Food insecurity and maternal depression in rural, low-income families: A longitudinal investigation

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between household food insecurity and maternal depression in a rural sample to determine whether food insecurity predicted mothers’ depression over time or vice versa. Design: The study employed a prospective design using three waves of data from ‘Rural Families Speak’, a multi-state study of low-income rural families in the USA. Food insecurity was measured using the Core Food Security Module and depression was measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale. A structural equation model was fit to the data using the AMOS software package. Setting: Sixteen states in the USA (California, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming) between 2000 and 2002. Subjects: Subjects included 413 women with at least one child under the age of 13 years living in the home. Results: Findings based on the 184 subjects with complete data indicated that the causal relationship between household food insecurity and depression is bidirectional (P = 0.034 for causation from depression to food insecurity, P = 0.003 for causation from food insecurity to depression, χ2/df = 1.835, root-mean-square error of approximation = 0.068, comparative fit index = 0.989). Findings based on all 413 subjects after imputation of missing values also indicated bidirectionality. Conclusions: The recursive relationship between food insecurity and depression has implications for US nutrition, mental health and poverty policies. The study highlights the need to integrate programs addressing food insecurity and poor mental health for the population of rural, low-income women

Food insecurity and maternal depression in rural, low-income families: A longitudinal investigation

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between household food insecurity and maternal depression in a rural sample to determine whether food insecurity predicted mothers’ depression over time or vice versa. Design: The study employed a prospective design using three waves of data from ‘Rural Families Speak’, a multi-state study of low-income rural families in the USA. Food insecurity was measured using the Core Food Security Module and depression was measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale. A structural equation model was fit to the data using the AMOS software package. Setting: Sixteen states in the USA (California, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming) between 2000 and 2002. Subjects: Subjects included 413 women with at least one child under the age of 13 years living in the home. Results: Findings based on the 184 subjects with complete data indicated that the causal relationship between household food insecurity and depression is bidirectional (P = 0.034 for causation from depression to food insecurity, P = 0.003 for causation from food insecurity to depression, χ2/df = 1.835, root-mean-square error of approximation = 0.068, comparative fit index = 0.989). Findings based on all 413 subjects after imputation of missing values also indicated bidirectionality. Conclusions: The recursive relationship between food insecurity and depression has implications for US nutrition, mental health and poverty policies. The study highlights the need to integrate programs addressing food insecurity and poor mental health for the population of rural, low-income women

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Genomic investigations of unexplained acute hepatitis in children

Since its first identification in Scotland, over 1,000 cases of unexplained paediatric hepatitis in children have been reported worldwide, including 278 cases in the UK1. Here we report an investigation of 38 cases, 66 age-matched immunocompetent controls and 21 immunocompromised comparator participants, using a combination of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and immunohistochemical methods. We detected high levels of adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) DNA in the liver, blood, plasma or stool from 27 of 28 cases. We found low levels of adenovirus (HAdV) and human herpesvirus 6B (HHV-6B) in 23 of 31 and 16 of 23, respectively, of the cases tested. By contrast, AAV2 was infrequently detected and at low titre in the blood or the liver from control children with HAdV, even when profoundly immunosuppressed. AAV2, HAdV and HHV-6 phylogeny excluded the emergence of novel strains in cases. Histological analyses of explanted livers showed enrichment for T cells and B lineage cells. Proteomic comparison of liver tissue from cases and healthy controls identified increased expression of HLA class 2, immunoglobulin variable regions and complement proteins. HAdV and AAV2 proteins were not detected in the livers. Instead, we identified AAV2 DNA complexes reflecting both HAdV-mediated and HHV-6B-mediated replication. We hypothesize that high levels of abnormal AAV2 replication products aided by HAdV and, in severe cases, HHV-6B may have triggered immune-mediated hepatic disease in genetically and immunologically predisposed children