Studying Health Outcomes in Farmworker Populations Exposed to Pesticides

A major goal of studying farmworkers is to better understand how their work environment, including exposure to pesticides, affects their health. Although a number of health conditions have been associated with pesticide exposure, clear linkages have yet to be made between exposure and health effects except in cases of acute pesticide exposure. In this article, we review the most common health end points that have been studied and describe the epidemiologic challenges encountered in studying these health effects of pesticides among farmworkers, including the difficulties in accessing the population and challenges associated with obtaining health end point data. The assessment of neurobehavioral health effects serves as one of the most common and best examples of an approach used to study health outcomes in farmworkers and other populations exposed to pesticides. We review the current limitations in neurobehavioral assessment and strategies to improve these analytical methods. Emerging techniques to improve our assessment of health effects associated with pesticide exposure are reviewed. These techniques, which in most cases have not been applied to farmworker populations, hold promise in our ability to study and understand the relationship between pesticide exposure and a variety of health effects in this population

Financial considerations in the conduct of multi-centre randomised controlled trials: evidence from a qualitative study.

National Coordinating Centre for Research Methodology; Medical Research Council, UK Department of Health; Chief Scientist OfficeNot peer reviewedPublisher PD

2019 Scholars at Work Conference Program

Program for the 2019 Scholars at Work Conference at Minnesota State University, Mankato on March 29, 2019

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

High-Impact, Travel-Centric Academic Initiatives in the Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

This poster presents Dr. Moses M. Langley’s academic initiatives to (a) increase research engagement, (b) foster information and scientific literacy, (c) internationalize perspectives on the culture of the scientific community, and (d) broaden intercultural knowledge and competencies among Psychology and Cognitive Science undergraduate majors through travel-centric educational experiences such as international study abroad and participation in national or international research conferences

Retention of the Structure Underlying Sentences

The present study investigated memory retention of the structural aspects of sentences. Participants studied five sets of eight syntactically identical but nonsensical strings of words (e.g., ‘BEAUTIFUL TRANSPORTATION SHEDS TEMPORARY PLANTS’ and ‘HARSH CLOTHING REQUIRES PORTABLE PENS’). Participants were subsequently presented with a recognition test containing studied strings, non-studied strings that adhered to the same syntactical structure as a studied set of strings (critical lures), and non-studied strings that adhered to a non-studied syntactical structure (new lures). Participants’ recognition confidence ratings were higher for critical than for new lures, but only when the word strings used in the experiment adhered to a legal grammatical structure (e.g., ‘BEAUTIFUL TRANSPORTATION SHEDS TEMPORARY PLANTS’). No such confidence ratings effect was found between critical and new lures that corresponded to ungrammatical sets (e.g., ‘SOUR A KICK CLEAN BALLOON HARD’ and ‘FLIMSY AT THROW HANG TREE CHEAP’)

An Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Attention and Effector Switching Using ERPs

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to examine the neural correlates of attention and effector switching when one or both types of switches were performed on a given trial. The response time data revealed that switch costs tended to increase from attention switches to effector switches to attention+effector switches. For right-hand responses, attention switching was associated with a parietal slow wave and effector switching was associated with a central readiness potential. For left-hand responses, attention switching was associated with a parietal slow wave, and effector switching was associated with a parietal slow wave and a readiness potential. These data suggest that the independence of the neural systems supporting attention and effector switching may be limited to instances where the dominant hemisphere controls the response

Signaling a Switch: Neural Correlates of Task Switching Guided by Task Cues and Transition Cues

Event-related brain potentials were used to examine the neural correlates of task switching directed by task cues and transition cues. Task cues signal both a change of task set and the task to implement; in contrast, transition cues signal a change of task set but do not indicate the required task. The data from two experiments revealed that the frontal P2 and reconfiguration slow wave were elicited by task and transition cues and may reflect processes associated with the change detector and task set configuration. Experiment 2 revealed that the frontal positivity and transition parietal slow wave are associated with the retrieval of the prior task set from memory. These data indicate that distinct neural processes that are related to the change detector, task set configuration, and the retrieval of a recently utilized task set from memory support task switching that is guided by task and transition cues

Recognition without Picture Identification: Geons as Components of the Pictorial Memory Trace

Participants viewed a list of black-and-white line drawings and were then presented with a picture fragment identification task in which half of the fragments corresponded to studied pictures and half corresponded to unstudied pictures. In addition to trying to identify each picture fragment, participants gave a rating to indicate the likelihood that the fragment came from a studied picture. When participants could not identify the picture fragments, they were still able to discriminate between fragments that came from studied pictures and fragments that came from unstudied pictures (as shown by their recognition ratings), but only when the fragments contained information about the geometric components (geons) that underlay the original pictures. No recognition without identification was found when the fragments contained only line segment information

Recognition Memory for Novel Stimuli: The Structural Regularity Hypothesis

Early studies of human memory suggest that adherence to a known structural regularity (e.g., orthographic regularity) benefits memory for an otherwise novel stimulus (e.g., G. A. Miller, 1958). However, a more recent study suggests that structural regularity can lead to an increase in false-positive responses on recognition memory tests (B. W. A. Whittlesea & L. D. Williams, 1998). In the present study the authors attempted to identify the circumstances under which structural regularity benefits old–new discrimination and those under which it leads to an increase in false-positive responses. The highly generalizable tendency shown here is for structural regularity to benefit old–new discrimination. The increase in false-positive responses for structurally regular novel items may be limited to situations in which regularity is confounded with similarity to studied items