Exploring barriers to 'Respondent driven sampling' in sex worker and drug-injecting sex worker populations in Eastern Europe

Respondent driven sampling (RDS) has been used in several counties to sample injecting drug users, sex workers (SWs) and men who have sex with men and as a means of collecting behavioural and biological health data. We report on the use of RDS in three separate studies conducted among SWs between 2004 and 2005 in the Russian Federation, Serbia, and Montenegro. Findings suggest that there are limitations associated with the use of RDS in SW populations in these regions. Findings highlight three main factors that merit further investigation as a means of assessing the feasibility and appropriateness of RDS in this high risk population: the network characteristics of SWs; the appropriate level of participant incentives; and lack of service contact. The highly controlled and hidden nature of SW organizations and weak SW social networks in the region can combine to undermine assumptions underpinning the feasibility of RDS approaches and potentially severely limit recruitment. We discuss the implications of these findings for recruitment and the use of monetary and non-monetary incentives in future RDS studies of SW populations in Eastern Europe

Patterns of attendance of children under 12 years at school dental service in Western Australia

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the patterns of attendance at School Dental Service (SDS) and reasons for attendance (treatment or prevention) for children in the Perth Metropolitan Area, in particular investigating the first year of SDS attendance and attendance until the year the child turned 12. The first 150 SDS records located for children from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study were used for this study. Patterns of attendance of children at SDS were described, as were associated factors (enrolment, age and nature of first visit, general nature of visits and number of visits) until the end of the year that the child turned 12. The age of the child at the first SDS visit ranged from 4 years 3 months to 14 years 11 months, with a median of 5 years 1 month. First visits were primarily for an examination (98%). Children had a median of 13 visits until 12 years of age, with 10% having less than five visits and 4% having more than 25 visits. These data provide useful information regarding attendance at the SDS in Western Australia which could provide a basis for oral health promotion programs

Structural stigma and sexual minority men's depression and suicidality: A multilevel examination of mechanisms and mobility across 48 countries.

Sexual minority men are at greater risk of depression and suicidality than heterosexuals. Stigma, the most frequently hypothesized risk factor for this disparity, operates across socioecological levels-structural (e.g., laws), interpersonal (e.g., discrimination), and individual (e.g., self-stigma). Although the literature on stigma and mental health has focused on interpersonal and individual forms of stigma, emerging research has shown that structural stigma is also associated with adverse mental health outcomes. However, there is limited data on whether changes in structural stigma, such as when a stigmatized person moves to a lower stigma context, affect mental health, and on the mechanisms underlying this association. To address these questions, we use data from the 2017/18 European Men-who-have-sex-with-men Internet Survey (n = 123,428), which assessed mental health (i.e., Patient Health Questionnaire) and psychosocial mediators (i.e., sexual orientation concealment, internalized homonegativity, and social isolation). We linked these data to an objective indicator of structural stigma related to sexual orientation-including 15 laws and policies as well as aggregated social attitudes-in respondents' countries of origin (N = 178) and receiving countries (N = 48). Among respondents who still live in their country of birth (N = 106,883), structural stigma was related to depression and suicidality via internalized homonegativity and social isolation. Among respondents who moved from higher-to-lower structural stigma countries (n = 11,831), longer exposure to the lower structural stigma environments of their receiving countries was associated with a significantly: 1) lower risk of depression and suicidality; 2) lower odds of concealment, internalized homonegativity, and social isolation; and 3) smaller indirect effect of structural stigma on mental health through these mediators. This study provides additional evidence that stigma is a sociocultural determinant of mental health

Age, Disease Severity and Ethnicity Influence Humoral Responses in a Multi-Ethnic COVID-19 Cohort

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all individuals across the globe in some way. Despite large numbers of reported seroprevalence studies, there remains a limited understanding of how the magnitude and epitope utilization of the humoral immune response to SARS-CoV-2 viral anti-gens varies within populations following natural infection. Here, we designed a quantitative, multi-epitope protein microarray comprising various nucleocapsid protein structural motifs, including two structural domains and three intrinsically disordered regions. Quantitative data from the microarray provided complete differentiation between cases and pre-pandemic controls (100% sensitivity and specificity) in a case-control cohort (n = 100). We then assessed the influence of disease severity, age, and ethnicity on the strength and breadth of the humoral response in a multi-ethnic cohort (n = 138). As expected, patients with severe disease showed significantly higher antibody titers and interestingly also had significantly broader epitope coverage. A significant increase in antibody titer and epitope coverage was observed with increasing age, in both mild and severe disease, which is promising for vaccine efficacy in older individuals. Additionally, we observed significant differences in the breadth and strength of the humoral immune response in relation to ethnicity, which may reflect differences in genetic and lifestyle factors. Furthermore, our data enabled localization of the immuno-dominant epitope to the C-terminal structural domain of the viral nucleocapsid protein in two independent cohorts. Overall, we have designed, validated, and tested an advanced serological assay that enables accurate quantitation of the humoral response post natural infection and that has revealed unexpected differences in the magnitude and epitope utilization within a population

Measurement of cross sections for 22Na, 20-22Ne and 36-42Ar in the spallation of Mg, Al, Si, Ca and Fe. Production ratios of some cosmogenic nuclides in meteorites

We measured the cross sections of 22Na, 20,21,22Ne and 36,38,39,42Ar in nuclear reactions induced by the proton bombardment of Mg, Al, Si, Ca and Fe at several energies between 0.059 and 24 GeV using highsensitivy mass-spectrometry for noble gases and γ-counting for 22Na. We then evaluated the cross section ratio versus energy for the 22Na/22Ne, 26Al/21Ne, 39Ar/38Ar and 36Cl/ 36Ar radioactive-stable pairs of isotopes, which are useful for measuring the exposure age of meteorites. From the results alone, we can set some limits to the corresponding production ratios in iron meteorites, but not in stony objects because a knowledge of chemical abundances of Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, K, Ca, Fe, and shielding conditions are required.Nous avons mesuré, par spectrométrie de masse des gaz rares et par comptage γ, les sections efficaces σ des réactions nucléaires conduisant à 22Na, 20-22Ne et 36-42Ar dans des cibles de Mg, Al, Si, Ca et Fe bombardées par des protons de 0,059 à 24 GeV. Ces nouvelles mesures et celles existant dans la littérature nous ont permis d'évaluer les rapports des sections efficaces σR/σs en fonction de l'énergie de quatre paires d'isotopes, l'un stable S et l'autre radioactif R : 22Na/22Ne, 26Al/ 21Ne, 39Ar/38Ar et 36Cl/36Ar. Ces paires d'isotopes permettent de calculer l'âge d'exposition des météorites, si on connait le rapport de leur taux de production PR/ PS. Notre travail établit des limites aux rapports P R/Ps dans les météorites de fer à partir de la seule considération des rapports σR/σS. Dans les météorites de pierre on peut seulement montrer, par cette approche, l'importance des effets de composition chimique et de blindage

Pengembangan Kreativitas Anak Usia 3-7 Tahun Melalui Pemberian Dongeng yang Komunikatif

Story telling by mother increases the creativity of children aged 3 until 7. This fact is apparent from the result of observation done by teachers who find that the attitude of their students whose mothers often tell stories at home are more flexible and critical than those whose mothers do not tell stories. At home the children of the former group are also easier to handle and polite to their parents. The instrument employed for data collection is a questionnaire for mothers and an observation schedule for the teachers of kindergarten schools