Geographic correlation between deprivation and risk of meningococcal disease: an ecological study

Background

Meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis is a serious infection which is most common in young children and adolescents. This study investigated the relationships between the incidence and age distribution of meningococcal disease, and socioeconomic environment.

Methods

An ecological design was used, including mapping using a Geographical Information System (GIS) at census ward level.

Results

Incidence of meningococcal disease was highest in the most deprived wards, with a relative risk of 1.97 (1.55 – 2.51). Mapping revealed geographical coincidence of deprivation and meningococcal disease, particularly in urban areas. Two-thirds of the increased incidence was due to cases in the under fives.

Conclusions

The results suggest that area deprivation is a risk factor for meningococcal disease, and that its effects are seen most in young children.

     

The impact of rehabilitative interventions on quality of life: a qualitative evidence synthesis of personal experiences of individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Background

The nature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is progressive and degenerative, thus influencing individuals physically, emotionally, and socially. A broad review of qualitative studies that describe the personal experiences of people with ALS with physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language pathology interventions, and how those affect QoL is warranted.

Purpose

This study synthesizes qualitative research regarding the potential that rehabilitation interventions have to maintain and/or improve QoL from the perspective of people with ALS.

Methods

The SPIDER search strategy was applied and five articles met inclusion criteria addressing the perceived impact of rehabilitation on QoL for individuals with ALS.

Results

Four themes emerged: the concept of control; adapting interventions to disease stage; struggles with interventions; and barriers between healthcare providers and patients.

Conclusions

Rehabilitation interventions were perceived to have potential to support QoL by people with ALS. Advantages and limitations of rehabilitation services within this population were identified.

     

Age and IQ Explained Working Memory Performance in a RCT with Fatty Fish in a Group of Forensic Inpatients

Objectives

To investigate the effect of a long-term fatty fish intervention on a pure cognitive mechanism important for self-regulation and mental health, i.e. working memory (WM), controlling for age and IQ.

Design

A randomized controlled trial.

Setting

A forensic facility.

Participants

Eighty-four young to middle aged male forensic inpatients with psychiatric disorders.

Intervention

Consumption of farmed salmon or control meal (meat) three times a week during 23 weeks.

Measurement

Performance on WM tasks, both accuracy and mean reaction time, were recorded pre and post intervention.

Results

Performance on a cognitive functioning tasks taxing WM seemed to be explained by age and IQ.

Conclusion

Fatty fish consumption did not improve WM performance in a group of young to middle aged adults with mental health problems, as less impressionable factors such as aging and intelligence seemed to be the key components. The present study improves the knowledge concerning the interaction among nutrition, health and the aging process.

     

Measuring Educational Outcomes for At-Risk Children and Youth: Issues with the Validity of Self-Reported Data

Background

Youth programs often rely on self-reported data without clear evidence as to the accuracy of these reports. Although the validity of self-reporting has been confirmed among some high school and college age students, one area that is absent from extant literature is a serious investigation among younger children. Moreover, there is theoretical evidence suggesting limited generalizability in extending findings on older students to younger populations.

Objective

The purpose of this study is to examine the validity of academic and attendance self-reporting among children and youth.

Method

This study relies on original data collected from 288 children and youth using Big Brothers Big Sisters enrollment and assessment data, paired with school-records from two local school divisions. Initially, we utilized percent agreement, validity coefficients, and average measures ICC scores to assess the response validity of self-reported academic and attendance measures. We then estimated the affects of several moderating factors on reporting agreement (using standardized difference scores). We also accounted for cross-informant associations with child reported GPA using a moderated multiple regression model.

Results

Findings indicate that children and youth report their individual grades and attendance poorly. Particularly, younger and lower performing children are more likely to report falsely. However, there is some evidence that a mean construct measure of major subjects GPA is a slightly more valid indicator of academic achievement.

Conclusion

Findings suggest that researchers and practitioners should exercise caution in using self-reported grades and attendance indicators from young and low-performing students.

     

Education as a predictor of antidepressant and anxiolytic medication use after bereavement: a population-based record linkage study

Purpose

Educational attainment has been shown to be positively associated with mental health and a potential buffer to stressful events. One stressful life event likely to affect everyone in their lifetime is bereavement. This paper assesses the effect of educational attainment on mental health post-bereavement.

Methods

By utilising large administrative datasets, linking Census returns to death records and prescribed medication data, we analysed the bereavement exposure of 208,332 individuals aged 25–74 years. Two-level multi-level logistic regression models were constructed to determine the likelihood of antidepressant medication use (a proxy of mental ill health) post-bereavement given level of educational attainment.

Results

Individuals who are bereaved have greater antidepressant use than those who are not bereaved, with over a quarter (26.5 %) of those bereaved by suicide in receipt of antidepressant medication compared to just 12.4 % of those not bereaved. Within individuals bereaved by a sudden death, those with a university degree or higher qualifications are 73 % less likely to be in receipt of antidepressant medication compared to those with no qualifications, after full adjustment for demographic, socio-economic and area factors (OR 0.27, 95 % CI 0.09,0.75). Higher educational attainment and no qualifications have an equivalent effect for those bereaved by suicide.

Conclusions

Education may protect against poor mental health, as measured by the use of antidepressant medication, post-bereavement, except in those bereaved by suicide. This is likely due to the improved cognitive, personal and psychological skills gained from time spent in education.

     

Breastfeeding for reducing the risk of pneumonia morbidity and mortality in children under two: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis

Background

Suboptimal breastfeeding practices among infants and young children <24 months of age are associated with elevated risk of pneumonia morbidity and mortality. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify the protective effects of breastfeeding exposure against pneumonia incidence, prevalence, hospitalizations and mortality.

Methods

We conducted a systematic literature review of studies assessing the risk of selected pneumonia morbidity and mortality outcomes by varying levels of breastfeeding exposure among infants and young children <24 months of age. We used random effects meta-analyses to generate pooled effect estimates by outcome, age and exposure level.

Results

Suboptimal breastfeeding elevated the risk of pneumonia morbidity and mortality outcomes across age groups. In particular, pneumonia mortality was higher among not breastfed compared to exclusively breastfed infants 0-5 months of age (RR: 14.97; 95% CI: 0.67-332.74) and among not breastfed compared to breastfed infants and young children 6-23 months of age (RR: 1.92; 95% CI: 0.79-4.68).

Conclusions

Our results highlight the importance of breastfeeding during the first 23 months of life as a key intervention for reducing pneumonia morbidity and mortality.

     

Early Childhood Teachers’ Socialization of Emotion: Contextual and Individual Contributors

Background

Preschoolers’ emotional competence is of prime importance in their concurrent and later social and academic success. Parents are primary socializers of these abilities, but more and more early childhood educators are also important in their development. However, their means of socializing emotional competence are understudied, and could be influenced by aspects of their professional and personal lives.

Objectives

The current study illustrates how components of job stress and intrapersonal attributes of ethnicity and education/experience can contribute to early childhood teachers’ reports of their socialization of children’s emotion.

Methods

Teachers completed self-reports on demographics, stress, and endorsement of socialization of emotion techniques.

Results

Greater feelings of job resources and job control significantly related to positive emotional expressiveness, contingent reactions, and attitudes toward teaching children about emotions, as endorsed by teachers in early childhood settings; in contrast, greater feelings of job demands significantly related to teachers’ negative emotional expressiveness. Subsequent to these zero-order correlations, a well-fitting full model of these relations was found, in which teachers’ endorsements of specific emotion socialization behaviors were captured by positive and negative latent variables that are parallel to parental socialization of emotion. These coherent latent variables for positive and negative socialization of emotion were predicted by teachers’ feelings of job resources, African American ethnicity, and education/experience (via the proxy variable program type).

Conclusions

Discussion centers on importance of supporting teachers’ well-being, because teachers who enjoy working in early childhood education will have a positive impact of young children’s emotional development.

     

Gesundheitsverhalten von Kleinkindern

Background

Studies have repeatedly pointed out to the relation between socioeconomic background and health behavior. For German samples, immigrant background has been identified as a risk factor for poorer health. Health psychology models emphasize the importance of parental self-efficacy for children’s health behavior.

Objectives

This study examines if parental self-efficacy mediates the relation between the immigrant background, operationalized via language background, and a healthy eating behavior of young children.

Methods

Mediator analyses were performed to test the hypothesis. Data were collected from 184 families with children aged 3 to 4 years via interviews and questionnaires. All families took part in the German parenting program Chancenreich.

Results

Results replicate earlier findings that immigrant background is significantly related to poorer eating habits even when controlling for socioeconomic background. The mediation analyses, however, could show that the negative relation between immigrant background and eating behavior was fully mediated by parental self-efficacy.

Conclusion

Results provide support for intervention program aiming at the enhancement of parental self-efficacy. This might be especially relevant for parents with immigrant background. The goal of such programs should be to reduce social disparities in health outcomes.

     

Resilienzförderung

Background

Nearly every second person suffers from mental illness at some point in their life. In this regard, stress-induced illnesses play a central role. Stress cannot be avoided; thus, interventions that promote resilience in the face of stress are particularly significant.

Objective

The paper gives a short overview of the current status quo in the development of evidence-based resilience interventions.

Materials and methods

The chosen method is a narrative review that takes into account papers with relational resilience constructs such as concept analysis, systematic reviews, and empirical studies of international resilience research.

Results

Currently, the main challenge for program developers is to identify valid protective factors within resilience research which match the target and target group of a special intervention.

Conclusion

There is a need for systematic reviews to systematize heterogeneous resilience studies. Based on such reviews, the selection of protective factors that should be promoted in an intervention can be justified.

     

The relevance of memory sensitivity for psychological well-being in aging

Purpose

In the present study, we investigated the relationship between memory sensitivity, which describes a positive attitude to autobiographical memory and the presence of behaviors devoted to saving memories of the personal past, and psychological well-being; in particular, we tested whether their relationship would change across age groups.

Methods

Three hundred eighteen participants, divided in four groups: young to middle-aged adults (20–55 years old), young–old adults (65–74 years old), old adults (75–84 years old), and old–old adults (85–97 years old), completed questionnaires on their memory sensitivity and psychological well-being.

Results

Memory sensitivity slightly decreased with age and had a positive relationship with psychological well-being that was critically moderated by age. Specifically, the relationship between memory sensitivity and psychological well-being became increasingly stronger as age increased.

Conclusions

While memory sensitivity may have little or no particular relevance in the case of young to middle-aged adults, it has an increasingly important positive relationship with psychological well-being at later age. It is thus suggested that memory sensitivity represents a dimension that should be considered in the study and interventions on quality of life in the elderly population.

     

Personal and Professional Emotional Characteristics of Early Childhood Teachers and Their Proneness to Communicate with Parents and Colleagues About Children’s Emotions

Background

Early childhood teachers represent important socializers of children’s emotions providing professional practices, such as communication about children’s emotions, influencing children’s development. According to an ecological framework, early childhood teachers’ emotional practices are guided by both their personal and professional emotional abilities.

Objective

In this study, we addictively took into account both teachers’ personal (i.e., level of education, years of experience, parenthood status, personal emotional self-efficacy) and professional emotional characteristics (i.e., self-efficacy as emotional socializers, and coaching style) in their contribution to teacher–parent/colleague communication about children’s emotions.

Methods

382 early childhood teachers from Center and South of Italy took part to this study (mean years of professional experience = 15.07, SD 10.29 years).

Results

Results showed a positive association between proneness to communicate with parents about children’s emotions and having one’s own children, self-efficacy as emotional socializer, and coaching style. As for communication with colleagues about children’s emotions, we found positive associations with years of experience, personal emotional self-efficacy, and coaching style.

Conclusions

These findings reinforce the need for preservice and in-service programs to promote a reflective orientation to professional practice focusing on early childhood teachers’ personal and professional emotional competence.

     

Neurobiological Correlates of Psychosocial Deprivation in Children: A Systematic Review of Neuroscientific Contributions

Background

Institutionalization from birth offers a unique opportunity to investigate the effects on brain and endocrine system of psychosocial deprivation in early infancy. Nonetheless, a systematic review about institutionalization and biological anomalies does not exist.

Objective

The purpose of this paper was to systematize all the studies about biological correlates of early institutionalization.

Methods

GoogleScholar, PsycINFO, and PubMed electronic databases were used in order to select English language articles published on this topic. Reference lists of included studies were reviewed to capture additional studies. Only quantitative, peer reviewed studies, conducted on children and youths who had experienced institutional care from birth and assessing neurobiological features were included. Thirty-four studies met inclusion criteria.

Results

The studies reported that the experience of institutionalization may lead to reduced brain volume, larger amygdala volume, decreased cortical activity, altered frontal and limbic activity, white matter abnormalities, and irregular hormone levels. These outcomes are similar to those displayed by children who have experienced harmful events. Although the body of literature is conspicuous enough to highlight anomalies in these children’s neurobiology, only few studies specifically address each brain component or function.

Conclusions

Adverse early experience can lead to aberrant brain development and functioning. Nevertheless, the comprehension of these neurobiological pathways requires further clarification.

     

Routine immunization community surveys as a tool for guiding program implementation in Kaduna state,Nigeria 2015–2016

Background

Routine childhood immunization remains an important strategy for achieving polio eradication and maintaining a polio-free world. To address gaps in reported administrative coverage data, community surveys were conducted to verify coverage, and guide strategic interventions for improved coverage.

Methods

We reviewed the conduct of community surveys by World Health Organization (WHO) field volunteers deployed as part of the surge capacity to Kaduna state and the use of survey results between July 2015 and June 2016. Monthly and quarterly collation and use of these data to guide the deployment of various interventions aimed at strengthening routine immunization in the state.

Results

Over 97,000 children aged 0–11?months were surveyed by 138 field volunteers across 237 of the 255 wards in Kaduna state. Fully or appropriately immunized children increased from 67% in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 76% by the end of the second quarter of 2016. Within the period reviewed, the number of local government areas with <?80% coverage reduced from eight to zero.

Conclusions

The routine conduct of community surveys by volunteers to inform interventions has shown an improvement in the vaccination status of children 0–11?months in Kaduna state and remains a useful tool in addressing administrative data quality issues.

     

Early Steps to School Success (ESSS): Examining Pathways Linking Home Visiting and Language Outcomes

Background

Improving the home environment and parenting practices to support children’s early development and learning is a key focus of many. Home visiting is one potential strategy to improve the home environment and parenting; however, more data about current programmatic efforts is needed, especially for children with multiple risks living in low-wealth communities.

Objective

Secondary analysis was conducted using the Early Steps to School Success home visiting program data to examine the pathway through which home visiting participation is associated with children’s early language outcomes and whether this pathway varies by quantity of risk factors.

Methods

In addition to conducting regression analyses, multiple group path analyses were done to examine the indirect relationship between home visiting participation and children’s early language outcomes through the home environment and literacy practices, and variation of this relationship by risks.

Results

Participation in home visiting was indirectly associated with children’s receptive language through a responsive and language-rich home environment.

Conclusion

Home visiting is one strategy to improve the quality of home environment and parenting practices, especially for children experiencing multiple risks.

     

Dietary Behaviors Among Young and Older Adults in Brazil

Objectives

To describe healthy and unhealthy dietary behaviors among young and older Brazilian adults.

Design

Cross-sectional study based on secondary data from the Brazilian National Health Survey 2013/2014, conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Settings

Brazil.

Participants

59,402 Brazilian adults (18 years or over), representative of the whole community-dwelling Brazilian adult population.

Measurements

Frequency of regular (5 days/week or more) consumption of food considered of a healthy diet (fruit, vegetables, greens, cooked vegetables, beans, milk, chicken, fish) and unhealthy diet (red meat, soda and sweets, meal replacement for fast food and high salt consumption) was investigated. Differences among young adults (18-39 years), middle-aged adults (40-59 years) and older adults (60+ years) were assessed through 95% confidence intervals and logistic regression models with contrast function, considering the complexity of the sample and the sample weight of the research.

Results

Less than half of the population reported consuming fruit regularly (41.3%, 95% CI = 40.5 - 42.2) and only one quarter reported consuming vegetables regularly (25.4%, 95% CI = 24.7–26.1). Regular consumption of soft drinks was cited by 26.6% (95% CI = 25.5 - 27.6) for men and 20.6% (95% CI = 19.8 - 21.4) for women. Young adults presented, in general, lower frequency of regular consumption of healthy food and higher frequency of unhealthy food when compared to middle-aged and the older adults.

Conclusion

Current dietary behaviors adopted by the Brazilian population is characterized by a high prevalence of inadequate food intake, mainly among young adults calling the attention to the necessity for age-specific public health interventions.

     

Strukturen und Qualität in Projekten der Frühen Hilfen

Background

Activities connected to early interventions support young parents who experience challenging personal or social circumstances during the family foundation phase and therefore contribute to better health in children in the first few years of their life. Based on this concept, Welcoming Programmes in four Berlin boroughs include the provision of family vouchers to young parents. These vouchers can be used to participate in health promoting and preventative services related to early interventions at reduced cost or free of charge.

Methods

In a formative evaluation, these voucher projects were examined through an analysis of documents. In addition, expert interviews were conducted focussing on prevention approaches, project structures and the utilisation of the vouchers. The research used the criteria for good practice in health promotion addressing social determinants developed by the German cooperation network Equity in Health (2015) as a theoretical reference.

Results

There are limitations in comparability as the project structures are heterogenic, including both universal and selective prevention approaches. In addition, three of the four projects are financed based on an annual allocation procedure, leading to planning insecurity and discontinuity in the further development of the project concepts. However, a high level of engagement motivation can be found among and between the different actors involved on all organizational levels. This is positive and must be considered an important general resource.

Conclusion

A number of recommendations to optimise the projects can be drawn from the results. Arguably the most import of these is the need to develop a systematic, joint quality management system that stimulates a general improvement of the projects.

     

Improving the Language Skills of Pre-kindergarten Students: Preliminary Impacts of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Let’s Know!</Emphasis> Experimental Curriculum

Background

Improving children’s oral language skills is an important focus of educational research and practice; however, relatively few interventions have demonstrated impacts on these skills. This work makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the effects of language-focused interventions in pre-kindergarten settings by examining impacts on both lower- and higher-level language skills as well as overall language comprehension.

Objective

The goal is to assess the impacts of business-as-usual pre-kindergarten with implementation of two versions of an experimental curriculum supplement, Let’s Know!, designed to enhance three component language skills (vocabulary, comprehension monitoring, and text-structure knowledge) and overall language comprehension in pre-kindergarteners.

Methods

Eleven pre-kindergarten teachers and 49 low socioeconomic-status students participated. Teachers were randomly assigned to either business-as-usual, Let’s Know! Broad, or Let’s Know! Deep, unless they participated in a previous pilot study, in which case they were randomly assigned to either Let’s Know! Broad or Deep. The Broad version included five different lesson types, whereas the Deep version included three lesson types with additional practice. Children’s gains were assessed proximally with measures of vocabulary, comprehension monitoring, and text-structure knowledge and distally with a measure of language comprehension.

Results

Children in both experimental versions significantly improved their vocabulary skills relative to children who received business-as-usual instruction. For comprehension monitoring, children who received the Deep and Broad versions improved their scores relative to BAU children for Units 1 and 3, respectively. Improvement in language comprehension was only found for children who received Let’s Know! Deep compared with business-as-usual.

Conclusion

This study provides initial evidence that the Let’s Know! curricula may serve to foster young children’s vocabulary, comprehension monitoring, and language comprehension skills.