Knowledge of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine: An Analysis using Together for Health Virginia Population Health Survey

Purpose: The purpose of this analysis was to identify key predictors which impact knowledge of the Human Papillomavirus vaccine in adults aged 21 to 45 in Virginia. Methods: Data was collected from the Together for Health Virginia Population Surveys administered by Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia. Logistic regression was performed on data using the variables sex, age, rurality, race, education, income, occupation, and type of health insurance coverage. Results: There was a statistically significant positive relationship between knowledge of the HPV vaccine and part-time occupation (OR: 4.288, CI: 1.492-13.325), younger age (OR: 2.31, CI: 1.088-4.905), and higher education (OR: 2.683, CI: 1.227-5.870). There was a statistically significant negative relationship between knowledge of the vaccine and being male (OR: 0.437, CI: 0.248-0.771), living in an urban area (OR: 0.511, CI: 0.267-0.977), and identifying in the lower income category (OR: 0.246, CI: 0.093-0.651). Conclusion: This study identified 6 key predictors in knowledge of the HPV vaccine among adults in Virginia. Future studies should explore, in particular, the category of students and residents of urban areas. Despite these results, knowledge of the HPV vaccine does not translate to intention to receive the vaccine. Therefore, future studies should additionally study attitudes, behaviors, and potential barriers

Predictors of Lung Cancer Screening Recommendation in Virginia Using the Community Health Assessment Survey

Purpose: The purpose of this analysis was to determine the factors that may influence the probability of being recommended a lung cancer screening by a health professional in Virginia. Methods: Data were obtained from the Community Health Assessment Survey conducted by the University of Virginia (UVA) Health System and Cancer System in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Cancer Center. SAS software was used to conduct a logistic regression with the following variables: age, sex, race, current smoking status, cancer history, education level, income level, insurance, and rurality. Results: Statistically significant positive predictors included being a current smoker (OR: 3.504, CI: 1.576 - 7.794), having previous cancer history (OR: 2.159, CI: 1.090 - 4.278), and living in an urban environment (OR: 1.939, CI: 1.009 - 3.724). Conclusion: Smoking, cancer history, and rurality were considered significant predictors of lung cancer screening recommendations by a health professional in Virginia while age, sex, race, education level, income level, and insurance were not considered significant predictors in this model. This study suggests that key mechanisms underlying lung cancer outcome disparities among racial minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups may lie beyond the level of screening recommendations. Further research investigating when along the disease progression these disparities tend to arise could help in creating more targeted public health interventions and improving health equity

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Potential for South Korea

South Korea's energy policies over the past 40 years have focused on securing stable energy supplies from fossil fuels and nuclear power. In 2000, imported energy, mainly coal, oil, natural gas and uranium, accounted for 97.2% of national energy supply. The country's energy intensity has been much above the world average and is still increasing. The energy consumption per capita grew from 2.17 tons of oil equivalent(TOE) in 1990 to 4.10 tons of oil equivalent(TOE) in 2000, higher than in Japan and Germany. South Korea was the tenth largest source of carbon dioxide(C02) emissions in the world as of 1999(World Bank, 1999). South Korea has suffered environmental problems because of its heavy reliance on energy-intensive economy. South Korea's anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases in 1997 are shown in Table 1

Deep phenotyping and genomic data from a nationally representative study on dementia in India

The Harmonized Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia for the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI-DAD) is a nationally representative in-depth study of cognitive aging and dementia. We present a publicly available dataset of harmonized cognitive measures of 4,096 adults 60 years of age and older in India, collected across 18 states and union territories. Blood samples were obtained to carry out whole blood and serum-based assays. Results are included in a venous blood specimen datafile that can be linked to the Harmonized LASI-DAD dataset. A global screening array of 960 LASI-DAD respondents is also publicly available for download, in addition to neuroimaging data on 137 LASI-DAD participants. Altogether, these datasets provide comprehensive information on older adults in India that allow researchers to further understand risk factors associated with cognitive impairment and dementia.Peer reviewe

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Training Paraprofessionals to Improve Social Skills in Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The number of students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) requiring special education services in public schools have steadily increased over the last decade (Scull & Winkler, 2011; U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). In response, the employment of paraprofessionals in schools has increased in order to support these students (Blalock, 1991; Boomer, 1994; Frith & Lindsey, 1982; National Center for Education Statistics, 2007; Pickett, 1986). Although paraprofessionals often bear the responsibility to provide both academic and social support to students with ASD, they receive little to no training on how to successfully support these students (Giangreco, Edelman, Broer, & Doyle, 2001; Jones & Bender, 1993). Providing social support to students with ASD becomes especially important when considering the risk factors associated with not receiving appropriate social intervention such as having fewer lasting peer relationships and spending less time in peer interactions compared to typically developing peers (Bauminger, & Shulman, 2003; Kasari, Rotheram-Fuller, Locke, & Gulsrud, 2012). A recent study by Koegel, Kim, and Koegel (2014) provide optimism that paraprofessionals can be trained to fidelity to implement an effective social intervention for students with ASD. Within the context of a multiple baseline across participants design, the present study assessed whether paraprofessionals could be trained to effectively implement social interventions for students with ASD. Specifically, paraprofessionals were trained to stand in an appropriate proximity from the target student while providing cooperative arrangements and incorporating the preferred/specialized interests of students with ASD with typically developing peers into common playground games/activities. This present study also assessed whether training paraprofessionals in these three components would improve the social interactions between students with ASD and typically developing peers (i.e., social engagement and rate of verbal initiations). The results of this present study suggest that paraprofessionals can be trained to fidelity to implement social intervention for students with ASD. The results also suggest that when paraprofessionals are trained to implement social intervention for students with ASD, the level of engagement and rate of verbal initiations improves for these students. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for using trained paraprofessionals to improve social skills for students with ASD in the school setting

Location, age, and race matter: a path model of emotional distress in the U.S. during COVID-19

Abstract Background We aim to identify factors that explain emotional distress among underserved populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Starting in August 2020, we conducted an online epidemiological survey among 947 U.S. adults. The survey asked a wide array of constructs, including demographics, past-month substance use, and psychological distress. We developed a path model to understand how financial strain, age, and substance use are associated with emotional distress among People of Color (POC) and those living in rural areas. Results 22.6% (n = 214) of participants were POC; 114 (12%) resided in rural areas; 17.2% (n = 163) made between $50,000 and$74,999 annually; and the emotional distress average was 1.41 (SD = 0.78). POC, especially those younger, experienced higher rates of emotional distress (p < .05). People living in rural contexts reported lower rates of emotional distress through low alcohol intoxication and less financial strain (p < .05). Conclusions We found mediating factors related to emotional distress among vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Younger POC experienced higher rates of emotional distress. People in rural communities had less emotional distress when they had fewer days spent intoxicated by alcohol, which was associated with lower financial strain. We conclude with a discussion of important unmet needs and future research directions

The Impact of Supervisory Support on Organizational Commitment, Career Satisfaction, and Turnover Intention for Hospitality Frontline Employees

This study explores the relationships among supervisory support, organizational commitment, career satisfaction, and turnover intention of frontline employees in the hospitality industry. The results indicate that supervisory support had a positive effect on both employees’ organizational commitment and their career satisfaction. Although organizational commitment had no direct effect on career satisfaction, a higher level of organizational commitment reduced turnover intention. Moreover, organization commitment mediated the relationship between supervisory support and turnover intention. The results of this study will assist operators in selecting effective employee training and development approaches, as well as researchers in further investigating impact of supervisory support