenocarpic fruit set reveals transcriptional phytohormone cross-talk in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L). Plant Cell Physiol. 2014;55(7):1325–42.Fu L, Niu B, Zhu Z, Wu S, Li W. CD-HIT: accelerated for clustering the next-generation sequencing data. Bioinformatics. 2012;28(23):3150–2.Montero-Pau J, Blanca J, Bombarely A, Ziarsolo P, Esteras C, Martí-Gómez C, et al. De novo assembly of the zucchini genome reveals a whole genome duplication associated with the origin of the Cucurbita genus. Plant Biotechnol J. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.12860 .Vriezen WH, Feron R, Maretto F, Keijman J, Mariani C. Changes in tomato ovary transcriptome demonstrate complex hormonal regulation of fruit set. New Phytol. 2008;177:60–76.Tang N, Deng W, Hu G, Hu N, Li Z. Transcriptome profiling reveals the regulatory mechanism underlying pollination dependent and parthenocarpic fruit set mainly mediated by auxin and gibberellin. PLoS One. 2015;10(4):e0125355.Li J, Yan S, Yang W, Li Y, Xia M, Chen Z, et al. Transcriptomic analysis reveals the roles of microtubule-related genes and transcription factors in fruit length regulation in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). Sci Rep. 2015;26(5):8031.Mironov V, De Veylder L, Van Montagu M, Inze D. Cyclin-dependent kinases and cell division in plants- the nexus. Plant Cell. 1999;11(4):509–22.Perrot-Rechenmann C. Cellular responses to auxin: division versus expansion. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2010;2(5):a001446.De Veylder L, Beeckman T, Beemster GT, Krols L, Terras F, Landrieu I, et al. Functional analysis of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors of Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 2001;13:1653–68.Nieuwland J, Menges M, Murray JAH. The plant cyclins. In: Inze D, editor. Cell cycle control and plant development, vol. 2007. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing; 2007. p. 33–61.Menges M, Samland AK, Planchais S, Murray JA. The D-type cyclin CYCD3;1 is limiting for the G1-to-S-phasetransition in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 2006;18:893–906.Boruc J, Mylle E, Duda M, De Clercq R, Rombauts S, Geelen D, et al. Systematic localization of the Arabidopsis core cell cycle proteins reveals novel cell division complexes. Plant Physiol. 2010;152(2):553–65.Sampedro J, Cosgrove DJ. The expansin superfamily. Genome Biol. 2005;6:242.Esmon CA, Tinsley AG, Ljung K, Sandberg G, Hearne LB, Liscum E. A gradient of auxin and auxin-dependent transcription precedes tropic growth responses. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2006;103:236–41.De Folter S, Busscher J, Colombo L, Losa A, Angenent GC. Transcript profiling of transcription factors genes during siliques development in Arabidopsis. Plant Mol Bio. 2004;56:351–3662004.Son O, Cho HY, Kim MR, Lee H, Lee MS, Song E, et al. Induction of a homeodomain-leucine zipper gene by auxin is inhibited by cytokinin in Arabidopsis roots. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2005;326(1):203–9.Olsson ASB, Engstroem P, Seoderman E. The homeobox genes ATHB12 and ATHB7 encode potential regulators of growth in response to water deficit in Arabidopsis. Plant Mol Biol. 2004;55:663–77.Merrow SB, Hopp RJ. Storage effects on winter squashes. Associations between the sugar and starch content of and the degree of preference for winter squashes. J Agric Food Chem. 1961;9:321–6.Berg JM, Tymoczko JL, Stryer L. Carbohydrates. In: Freeman WH, editor. Biochemistry. 5th ed. New York: W H Freeman; 2002.Prabhakar V, Löttgert T, Gigolashvili T, Bell K, Flügge UI, Häusler RE. Molecular and functional characterization of the plastid-localized phosphoenolpyruvate enolase (ENO1) from Arabidopsis thaliana. FEBS Lett. 2009;583(6):983–91.Rius SP, Casati P, Iglesias AA, Gomez-Casati DF. Characterization of Arabidopsis lines deficient in GAPC-1, a cytosolic NAD-dependent glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. Plant Physiol. 2008;148(3):1655–67.Van der Linde K, Gutsche N, Leffers HM, Lindermayr C, Müller B, Holtgrefe S, et al. Regulation of plant cytosolic aldolase functions by redox-modifications. Plant Physiol Biochem. 2011;49(9):946–57.Lim H, Cho MH, Jeon JS, Bhoo SH, Kwon YK, Hahn TR. Altered expression of pyrophosphate: fructose-6-phosphate 1-phosphotransferase affects the growth of transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Mol Cells. 2009;27(6):641–9.Baud S, Wuillème S, Dubreucq B, De Almeida A, Vuagnat C, Lepiniec L, et al. Function of plastidial pyruvate kinases in seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant J. 2007;52:405–19.De Jong M, Mariani C, Vriezen WH. The role of auxin and gibberellin in tomato fruit set. J Exp Bot. 2009;60(5):1523–32.Martínez C, Manzano S, Megías Z, Garrido D, Picó B, Jamilena M. Involvement of ethylene biosynthesis and signalling in fruit set and early fruit development in zucchini squash (Cucurbita pepo L.). BMC Plant Biol. 2013;13:139.Serrani JC, Fos M, Atarés A, Garcia-martinez JL. Effect of gibberellin and auxin on parthenocarpic fruit growth induction in the cv. micro-tom of tomato. J Plant Growth Regul. 2007;26:211–21.Mapelli S. Changes in cytokinin in the fruits of parthenocarpic and normal tomatoes. Plant Sci Lett. 1981;22:227–33.Ulmasov T, Hagen G, Guilfoyle TJ. Activation and repression of transcription by auxin-response factors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999;96:5844–9.Ulmasov T, Hagen G, Guilfoyle TJ. Dimerization and DNA binding of auxin response factors. Plant J. 1999;19:309–19.Tiwari SB, Hagen G, Guilfoyle TJ. Aux/IAA proteins contain a potent transcriptional repression domain. Plant Cell. 2004;16:533–43.Switzenberg JA, Beaudry RM, Grumet R. Effect of CRC:: etr1-1 transgene expression on ethylene production, sex expression, fruit set and fruit ripening in transgenic melon (Cucumis melo L.). Transgenic Res. 2015;24(3):497-507.Nitsch LM, Oplaat C, Feron R, Ma Q, Wolters-Arts M, Hedden P, et al. Abscisic acid levels in tomato ovaries are regulated by LeNCED1 and SlCYP707A1. Planta. 2009;229(6):1335–46.Mortazavi A, Williams BA, McCue K, Schaeffer L, Wold B. Mapping and quantifying mammalian transcriptomes by RNA-seq. Nat Methods. 2008;5(7):621–8.Robinson MD, McCarthy DJ, Smyth GK. Edger: a bioconductor package for differential expression analysis of digital gene expression data. Bioinformatics. 2008;26(1):139–40.Raza K, Mishra A. A novel anticlustering filtering algorithm for the prediction of genes as a drug target. Am J Bio Engi. 2012;2(5):206–11.Van Iterson M, Boer JM, Menezes RX. Filtering, FDR and power. BMCBioinformatics. 2010;11:450.Conesa A, Götz S, Garcia-Gomez JM, Terol J, Talon M, Robles M. Blast2GO: a universal tool for annotation, visualization and analysis in functional genomics research. Bioinformatics. 2005;21:3674–6.Berardini TZ, Reiser L, Li D, Mezheritsky Y, Muller R, Strait E, Huala E. The Arabidopsis information resource: making and mining the “gold standard” annotated reference plant genome. Genesis. 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/dvg.22877 .Bairoch A, Apweiler R. The SWISS-PROT protein sequence database and its supplement TrEMBL. Nucleic Acids Res. 2000;28(1):45–8.Johnson M, Zaretskaya I, Raytselis Y, Merezhuk Y, McGinnis S, Madden TL. NCBI BLAST: a better web interface. Nucleic Acids Res. 2008;36:W5–9.Wyatt LE, Strickler SR, Mueller LA, Mazourek M. An acorn squash (Cucurbita pepo ssp. ovifera) fruit and seed transcriptome as a resource for the study of fruit traits in Cucurbita. Hortic Res. 2015;2:14070. https://doi.org/10.1038/hortres.2014.70 .Zhang A, Ren GA, Sun YA, Guo H, Zhang SA, Zhang FA, et al. A high-density genetic map for anchoring genome sequences and identifying QTLs associated with dwarf vine in pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima Duch.). BMC Genomics. 2015;16:1101.Finn RD, Attwood TK, Babbit AB, Bork P, Bridge AJ, Chang HY. InterPro in 2017-beyond protein family and domain annotations. Nucleic Acids Res. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkw1107 .Ashburner M, Ball CA, Blake JA, Botstein D, Butler H, Sherlock G. Gene ontology: tool for the unification of biology. Nat Genet. 2000;25(1):25–9.Kanehisa M, Araki M, Goto S, et al. KEGG for linking genomes to life and the environment. Nucleic Acids Res. 2008;36:480–4

Expanding dispersal studies at hydrothermal vents through species identification of cryptic larval forms

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Biology 157 (2010): 1049-1062, doi:10.1007/s00227-009-1386-8.The rapid identification of hydrothermal vent-endemic larvae to the species level is a key limitation to understanding the dynamic processes that control the abundance and distribution of fauna in such a patchy and ephemeral environment. Many larval forms collected near vents, even those in groups such as gastropods that often form a morphologically distinct larval shell, have not been identified to species. We present a staged approach that combines morphological and molecular identification to optimize the capability, efficiency, and economy of identifying vent gastropod larvae from the northern East Pacific Rise (NEPR). With this approach, 15 new larval forms can be identified to species. A total of 33 of the 41 gastropod species inhabiting the NEPR, and 26 of the 27 gastropod species known to occur specifically in the 9° 50’ N region, can be identified to species. Morphological identification efforts are improved by new protoconch descriptions for Gorgoleptis spiralis, Lepetodrilus pustulosus, Nodopelta subnoda, and Echinopelta fistulosa. Even with these new morphological descriptions, the majority of lepetodrilids and peltospirids require molecular identification. Restriction fragment length polymorphism digests are presented as an economical method for identification of five species of Lepetodrilus and six species of peltospirids. The remaining unidentifiable specimens can be assigned to species by comparison to an expanded database of 18S ribosomal DNA. The broad utility of the staged approach was exemplified by the revelation of species-level variation in daily planktonic samples and the identification and characterization of egg capsules belonging to a conid gastropod Gymnobela sp. A. The improved molecular and morphological capabilities nearly double the number of species amenable to field studies of dispersal and population connectivity.Funding was provided by as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Deep Ocean Exploration Institute grant to L.M and S. Beaulieu, National Science Foundation grants OCE-0424953, OCE-9712233, and OCE-9619605 to L.M, OCE-0327261 to T.S., and OCE-0002458 to K. Von Damm, and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellowship to D.A

Intimate partner violence among pregnant women in Rwanda

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Intimate partner violence (IPV), defined as actual or threatened physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse by current or former partners is a global public health concern. The prevalence and determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV) against pregnant women has not been described in Rwanda. A study was conducted to identify variables associated with IPV among Rwandan pregnant women.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A convenient sample of 600 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics were administered a questionnaire which included items on demographics, HIV status, IPV, and alcohol use by the male partner. Mean age and proportions of IPV in different groups were assessed. Odds of IPV were estimated using logistic regression analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 600 respondents, 35.1% reported IPV in the last 12 months. HIV+ pregnant women had higher rates of all forms of IVP violence than HIV- pregnant women: pulling hair (44.3% vs. 20.3%), slapping (32.0% vs. 15.3%), kicking with fists (36.3% vs. 19.7%), throwing to the ground and kicking with feet (23.3% vs. 12.7%), and burning with hot liquid (4.1% vs. 3.5%). HIV positive participants were more than twice likely to report physical IPV than those who were HIV negative (OR = 2.38; 95% CI [1.59, 3.57]). Other factors positively associated with physical IPV included sexual abuse before the age of 14 years (OR = 2.69; 95% CI [1.69, 4.29]), having an alcohol drinking male partner (OR = 4.10; 95% CI [2.48, 6.77] for occasional drinkers and OR = 3.37; 95% CI [2.05, 5.54] for heavy drinkers), and having a male partner with other sexual partners (OR = 1.53; 95% CI [1.15, 2.20]. Education was negatively associated with lifetime IPV.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We have reported on prevalence of IPV violence among pregnant women attending antenatal care in Rwanda, Central Africa. We advocate that screening for IPV be an integral part of HIV and AIDS care, as well as routine antenatal care. Services for battered women should also be made available.</p

The relationship between organisational characteristics and the effects of clinical guidelines on medical performance in hospitals, a meta-analysis

We are grateful to our colleagues involved in the systematic review of guideline dissemination and implementation strategies across all settings especially Cynthia Fraser, Graeme MacLennan, Craig Ramsay, Paula Whitty, Martin Eccles, Lloyd Matowe, Liz Shirran. The systematic review of guideline dissemination and implementation strategies across all settings was funded by the UK NHS Health Technology Assessment Program. Dr Ruth Thomas is funded by a Wellcome Training Fellowship in Health Services Research. (Grant number GR063790MA). The Health Services Research Unit is funded by the Chief Scientists Office of the Scottish Executive Department of Health. Dr Jeremy Grimshaw holds a Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake. However the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the funders.Peer reviewedPublisher PD