Disaggregating diabetes

Interest in disaggregating diabetes into numerous subtypes is growing as patients and providers recognize the limitations of standard diabetes typologies. As anthropologists, we draw attention to how ‘subtyping’ may reduce stigma derived from the connection between obesity and ‘type 2 diabetes’. We highlight the complexities that drive diabetes and argue that an exclusive or dominant focus on diet and obesity obfuscates other underlying risks. Yet, we warn that subtyping may promote unnecessary pharmaceuticalization, especially for other subtypes of diabetes that may be associated with stress and inflammation. We call upon providers to continue to closely attend to patients’ lived experiences. While we recognize the shortcomings of the existing classificatory scheme, patients’ outcomes and prognoses are often more closely connected to the social and medical support they receive than to the underlying metabolic classification

Non-communicable disease syndemics: poverty, depression, and diabetes among low-income populations.

The co-occurrence of health burdens in transitioning populations, particularly in specific socioeconomic and cultural contexts, calls for conceptual frameworks to improve understanding of risk factors, so as to better design and implement prevention and intervention programmes to address comorbidities. The concept of a syndemic, developed by medical anthropologists, provides such a framework for preventing and treating comorbidities. The term syndemic refers to synergistic health problems that affect the health of a population within the context of persistent social and economic inequalities. Until now, syndemic theory has been applied to comorbid health problems in poor immigrant communities in high-income countries with limited translation, and in low-income or middle-income countries. In this Series paper, we examine the application of syndemic theory to comorbidities and multimorbidities in low-income and middle-income countries. We employ diabetes as an exemplar and discuss its comorbidity with HIV in Kenya, tuberculosis in India, and depression in South Africa. Using a model of syndemics that addresses transactional pathophysiology, socioeconomic conditions, health system structures, and cultural context, we illustrate the different syndemics across these countries and the potential benefit of syndemic care to patients. We conclude with recommendations for research and systems of care to address syndemics in low-income and middle-income country settings

Making morbidity multiple: History, legacies, and possibilities for global health

Multimorbidity has been framed as a pressing global health challenge that exposes the limits of systems organised around single diseases. This article seeks to expand and strengthen current thinking around multimorbidity by analysing its construction within the field of global health. We suggest that the significance of multimorbidity lies not only in challenging divisions between disease categories but also in what it reveals about the culture and history of transnational biomedicine. Drawing on social research from sub-Saharan Africa to ground our arguments, we begin by describing the historical processes through which morbidity was made divisible in biomedicine and how the single disease became integral not only to disease control but to the extension of biopolitical power. Multimorbidity, we observe, is hoped to challenge single disease approaches but is assembled from the same problematic, historically-loaded categories that it exposes as breaking down. Next, we highlight the consequences of such classificatory legacies in everyday lives and suggest why frameworks and interventions to integrate care have tended to have limited traction in practice. Finally, we argue that efforts to align priorities and disciplines around a standardised biomedical definition of multimorbidity risks retracing the same steps. We call for transdisciplinary work across the field of global health around a more holistic, reflexive understanding of multimorbidity that foregrounds the culture and history of translocated biomedicine, the intractability of single disease thinking, and its often-adverse consequences in local worlds. We outline key domains within the architecture of global health where transformation is needed, including care delivery, medical training, the organisation of knowledge and expertise, global governance, and financing

Collaborative Quality Improvement Strategy in Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in India: Findings from a Multi-Stakeholder, Qualitative Study using Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR).

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is highly prevalent in India, and little is known about the perception of patients and providers about a package of collaborative quality improvement (C-QIP) strategies consisting of provider-focused electronic health records-decision support system (EHR-DSS), non-physician health workers (NPHW), and patient-facing text messages to enhance the CVD care. OBJECTIVE: To explore the barriers and enablers of the C-QIP strategy from the perspective of providers, health administrators, patients, and care givers in India. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study using the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR) to understand the challenges and facilitators of implementing C-QIP strategy to enhance CVD care in the Indian context. A diverse sample of 38 physicians, 14 non-physician health workers (nurses, pharmacists), 4 health administrators, and 16 patients and their caregivers participated in semi-structured interviews. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, translated, anonymised, and coded using MAXQDA software. We used the framework method and CFIR domains to analyze the qualitative data. RESULTS: Barriers perceived from providers' and health administrators' perspectives in providing quality CVD care were high patient volume, physician burnout, lack of robust communication or referral system, paucity of electronic health records, lack of patient counsellors, polypharmacy, poor patient adherence to medications, and lack of financial incentives. Low health literacy, high cost of treatment, misinformation bias, and difficulty in maintaining lifestyle changes were barriers from patients' perspectives. The CFIR identified key enablers for the implementation of C-QIP such as standardized treatment protocol, reduced medication errors, improved physician-patient relationships, and enhanced patient self-care through trained and supported NPHW. Barriers included: heterogenous healthcare settings, diverse patient groups and comorbidities, associated costs of care and interoperability, confidentiality, and data privacy issues around the use of EHR-DSS. CONCLUSION: Strategies to enhance CVD care must be low-cost, culturally acceptable, and integrated into existing care pathways

Normalizing diabetes in Delhi: a qualitative study of health and health care

The Type 2 diabetes epidemic in India poses challenges to the health system. Yet little is known about how urban Indians view treatment and self-care. Such views are important within the pluralistic healthcare landscape of India, bringing together allopathic and non-allopathic (or traditional) paradigms and practices. We used in-depth qualitative interviews to examine how people living with diabetes in India selectively engage with allopathic and non-allopathic Indian care paradigms. We propose a ‘discourse marketplace’ model that demonstrates competing ways in which people frame diabetes care-seeking in India's medical pluralism, which includes allopathic and traditional systems of care. Four major domains emerged from grounded theory analysis: (1) normalization of diabetes in social interactions; (2) stigma; (3) stress; and (4) decision-making with regard to diabetes treatment. We found that participants selectively engaged with aspects of allopathic and non-allopathic Indian illness paradigms to build personalized illness meanings and care plans that served psychological, physical, and social needs. Participants constructed illness narratives that emphasized the social-communal experience of diabetes and, as a result, reported less stigma and stress due to diabetes. These data suggest that the pro-social construction of diabetes in India is both helpful and harmful for patients – it provides psychological comfort, but also lessens the impetus for prevention and self-care. Clarifying the social constructions of diabetes and chronic disease in India and other medically pluralistic contexts is a crucial first step to designing locally situated treatment schemes

The Lantern Vol. 10, No. 1, December 1941

• Misty • The Evils of Initiations • Ursinus, Fifty Years Ago • My Conversion • Our Gang • From Rabble to Royalty • So You Want to be an Editor! • Tempo • A Musician\u27s Allegory • Flotsam • The Years • Common Things • Sea Moods • Aunt Agatha\u27s Pillow • Peace at Autumn Twilighthttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1025/thumbnail.jp

Ohio Wesleyan Bacillus Collection Student Research

This semester students in BIOL 328 Bacterial Physiology lab worked in teams on a laboratory project that they devised, developed, and conducted. Each group met weekly with Dr. Tuhela-Reuning and Maddy Russell during the first third of the semester to develop a research project that involved the Bacillus culture collection at OWU. The Bacillus collection contains over 3000 isolates of Bacillus obtained from wild songbirds in Ohio, Arizona, and Washington, and many of these isolates degrade feathers. Student projects involved quantification of bird feather degradation by several Bacillus isolates, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of biofilms and feather, possible correlation of biofilm production with speed of feather degradation, ability of Bacillus isolates to produce antibiotics effective against Gram positive and negative bacteria, and the ability to transform Bacillus isolates with pigment-producing plasmids. Students experienced the actual research process by troubleshooting problems, coordinating their lab work schedules, analyzing complex results, and working as a team. The final results of the projects will be presented by each team in oral and written formats

Global health security and universal health coverage: from a marriage of convenience to a strategic, effective partnership

Global health security and universal health coverage have been frequently considered as “two sides of the same coin”. Yet, greater analysis is required as to whether and where these two ideals converge, and what important differences exist. A consequence of ignoring their individual characteristics is to distort global and local health priorities in an effort to streamline policymaking and funding activities. This paper examines the areas of convergence and divergence between global health security and universal health coverage, both conceptually and empirically. We consider analytical concepts of risk and human rights as fundamental to both goals, but also identify differences in priorities between the two ideals. We support the argument that the process of health system strengthening provides the most promising mechanism of benefiting both goals

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory