Strengthening Assessments of School Climate: Lessons from the NYC School Survey

A growing number of cities and states are using surveys to collect vital information about school climate from students, teachers and parents. The New York City Department of Education's (DOE) annual survey of parents, students, and teachers is the largest of its kind in the United States. Since 2010, the Research Alliance has been working with the DOE to assess the reliability and validity of the survey's measures. Our new brief, "Strengthening Assessments of School Climate", summarizes our findings and recommendations to date. It also presents a set of broader lessons that have emerged from our work, which can provide guidance to others that are implementing school survey efforts. In addition, it includes a Policymaker Perspective, authored by Lauren Sypek, the DOE's School Survey Director, reflecting on the process of collaborating to improve the School Survey as well as some of the changes that have been made to the survey as a result of this partnership

New York City School Survey 2008-2010: Assessing the Reliability and Validity of a Progress Report Measure

A growing number of cities and states are using surveys to collect vital information about school climate from students, teachers and parents. The New York City Department of Education's (DOE) annual survey of parents, students, and teachers is the largest of its kind in the United States. Since 2010, the Research Alliance has been working with the DOE to assess the reliability and validity of the survey's measures. This technical report provides an account of our statistical exploration of the School Survey

Disability Around the World: Study Abroad in Diverse Cultural Contexts

During a short-term study abroad program undergraduates and instructors from the U.S. explored disability issues in diverse cultural contexts: Ghana, UAE, Nepal, and Thailand. Through qualitative analyses of personal narratives, student interviews, journals, and other products, student- and faculty-researchers learned that participating students developed more critical perspectives on the importance of culture in shaping disability experiences in the U.S. and abroad

Procedural and physical interventions for vaccine injections systematic review of randomized controlled trials and quasi-randomized controlled trials

Background: This systematic review evaluated the effectiveness of physical and procedural interventions for reducing pain and related outcomes during vaccination. Design/Methods: Databases were searched using a broad search strategy to identify relevant randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials. Data were extracted according to procedure phase (preprocedure, acute, recovery, and combinations of these) and pooled using established methods. Results: A total of 31 studies were included. Acute infant distress was diminished during intramuscular injection without aspiration (n=313): standardized mean difference (SMD) -0.82 (95% confidence interval [CI]: -1.18, -0.46). Injecting the most painful vaccine last during vaccinations reduced acute infant distress (n=196): SMD -0.69 (95%CI: -0.98, -0.4). Simultaneous injections reduced acute infant distress compared with sequential injections (n=172): SMD -0.56 (95%CI: -0.87, -0.25). There was no benefit of simultaneous injections in children. Less infant distress during the acute and recovery phases combined occurred with vastus lateralis (vs. deltoid) injections (n=185): SMD -0.70 (95%CI: -1.00, -0.41). Skin-to-skin contact in neonates (n=736) reduced acute distress: SMD -0.65 (95% CI: -1.05, -0.25). Holding infants reduced acute distress after removal of the data from 1 methodologically diverse study (n=107): SMD -1.25 (95% CI: -2.05, -0.46). Holding after vaccination (n=417) reduced infant distress during the acute and recovery phases combined: SMD -0.65 (95% CI: -1.08, -0.22). Self-reported fear was reduced for children positioned upright (n=107): SMD -0.39 (95% CI: -0.77, -0.01). Non-nutritive sucking (n=186) reduced acute distress in infants: SMD -1.88 (95% CI: -2.57, -1.18). Manual tactile stimulation did not reduce pain across the lifespan. An external vibrating device and cold reduced pain in children (n=145): SMD -1.23 (95% CI: -1.58, -0.87). There was no benefit of warming the vaccine in adults. Muscle tension was beneficial in selected indices of fainting in adolescents and adults. Conclusions: Interventions with evidence of benefit in select populations include: no aspiration, injecting most painful vaccine last, simultaneous injections, vastus lateralis injection, positioning interventions, non-nutritive sucking, external vibrating device with cold, and muscle tension

A National Spinal Muscular Atrophy Registry for Real-World Evidence.

BACKGROUND: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a devastating rare disease that affects individuals regardless of ethnicity, gender, and age. The first-approved disease-modifying therapy for SMA, nusinursen, was approved by Health Canada, as well as by American and European regulatory agencies following positive clinical trial outcomes. The trials were conducted in a narrow pediatric population defined by age, severity, and genotype. Broad approval of therapy necessitates close follow-up of potential rare adverse events and effectiveness in the larger real-world population. METHODS: The Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry (CNDR) undertook an iterative multi-stakeholder process to expand the existing SMA dataset to capture items relevant to patient outcomes in a post-marketing environment. The CNDR SMA expanded registry is a longitudinal, prospective, observational study of patients with SMA in Canada designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of novel therapies and provide practical information unattainable in trials. RESULTS: The consensus expanded dataset includes items that address therapy effectiveness and safety and is collected in a multicenter, prospective, observational study, including SMA patients regardless of therapeutic status. The expanded dataset is aligned with global datasets to facilitate collaboration. Additionally, consensus dataset development aimed to standardize appropriate outcome measures across the network and broader Canadian community. Prospective outcome studies, data use, and analyses are independent of the funding partner. CONCLUSION: Prospective outcome data collected will provide results on safety and effectiveness in a post-therapy approval era. These data are essential to inform improvements in care and access to therapy for all SMA patients

Review of the algal biology program within the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts

In 2010,when the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB) consortiumbegan, littlewas known about themolecular basis of algal biomass or oil production. Very fewalgal genome sequenceswere available and efforts to identify the best-producing wild species through bioprospecting approaches had largely stalled after the U.S. Department of Energy\u27s Aquatic Species Program. This lack of knowledge included how reduced carbon was partitioned into storage products like triglycerides or starch and the role played bymetabolite remodeling in the accumulation of energy-dense storage products. Furthermore, genetic transformation and metabolic engineering approaches to improve algal biomass and oil yields were in their infancy. Genome sequencing and transcriptional profiling were becoming less expensive, however; and the tools to annotate gene expression profiles under various growth and engineered conditions were just starting to be developed for algae. It was in this context that an integrated algal biology program was introduced in the NAABB to address the greatest constraints limiting algal biomass yield. This review describes the NAABB algal biology program, including hypotheses, research objectives, and strategies to move algal biology research into the twenty-first century and to realize the greatest potential of algae biomass systems to produce biofuels

The Feminization Of Poverty; Women Living Below The Poverty Line In Nellore, India And Their Perceptions Of Gender

This qualitative- based research paper explores eight women’s perceptions of gender that are living below the poverty line in Nellore, India. The women were interviewed once for a minimum of a half an hour to a maximum of an hour and a half within a time span of one week. The purpose of the research and interviews was for the researcher to gain insight into gender discrimination and its relationship to the feminization of poverty in the villages the women were from. All of the women were either H.I.V positive or taking care of a child that was HIV positive, or both. Their ages ranged from 22 years old to 56 years old, seven of the interviewees were married, and were married between the ages of 13 and 20. The 7 married women completed education levels between 3rd grade and 10th grade. The non -married woman was the only woman who completed 12th grade. The married women had between one and four children The women spoke of suffering in their marriage due to having an arranged marriage, husbands who went outside the marriage for sex and contracted and spread HIV to them, not being able to control finances or earn much money in jobs outside the home. Most of the women had good experience with doctors and hospitals, and seemed to think healthcare was accessible although stigma and some health care costs were a concern. The author uses Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom Theory, and Thomas F. Homer-Dixon’s Environmental Scarcity Theory to analyze the women’s poverty and development needs. The author uses Johan Galtung’s triangle diagram of Structural, Cultural and Direct Violence to explain the systems in the women’s lives that are collaborating and reinforcing gender discrimination and keeping the women in poverty. The author ends with recommendations based on the women’s voices as a foundation for the recommendations

Premedication prior to PEG‐asparaginase is cost‐effective in pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia

BackgroundPEG‐asparaginase is critical in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) therapy but is highly immunogenic. Severe allergic reactions lead to substitution of further PEG‐asparaginase with Erwinia. Erwinia is associated with more frequent dosing, increased expense, and limited availability. Premedication may reduce rates of allergic reactions.ProceduresThis Markov model evaluated the cost‐effectiveness of three strategies: premedication plus therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), TDM alone, and no premedication or TDM. We modeled two scenarios: a standard‐risk (SR) B‐ALL patient receiving two asparaginase doses and a high‐risk (HR) patient receiving seven asparaginase doses. The model incorporated costs of asparaginase, premedication, TDM and clinic visits, and lost parental wages associated with each additional Erwinia dose. We incorporated a five‐year time horizon with a societal perspective. Outcomes were Erwinia substitutions avoided and differences in quality‐adjusted life years (QALYs). Probabilistic and one‐way sensitivity analyses evaluated model uncertainty.ResultsIn both scenarios, premedication was the least costly strategy. In SR and HR scenarios, premedication with monitoring resulted in 8% and 7% fewer changes to Erwinia compared with monitoring alone and 3% and 2% fewer changes compared with no premedication/monitoring, respectively. Premedication resulted in the most QALYs gained in the SR patients. Individual variation of model inputs did not change premedication/monitoring favorability for either scenario. In probabilistic sensitivity analyses, premedication/monitoring was favored in >87% of iterations in both scenarios.ConclusionCompared with other strategies, premedication use and asparaginase level monitoring in children with B‐ALL is potentially cost‐saving.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/168314/1/pbc29051.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/168314/2/pbc29051_am.pd