An Enhanced Mentoring Model’s Impact on Youth in Boys and Girls Clubs

Although federal funding has been provided to add mentoring to youth development programs for decades, we still lack knowledge about the impacts of mentoring on youth outcomes. This research seeks to fill a gap by documenting youth outcomes from an enhanced mentoring approach for urban Boys and Girls Clubs (BGC) in the Southeastern United States delivered by paid staff who serve as mentors through group activities and 1:1 interactions with youth. We perform logistic regressions of secondary data from a cohort of BGCs to understand the relationships between enhanced mentoring and youth outcomes related to program retention, behaviors, and academics. We find the presented approach has a significant relationship with retention with those mentored being 1.92 times more likely to return the following program year. Mentored youth also experienced higher expectations from staff and were less likely to be involved in a physical fight with peers

Examining supports and barriers to breastfeeding through a socio-ecological lens: a qualitative study

Background Early breastfeeding cessation is a societal concern given its importance to the health of mother and child. More effective interventions are needed to increase breastfeeding duration. Prior to developing such interventions more research is needed to examine breastfeeding supports and barriers from the perspective of breastfeeding stakeholders. One such framework that can be utilized is the Socio-Ecological Model which stems from Urie Broffenbrenner’s early theoretical frameworks (1973–1979). The purpose of this study was to examine supports and barriers to breastfeeding across environmental systems. Methods A total of 49 representatives participated in a telephone interview in Nebraska, USA in 2019. Interviewees represented various levels of the model, based on their current breastfeeding experience (i.e., mother or significant other) or occupation. A direct content analysis was performed as well as a constant comparative analysis to determine differences between level representatives. Results At the Individual level, breastfeeding is a valued behavior, however, women are hindered by exhaustion, isolation, and the time commitment of breastfeeding. At the Interpersonal level, social media, peer-to-peer, and family were identified as supports for breastfeeding, however lack of familial support was also identified as a barrier. At the community level, participants were split between identifying cultural acceptance of breastfeeding as support or barrier. At the organizational level, hospitals had supportive breastfeeding friendly policies in place however lacked enough personnel with breastfeeding expertise. At the policy level, breastfeeding legislation is supportive, however, more specific breastfeeding legislation is needed to ensure workplace breastfeeding protections. Conclusion Future efforts should target hospital-community partnerships, family-centered education, evidence-based social media strategies and improved breastfeeding legislation to ensure breastfeeding women receive effective support throughout their breastfeeding journey

Substrate specificity analysis of protein kinase complex Dbf2-Mob1 by peptide library and proteome array screening

BACKGROUND: The mitotic exit network (MEN) is a group of proteins that form a signaling cascade that is essential for cells to exit mitosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The MEN has also been implicated in playing a role in cytokinesis. Two components of this signaling pathway are the protein kinase Dbf2 and its binding partner essential for its kinase activity, Mob1. The components of MEN that act upstream of Dbf2-Mob1 have been characterized, but physiological substrates for Dbf2-Mob1 have yet to be identified. RESULTS: Using a combination of peptide library selection, phosphorylation of opitmal peptide variants, and screening of a phosphosite array, we found that Dbf2-Mob1 preferentially phosphorylated serine over threonine and required an arginine three residues upstream of the phosphorylated serine in its substrate. This requirement for arginine in peptide substrates could not be substituted with the similarly charged lysine. This specificity determined for peptide substrates was also evident in many of the proteins phosphorylated by Dbf2-Mob1 in a proteome chip analysis. CONCLUSION: We have determined by peptide library selection and phosphosite array screening that the protein kinase Dbf2-Mob1 preferentially phosphorylated substrates that contain an RXXS motif. A subsequent proteome microarray screen revealed proteins that can be phosphorylated by Dbf2-Mob1 in vitro. These proteins are enriched for RXXS motifs, and may include substrates that mediate the function of Dbf2-Mob1 in mitotic exit and cytokinesis. The relatively low degree of sequence restriction at the site of phosphorylation suggests that Dbf2 achieves specificity by docking its substrates at a site that is distinct from the phosphorylation sit

Patient Reported Outcomes in Sickle Cell Disease Examined Within a Conceptual Model

Objective: To examine the relations between patient reported outcomes (PROs) within a conceptual model for adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) ages 18 – 45 years enrolled in the Sickle Cell Disease Implementation Consortium (SCDIC) registry. We hypothesized that patient and SCD related factors and barriers to care would independently contribute to functioning as measured using the PRO domains. Additionally, pain and other SCD related complications are expected to impact the relation between the variables. Methods: Participants completed a 48-item survey that included socio-demographics and PRO measures, such as social functioning, pain impact emotional distress, and cognitive functioning. Participants reported on lifetime SCD complications, pain episode frequency, timing and severity, and barriers to medical care. Healthcare utilization was obtained from medical records abstractions. Results: Higher pain frequency and severity and history of treatment for depression were associated with higher odds of worse outcomes in almost all PRO domains, controlling for age and gender for the 2,054 participants. Such social determinants of health as lower household income and unemployment, particularly due to disability status, were associated with higher odds of worse outcomes. Reports of fewer individual barriers to care were associated with better outcomes in emotion, social, cognitive and fatigue domains, while reports of fewer self-reported SCD complications/treatments were associated with better outcomes in emotion and sleep impact domains. Conclusions: Study results highlight the importance of the biopsychosocial model to enhance understanding of the needs of this complex population, and to design multi-dimensional approaches for providing more effective interventions to improve outcomes. @font-face {font-family: Cambria Math ; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1342185562 0 0 415 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent: ; margin:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family: Times New Roman ,serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Times New Roman ;}.MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family: Calibri ,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Times New Roman ; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;

Worker's Compensation in Milwaukee: Analyzing Spending Increases

For PA 869: Workshop in Policy Analysis, Domestic Issue